BDN Connection - Congressional Candidates Debate in Beloit

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BDN Connection - Congressional Candidates Debate in Beloit

Candidates for Wisconsin's 2nd Congressional District answered 12 questions touching on government spending, health care and the war in Iraq during a debate Tuesday at Beloit College.

Incumbent Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, has held the congressional seat since 1998.

Her challenger, Peter Theron, R-Madison, is a college math professor who has taught at Beloit College and in the University of Wisconsin system. He has also worked with private companies so, he said, he understands how tough it is for them to remain competitive.

The event was jointly sponsored by the Beloit Daily News, Beloit College and the Greater Beloit Chamber of Commerce.

Theron, who favors cutting taxes and decreasing federal regulations, said government spending will not be the answer to many of the issues facing the nation. He would like to see expenditures cut across the board and for Congress to remove earmarks. By having Congress give up their goodies, he said, it can ask its people to give up some of theirs.

Baldwin wants the legislators to follow pay-as-you-go rules, which she said was followed after the last election, but not this past session. Responsibly re-deploying the armed forces from the war in Iraq would also save the country $10 billion a month, she said.

"It is time to bring them home," Baldwin said. Noting the fall of Saddam Hussein and the creation of an Iraqi constitution, she added, "We have achieved victory."

Theron disagreed.

"The amount of money we're spending in Iraq pales to the amount we'd have to spend on the next 9/11," he said.

Investing in education is important because the nation will need smart people to help the country achieve energy independence and heal the poor economy, Baldwin said. To decrease the debt many college students accrue, Baldwin said the federal government needs to increase the Pell Grant and needs to consider reducing the interest rate for certain types of student loans.

Theron said the problem lies with government grants and loans because the availability of financial aid encourages college administrators to raise tuition.

"College grants, college loans are going to need to be cut in the next session," Theron said.

Theron called Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid "ticking time bombs" that need to be reformed from the bottom-up. Federal interference raises health care costs, he said. But, he added, going for the cheap option may compromise medical quality and availability - situations he said has happened in other countries.

"For us to move forward with health care, state mandates - state anything - is going to get us to a Canadian or Cuban or French system worse than ours," Theron said. "That's not acceptable."

He would rather individuals have medical savings accounts that would give people control over their health care spending.

"We know we can do better in health care," Baldwin said. "We don't have A+ or even B+ in the United States."

She said universal health care is needed and states should have opportunities to earn incentives by trying to reform their systems. Baldwin also noted reimbursements for Medicare should be examined throughout the country because the payments are not equally distributed for the same procedure.

The candidates are set to debate at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Brogden Psychology Building Room 113 at the UW-Madison campus, 1202 W. Johnson St.

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