CHCI 31st Annual Awards Gala Program Update – Letter from McCain regarding missing the event

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) will hold its 31st Annual Awards Gala on Wednesday, September 10, 2008.

Unfortunately, due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict, Sen. John McCain will not be able to attend the CHCI 31st Annual Awards Gala.

Sen. McCain provided the following letter to CHCI.

September 9, 2008

The Honorable Joe Baca
Ms. Esther Aguilera, President & CEO
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute
911 2nd Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002

Dear Congressman Baca and Ms. Aguilera:

I would like to offer my warmest congratulations on your 31st annual Gala. The Institute’s mission of developing the next generation of leaders is critical to the future of our country. The theme of this Year’s Gala is “The Power to Make the Difference.” That theme resonates with me, because my campaign has focused on giving the American people the power to make a difference – through economic and educational opportunity, affordable healthcare, accountable government, and a call to service.

Many Americans are facing tough times financially. The price of gasoline is through the roof. Food prices are rising. Healthcare costs have continued to spiral out of control. The housing market is in crisis. Unemployment just hit a five-year high at 6.1% – and 8% for Latinos.

I have proposed a comprehensive set of economic policies to spur economic growth, create jobs, and ease the financial burdens on middle-class families. The central focus of that plan is small businesses – the leading engine of job growth in this country. Two million small businesses are owned by Latinos, and we must create an economic climate that encourages those businesses to grow and create jobs. We must keep taxes low and cut them where we can. Taking more money from small businesses deprives them of the capital they need to invest and grow and hire. We must bring down energy prices, which are choking small businesses and stifling growth. I have proposed an all-of-the-above approach which embraces not only conservation and alterative energy, but also offshore drilling and nuclear power. We cannot cling to ideological rigidity when Americans and American businesses are suffocating under high energy prices.

We must also avoid the seductive call for economic isolationism. Pulling out of trade agreements like NAFTA would hurt our economy and our workers, raising the price of imports and slowing our export growth. And for those Americans who lose jobs to trade, we must revolutionize our unemployment-insurance system to provide immediate job retraining and a safety net for older workers who are forced to take lower paying jobs.

My plan also tackles the toughest financial problems facing American families. I have proposed a health-care reform plan that gives all Americans the opportunity to obtain high-quality health care, even if they work for a small business that cannot afford to provide its employees with health insurance. Under my plan, when you change jobs or leave the workforce, you can take your health insurance with you. All Americans will have a real choice in health insurance; families will receive effectively $5,000 in cash to purchase health insurance from anywhere, even across state lines. And unlike my opponent’s plan, that choice will be lodged with American families, not government bureaucrats under an expensive, unwieldy, inefficient new government entitlement.

Health care isn’t the only issue facing American families. I will help Americans hit hard by the housing crisis to obtain a new, guaranteed, fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage, while making sure that shady speculators cannot profit from the crisis that they caused. I will double the dependent exemption from $3,500 to $7,000, putting cash into the hands of the families who need it most, and I will reduce the estate tax to 15%. And perhaps most importantly, I will jumpstart real education reform, so that all families – not just the wealthy – have the opportunity to provide their children with the best education. We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition; hold schools accountable for results; strengthen math, science, technology, and engineering curriculum; empower parents with choice; and remove barriers to qualified instructors. My opponent offers the same old policies peddled by teachers’ unions for years, which shirk accountability and choice in favor of the status quo. Those policies fail our children – particularly minority children, who are condemned to failing schools and all the disadvantages that come with them. This is quite simply the civil-rights issue of our time.

I know you may not agree with me on every issue. But what I hope you will recognize is that throughout my career I have taken unpopular stands to do what’s right and to find bipartisan consensus to solve the tough problems facing America. I worked with Democrats like Russ Feingold to pass major campaign-finance legislation to erase the stain of special interests on our nation’s politics. I reached out to Democrats to finally take on global warming through an innovative cap-and-trade system. I stood up to the President when I believed that some of our policies in the War on Terror did not live up to our national traditions. I worked with Democrats to confirm well-qualified, mainstream judges and buck partisans on both sides. And when members of both parties thought that the situation in Iraq was hopeless – when Harry Reid said we had lost the war – when my opponent was calling for us to pull out in defeat – I recognized that we needed a different strategy to succeed, and now, in the wake of the undeniable success of the Surge, Iraq is stabilizing and our amazing troops will come home with honor and victory.

Perhaps no fight in my political career has cost me more politically than when I reached out to Democrats like Ted Kennedy – twice – to try to fix our broken immigration system. As any pundit will tell you, most people believed that my effort to forge a bipartisan, humane solution to the immigration problem had killed my presidential bid. I risked my political future because it was the right thing to do. My efforts were stymied by ideologues in both parties, including my opponent, who voted five separate times for poison pills by special interests to kill immigration reform, votes that Senator Kennedy and I opposed. When I am President, I will solve this problem. I will first convince the American people that we can secure our borders. I will then work to enact a practical and fair immigration policy, one that ensures respect for the laws of this country, recognizes the important economic contribution of immigrant laborers, apprehends those who came here illegally to commit crimes, and deals practically and humanely with those who came here to build a better, safer life for their families, without excusing the fact that they came here illegally.

Whoever wins this election, it is people like you, who volunteer time and treasure to build leaders for the future, who are the real keys to American success. Your commitment to service and opportunity is an inspiration. I wish you a wonderful Gala.

Sincerely,

John McCain

About Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI), a nonprofit and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization, provides leadership development programs and educational services to students and young emerging leaders. The CHCI Board of Directors is comprised of Hispanic Members of Congress, nonprofit leaders and corporate executives. For more information call CHCI at (202) 543-1771 or visit www.chci.org . “

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