Meeting for their third and final debate tonight, Democratic Congressman Tim Walz and his Republican challenger Allen Quist bring the battle of their respective ideologies to the district.
MSU's Ostrander Auditorium and its capacity crowd was the home to tonight's debate, and the moderators on hand kept the debate focused like a laser on the economy, deficit and taxes, and how they intertwine.
Quist rejects tax increases, saying we should bring spending down, though not specifying cuts, even saying he wouldn't touch Social Security or Medicare, the biggest drivers of the national deficit.
Quist says, "We're adding over a trillion dollars a year and ladies and gentleman, this is banana republic type of economics. It's hard to believe that this is going on in the United States of America."
Walz, meanwhile, went so far as to say that we should bring spending and revenue to 20% of GDP, effectively calling for $600 billion in cuts, and $500 billion in increased taxes.
Walz says, "The problem that we have in our politics now is it's all or nothing - it's the elimination of the other side of this. Those of you who are Democrats sitting here thinking that someday it'll be a perfect world with no Republicans, it's not going to happen. And the Republicans sitting here thinking there's not going to be any Democrats - it's not going to happen. The strength is there's good ideas out of both sides, compress them together."
Walz disagreed that the increase in taxes would hurt the economy, citing the lack of success derived from the Bush tax cuts.
Walz says, "If it were true that if we cut taxes we'd have economic growth - the single worse time of job growth and economic growth in the last 75 years was during the 2001-2008 Bush tax cuts. It did not create growth."
Quist insists it will get the job done.
Quist says, "Unleash the lion of free enterprise."
No more debates remain for these two. From now the race will come down to ads, voter interaction, and enthusiasm for the candidates running at the top of the ticket for the Presidency.
