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TMCNet: 1st District forum hits deficit, taxes [News & Messenger, Manassas, Va.]

[September 07, 2010]

1st District forum hits deficit, taxes [News & Messenger, Manassas, Va.]

(Manassas Journal Messenger (Woodbridge, VA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 04--PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. -- Audience questions about spending, partisanship and big government dominated a forum with Rep. Robert J. "Rob" Wittman, R-1st, and Krystal Ball, the Democratic candidate running against him.


Ball and Wittman seemed to agree on the partisanship that currently plagues Congress had to go.

"There seems to be an absolute triumph of politics over policy, and an idea that comes from the other side of the aisle is automatically not a good idea," the 28-year-old Ball said at the forum in Stafford County hosted by the Falls Run Chapter of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association. "At the end of the day, it's who's got the best solution, the best way to approach the problem." Wittman, who was first elected in a 2007 special election to replace the late Jo Ann Davis and was reelected to his first full term in 2008, said good ideas can come from anywhere.

"Great ideas don't have a party label. Great ideas come from both sides of the aisle. It's up to us to collect those ideas, put them together and make sure we solve the problems this nation faces," he said."The way to get things done is to be able to work with others. You've got to understand where they're coming from, where you have things in common and be able to work along those common lines." A point of disagreement between the two came over the Bush tax cuts.

Wittman said to extend them. Ball would let them expire.

Wittman said the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office recommends that the cuts remain in effect.

"We need to continue to extend the '01 and '03 tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office says what that will do to growth in GDP [Gross Domestic Product]. I think those things are critical. We want to make sure that we're not taking dollars away from those folks who that are small businesses," the 51-year-old Wittman said.

Ball said letting the tax cuts expire is a good place to start balancing the budget deficit.

"The one place that I would recover money in the budget is to allow the Bush tax cuts for the top one percent to expire," said Ball, who started an educational software company with her husband.

The two candidates were also in line on their opinions of the Tea Party.

"We disagree on some important issues, but they're citizens of this district," said Ball, who majored in economics and foreign affairs at University of Virginia. "I respect the fact and admire the fact that these are people who saw something they didn't like and they decided not to take it, but to stand up and get involved and do something." Wittman who has served on the Montross Town Council, the Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors and also served a year in the Virginia House of Delegates said the Tea Party activists are doing a service for the country.

"I think the Tea Parties have served a wonderful purpose and for many folks have awakened them to what's going on with their government and engaged them and gotten them interested," said Wittman who commutes daily between Washington and his home in Montross.

In her opening statement Ball said that she wouldn't be taking money from the political action committees, or from the Democratic Party leadership.

"I really want to make sure that when I'm in Washington, the people that I'm loyal to, the people that I'm accountable to, are the people in this room, the people of the 1st District of Virginia,"said Ball, who lives in Fredericksburg with her husband and daughter.

Ball also said that if she is elected she would institute lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress.

She would also try and change the way earmarks are attached to bills.

"The way we fund earmarks right now is based on partisanship, politics, power, seniority and plain old trickery, on who's best at sliding what into the bill," she said. "That's not the way it should be done." "It's a small piece of the pie but that's where it starts. It's such a symbol of what's wrong with Washington," Ball said of cutting earmarks.

In his opening statement, Wittman said that Congress needs to look at Social Security and Medicare and that the public needs to be involved in decisions about those entitlements.

"I want to make sure that the discussion takes place in a way that doesn't go to the point of saying 'Hey let's use scare tactics.' I want to make sure we're talking about laying out all of the provisions of the problem on the table," Wittman said.

"I think it's time that we as a Congress have a heart-to-heart discussion with the American people and say 'Here's the predicament we're in and here are the options that we lay out on the table to solve the problem.'" Wittman also talked about spending and said that something had to done now to overcome the $13 { trillion budget deficit, because in only five years it will take $900 billion annually just to pay the interest on the national debt.

"We have got to get spending under control and we've got to do that immediately if we hope to have a sustainable federal budget," he said. "We know that the current rate of spending in Washington is out of control." One way Ball said she would cut the budget would be to create a bipartisan committee to recommend cuts and then have Congress vote on them with an up-or-down vote.

"One thing that I really support... is really trying to remove the process of cuts from the political process," she said.

Both candidates refused to lay blame for the state of the economy.

"We can play the blame game all day long, but what really matters is coming together and trying to make the next right decision. That's the bottom line," Ball said.

Wittman said he supports a constitutional amendment that would require that the federal government balance the budget.

"States have to balance their budgets. Localities have to balance their budgets. You have to balance your budgets. There's no reason why Washington shouldn't have to do the same," he said "We have a $13 { trillion deficit. No matter how we got there, it's there. We have got to solve it," Wittman said.

Wittman and Ball both said that manufacturing had to be brought back to the country if the economy was to get better.

Ball would concentrate on green jobs and cut the highest level of corporate income tax from 38 percent to 12.5 percent.

Wittman would restructure taxes to make sure that the United States can compete with other countries with lower tax rates, and he would extend the research and development tax credit and eliminate business taxes for the first two years after a business get started.

"I'm not in any way in favor of rescinding or environmental protections or worker protections, but we want to make sure that as we trade with other countries that again we are there on a level playing field," he said. "We need to get back to making things here." Ball and Wittman agreed to meet again in other forums and debates.

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