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The Syracuse.com/Post-Standard/Siena College poll released last week found strong support among 24th Congressional District voters for a trio of proposals, including comprehensive immigration reform and raising the minimum wage.

The poll also revealed that a plurality of voters nearly half in the 24th District support repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. And when asked what's the number one issue they want their member of Congress to work on in Washington, 36 percent of voters said jobs.

After the poll's release, Republican congressional candidate John Katko discussed some of the key findings and his positions on a few of the issues included in the survey.

Here's the edited Q&A with Katko:

QUESTION: According to the Siena poll released last week, the top issue for voters in the 24th Congressional District is jobs. If elected, how would you address this issue as a member of Congress?

KATKO: Jobs are key. It's funny. I think Maffei takes a poll before he eats breakfast in the morning to figure out what he's going to say. He has almost like a Pavlovian response to any question where he happens to mention the middle class. But the bottom line is jobs are critical to this area. It's important. Four of the last six years, Maffei has been in office and two of those years, he had a Democratic House, president and Senate. And he really accomplished nothing with respect to jobs in central New York.

One of the key sectors that is lacking here, which was kind of a cornerstone, was manufacturing. And manufacturing continues to decline. As you know, there's 300 manufacturing jobs leaving Auburn in January. The beat goes on. They don't want to recognize what the real issue is and that is we need to make it more affordable for businesses to be here. It's not because I have any interest in making businessmen rich. I don't. It's a byproduct of what we want to do and that is put people back to work here, meaningful jobs.

I talk to manufacturers across this district again and again and again. They're not looking for handouts or some sweet deals. They just want the playing field leveled on the international scene. They say you level the playing field and get out of the way, we'll take care of the rest and we'll do a great job and we're going to hire a lot of people. I think getting the manufacturing sector back to work here is key. I don't for a second believe that manufacturing is dead here. In fact, I think it's ripe to grow because you've got a lot of innovation here. You got a lot of people that want to compete and trying to compete. And some of them are competing OK, despite the odds. Can you imagine how good they could be if we can help level the playing field internationally for them?

I don't want to hear any more stories about Burger King going to Canada or Pfizer going overseas. I want to hear stories about them coming back here. I want to hear stories about them excited to come back home. We want to bring them home and I think we're all going to benefit from that. You don't hear that from the other side. You just hear a lot of rhetoric and a lot of attack.

One of the things that drives me nuts: I have never once said anything about tax breaks for billionaires. I have no idea what the heck they are talking about. I have never mentioned that and I have no intention of doing that. As a matter of fact, my tax proposal to lower the tax rate for businesses, especially manufacturers and small businesses, would be coupled with closing the loopholes so some corporations would pay a heck of a lot more taxes than they are currently paying. For example, General Electric. That's only fair. We want to keep it fair among individuals. The way I envision tax code reform is I want the person on the second shift to be more important to a corporation than a good tax accountant or a good tax lawyer. I think right now it's the other way around. We need to get back to that point where the biggest concern they have is how many people they can hire and how many people they can train for these jobs. I honestly believe, in the bottom of my heart, we can do that.

Go here to see the original:
Q&A: Where John Katko stands on Obamacare, immigration reform and other issues