Colorado Senate debate highlights: Bennet, O'Dea clash on inflation, Trump, government spending
Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican Joe O'Dea faced off in a Colorado Senate debate Friday. (Courtesy: KUSA/9NEWS)
Summarizing my town halls across Colorado over the last 14 years is straightforward: people are working harder than ever, but can’t afford some combination of housing, health care, child care, or higher education. They see a middle-class life slipping away. And that was before the pandemic and global inflation.
Coloradans are reaping the whirlwind of a 40-year Washington consensus stretching back to President Ronald Reagan that is also easy to summarize: cut taxes for the wealthiest people and corporations and hope something trickles down to everyone else; slash investments in the American people and our future; privilege companies that ship our supply chains and jobs overseas; and, finally, let special interests write their own rules.
The result has been catastrophic: the worst income inequality since the 1920s; the lowest economic mobility since the 1940s; the third-highest rate of child poverty among developed nations. An economy that has relentlessly channeled all the benefits to the top 10 percent for decades, even as incomes for everyone else flatlined.
As Washington took its hands off the wheel, dangerous headwinds gathered: national infrastructure in disrepair; broken supply chains; a health care system that covers too few and costs too much; an education system that reinforces inequality; an immigration system that leaves families in limbo and farms and businesses without labor; and an energy policy that, until recently, did nothing to fight climate change, lower prices, or secure our energy independence.
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bennet speaks to voters at a house party in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S., December 8, 2019. Picture taken December 8, 2019. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz - RC20VE9XVDAO (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)
Washington’s neglect left Americans deeply worried their kids would live a more diminished future. And it put our democracy at terrible risk. When citizens lose opportunity and hope for a better future, that is precisely when tyrants appear and claim they alone can fix it.
That’s one reason millions of Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2016; they were exhausted with an agenda in Washington that bore no resemblance to their struggles in this economy. In the end, the Trump administration made matters worse with four years of chaos, dysfunction, disinvestment, deregulation, and more tax cuts for the wealthy. So voters rejected President Trump in 2020 and demanded a new course.
Over the past two years, we have begun to pursue one.
We passed my bill to expand the Child Tax Credit, which provided families $450 a month to help with housing, groceries, and school supplies. Last year, it cut child poverty nearly in half and family hunger by a quarter.
The choice in this election is whether we will build on the progress we’ve made, or revert to the failed policies that made our economy less fair, our future less bright, and our democracy at risk.
We passed the most significant infrastructure investment since President Eisenhower to rebuild America’s roads, bridges, and airports. It includes $65 billion for high-speed internet nationwide based largely on the bipartisan bill I wrote with Republican Senator Portman and Independent Senator King (I-ME).
We passed a bipartisan manufacturing law to revive America’s semiconductor industry, reshore critical supply chains, and strengthen our competitiveness with China.
Finally, we overcame Big Pharma and passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which caps the cost of prescription drugs at $2,000 a year for seniors on Medicare and finally requires Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for the American people. It also makes the largest investment to fight climate change and secure our energy independence with a responsible transition that will expand supply (including natural gas), lower costs, and cut climate pollution by 40 percent. And, this law reduces the deficit by over $200 billion, with a 15 percent minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations, so they don’t pay lower rates than teachers and firefighters.
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Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, speaks during a news conference on the Child Tax Credit at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, July 15, 2021. The President's agenda got a boost with Senate Democratic leaders outlining plans for more than $4 trillion in domestic programs, but enactment hinges on negotiating details on Medicare, taxes, immigration and infrastructure that have confounded Congress for a generation. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Al Drago/Bloomberg)
The choice in this election is whether we will build on the progress we’ve made, or revert to the failed policies that made our economy less fair, our future less bright, and our democracy at risk.
I am running for reelection to pursue a new American project that unites the country over the politics of the moment around real ambitions:
Revitalize the middle class by further strengthening our supply chains, reviving American manufacturing, and leading a global transition to clean energy.
Provide decent, affordable health care -- including mental health care -- to every American.
Bring our schools into the 21st century and ensure that every kid graduates from high school with the skills to earn a living wage.
Protect our children, democracy, and national security from giant tech companies and malicious foreign powers who use social media platforms for their own purposes.
Turn our tax code into an engine that empowers working families, instead of entrenching inequality.
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Fix our broken immigration system with a comprehensive approach that secures the border and the benefits of new Americans to our economy and society.
And most important, create an economy that grows for everyone, not just those at the very top.
All of this is possible. And when we achieve it, we won’t just hand the next generation a stronger economy. We will hand them a stronger democracy and a stronger America.
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