Road here on burnet avenue, and i saw the struggle firsthand to run a Small Business, to raise a family, to get to the middle class, and to stay in the middle class. That is why i have dedicated myself and focused to creating jobs, making sure that Small Businesses can succeed, and to bettering the middle class, because if the middleclass succeeds, then Central New York will succeed. I believe that we do have challenges, but we can face those challenges together, and that Central New York is the best place to live and work and raise a family, and as congressman, my job is to keep it that way. Congressman, thank you. Mr. Katko. Good evening, and thank you, seth, liz, and bill, for having me here, and the thank you, time warner. This is my first go round in a debate and im very honored to be here. I am excited to take part in this great democratic process. I, too, am from syracuse, new york. I was born and raised here. I am one of seven children. My mother and father lived here their whole adult lives, and i love Central New York. It is my heart and soul and what i care about deeply. I am married, i have three children, 15, 16, in 19 years old. My wife and i have been married for 27 years, and we have set down our roots here in syracuse, new york. I am a 20year federal prosecutor. I have had a very proud and long career as a federal prosecutor making streets safe for people and families and all of Central New York. I am from the middle class, but i am not just for the middle class i am for all people, whether rich, poor, black, white, it does not matter to me, and i just want to make Central New York better place. That is why i am running. I believe washington is broken, and i am the type of person who cannot just sit on the sidelines where i see a problem. That is where i am at right now, and that is why i am running. Mr. Katko, thank you very much. Thank you. The first question goes to you, congressman. The white house made quite clear over the weekend that it is not on board with mandatory quarantines for healthcare workers returning to the u. S. After treating ebola patients abroad. In response, Governor Cuomo did not actually remove his quarantine order, nor did new jersey governor Chris Christie, although they did say 21day period of isolation could be spent in an individuals home. Do you agree with the governors position . Do you think that this should be implemented at a national level, and if so, what steps do you think they should take to make sure that quarantined individuals are comfortable and compensated for their time . Well, i do think ebola is a very serious situation. We should address it. One of the keys is preventer, and that is where i got together with the county executive and met with all of the hospitals locally, making sure that they are prepared in case an ebola case should actually come to Central New York. We are very fortunate to be in a Health Care System that is as good as it is because i think if that happened, we are prepared for the serious situation. I do think that it is important that we consider things like travel bans and the current quarantine. I have no problem with that. I appreciate that it is being made to be more comfortable for the participants. I see these people as heroes who have gone over to africa to help and ultimately in order to get rid of this problem, we are going to have to solve it in africa. I appreciate that. I basically think we should leave it to the scientific experts. I do not think politicians should make these decisions. I think we should talk to the doctors, the Health Care Experts both in and out of government. Ok, just two questions if you dont mind, mr. Maffei. The first is do you expect ebola at some point to make its way to Central New York . I do not expect it, but it is possible and that is why we need , to be prepared. And in terms of the quarantine, i mean, i just want to be clear on your position doctors actually and some experts its have said that this is not necessary and actually could be a problem because it might, as he mentioned, the volunteers going overseas to assist, dissuade them from doing so. So you are or you are not in favor of the quarantine . I think the way that Chris Christie was implementing it in new jersey was not a good way to do it because he was essentially imprisoning these workers. The way our governor, Governor Cuomo has decided to do it, making sure they can be at home, making sure they can be visited by their families, etc. But being cautious, i think that is fine, and are our experts who believe that is the right thing to do. Thank you, congressman. Mr. Katko. Thank you very much. With respect to the quarantines, it is just another example of the administration reacting instead of leading. We have two governors, one from new jersey, one from new york, both of whom have president ial aspirations, both of whom got together to try to fill the gap from lack of leadership of washington, and i think that is noteworthy. Ultimately the idea of the quarantines that the think is a necessary step because we do not know what we have yet to that we had a doctor who came back there who had contracted ebola. Would rather play it safe now, of course, making them as comfortable as possible for sure, may be letting them stay in their homes like Governor Cuomo said is a fine idea, but the bottom line is until we know for sure what we are dealing with, and it sure does not summit we do at the national level, we need to just to followup, you agree with the step that the governors took, and you think that they were forced to do something because they lack of attention to this issue or a lack of response on the federal government . I think so. If we had better guidelines on a national level, we would not have to deal with this. We have guidelines of people coming back into the country other than just to test them to see they have the ebola virus or signed by, but if theyre coming back to the country and they have been working in these countries, we still do not have a full grasp on the entire parameters of the ebola virus. I think you have to take those steps. So leaving it up to the states, the state by state or a federal approach, it should be a blanket federal travel ban or blanket federal orenstein policy . I think the center for Disease Control these are of leadership, and so does the white house. I think with a disease like this that could potentially harm anybody in the country, we have got to play it safe and we need national leadership. Should dr. Friedan stepped down in your opinion . I dont think so. I think we need to do better. Commerce been. I think there is time to evaluate a letter if value way that later. Right now we need to make sure our aid workers can go and go safely to africa so we do not have more cases coming into america and other places and then if we do have a case and it is only a tiny fraction of aid workers that have been infected come if we do have a case we make sure it is contained in at those aid workers get the best work available. Thank you very much, gentlemen. I want to turn out to the issue of jobs in this region has seen a long running to a number of manufacturing jobs. I want to ask and should we be confident at all that manufacturing has a future here in Central New York, or should the region be focused on trying to attract other sorts of jobs . Absolutely. I have great faith in the spirit of the folks of new york. I happen to be factors here, any factories that remain here are lean and mean. Instead of poor people that dont know the instead of for people doing one job, they have one person doing it. Mechanization is hightech, and it is possible to have faith in them that when you to level the Playing Field for them, and it is part of my jobs plan that we do so. That is to increase incentives for Vocational Training both at the high school and College Levels because these are not our dads and moms jobs anymore. We need hightech skills are many things we need to do to let these Companies Compete on a world level. They are trying to compete. To boom inare going Central New York. I have great faith in that. Congressman. Any fracturing is a growing part in our economy. When my grandfather was in the electroplating plants, it was very intensive that i toured a number of plants, and one of them, darko, run by a named laura miller in syracuse, it is very good nor how, we to make sure the right jobs get to the right people. That is why i have had several job fairs. I intervene with the International Trade commission to make sure that we would have a fair level Playing Field in order to process usmade steel manufactured right here in new york. Dealing with wages, you have both indicated in the past he would support an increase in the minimum wage above what it is now. I am wondering if you can tell us how high you would like to see that minimum wage be right now, and also whether you would go along with the idea of minimum wage so that it continues to rise with inflation and we dont to get workers falling behind on the income scale. Congressman, we will go with you first. I voted to raise the federal minimum wage to 10. 10 an hour. I would prefer that we keep it in a package were Small Businesses have helped to make sure it does not come down on them. We have done this and it the past im a bipartisan way and it has worked well in not heard our economy. Raiseimportant that we the minimum wage because America Needs a raise and it needs to be something that we make a priority as long as we do it in the right way. Raisingt romney is for the minimum wage, and i do not think it should be a partisan issue. I agree. In the if you indexing, it would not be such a big problem every time you had to raise it because it would not be a big shot on the economy. That is why im trying to do a Small Business package. Mr. Katko. The package voted for, 10. 10 that is cutting off your nose to spite your face. We have got to be smart about how we do it, and i think if you did in the context of an overall reform package and did not just include minimum wage but also included real tax reform for businesses so that they can compete on the world stage, i think that is a better way to do it. But just to impose more on businesses, which is unfortunately going to cut more jobs, as many as 500,000 jobs is not the way to go. If you cut the minimum wage, if you look at past increases of the minimum wage, those jobs have not been lost in large numbers. They have come back from the initial shock to some businesses that why would this be different . The economy as struggling. We lost another 1200 jobs in september alone and i do not you to risk to say look, if do this, it will cost 500,000 jobs. I would rather have an incremental raise and see how it goes because if you dont you talk about 40 rise in labor cost for entrylevel businesses. That is the heartbeat of Small Businesses, and if you do that and lose 500,000 jobs, it is too big a risk. Do incremental raises in the context of real reform so not ofy they have increased cost labor but theyve increased cost of operating costs, i think that is a good outcome to have that he will trynt says to do his best for the poor the best thing you can do is to make survey have jobs at the center wages. It starts with raising a minimum wage that we can do it in a bipartisan way to have a low impact that that it gets back to seths question, we have been losing jobs in Central New York for three decades. Raising the minimum wage is not want to suddenly put us on a bad pass and will allow families more money to invest and spend in the economy. Just a few would allow me one second before we move on, and the absence of federal minimum wage, at the state level there has been a proposal that certain cities would have the power, new york city in particular, to raise the minimum wage on its own at the state level. Is that some in you agree with, congressman . It exemplifies why we need to raise the federal minimum wage because they should be the same throughout the United States. It should not be that new york businesses have a different requirement than businesses in idaho, georgia, or new hampshire. It is important to raise the minimum wage because new yorks someis different than in other states, so the federal wages where i would concentrate. It is ridiculous to think that the cost of living in new york city is the same as in circuits, new york. If you impose the same, they can result taking a look from the state standpoint on a reasonable basis on a regional basis is probably not at that idea that because of living in new york is extra ordinary compared to living in syracuse. We move onto a National Security issue. This question goes to you, mr. Katko. In light of recent shootings in canada, should the country be taking better steps to secure the northern border, and if so, what should those steps be . I have been spending years of my life to secure these northern border. It is scary. In new york state alone, we have an indian reservation which addles both lines of the the answer is absolutely, positively yes. We have whole aspect of the northern border that are not adequately controlled, and we have to do more to do that and we have to face the facts that canada has more lax immigration standards than we do, so most people in most cases we found get into canada and then try to sneak into the United States,. The biggest threat we are without as prosecutors and our district was perhaps maybe a terrorist can get smuggled through there someday. Thank god it has not happened yet. It sounds like you would think more patrols, but it is a control, quiter lengthy and in some areas wild, difficult certainly to maintain. It is not like the texas border. It is a different challenge altogether. What exactly would you do . Would there be hightech aspects to that perhaps . Vastey are both very borders that on the texas border, there is a heck of a lot more electronic borders, a multifaceted view, and they view the southern border is more of a threat to dot i do not think that is valid. We have to secure our borders withe want to start immigration reform, and we have to start with securing the borders. Thank you, mr. Katko. Mr. Maffei . We need to secure all of our borders am absolutely, but we have to do it in a way that will not hurt our commerce in Central New York. Many businesses export a lot and do a lot of trade and canada. Indeed, a lot of canadians come here to the mall, too many other local attractions in order to , but in my size and technology committee, we had a hearing on technology to do so. One possible technology civilian use of the Remote Control vehicles, drones, and we were able to accomplish working with the centers, myself and richard hanna, getting an experiment of site right here in new york to deal with that underline it would be civilian use of drones to monitor the border . Yep. Like a vigilante approach . Know, government as opposed to military. Understood that congressman maffei come i let a former work on Migrant Workers to harvest their crops. What would you do to make sure guest workers would still be allowed in if immigration policy were to change . Immigration policies day to change, and one of the reasons is to allow a Guest Worker Program that would be worthy of because right now they do not have enough workers to pick their crops, and that means they cannot employ as many americans, either. Thatlan that is bipartisan has already passed the u. S. Senate is the Senate Immigration bill. It would secure our borders, but it would also make sure that we have enough workers for those particular businesses and would make sure that theres a path to citizenship that would deal with some of the 12 million some families that are here. Unfortunately my opponent does not support that bipartisan bill reedit that is the problem with washington we cannot get anything done because even with bipartisan, we cannot get agreement from the hardline republicans who just do not like immigration reform. That is how washington talks, blaming the other side. I do not want to blame the other side read i want results. I have a birds eye view of immigration from the beginning. I can tell you that they want to be here and we have to streamline the process for them to be here, and the process has to be a simple as decreasing the paperwork and allow them to come in and out of this country quickly and efficiently. Rico, aas in puerto palm fringe is all i needed. To get in and out of the prisons. Why cant we have Something Like that here in a more streamlined fashion with the agriculture industry . Just to followup on a, do you believe as the congressman suggested that the u. S. Senate bill should be brought to the floor by the house . That john boehner allow that to the floor for a vote . Of course he should because then people can decide where they are at. I am for complete overhaul of the immigration laws, absolutely. The only thing i have a concern with is the path to citizenship for people that are here illegally. Livingple here lawabiding lives, there should be some sort of resident status. I think that is the only Sticking Point reedit as far as the overall immigration issue, there are some aspects of it, and forming as one, student visa leadingthose nonproductive lives, criminals, are another aspect. Those living lawabiding lives, they should not be shipped out of here. Agree if it made it to the chamber you would vote yes . Path it included giving a to resident status for aliens come i could not vote for that. That is actually the problem in washing