By Tyler Richards

Intern

It was a debate among some of the state’s finest in Riverton on Monday night when Wyoming PBS, along with Wyoming Public Radio, hosted “Election 2008: Wyoming’s Primary Choices.” The debate featured four Republican hopefuls, Mark Gordon, Mike Holland, Cynthia Lummis and Bill Winney, and two Democratic hopefuls, Keith Goodenough and Nick Carter. All six took the floor to discuss various issues currently taking place in Wyoming and around the world.

The four Republican candidates are running against one another for the U.S. House seat being vacated by Rep. Barbara Cubin, who announced earlier this year that she would not be running for re-election.

The first topic of the night for the Republicans was focused around restoring the value of the dollar.

Winney said the first step in restoring the value of the dollar is getting the United States out of debt. According to Winney, national debt continues to increase and has almost reached $10 trillion.

“It grows pretty quickly - Congress has to not only balance the budget but they have to figure out how to generate a surplus so they can start paying that down,” he said,

Gordon agreed with Winney. He said reducing deficits and balancing its budget are two things Congress needs to do to begin the restoration of the dollar.

“Congress also needs to implement pay go by cutting spending, not by raising taxes,” Gordon said. “Congress has to have discipline.”

Holland, on the other hand, said the history of the United States has hurt the dollar.

“The history of this nation can be looked at from the money power changing hands from Congress and private bankers,” he said. “We gave Congress exclusively the right to control the value of our money and we did not give them the authority to sub-delegate that to private partial bankers. Congress must take that power back.”

Lummis said restoring the dollar is related to more than the economy; it also includes national security, economic and energy security, all of which are all intertwined and all affect the value of the dollar.” She said more energy must be produced in America.

“We must use fiscal policies that are more like Wyoming in Washington that will help improve the value of the dollar,” Lummis said.

The candidates were then asked about their positions on health care.

Winney said fixing the medical crisis first starts with doctors, who he said need to be allowed to “make decisions about medicine.” He said there will be a substantial cost to solving the medical crisis.

Gordon, however, said he thinks there are short and long-term practices that could help the medical crisis. He said in the short-term, there are various issues with U.S. codes and that doctors are opting out and providing services outside of Medicare.

Holland agreed and said he wasn’t a big fan of Medicare, especially the part “D” prescription plan because of the price index.

Lummis said she would support a patient directed healthcare plan, but refused to accept government-dictated health care.

The house candidates were also asked about their positions on education and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After the Republican House candidates’ debate, which lasted one hour, Goodenough and Carter took the floor. Both are hoping to take the seat of Sen. John Barrasso, who was appointed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal after Sen. Craig Thomas passed away in 2007.

When the candidates were asked about Social Security, Goodenough said the program is an “enormous” problem.

“The study I saw showed that Social Security would be solvent for the next 30-35 years, which gives us time to work on the proposal,” he said. “What we need is more people paying in to Social Security so they can carry us baby boomers as we get older, and the baby boom generation is a big bulge in the population.

“We have time and we don’t have to move as fast.”

Carter said his first step would be to ensure that future politicians can’t touch the Social Security trust fund. His second step would raise the maximum amount citizens pay.

“I am in favor of raising the maximum amount and continue to pay Social Security; I believe it’s $92,000 right now,” he said. “Given that even in Campbell County, the average working individual makes $60,000-70,000, we clearly need to raise that amount.”

While rising the cap amount would help, Carter said Social Security would probably only last another 10-15 years. After raising the cap amount, Carter said the next step would be to ensure people are still working and paying Social Security.

Healthcare was the next topic discussed. Goodenough said the healthcare system is “creaking under the weight” of the increased cost of administering healthcare and there must be more human solutions to healthcare. According to Goodenough, Medicare is tied in with the bigger health care question.

“I believe in Wyoming, we need to look out for our own citizens and our senators speak for the entire country,” he said. “I believe we should seek out our own citizens first. We should use state resources to help our own citizens.”

Carter agreed that healthcare coverage is a big issue around the nation. He said Medicare is a coverage issue that needs to be fixed quickly.

“We need to get the HMO’s and the political folks out of this debate,” he said.

Carter said Americans need catastrophic coverage to ensure they don’t go bankrupt.

“Medical bankruptcies are the number one cause of bankruptcies,” Carter said. “We need to fix that with a catastrophic plan that is federally regulated right off the bat.”

Wyoming citizens will cast their votes in the primary election on Aug. 19.

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