GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan and former Maryland Congressman John Delaney visited the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College on Thursday afternoon for a forum moderated by National Public Radio chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley that focused in-depth on the economy and the budget.
The last-minute dropout of Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who was scheduled to appear at the event but ended his campaign on Wednesday night, cast a shadow over the forum as roughly half the auditorium was filled with folding chairs and voters spaced out across the seated area.
Dale Pike, a self-described centrist and independent, drove from Newmarket, New Hampshire with his wife Carol Pike for the event because he said economic and budgetary issues had not received enough attention in the primary. He had already seen Delaney three times and liked the former Maryland Congressman, but was disappointed in the overall direction of the primary. "I'm concerned that these centrist efforts are not getting a lot of traction," he said.
Carol Pike, who also ranked Delaney first but said she would only consider "somebody who could beat Trump" when she cast her vote in six months, believed that the long-shot candidate needed to increase his name recognition. "Nobody really knows him," she said.
Delaney, who has now held over 120 events in New Hampshire according to one candidate tracker, appeared first for his twenty-five minute session. He introduced himself as an entrepreneur from a blue-collar family who lived out the American dream before weighing in on the debt, interest rates, health care and trade.
He notably named his "comfortable level of debt" at 60 to 70 percent of GDP, lower than the most recent Congressional Budget Office projection of 95 percent by 2029. He believed that global interest rates, at historically low levels for much of the last decade, would eventually rise, making the higher level of debt unsustainable. "I think in a hundred years when they look back they'll view this era as an anomaly," he said.
In order to reduce the deficit, Delaney responded that he would foster a pro-growth environment before adding that he wanted to close a loophole that taxes capital gains at a lower level than ordinary income. "The best way obviously to boost revenues is higher economic growth," he said.
He told the audience he was "against upheaval" on health care because "I think we're at the threshold of extraordinary breakthroughs" in cures for diseases like Alzheimer's. He defended the health care industry, which he worked in as co-founder of health care commercial lender in the 1990s, from charges that innovation has not translated to lower costs. Rather than less compensation, he believed health care industry deserved to make a "fair profit."
Kyle Heavey, a Manchester, New Hampshire resident with two near-senior parents, expressed concern about Delaney's openness to raising the retirement age, although the son of a union electrician assured voters that low-income manual laborers would receive an exception. "Ok, what's that mean for us?" Heavey asked after the event.
The former Maryland Congressman also touted himself during the conversation as the only candidate who wants to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the moderator noted was "not a popular position in the Democratic Party right now." Delaney responded that he would sell the trade agreement, which was attacked from all sides during the 2016 election, as a choice between "Trump's isolationism" or multilateralism.
"Back then, we we had to describe the counterfactual," he said. "Now we see it. We see what a trade war looks like."
Towards the end of the informative discussion, Delaney commented that he agreed with the 200 chief executive officers who issued a statement on Monday that shareholders were no longer the only interest of corporations. The youngest CEO in the history of the New York Stock Exchange and an award-winning business owner under the Obama administration, Delaney said that he always considered shareholders as part of a triumvirate along with communities and employees.
Ryan spent less time introducing himself — he told the audience he has represented "an old kind of Rust Belt area" for 17 years in Congress and relayed a story about a voter who asked if he named his five-year-old son Brady after the New England Patriots quarterback. "I thought very quickly, I'm in New Hampshire," he laughed. "I looked him dead in the eye and I said, 'Absolutely.'"
"That's the kind of straight answer I'm hoping to get," the moderator responded.
On the issues, the nine-term congressman called the most recent spending package "a necessary bill" to avert another government shutdown. A proponent of yoga, healthy eating and mindfulness techniques in his personal life, Ryan said that the debate about public versus private health insurance did not matter when "half the country" suffers from heart disease, high blood pressure or type-two diabetes. "You're going to sink whatever system you have," he said. "I'm focused on getting healthy."
He answered a question about his past support for public swimming pools, which he described as important along with theaters and museums to keep young people in rebuilding communities like Youngstown, Ohio. "You've got to have quality of life," he said. He also touted his efforts with California Congressman Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, to get 13 venture capitalists on a bus tour through the Rust Belt and pledged to do the same with his Department of Commerce. "They started seeing opportunities," he said.
The candidates each wrapped up by shaking a few hands and conversing with former New Hampshire Congressman Richard Swett, who recently endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. They shared a hug in between session when they switched places. Democratic National Committee rules prohibit more than one candidate from taking the stage at the same time.
The event was co-sponsored by the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that educates voters on fiscal responsibility, and 20/20 Vision, a national economic policy-making think tank. Tyler Sweeney, the New Hampshire state director of the Concord Coalition, said that he extended invites to every candidate that qualified for the first debates. The organization did not know Inslee would cancel ahead of his appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show. "Inslee, we heard from exactly as it was happening," he said.
In the wake of Inslee's departure from the field, Heavey commented on the state of race for low-polling candidates like Delaney and Ryan going forward. "When there's so many candies in the jar," he said sometimes "the funding isn't there." Delaney is a multi-millionaire who is largely self-funding his campaign, but Ryan is not.
While Dale Pike, the centrist who was leaning towards Delaney, called the Republican Party "horribly broken," he disliked most of the top-tier Democratic alternatives, particularly Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and wanted more nonpartisan, problem-solving forums like the one on Thursday afternoon. He described Biden as "gaffe-prone" but raised another issue with the former Vice President. "It's telling that none of the major Democratic candidates wanted to be here," he said.
This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.
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