Democrats Vying for Fifth Congressional District Debate in DuBois

Democratic candidates for the Fifth Congressional seat met at the DuBois Penn State for a debate Thursday night.

Present for the debate were Bill Cahir, Clearfield County Commissioner Mark B. McCracken and Loch Haven mayor Rick Vilello
The format of the debate was split between five sections: opening comments, questions by media mediators, questions by a moderator, questions by the audience and closing statements. The audience questions segment was spontaneously added as the debate was moving ahead of schedule, and the starting order for the other sections were picked by drawing straws before the event.

For the media moderated section the questions were asked in different order for each candidate, but were worded about the same more often than not. The media representatives were Nick Hoffman of the Courier-Express/Tri-County Sunday, Lindsey Schoening of Sunny 106.5 FM and Nick Ruffner of WJAC-TV.

On abortion:
When asked if he supported an amendment forbidding abortion, Cahir responded he wouldn't support an amendment, but acknowledged that the United States Supreme Court's Casey decision of 1992 allowed states to set parental notice laws. However, said he he felt abortion should be “safe, legal, rare”.

Vilello gave a short answer to if he would support the same hypothetical amendment. That it shouldn't be the government's business, and the topic should be between the woman, her minister and family.

McCracken was not asked a question on this in the debate

On the housing market and mortgage issue:
Cahir stated that he favored the plan also endorsed by Senator Clinton in setting up a non-profit corporation to act as a tool to help renegotiate the mortgages of those who face trouble without trying to regulate the housing economy. Cahir also went on to say that Bear Stearns' bail out was needed in order to prevent a bigger problems that could potentially have lead to a sharp decline in the availability of loans, but any company that falls back to needing federal aid should open up their balance sheets to those who paid them those loans, the American people.

McCracken was asked if he would do more than the forthcoming economic stimulus checks. McCracken responded that the best stimulus would be for the federal government to get itself fiscally in order and that the $600 checks would likely not be used for the intended stimulus, but paying off fuel bills or credit card debt, and that a better use would have been to spend that money investing in new business. McCracken went as far to call the stimulus checks an election year ploy.

Vilello felt that the stimulus did not go far enough, and called for a new New Deal. That the stimulus package should have been towards U.S. industries and projects opposed to fueling other countries through paying for more fuel.

On the I-80 toll:
McCracken started off explaining that he had been opposed to the toll since the beginning being from a community that depends on the I-80 corridor. His reasons given where the harm it would do to tourism and other industries, such as trucking, that depend up Interstate 80 to do their business. There would also be another effect of traffic driving through communities instead in order to avoid paying the interstate toll. McCracken ended his answer by calling the toll an example of a “priority crisis” with politicians trying to find ways of extracting more money from the people as opposed to fixing such problems as infrastructure.

On illegal immigration:
Cahir's solution to illegal immigration included improved border enforcement by civilian sources, such as the border patrol, as opposed to a military enforcement. Giving an incentive to go through the proper immigration channels to make it more appealing than attempting illegal immigration while penalizing those who do attempt the latter route.

Asked on what to do with current immigrants who arrived in the United States through illegal means and what his plans on handling future immigration issues Vilello answered that those already here need a path to citizenship. Saying that the illegal immigrants are here because of illegal jobs, and that these jobs have a two fold unfair advantage in that they have to pay their employees less than businesses who obey the laws and it is usually the illegal immigrants who get punished while the business gets off easier. Vilello went on to say it is a national security problem, but that it is both borders and a fence won't fix the problem. Instead, the responsibility falls on the communities.

On the Iraq war:
McCracken stated that he opposed an immediate withdrawal, but supported one that was done properly. This would involve a phased withdrawal while the president would ideally rebuild ties to other countries to get multi-national support for Iraq. McCracken admitted he wouldn't be opposed to cutting off the funding to the war if there seemed to be no progress in this direction under the next administration.

Vilello also agreed that the U.S. needs to get out of Iraq. The next president should meet with the leader of Iran, and the local Iraq government needs to help take control of the area. However, he brought up that the embassy is going to be larger than the Vatican and that there was no easy solution. Adding a warning that the U.S.S.R.'s war on Afghanistan drove the country to bankruptcy.

On the second amendment:
McCracken answered that he supported the second amendment, but that if any laws were needed they should be state laws. He added that hunting is important to local economies.

Vilello stated his position to be that if there had to be gun control it should be up to the states to decide. However, he felt the only group who should have their second rights removed would be criminals.