choice is our purpose and sponsoring can be formed such as to provide you with an opportunity to be here candidates face to face discussion issues that are important to you there's never enough time to cover all the issues in a limited time and setting such as this if your questions are not interest please we encourage you to contact the candidates directly and i want to remind candidates or will be broadcast in its entirety and will be here to be broadcast and so on all of you please check the cable companies for additional airing times so tonight the agenda will be as follows each candidate will be given two minutes for an opening statement and then the story here on my writing to the left candidates will be asked then asked to respond to hearers but there is a real sense of intention here about the state that we live in and the future that we build for our children and for ourselves and i didn't quite understand it first maybe you didn't quite buy it right now they are been here my kids are to be reelected and to work with my colleagues our across the state to provide for a better future for all of us thank you our next candidate for sixty four day is enjoying right there things are ready for coming you know the back areas of oakland california i grew up in california so you know as far as failed budgets and whatnot i don't there's a lot out there and so i came here about five years ago that's why you're here right now is because you care about your family here about your future my parents care about that for me and ensure that i would have the opportunities to progress and to grow and to be able to provide for myself one day i got into the alone voters in town for high school for putting this on all of you for showing up i look forward to the discussion we're having all the candidates and and sharing our vision for the future of minnesota and showing where we were you agree where we disagree when i become the next state representative for sixty four would be one of the first things i'm going to have to address is a one point one billion dollar deficit our budget something that we've become too comfortable with in our legislature we cannot afford to continue the spending that we continue to go down in minnesota if we want to live minnesota to lead this nation and to be to be an example to the rest of the voters in this country of what it means to have a solid education to have opportunity for entrepreneurs and thank you to the league to the district councils for sponsoring this event i have deep roots in the state of minnesota i grew up in northern minnesota except for a year i've been living in europe i lived to st paul for twenty three years and some of you remember about forty years ago we did something quite extraordinary in the state of minnesota we enacted what was called the the minnesota miracle you know what that was was a fair tax plan that kept property down allowed us to properly fund education and we were the envy of other states and democrats and republicans came together and worked together and compromised and got that done but over the last ten years things have been very different things have been rattled in my opinion we've had massive cuts to local government a billion dollars since two thousand and three and what's that what's what's occurred because of that  to services and huge increases in property taxes and people at highland park in makarova know that all too well so we can't continue with these unsustainable budgets i think that they're counter proof productive to our growth and the legislature has to agree on stable sources of income and revenue of last year during the horrible standoff with the governor and the legislature my friends on the republican side would not agree to raise one cent of additional revenue and what happened with the government shutdown this gridlock hastert and i have known for of my leadership at the capitol i served as the chair of the public safety finance division for four years and i was known as someone who was inclusive and fair and passed a bipartisan bill i have the temperament i think and the experience and the passion to help turn the state around i'm asking for your support thank you for being here thank you so we're never going to start with our first questions and this first question again you'll have ninety seconds to start with scott larson so there's several questions and you just touched on by you work across the aisle in and a large sense in terms of solving the permissions budget problems that we've been having because one party's moved so far to the right and the only way to reach compromise is to go to your position individually i have worked very hard to build a good and functioning working relationships with republicans in the house and in the senate and the relationships are intact and there it keeps us together and with those relationships we can move minnesota forward but where you're all by yourself or you with you know your party you can't create good policy this way and you know parties neither party has a monopoly on good ideas and coming from the background i do with m r and with you know where i come from i've learned as i've learned you can't just close your ears and pretend like the other side isn't listening and you can also just call them names because ultimately that doesn't create an atmosphere where the party wants to work with you i think that's one of the biggest problems that we face is that both parties will call names both parties will closer years and act like they can get things done without the other party it happens time and time again every time a new majority comes in and i don't see know really anybody addressing the issue people are tired of this you're tired of the name calling people are tired of you know sadness fear of contention really you know he has existed and you know luckily we're not being people on the agree and it seems that most of us on this panel agree of the problem is the state budget that there are you know one side seems to want to cut more one side and seems to want to raise more revenue and examine it you know that when it comes to working across party aisles i think the best thing for the for minnesotans is that we demonstrated leadership in this is session specifically on the budget in two thousand and six the state budget with us twenty seven billion dollars and in two thousand and twelve we're now up to thirty four billion dollars so i guess my question would be you know we can't make the argument that republicans have gone very far to the right on but we should we could also make the argument that they're doing with they were elected to do  this distaste is tired of the spending that is going on in right now we are population is is not very much different than wisconsin and their budget had twenty eight billion twenty twenty eight or twenty nine and i think it's time to we name calling it doesn't mean that we have to not have respect for adult conversations around these issues but i do think as well find out tonight that there's a lot of issues that don't necessarily require our partisan ideology or commitment to make the state of forward thank steve smith who was the chief look safety committee before i was republican got up on the house floor on his last day and he congratulated me as being one of the few democrats that he felt he could work with across the aisle to get things done and that meant a lot to me he didn't have to say that and that i think when ross and murphy was talking about relationships that's what it is about and i think the public hears tired of the name calling you know i think about my elections here eight of them in sixty four be back with three cleveland i ran against each other a couple of times and readable even andrew smith we always had very civil campaigns where we talked about the issues and let the voters of sixty four be decided philosophically where they stand that's as it should be you know my opponent talks about name calling while actions speak lorillard while louder than words in my opponent website he called me a silent cancer he also called me and as he also called me on a space for political thought that now i don't know how you expect to get things done in the same paul if that's the kind of behavior you're going to use campaign by it's not going to work very well we need to have civility and proper discourse in our election as well as how we resolve our complex problems in st paul thank you thank you and finally t to pay it back it was put together you know that way so that we made a commitment to the schools before we had a debt legislative session to pay them back their current budget doesn't have that promise and so in the next legislative session months we understand where the size of the deficit is we're going to have to contend with balancing the budget closing that deficit and putting together a plan to pay back their schools and i'm very committed to that and i think education is fundamental to our  a lot of people strive for beautification system i do think we can probably come to an agreement that it's not a good idea and i think would be a good opportunity to have the conversation learn how do we  hemorrhaging taxable revenue into four states that border us and we cannot continue to make promises to our education system if we can't if we don't know where the funding is going to come from so that means a little more of a long term approach when you start thinking about how do we attract more times the revenue into our state and i am on i very much in favor of that discussion and in supporting you know our local schools i don't think that is right and i mean i don't understand i do not want to see the burden our property tax payers to continue sustaining our education system but i think that we need to think more long term we can't do a quick fix on as many answer the question in ninety seconds but i do think knees are having an excuse me long term view of the saucy they cue michael paine well i agree with my point that takes longer than ninety seconds to let me give it a try i do think we need to come up with the new expect some concrete solutions on how we're going to balance the budget  a couple of things that we might want to consider after nine hundred ninety nine and two thousand we passed a massive income tax cuts when our economy was going great guns and we had surplus after surplus i think we should revisit some of those income tax cuts especially on the highest income people who benefited most from those from those tax breaks another thing we might want to consider is during the bayani and we have eleven billion dollars in tax expenditures and these are basically i wouldn't say that she actually that we have to look at some of these tax expenditures but as soon as she opened up her mouth the tea party folks came around they told her she better shut up and she did so there are some things that we can do if democrats and republicans are willing to compromise and negotiate i don't think that we need to be increasing boatloads of revenue to make this work but we need to have everything on the table we can't we can't continue with this no new taxes pledge and expect to resolve our problems thank you andy cohen let's have some realistic talk about the state budget as opposed to some of the rhetoric thirty four billion dollars  and any time you start you troy with your education i think we all lose i remember nine years during the time my kids were in school i years for my kids school district the legislature for school funding and school policy i remember when the for shift came it's a bad idea then so bad idea schools the state revenue that they are supposed to get they cause they're not part of and we saw a number of closures there so we're compromising our kids i do agree we have to take a balanced approach i do agree we have to take a look at different tash rose as well as budget cuts but you can't continue to take a walk you know where we are now without taking a look at how we're going to drive businesses to minnesota we need jobs and if we increase jobs we are going to have a natural flow overall i think to dash of course told what we have to do here first thing in the state has to do in my view is to take a look at its tax policy and its regulatory policy we have to be comparative to our neighboring states thank you thank you very much so the next question is for indra go ahead and there is about twelve of them should come from to pay for the so i think trying to break away the tire heads a little way up yep all right then i guess as far as the voter id amendment i think it's pretty lofty goal to make sure that you know god isn't hurting the small farms government is made up to provide tell you who you can or cannot dictate maybe a big government the same time i also have personal beliefs that have led me to believe what i believe and that is personally marriage is between one man one woman i do support  heartedly crme atmosphere for civil rights or civil unions have just as much not power you know as dorothea's a marriage certificate i would like to say to move away from marriage certificates and provided bases with solely his and i think it's appropriate to have just a civil discussion about you know where we all come from it's a very personal thing i don't think i he said if you why you come to this as much as you can explain amendment process because of who put in charge of this decision it takes the authority away from elected officials and removes the influence of mr paine morrow or myself in regards of how we think about this position the good news is you get to vote on it the good news is regardless of how you feel about it you get to vote on it and you have is just much influence over those men to process and this and this issue as i do not secondly and regarding the marriage amendments i think we need to be a little bit more intellectual in our discussion on american moment than just the billion dollar campaign ads that we see in political plateaus we start throwing at each other like calling this a republican extreme movement as my opponent has said and trying to you know trying western development of civilization the family has always been the core unit of society and i think that where the first part of human history really discussing and defining we're not prohibiting homo sexual behavior we are defining marriage and the issue you know there's absolutely no evidence that we have any friday in our left or process of the state of minnesota absolutely no evidence and this amendment is going to  disenfranchise senior citizens veterans students and the estimates are is that it will cost twenty five to fifty million dollars to implement so talk about an unfunded mandate you know we  massive one coming right down the pike here this is something that has been pushed in numerous states by the american legislative exchange council and it's a right wing effort to disenfranchise voters and i'm hoping that the voters will have enough sense do vote against this we do not need it the second issue relates to the marriage amendment and i take very i take pride in the fact that i spoke similar asli when the defense of marriage act was first proposed in st paul was one of the few members of the house floor and oppose it and we have a long history in the state of minnesota constitutional amendments that enhance and protect human rights not take human rights away and the last thing to my opponent who thinks it's a great thing to have people vote on these issues i'd like to ask anyone here anyone here if they would would prefer that the but what we have this year is something very unusual and that's the misuse of the moment process if you know when i've ever seen in the years i've been there legislature have passed with high fifty's unanimous there's been significant bipartisan support as i have documented with me on the floor a woman who was born on a farm she doesn't have a birth certificate she had a passport and it was it was provided to her by a bow she says to me and i had this letter that went to the county auditor where sister and if we want to increase revenue we want to grow jobs i don't think in this economy when people are struggling to find jobs and struggling to make ends meet it makes sense this is sane that level of income tax and i do not think that it makes percent expand out to those making under one hundred thousand dollars we eliminate the middle tax bracket and we keep the top tax bracket for those making individuals making over one hundred thousand dollars and i can i have to explain that further if you want to be with me out of work but our middle income class  middle class right now is suffering and our economy is not helping them and our legislators are not going to help them if they continue to maintain this level of taxation much less try to increase it thank you very much michael paine well i you know there's a number of different taxes that we have to consider and when you when you think of what is progress of and what's regress of the income tax we prided ourselves in minnesota on having a progress of income tax  meaning that the higher the higher income that you make the more the more that you would pay but wait what we have found and look at look at the tax incidence studies that have been produced by the department of revenue over the last ten have shown that we have we have gone full circle on that so people in the highest and are now paying proportionally less income taxes as you are as a middle income folks in mcalester grove and highland park  and that's not fair i mean those are the folks that are being that are being burdened by the present tax policy so to me as i said in my opening statement you know i think that we need to revisit you know us that includes those income tax cuts that were the area that we really have to look at program city and let me just say one thing about real recipe and that is what the republican party and i believe my opponent wants to do is if you don't raise any other revenue these of you the the income tax what's going to happen your property taxes are going to go up and they have and with the elimination of the home state credit last year by the g o p that cuts to l g a what does that mean that means that our county and our city it was absurd really absurd and we have been stuck in that position more than a decade no new taxes not a penny one you can hear both sides of the ledger as you know the budget you're not going to get the job done fairly our tax sending your kid to a really great school you know maybe try to maybe cause a little more money but you know we need to do this right now heed this luxury service so let's let's just take away that you know the money that you have for the school and just sent somewhere else you'll be fine and related to environmental policy to help keep it that way that's a wonderful question and i've always considered myself a very strong environmentalist being indorsed by the sierra club and clean water action  and i was very proud i'm very proud of a bill that i coauthored in the house have been an issue that i feel very strongly about although it doesn't necessarily relate to st paul but it relates to our whole state to our economy and our fragile environment and that it's the very possibility that we're going to start we're going to open up copper nickel mining near the boundary waters canoe area there's a lot of money to be made if copper nickel mining it's never been done in the world it's never been done without causing massive environmental degradation and if we allow a copper nickel mining to happen right next to the wire a b w c a watershed and also the lake superior watershed we're going to be in deep trouble trouble that that environment will be and inevitably polluted for many many generations to come and i feel strongly about that bill that's it's not just an environmental issue i mean think of the people that come to the boundary waters canoe we have the area and who love that fragile environment and so we need we need to balance things out but we can't sacrifice when it comes to the environment i voted against governor dayton below on reducing and weakening which of the permitting process for for environmental law in the state of minnesota i feel strongly about this you do not compromise on the environment thank you and we have a lot of other you know beautiful parks and you know ari reparations and i are that now i think we should be preserving because it's more than just an environment is part of our heritage and i think our funny should reflect our heritage that being sad i of mass transit businesses i mean this train is coming through and preventing any type of congress from coming to those businesses and i think that's a sad state of our state when those businesses are on the capitol steps that knocking on doors asking get this thing out of our front yard i think eyes the obligation of the leader of that district and i to come out and say let's let's have a discussion on this issue i see now is costing us forty billion dollars a year and i think that the buses are much more effective and die in our ports having a discussion on that as a potential way we can save some money just shut down and not worry about he continued being elitist but you're financially set to be able to weather the storm but if you're small moron potshot that spurs are second generation in most cases that micropayment well we have to think about not just today but also the future and the demographics are those that the metro areas want to control continue to increase in population there's no doubt about that and we already can now i my heart goes out to the small business people i was a small business person i heart goes out to some of those folks on university avenue that are stubborn through this but his resume really said that whole area is going to be transformed in two thousand and fourteen upon completion of that of that corridor are totally transformed you can already see it happening and we have another quarter that's on the ton of books right now federal money is available for the southwest corner so we need here is that state after state has already proven that using sin taxes is a way of getting actual revenue you can't balance your teacher because it will continue changing the more you increase the less likely someone's going to use it i think if we have  throughout the state we have gotten away from that we've done more to the university of michigan model we have to rebuild the richness of both in terms of its education component and we continue the research point of the university secondly childhood more impacted by what happens within the state we need to get back to a shared partnership with the state now that you've done property taxes a lot of cities run more efficient thank you michael pena let me first say that i don't think anybody wants to see waste and inefficiency in government when i was a committee chair we spent hours and days and days with this the staff looking at the departments that were under the purview of the of our committee the courts  world nobody wants to see waste in government but we have to think about the future and when i think about the priorities for the future i will remember a time students in the state economists said to set us a couple of years ago if we were as we were moving into this horrible recession he said the best thing that government can do is invest in education at every level early education k twelve higher education and that should be where our investment is that is coming here that you can get your goods from point a to point b and you can't do that when you wrote and your bridges are falling down and the final thing is what i'm thinking about the budget as i said earlier has to be fair he has to be fair to the citizens of the state of minnesota the government to come back and say that we're sorry we can't get our budget in order but we want to tax you more my continue taking more of your money i think is your response well it's not pro growth and our family you know education it is it is a big focus of mine i come from a school that receives zero federal or state funding and yet has a ninety four placement rate of ninety four percent placement right and i think there are ways to continue growing our economy continue helping our education i think it's a cheap way to just say we're going to find them just to make them legislature last couple of years i mean they're also really growing weary of the political discourse that they're seeing and there's been a lot of negative campaigning having us so much in our district but in districts where there is a very very competitive in some of the suburban angrier mr districts and i think even tonight as you listen to us there are plenty of i yes and issues over which we disagree nicely and there really isn't opponent whether it's in forums like this or door knocking or other forums and i will continue continue with that behavior because i think that's what people and this district expected me here you know it doesn't it doesn't make me you know the head pieces that are going around and this is on the state level too you know i think it really cheapens the whole that toral process you know as you know when we mislead about someone's votes  their personal character and i've always found an element of campaigning that i just stand to be frank i wish we had a system more like him and great britain and some of your european neighbors where we shorten of the whole election process i mean for god's sakes what i've read on november sixth we're going to start all over again you watch and you know it's just what you see when you have a party saying oh we're going to do a stand next four years to make sure that  people have power you know don't get anything done then we're not going to get anything done and i think we're better than that but you know people have to start so making a noise about this and telling their elected officials that they that would be nice i'm they think canada's and political parties should maintain their principles but alternately we have to be able to negotiate and compromise and i have a proven record of the capital i was th bother of the most comprehensive public safety bill that history and not just finding records not apparent corrections of the department of public safety but being smart and fighting crime we funded intervention and prevention programs hope to to be part of the solving our current budget problems because they are going to be difficult next year so if i am reluctant to return to the legislature continue my long history of being accessible to the community i think that some of you may know because you join me on my constituent meetings that i hold a saturday morning in situ of meetings at the hillcrest recreation center where we talk pretty much about everything and anything and  a leading state in the united states i think that's an important vision and you've heard tonight the difference in visions of where we want to take our state and i want to be responsible i want to be pro growth i want to tell people in the united states that we think our state is the bast and we can't wait to have you here we can't wait to have your jobs here we cannot wait to show you that we have the best education program now we cannot wait to have you raise your families here and include your kids in our great education program we're very proud of this say i'm proud of the say i'm proud to be a minnesotan