Congressman Carol Shea Porter and former Congressman Jeb Bradley squared off today in their first debate of this election.
The two First District candidates fought over their respective records in Congress, and over what they’d do to fix the problems now bedeviling the nation.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s David Darman has more.
Both candidates used the debate sponsored by the New Hampshire chapter of AARP as a springboard to attack their opponent.
Former Congressman Jeb Bradley, a Republican, wasted little time in blaming Democrats like Congressman Carol Shea Porter for the problems that have shaken up the state and the nation.
Under this congress we’ve seen the unemployment soar, we’ve seen the largest deficits in our nation’s history, and we have Congress, the Democratic leaders in Congress having voted for the largest tax increase in our nation’s history. That is not how we’re going to get our economy back on track.
Congressman Carol Shea Porter said the seeds of the financial meltdown were planted when Republicans controlled the White House, and Congress.
What happened was a financial wild west for eight years where there was no regulation and there was no control at all. And this happened under the bush administration and I would point out that Mr Bradley was in office during four of those years.
This back and forth blame game went on for most of the hour the two candidates debated.
And perhaps the biggest round of finger pointing came when charges and countercharges flew over taxes.
Here’s former Congressman Bradley accusing his opponent of raising taxes.
You voted for tax increases in the farm bill.
You voted for tax increases in multiple energy bills. You have voted for tax increases in health care bills, tax increases in involved in increases in the alternative minimum tax. You have voted time and time again for tax increases to say nothing of the budget you voted for that would get rid of the tax cuts that I supported that created 8 million jobs.
Bradley also accuses Congressman Shea Porter of voting to restore the marriage tax penalty to the nation’s tax code.
For her part, Shea Porter would let nothing slide on taxes when she had a chance to refute her opponent’s charges.
I have not in any put a marriage penalty tax. That was taken care in our budget. There will not be a marriage penalty tax. When you’re talking about all these tax things, its just not true. What is true is because the top one percent didn’t have to pay their fair share what we wound up with were the greatest deficits in history.
The tone of the debate hardly changed even when both candidates were invited to take on a more bipartisan spirit.
The charges didn’t stop even when they agreed on an issue.
The AARP audience was clearly interested in what the candidates would do to fix social security.
Both candidates said they did not support President Bush’s proposal to give participants an option to privatize part of their social security accounts.
But Congressman Carol Shea Porter did offer a fix to the Social Security program that has been floated in Washington before.
I think what we have to do first of all is raise the cap. People who make 40 thousand dollars pay on every single dollar. And after one hundred and two thousand dollars people don’t pay anymore. I’m the member here from the middle class. I understand the impact that has and I think we need to raise the cap to make sure that its safe.
Former Congressman Jeb Bradley said he didn’t support raising the cap, because he thought it would unfairly penalize small businesses.
Bradley was clearly more satisfied with another program that benefits seniors, the medicare drug benefit that passed while he was in Congress.
At least among people I talk to, there’s a lot of satisfaction with the medicare drug benefit. Are there some things that we could do differently to maybe improve it? Absolutely. But you know what, it was a step forward in the right direction….
Carol Shea Porter said she thought Congress had failed to fully empower the Medicare program to make drugs cheaper when the law was passed in 2006.
She said Bradley and the Republicans made sure the new law had no real chance of bringing down drug costs.
Medicare was blocked from negotiating the price for prescription drugs. The VA negotiates. Your insurance company negotiates. You can bet they negotiate. The military negotiates the price of prescription drugs but they voted to make sure Medicare couldn’t. and what has been the result? Drug prices have shot up.
The candidates also argued over energy, including the need for additional oil drilling, and coming up with alternative energy sources.
And they argued about another round of stimulus checks, which Shea Porter supports, and Bradley opposes.
Both candidates did say several times that they would seek bipartisan solutions to the nation’s problems if sent back to Congress.
But throughout the debate, that bipartisan spirit was clearly missing.
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