Candidates for joining us. Good evening. This is a partnership between public media, the league of women voters. Civic Engagement Center and history, philosophy and social science department, and the vote everywhere initiative. Our candidates our democratic nominee and incumbent congressman. Early voting begins this weekend and election day is november 3rd and absentee ballots are already in the mail. Voting access has been expanded this year to address concerns amidst the pandemic and here are the ground rules each candidate has one minute for opening and closing statements. The first position will go to mr. Price. We are still taking questions from the voters and candidates will take turns answering questions. Each candidate has two minutes per answer. As moderator i reserve the privilege to add a followup question if i feel the answer isnt clear. No candidate has seen the questions of the candidate exceeds the time limit i will alert them by ringing the bell like so. If you have a question to submit, we are monitoring twitter, use the hashtag ny 22. You can also make remarks and ask questions on the facebook page. Finally, the league of women voters are committed to promoting civil discourse, so i will remind the candidates to be cordial. For Opening Statements as i said mr. Price, you have one minute. Thank you. I would like to thank the moderator as well as the host and sponsors of the event. Many of you know my opponents, but you may not know me. As i said my name is keith price and im a libertarian candidate. A little bit about me. I was born and raised right here. I am from new york and i live with my wife, sarah and our adult son, adam. Why did i get involved in politics, why the Libertarian Party . Quite simply put, i believe in small government, transparency, responsibility and accountability not just by local governments, but all levels so what im running on is the concept that we can do Better Together if we hold onto these principles. Smaller government, transparency, responsibility and accountability. Thank you mr. Price. I want to say thank you to the moderator, the host, my opponents and the viewers. Its an honor to serve the community and congress. Im committed to the community so much so i live across the street from the house i grew up in. I raised my son as a single parent and cared for my parents and their final years. Wonderful people who suffered from grave illnesses, and i ran the family newspaper business all at the same time. My son today is a graduate of the u. S. Naval academy and serving as a captain in the u. S. Marine corps. This campaign is about two different candidates especially to those served in congress. My campaign i went to congress to work with President Trump to bring Historic Resources to the community and grow the economy. My opponent sided with the far left and voted with nancy pelosi 90 of the time and while he was dragging the country through a failed impeachment proceeding, dangerous virus was coming to the shores. We have a choice between someone who is going to preserve americas greatest surrender to socialism. I would be grateful for your vote november the third. Thank you so much. I also want to thank the moderator and thank you to the host and opponents. Right now we have this coronavirus ravaging through the country and my heart goes out to everyone impacted by this. Now is not the time for partisan politics in washington. We need people to bring us together and heal the divisions in the country. Over my two years as a member of congress i showed up and listened to all the people in the district. Ive gotten results from the people and i will stand up to anyone who would harm upstate new york. Im proud to have worked in a bipartisan manner to have six of my bills signed into law on issues ranging from supporting veterans by expanding Mental Health care and Suicide Prevention services to bringing jobs back from overseas like places like china and repealing Health Insurance taxes. Thats what i will do as a member of congress, bring people together. Unfortunately my predecessor had a different record working with the Interest Groups that bankrolled the campaign and thats why she voted to undermine healthcare and protections for people [inaudible] thank you all. Once again a reminder we have two minutes for the question and answer portion. No rebuttals but i do reserve the privilege to ask a followup question which you all have the opportunity to answer. Mr. Price, you are up first. We mentioned coronavirus, so covid19 relief is an obvious place to start. Partisanship has played a role in whether and how to include a new covid19 relief bill. Do you support another relief package and how do you move closer to a solution with other representatives whom have a different point of view than yours . First and foremost we need to get the stimulus package done and avoid the partisan politics but i have a better solution than just cutting americans a check for 1,200. What if we just for nine months or a year, economically dependent went on a tax holiday and allowed our federal government, state governments and county governments to repeal or temporarily pause all payroll and income taxes that would put money directly into the checks of americans instead of it leaving. I get that a couple of years ago the big thing was President Trump and they worked to some extent but instead of the crumbs lets talk about the whole slice. Lets give people back their money or never take it or touch it and that will give them an immediate financial impact, dollars in their paycheck today. While we continue to iron out the message of how the stimulus checks will work going forward, we can repeal or temporarily holiday tax to help americans now. Moving forward, talking about partisanship it is a shame that our nation has been divided over such an important issue. This issue affects everyone in this room and everyone watching at home. Its terrible that our politicians are playing games. If they want to show the American People that they are serious and that they represent them and they care about what they have to say, they will get it done and they will get it done now, not november 4th and november 5th. Get it done now and help us remove the payroll tax and remove the income tax. Thank you. As a Small Business owner in the community thats been negatively impacted by this pandemic, i know how it feels suffering through the crisis and many of our businesses have been hurting. Some of them have been forced to close while partisan politics continue. My opponent actually voted to prevent a bipartisan bill from coming to the floor that would have helped our constituents, our school districts, our Small Business community, individuals and local governments. That was a petition he voted against and while he was doing that, he was siding with nancy pelosi and you will hear this i dont care if its a good idea or a republican idea or republic idea i will vote for it. I would like to explain what some of the ideas are because he voted for the first bill that voted for releasing dangerous felons from prisons and Illegal Immigrants would be left 1,200 stimulus checks to Illegal Immigrants he voted numerous times to abolish voter id and to decrease funding to farmers. The original act 50 billion and by the time and that he and nancy pelosi got done with that there was only 23 billion. Those are some who claim to be for farmers. My family background is in farmers and we are struggling and suffering. We need a stimulus package that isnt loaded with a democratic wish list thats been voted on and nothing is worse than whats happening today in congress. Nancy pelosi is refusing to allow a bill to come to the floor while our communities, businesses and schools suffer right now and the same is going for the senate. And he will blame Mitch Mcconnell but its actually Chuck Schumer that said we are not going to put a stimulus package forth until we have Amy Coney Barretts nomination on the table and he boycotted the obligation today to vote on a Supreme Court candidate so i will support a stimulus package. We must have it right now for the local communities. What my opponent said is not true. I voted against the recent heroes bill because it wasnt bipartisan and we need a bipartisan solution to get us through this pandemic and get us through this economic crisis. What we need right now is another stimulus package and that is why i joined as a member of the problem solvers committee, a group of members, 25 democrats, 25 republicans in the house, tom read is the leader in the Southern Tier and we came together and put together a bipartisan framework for another covid19 relief package that includes several things. One, state and local assistance and direct assistance to the school districts. All of those entities look at major cuts right now that will translate to more job loss in the Community AmongPublic Servants like public safety, First Responders and teachers. We also have to have additional assistance for the businesses that means another round of the paycheck action program, more flexibility for Small Businesses that take out the loans under 150,000. We need another round of direct assistance to individuals and families as well as additional unemployment assistance for those that are in industries that are simply not coming back as quickly as others. Id also like to see additional childcare. People are struggling right now to balance work life and educate their children. They need help with childcare and we need more Food Assistance. Food banks have been seeing lines out the door. Ive attended a number of food giveaways and talked here in the Southern Tier. So many people for the first time utilizing their services, so we have to get more Food Assistance and i didnt vote against funding for farmers. I serve on the Agricultural Committee and vote for the farmers. Was instrumental in getting direct assistance and when the economic loans were not available i went to bat and made sure they were made available here in this region. Thats my record and thats the truth. What my opponent said is simply not true. Lets move on to the Supreme Court. After the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg theres been a lot of conversation about expanding the court. Is there a situation where you would ever agree with changing the size of the court . I do not support Court Packing. Its a politically motivated scheme going on with the democrats right now. We are talking about the constitutional obligation of the president to fill a vacancy in the u. S. Supreme court. This has happened 29 times in our history and every time the president of the United States including president obama nominated a candidate we have an amazingly superlative candidate named Amy Coney Barrett who was a justice already given bipartisan support by the senate committee. Today was unprecedented. The democrats actually boycotted Amy Coney Barretts nomination of the judiciary committee. The president even the great notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the president serves for four years, not three years. I opposed to th the court packi. Democrats have a mission they are telegraphing it to turn the Supreme Court into a super legislature. It would be filled with liberal judges so none of us would ever be able to receive a justice by going there unless you are supportive of the liberal policies of the Supreme Court it should be interpreting the law and i want to say also i was someone who honored and revered justice ginsburg. She wrote some of the most historic decisions. Her landmark decision in 2005 actually helped our community and the upper end of the district. She wrote a number of decisions that were pro taxpayer and pro justice and im grateful for her great work and personal story so yes, i do think we need to fill the seat in the event we have a controversial election. We need a full Supreme Court to be able to rule on these issues coming before us in the election. I think our system of checks and balances has worked well and i havent seen one single solitary proposal to add justices to the Supreme Court. What this is is a distraction from whats at stake and its a way to try to divert attention from a very important hearing thats coming up in front of the court november 10th to decide whether or not the Affordable Care act is constitutional. The last four years the Affordable Care act has been under constant attack, first legislatively when my opponent was a representative in congress and voted to repeal the Affordable Care act, which the Congressional Budget Office said what force 23 million americans to lose their Health Insurance. 30,000 people who benefited from Medicaid Expansion in this district and got protections and allowed Insurance Companies to charge more for preexisting conditions like asthma, Heart Disease and covid19. Its also something happening in the courts and because they couldnt diminish it legislatively they are now the department of justice has joined into this lawsuit to declare it unconstitutional. I asked what she thinks about it and she dodged the question last time but its important because peoples healt healthcare is hag in the balance. We want to make sure that healthcare is affordable and accessible to everyone in the country. No child should go without a doctor or worry about how they are going to afford their Health Insurance. We can be doing more to lower Health Insurance costs by allowing medicare to negotiate drug prices and camping outofpocket expenses, not repealing the Affordable Care act and taking people off of their Health Insurance and allowing Insurance Companies to discriminate for preexisting conditions. To me that is one of the big reasons my opponent lost her seat in congress and we shouldnt send her back to do the same. We have to remember that its the constitution that empowers the president of the United States to appoint Supreme Court justices. The Supreme Court currently has a particular number of justices and the constitution doesnt necessarily say exactly how many the president can or cannot appoint. While i believe that Court Packing is a way of creating a legislative branch with the judiciary system, its not my place to call. It would be the responsibility of the president of the United States, whomever that would be. I would encourage a president not to court pack, but i also believe that its the current sitting president s responsibility and duty to make an appointment and that should go through the proper, fair and due process is and set timetable by the appropriate body. But its important that we point out both major parties have played this game. They did it to president obama and now they are doing it to President Trump. Why does this happen . Because of continued and relentless partisan bickering. When we elect thirdparty candidates like myself or look at individuals who may not be part of the establishment, we end up with a government that thinks beyond democrat, republican, red and blue. We need to look beyond party and our leadership and we need to do what is right for the United States. If that is putting this individual on the Supreme Court, then that is the authority of the individuals involved and i say go for it. For now, we have a system. Lets adhere to it. In my 22 debate cosponsored with public media and the league of women voters. Thanks for joining us on radio and tv and welcome to those tuning in. If you are looking for information on the election we encourage you to visit a couple pair of websites, vote411. Org. That with between Maternity CarePrescription Drug coverage in emergency room treatment and allows students and young people to stay on parents insurance plans through the age of 26. There so many Different Things in their to stop the attacks on the verbal care act to look at was driving up the cost of healthcare in the one in the country with the high cost of Prescription Drugs and paying 2000 every single month for insulin know we should pay that much for Prescription Drugs we should do about that in the house of representatives. But what this bill would it do