First District Candidates Pack House, Debate Tough Issues

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Republican incumbent Rob Wittman and Democratic challenger Krystal Ball generally toed their respective party lines Wednesday evening at a candidates debate for the state’s First District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The moderated debate hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Williamsburg Area packed the house at the Williamsburg Regional Library Theater, with folks turned away as the venue reached capacity.

Independent Green Candidate Gail Parker was also at the debate, though she spent her response time generally stumping for her party’s main agendas: high speed rail and getting citizens to run for various offices. Most of her responses derailed into arguments for why the country should devote its time and resources on building high speed rail lines.

The questions both from the moderator and from the audience centered on hot-button issues, both timeless political themes including abortion, gun control, stem cell research and illegal immigration and more timely topics such as the country’s large deficit, the federal healthcare reform bill, unemployment, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, the environment and offshore drilling.

Ball and Wittman both seemed ready for each question with detailed and thoughtful answers that nearly each time followed their party platforms.

They agreed generally that green business and alternative energy were important to both the state and the nation, with Wittman tempering his support by adding that oil was still an important part of the nation’s energy production, and that he supports offshore drilling along with investment in green technology.

The two candidates also agreed that No Child Left Behind wasn’t working and the country should look for other options, though Wittman suggested states should have their own plans and Ball said she felt the nation could look for better ideas, and perhaps incentivize success by allowing students to choose which school they attend in some instances.

In her concluding remarks, Ball said she decided to run for Congress because she is a mother and wants to leave the world a better place for her children. She is frustrated with Washington, she said, which is too focused on party agendas and not on people’s best interests. She supports a good idea “no matter who it comes from,” which is a lesson she’s learned as a small business owner.

“You have to work with everyone,” Ball said.

She also stressed that she has received no money from corporations or Democratic Party leadership because she intends to represent the people in her district, not various interests.

Wittman’s closing remarks focused on the troubled economy. “Government can’t spend more than it takes in,” he said, and the country needs legislation to force a balanced budget (as is the case in Virginia).

Also, he argued that “the government needs to get out of the way of business” instead of trying to control it.

Like Ball, he said he feels that it’s important to “make sure we’re doing the job of the people. Doing what you all want.”

Federal Healthcare Bill

Ball said she supported the federal legislation passed earlier in the year. There was “a healthcare situation in this country where we needed to take action” and, though the bill isn’t perfect, she said it went a good way toward addressing issues like denial of preexisting conditions. It also helped extend coverage to groups that needed it, including young people who will now be covered longer under their parents’ plans.

She said one issue she had with the bill was some of the challenges faced by small businesses under the new law.

Wittman pointed out that he voted against the bill. He said he had talked to people in the district who had “deep concerns about this bill not driving down costs.” He said he wanted to make the system more efficient, drive down healthcare costs while still reforming a failing system.

Both Wittman and Ball called for torte reform, which would reduce or change laws regarding litigation against healthcare practitioners.

U.S. Involvement in Afghanistan

Wittman highlighted his various visits to the country, and said America needs to “look at the reality of what we can accomplish” in Afghanistan and hold decision-makers accountable for their actions.

He believes Congress should have declared war when the conflict began, but that first and foremost in his mind was supporting the troops currently there.

During his concluding remarks, Wittman said the country should emphasize having the strongest national defense possible during these dangerous times and that the U.S. “should never, ever apologize for being a superpower.”

Ball said Al-Qaeda’s threat was a “critical national security issue” and that the organization can’t be allowed to continue to operate. She also said, though, that the country cannot be involved in an open-ended conflict.

Republican ‘Pledge to America’, Troubled Economy and Unemployment

Wittman fully supports the Republican Party’s “Pledge to America,” which was recently unveiled (read the full text here and a non-partisan fact-checking-group’s analysis of it here).

The pledge includes a promise to continue Bush-era tax cuts, which Wittman fully supports. Increasing taxes doesn’t mean you’ll create jobs, he said, and he claimed that half of those who will be most hurt by repealing the cuts would be small businesses.

He said he wants Congress to consider whether a bill is constitutional before voting on it, a reference to the Healthcare bill and subsequent legal challenge by various states including Virginia. He got some applause from the audience for the comment.

Ball said it’s easy to rail against the deficit, but hard to fix it. She would love to give everyone a tax cut, she said, “but at this time it’s not responsible.” Ball also said the Bush-era cuts “are the least effective way to stimulate the economy” and the nation “can’t afford it.” Ball got applause, too.

Congress needs to balance the budget, Wittman said, and stop its out-of-control spending which has a “tremendous inhibitory effect.”

“Sometimes the best thing for Washington to do is get out of the way,” he said.

Keeping jobs in the country and giving companies incentives to do so is one suggestion Wittman had for fighting unemployment, a point which Ball agreed with.

Ball said she thinks recovery starts with small businesses, and they need some temporary tax cuts to incentivize hiring. Businesses also need credit, and banks need to be encouraged to lend to small businesses and not just large corporations.

Offshore Drilling and the Environment

Wittman promotes an “all of the above policy” in terms of energy production and consumption. He supports offshore drilling, but also investment in all the different energy sources including natural gas, wind and solar.

Wittman does not support cap-and-trade legislation. It hasn’t worked in Europe, he argued. Focusing on developing technology relating to all energy sources and improving efficiencies are better methods.

He suggested that the York County oil refinery that recently closed could be reconfigured to refine natural gas.

Ball said she believes alternative energy is where the future lies, not with fossil fuels. She supports cap-and-trade legislation as a method of combating climate change, but believes that encouraging green job creation is also important.

She absolutely does not support offshore drilling. Instead, she mentioned looking at other ideas like a new joint venture between Google and a New York firm to invest in a proposed $5 billion wind farm transmission line along many miles of the Atlantic seaboard (read a New York Times story about this here).

Illegal Immigration

Ball said the nation needs to secure its borders, but there’s no way to report all the immigrants who are currently in the country illegally. She argued that stopping businesses in the U.S. that recruit illegal immigrants is important.

Wittman agreed the borders should be secured but he also said immigration laws need to be enforced. Reforming guest worker laws to get temporary employees in the country to work and then exit at a set time and to make this a “more orderly process” would help the problem, he said.

The election will be held on November 2.