Q&A With First Congressional District Candidate Anthony Figliola

The 1st Congressional District Candidate of New York, Anthony Figliola, wants his constituents to know that he’s not running for a fancy title and he’s not running for himself, but he’s running for them.

“The sub total of your life is not what you did as a kid or in your twenties,” Figliola told the Smithtown Chronicle. “It’s the culmination of your experiences in life. I want to take those life experiences that I’ve had, and I want to take that to Washington, and I want people to know it’s not Congressman Figliola. It’s Anthony that’s fighting for us.”

The son of two Navy veterans worked several odd jobs to support himself through high school and both undergrad and graduate school at Stony Brook University. He took his hardworking skills with him through the private sector and helped to create thousands of jobs.

Hear more about his experience with this Q&A with the Smithtown Chronicle ahead of the Aug. 23 primary elections. The general election will be on Nov. 8, 2022.

Q: Why do you love this district so much?

A: I was born and raised here. I grew up in Rocky Point. I love this district. I decided to stay here and raise my family in this district. I’m the only one of the three candidates that lives here and have children in the public schools and pay property taxes in this district.

Long Island is just an amazing place. I’ve had that opportunity to travel around the country and other parts of the world and there’s really no place like Long Island. We have on the North Shore the beautiful beaches and the rich history. Then as you go out east you have the vineyards and the farms, and you have fishing and things you can do on the water. You go to places like Riverhead, and we go to the museum a lot and the aquarium. It’s just such a beautiful place. You get so much rich history and culture and recreation, and I can’t imagine another place to live.

Q: How do you plan on raising wages on Long Island?

A: Congress does not have the ability to raise everyone’s wages, but they can do minimum wage. Here in New York, they have already raised minimum wage to $15. What I believe is important is giving small businesses – just mom and pop shops – some relief. One of the first things that I would do is to work towards Long Island being energy independent again. What that would do is lower costs immediately to these small businesses because everything is costing more right now and a lot of it has to do with the transportation costs. The transportation costs are because the gas prices are so high.

I talked to the ice cream man and they’re not going out as much because gas prices are so high, and moms and dads can only afford so much for an ice cream cone.

Q: How will you lower the cost of living?

A: What sets me apart from the other two candidates is that I don’t just talk about these things that need to be done to protect and save our country; I’ve done them in the private sector. So, when you talk about lowering taxes and making life more affordable, I’ve helped to pass laws that have allowed more affordable housing in places like New York City.

In Congress, some of the things we can do is – as I mentioned with the gas prices – is make us energy independent again. When we become energy independent again, we can cut the cost of fuel in half.

The second thing we can do when we talk about the cost of living, I want to be very involved in the transportation department. We need to lower taxes to put money back into people's pockets. What that will take is someone with a private sector mindset like myself who knows how to read a profit law statement unlike the other two candidates.

Q: How will you keep seniors on Long Island after retirement?

A: I’m the only one on this campaign trail talking about seniors. My kids have a grandfather and we don’t want to see him leave like what’s happening to a lot of seniors. When it comes to seniors, I rarely hear people talking about (them), but it will become something when I’m in Congress; I’m going to fight to tackle to find a way to solve the issue of social security dissolving in 10 to 15 years. So that more seniors won’t lose their social security and Medicare.

Our seniors have worked hard to leave us a great nation and we want to continue that. They deserve their Social Security and Medicare. They also deserve to be able to stay here and live here.

What that means is that we have to find ways to have affordable housing for our seniors. One way is for us to have more sewers. If we can create more sewers, I pledge to bring more sewer infrastructure to Suffolk County and to this district. It’s going to be able to allow developers to develop more senior housing for ages 55 and older. They would be able to do that because there are sewers that are available to build apartments or condominiums that are less expensive.

I’ve also pledged to bring money to the town of Smithtown to allow them to continue to sewer.

Q: How have you created jobs in the past? How do you plan on doing that in the future?

A: My training is in economic development. I went to Stony Brook University in undergraduate and graduate school. I received my training as an economic developer from the University of Oklahoma at their economic development institute. I care greatly about revitalizing communities. That is something that I have done throughout my career. I have helped to create over 10,000 jobs here in the state of New York and billions worth of private investments into communities.

One of the projects that I worked on is that I helped to keep Canon the camera company here on Long Island, in Melville, which is in my district. That created and retained 5,000 jobs here on Long Island. Great paying jobs. Six-figure salary jobs. That’s just some of the projects that I’ve worked on. As a member of Congress, that’s what I’m going to continue to do to help foster businesses to grow, help connect people with jobs, which I’ve done a lot of as an economic developer.

I want to be a facilitator to connect the private sector with citizens to help create jobs and revitalize our economy out here on Long Island.

Q: Why Anthony Figliola?

A: Why me is because I’m not a politician. I’m a regular working-class person like. I hear this puffed up talk that sounds like Chef Boy R D in a can that people don’t want to hear about. They just want to know how are you going to make my life better? How are you going to keep the government out of my life? So I can just live free of tyranny.

What I’ve done in my career is that I’ve loved this country, I’ve helped to create jobs. I’ve helped to beat back taxes for people. I’ve helped to make better quality of life by helping to create parks. I’ve worked and volunteered my time to help electrify the Port Jefferson rail line so that people can go to and from New York City faster.

I’ve worked in the pro-life movement. I’ve helped to help women create hope so that when they make that decision that they wanted to keep their child, that for the first two years that that child was alive, they had baby formula, and diapers and counselors and a support system so they can go back to school. Or do whatever they needed to do to help better their lives for them and their children.

These politicians always just talk. But what have you done? I’m the only candidate out of us that has been in this district that lives here, have children here, that has fought for better agendas at the schools, that has created jobs. This is my community.