GRAND RAPIDS, MI — As Democrat Elissa Slotkin and Republican Mike Rogers met on the debate stage Tuesday night, many of the biggest issues of the 2024 campaign were front and center, including inflation, electric vehicles and reproductive rights.
The two U.S. Senate candidates sparred throughout the evening, laying out different visions for how they would tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the country. The one-hour Oct. 8 debate was hosted on WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids.
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The two are are vying to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Here’s a look at how the two responded to a few key questions ahead of the Nov. 5 general election:
What will you do to help bring down prices?
The high cost of groceries, and interest rates that were recently lowered from a two-decade high, have been big issues on the mind of voters. Inflation is easing, but grocery prices are still up 21% on average since inflation started to climb three years ago, the Associated Press reported in August.
Rogers, who represented the Brighton-area in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001 to 2015, said “we have got to get our arms around spending.”
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“My opponent voted for trillions of dollars of spending that has raised the cost of groceries, raised the cost of gasoline,” he said, an apparent reference to Biden administration COVID-19 stimulus spending such as the American Rescue Plan.
Rogers also said, “We have to become energy independent.”
“If we don’t get gas prices down, we won’t get food prices down,” he said. “There is no sense of buying oil from Venezuela when we have capability in this country.”
As part of an effort to fight climate change, the Biden administration has sought to slow new oil and gas leasing and drilling permits on U.S. lands and waters, the Associated Press reported. However, natural gas and crude oil production have reached record monthly highs in the U.S. in the past year, the news service reported.
The average price of gas in Michigan was $3.30 per-gallon on Wednesday, Oct. 9, according to AAA.
In her response, Slotkin, who has represented mid-Michigan in Congress since 2019, emphasized investing in manufacturing, reducing health care costs, and offering tax credits for families with children.
She said she has worked to bring supply chains back home from places like China, a strategy that she includes the construction of “44 manufacturing facilities that are being built right now in the state of Michigan.”
Slotkin also highlighted efforts to reduce prescription drug costs for seniors.
She said that was accomplished through the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which Slotkin supported and gives Medicare the power to negotiate prescription drug prices. According to the White House, the change is expected to save people enrolled in Medicare $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs in 2026, the first year the change goes into effect.
She also spoke about tax policy.
“You’ve got to do things like the earned child tax credit,” she said. “Give credit to middle class families instead of breaks to the ultra-wealthy.”
Electric Vehicles
Another big topic of conversation was electric vehicles.
Michigan has invested big in companies aiming to produce electric vehicle batteries here, and significant projects are planned in Marshall, through Ford, and Big Rapids, through Gotion.
Debate moderator, WOOD-TV political reporter Rick Albin, said EV sales “are just not there” compared to what some had projected, and he asked the candidates whether EV battery plants are right for Michigan.
Slotkin said investing in EVs is important because she wants Michigan to be the place where the “next generation of vehicles” is made.
“Literally, it’s either going to be us or China,” she said. “Right now, China is eating our lunch on these types of vehicles. And Michigan has had the experience of missing these trends. In the 70s and 80s, we said ‘oh, everyone loves their big cars, no one is ever going to buy a little fuel-efficient vehicle.’ And then the Japanese and Koreans came in and ate or lunch and we’ve never made up that market share.”
She added, “I do not care what you want to drive. But if the answer is who’s going to build them? I want that to be team America, not team China. I want Michigan to build them.”
Rogers had a different take.
He said Slotkin has “multiple times supported EV mandates — trying to pick the cars that our companies have to build and the cars that you’re going to have to buy.” He also said the transition to EVs will cost the auto industry jobs.
“There’s a better way to get to where we…
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