In January 2024, Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ editors emailed a questionnaire to candidates in contested Illinois March 19 primary races for Congress, requesting biographical information as well as their views on issues ranging from the Israel-Hamas conflict and the migrant crisis to the country’s economy. Answers have been lightly edited for typos, minor grammar and consistency in styling, but not for content or length. Age was calculated as of Feb. 6, 2024.
Sean Casten: Hamas’ attack on October 7 was horrific and unconscionable. Israel has the absolute right to defend itself from those attacks, to secure the release of their citizens who are still held hostage by Hamas, and to take such actions as are necessary to ensure that their citizens are safe from future attacks.
However, that does not afford Israel the carte blanche authority to decimate the Gaza strip any more than the 9/11 attacks gave the United States the authority to decimate Afghanistan or any other country harboring al-Qaeda fighters.
I have consistently called for the creation of conditions that will lead to a permanent peace — with two, fully autonomous states at peace with each other between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Hamas’ stated goal to eliminate the state of Israel is inconsistent with that peace — but so too is the rhetoric from the far right in the Israeli Knesset.
In the near term, this will require forceful U.S. diplomacy that presses both parties to (a) return all hostages, (b) demilitarize Hamas, (c) prevent civilian casualties, (d) curtail all settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank, (e) prioritize flows of food, water and other humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip, (f) provide safe evacuations and healthcare for civilians in Gaza, either to offshore floating hospitals, to hospitals in the West Bank and surrounding countries or to the United States if necessary, (g) the elevation of moderate voices in the Knesset and the Palestinian Authority who advocate for peace and tolerance rather than demonization and war and (h) constructive engagement with other Arab countries as partners for Israeli/Palestinian peace and as partners to curtail malign Iranian influence.
We have engaged with the White House directly and with affected constituents on all of those points and I have generally been pleased with the approach the White House has taken. I am quite confident that U.S. actions have substantially accelerated the end of the war and reduced the humanitarian cost than it would have been without our active diplomacy — even as I am horrified by the loss and suffering experienced over the last 4 months.
Sean Casten: The United States is the only country that can effectively advocate for the rule of law, democracy and the post-WWII order. When we step back from those responsibilities, other countries step in. As it was put to me when I was in Madrid for COP-25 by a European parliamentarian: “Bad things happen when the United States doesn’t lead.”
We should continue to support Ukraine until either (a) all territory seized by Russia including Crimea has been returned to Ukrainian control or (b) the Ukrainian government determines an appropriate outcome. The fiscal cost is de minimis. More than half of the money we have provided has been for weaponry manufactured in the United States. While I would never support war for economic reasons, we also should not ignore the degree to which U.S.-funding of U.S.-manufactured materials does grow the U.S. economy. Moreover, while we have not put a single U.S. troop in harm’s way, our Ukrainian allies — with our financial and military support — have weakened the Russian military, reducing their ability to meddle in other regions. We used to think Russia was the second most powerful military in the world, and now they are relying on Iran and North Korea for weapons. That is a really big deal for global peace and stability.
But let’s also not ignore the counterfactual. If we were to give up on Ukraine, Russia will take that as a victory and conclude that the United States, for all our vaunted rhetoric, ultimately won’t put up to defend democracy abroad. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has been very consistent in his stated goal to reunite the former Soviet republics. We should not assume that if he takes Ukraine he will stop there. And the moment his expansion moves into NATO countries we will be bound to put troops in harm’s way.
When the price of success is this low and the cost of failure is so high, the moment calls for us not to give up, but to finish the job.
Sean Casten: Since being elected in 2018 I have participated in half the impeachments that have ever happened in our country and half the large-scale attacks on the U.S. Capitol.
In theory, we are a country of laws where all are equal under the law. In practice, we’ve never fully lived up to that promise, and every time we have moved closer to Martin Luther King’s dream there has been a reactionary pushback from those who would not succeed in a world where they were judged solely by the content of their character.
This is not the first time our country has faced such threats of course. But at every one of those points, there have been those politicians who articulated a brighter future where a rising tide lifts all boats set off against others who articulate a vision where they will uniquely protect “real” Americans from others who would threaten their way of life.
I have felt the obligation both in my public statements and legislative agenda to always emphasize that former view and elevate those who share the same, while also reminding all not to judge their neighbors based on a sign in their yard or a slogan on their hat. Thomas Paine said famously that “our great title is AMERICANS; our inferior one varies with the place.” Barack Obama updated that when he said that we are not red Americans or blue Americans. We need all politicians to keep reminding us of that which unites us, even as we push back against those who would divide.
Sean Casten: It should be lost on no one that the party of Donald Trump sees value in a broken immigration system — the better to sell fear and mobilize reactionary voters, and it is hard to see that political dynamic changing soon. I’ve been impressed with the kindness and humanity shown by the communities I represent in IL-6 to welcome those immigrants in recent months and trust they will continue to do so.
In the meantime, I have pressed the White House to make sure that as immigrant processing facilities are shifted from border states to Illinois, we ensure that the federal resources also flow to our municipalities. We have also been pushing consistently to expedite the provision of temporary work visas so that immigrants who are awaiting their asylum hearings can earn a paycheck to help feed themselves, grow our economy and minimize the draw on local social services.
Sean Casten: I support providing a path to citizenship for Dreamers and our Farmworkers and was proud to co-sponsor and pass the Dream and Promise Act and the Farmworker Modernization Act in the 116th and 117th Congresses that would have done exactly that. Those two bills would address more than half of the undocumented population in the United States.
It is also true that we are seeing record levels of immigrants coming to our border today. The root causes of this migration range from climate-change induced disasters in places like Haiti and Honduras and collapsing economies/lack of safety in places like El Salvador and Venezuela. While the Trump administration’s disdain for clean energy and defunding of State Department activities in Central America certainly contributed to this problem, they are not easily reversible.
We therefore must increase the funding we provide for all immigration processing. For border security to make sure we keep the “bad guys’’ out, but also for asylum courts and humanitarian assistance to make sure the “good guys” can come in. Virtually all of the growth in workforce since COVID has been from the foreign-born population. This is the necessary result of our aging population, but also means that the remarkable economic recovery we have seen under President Biden is, to a significant degree thanks to the fact that we are a company that people want to emigrate to. We have plenty of ethical and self-interested reasons to want to continue to welcome those immigrants.
Sean Casten: Any serious conversation about a balanced budget has to include discussions of revenues and expenses. And with tax revenue at near-historic lows relative to GDP it is naive to assume that we can cost-cut our way to a balanced budget without cutting necessary government services.
Perhaps the most important thing we can do to close long-term deficits is to fund the IRS. Under the prior administration, we were told by Trump-appointed IRS officials that the annual tax gap (that is, the gap between taxes due and taxes collected) is nearly $1 trillion per year. That gap is primarily caused by historic underfunding of the IRS which has left them understaffed and with woefully antiquated information technology. This leads not only to fewer audits of suspicious returns but also to a predilection only to audit the simplest returns — which biases audits among lower-income Americans.
This is deeply unfair, and I was proud that we were able to offset all of the costs of the Inflation Reduction Act with (among other things) additional funding for the IRS. Due to partisan objections, we were only able to provide half of the funding the IRS said they needed and even that will take nearly a decade to fully go into effect given the time required to hire and train new staff and to upgrade systems. But it is urgent and overdue.
Sean Casten: It’s important to separate two issues here — the performance of the economy vs people’s perceptions of the same. There is a record level disconnect not only between how people perceive our economy and actual economic indicators, but also how people answer questions about their personal financial stability and their perception of the broader economy. What we should do to improve the actual economy is, in my view, the important question.
Let’s look at economic indicators. We created a record number of jobs over the last 3 years. U.S. GDP growth since the COVID downturn is faster than all of our OECD peers. U.S. inflation, while still slightly above the Fed’s target, is coming down rapidly. Those inflation rates have also fallen faster than our OECD peers. Finally, wage growth has been strong, especially for lower-income workers where it has actually outpaced core inflation.
This is an economy to be proud of. It is also an economy that is in vastly better shape than we thought was possible in April 2020, when we saw the biggest collapse in GDP and biggest spike in unemployment since the Great Depression. Our fiscal policy in response is substantially responsible for the success we have seen.
Which is not to say we are perfect. Monetary policy helps get money to people with banking relationships and is well suited to managing demand-driven inflation, but woefully unsuited to managing supply-driven constraints. I met with many local businesses during the downturn who desperately wanted to build their inventory to keep costs down but were limited by higher interest rates for working capital lines. The fiscal policy tools we used — from Economic Impact Payments to Child Tax Credits to Paycheck Protection Program loans and grants — went a long way to getting money to the under-banked and helping businesses access otherwise unavailable capital.
A second significant concern is the way that we define inflation. The “basket of goods” that we measure includes rent but does not include the cost of housing. Thus, during the 2000-2020 period, the Fed maintained very low interest rates because inflation — as they measure it — was low. That in turn kept mortgage prices down and ensured that housing costs consistently grew faster than wages. A more holistic approach to housing costs by the Fed would go a long way to improving housing access in the country. Inflation also doesn’t include stock market values. Which has been good for our 401(k)s, but consider what happens when workers become more productive. As they generate more money per hour of work, that additional dollar can either go to shareholders in the form of higher corporate profits, to customers in the form of lower prices or to workers in the form of higher wages. Since the Fed only treats the third category as inflationary, they have a built-in bias against wage growth. I’ve raised and will continue to raise this issue with the Fed and with my colleagues on the Financial Services Committee.
Sean Casten: The most frequent concerns I hear from my constituents are about the state of infrastructure in IL-06 and the challenges of finding workers for open vacancies.
I’m proud to represent a district with a vibrant, diverse, and nationally-critical economy. From the financial sector jobs that employ so many in DuPage County to the high-tech jobs created by Argonne National Lab to manufacturing jobs in South Cook and the infrastructure and logistics hub that is the Belt Railway, and so many more — this is an economic hub. Given the highways and rail lines that criss-cross the region it is also a place where the historic underinvestment in our infrastructure is most keenly felt. I’m proud of the work we did to pass the Infrastructure and CHIPS & Science bill in the last Congress which are investing in those physical resources and on-shoring more American manufacturing, and I’m proud of the tens of millions of dollars we’ve brought to IL-06 as a result.
At the same time, I’m concerned that on a national basis, Illinois is not obviously getting our per capita fair share of those dollars. I’ve been in touch with White House staff who share this concern and am sympathetic to the pressures they are under both to deploy those dollars quickly and to prioritize investments in communities that have high-water labor and environmental standards. Too often, it is easier to move federal dollars into a community that has cheap labor and weak zoning rules and I fear that this may be hurting Illinois’ access to funds going to other states.
With respect to labor shortages, Illinois has a more positive story to tell. The record growth in job creation and record low unemployment rates are making it hard for all industries to attract talent — and giving workers unprecedented power to negotiate higher wages. Nationally, virtually all of the growth in the U.S. workforce since the COVID downturn has been from the foreign-born population. As states like Texas have sent migrants to Illinois chasing short-term political gain, I’ve been impressed and humbled by the willingness of our communities to treat those migrants with dignity and have worked with the White House to make sure that they also secure temporary work visas. We have more work to do, but we are making progress and I’m confident that in the long term this wave of immigrants — like every wave that has come before — will be the engine of long-term growth.
Sean Casten: I ran for this office in 2018 on the premise that there’s an awful lot more that unites us than divides us. The overwhelming majority of us trust science. We believe that women should have full control of their body and that the government should not be involved in their health care decisions. We think markets are extremely powerful tools to harness ingenuity, but they require a functioning, ethical, and competent government to make sure everybody gets a fair chance. Most importantly, the overwhelming majority of us know that we are only as good as the world we leave to our children.
Over my three terms in Congress, I’ve been reassured by the voters and my colleagues that my idealism is justified. I served on the climate committee that recommended the legislation that became the Inflation Reduction Act — the biggest climate bill ever passed anywhere. We were intimately involved in the recovery from COVID that led to a U.S. economy that recovered faster and is growing faster than any other country in the world — with growth across red states and blue states and income growth fastest among the neediest.
But to be blunt, our work isn’t finished. Global temperatures continue to rise. A woman’s right to control her body depends on the state she is in. We still have too many guns, and too many gun deaths. And while the majority of Americans have common values, a disgruntled minority is threatening the stability of a democracy that allows those voices to be heard. It’s an amazing privilege and responsibility to have this job. And as long as we still have work to do, I’ll keep at it.
