U.S. House candidates square off at WCU
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Cashiers, went head-to-head with Tom Hill, D-Zirconia, his challenger for the 11th District Congressional seat, in a debate last week at Western Carolina University. Open seats were sparse in the A.K. Hinds University Center’s auditorium as the candidates debated everything from income inequality to the Ukraine in a debate sponsored by the university’s Public Policy Institute and Department of Political Science and Public Affiars.
On priorities if elected
Meadows has introduced three bills in the last 18 months that passed the House of Representatives and is working on a fourth, a bill designed to exempt Habitat for Humanity homes from Dodd-Frank financial regulations.
“I’m hopeful that we move it through because the impact of that is homes being built for those that are really in need,” Meadows said.
Hill’s priorities would include closing offshore tax loopholes and introducing an immigration reform bill.
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“It’s very simple,” he said of his first priority, closing corporate tax loopholes. “You pass a law that says notwithstanding any change to the tax code you must pay taxes on the basis of where they make their money, not on the basis of where they call their home office.”
On income inequality
Income inequality is a real problem, Hill said, and the solution should include an increased minimum wage and higher taxes for corporations.
“I have no tolerance for people who say, ‘if you raise the minimum wage, there will this or that or the other’ — let’s raise it and see,” he said.
Meadows countered that, while he’s committed to working for an improved economy and job opportunity, minimum wage is not the way to do it because that tactic would mean employers hiring fewer people overall. Furthermore, the current benefits structure means that a person on the threshold of qualifying for social programs could lose just as much in aid as they would gain in wage.
“She doesn’t even realize the $3 an hour raise because much of that gets taken away with benefits that she loses,” Meadows said of a scenario in which a single mother works 40 hours per week for minimum wage.
On the debt ceiling
Raising the debt ceiling is dangerous and pointless, Meadows said, if Congress doesn’t have a plan to pay the debt off. Congress has a spending problem and no plan to get the country back on steady financial footing.
“We’ve gotta have a plan to balance because if not, we’re going to meet that point of no return,” he said.
Hill, on the other hand, believes the country has a revenue problem and that corporate loopholes are to blame for the hundreds of billions of dollars of federal deficit accrued each year.
“The way to make the budget balance is very simple,” he said. “You make corporations pay their taxes.”
On the shutdown
Meadows contested Hill’s allegation that he was the “architect” of the shutdown by saying that, while he wrote a letter arguing against funding the Affordable Care Act, he also didn’t think Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would allow the stalemate to go to a shutdown. And Meadows doesn’t buy the National Park Service’s assessment that the shutdown cost the region $33 million.
“If you go to the Department of Revenue website for October 2013 versus October of 2012, you will find that even during the government shutdown we had a $30 million increase,” he said.
On ISIS in the Middle East
The ISIS situation is our own fault, Meadows said, because we didn’t nip the problem in the bud.
“We could have gotten rid of them not more than 18 moths ago with 1,500 [soldiers],” he said. “You gotta deal with it today decisively, or we’re going to be dealing with it with the blood of our men and women in the future.”
Hill maintained America has a tendency to pick sides in the Middle East without really knowing whether it’s picked the good guys, as evidenced by our one-time support of the group that became the Taliban.
“We don’t know what we’re doing in the Middle East,” he said. “We need to get out of there. We need to give humanitarian aid to people who are fleeing form these wars. I will support going into Gaza and demilitarizing Gaza.”
On the Ukraine
The situation in the Ukraine is unfortunate, Hill said, but the United States is already spread too thin abroad and should not get involved. What the country should do is build a coalition with Russia to help with some of our other involvements.
“I would call up [Russian President Vladamir] Putin and say, ‘Would you like to take our place in Afghanistan? If you would we’ve got some equipment over there we can give to you,’” Hill said.
Meadows rejected that idea, calling Putin a “KGB guy” and said that instead the United States should go after Russia economically. Not with sanctions — by the production of cheap liquefied natural gas.
“If it gets down to $70 a barrel he has an economic problem and he withdraws,” Meadows said.
On fracking
Meadows said that fracking is a state issue, not a federal issue, but that cheaper energy is the key to giving working Americans a pay increase.
“We need to get gas prices down so that single moms and people on fixed incomes can have a pay increase. That’s a real pay increase,” he said.
Hill countered that much of the controversy surrounding fracking has to do with the industry’s exemption from key federal environmental laws.
“His [Meadows’] idea that it’s not a federal issue is nonsense,” Hill said. “It is a national issue, should have been solved at the national level and it was not.”
The candidates will continue to race onward to the Nov. 4 election. In the meantime, the full debate is online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7xZcGUVvWE. An expanded version of this article, covering the candidates’ positions on issues, including the Affordable Care Act and the police shooting in Ferguson, Mo., is available at www.smokymountainnews.com.
