Delgado, left, and Faso
POUGHKEEPSIE – Republican Congressman John Faso squared off against Antonio Delgado, his Democratic challenger for the 19th District seat at the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce breakfast on Wednesday.
A crowd of more than 265 business, government and civic leaders attended the debate to hear the candidates explain their views on topics including healthcare, labor, China and sexual harassment.
Faso, appealing to chamber members, said that rising premiums and deductibles are negatively impacting business owners and he wants to raise the number of employees a business must have before providing healthcare.
Currently employers with 50 or more workers must provide benefits. Faso wants to raise that number to 500.
The congressman denounced the single-payer healthcare system embraced by Delgado saying “I’m against giving all of the control to the government.”
Delgado, a Harvard educated lawyer running for the first time wants to “give people the choice to opt-in to Medicare” which he claims will bring down premiums while reducing the stress on employers that provide benefits. He also stressed the need to curb the rising costs of pharmaceutical drug costs.
Addressing the lack of a skilled workforce, Delgado encouraged business owners to embrace the opportunity to improve job training programs, many of which were cut under the recent federal tax bill. Faso supported the tax bill and said that “the senior year in high school is wasted by many students” who he said should focus on job skills during their last year of school.
The debate continued when Faso told of a bill he is co-sponsoring to normalize the use of foreign migrant workers through a visa program to work on farms and dairies to make up for the lack of American workers willing to do the jobs. Delgado countered by saying “the culture of fear-mongering is causing people to be afraid to work for fear of an ICE raid.”
Both candidates agreed that China poses a threat to the United States on many levels. Faso called the Asian nation a “strategic, economic and military threat” while Delgado said that “China manipulates currency and dumps steel into the US,” which affects the price of American steel products. He also implied that the presidential tariffs are merely taxes with a different name.
Faso, speaking about sexual harassment said “you need to be very careful about what you say and do on social media” while Delgado suggested that New York’s stringent sexual harassment laws should be the model for federal policy. “We have to push back against an emerging gender inequality” noting that women earn 80-cents for every dollar made by their male counterparts,” Delgado said noting he would fight to “ban the practice of non-disclosure agreements being paid for with tax dollars.”
