- April 26, 2024
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Beverly Slough
AGE: 63
FAMILY: Married 37 years, two daughters, two grandchildren
QUIRKY FACT: Pastor’s wife (Switzerland Community Church), advocate for migrant workers
BIO: Beverly Slough currently serves as chairwoman of the St. Johns County School Board. In 2008, she served as president of the Florida School Boards Association. She also serves on the Federal Relations Network, Pre-K Committee, and Teacher/Principal Effectiveness Committee of the National School Boards Association.
What would you do to balance the budget?
I think that we’re going to have to make some hard decisions and we’re going to have to look at some things that really drain the budget. For instance, Social Security, Medicare. I in no way believe in abolishing those things; I in every way believe that we should relook at them, and we should find ways to make them more cost efficient. We need to understand that they’re not sustainable in the form that they’re in and they are a huge drain on our economy.
We need to revise our tax code. It’s unbalanced and not fair. … We need to reduce the size of government. We just continually add more bureaucracy. … The federal government has turned into a nanny state, really. They think they know better about our lives than we know about them ourselves. And our Constitution tells us that the government closest to people is where it belongs. It says the federal government should not take those things that belong to the states, and that’s what’s happened.
The Department of Education is incredibly too large. It has no business micromanaging every schoolhouse in the United States, and we want things to be pulled back to the state and local level where they belong.
Would you be willing to pledge not to raise taxes?
No. I certainly would do everything in my power not to raise taxes. But sometimes there are extraordinary circumstances when that is necessary, and I like to tell the truth and be true to whatever I say.
n If you were asked to raise the national debt ceiling, how would you vote? How would you reduce the debt?
I would be opposed to raising the debt ceiling. I think that what we need to do is examine where that debt is, how it was created, and one thing we can look at is the foreign aid that we give. It’s an incredible fact to me that we send foreign aid to countries that hold most of our debt.
What should be done with the federal tax code? Where do you stand on the subject of a flat tax?
Well obviously the federal tax code is almost incomprehensible because it’s so large. I bet you couldn’t identify one single person in the United States that understands every bit of it. … I believe in a fairer, flatter kind of tax. I don’t think we’ve identified exactly the best path to that just yet. …
It bothers me that 51% of the people in the United States do not pay anything. And most of those people are receivers of our welfare system. We need to look at it and find a way to make it fair for everyone.
What are you willing to do to reform Medicaid and Medicare?
Medicaid especially is something that is draining the resources at both the federal and state levels, but more so really at state because of the way it’s structured. I think that if the federal government would cost-shift Medicaid down to the states, accompanied by block grants to make that happen, we could get a handle on it. And certainly with the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare in my circles, that is just going to astronomically increase (costs).
As the economy fails to recover like it needs to do, more and more people who would never think to be on Medicaid are on it now, and more burden is being shifted; 34% of our state’s budget goes to fundMedicaid — just in this state. So we’ve got to get a handle on that and make it equitable in some way. Certainly provide it for people that need it, but not put the full burden on local and state governments.
Unfortunately, the Medicare trust fund is not healthy because of cost-shifting out of it, and I think that a hard look’s going to have to be given to that and maybe look at how we’re delivering that. Look at fairness for those who have paid into it for all these years, and now are in the place where they’re receiving the benefits from that, while not overwhelming the system.
We have got to find a way to have tort reform, to stop the frivolous lawsuits, because overprescription of diagnostic tests is happening daily because of fear that doctors will be sued. And that’s not fair to the patient, it’s not fair to the Medicare system, and it’s certainly not fair to the doctor to have to be put in that kind of a position.
Everybody doesn’t need to rely on Medicare. If people are able to provide their own health care, they ought to provide their own health care, and not just go on the government dole just because they can. …
We’re living longer, we’re healthier, and everybody at 65 doesn’t need to go on Medicare.
