French Hill Discusses ISIS, Minimum Wage Proposal

Second District GOP Congressional candidate French Hill outlined his thought process on gauging foreign threats and discussed his decision-making on a state effort to raise the minimum wage.

Appearing on this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9 a.m. on KATV Ch. 7, Hill offered his response to President Obama’s midweek speech on the threat of ISIS in the Middle East.

Hill, who faces Democrat Pat Hays and Libertarian Debbie Standiford, said it’s too early to tell if the President’s approach is comprehensive enough to confront the ISIS threat.

“I don’t think we know yet, but I think he outlined a comprehensive approach,” said Hill. “No doubt, Congress will look at it very seriously on a bipartisan basis and consider what the President said.”

President Obama provided Congress a four-prong campaign for dealing with ISIS, a plan that included airstrikes in Iraq and Syria; arming fighters on the ground; boosting counterterrorism efforts; and increasing humanitarian aid. Hill said by not acting more urgently in Syria in 2012 and not collaborating more with the Malaiki government in Iraq, Obama missed a chance to reduce the ISIS threat.

“My concern is this is a problem really of the President’s own making by some of the decisions he’s taken previously,” Hill said. “What we have to always do before we consider any major action or involvement by the United States is, number one, is there a clear and present danger to American national security interests that we can feel and see? Number two, do we have a clear and decisive strategy that can win it with overwhelming odds?”

Hill added that support also has to exist from the American people and only as a last resort should we engage ground troops in any international efforts.

MINIMUM WAGE
Democrats have made issue of Hill’s previous statements on raising the minimum wage, but Hill said he feels he’s been consistent on the issue.

In a June interview, he expressed his opposition to a federal minimum wage proposal that would raise the wage to $10.10 per hour.

“I’m not in favor of increasing the minimum wage because I don’t want to see any barriers to creating early employment and creating more jobs and the Congressional Budget Office, even in their most conservative assessment, says it’ll cost about a half million jobs nationwide,” Hill said in a June KUAR interview.

On the state proposal to raise the minimum wage to $8.50 by 2017, Hill said he’s still evaluating the measure, which will be on the November ballot.

“What I’ve done in considering as a voter this Arkansas proposal is number one, we want everyone in our state earning higher wages. Wages have been flat. So my view is I would consider voting for this issue if I can be really assured that it’s not going to have a material impact on job creation in our state,” he said.

“I’m going to talk to businesses, I’m going to talk to local economists, I’m going to look at it very carefully,” Hill said in describing what would give him assurance.

When asked if he was undecided on the state minimum wage proposal at this point, Hill said, “I’m doing my due diligence on it. My statement is absolutely right. I’d like to be able to vote for it. I’m doing my due diligence to see if it will not have a material impact on jobs.”

You can watch his full interview in the video below.