Schmett and Boswell Square Off in Radio Debate

Today on Iowa Public Radio the contenders for Iowa’s US 3rd Congressional District faced off in a radio debate. The Democratic candidate Leonard Boswell has is vying for the opportunity to represent the Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. He is facing Republican challenger Kim Schmett. This is the first time that these two challengers have had the opportunity to square off in a debate.
The first question posed to the candidates was directed at Republican challenger Kim Schmett. He had indicated that he was opposed to the recent bailout approved by Congress and signed by President Bush. The question was posed by Charlotte Eby was what Schmett would do to help the financial industry or did he believe that they did not need any assistance. In his answer Schmett asserts that the problems are related to a crisis of consumer confidence. He believes that the bailout was a rushed through without much thought given to the consequences. He stated that he believes that they could have come up with a solution that did not involve the use of government funds to relieve the problem. He specifically cites the recent takeover of Wachovia by Wells Fargo without the use of public money. He also points out that Boswell made the claim that the 750 billion dollar bailout may not be enough and that they may need to spend more tax dollars to shore up the market. Schmett gave a good answer and showed that he understood the concepts at play in Washington in regards to the economy. I think that a lot of Iowans feel this way about the bailout, that Congress should have sat down and looked at more than one option instead of rushing to pass the first one to come across their desk.
The next question was directed at Congressman Boswell and is along the same lines as the question posed to Schmett. The question asked was why he supported the bailout and why did he disagree with Schmett’s assessment? Okay here we apparently entered the twilight zone. When asked about his difference with Schmett on the bailout and the economy Boswell brings up his difference with Schmett on stem cell research. Forgive me if I am missing something here, but what does that have to do with the bailout and the economy? Is Congressman Boswell going senile on us? Finally Boswell moves off his stem cell diatribe and moves on to the economy. In his first remarks he refers to the bailout as the rescue bill. He said that doing nothing was not a good response. He stated that his line of thinking was that we had to try something, maybe even take some risks. He goes into a monologue about a conversation he had supposedly had with a worker at an airport. He claims that the worker was unhappy with him at first for supporting the bailout, but after thinking about it changed his mind. He believes that there was indeed risk in voting the way he did, but feels that there was greater risk in doing nothing. In his response to this question Boswell went over the allotted two minute time limit so they allowed Schmett to have an additional 45 seconds to rebut what Boswell had said. In this time Schmett reemphasized that the price tag of the bailout was too high and placing too high a burden on future generations of Americans. Boswell’s opening remarks in reference to this question were quite odd indeed. If I had had the opportunity to ask Boswell a question or two, I would have definitely asked him if he thought that stem cells were a part of the bailout bill. It appears that Boswell’s age and health are now affecting how he performs his job duties on Capital Hill. I do think that my fears that his mind is deteriorating are founded based on his answer to this question.
The next question was directed at Boswell and came from Dave Price of WHO TV fame. The question asked was also related to the economy and whether Boswell saw another industry that was going to be in need of a bailout and if not what the next step that the government should take to help the economy? He doesn’t directly answer this question. Instead he says that the government should stay very active. Boswell asserts that if the government stimulates the economy that transportation infrastructure should be included because it is not a job that can be outsourced and that it is something that has to be done anyway. He states that the government should be looking at what it can do for the unemployed. I understand the rationale that Boswell used to support the bailout. But I think in this case he needed to have a more sound reasoning for voting for this bailout. I don’t think that in a situation in which the government would be spending $700 billion tax payer dollars to shore up Wall Street should have been supported with the rationale that Boswell used. In his mind it was better to do something than doing nothing even if it was the wrong thing.
Price then redirects this very same question at Schmett. Schmett comes out swinging on this issue stating that a line of industries begging for handouts has already formed with the auto industry leading the way with monies already directed at them. He said that the auto industry bailout would have been a larger issue had the larger bailout bill not overshadowed it. Schmett agrees with Boswell that if stimulus is needed that it should be used on items that tax dollars would normally be spent on like infrastructure and other costs that the government would already be obligated to pay for, just accelerating the payments. Schmett calls for it to be limited to expenditures that would help create new jobs thus decreasing unemployment. Schmett provides some very good points and also has some good ideas. I like the idea that if you are going to stimulate the economy you should use that money on areas that will keep it in the US like rebuilding infrastructure.
I loved this gem directed at Boswell. Eby stated that Schmett has criticized Boswell for voting to recess Congress before an additional aid package was passed to help in recovery from the massive flooding the State of Iowa suffered this summer. She asks Mr. Boswell if this was a fair criticism. Boswell called this criticism an uninformed criticism because it was not a recess, it was a work period. Now Boswell was playing semantics. It doesn’t matter what you call it they still left Washington with key bills on the table. He then went on to defend his actions by saying that they got 2.65 billion dollars into the system. He claims that he had Pelosi’s assurance that they would pass a relief bill before adjournment after they got back from the “work period.” Boswell very clearly became upset by this line of questioning. He went into a litany of items to explain how Schmetts criticism was an uninformed criticism. However his words seemed to ring hollow and desperate. He was clearly on the defensive here and not doing a very good job at it.
Schmett comes out hammering on Boswell for his vote to leave for recess and leaving this important work on the floor. He asserts that a relief bill is fairly noncontroversial and that it wouldn’t have faced much if any resistance. He states that once they did come back from the five week recess that it took them an additional two weeks to pass the bill. During this time, Boswell began interrupting Schmett saying that he should know better. Schmett called Pelosi’s visit to Iowa to survey the flood damage a press conference. This heightened the displeasure of Boswell who interrupted Schmett once again. Schmett made some great points here. I mean they had a relief package on the floor, why decide to adjourn for recess while that bill sits there. As much as I liked this line of attack from Schmett, I think that he should have hitting him over voting to recess rather than voting on an energy policy. This is the greater issue that I think from that Congressional recess. It was at the height of high gas prices and Congress had an opportunity to do something about it. Instead they go on vacation. I would have loved to hear Kim hammer on Boswell over that.
This debate most assuredly was informative and showed the difference between the two candidates. For the most part it was a civil debate; however there were some fireworks during one portion of the debate. During this portion of the debate Boswell was very clearly irate with the direction that the debate was going. He was being criticized for a vote that made him appear to be attempting to skip out on his work.

You can listen to the debate here.