Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Last week I interviewed Congressman John Mannion, the Democrat who represents New York's 22nd Congressional District. Today, I'm talking with the Republican who wants to replace him after the November elections, Kailee Buller. Miss Buller has a background in the food industry and has served in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, most recently as a chief of staff, which is a top government leadership position. The 22nd district contains all of Onondaga and Madison counties and portions of Oneida, Cortland, and Cayuga counties, including the cities of Syracuse, Utica, and Auburn. Miss Buller, welcome to the program.
Kailee Buller: Grant, thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here, and I really appreciate that you're, you know, giving John and I both an opportunity to talk to your listeners.
GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time, that's for sure. So let me start with a basic question that I know you could talk about the whole half an hour, but if you could just be brief to get us going and then we'll get into some more details as we go. But if you could just briefly make the case that Congressman Mannion should not be returned to office. That's the, you know, that's a standard challenger question.
KB: Yeah, I have a lot of views on that. But I really want to introduce myself to your listeners a little bit of background about me before we start kind of hitting on him, if that's okay.
GR: Fine. Go ahead.
KB: Yeah. I mean, for my perspective, I'm Kailee Buller. I grew up in Auburn and I was born and raised, my dad, corrections officer, retired after 41 years, my mom's a nurse. And I, you know, as a high achiever, went away to Syracuse University for a year. And like many people my age, I'm 37, couldn't afford to stay there and get more loans so I transferred to state school and graduated in 2011. And there were not a lot of jobs in the area. And I made the decision, the hard decision to move away from my family and go find a place where there were more jobs and more opportunities. So, I moved away to DC and I made a really good career for myself and met my husband, had three kids who are five, three and two. So I'm a mom and a wife, and I've worked really hard. And you talked a little bit about where I was, but I started, had no connections in DC, started as a tax and fiscal policy expert, or analyst really, right out of college and worked on bipartisan issues for the grocery industry, for the corn and soy industry, and served in both administrations for the Department of Agriculture, and really capped off my career as the chief of staff of USDA, where we are now. I resigned that position to run in this race. And so, I have been in DC for a number of years where I've gotten a lot of experience working across the aisle and seeing the inner workings of Congress, of two administrations and of private sector. So, I have a really good background, a really good experience, and really what I want to do, I have my loans paid off three years ago, my debt is paid off and I want to come back to this district and deliver in a way that is not happening right now. Central New York is being left behind. New York State has the highest tax in the whole nation, worst housing situation, sixth highest energy costs. And so we can get into Mannion’s record and why I want to do this, but part of why I want to do this is because I have a unique skill set that can deliver for the people that I grew up with, and I'm seeing them being left behind every single time I'm here. The poor are getting poorer, the tax are getting higher. People are leaving New York State in droves, 500,000. Nearly 25 billion in gross, you know, revenue has left the state since 2020 and central New York is really feeling that.
GR: Okay, thank you, and congratulations on the loans, that's always a big moment. Just one, quick follow up, factual thing. You've mentioned a couple times that you worked in two administrations. I just want to make clear those were the first Trump administration and then the current Trump administration, correct?
KB: Yes, sir. I worked in both Trump administrations. And between those times, I did a lot of work with the Obama and the Biden administrations on the outside.
GR: Got it. Okay, thank you. Well, so, you mentioned several things that you're concerned about, this particular area, some of them related to New York State, others more general. Just if you could then, as a brief thing, what are the kinds of things that you think Congressman Mannion in particular has done that have contributed to that problem or, you know, not, at least not helped? Can you be more specific about him?
KB: Absolutely. So, this district is one of the more moderate districts in the entire country. There's only about 36-ish of them, and this is one of them. It's a Democrat plus four district. We've had a lot of incredible statesmen who have represented this district from Katko to Hanna, Anne Marie Buerkle, etc.. He has been very different than them in the fact that he has really party line voted and not voted with the district. And I'll give you a few examples for that.
GR: Okay.
KB: No tax on tips, he voted no. This is a very, you know, blue collar, a lot of people work in restaurant and food and bar, he voted no on that. Kathy Hochul supports no tax on tips. I would say he's to the left of Kathy Hochul on that topic. He voted no on no tax on Social Security. The median average age of this district is 52 to 54. Social security is really near and dear to many of our constituents’ hearts. So voting no on no tax and Social Security is in the can really help. You know, our average median income is below 70k. So we're on the poorer side on districts as well, and so these things can really help. He voted no on the childcare tax credit. As a mom of three kids, that's a really helpful tax credit. And given we just talked about the average median age of the district, you know, there's not a lot of people having kids, or they’re at least keeping and raising their kids here. He voted no on the Farm Bill when it came up for a vote in the House. This is a really heavy farm and agriculture district, not Onondaga, but Madison, Cayuga, Cortland, Oneida. We have, we're producing so much dairy up here, we have a lot of specialty crop farms, a lot of apple farms. I mean, the Farm Bill, I mean, that would have been a sure yes vote for me and a yes vote for the district. So, when I say he's not thinking for the district, he's thinking with the left and what the left want him to vote and he's in a hard position. I absolutely acknowledge that. I'm sure in those roles he is being pulled to the left. But you can't forget where you came from. And for me, a lot of people, I'm out on the campaign trail there say, don't forget where you came from. I'm like, listen, I left this place for 14 years and I'm volunteering to come back to serve because I know how to serve this district. I know what they want, and that means that I can't be a party line voter. Even though I worked for President Trump, I'm not going to vote for everything that he wants and everything that he says. And unfortunately, John Mannion in his first term has done exactly that.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Kailee Buller, the Republican who's running for Congress in New York's 22nd district. So, on that point, let me just pick up where you left off. If you can, again, just maybe pick 2 or 3 of the most important things, but what would be some of the major new initiatives you'd like to work on if you were elected?
KB: So for me, affordability is the number one, two and three things that we hear about every day all the time. And I have a record of working on affordability issues and actually delivering. And so that has to be the number one, two and three issues that we work on when I'm elected. So, as I go around talking, we have the highest energy bills, almost in the nation, and a lot of that is because of the green energy deal that John Mannion has been supportive of and Kathy Hochul pushed. We have doubled down on, you know, mandates for solar and wind and then we have blocked out other energy sources such as natural gas extraction. Pennsylvania, a state over from us, Democrat governor, Democrat House, they're selling 20% of the energy for the whole U.S., New York is buying from them. We could be doing that ourselves here, obviously safely we want…
GR: Could I interrupt you, briefly, if I could?
KB: Sure.
GR: Yeah, I'm sorry to do that, but I just, before, those things that you mentioned, if I'm hearing them correctly, are more things that the state of New York has done. And so, I guess what I'm asking is here, how, as a member of Congress, are you going to leverage those things? It almost sounds like what you just said, there almost sounds like something I might hear from a candidate for state Senate for example. So, tell me the connection, because I want to make sure I'm following you.
KB: No, that's a really great observation and I think it's a fair one. So, this is the issue, when I'm elected, I'll do everything I can to basically override New York's broken policies in the event that Kathy Hochul and the Albany folks don't shape up. I mean, there's a bill that would do exactly that, the Energy Choice Act sponsored by Nick Langworthy, HR 3699. And essentially what it would do is it would prohibit state and local governments from banning and limiting and restricting access to things like natural gas. So, I will be a lead co-sponsor and do everything I can to get that passed when I'm a federal elected official. That's one example as how I'll use my federal position to help the state, because there again, New York ranks dead last in many issues, and it's not because of things the federal government is doing. And we can talk about another one. I mean, I worked on helping repeal the wind and solar mandates when I was the chief of staff at USDA. That's not to say that you can't use wind and solar, it's to say we're not going to mandate them. New York has done exactly that. They've mandated solar and wind, and that's actually raising our energy bills, because we've gone so far so quick and we haven't looked at all of the above energy. So I mean, I've done a lot of these things federally. We've done a lot of things at the federal level when I worked in the Trump administration to make housing more affordable. New York isn't reaping the benefits of that because we have broken local and state issues, and I will do everything I can if New York doesn't shape up from an Albany perspective and from a local perspective, to call these things out and work to fight federally, to give our residents the rights that they need to have lower bills.
GR: I see, no, I'm glad I asked you that. Now, I wanted to come back to your experience in the Department of Agriculture and working for the federal government. Because that's a, you know, that gives you a particular perspective and set of experiences you might draw on and I wanted to ask you about that. What's the most important thing that you learned about how the federal government works from your experience being inside it?
KB: The most shocking thing is it doesn't. It doesn't work very well, I'll say that. The federal government is way more broken than I ever could have imagined being an outsider looking in. I started my career being in advocacy and tax advocacy and working by states. And then I started working for the grocery industry and passing federal legislation. The first bill that I really worked hard on was a 2013 Farm Bill, that I helped to get a bipartisan amendment pass, healthy food financing initiatives. I've, you know, worked with both Democrats and Republicans to get that done. But I did not realize how broken the federal government was until I got into it and actually saw it firsthand. And it's not intentional. I think it's over time that we just layer more and more people on top of more and more problems and become more and more silo. I look at the Department of Agriculture, for instance, and it's a very diversified agency. When people think about the Department of Agriculture, they're like, oh yeah, farmers. But it administers the food stamp program, which I know you probably have questions about. It manages forest fires, so it has, you know, it has that. It manages trade exports, so making our amazing American goods and exporting them and finding new markets for them, because our farmers are growing more than we need here in a lot of instances. And then we have RD (USDA Rural Development), which is one of the biggest banks in America, lending, right? So there's a lot of, there's also a lot of tribal things that the USDA does. And here's where it gets duplicative. So, there are four different agencies that do some level of economic research at USDA. And then each of the eight mission areas have their own economic researchers. And so sometimes when I'll say, hey, what are we doing on, such as the screwworm, when I was the chief of staff, we have screwworm in the U.S. now, I don't know if you pay attention to that, but it's basically a flesh eating parasite that impacts cattle. So, I would say, research agencies, what do you have? And they're like, well, we're doing this. And then I'd go to the marketing regulatory programs like, well, we're doing this and I'm like, you two internally aren't even talking. So over time, people have become more siloed and it's actually impacting taxpayer revenue. The other thing I'll say is, the government hasn't done enough to make sure that those who need these benefits are getting them, and those that don't are weeded out of the program. And I have a lot of different examples of that. An example in the food stamp program, our food stamp recipients, there are people who really need these benefits and I'm a big supporter of the food stamp program, the SNAP program. In fact, I led a lot of the changes and restricting what people can eat on the SNAP program, we can talk more about that. But for example, the US government, it's a federally funded program, right, and then it gives the money for SNAP to the states. New York State, for example, decides it’s a locally administered program, but some states just administer the program. 29 states have shared their data back with the federal government, and we found 200,000 dead people, 500,000 people getting benefits in multiple states. And that's just 29 states and that's mostly the red states. And some of that is intentional fraud and some of that is they're just overwhelmed at the state and local level, and they don't have time to figure out the paperwork. And so, the feds have helped them kind of fix and make their operations more efficient and they've identified problems that have been lingering for years. New York State, for example, won't share that data. I don't know why. I'm not sure what they're hiding, but it's a way for, you know, us to make sure that those who need the benefits are getting what they have, and maybe more, and getting people who don't need the benefits and are committing fraud or there's particular waste, or there's just not enough people to kind of go through all the day to day paperwork. And so, I think that's one, and that was billions of dollars in a week we found, right? And that was just with 29 states on an initial read. So, New York should share the data and we could actually save some taxpayer dollars. And hopefully we can help those in need, maybe even more so than they're being helped now. So, I think that's just one example. I also think, you know, there's all these other agencies who do a lot of things we do. There's, you know, EPA, they have a lot of researchers too, Department of Energy has a lot of researchers. USDA does nuclear energy funding, so does DOE. EPA has a piece in that. So over time, there's been a lot of duplication and a lot of people not talking and breaking down silos. And one of my favorite parts of the job at USDA was being able to call the other chiefs of staff at the other agencies and fixing these things pretty directly, you know, having these conversations and breaking down some of the regulatory hurdles and the bureaucratic nonsense. And again, a lot of it's not intentional. It's just over time, people don't talk to one another and they start up new programs.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Kailee Buller. She's a Republican candidate for Congress in this November's election and is challenging the Democrat, John Mannion, in New York's 22nd congressional district. So, I wanted to ask you about a policy we haven't discussed yet. And it comes from sort of an idea that's been in my own head, sort of playing around. It's imagining what the second half of this term of President Trump might look like with Congress and the president. And one possibility, although I guess it's low probability, but still, one might imagine that the president would be keen to forge some kind of significant legislation on immigration. No recent president has been able to get that over the finish line, despite numerous attempts by both Democrats and Republican presidents. And it seems to me that even with a Democratic majority, if that's the way the House elections go or Republican majority, it might be something that he might be interested in doing. I just was curious to see what you think the basic contours of an immigration policy could be that could actually get bipartisan support. You mentioned before that you're going to come in focusing on bipartisan work. That's something that the people you mentioned, Katko, Hanna, even to go back to Jim Walsh, did. But how do you see immigration policy? It seems like such a thorny, dead-end kind of policy debate.
KB: No doubt it's a challenging one, but it's a discussion that we have to have and it's one that I started having back when I was in the grocery industry. We were talking about E-Verify and, you know, the challenges of the workforce and H-2A, you know, labor and that's something I've worked an entire decade on and helping the farm and agriculture industry manage H-2A, and it's a flawed program. The current immigration system we have, the president is enforcing the current law on the books, and the current law on the books is incredibly broken. So, number one, the border security situation, the president has secured the border, thank God, that's a bipartisan issue or should be, but that's what the president did. Until we codify that, we could have another administration come in and open that back up. So, if we're doing any kind of immigration package, we have to codify a very secure border, full stop, 100%. The H-2A program is something that we need to fix. Right now, for instance, if you are a, you know, vegetable or, you know, fruit, you know, farming berries or, you know, apples or things like that, the harvest time for that is pretty short, so H-2A labor works for you. If you're in meat processing or you're in dairy, the H-2A program doesn't work. You have to milk a cow every day, that is not a, you don't need to milk three months, you have to milk cow every day, 365 days a year. I'm actually really proud, when I was at USDA I started working on this, and they actually just announced it in the last few weeks, they found some kind of a regulatory fix to let dairy use H-2A longer term, but it's still not perfect and we still need that fixed. Criminals, we all, I think agree, I haven't talked to many people who want criminals in this country. And so those folks who came here illegally and are criminals have to go, 100%. That being said, I do acknowledge there are people who have maybe come here under the wrong circumstances who've been contributing to our workforce for 40, 50 years, have had kids here who are now citizens. And that's the trickiest part that we have to work on together, that a really bipartisan conversation is very much needed. And that's going to be the hardest part about this bill that has to come through. But I have faith that the system is so broken that we have to do it and I will be on board with having that discussion. I haven't quite thought out exactly what the right, you know, number is or what that looks like, but we have to find a way to make those folks, you know, stay contributing to our economy. That being said, I do not believe in blanket, you know, asylum policies. I don't believe in blanket amnesty. In fact, I was just at a small business, I was talking to a lot of Latino minority business owners this week, and they said, you cannot support someone like that because we all worked really hard and came here the right way. And so that's the challenge that we have to work on. But that's not an easy solution. You have to have people from all walks of life, Democrat, Republican, part of that discussion and how we can do that.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is the Republican congressional candidate, Kailee Buller, she's running in New York's 22nd Congressional District. Well, I asked this next question pretty much in exactly the same way I'm going to ask you of Congressman Mannion when he was on the program, and it's something that's becoming increasingly of concern to me and I think a lot of other political scientists and economists out there, it's about the national debt as a percentage of the size of our economy, which is how economists generally view the size of the national debt. We are now at a level we have not seen since World War Two. And the pace of growth up on the debt has been almost vertical since the financial crisis of 2007-2008. It has been a bipartisan problem, both Republican and Democratic presidents have presided over steep increases in the national debt. I just want to ask you, this is a huge question, you could talk for hours on this, but if you could be relatively brief, how do we realistically turn this battle, how do we realistically solve this? You know, people will sometimes point to it, no one runs on it as their first issue, but it's something that we're going to have to address at some point. Do you have any ideas about it?
KB: I'm glad you asked this, because it's actually one of the number one things that I don't align with Trump about. I think we haven't done nearly enough to reduce the deficit. I mean, what, we're nearly at $40 trillion right now and I look at my beautiful kids who are five, three and two, and…
GR: They’re going to pay for it, they're going to pay for it.
KB: Well, and I'm, you know, I get so anxious about this because it's like, we can't just put it out of sight, out of mind, like, this is a real problem. And that's why I think we need more people that are in my age bracket, because, I mean, we've seen Covid, we've seen the economic crisis, and now we're having kids and we're dealing with childcare and the housing. And now I'm looking way to the future, and like, what am I going to leave my kids with? And if I am elected, this is one of the number one things I want to work, and I know it's not the sexiest thing, but, one of my key policy issues is I do support a balanced budget amendment, a constitutional amendment, because I think things have gotten so out of hand. But that being said, how you get there is really challenging. And one of the number one and two questions I hear while I'm on the trail, because I have a much older district is, well, are you going to protect my Social Security? And it's like, yes, if you paid in the system, absolutely. But where we need to start is my kids who aren't yet and who are not yet working. I had my first job at 15 and an ice cream shop, right, so I hypothetically started to pay into the system at like, 14. But we need to look far ahead into, you know, kids who are my age and like, changing what that looks like for them. But we should by no way, shape or means change anything for anyone who's paid into the system. But that being said, I mean, I think there's a lot of opportunity with AI and some of the things we're starting to do at USDA on finding duplicative benefits, whether that be in farm programs or food stamps. There are a lot more ways we can save bits of money, but there's no way around having to tackle this deficit by figuring out long term entitlement reform and doing it in a way that doesn't hurt those who have already paid into the system. That's really complicated, and that's going to take a bipartisan, long term effort, roll up your sleeves. And I started my career and tax policy, so I feel very strongly about this. So, it's something that I want to work on, but it's something that we need a lot of folks to better understand and get to the table on.
GR: How would we start that national conversation in the environment we're in? I mean, I really appreciate what you're saying, and you're willing to at least state publicly, you know, that we're going to have to take a look at this, a hard look at this. The problem that I can't see around is the political environment right now for doing this is just, seems so toxic. Who's going to, I mean, how are we going to get people to do this in good faith? I just, I don't see the current Congress as having that ability right now and maybe even the public, you know?
KB: Well, as I'm talking to the public, I mean, I've been in a DC bubble for many, many years. And as I talk to the public now, I mean, they're scraping by, a lot of them. They're working a couple jobs. So how can they be focused on our national debt when they're trying to focus on paying their bills and feed their kids or, you know, take care of their parents who are aging? So, it's something that we have to keep our eye on and we can't lose the focus, and we have to try to find and make an opening for that. That being said, I also very much support term limits. I also think that because we don't have term limits is another reason that we're in these messes, because these politicians come in, and I also think the increasingly polarized redistricting, Democrats or Republicans have gerrymandered this country so much that we have a much more polarized electorate. And so, I think term limits need to happen. And I also think that, we need to get back to more of this, like, I like the district that I'm in, even though it's a hard one for me to win because it is more moderate and people are like, common sense, tell us the truth, even if it's bad, we want to know. Like, they want to understand. Whereas if you're in a very red or very blue district, you just have to keep, you know, telling them, oh, I'll never do this or I'll never do that to keep getting reelected.
GR: And we've only got about a minute left, but I want to pick up on exactly that thing you just mentioned there about, it's about the district and your strategy here. You know, you already said it, you have an uphill climb, probably particularly this year. It's, from what the polls suggest, may not be a very good year for Republicans. The district has been redrawn a couple of times, it's more favorable to Democrats than it used to be, and I imagine that the Democratic Party is probably very keen to protect John Mannion running for his first reelection as a Democrat. So, you're sort of working against all those things. In a minute or less, do you have, what's your strategy to overcome all that?
KB: Yeah. So, there are 30,000 more Democrats than Republicans in this district. But what no one's talking about is there 150,000 independents who don't really like either party right now. And I know for a fact that my background and where I am in my life, and as I've been talking to people, that I have the ability, they want someone who's going to deliver results. And I have done that my entire career, and I'm very honest. And I am, you know, I view this as I love being an underdog. I'm here to tell the truth and to expose things that people aren't really paying attention to, and it's really working. And the one thing I'll say that's a challenge for my opponent is there's a lot of Democrats who don't recognize the Democrat Party anymore because of the socialist lean. So, I have a lot of JFK Democrats who are like, I'm voting for you because I don't even recognize my party anymore and I don't appreciate how John Mannion has been a party line voter.
GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. I wish we had more time to talk, but that was Kailee Buller. And again, Miss Buller, just want to thank you for making the time to speak with me, very interesting.
KB: Thank you for talking and I’d love to chat with you any time. And thanks for your listeners for taking a look at my campaign and considering their support for voting for me in November.
GR: You bet. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
