Free Lance-Star - First District Congressional Hopefuls Meet in Fredericksburg

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By Vanessa Remmers

It wasn't hard for the three candidates vying for the 1st Congressional District seat to agree on the major problems facing the country. But they were mostly split on how to solve them.

Republican incumbent Rob Wittman, Democratic challenger Norm Mosher and Independent Green Party candidate Gail Parker laid out their solutions before a crowd of about 100 at a debate at the University of Mary Washington on Monday.

All three concentrated on different solutions to dealing with the federal deficit and spurring jobs in the region.

Wittman said that there have been good attempts to balance the federal budget, but they have gone the wrong way of accomplishing it, particularly those cutting military spending.

"I don't want to see us balance the budget on the backs of our military," Wittman said.

Instead, Wittman said Congress should look at the government's discretionary and non-discretionary spending, and the duplication of government programs.

The former Virginia Department of Health employee said that he knows the health department had 42 programs for food inspections and that it has been estimated that Congress could save $30 billion annually just by cutting duplicate programs. Wittman also said that there should be a sense of urgency to fix Social Security and Medicare, which are paying out more than what is being put in.

Mosher, the owner of a consulting firm specializing in ocean research and shipbuilding, said that job creation should rely on rebuilding the country's crumbling infrastructure and to creating projects paying attention to climate change.

"Climate change is real, it's here," Mosher said.

He parted from Wittman on the issue of Social Security and Medicare by saying those programs didn't need to be on the table, but they need to be managed.

For Parker, the solution to economic problems was the same as her solutions to many of the other issues brought up during the debate: building rail and using renewable sources of energy. Building rail would grow the economy, bring in more revenue and create more jobs, Parker said.

The three differed on spurring job growth.

Parker said that the country should invest in renewable sources of energy. In Virginia, there are more jobs in solar energy than there are in coal, she said.

Wittman called for workforce development, looking at the students who need credentials for their jobs, and leveraging technology to create jobs and making higher education more affordable. Rather than raising the minimum wage, Wittman again turned to workforce development, saying that 60 percent of the jobs will require credentials, not a college degree.

Mosher, on the other hand, said that raising the minimum wage would have no effect on unemployment.

He said he has a plan to change the fact that half of all recent graduates were defaulting on their student loans, while the federal government collected $51 billion in interest on student loans.

"I don't think the government should be in that business," Mosher said.

Parker said that her party is in favor of a livable wage.

The major party candidates agreed that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is a dangerous group, but disagreed on how the United States has responded.

Calling ISIS as barbaric and treacherous a group he has ever seen, Wittman said that he believes the president needed authorization from Congress and a declaration of war. And that instead of the whack-a-mole strategy the country has taken to terrorist groups so far, Wittman called for an across-the-board strategy. Wittman serves on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.

Mosher said that what the president has done so far is enough without needing further authorization from Congress. But, he added, ISIS wouldn't exist if the United States hadn't invaded Iraq.

"We are paying for some sins, I think," Mosher said.

Parker said that the United States wouldn't feel the need to go to war to protect its oil interests if the country invested in more rail.

The candidates also pitched different solutions to keeping the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which provides states billions of dollars for road projects, solvent. Congress recently passed a stopgap measure to keep the fund, which had been depleting for months, going until May 2015. Wittman called for loosening federal regulations and focusing on the cost of passengers per mile.

Mosher, who lives in Irvington, said he wouldn't be a commuter congressman like Wittman, who travels to his home in Montross nightly. He also said the country needs more mass transit.

The debate was sponsored by the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce, The Free Lance--Star, UMW Young Democrats, UMW College Republicans, The Blue and Gray Press and the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at UMW.

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