Candidates for Congress hash it out

Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher on Tuesday accused Democratic congressional opponent Debbie Cook of obfuscating her position on the federal financial rescue plan, while Cook called Rohrabacher’s no vote on the proposal irresponsible.

During the first and only scheduled debate among the four candidates for the 46th Congressional District at Orange Coast College, the two major party candidates also clashed on their respective visions for healthcare reform and their positions on amending the California Constitution to ban gay marriage.

The inclusion of the two third-party candidates — Tom Lash of the Green Party and Ernst Gasteiger of the Libertarian Party — along with a raucous, packed house made for an extremely charged atmosphere in which loud boos and riotous applause obscured some candidates’ answers to questions.

Rohrabacher repeatedly grilled Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, to give a yes or no answer on whether she agreed with the multibillion-dollar federal financial rescue package passed by Congress a few weeks ago.

Although she initially had reservations, Cook said it was imperative for the government to intervene in the economic crisis, but she would not give an unconditional endorsement of the rescue plan, which Rohrabacher voted against both times it came up for consideration in the House.

She likened the nation’s financial situation to a house of cards balancing on very unstable financial instruments that, if allowed to disintegrate, would take the rest of the economy with them.

Without infusing money into the nation’s financial institutions, there would be no liquidity in the market, which would have dire effects on many things, Cook said.

People’s retirement money would be drained, students couldn’t get loans, and the economy in general would freeze up, she said.

“I can’t see America doing what it did during the Great Depression when the government did not step in…. Don’t allow people to frame this to you as a Wall Street bailout,” Cook said. “I know what happens when the banks collapse. I know what happens when people can’t get loans.”

After the debate, she said she would have most likely voted for the plan despite pressure from her campaign telling her that it was unpopular to support it. Rohrabacher is adamantly against the bailout, saying financial institutions that made bad decisions should be allowed to fail.

“We didn’t need to bail out this situation,” Rohrabacher said. “It was a sin against the American people, and we have alternatives.”

He suggested that instead of following the suggestions of the administration’s financial experts, the government should have put up money to insure all savings accounts.

Gasteiger and Lash also disagreed with the rescue plan. Lash’s first big move in the debate was to incorrectly attack Rohrabacher for voting in favor of the bailout, which Rohrabacher voted against both times. Lash later apologized.

The two major-party candidates also opened up big chasms in their viewpoints on the nation’s healthcare system.

Cook supports a single-payer system because she says it saves money on unnecessary bureaucracy, while Rohrabacher thinks government control of healthcare will worsen the system.

According to Cook, doctors are not being paid as much as they should be because they have to spend so much on the process of collecting money while individuals are paying exorbitant prices for care.

“We cannot keep going this way where we have insurance companies that take 20% to 30% of our medical costs and use that money to fund their bureaucracy,” Cook said.

Rohrabacher thinks a single-payer system would leave healthcare decisions in the hands of government-appointed officials, which he says is a frightening proposition.

“We don’t fix the system by putting the federal government in charge of the system,” Rohrabacher said.

Instead of wholesale restructuring, the government needs to make some adjustments to the healthcare system, like giving individuals tax breaks to buy their own insurance and making it more difficult to file malpractice lawsuits, he said.

Lash and Gasteiger had polar-opposite views, with Lash advocating for universal healthcare and Gasteiger for complete privatization.

Sharp differences in policy on gay marriage arose as well, as the candidates explained why they would or wouldn’t support including same-sex marriages within the legal definition of marriage.

Rohrabacher said he has no problem with people being romantically involved with those of the same sex, but said changing the laws could have wide-reaching consequences in the economy and education.

“It’s a wonderful thing when you find the person you love, but that does not mean that you change the legal structure in this country,” Rohrabacher said. “I don’t think we should change the definition of marriage in our country to make a small number of people in our country feel comfortable.”

Cook, on the other hand, equated the present-day gay-rights battle to the battle for racial equality, saying it’s time to have “full marriage equality.” She also said that continually dredging up the issue was a red herring used to avoid discussing pressing concerns.

“It’s time to move on from these divisive issues,” Cook said.

According to Gasteiger and Lash, the government has no business legislating marriage. Although on opposite ends of the political spectrum, the two third-party candidates came together to plea for district voters to vote for anyone but a Democrat or Republican.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.