U.S. Senate Candidate From Dover Never Misses 'A Chance to be Involved'

Jim King envisions the Massachusetts economy getting additional benefits from unemployment benefits.

If elected to the U.S. Senate, the Dover resident and Democrat says that "I'd use the unemployment system to stimulate the hiring of new employees."

"We now pay let’s say $20,000 in employment benefits," King says.

"If an employer hired someone who was unemployed and kept that person working for nine months or more it seems to me we should take half of what we would have paid in unemployment benefits and give a credit to the employer who hired the person and kept that person working for that period of time."

It's part of King's plans to create jobs.

"First of all, I wouldn’t have voted against the job bill like Scott Brown did. On the basis that it included a tax increase on those with $1 million or more of taxable income. And that tax, that increase, would have been approximately $500 for somebody making $1 million of taxable income," King says.

"It doesn’t make any sense to not have those fortunate people paying an additional $500 if it means more teachers hired back and police officers and the like.

“I think also, the federal government has to participate with states, in Massachusetts especially, to encourage the attraction of industry in the state."

King, 63, announced his candidacy in October.

A Saratoga Springs, N.Y. native, King is a Boston lawyer who co-founded Murphy and King Professional Corporation Counsellors at Law nearly 30 years ago. King has been a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice in the anti-trust division and also served as a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney in Boston in 1979-80.

PATCH

Why are you running for U.S. Senate? 

JIM KING

I’m running because a few days after won in the special election I felt that he wasn't the right person to be senator. I was a friend of the late Senator Kennedy and I think that Massachusetts deserves better.

The legacy that we have in the Senate of leadership and a sense that those who aren't represented by special interests or otherwise deserve to have a voice in D.C. is important to me."

It took about a year to think about it. My background with the government and as a lawyer certainly brings me with the issues.

PATCH

Have you ever held political office?

JIM KING

No, but I've always been involved in politics.

Senator Kennedy nominated me to the National Gambling Commission in 1996 and when I worked for the Justice Department I was fortunate enough to be asked to serve on (President) Carter's Anti-Trust Commission and there were 10 congressional members on that commission.

I have never run for office but I never miss a chance to be involved.

PATCH

Do you think your inexperience as a candidate will play a role?

JIM KING

I don't think that's an issue. Scott Brown was a state rep. but was not really a frequenter of running for office. Certainly, Elizabeth Warren and Marisa DeFranco have never run before. So on balance I think that it's a non issue.

PATCH

What do you think the biggest issue facing our country is today?  How would you propose to fix that problem?

JIM KING

Confidence.

I think that we need to recognize that we're Americans and we need to recognize that we meet challenges with innovation, ingenuity and there's a reason why people look up to the United States and it's primarily our freedom. We need to make sure that we not only maintain it but we need to reinvigorate it. And we don't need to reinvigorate it by having politicians on the extremes.

I think the days of social programs for social programs are over and we need to have the economic base and strength to lead by example in the world.

What I would do is put our house in order economically. I think that the deficit, for example, was relatively easy. It’s not easy, but relatively easy. I think that if we increase the revenues on the one hand and also take a real close look at our expenditures and probably somewhere, 50-50, we can make up the $16 trillion that we now face as a deficit.

I think the rates for individual income taxes are too low. They've never been this low in our history. The Bush tax cuts were supposed to be temporary and then they turned permanent. But a top rate of somewhere around 31 percent instead of 25 percent is probably sensible. And I think everybody in this country who has income should pay some tax, $50, $100, it doesn't matter what it is, everybody has a stake in this country.

PATCH

How do you feel about having casinos in Massachusetts? Why?

JIM KING

I think the devil is in the details in that situation.

I had some experience in the gambling area as I mentioned [Senator Ted Kennedy] nominated me for the national commission. I come from a competition law background working in the anti-trust division at [the U.S. Department of Justice] so if I were to criticize the law that exists I'd say "Why three?" Why do we have a finite number here or any number at all? Let's just see if people and developers meet a certain requirement.

I think those that think we're just going to add jobs and we're going to increase the revenue are probably mistaken. There might be a bump but I think that many of the critics who say that people will do less with the lottery are probably right. There's only so much money it seems to me to gamble and that's one of the issues.

I'd be a representative of the people and I'd have to vote their will. Obviously, I'd state the way I felt, but the job of a legislator who represents the state is to do just that.

PATCH

Aside from job creation what are some ways that the economy can be revived?

JIM KING

I think we have to use the trade agreements that are on the books that people criticize, instead of criticizing we have to use them to our advantage. We need to have more exports to Brazil and, just to use an example, Colombia and the places that we have these new trade agreements. There's no reason why we can’t because we have attractive products and services for those markets.

The other thing I'd do, and this applies to health care, is I'd try to add more competition. I don't think there’s enough competition in health care. It's one of the few markets that I know of where the buyers and sellers never meet. I see my doctor of course, but I don't talk to him about how much it's going to cost to have a MRI or to engage in whatever kind of health care I might need. That doesn’t usually happen. If we go to buy a car or something for ourselves we usually talk to people about the price.

I would open it up to competition, and if the competition crossed state borders, then that’s fine with me. I don't see any particular need to have a Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and a Blue Cross of Pennsylvania. And many of these in this area of our economy are non-profits and I don't know. It strikes me that they're non-profits not in the way that we originally thought of non-profits with Red Cross and the American Cancer Society, etc. And so I think that if we took a close look at that and opened it up we’d create more competition and competition usually creates more jobs.

PATCH

What do you have that your other opponents don’t?

JIM KING

Elizabeth Warren has money, a lot more than I do. But she's pedantic in many senses, and I'm not. I did work for the government and I was involved in the anti-trust commission that led to the deregulation of trucks and rails. I commend her for her experience in [Washington, D.C.] in setting up the consumer bureau. But, she's a professor and for 30 years I've run a law firm.

Marisa DeFranco is a very articulate, young, aggressive immigration lawyer from the North Shore. But again, her experience is limited. I think that her focus on what the responsibilities of a senator are are a little different than mine. What I've been exposed to in the time that I've had to be involved in the issues is just a lot more than she has. That's not to say that she’s not a good candidate because she is and Elizabeth Warren is an excellent candidate.