Idaho's First Congressional District has been represented by Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho) since 2019. This November, he's facing challengers who say it's time for a change.
One of those challengers is Sarah Zabel, a retired two-star Air Force general who spent 31 years in the military and now lives in North Idaho.
Zabel was a Republican for much of her life, but she's running for Congress as an Independent. She argues that both political parties have lost sight of the people they're supposed to represent.
She's focusing her campaign on issues like Social Security, the national debt, health care costs and protecting Idaho's public lands.
Sarah Zabel joined Idaho Matters to talk about her campaign and why she believes an Independent candidate can make a difference in Washington, D.C.
In order to focus our interviews of statewide candidates, click here to see the rules that guided our outreach efforts. To see the full interviews for those who responded, click here.
Read a transcript of the entire conversation below:
Gemma Gaudette: From the studios of Boise State Public Radio News. I'm Gemma Gaudette, you're listening to Idaho Matters. Idaho's first congressional district has been represented by Republican Russ Fulcher since 2019. But in November, he's facing challengers who say it's time for a change. Now one of those challengers is Sarah Zabel, a retired two star Air Force general who spent 31 years in the military and now lives in North Idaho. Zabel was a Republican for much of her life, but she's running for Congress now as an independent, arguing that both political parties have lost sight of the people that they are supposed to be representing. She's focusing her campaign on issues like Social Security, the national debt, health care costs, as well as protecting Idaho's public lands. Sarah Zabel is joining us now to talk about her campaign and why she believes an independent candidate can make a difference in Washington. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today.
Sarah Zabel: Thank you. Gemma.
Gemma Gaudette: So as I mentioned, you spent 31 years in the Air Force retiring as a major general. That is a pretty different career path from most people who run for Congress. What made you decide to get into politics right now and why this particular race?
Sarah Zabel: Well, I think you're seeing a lot of veterans running for Congress now and Senate and especially running as independents. And I think part of it's because we've seen the federal government work well, we've seen it work poorly. And we know that we are we know that we can do so much better than than what we're seeing right now. We know it can work so much better than than what you see. So I'm running for this for this seat because we are not represented. We do not have candidates on the ballot who actually represent Idaho and and in particular the first District of Idaho.
Gemma Gaudette: You've said that you were a Republican throughout your military career, but as I mentioned, you're running as an independent now. Was there a particular moment when you felt the Republican Party like no longer represented you and your values. And. And what do you say to voters who might wonder, you know, whether you're really more of a Democrat now than an independent?
Sarah Zabel: So I think the first moment when it really started chipping away was back in, I think it was 2017. The the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, um, where it's not just that the president came out and said, you know, there's, you know, mighty fine people on both sides. It's that the the Republican Party strongly approved of his message. And neo Nazis are not mighty fine people. And that's a departure from what Republicans used to believe in. And it grew. It just grew as you saw policies come out from that first administration. And what's been vocalized, especially what's been done in the second Trump administration, where Republican values used to be around limited government. It used to be around, uh, like fiscal responsibility, you know, being concerned about the debt, whether or not they're actually effective on it. It was a whole lot more concern, um, putting small business really kind of first in their eyes and trying to promote, you know, small business and grow an economy. And that is just changed. So the, I think the bricks started falling, um, you know, throughout that first term.
Sarah Zabel: And by the time I retired, it was in 2018. I was, um, I retired from in Virginia. I was living in Virginia when I retired from my last assignment there. And so I had to register to vote in Virginia. And I realized that it's, I'm, I just don't believe in what the Republican Party has become. Um, and I, so I thought for a minute, I must be a Democrat because. Right. There's only the two. Um, but the Democrats, they, their philosophy centers around big government programs that do things for people. And I just, I just don't follow that philosophy either. Big government programs are usually big, expensive and inefficient and really poor at doing things for people. So turns out not a Republican anymore, not a Democrat. And there's just no party. And until, you know, until very recently, no representatives that actually represent that, let's say, kind of a center to center, right? Um, old fashioned believe in the Constitution, the whole Constitution, you know, Second Amendment, but also the 14th amendment. Uh, there just isn't a party that represents that anymore.
Gemma Gaudette: So I want to get into some of the issues, if we could, because one of your biggest priorities is Social Security. You've warned that Congress is running out of time to address to address its financial problems. You've you've proposed raising revenue while reducing benefits for higher earners. Can you tell us what exactly would that look like? I mean, who would pay more? Who might receive less? Yeah.
Sarah Zabel: There's actually a centerpiece that that you didn't mention, which is broadening the base because the main problem with Social Security is that it's demographic. Basically, um, Americans are living longer, having fewer babies. So every generation of workers is a little bit smaller than the one that came before. So you need to address if you want to fix Social Security, we need to address, uh, basically reforming the whole program. So raising revenue and the, the recommendation I have is the base, the big part of it, the, the big core of it comes from Brookings Institute with, uh, just a few modifications. And Brookings is one of the many think tanks who has everybody's been staring at this problem, seeing this problem come, uh, over, you know, for basically more than a decade. And Brookings has done the math to figure out what does it take to actually fix Social Security. So we do need more revenue. So if you've heard of the cap, there's a cap on, uh, that how much earnings uh, the government withholds 6.2% payroll tax for Social Security. So the Brookings solution includes raising the cap. So right now the cap is $184,500. Brookings involves raising the cap so that it covers more. It would go up to about like 301st $300,000 of earnings and to increase revenue. It involves closing one of the loopholes, which is what hopefully it's the the remaining loophole, which is where some some jobs where people like especially do stock trading, they say, okay, this is there's this is their salary. This is what you withhold the 6.2% from.
Sarah Zabel: But most of their income is actually considered capital gains without, you know, without a withhold. So it would get rid of that loophole. So all of that sort of up to three, it's about 300,000. That would be subject to the the Social Security 6.2% withhold. Um, on the other side. Now, I say Americans are living longer, but it's actually pretty unevenly distributed. Uh, Americans at the highest, uh, earnings, uh, people, I think it's in the top 10% earners. Uh, they have a, their average longevity is about 14 years longer than people at the bottom end of the income scale. So when you think that you realize that social Security was developed to be poverty insurance, so that if you work your whole, you know, working lifetime, you're paying into Social Security at the end of the at the end of your working life, you know, life period, I should say life period at the end of your, your working time when you retire, uh, you don't end your old, you don't end up in poverty in old age. It's not supposed to be a retirement plan. So the high earners, they're getting this poverty insurance payout just like the low earners are. But the high earners, they they have had a chance to save for retirement. All those those years, those decades. So the idea between kind of reducing benefits for the highest earners, it's to protect the the low earners who paid in faithfully over the, you know, 35 year period. Um, they nothing changes. They still get their, the, you know, full benefits increasing with like the cost of living increases that go into social Security.
Sarah Zabel: But at the high earner side, you would start holding down the, like the cost of living increases. So they're still going to get numerically more out. They paid more in, they get more out, but have it grow more slowly so that over time, it's a a lower percentage for the high earners. And then in the middle, like I said, broadening the base, uh, there's a about 6% of American workforce doesn't pay is not part of Social Security. So it would bring them in over time. It would also, um, well, like I said, the people with the jobs that use capital gains instead of salary to pay themselves. And also as we fix immigration so people on temporary worker visas, they pay into Social Security. Um, even though they don't get Social Security benefits at the end, it's a, it's a net gain for us. We know that our immigration system is, um, needs reform that also needs reform. Um, things like the temporary worker visas, they're H2-a visas are temporary and seasonal worker visas. And the season is something like nine months. It doesn't serve the needs of people like our Idaho dairy farmers or Idaho ranchers. Those are year round, year round industries, year round jobs, and they don't have a temporary worker visa that suits them. So while we fix that, we're helping to fix Social Security and we're helping to make the program solvent long into the future.
Gemma Gaudette: I want to talk about health care because this is a major concern for Idaho families. And you've said both parties just spend too much time arguing about insurance coverage instead of really addressing an underlying cost of medical care, what would you do differently? I mean, how would your approach help someone in rural Idaho who's struggling to, you know, find a doctor or even keep a hospital open?
Sarah Zabel: Yes. And it's, it is, um, very frightening, uh, the way that the hospitals and the rural communities especially are burdened. Um, it's going to take a little while to fix. Our health care system has grown over more than a century. How we do things. And it's going to take a little while to fix it. So we need immediate support. We need immediate, um, I guess some, some Band-Aids, uh, while we make these bigger fixes. But when I'm talking about the opportunity to fix, fix things and I, like you said, I, I complain that the major parties, they're really, they're focused on insurance, health insurance and health care costs. You can typically get divided into several buckets hospital services, physician services, prescription drug costs and insurance costs. So each of those areas is growing faster than wages, faster than inflation. And there's they're already too high. Um, the, the two parties with the, like the single payer, Medicare, Medicare for all proposal on the Democratic side, that is just it's just going after insurance, um, insurance costs on the other side, we've seen, uh, the, like our representatives suggest that, um, it's kind of like a forget insurance, just save your money. We're going to give you money for health savings accounts and just save your money. And when you need medical care, just pay for it. And that's, that's not going to work either.
Sarah Zabel: And again, both of those, those ends are still are just looking at insurance. About 6 or 7 years ago, um, a major study looked at the costs of health care in all different areas. And they said that about 20% of what Americans pay for health care is waste. We're talking about unnecessary procedures. We're talking about administrative complexity where people are just given spending all their time and on a basically a run around and we're hiring staff to do a run around. Um, it's a lack of competition that has grown up, like when hospitals buy up physician services and buy up assisted living facilities, and then they only give admitting privileges to the physicians who work for them. So they really stifle the competition. So there's a bunch of different areas where there's just so much waste. Like I said, about 20% of what Americans pay for health care, including what the government pays for health care, is waste. We need to attack each of those areas and bring them down while we're bringing those costs down. Yeah, we need to support our rural hospitals. We need to support. I favor you remember the expanded health care subsidies. We need to pay those. Until we bring those costs down, we need to cover the expanded health care subsidies so that people can afford the can afford insurance.
Gemma Gaudette: Before I let you go, one more question. And it's this. You're asking voters in a very Or Republican district. Take a chance on someone you know who doesn't belong to either of the two major parties. What's your argument to a voter who may agree with some of your positions? But but, you know, might be concerned that an independent won't have as much influence in Congress.
Sarah Zabel: Oh, so I think that the major influence I would have in Congress is as being an independent as being not them, whichever the them is, it's not one of them. The others. I see Congress right now as absolutely paralyzed because the parties have such control over their people. They will not let them do what they know is the right thing. When you look at our representation, our representation right now at both with Congress and at the senatorial level, I think that our senators and our representatives are are voting against their better judgment in order to toe the party line. We cannot continue that way. I think the independent, someone who goes in with with programs like Social Security. So Social Security when that six years when the trust fund runs out, we have almost 400,000 Idahoans who will be immediately affected around the country. All of the representatives are hearing from so many of their people that that they will be affected. They want it to be fixed. They want it to be fixed smartly. And right now, the representatives, they're not allowed to work with the other side. So I think my major influence is not being the other side, giving them a way so that the people, the representatives who actually want to do their jobs. And I think that's most of them. They have a way to rally behind somebody and not be giving the other side a victory. And I think that that's what will actually plow through and make the big changes that our country desperately needs and Idaho desperately needs.
Gemma Gaudette: Sarah, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today.
Sarah Zabel: Thank you.
Gemma Gaudette: We've been talking with Sarah Zabel. She is an independent running for the first Congressional District seat here in Idaho.
