Washington (US Political RP; 2016 ; Special Events ; OPEN!)

[Federal States of Xathuecia]

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The 1st Post-Election Debate
Washington US Political RP

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Welcome to CNN's first Post Election Debate. This is the first of an upcoming series that will attempt to call on two members of opposite ways of thinking, liberal and conservative, and have their take on the future of the United States. Mr. Reed's election was historic and will define the next four years. Additionally, the economic pains of the ongoing Recession are hurting millions of Americans. These and a host of other issues make up what domestic concerns our country will face. Senator Fowler and Representative Smith are here with us today to deliberate on the issues.. I'm your host, Rebecca Ibsen. We are here at CNN studios in Atlanta Georgia. Join us after this break to meet the debatees..

[Federal States of Xathuecia]

Rebecca: Welcome back everyone. Our debators are onstage so let us begin. Representative Smith won the coin toss so Mrs. Smith, what are your current thoughts on the historic election of Mr. Calvin Reed?

[Velahor]

Rebecca: Welcome back everyone. Our debators are onstage so let us begin. Representative Smith won the coin toss so Mrs. Smith, what are your current thoughts on the historic election of Mr. Calvin Reed?

Nicole smiled at the camera. "Thanks Rebecca. The election of Calvin Reed is very representative of the division we face in our nation. There are a lot of upset Americans out there, and I don't blame them. The economy is in the tank, violence runs amok, and we still face much of the same problems we saw 50 years ago.
Cal Reed was elected because Americans just wanted stability. Nobody was going to vote for the Progressives or the Democrats, when Winston was being targeted by the media and the Democratic Party was plagued by scandals and disasters. When there's so much turmoil in the world, people just won't vote for a party in chaos like the Democratic Party was at the DNC. So the masses, in error, flocked to Calvin Reed, a man who will only escalate America's problems.
Reed was only elected because of the divisions among the left.
The fact is, Democrats and Progressives must reconcile their differences if we want to achieve the common goals of eliminating racism, and achieving economic and social equality. I plan on being a bridge between these two parties, allowing conversation for a more united front against Republicans and their failed policies and ideas."

[Dentali]

Firstly I want to thank you for the invitation to this debate and I would like to thank my opponent for being here and sharing ideas.

President-Elect Reed was not my first choice in the primary. But as time passed he continued to impress me. He won my vote and the votes of millions of Americans. Untested though he may have been he earned the presidency, just look at the turnout. Even if the left was unified Reed still struck a cord with Americans. When I look at a candidate for president the first thing I look for is a sense of vision. We don't know what the next challenge facing our nation will be, but that vision is what inspires us and drives us. Now things are gonna be hard, Reed has a steep learning curve, but he is surrounding himself with the best and brightest and has show that if nothing else he has the vision and drive that our nation will need in the years to come.

[Federal States of Xathuecia]

Rebecca: Understood. A major part of Mr. Reed's platform involved how to deal with the ongoing and worsening economic recession. Representative, what is your approach to helping America's economic issues?

[Velahor]

Rebecca: Understood. A major part of Mr. Reed's platform involved how to deal with the ongoing and worsening economic recession. Representative, what is your approach to helping America's economic issues?

"The fact is, most economic issues can be tied back to income inequality. For far too long, we have given giant tax breaks to corporations, and now the middle class foots the bill for most government spending. I refuse to let this keep happening. We need to eliminate tax breaks and loopholes for the wealthy!

A lot of the time, welfare is called a "safety net". Well bad policies left over from the Shrub years that Winston never got around to addressing have left big holes in this net. Now unemployment grows as greedy corporations try to earn a profit off of honest Americans. The middle class is earning less and being forced to spend more. Once these Americans are sucked dry on one end for their money and on the other end for their work, they fall into unemployment, where Republicans tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps while corporations continue to hold them down. That's why I will reiterate, I support increasing taxes on the wealthy and eliminating corporate tax loopholes in order to use that tax money to fix the safety net that is broken for honest middle class Americans."

[Velahor]

"Let me add one thing: proposed economic reforms like Reed's budget only strengthen the system that prevents the poor and middle class from earning a livable wage."

[Federal States of Xathuecia]

Rebecca: Senator Fowler, do you agree with the Representative's criticism of the President-Elect’s plan?

[Dentali]

I agree that income inequality is a major concern, I agree we need a safety net. But the pressure on the American people comes from the Government. Blaming Shrub for poor welfare policies is laughable when compared to the democrats over the past 8 years. The way to economic prosperity is a multi step process. Firstly we need to get spending under control, the federal government takes a lot of money in taxes from everyone. Now taxes are necessary for a functioning government and allow us as a nation to do things individuals can't. But it's not the federal governments money, it's the people's money and you deserve it to be managed and invested well. We are going to cut down spending and get a balanced budget, then we are going to cut taxes for everyone, and reform the entire tax code. Making it easier for everyone and eliminating loopholes. The extra money is going to go a long way, the businesses my colleague is demonizing will hire and pay more, instead of people competing to get hired, businesses will compete over workers. More businesses will appear in America both homegrown and from overseas. We lower taxes and everything gets cheaper, the economy booms. Democrats come from a good place, they want to give everyone an equal slice of the pie. But I say, let's make the pie bigge so everyone gets enough to eatr.

[Federal States of Xathuecia]

Rebecca: Representative, is the Senator's plan something that you would support?

[Velahor]

"Senator, your metaphor is amusing but also brings up my point. Yes a big pie would be great. A booming economy is good for everyone. But I'll take the metaphor further.

4 people are going to have a pie every day. One guy gets 3/4ths of the pie, the other 3 have to share the other 1/4 of the pie. When the pie is big, the economy is good, everyone is fed. But one day, something goes wrong overseas at the pie factory and they get a pie the size of a teacup. Like our recession right now. The 3 people with the quarter of the pie have one bite a piece and go hungry, while the guy who got 3/4ths of the pie still gets full.

In other words, Republican economics work fine when times are good, when everyone is fed. But when our global economy goes sour, it's the poor who get only a tiny bit of the pie who have to starve. The rich can make it through a recession, the poor can't. Unless the rich guy is willing to get taxed a little harder to feed the poor."

[Federal States of Xathuecia]

Rebecca: Any comment Senator?

[Dentali]

"Yes thank you Rebecca

First I would like to politely ask we refrain from continuing the pie metaphor, my flight was delayed and I had to skip dinner to be here on time."

Fowler and some of the audience chuckle

"You are right in that sometimes bad things happen and the economy weakens. But during the times things are hardest we shouldn't be imposing more of a burden on our people. If we increase taxes on those businesses and the rich, they are going to have to cut costs. That means layoffs, that mean higher pricers for the consumer, worse products, or the company closes its doors because they can't afford to operate. Raising taxes means that companies based in the United States are going to look to move to countries with lower taxes and operating costs. Once again its well meaning, but ultimately it will just make the situation worse."

Fowler looked down momentarily and then continued in a somber tone

"I grew up above a small business, my parents appraised houses for a living. Wasn't great money but it was a living, it helped but me and my sister through school. When the housing bubble burst it hit us hard, and that bubble came from people with very good intentions but who ultimately failed to see the forest for the trees. Now i've spoken with my parents and small business owners across Vermont and across the nation and I can tell you for a fact that every single one has said that excessive regulations and taxes hurt their business every day, and however well intentioned Democrats will only breed more of it with these policies."

[Velahor]

"Yes thank you Rebecca

First I would like to politely ask we refrain from continuing the pie metaphor, my flight was delayed and I had to skip dinner to be here on time."

Fowler and ome of the audience chuckle

"You are right in that sometimes bad things happen and the economy weakens. But during the times things are hardest we shouldn't be imposing more of a burden on our people. If we increase taxes on those businesses and the rich, they are going to have to cut costs. That means layoffs, that mean higher pricers for the consumer, worse products, or the company closes its doors because they can't afford to operate. Raising taxes means that companies based in the United States are going to look to move to countries with lower taxes and operating costs. Once again its well meaning, but ultimately it will just make the situation worse."

Fowler looked down momentarily and then continued in a somber tone

"I grew up above a small business, my parents appraised houses for a living. Wasn't great money but it was a living, it helped but me and my sister through school. When the housing bubble burst it hit us hard, and that bubble came from people with very good intentions but who ultimately failed to see the forest for the trees. Now i've spoken with my parents and small business owners across Vermont and across the nation and I can tell you for a fact that every single one has said that excessive regulations and taxes hurt their business every day. And however well intentioned Democrats will only breed more of it."

Nicole spoke up "So Senator Fowler, how do you suppose we provide for those less fortunate during hard times? Or are they just a "burden on our people"? Are we supposed to depend on the goodwill of the rich to provide for the poor?"

[Velahor]

She turned to address the crowd and said, "Greed exists. There's no way around it. Charity and hoping that the wealthy create more jobs is not a reliable solution to poverty. A taxing the rich to support the poor in hard times is a must."

[Dentali]

"I never said we don't need a safety net. I'm not saying we shouldn't help if someone needs a hand. But if we continually follow your plan we continually foster more government activities and don't reduce an every increasing tax burden."


"So what do I suppose? That when a bad time happens we keep our heads and don't make things harder for Americans by increasing costs and decreasing the number of jobs. That's a way to make the pie smaller as it were. This makes the very crisis we are talking about worse."


"When we get hit with a recession, we need to make things easier for people. Focus on making goods cheaper, better and more competitive. Support business and the people who need it. Almost every financial crisis we have faced in our countries history can be traced back in part or in whole to bad government management. What I want is a government who focuses on the reason for the crisis and not who they should tax to try and fix it."

[Dentali]

It was Ronald Reagan that said "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help"

Again and again I have watched the government bungle healthcare, welfare, housing, finance and so much more. They can't even balance a budget and yet you say that the corporations making millions and billions in profit, the small businesses balancing budgets, the people who make this country work can't be trusted? I've been to Baltimore, my wife is from Baltimore, the last Republican mayor of Baltimore was in the early 60s. If you want an example of the damage the "charity" of the Democratic party and big government has done take a look at the city.

[Federal States of Xathuecia]

Rebecca: Reel it in please. Let us move on to another domestic issue, one dealing with regulation and government regulation.How would you describe your feelings towards regulation on Wall Street?

[Velahor]

"Again, you're assuming that corporations will go along with the idea of making goods cheaper and better. I guess I just don't have that kind of faith in big business.

You want to decrease this "tax burden" but you also want to provide for the poor? You can't have it both ways Mr. Fowler. We already fail to provide enough for those struggling in this recession. Lowering taxes will only continue to puncture holes in the safety net, putting more Americans out on the street.

When a recession comes, the rich can give up their third home, the poor can't give up their only home."

[Velahor]

"I'll keep it short: we must require Wall Street to play fair and abide by the regulations we have set before them. No ifs ands or buts!

In addition we must get Wall Street's hands out of politics. Their funding of campaigns puts people in office who are there to only help Wall Street, not the general public."

[Federal States of Xathuecia]

Rebecca: Senator, your thoughts on Wall Street regulation?

[Dentali]

To the Representative. I want a true Safety Net, not the badly mismanaged one we have now. And cutting taxes makes less people need a safety net, I want to make less people dependent on the government and not more.

To answer your question Rebecca I would say that the government exists to call balls and strikes. We need to ensure laws are being followed and everyone gets a fair shake on Wall Street. However we shouldn't be picking winners and losers, manipulating the economy is bad for everyone. I don't want to get in the way of doing honest business.

The over reliance on credit rating agencies—a legally protected oligopoly—was driven by regulatory policy, which supplanted market discipline.

To quote Alan Greenspan: “Adequate capital eliminates the need for an unachievable specificity in regulatory fine tuning.”

A more market-based solution would be to simply regulate higher mandated equity standards in the range of 15 to 30 percent of total assets.

The most recent Wall Street crisis came because of the insolvency threat to global banks, the losses were in relation to tangible equity capital.

Everything was inaccurately rated by credit rating agencies, so any future proposed government central planning, well I'm skeptical at best.

[Federal States of Xathuecia]

Rebecca: Before we move on from purely economic concerns, Senator, you recently created a Prosperity Caucus in the Senate. Do you think that the goals it lined out are achievable?

[Velahor]

"The banks mainly failed because of terrible business practices. I'm not saying that the government should control how banks do business. But predatory lending has been central to every recession of the past 50 years, and we must do our duty to eliminate those practices."

[Dentali]

Rebecca I honestly believe that anything is possible. Maybe not in my first session, maybe not in my lifetime but America is going to move forward.

Now as for the Prosperity Caucus, its been a slow deliberate pace. Not everything has gone to plan certainly and we have been met with criticism, both fair and unfair. Those goals I outlined, are things we discussed in the first meeting, I can't speak for the others as to whether or not that is the direction we will go. The caucus has people from all over the political spectrum, we agree we need to jumpstart the economy again and we agree in broad strokes how to do that. What we are still ironing out are the specifics of the plan and what we are going to focus on accomplishing.