and betty mccollum thank you for coming well once again thank you all for coming this morning i would like to take bradley who is our chair of our government affairs and local issues for the web area chamber of commerce he is going to be correct in all the questions so if you do he's going to be walking around the room just hand out the car any so at this time i guess we would like to get this go and so please join me and than and the way we are going to be working this today we're going to start out alphabetically so we will be starting with mr carlson and i do have the first question ready for if you things are ready ed has been widely reported that the health issues coverage etc if elected or reelected what will you do in response to the events and what do you believe should happen to obamacare in the next congress mr health ok that is a very major question i can tell you i've read the house resolution five eight zero eight i haven't read it all through but i'm not intending to vote for it that is to establish the public option in obamacare it's already been introduced it's got one hundred  twenty representatives from democrat party already sponsoring it and i think that's a very bad idea now what i would do first of all i want to tell you i don't the goal here is to save lives is not to cut off health care to anybody but is to put in place a system that actually is constitutional and makes sense and so what i would do is to immediately call for its total repeal i would put together a coalition of people who would put something better together bomber that he cannot refuse because it's going to be passed anyway so i don't think that it's true that we can't repeal it saw it and then we would reform it put in real reforms the things that there's a broad consensus already between republicans democrats and independen ms collette the patient affordability care act was passed on to premises and represented mccollum promoted on that basis number one that it would provide health care for the uninsured in the united states and number two that we had to get health care costs under control particularly for business people the simple fact is it's an act mitt has proven as nancy pelosi told us they passed it now we're finding out what's in it that there will be nineteen million uninsured in twenty nineteen after obamacare goes into full effect they failed on their first initiative the second is getting health care costs under control and the office of medicare and medicaid has already said that in fact we're going to see significant rises under the obama care physicians so they failed to get health care costs under control the very reasons that they passed this bill are the reasons that it is failing it's not just insurers we have local employers here medtronic told us that it was going to have to lay off a thousand employees in order to comply ply three am told us it was going to cost ninety million dollars to comply the simple fact is it is not stopped health care costs from rising it is increased health care costs you represented in the column well i'm very proud of my to move health care forward in america bankruptcy for middle class families the largest reason why me most middle class families found themselves filing for bankruptcy was health care people who found themselves in the middle of cancer treatment with a cap on how much money was going to be spent on their chemotherapy that's gone under this bill i talked to a small businessman just the other night he has at biloxi he joined a small business firm and he said i don't know if you're going to want to insure me i'm going to make your rates go up but the small business owner insured him anyways because it was the right thing to do this piece the legislation that i voted for is going to make preexisting conditions not be used against you when you go to apply for health care it's going to keep middle class families from falling into bankruptcy and for the first time ever for those employers who have worked so hard to provide access for health care it's going to help them by paying up to fifty percent of their costs in the year and fourteen we're scaling it up starting this year i'm very proud of that vote thank you our next question the financial reform bill passed congress and was signed by president obama however nothing was done about  do you consider this inaction acceptable if yes why if not what do you think needs to be done we're going to start out with ms clinton well in fact represented mccomb was one of the congress members who congressional members who signed a letter when president bush tried to get fannie and freddie under control saying that the president was overly concerned about his fiscal stability and ought to make sure that mortgages were widely available throughout the country that sort of irresponsibility has continued in the recent financial reform act by their failure to include freddie and fannie we're seeing increased at the federal government is involved in over ninety percent of the mortgages in this country and it's going to be the taxpayers that are going to pick up the bill and it's because members of congress particularly members of the budget committee and the appropriations committee which congresswoman mccollum sits on have failed to exercise the necessary oversight and the fiscal responsibility needs to be done in a very bipartisan fashion bipartisan the financial committee which barney frank chairs has with keith ellison and eric paulson both from an assault on it all works very hard to make some financial reforms put in place which the president has signed into law to keep to keep slipping into another spiral which we saw with the deregulation many of the mortgage instruments that were sold hedge funds credit to swap faults you name it there were all kinds of bad products out there on the market that weren't being regulated that contributed significantly to the economic crisis our country found ourselves in two years ago we still have more work to do and addressing some of the issues with fannie and freddie are absolutely part of that the house has been working on it a bipartisan way congressman frank is ready to start moving a bill through to the house to have some discussion on it but the senate has unfortunately told us that they will not take up that legislation this year that is a priority for me to go back and work on next congress if i'm reelected by the citizens of the fourth district thank you mr carlson well a priority for the next congress i'll frankly tell you that as as a member the community development and the asian american press i was and remain an advocate for homeownership i think is very important however i did know i did not know and i'm very disappointed dangerous i'm concerned that they're still out there so what we need to do we need to go back to i think the banks having to hold a lot more of the of the capital does invest in the mortgage so that they don't of housing thank you mr carlson the cash for clunkers program has been panned as jussi not sales for a few months and then car sales went into the doldrums it seems the same thing happened with the sales after the incentive is to long cease do you believe that the stimulus program have proved to be successful do you favor more of the same going forward why are we not share just mr  much while we were in an economic nine eleven and we were told by economists that we needed to do something to jumpstart and to rescue the economy from for the failure there were many ideas that were out there we heard from conservative con economics we heard from people who were very liberal on it and so we came together to put a rescue package for this economy t very best we could and one big part of it a third of that was tax cuts and payroll taxes because we heard from many of the conservative economics people that we need to include that we heard from many realtors many families many economists that we needed to do something to give confidence in home sales we did that was what was one time and the other the other group that we heard from was the american auto industry and we didn't want to see millions we're suffering from from their loss but i mean look the biggest problem that we have right now is that we're about to lose our auto industry to the chinese i mean right now they're over there forcing companies like g and other audio companies and we're the big owners of it and they're going to force us to enter enter into what they call indigenous innovation and where we share our copyright patents and intellectual capital with them as a part of a joint venture and then they take it and they're going to take over the auto industry is a big problem they're going to at least double their output of otto's over the next four years to about sixty five million so to me cash for clunkers is you know it's it's it's in part to ensure that the unions who strongly democratic received their payoff from the election and also in part to ensure the environmental implementation of regulations and rules that couldn't get passed through congress the destruction of perfectly usable cars in exchange for the purchase of new cars which the government through cash for clunkers paid far more for than would have been paid retail is not a sensible intervention what we needed was the sort of in for vet intervention of improving america's infrastructure just as the u s chamber of commerce said in their open letter to president obama not this incentive to buy more consumer goods in that sense but rather to invest in the infrastructure that allows businesses to expand and create jobs thank you for it question start off with mr carlson and would you vote to repeal or replace the health care bill why or why not i've already touched on it but definitely i would repeal it and that is because i believe with the new government that's going to be formed  to fill in the power vacuum that's resulted from the crisis of leadership that we now have in washington i believe that we're going to be able to put something forward that's really going to save lives going to address health disparities by reducing that gap between various races who are affected by these killer diseases like cancer like heart disease diabetes lung disease and i believe obama's going to have to accept it and so i think this is a matter of leadership now i've signed the contract from america and part of that is to or repeal and replace obamacare and i totally agree with that there's a lot of good things in that contract and i can't wait to get there and get this done and start the country moving in the right direction again again i've said as far as defunding if there's some kind of a program that is saving lives i would be willing to fund that program in exchange for a quick repeal of obamacare i think that is actually a tool that congress would have to think it was collette i actually prefer congressman prices formulation we need to replace everybody that voted for obamacare then we need to repeal it and then we need to reform the health care program obamacare is premised on the idea of government centered health care including the idea that government can control what we need and get in between our doctors and their diagnosis and our treatment plans what we need to do is replace it with patient centered care we need to reconnect the consumer with their health care costs i would be in favor of creating tax the same sort of tax treatment for individuals who purchase now i'm not saying there's no role for government because of course there is we do need pooled insurance plans for into small business owners we do need them for people with disabilities but we certainly don't need the comprehensive takeover of health care that has been attempted in this monstrosity thank you represented mccullum i would not vote to repeal something that's very important to the state of minnesota here's a term that's used called geographic disparities and i heard from doctors and patients and hospitals about how this certain assata and all and i'll do this quickly three seniors all paid into medicare the same siblings one lives in florida everything's covered including a health care membership brother in montana everything's pretty much covered benaud no health care membership but you know everything everything's covered a brother in backstrom in the saga has  work with his family in order to pay for his heart medication that's a geographic disparity for thirty years members of congress from states like minnesota have been trying to change this in equity which pay doctors or hospitals l because we were more efficient with our health care so they thought for some reason with the efficiency and good medical care that i doctors gave our doctors and hospitals should be rewarded less money that affected the quality of care and the way that we could attract physicians into the state i had my mrs smith goes to washington moment i got it repealed i will not vote to repeal something that's so important for minnesota which treats our doctors and our seniors with dignity thank you our next question w be started by ms collect will you vote to retain nancy pelosi as speaker if elected why or why not our polling in this district shows that speaker pelosi has a thirty six percent approval rating now according to voter track dot gov congressman congresswoman mccollum has voted with her one hundred percent of the time this year and in two thousand and nine in the national journal she was listed among the highest liberal writing available the simple fact is that congresswoman mccollum has represented san francisco far better than minnesota in this i would not vote for nancy pelosi i do not believe she's exercised a sort of leadership we need to see in the house and i'll be very interested to hear whether kept congresswoman mccollum well thank you i supported nancy pelosi when she was first running for weapon and i supported her for the following reason she brings people in a room to build consensus look at our delegation collin peterson myself pete allison tim walz all of us represent different voices in different factions in minnesota you need someone in leadership who can pull people together to come up with consensus and that's what speaker pelosi has done and so we are in charge of governing right now so i have a voice at the table sometimes i agree with some of the leadership in my caucus for example what i just talked about with geographic disparities they weren't addressing it and i said if you want my support we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to take care of an equity in minnesota and because she's a collaborator she said to people let's get it fixed so i'm going to support a leader who brings people together to move this country everything what you heard what why have they passed obamacare in the year that they should have been looking at the economic issues where they could really help this country up because since franklin roosevelt people like barack obama and these other democrats including i think representative mccollum have been trying to just have a universal health care well but the that's nice and like i say saving lives is very very important but we have to do something that works we need to use the market system you know  mike i have a lot of complaints about obamacare but as far as that's just one part of what nancy pelosi is doing she doesn't i don't think that she understands the precarious position which the united states faces internationally right now and financially we need somebody thank question we'll start with representative mccullum somehow i'm classified as rich indeed my taxes raised to help others which is crippling my growing business and i can't hire who i want to at the current tax rates do you believe the tax rates should expire and go up or remained as is what i support extending the middle class tax cuts and that will help many many people in this room not only keep their households intact but it's also going to help a lot of businesses move forward so i'm a strong supporter of extending middle class tax cuts and that's one of the things that when i leave here i'll either be voting on today or tomorrow to do that mr carlson well i certainly hope that what they vote on will be to extend all the bush tax cuts for at least two years because we don't want to raise taxes in the middle of a recession we don't want mark dayton to say that you know get that you got your letter you're the rich people it's your moral obligation to restore spending that was cut under the ventura administration i don't understand is thinking at all and i don't think that people who had danced or vote for these things understand what is really impacting our economy and how we can make our market system work tom horner yesterday was at the university is i think brilliant candidate for governor he is a real consensus builder and he said yesterday a very interesting statement i'd like to share with you he said leadership isn't about adding or subtracting it's about defining so in this case that means it's not just the numbers it's we need to define what our economic goals are how is how is what we're doing going to impact your ability to create jobs and have economic growth and i think going ahead and having class warfare between the so called rich and the poor is going to leave the poor worse off and this country it worse off  cuts were a great engine for increasing government revenues because in fact it allowed expansion of business retention of capital to use to hire more people the simple fact is that many of those people that are defined as rich are sole proprietors that simply have not chosen to incorporate because frankly they don't want their first two employees to be their lawyer in their accountant and in this instance what we're looking for is what will incentivize people to invest to expand and create more jobs because frankly the american people would much rather have a paycheck than a welfare check if we don't include all of the tax cuts what we're doing is we're saying we don't care about those entrepreneurs that are more interested in getting their products in their services to market than they are about this sort of burdensome regulation i believe that we ought enforce all tax cuts the national chamber of commerce has recognized what will happen if these tax cuts expire is that the tax on dividends will increase one hundred thirty three percent it's the largest tax increase we've ever seen in this government in this country and we need to stop that from happening in the middle of a recession thank you our next question will be started with mr carlson how can government health care succeed in the united states when it has failed everywhere else well we keep coming back that i'm glad that we are  you know i hear people for instance i know some people from it friends of mine from ethiopia or somalia and they were telling me you know why can't the united states have a great health care system you get free health care system  and i said ok this is this i'm glad to hear that what kind of health care do you get that he and the reason is you know it's not something that we would want or that they would want because obviously they're here and i think they enjoy our health care system much more so the question is i asked  how do you get great health care and the way that you get great great health care is not by having a basic level of health care like minnesota care that everybody wants it's by allowing the people people to use their means to get the best health care that they can to protect their health and their loved one's health and their quality of life and what this does as as betty was saying is that it supports doctors to create better and better health care and that therefore is shared through the dissemination of technology and we all benefit so that's why thank you ms would you mind repeating the question please well we certainly think government health care succeed in the united states when it has failed everywhere else i think that's in fact a key point as congress was contemplating obamacare we were watching the british government d centralize create more local control over health care the geographic disparities that congresswoman mc are a product of the fact that we've tried to federalize health care we need to again return to a patient centered health care the bankruptcy said she'd a crisis because of a lack of catastrophic coverage that can be remedied without the twenty seven hundred page monstrosity that includes things like small business people having to file ten ninety nine for any expenditures over six hundred dollars if you want to see bankruptcies impose that sort of regulatory and tax burden on small business people one of the goals that i brought forward when we were discussing what what health care should look like for the next generation so that it was affordable effective and accessible was i was very concerned that we wouldn't create an american system because i heard people say do nothing do nothing everything's fine whe we knew it was and find rates were going up people were being denied coverage families were filing bankruptcy i had people on the left saying single payer government run it all and i wanted to work to come up with the unique american system and that's what we did we still have a free market role substantially in force now with small businesses being able to go out and select compete and look at the type of coverage that they want and good health for doing it what is wrong with our system for employers is we have health care based on employee ease in employers being together we need to move forward as dave during a burger keeps talking about with portable health care this is a step in that direction and i'm proud that i'm working on keeping a system that's going to be uniquely american as the front end for thought when ever i look at voting on health care legislation cheri ma'am respond to that briefly i'd like to but you can briefly we'll give you a thirty second remote it's just i don't scuse me and i'd like to ask the moderator i have been misrepresented misquoted and misstated and i you know in the interest of hearing everybody's questions have been asked to go back and do corrections so i just want to know  you support privatizing social security and medicare into a voucher program i do not support the full privatization of social security and anyone who is currently receiving social security benefits should be able to continue whatever benefits that they're receiving under the current system however it's crystal clear that if we're going to get the national debt under control we're going to have to reform these entitlement programs and so i am in favor of the consensus plan that is beginning to emerge a true consensus plan unlike the consensus that congresswoman mccollum referred to in the health care debate were not a single republican voted for the bill a true consensus plan where you got republicans and democrats coming together about the gradual increase of age because when social security was established there was not the life expectancy we today i also am in favor of those sort of iras that employees would automatically be enrolled in but have the option of not of then dissin rolling after their employment i think those are very important reforms that we need to see happen social security was the greatest safety net that was put in place to protect seniors especially senior women and i want people just to think for a second back two years  ago what would happen to people who had their social security invested in the stock market it would be a pretty picture is tough times out there for all of us right now and i know businesses are hurting and i know families are hurting and i know we're on the road to recovery but we heard from seniors who had small amounts of money tied up in the stock market as part of their retirement in by a large each and every one of them said thank god my social security was protected and it was ok social security solvent for the next generation we have thirty years to look at what we need to do in the future to make sure that social security there is a safety net for our seniors so they retire in dignity thank you i definitely don't want to play with social security i don't see  any changes that i would i would want to privatized for the same reasons that betty just said but i one of the problems i'm seeing with social security is we have gaps now where one of the reasons i think we're both social security and medicare and funding it is because some of the population control measures that we've instituted including abortion on demand which are actually leaving gaps where there aren't the people there to support the older generational conflicts where the younger people are thinking money is being taken away from them by the older people i saw usa today was just reporting that this weekend somehow the seniors did better than the eighteen to twenty five year olds we got to get away from that and start to live together as a society and i think these it's it is something that needs to be addressed and how do we address what our national budget looks like in the future here again we hear some say raise taxes we hear other people say cut taxes we hear people say just look at entitlements well folks it's a three legged stool and everything needs to be on the table together when we discuss it we need to discuss ravenous coming in and out we need to discuss how we raise those revenues and we also have to discuss what is going to be the future and what is our country think entitlement should look like in the future but everybody just wants to say you know i'm going to i'm going to look at fixing the  problem but i won't touch this or i won't touch that and so i haven't signed any pledges because i really believe we need to come together for the common good and come together with a common sense solutions in which everything is explored and looked at because that is the way we do things in america thank you mr carlson well we need more thinking on this i just don't think that that's what we're doing is coming up with common sense solutions i mean anybody who would look at the last two years and think as a commonsense solution i don't know as far as the debt one way to look at that that is not totally bad if there's a debt somebody is doing well and somebody is doing well but they could be doing better i mean there's two sides to every financial transaction so there's nothing inherently evil about that we do need to have a common sense management of it we need to have a direction that we understand how this economy works and what direction we want to have one of the problems with the federal debt is intervening on the states and on the local businesses so we don't want to grow so huge that you don't have any more options that the states have powers taken away from them they're sending to wash the money to washington and they're spending it on these things like education even the environment these are things that if we would restrict the role of government we could shrink the debt and we could start to get more activity at the local level so all of you and we could get to work creating jobs and economic growth in two thousand and ten our national debt is sixty three percent of our g d p and if we stay on the same track by two thousand and twenty we're going to see it be ninety percent now congresswoman mccollum sits on the budget committee in washington d c and yet this year for the first time they didn't even bother to propose about it that's not dealing with the problem and it's certainly not building consensus it's important that we get the national debt under control because otherwise we're headed toward a health care system like england and the national economy like greece i'm in favor of representative pence's concert proposed constitutional amendment that would not only require that the budget be balanced but it be balanced at a certain percentage of the g cannot have government security sucking all the investment out of the private market to suggest that we're using private market mechanisms under obamacare when civilians secretary sebelius threatens the leadership of the health care insurance industry with sanctions for simply telling people about the increases in their policy premiums is not an accurate statement thank you our next question we'll start with mr carlson has the stimulus spending worked how much is spent why does the government want to get approved to spend more dollars more of the dollars left well i think i think the a good example that we have of stimulus spending is the central co r project as it works there is building a high speed train up of the main street of st paul university avenue all the way to minneapolis they're going to be destroying businesses jobs and neighborhoods does that work this is a great example of where the federal government again gets involved and it's got its own higher intellectual powers and they know more than you or the obamacrats they know better than you what's good for you they know better than to cause the to sion how the government's supposed to work and so it doesn't work they're actually destroying businesses and i've asked chris coleman to please start attracting businesses back to that into de lay and elevate that train which is coming from those stimulus dollars as an you the stimulus package plan has not worked president obama and the leadership of congress like nancy pelosi promised us that if that was passed that we would see unemployment below eight percent it is stubbornly stuck at nine point six percent when betty mccollum first ran for congress in two thousand and employment this country was four percent it is now nine point six percent in fact here in wagner's heights it's tripled from two percent in january of two thousand and one to six point one percent in june of this year white bear like it's more than doubled the simple fact is the stimulus plan is a failure it has been a waste of tax dollars and driven our national debt up economists from ball science once again conservative economists and liberal economists said you have to do something to inject confidence in this economy and so we came together with a stimulus plan that included tax cuts investments in research and development to keep projects moving through in the pipeline mark zandi john mccain's economist said without moving forward with the stimulus plan we would be there facing unemployment at sixteen percent do i wish it was lower yes am i glad that i took a vote to keep unemployment from going all the way up to sixteen percent you bet and central quarter is something i'm very proud to have worked with the st paul chamber of commerce on that is a project that's been in the pipeline for twenty years it is a project which includes citizens local business county regional rail authorities and the reason why the business community is excited about it if we are going to attract and keep the major corporations we have and support the small corporations that are here transportation is key thank you we will start our next question with ms collette would you would you vote for the dream act why or why not actually they're trying to incorporate that in an appropriations bill right now and i believe that that is not the most effective response to the problem that we have i believe that we need to come again back to both consumer centered free market responses in that instance and i think that this particular piece of legislation will not assist the problem that they're trying to solve thank you represented michael i'm in the house of representatives the legislation that was been referred to as is is over in the senat  their children's opportunity for higher education to a pal grants we we were better stewards of the taxpayers money he used to be an order to get to get a loan we had a bank taking a percentage of the lo now colleges like century college in the hills where i went to a many of the private universities is twenty two colleges and universities in the and in that fourth congressional district can do direct loans with students so that students and their families are getting the best bang for their buck for their child's education i'm going to continue to make sure that everyone has access to higher education mister well i think we're really talking about immigration here and i don't know if you looked at my website but i have a five point proposal for the border situation what i think we want there is business and political leadership a positive solution for that area of the border and northern mexico  i would preempt laws like ten seventy and i would i would oppose that in minnesota and i think it's something that the federal government should do i would have if you look at the treaty that border was created by a treaty between mexico and united states and if we go by that treaty and live out its intent we're going to have a very good future for this country that could be an area of strength for us to dream act are part of those people that are that that are part of  the mexican and the u s zone i would all i want i think we need to build factories and not fences we need affirmative action i think for the mexican americans who had rights under that treaty and who could help us in that internet no borders on to to build up economically so that's how i look at it thank you our next question will be starting with representative mccullum as a student i am concerned about being able to find a job to repay my student loans but they are you doing in washington now to help rebuild the economy and what will you do to help in the future if you are elected or as a student i i can imagine you know you are kind of nervous about what your future looks like but i'm optimistic about the future we're starting to see our small businesses move forward we're starting to see small businesses start to hire and worse and we're as a government part of a team government can't do it alone we are listening very carefully to what our business sector same and so here's what i see as our great challenge a lot of us in this room remember sputnik remember the russians were ahead of us and we as a country said that's not going to happen yesterday morning front page of the star tribune business section china is starting to take over and control the clean energy market solar wind we can do better we need to be the leaders and the government needs to work with the private sector to make those key investments in r and d that allow businesses to spin off and start creating more jobs here we can make it in america we can keep all of our intellectual capacity moving forward to make america stronger so i'm very hopeful about the future of this country and we can do those things and i'm also very hopeful but we need to have a plan and a vision how to actually do that now one of the ways that this international borders on it in the border between mexico and us could help with this situation is by moving some of these factory jobs back to arizona and other states along the border build american jobs we need to grow jobs we need to grow the economy we need to restore american leadership and that's what we're talking about here today well well you in the jungle hike i can speak some chinese i know about chinese i'm not against china i've been aware of this for a long time and as a matter of fact i think if you look at our first debate the first thing i said we have some problems that china's going to grow so fast as i say they're going to take  the intellectual capital they've been holding all of our mortgage backed securities and basically we do what they say so that is not a hopeful sign and you're right and so what we need to do is to get serious back to basics i've been talking about the post but nick to we need to restore math and technology education we can use internet resources we need to innovate and lead thank you like represented mccullum i do think our best years are still ahead of us but not with the leadership we have in congress today represent mccollum is a member of the appropriations subcommittee of the budget committee in march of this year held a hearing at the state capitol on how to invest stimulus money in workforce development and what's particularly interesting about the hearing is that she didn't hear from any corporate or individual business owners she heard from government officials she heard from leaders of nonprofits and she heard from leaders of unions but she wasn't interested in hearing what the private sector had to say about that in her nine and a half years she's not sponsored she's not authored one piece of legislation that has passed that has improved unemployment in this district and again i would remind you inventus heights we've tripled our unemployment in white bear like we've gone from three point eight in january of two thousand and one when she was elected to eight percent now in june the simple fact is that we need new leadership and we will get this country back on track thank you we'll starting next question with mr carlson financial a financial times article showed the german economy grew at over t point two percent mainly due to exports well we're only seem to be exploiting jobs two weeks ago i trained a programmer from shanghai to take over a project i had worked on for several years at that same time a friend of mine was training a programmer from singapore to take his job he is now unemployed policy matters what policies would you enact to address issues of competitiveness and jobs you know i've had that exam experience i've had jobs where what i did was train people in india in the philippines to take my job and those are not very pleasant jobs to have we're seeing a big shift to asia because as just a huge market now how do we deal with this as i said we our policies need to be to go back to the basics we need education that's real education we've got to stop this social engineering engaging the students in arguments that their parents and the professors at the university can figure out and get back to we've got to have math and science all right we need to let people who are good at math and science who love it build a love for that and we can have internet programs which are designed by the best scientists and educators and put it on at a very low cost and i would like to department of education basically to be minimized to doing things like that innovative programs that can do things that will really help the state go where they want to go so i think education is one of the big policies obviously there are other areas like a major reason we're exporting jobs is because of the regulatory burden in this country we have local ordinances that control the expansion of business in the way business is conducted we have state laws that expanded and we also have federal laws and federal regulations the regulatory burden in this country is exceptional we also have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world as well as the second highest state corporate tax right now wonder we're losing jobs out of minnesota and yet represent mccollum has done nothing to address the regulatory burden obamacare creates over one hundred fifty new programs health care providers are not even sure how to implement it in addition to that the corporate tax it's the second highest in the world of course we're going to be exporting jobs until we get these things under control we need to come together as a set as i mentioned earlier and look at what is the future what is the future industries of this world and we need to invest in the r and d the research and development do that we need to come together to do that and if we do if we do the solar power the wind power and all the savings that we will see as a nation from not importing oil from the middle east anymore we'll help make our companies more competitive and stronger health care one of the things that i want to stress again that this health care bill starts to address is taking the burden off of employers to have to provide health care for their employees where the only industrialized nation that does that that is a huge burden and i honor our businesses for taking care of their families but we need to start removing net so that they have more capital to invest in their own country companies thank you your next question will start with ms collette as a small business owner i am concerned about the future and the burdens of regulation when is enough enough one of the key things that we have saluted have to do is we have to stop expanding the federal government regulatory authority there used to be a doctrine in constitutional law called the non delegation doctrine which require that congress make the important policy decisions and not leave it to bureaucrats that are unelected and can stay in place for twenty twenty five years with no political repercussions from bad decisions now i don't have much hope that that's going to be reinstituted but if congress will exercise some restraint and quit creating a hundred fifty plus new programs if they will create quit delegating to the regulatory state all of these decisions and take responsibility for making decisions like proposing budgets and passing budgets then we will see a reduction in the regulation at least at the federal level thank you represented mccullum we have it trusted in the federal government some very very important things the food we eat to be save the drugs we take to do no harm to the water we drink not to poisonous the air we breathe not to cause asthma and lung cancer regulations they have a role in keeping us healthy and safe the lack of financial regulations as new financial instruments like these credit default swaps kept moving forward there was no regulation there was no oversight there was no one looking at them and by having lack of regulation in that area contributed to this country nearly falling into a depression now is every regulation smart and  well but just to say that the federal government has no ball in regulations and that we should just get out of the way i think puts us in harm's way thank you mr carlson well i certainly am not saying that the federal government has no role in regulations regulations all these things you're talking about doing very good but that not necessarily what the government should be doing it's not the best way to do it now first of all we're trying to put in place this cap and trade regulation to protect us from the environment we've got to reject that that's just going to be a job killer it's going to be an industry killer we need to give i think regulation authority back to the states and business matters except in those instances where you need to protect the consumer and then you need to exercise good judgment of course we want to protect consumers but otherwise the states can do all of this i mean they can regulate insurance that they always have and a lot of this has been taken to the government is spending money and building to figure out bureaucracies are not helping anything i would also be in favor of just in time hiring where we cut the cost of regulation and the time that it takes you can hire the people that you want to be productive right now that you need so you can be competitive when it's time to grow health care you've got this twenty percent surcharge on s jude and three m and medtronic that's just going to kill businesses this is more government regulations thank you our next question and it will be our last question will start with representative mccullum please explain how increasing income taxes will help economic growth and job growth in these poor economic times and how increasing capital gains taxes and dividend taxes will help retired senior survive these poor economic times well i am for a middle class tax cut these are tough tough times and right now the last thing that the middle class needs pushed on to it is increased tax burden so i support increasing not increasing taxes i support decreasing middle class taxes families need to have the money in their pocket businesses need to have families making purchases and we also see families wanting to kind of save and set aside also for their children's future so i support middle class tax cuts thank you mr carlson well you know the short answer is you can explain that because it doesn't make any sense one of the things they're at horner is doing is tom who has to i think it's very good is that he's not going to put no income taxes and anybody he's going to look for other sources of revenue now if you combine with dayton's proposing and just described that you're going to let the bush tax cuts expire for everybody over two hundred fifty thousand just imagine how that's going to kill businesses now as far as capital gains so obviously individuals who are investors that's important for them and  we should we should not be tampering with there that i don't see any i haven't heard any compelling argument to to raise the capital gains tax obviously that it cuts saving and investment and people right now especially need those returns just so they can survive and be in business and america can be in business so i would be against both of those things thank you ms clinton the simple fact is that the bailouts did not create access to credit we're seeing huge credit crunch for small business owners as i travel throughout the district i cannot tell you the number of small business people that have told me that they are either cutting back or they're having to close their businesses because they cannot get access to credit taxing dividends and capital gains ca tax will not increase access to credit which is the lifeblood as many of you know a small business owners it is imperative in these tough economic times that we make sure that we can get the investment capital for expansion so that we can get hiring doing again in this instance what is being proposed is tax cuts for the middle class but represented mccollum has failed to define that what she means is those sorts of tax cuts that are politically popular among the unions but not the tax cuts that help those people that create jobs in the society to move forward get the investment capital they need  started and we are back to we are now closing in we each candidate will have the two minutes for closing remarks and we are back to mr ok well i came here to talk about private sector job creation i think this is the issue in the two thousand elections generally and yet i'm hearing from all the candidates that they cannot create private sector jobs i have a different view  and i also want to clarify my views that were i think distorted in this debate that is going to air on k s t p i recognize the role of monetary policy and fiscal policy to create a better  environment for small businesses here in minnesota to create jobs but i don't think we can rely on those what i would focus on is one of the things i can focus on addition some good ideas have been raised by tom horner of the independence  party candidate for governor who i think is brilliant who can do a great job and there's one thing i want to recommend here today is put tom horner in there and let him do some real consensus building and stop the gridlock and create some certainty and that's what i think we need to do in washington to now it's obvious there's going to be a shift there's going to be a new government coming in and the question that before us today is what do we want to do with that new government and what we want to do is create more certainty not less certainty we don't want wild gyrations from left to right so we need the same kind of moderate thoughtful approach that we're seeing at the at the state government level so i'm aware that monetary policy has a very important we talk about fiscal policy as far as tax policy but monetary it needs to be reserved basically to stop deflation or if the if the inflation starts to come down to maintain stability what we need to do working on the ground i think is to close the gap between the the hirings the the hirings that are occurring and the much greater level of jobs that are being created businesses are creating jobs they can't fill so what i was saying to the other day is we've got to focus on closing that gap and can start to drive job growth economic growth here at the ground level i think each one of you know that you have some things you could hire people for but you always think can i afford it will i have time is this the time to do it thank you ms cliff well first i'd like to thank the white bear chamber of commerce for hosting this i think it's a wonderful opportunity to be in front of people that are driving progress in this state and i'm very very grateful for the efforts that you made to do that i'm also grateful for congresswoman mccollum to appear in this forum because it is unusual for her to accept the opportunity to present her views in a situation where other people have different views and have the opportunity to debate and to present those contrasts of that the voters can make the decision and steve carlson has of course been in october as well as this debate and a couple of others so i'm grateful to the other candidates for the participation the simple fact is that what you've seen today is a fundamental philosophical difference i believe like the national chamber of commerce that this country has been built on innovation incentivizing private individual labor and personal responsibility represented mccollum referred to the government controlling our air and our water in our land she has an expansive system idea about what the federal government can and should do we differ strongly on that our founding fathers believed in a limited government that allowed liberty at the individual level i believe like john lock that personal property is both the legal and the men moral right and when individuals combine their labor with property they should they should receive the benefits of that labor now that's how we're going to get jobs back on track in this in this state and in this country again the unemployment rate at the time that represented mccollum ran in two thousand was four percent it has stubbornly stuck around nine point six percent she expressed fear that it would go to sixteen percent but economists tell us that that's actually the rate that we are experiencing now with underemployed those who are so discouraged they're not looking for jobs anymore and those who are listed as actively unemployed the simple fact is our country is in crisis and what we need to do is we need to cut back not expand government programs not impose new personal and individual mandates on business i intend to do that when i get to congress and i'd love to have your support thank you representative mccollum well thank you all for getting up early thank you so much and i want to thank the viper chamber of commerce for putting into this together i like to be in situations where the questions come from you and so we've had a very vibrant discussion it's been an honor to serve the families in the fourth district in congress because the fourth district is my home i grew up in south st paul working class family had the great privilege of raising my children in north st paul where for two generations in my family right here in the fourth district businesses seniors and parents came together to invest in education to give me an opportunity and i think them for doing that and that's my commitment to do that for the future of this country prior to the state house i haven't always been in government i served in the state house and i was part time on the city council in our st paul so i know how important it is for collaboration for the ideas to come from the bottom up to the top and then come together to find a good solution i was in retail sales for twenty five years i can tell just sometimes walking through a store when times are tough and when merchandise isn't moving and people aren't buying this election is about what do we do for our future to make sure it remains rosy and optimistic two years ago this country was falling into a great depression now we're at the start of four quarters in a successful we can say we are out of a  i want to go back and work with local businesses and work with nonprofits and work with the education system around here to make sure that we are prepared for the jobs for the future that will be built here in the united states we need to make it in america and we can do that that is our future to come together for the common good to do that so we know that the times are tough i don't have to tell you that businesses know it that i've been meeting with families that color office for