What candidates running for Congress said to Kansas Chamber during Q&A

Six of the eight people running for U.S. Congress in Kansas attended a forum hosted by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday at the Topeka Country Club.

The event used a question-and-answer format, with each candidate getting 10 minutes to answer questions from Kansas Chamber of Commerce CEO Alan Cobb about their policy preferences. The format allows the chamber to introduce candidates to business leaders without breaching party rules about officially sanctioned debates.

Congresswoman Sharice Davids, a Democrat who represents the 3rd District, and Republican Esau Freeman — who is seeking to oust 4th District Rep. Ron Estes — were the only candidates not to attend. Republican Prasanth Reddy is challenging Davids.

Kansas’s 1st District Rep. Tracey Mann, R-KS, and his challenger Paul Buskirk spoke at the event, as did the candidates seeking the open 2nd District seat: Republican Derek Schmidt and Democrat Nancy Boyda.

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Chamber priorities

Candidates weren’t given the exact same questions, but topics top of mind for the Chamber were as follows:

• Trade and tariffs.

• Energy.

• Immigration.

• Federal budget deficits.

There was no time limit for questions, so some candidates only responded to a couple questions in their 10 minutes on stage.

Trade and tariffs

The panel saw widespread agreement on tariffs, viewing them as a tax and preferring the market to decide economic winners and losers. Boyda, Estes and Reddy all added a caveat that there are instances where a tariff is useful tool. Estes said it can help avoid foreign companies undercutting American ones, particularly those affiliated with China.

“They're intentionally going out and blowing up industries by undercutting them,” Estes said. “They've done it with steel. They've done it with solar panels. They've done it with a host of other things. So we need to make sure that in those cases, tariffs make sense.”

Schmidt agreed broadly with opposition to tariffs, but did say free trade agreements should consider the impact it has on Americans.

”(The North American Free Trade Agreement) was a free trade agreement that, philosophically, I think a lot of us that are free traders would agree with. But I think it was improved by the (United States, Mexico Canada Agreement) update in the prior administration,” Schmidt said.

Energy

Candidates tended to agree with the chamber’s position on energy with a “more of everything” approach rather than preferences for green energy or fossil fuels. Reddy said America should unlock potential energy sources in nuclear and reduce regulation in energy policy, and Mann said there are concerns about new transmission lines interfering with private property rights.

Immigration

Candidates that spoke about immigration agreed it should be easier to legally immigrate and there should be more barriers stopping illegal immigration. Estes said he liked a lot of the provisions of Securing America’s Future Act of 2018, an immigration bill he said died due to election-year pressure.

Buskirk spoke against President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to carry out a massive deportation operation in the United States.

“What happens should deportations begin? What happens to the economy of our state? First of all, our labor force in that part of our state declines. The price tag of beef in the supermarket goes up. We saw this in COVID labor shortages,” Buskirk said.

Budget deficits

Estes said part of the reason he originally ran for Congress was concern about the national debt, and pointed to $35 trillion in debt the federal government holds. He said even if the government ceased all discretionary spending it wouldn’t balance the budget.

“We've also got to make some hard discussions around Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamp program, (Women, Infants and Children), (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), some of those programs that prior congresses put in place to happen on an automatic basis, and we've got to have some hard choices,” Estes said.

Reddy said the U.S. can’t tax its way out of the debt and will have to explore spending. Boyda pointed to higher deficit spending under Trump and said both parties need to acknowledge responsibility for the deficit and reign in their respective sides.

“It's both sides, but the fact is we have to get real about what's going on,” Boyda said.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: What Kansas congressional candidates said about policy to Chamber