INDIANAPOLIS – The three GOP Senate candidates have a trio of debates coming up, and organizers for both the Indiana Debate Commission and WISH-TV debates are soliciting questions from the public to ask at their respective events. Plenty more questions are needed: there are fewer than two months to go until the primary, yet all three men have spent more time throwing mud at each other than explaining why they’re the best option to represent Hoosier voters.
At these debates Rep. Braun, Congressman Messer and Congressman Rokita will have opportunities to justify their flawed campaigns and out-of-touch policies. Congressman Messer and Rep. Braun will actually have even more opportunities than usual, as they’ll be able to take up the time Congressman Rokita won’t use after he stood up the Indiana Debate Commission. So if moderators are looking for public input, here are a couple of questions they ought to ask.
Seven debate questions for Congressmen Messer, Rokita and Rep Braun:
Congressman Rokita, you say you want to get rid of the political establishment, but you’ve been in political office since 2002 and continuously raise money from wealthy establishment donors. How are you not part of the same career political establishment that you rail against?
Braun, the state you want to represent has one of the most vibrant automotive manufacturing industries in the nation. How can anyone trust your claims that you’ll bring back Hoosier jobs when your campaign is being funded by the profits of a business that sells parts that are made in China, but not ones made in Indiana?
Congressman Messer, how do you reconcile your promise to drain the swamp and represent Hoosiers when you and your family left Indiana to live in Washington D.C. when you got elected to Congress?
In the last debate, all three of you said you want to gut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security for Hoosiers. Our government has made promises not just to Hoosiers on the verge of retirement, but any Hoosier who has paid payroll taxes. Why do you believe the government shouldn’t keep its promises to these hard-working Hoosiers of several generations who have done nothing wrong?
All three of you have supported the Republican effort to dismantle the health care system that would have gutted HIP 2.0 and cut $800 billion from Medicaid, which are two of the state’s biggest weapons in fighting the opioid crisis. What do you intend to tell the Hoosier families whose relatives are fighting addiction and depend on these programs?
How do you reconcile your support for sabotage of Indiana’s health care system by the administration and congressional Republicans that has caused premiums to skyrocket for middle class Hoosiers while supporting the McConnell tax plan that gives the same insurers charging those premiums billions of dollars in tax breaks?
Congressman Rokita, you recently dropped out of the Indiana Debate Commission’s primary debate in part because you felt its host and moderators weren’t conservative enough. So why did you later accept the invitation from WISH-TV? Considering that WISH is representative of the Indianapolis media market, are you claiming Indianapolis media has a conservative bias?
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