Who Is Paul Rancatore

A native of Waltham, Massachusetts, Paul Rancatore is a tenacious leader who has successfully demonstrated the ability to operate in all types of dynamic environments, including the Department of Defense and Congress.

Mr. Rancatore has an extensive Air Force and Commercial aviation background. He retired as an Air Force Reserve Officer serving at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's National Security and Space Office. He is the former Director for Commercialization of Human Space Flight. Mr. Rancatore was responsible for fostering collaboration and partnership with this nascent industry, and has been instrumental in sponsoring future concepts that will transform space access and protection, force projection, and a new advanced energy storage capability. All of these future concepts could have a transformational effect throughout the world. Mr. Rancatore was Assistant Chief for Space Science Research and developed the framework for the creation of the National Center of Excellence for Energy Neutrality. 

Mr. Rancatore joined the Air Force as an enlisted man and became a highly decorated military officer and aviator. Mr. Rancatore’s aviation background dates back to flying light airplanes as a teenager in and around the Alaskan mountain ranges. His Air Force pilot career started after he was selected from a national board to attend Air Force pilot training for the Air Force Reserve. Mr. Rancatore has flown numerous types of military and civilian jet aircraft. He has extensive operational experience in Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe, Middle East, Russia and South America.

Mr. Rancatore is credited with saving the lives of his crew and passengers by successfully landing a severely crippled C -141B aircraft after an explosive depressurization at 37,000 feet.

Mr. Rancatore is a Captain for American Airlines and has been involved in many elements of flight operations, training, and management, to include developing the framework for the strategic alliance between American and British Airways. His experience extends across the entire fleet of aircraft: A300-600R, A319/320/321, B727, 737, 757, 767, 777, F100, MD-11 & MD-80.

Mr. Rancatore is one of the founders of i-Tex Wireless, Inc. The company patented a new disruptive communications technology for airlines and airports.

Mr. Rancatore is also President and Co-Founder of 2RHealth, Inc.  – the creators of Zumanna. A great tasting, highly nutritious, vegan, non-gmo bakery mix and food. 2RHeath also develops and implements educational material and programs in the areas of health, nutrition, and performance. The company’s main focus is improving the health and nutrition of children and adolescents around the world. 2R Health is working with the North Texas Food Bank/Feeding America to provide Zumanna to the 47 million Americans that are dependent on their area food banks for a portion or all of their nourishment. 

Education

Mr. Rancatore holds a B.A. from The Citadel and an M.A. from The University of Texas at Dallas. He is a graduate of the Air War College, Air Command and Staff College, and National Security and Space Institute Executive Program.

Work Experience

• Director, Commercialization of Human Space Flight, National Security and Space Office, Pentagon
• Assistant Chief, Space Science Research, National Security and Space Office, Pentagon
• President and Co-Founder, 2R Health, Inc.
• Founding Partner, i-Tex Wireless
• Former voting member, Department of Homeland Security Aviation Security Advisory Committee
• Former member, Transportation Security Administrations working group for Air Cargo Security

Environment

As a captain for American Airlines, I have a great opportunity to see the effects of mankind on our planet. Unfortunately, some of these are not good. At 40,000 feet I see the pollution that permeates the horizon and I can only assume that this has a negative effect on all of us.

We all want clean air, clean water, and clean food. As the richest nation on Earth there is no reason why we should have anything less.

It is of great concern to me that in 2016 we still have some individuals and companies that are intentionally polluting our environment. We all understand an unintentional act but when it is intentional and blatant, enforcement and penalty must be swift and harsh. 

As the global leader, our country has a unique position in the world. At times, leaders make decisions that may not be popular but serve the best interests of its people and the planet.
It is our duty to ensure our planet is safe, secure and sustainable for generations to come; otherwise we will have failed humanity.

Energy

I see energy as a leverage issue. If we get that policy right, it will help solve several other very big challenges this country faces.

By now we are all painfully aware of the dangers of reliance on foreign oil. Driven by our need for oil, U.S. energy policy has led to military ventures that have proven costly in both our blood and treasure. Take away the subsidies that the oil companies receives in terms of tax breaks, then factor in the cost of Middle East military action and government handouts, and the cost of gasoline would certainly be a lot higher. But maybe we need to experience that real cost to push us to real independence.  

I believe it’s time to direct our American ingenuity and creativity toward weaning ourselves off oil. We need policies that encourage and incentivize new energy sources and technologies. American energy companies have made huge break-throughs in natural gas exploration that have brought the cost of this clean burning fuel to historically low prices. The U.S. solar industry is on the rise and entrepreneurial “smart” technology is revolutionizing energy conservation in homes and businesses. We need policies that encourage this kind of creative business thinking. Let’s not continue to prop up a system that leads to costly wars and environmental damage. I’m not saying create more rules, regulations, and policy, I’m saying focus on the right policy that enables free market ingenuity to come up with solutions, creating new industries and new jobs in the process. 

There is no one panacea; a realistic energy plan is a combination of energy solutions, many of which are regionally specific. 

There are several things we can do in the short term to lead us to energy independence, reduce emissions, and increase marketplace efficiency.

1. Smartly develop and produce energy with our own vast natural resources. 
2. Convert all commercial vehicles to burn natural gas.
3. Reduce fuel formulations from 12 to 1.
4. Update and develop new nuclear power facilities.
5. Improve CAFE standards 

There is a lot of debate surrounding the Keystone Pipeline. This 2,500-mile pipeline will add to the existing 2.5 million miles of pipeline stretching across America. In fact, additional pipelines will be built in the future to eliminate the transport of fuel on railroads. I believe Keystone is not about fossil fuels vs. alternative energy. It's about where we as a country want to source our fuel. Do we want to rely on our own resources or the Middle East's? Why not support our number one trading partner and neighbor: Canada? 

This oil is coming to market one way or another, so why not be smart and follow the recommendations from the State Department, the States involved, and the workers who need the jobs? Do I believe that we have the ability to reduce our long-term fossil fuel needs? Yes I do. 

Presently, we consume between 8 to 9 million barrels of oil a day. Fossil and liquid fuels are primarily used for transportation. Until we change this we are totally dependent on oil. 

We need a strategy that plans for the future and takes care of our short and mid term needs. We cannot expect our country to rely on alternative energy when the solutions are either not yet available, insufficient, or completely non-existent.

The absence of a plan is not option!

Education

K12

Several years ago, I spoke at a town hall meeting on education. One of the attendees was a retired gentleman who told the audience that he did not believe he should be paying school taxes because he did not have any kids in school. I replied that using that logic I should not pay taxes for the fire department because I do not have any fires at my house.

I can guarantee you, that the day you are laying on a gurney in the hospital emergency room, you will be praying that the doctor looking over you is the most educated and experienced in the world. Paying taxes to help develop the next generation of leaders is an investment we all benefit from.

Education is the foundation of any successful economy and nation. It is deeply troubling that we have an educational system where we spend several times more per student than any other nation in the world but fail to rank in the top 20 in science and math. What are we doing wrong? Are we failing to learn from history?

I believe we have placed our K-12 teachers into a difficult, if not failed system with unrealistic goals. First, today’s teachers are now placed into an environment where they have to be a day care worker, policeman, nurse, and more, plus being a teacher. Teachers today no longer have the freedom to actually teach based on their students capabilities and learn problem solving, but instead are teaching kids to be test takers. This system of teaching tests is not helping anyone or our country. The problem with our K-12 educational system is not the teachers it’s the system. The system has become so political (Common Core) that all we are doing is teaching mediocrity.

I believe two things need to change. First, parents need to have greater participation in their child’s education. Schools are not a dumping ground, they are centers of learning, and parents cannot abdicate their parental duties to teachers. It is a parent’s responsibility, not the schools that your children arrive to school prepared to learn and study. Second, teachers need the freedom to teach their students problem solving not test taking. Forcefully promoting a system that is politically based, opposed to educationally based helps no one. Allow each State to develop their own set of criteria and allow the parents to choose the system that bests fits their children.

College/University Education

College student loan debt is over $1 trillion and it appears that the taxpayer’s will forced to pay for it. The cost of education has sky rocketed (over 2,000% in some cases). This is no coincidence, considering this began as the government got more involved in providing funding for higher education. As the government provided more and more assistance, colleges and universities raised their administration costs. 

I believe a better model exists if we are honest. Students are free to pursue a degree in any area they want. But they have to realize that not every field of study is going to result in a job after graduation. False expectations hurts no one more than the family and the student that has made tremendous sacrifices to attend college, only to find themselves on the unemployment line and in debt.

Schools need to realize that if they are going accept federal subsidies via student loan programs then they have a responsibility to produce a graduate that has a job waiting for them after graduation. Failure to do so results in a reimbursement to the taxpayer.

It would behoove educational institutions to join with businesses to produce graduates that meet the needs of today’s society.

A true innovative solution would be to have a marketplace where students and investors could join together, where an investor could provide a loan to the student for a pay back from future earnings. 

Healthcare

America has the best-trained nurses and doctors in the world. We have the best-equipped, highest tech hospitals in the world. How can it be that our system is ranked 37th by the World Health Organization? Clearly we have a problem delivering effective health care to the people that need it most in this country.

Costs keep rising and we are not seeing any improvement when it comes to keeping people healthy. This suggests a model for delivering care that is unsustainable. We will never have enough money to pay for the increasing numbers of the chronically ill and a rapidly aging population of baby boomers.

We need to radically rethink the way we deliver health care in America. Rather than focusing on treating sickness we need to start building a system based on promoting wellness and prevention. 

Will Obamacare help in this regard? Absolutely not! It just adds to the enormous costs we all have to bare.  Before Obamacare, 90% of American’s had health insurance and 10% did not. The solution to the problem would have been to provide insurance to the 10% that did not have it, it was not to have the government take over the entire healthcare industry. 

Presently we have 6 million and more that have lost their coverage to help 3 million get coverage. Once the employer mandate exemption expires, tens of millions will lose their coverage and their doctors. It will be more expensive, less accessible, and lower quality. Toby Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, says that three quarters of all Obamacare enrollees will have a premium increase. 

If the law was truly beneficial why did the President grant Congress the ability to exempt themselves, their staffs, and their families from the law? Why did he lie to Americans when he said we could keep our doctor and our existing plan if we liked it, knowing it wasn’t true? Why did he grant over 1,600 exemptions to his favored political allies, and why is he constantly changing the law without Congressional consent? 

The answer: it was never about providing coverage to the 10% that didn’t have it; it was about control and power over the entire healthcare industry. Why else would you need over 22,000 pages of rules and regulations?

Solutions for all Americans 

Obamacare must be repealed because it is suffocating business, health care and the economy. If however, it is not, we must reform it. The government does not have a good track record when it comes to healthcare; just look at the problems with Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veteran’s hospital. My goal is to provide accessibility and affordability to those who did not have it before the law was passed, and allow those who did to keep their existing doctor and plan.  

I believe there has to be a fundamental change to achieve a better partnership between the healthcare system and the individual. We need a system that is focused on preventing a disease by treating your body responsibly. In the long term it is less costly to prevent a disease, and true prevention is not early detection. Although what we provide now under preventive healthcare is valuable (mammograms, cholesterol screening, etc.), it is not prevention. What we need is early preventive measures that will support longterm health (not smoking, not becoming obese etc.) and will help Americans avoid the behaviors that lead to illness and disease. 

As your Congressman, I will not exempt myself from Obamacare. I will accept for my staff and myself the worst healthcare plan that is forced on America. 

Jobs & Economy

Hope is not a strategy, action is!

There are many important issues facing our Country. I believe the most important is jobs. Today we have 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed. Real wages have not improved and the jobs that have been created are not quality full time positions. Labor participation rate is the lowest in 38 years. At the same time, the cost of basic necessities like food and gas have quadrupled, placing tremendous strain on the poor and middle class. Predictably, the recession hasn't ended for the majority of Americans because Congress and the President have repeated the same mistakes of the 1920s, 30s, and 70s. Their policies have ruined millions of lives, especially the retired and elderly. The only true benefactors of our recent Presidents' (Bush and Obama) plan of printing money have been the banks and the federal government. So it comes as no surprise that their results have placed millions of Americans into misery, and we are losing out on thousands of opportunities. 

I believe there are a several things we can do to help Americans find jobs if we just balanced the needs of business with the needs of society. 

1. Allow corporations the ability to repatriate their offshore earnings without double taxation, and reduce the corporate tax rate to 10%.
2. Reform the tax code, which is approximately 76,000 pages. Why does the government force jobs overseas when a simple reform of the tax code would eliminate businesses' need to move offshore? Allowing companies to use legal cash-rich stock split-offs (Warren Buffet) and inversions hurts the very people government is saying they want to help. These legal provisions take away billions of tax revenue for cities, states, and federal government.
3. Eliminate all corporate subsidies. This eliminates corporate welfare and levels the playing field for all companies: Big and Small.
4. With the added revenue from implementing the above, our economy will grow and therefore provide us the ability to make investments in infrastructure, capital, equipment, and software.
5. Congress must stop unnecessary and controlling regulations on all of society. This is paralyzing companies' ability to plan. Without certainty on rules and regulations, companies will withhold spending and hiring. The end result is continued high unemployment and low labor participation rates.  For every new rule or regulation, the Congressional budget office must perform a tax incidence analysis. If the analysis reveals it adversely affects the poor, the new rule or regulation will not be able to proceed for a vote in Congress or be implemented by Executive order.
6. Eliminate the personal income tax and replace with a tax on consumption and wealth (Buffet Rule).
7. Renew bonus depreciation.

Appeasement equals death

What is America’s foreign policy under the Obama Administration and what does the President consider is our “national strategic interests”? 

At what point will life trump politics? When there is the possibility of loss of life, some loss of life, massacre or total extermination?

The continuing massacre of Christians in Iraq and Syria has reached a level that even the United Nations claims is a humanitarian crisis. So what does America do? We airdrop supplies to fleeing Christians on a mountain top and wish them well as they are tracked downed by Islamic extremists and beheaded. As for the world, they just sit and watch as the world’s oldest Christian communities and followers are exterminated with no end in sight. Is this 2014?

Students of history know that if you fail to learn it, you are doomed to repeat it! The events in Iraq and the entire Middle East are a direct result of American leadership not learning from history and now we are repeating it!

Whether you were for the war in Afghanistan and/or Iraq or not, history is clear, once you have made the commitment to go to war you don’t leave until peace and security have been firmly established and our national interests are protected. In many cases, America has never left (Europe, Japan, South Korea) because we serve as a stabilizer for the region. 

Instead of recognizing the reality of the world, that evil does exist and that if not for American leadership the world will descend into chaos. President Obama and his administration have undertaken the same philosophy of appeasement and accommodation that led to Hitler’s success and the death of 60 million people. It's time for the President to see the way the world really is, not the way he wants it to be!

I understand that we are a war torn nation having lost thousands of lives, tens of thousands disabled and injured, families and communities sacrificing and trillions of dollars of taxpayer money spent. All of this sacrifice did bring stability and a degree of peace to these areas and that’s why the President should have established a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government. Because he did not, America is repeating the mistakes of history, which now has led to even greater carnage and the extermination of all non ISIS followers. This extermination is not limited to these areas, but will quickly flow across the globe.

The President made a political decision to leave Iraq and Afghanistan, not a strategic decision, and as a result, the area has descended into total chaos. The extermination is happening right now by ISIS and just witnessed by the beheading of American journalist James Foley. For those who don’t believe this is a problem, just wait until next year when we leave Afghanistan. If you ever believe a situation cannot get much worse, believe me it can, because if we do not fully engage with all our partners, America and the western world will be attacked with more voracity than 911.