Transcripts For CSPAN2 Campaign 2018 Massachusetts Governors Debate 20240716

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incumbent governor charlie baker and challenger jay gonzalez. live from our studio, here are our moderators, jim broudy and margery eagan. >> good evening and welcome to our audience here comes everybody is watching or listening at home. with under three weeks until election we would hope the next 60 minutes will help you decide who to vote for for governor of massachusetts. >> margery seizes us just the debate. debate. when a man of you see it as the red sox pregame show. regardless would explain the rules for tonight. there are no rules. no opening statements, no closing, no timelines although we will be keeping track of speaking time to keep things even. we want to cover ground for brevity is appreciate, few free to talk to each other as well. we encourage it. center asking our studio artist up to applaud during debate, we elected to commit commit to give charlie baker and jay gonzalez a hand right now. please do that. [applause] >> gentlemen thank you very much for coming. margery, take away. >> have come start with you. it's not just russian anymore. one is stuck in traffic altogether northeastern did a study that talked about cars already calling at ten miles an hour on route three during the commute and more and more cars coming. we could be at a total standstill. have done enough about this issue concerning the fact the legislature approved this pilot program that would discount drivers who commute outside of rush hour? you said you wanted a study that we had an awful lot of studies, haven't we? from the biggest thing we knew d to do and is somebody who spends a lot of time in the traffic around the commonwealth i more than aware of that. i think the thing we will need to do is continue to invest in a public transportation system. we have $8 billion investment plan over the next five years which between the red line, the orange light and greenland will increase capacity by 50% during rush hour, huge difference. with added 10,000 trips trips to the commuter rail over the past four years. we can continue to build on that success and build capacity. we are finally using designated bus lanes which we talk about for years but with only get some up and running in a punch in the pipeline. in many respects a public transportation side we need to do more to get people more options. with respect to the road and bridges, we are planning to spend another 8 billion on our roads and bridges and many of those investments will be geared to areas that are referred to as points. those chokepoints in many cases predebate peace around greater boston. we are also going with expansion plans. we are going to build the green line extension which comes on of the most congested corridors on agency board and by then waiting until 2030 to finally get around to do something with respect to south coast will we redesign the root and we should have it finished and operating 2025. >> do think the government has done enough? if not either to a three specific things you think you should be doing? trick you know, i don't. this issue hit the most about i do i go on the campaign trail. we have one of the first transportation systems in the country. people interstate are sitting in traffic longer than pretty much any other state. people can't depend on a public. >> moderator: system to get to work on time. i've got a plan to do with it. i'm going to ask the wealthy to pay $3 billion in additional revenue to invest in education and transportation system. we have to be honest with voters that we need to invest more to get our transportation system to what needs to be. we should try innovative thanks ike the pilot program you mention to discount tolstoi nonpeak hours. i supported that. we need our public. >> moderator: trend and symptoms of people can depend on and get onto it and use it. when you do invest more to get to that place. >> governor come join same thing? baker: i don't disagree with him and the fact when it invest more. our investment next five years is about 8 billion more than we invested in the last five years of the previous administration. we need to invest more and we have a plan to do that. >> i want to get back to what you said, jay gonzalez. are you being honest with voters about the $3 billion? expansion something donald trump and senator markey and senator warren said would hurt students. your 2.0 additional even if the cleared every single hurdle would not raise one nickel until your second term in office. do you have a real plan that would raise real money in the short term to do the things you say he is entering? gonzalez: at the specific plan to raise $3 billion each year i and my first term which is 3 billion more than zero, which is his plan. we are spending more now on the tv thanks to some decisions that deval patrick made to raise the gas tax and others but is not nearly enough. the people across the state to use the key can't depend on it. it affects their life everyday. governor baker is plan is it's going to be fixed in 15 years and has been set how is going to pay for that. it's unacceptable. >> is not even one democratic leader in the legislation that supports your endowment? >> yes. >> dogma people -- >> who has not supported because i get elected running on this that's going to be amended to do it. you know what? winged publicly that not going to the same old stuff, the same old republican playbook of no new taxes at any cost over just have to get by with whatever we have tickets not good enough. we are not serving the people it with one of the worst systems in the country. it is affecting peoples quantified and start dragging our economy backwards. baker: first of all one of his own former colleagues called the tax on college endowments a spectacularly bad idea and yes, it would come primarily from students and their families because it funds a big piece of scholarship and student aid money. the other thing i would say is the issues with respect to public transportation go back a long, long time. the investments we started, the first time that she ever spent $1 billion on its capital budget was this past you. they left $1.5 billion on the table that they didn't spend. the previous administration, they couldn't figure out how to get out the door. i took the position or not we're going to create a fiscal management control board and try and make up for a 20 lack of investment in what i called the core system, the system that moves 1 million people a day. those investments in sickness and switches, power systems and electronics and boring stuff like railroad ties and tracks and third rail. those of the things that will give you additional capacity and a reliable system tried to its status quo stuff. we have to invest. there's a rational person who understands the traffic but you doesn't think we need more revenue. governor baker very own commission that he put together when he became governor said reform isn't enough. we need to raise taxes, to invest more. i am saying there would be a clear choice. i'll ask the wealthy to pay more taxes so that we can make these investments, to make a a difference for working fans across the state who cannot depend on the system to get to work on time. we have to do it. i'm not for governor to manage around the status quo. >> if i described to you as a governor who impose a a quarte$ assessment to fund medicaid and sides of the with an $800 million payroll tax to pay for family and medical leave, would you see the person was a no new taxes governor? baker: that's probably me. >> executor isn't their so you've raise taxes significantly and you will raise taxes when you think it's appropriate? baker: first of all, with respect to the grand bargain which is the issue sosa with creating a a paid family medicy program in massachusetts, that's a good example of a negotiated arrangement that took a couple of our questions off the ballot and made it possible for the commonwealth to move forward on what i call a deal that people could live with. i signed because i thought it was a lot better than the ballot questions themselves and it was a new program and a program that was going to be funded the same way we find workers comp and unemployment insurance. i think those programs stand on the own and are funded under own. >> is it a tax increase? baker: to support the new benefit, yes, but we inherited a big deficit. but told us would have to raise taxes to pay for it. we didn't and instead we worked hard, announced the budget, came up with smarter ways to deliver services, made big investment in all kinds of agencies and local services and now we have a big surplus. we just finished depositing almost $609 into the rainy day fund. >> paid family medically is a popular program for a lot of people. what do you think about the governors way of doing it? gonzalez: i supported from the beginning. the governor thanks a lot to activists and legislators ended up on his desk. it happened in spite of him not because of him. i would lean issues like a family for like difference for working people. we have to make sure people understand the choice on transportation because what governor baker is offering is reducing funding for roads and bridges across the state can try and reduce funding for regional trend that the '40s and i'm glad springfield i heard you say that the governor the governmeo debate and worcester, massachusetts. and that the t will be in a state of good repair in 15 15 s and he has not said how is going to pay for that. i am being upfront with people. i'm going to ask the wealthy to pay more in taxes so that we raise $3 billion a year but into my first of which is a a significant amount of additional evidence that will allow us to get the t to a place where people can depend on it much faster than the governor and that's the choice. >> we have to move ahead. can we talk with energy? you supported construction of another gas pipeline. the other day he wouldn't answer the question that you said you would rather focus on repairing existing infrastructure. with what happened in the valley, the scare, thousands of links, are not the voters entitled to know, do support an additional gas pipeline or do you not? are not entitled? what's the answer? baker: what they should know is i do believe the focus should be investing and upgrading and modernizing improving the quality of existing infrastructure. and by the way that's the position i took respect to the t. people for years talked about all kinds of things other than making investments we should be making in the core system. let me just finished it we made them. we have a plan to continue to invest in the core system and those investments in the current infrastructure of the t will be what delivers a different product than the one people got used to for 24 24 known spent e money they should have. >> do support a new gas pipeline? baker: we have a big stake in independent study being done on a pipeline infrastructure, and the study will determine the condition of the current pipeline and the policies procedures and practices that should be pursued with respect to ensuring that it safe. i'm certainly not going to support doing anything with respect to any new pipeline and tilly get that study back and figure out what it tells us. >> you against the new pipeline, why? gonzalez: he has supported and a past. climate change is biggest threat to glenn and has which is reminded the merrimack valley, natural gas is very dangerous point the u.n. to skin it was a report that basically said threat from climate change is so much of a a bigger threat and e urgent than even thought. it with getting the impacts today. the near-term impacts projected are scary. we have to, i will strong the post and are of the my power to keep expansion natural gas pipeline infrastructure mapping which is just going to further our dependence on fossil fuels. >> how would you enter the short-term energy needs are met? gonzalez: we should be doing, l, gas pipelines without the short-term visitor, take time to construct. we should be going all in, much quicker in terms of offshore wind development. we should eliminate these constraints governor baker is put in place on solar development which not only a slow the development of solar in our state has lost solar jobs in our state. i'm going to provide bold leadership. there's so much when you to be doing to take this on and were not doing nearly enough. baker: can i point we been delivered the largest offshore wind projects in u.s. history? it was that project that got people all the way up and down the coast excited about wind because they came in at a price point that shocked virtually everyone and made wind for the first time appeared to be affordable and competitive with other sources of energy. >> isn't that true? tracked all these states happen in the coast are now track to a basis in offshore wind developer. happen because we need a governor who is leaving on this. the 800 megawatts that's on track now is not enough. we've got to go quicker, we need to go bigger. we can't afford the consequences of climate change that are happening now and near term. we need government that will take this on and fight for -- >> , that's not correct when he talks about a court order do that. that legislation that made it possible for us to chase canadian hydro and to build offshore wind was a bipartisan initiative that we did in conjunction with the house and the senate. it is going to be the dynamic that changes the whole conversation about offshore wind. nobody else up and down the east coast was interested in doing anything in wind when it was just caked wind because his fight and sixpence this other available energy source. >> let's talk but a quick thing that has to do with this whole terrible situation and lawrence, in north andover and andover. national grid in the middle of this whole mess has coworkers in a lockout. what would you do about that? day when the bring those workers back into how would you handle that? >> i think they need to. the way they treated the workers is reprehensible. cutting the pay, health insurance, locking them out and it created a lot of safety concerns. >> what with -- >> i would interbreed earlier, much everyone is like it happened to try to get the parties together to resolve this and get them back on the job. the governor, took months for him to get involved in this. that's what a lot of national good folks are outside tonight booting us on. >> you try to meet with the national grid people to get them to fix the situation. climate we've had lots and lots of conversations. >> it's amazing, , kind of likee met with other politicians and work on getting a big drop dead from national grid in the middle of this tragic situation. baker: we now have a moratorium on their ability to do anything other than statutorily required and emergency work. and i continue to believe that they need to bring those folks back pick we also talked to columbia and the folks doing the restoration work at the lawrence and andover and asked them if there doodling to offer work opportunities everybody come first many people as they can take or associate with the steelworkers and 50 do that and folks are meeting in about a pf much of the social will people start working that. >> can we move on? let's talk about the state police? there's been scandals upon the state police. we learned three times this year state police destroyed more than 100 boxes, payroll attendant personnel, documents. the first time asked was two days after the "boston globe" reported that payroll records for an entire 140 trooper unit had been hidden for years. governor, you stood behind the head of state police. can you tell us whether she ordered these records destroyed? did you know about the request? if she didn't isn't too responsible for what you've called a mistake? baker: i do think it was a mistake and is a process in place to determine when you can destroy records and you can't in that process involves of independent entities and they said no. but it was a mistake. but that said, the kernel is the one who that investigation that ultimately led to the referral of 46 troopers to the u.s. attorney's office and attorney general for criminal prosecution pitches also the one who abolished true b which is a troop that was responsible for virtually all of the bad behavior and misallocation of resources with the overtime scandal, and she brought in ernst & young, , every one of te respective financial services and accounting firm to do a top to bottom review of their accounting, financial and operational practices. [talking over each other] >> did you know about it when it was submitted? what she aware of it next. baker: i don't believe she knew about it. standard operating procedure for its the machine running. >> but in the middle of an investigation it was kind of . baker: none of the stock was worth sulci any of the issues that even race but u.s. attorney. >> some of them were 32014 and investigate is going back six years. baker: i understand that. >> some people just thought okay, -- you asked the state police colonel be fired by the governor. what else should be governor be doing the state police? what else should ship in doing? tragic what you would your site but it was an attempted cover-up. the relevant records, personnel records, attendance records. these are the very issues that go to the heart of the criminal activity and corruption that's going on at the state police. it's been going on governor baker is watch the people who are and i do, guilty, criminal activity during his tenure. the first incident of this was reported 19 months ago and they're just hiring someone to come in and look at april and personnel practices? went i going to take charge? you haven't fired a single person at the state police. baker: even if we replace the leadership team. look, the most important thing about this is an investigation starts, then you do the hard work associate with developing the case. once you finish developing the case which is what happened, the colonel gave information to his attorney and give it to the attorney general, as she should have. the process associated with the records, i don't know about you but when i think about and ten, someone is trying to destroy records that the government took a still not use the traditional process in place with all kinds of different independent entities with her eyes on it as part of that review. >> think was totally innocent? baker: i do. i think it was a mistake but i don't think was an attempt to destroy relevant records trek to the facts don't support that. of course was intentional. two days after the media report you mentioned, it's a an attempted cover-up. somebody should be going after the people who sent these records to be destroyed thicknesses 160 boxes of personnel and payroll and attendance records. you said the colonel didn't know that this is going on. i mean, i've absolutely no confidence that you and your leadership team have a handle on what's going on at the state police. >> what you would do is fire the colonel and what else? gonzalez: these coverups accidents happen, the last one a month ago. i mean, the cover should be all over this. we should not only replace the colonel with someone from outside who has the critical and doesn't come from this culture -- >> villages are subject to higher -- trent asked the legislature to pass a law to allow me to do. we need someone with credibility on outside who doesn't come from this culture of corruption who in a very transparent way is going to get a handle on exactly what's going on over there and fix it. because right now nobody should have any confidence that they could administration and the governor have a handle on it and are addressing it. >> is there a culture of corruption? , i couldn't disagree more. the colonel is the one you did investigation that's led to every single indictment and every single plea that's happened since assaulting begin. she is the one with 13 who followed the stream, to help the cases and submit them to the appropriate authorities for criminal prosecution. she is the one who brought in outside financial services firm to do a top to bottom review of the organization. she is the one the product kathy o'toole, a very well respected manager and leader in the law enforcement community to service consultant to the agency and she's the one who implement a standard with respect to doing quarterly reviews associate with overtime and she's the one that blew up true b which is where the vast majority of the problems or. gonzalez: she's the one who said to do a bunch of reforms six months ago that hasn't happened yet. she was responsible for auditing these overtime abuses and some red flags and didn't pursue them and she's the one that all this cover-up attempts happened under. >> paint a brush across 2000 and in women who every single day served the commonwealth answer the people of massachusetts and support ten units and fugitive units and a lot of the really important grunt law-enforcement work and its be done in the commonwealth i think is unfair. >> let's move to education. governor, you spoken often of the highest in the nation test scores, a funding goals met. report called number one for some, highlights and ensure dramatic racial income disparities. the one that stuck out for me is massachusetts ranks second nationally eighth-grade reading for all students. latino eighth-graders ranked second from the bottom in reading. these kinds of numbers and there are many like changed much at all in your four years. one, why? , why? and two, have you not failed those kids in the best lawyers? on what we have a lot of work left to do in education, and we made progress in many cases about half the kids to start with english language learning students get to the point where their proficient enough in english, both reading and writing that they're no longer dlo students and a graduate etches about the same rate as traditional students do. >> these kids him talk about these latino kids, that generation would be lost in the next one, is the base adequate? baker: we need to set up acceleration academies get we need help pay for those but those are proven to be successful, and use them as a device to help enhance kids who are not making it and not getting it done and that should probably saw earlier than middle school with respect to those. we also want to use afterschool programming as a mechanism to create enrichment opportunity for kids in those districts and we also want to be really aggressive about professional development. one of the programs that's turned a frequent success is the empowerment zone they set up in springfield which i i try to convince the legislature to do more of come so far without success that's a model for teachers like of the ministers like and to show progress. >> what to do about those racial disparities, jay gonzalez? gonzalez: the most fundamental responsibility we have collectively through government is to ensure that every single child has access to a great public education. we are falling, nut job and he is been cover for four years now and make no progress on the fact with some of the biggest achieving caps in the country. and the funding disparities for public schools are growing even bigger. so to things that a big primaries of mine that will address this. one, making sure childcare and preschool is affordable accessible to every family and children it is proven to be game changing ticket for low income kids in terms of their success in school and life afterwards. and when you to fully fund our public schools. hopefully things will cost money. i have a plan to fund them to raise $3 billion from the wealthy to invest in education and transportation and in the governors plan is zero. continues with the same old stuff, inflation increases in education funding while we are underfunding a lot of the low income school districts in the state and when letting way too many kids down. .. >> if the millionaire's tax is initiated through the legislature, the legal issues goes away. it was because it was a citizen's petition. that with a raise $2 billion. >> if. >> that's not soon enough-- the legislature voted for it every time and it's popular. i have confidence that will happen. the endowment tax to get us started, while not popular from people who were mentioned before who worked for harvard and some of the universities. >> senator warren or senator-- >> we've gotten huge enthusiastic response from it because people understand we need to be investing in our education and transportation system. the status quo-- i will not let them down. >> we were discussing poor towns and wealthy towns and an example of brockton, compared to westin with $275 per kid. the democratic legislature failed to overhaul school funding which hasn't been overhauled for years and that's the democratic legislature. talk about the legislature doing things, they couldn't do that, how could you convince them to do other things if they can't even address that blatant disparate. >> they also don't have a governor who's pushing them to. governor baker provided no leadership in trying to reform our education funding formula and provide new money to invest in education and i will be a governor who does because we have to. we can't afford to continue with the same old stuff. and i do have a specific plan and, jim, i know it's controversial among some, but it's a plan and charlie baker's plan is zero and zero is not going to cut it. >> can i just respond to that? so his plan raises a billion dollars now if he gets it passed and two billion if he gets the next piece passed four years from now. earlier childhood ed costs a billion dollars. the plans associated with public transportation costs, many billions, multiple billions. it's at least two billion and year and on top of that, some of the other stuff he's talked about is huge money as well. the notion that he's put enough plans on the table to fund all the stuff he's promising and committing to simply isn't true and that's not really governing or leadership. that's politics. and in addition to that, we have put the status quo administration, as he calls us, has put 110 million in new money into pre-school. and we did that because we believe it's important to fund it. when he was the naf secretary he cut it by 85 million dollars while he was raising state spending by 6.5 billion. >> one's reality-- >> all the numbers he's throwing out are not true. >> you didn't cut pre-school. >> cutting pre-school, yeah, managing during the worst fiscal crisis the state ever faced at the time. >> so it is true. a state spending in-- >> not while i was secretary of anf. we had to cut funding versus the pre-recession budget. here is the thing. the governor seems to be satisfied where he is on early education and care. when i was managing the state budget. we were 20th in the country in terms of the amount we spent per child for pre-k. we've fallen under governor bake tower 37th. there are 12,000 families on a waiting list for state assistance for child care and pre-school and there are 10,000 who aren't eligible for state assistance who can't afford it. it's not good enough. to me, that's unacceptable and i'm not running to just keep the status quo going. i am running to ask the wealthy to pay more so we can make a difference for the families who can't afford the child care and pre-school. >> 100 million plus in and he cut it by 85 million. >> and governor you haven't mentioned tonight-- >> i did when i talked about the window. >> i did -- i do remember now, i stand corrected. this legislature went on five month vacation, without education reform fixed and are you okay-- >> the housing bill that i wanted, to build more houses. are you okay leaving for five months to do whatever they do? >> the standard operating procedure for many years has been that they have a full-- they have a two year session, 18 month session formal and don't come back after they finish their work in july at the second year. >> are you okay with that? >> the reason they did it, it was a reform initiative that came about as some stuff at that took place, lame duck that took place after elections. >> would you remember they be there working on the issues you two are talking about or out because of whatever reform they did years ago? >> i would love to have them continue to work on the stuff, but i get the issues and concerns people have about lame duck sessions. >> let's talk about relationships with your own parties. governor, you've called the president a disgrace and disagreed with him from immigration to health care, to confirming justin kavanaugh without a thorough investigation and you've endorsed the slate, the g.o.p. slate in massachusetts, which is confusing 'cause so many of those people, including jeff deal running for united states senate who ran trump's campaign in massachusetts opposes-- is on the other side of a lot of the issues-- >> he said he would vote for kavanaugh. >> that's right, he did say he would vote for kavanaugh. how do you stand for those candidates for so many you oppose. >> i said i would support the ticket, a lot of people in the party were concerned that i would play favorites. i chose not to. i have my own race to worry about and i'm working on state rep and senate races as well and i'll support the ticket whoever comes out. >> regardless of what their positions on the issues are. >> well, people know with are i stand on most of those issues and i've always been clear on where i stand with respect to the president and managed to work pretty hard over the course of the past four years to stop some of the things that congress and the president was proposing that would have been particularly damaging to massachusetts. >> the affordable care act, the cuts and nih and cancer and other forms of research and a lot of the work we did associated with the travel ban and immigration i think has proven to be-- >> i'm sorry. >> if jeff deal were elected and the senate is very close as you know, that could mean a lot of things in the future with the republicans have the majority and another justice kavanaugh or somebody even further to the right or, you know, women's choice, all of those things-- >> i try and worked hard to make sure we pass access legislation form and reproductive rights in massachusetts and cleaned up a lot of the old statutes with respect to abortion and made it clear that whatever happens to the title ten-- >> it doesn't give you pause though, any concern that maybe you're advocating for a person to go to washington who will likely vote against the things you say you believe in. >> and things that people in massachusetts wants. >> what i worry about are the things i can fundamentally control and that has what big government is up to and when i can concentrate and invest in issues at the federal level, i chase them hard and work with coalitions that ultimately end up being fairly successful. >> and i've been told that governor baker has had two more minutes than you. >> governor, are you going to vote for jeff deal? >> governor? >> i'm going to vote for me and i'm going to vote for karen polito and i'm going to vote for a series of other candidates as well. i don't know what i'm going to do yet with respect to that one. >> you don't know if you're going to vote for the guy you endorsed. >> i haven't made a decision. >> so you're asking people in massachusetts to vote for jeff deal and you are not going to vote for him. >> i said i would support the ticket. >> and why are you. >> why are you telling people-- to me it comes down to clear loyalty for the republican party over someone supporting issues like pro choice and women's rights and lbgtq rights. let's be clear. jeff deal would be a rubber stamp for donald trump's agenda in washington. and you say you're clear on your position and it sounds like you're asking the people to send geoff diehl. >> you said you wanted a floor investigation of justice kavanaugh, but you talked about having a full investigation when someone is accused of someone accused of touching a woman on an airplane, and the only way to know the outcome is if someone was charged. this happened in june. this is october. can you tell us what happened and are voters entitled to know so they know there was no # favori favorism. >> i haven't talked to anybody about this issue and i haven't talked to the state police either. when the issue first came up, i said that the allegations were serious and should be investigated by the u.s. attorney, a federal operation and federal agency. they do have jurisdiction on it and people should direct questions with respect to the status of that to them. >> i did and he said he wouldn't answer any questions and the only way he'd speak on it was if it turns out that there's a charge against anybody. so are the voters entitled to know more. >> a private citizen and i said it should be investigated. and i said he would cooperate. >> has the investigation been closed? >> again, you've got questions like that, take them up with the u.s. attorney. >> do you want to respond to that quickly. >> i still can't believe that the governor is asking people in the state to vote for geoff diehl and won't say whether he's going to vote for him. i will support a woman's right to choose and lbgtq rights not just some of the times, but all the time. not just reluctantly, but not based on political calculations, but based on my core value and i would never ask the people of this state or consider voting for geoff diehl to send donald trump's co-chair to washington to undercut all these rights. and you know, you can't have it both ways, governor. >> i have a long track record of supporting a women's right to choose and a long track record with respect to women's reproductive health issues generally. i have a long track record of supporting lbgtq rights as well and i consider those fundamental for me. >> why were you asking people to send geoff diehl to washington to undercut those rights. >> we have to move on where people stand on issues. you're a pro single payer health care although we have the lowest rate of uninsured in this state. health spending increases have been reduced particularly in the last year. plus, one state that tried it, vermont, a pro single payer governor, said we can't do it because in year one it would have doubled the size of the whole state budget, it would have required us to do-- according to him, huge increases in taxes for residents and businesses. why would it be any different here? and why won't you focus on just making what we have, which appears to be doing some good things better rather than embracing a proposal that could end up costing people billions, jay gonzalez? >> because the system we have is not working for people. we have a high insurance coverage rate, but having health insurance coverage doesn't feel like having health insurance coverage with the premiums increases and co-pays and deductibles, you can't go to this doctor or this hospital. health care costs are crushing families and government and businesses. the system is way too complicated. we need to simplify it and we need to save money and going to a single payer system will save us money. we'll cut a ton of administrative costs. >> and a governor says in vermont-- >> in vermont it's a different situation, a higher uninsured rate and cost more to get everybody insured. we don't have this issue here, we're spending $61 billion a year in massachusetts on health care and spending it in a dumb way. i'm a former health insurance ceo who thinks we need to get rid of health insurance companies. if we do it thoughtfully, it won't be a five minute thing, but if we do it thoughtfully make sure everybody has access to health care services that we need and save money and radically simplify the system. the system we have today is not working for people and it's not financially sustainable. >> do you want to respond? >> there's zero evidence with respect to singer payer, and the best example of a state that took it all the way, not that big and not at that complicated is vermont and even they couldn't figure out how to get there. they couldn't figure out how to get to a plan. and when you talk about something that's literally a $30 billion expansion in government spending here in the commonwealth of mass which is what it's been determined to be for several folks who studied it. that's just a profound change in literally everything. and most people in massachusetts, while they all have issues and concerns about various issues associated with the health care system. they think the health care they get and the care that's delivered here is appropriately among the very best you're going to find anywhere and while you turn the whole system upsidedown for that, i don't understand. do we have issues with respect to prescription drugs, yeah, we should go after that and go after it hard. and we went after it last year, and unfortunately, we weren't able to get a proposal we made approved by the feds, but that's something we should go back to with the legislature and back to again the feds. >> another proposal that would counter-- i'll get back to you, jay gonzalez. the largest hospital merger in roughly 20 years in massachusetts, cleared another hurdle. critics claim that a merger will increase costs and reduce access. you share the concerns? and we're already on the merger. >> we spent time with the attorney general and health policies working on the issues and the set of issues that the public health council put on this merger with respect to cost and access and performance generally with respect to serving underserved populations, i think everybody agrees are the most stringent and far reaching ever that's been put on any merger in massachusetts. >> do you support it? >> i support it if those conditions are actually met and they're pretty consistent with what the attorney general has been talking about as well. >> do you, jay gonzalez, support the merger? >> i don't in the system we have because it will give them undue market power and it will end up increases costs, but if we go to a single payer system, i'm less concerned. we'll get the benefits of consolidation, being able to offer coordinated care for people without having the market leverage because there's just one payer. we need to get rid of health insurance companies. i was proud of what a lot of my company did to connect our members to the care they needed, but most of what we did was facilitate a bunch of useless transactions. there's tons of costs that we need out of the system and this is another example of the difference between the governor and myself. what i hear him saying is why would we take this on? it's too hard. the system-- the status quo is where we need to be. let's make incremental change. the system is not working for people. it's way too expensive. they aren't getting access to the care they need and to me, that's not acceptable and this is a way to improve the system to simplify it, save money overall, this won't cost $30 billion more. this is save money overall, and people will have access to the health care services they need. >> this is 100%, trust me, on something that's so fundamental to the way people think about their lives and live their lives, and i've got to tell you when my opponent was the chair of the health connector which at that point in time was supposed to be teeing up and implementing the affordable care act and serving 300,000 people in the commonwealth of massachusetts, that thing cratered. and it stayed cratered for two years. and yet, people who literally were on the way to hospitals to have babies who didn't know if they had health insurance, people who had medications and prescriptions they didn't know if they could get filled and show up at the pharmacy and turned out they didn't have coverage and in the end, we fixed it. after we took office. after literally two years of chaos for 300 or 400,000 people here in the commonwealth of mass and i don't think when you're talking about health care you should be talking about it in such a flippant way. this is fundamental to people. >> and a response. >> move on. >> respond to that, this is not flippant. of course, everyone in the patrick administration involved with the health connector was concerned about the impacts it had on people. i left the health connector a year before the implementation of this, so, you know, to blame me for something when i wasn't there, and not take responsibility for things that are happening on your watch at the state police and elsewhere, is a problem. but here is the thing. we can't-- i am not going to-- i am not going to be satisfied with the health care system we have because it's not working for people. the number one issue that i get the biggest reaction to when i'm on the campaign trail is to say that i'm going to get rid of health insurance companies and go to a single payer system. people don't want to accept a system where they can't get the care they need. i'm not being governor for the status quo, i'm going to provide bold leadership to to be where we need to be and it's not flippant, this is called leadership. >> a couple of quick questions on the ballot questions. and jay gonzalez, you support question one, to limit the number of patients assigned to nurses and governor baker opposes it. let's start with you. >> quickly. >> yeah, why are you in favor of this. >> because i lean toward patient safety. it's not perfect, as governor i'd work with the legislature to tweak it if we need to if it passes, but we're being given a false choice here and it's a symptom of our broken health care system. we need to lean toward patient safety on this. >> why do you oppose it? >> we have a higher nurse to patient ratio in massachusetts than in california that the state compares this proposal to. the implementation of it would be incredibly aggressive, it takes effect 55 days after it gets passed and the penalties are severe and the staffing requirements are really prescriptive and it will put community hospitals, nursing homes, rehab hospitals and psychiatric service providers at very grave risk and for those reasons i don't support it. >> okay. >> but also 900 million to the cogs of t-- costs to the health care system. >> and you both opposed the bathroom bill and signed it in 2016 and did it kind of privately. and are you enthusiastic about this or luke warm what's the stories. >> i support it and i signed it and worked on the legislature with it to come up with legislation that everybody could support and ended up passing on a bipartisan basis which i was proud of. i support question 3. i think we should keep it. and i've donated to question 3. >> you support question 3 as well? >> absolutely do. and the point about signing it in a room by himself, healy had to hold a fake bill signing ceremony so people whose rights are protected could celebrate the rights. >> i'm going to stand up for every single person in the state and hear everyone and see everyone and operate from the heart on issues like this and no one will question where i stand. >> why wasn't there a public ceremony? >> some is scheduling, times we have a ceremony and sometimes we don't. i had a press avail and i was with the opportunity to sign it. >> ge kicked in tax breaks and to get ge to boston and since had trouble. and how far should we go to have amazon hq2 and promised 50,000 jobs and should we even want it given the fact that talk about here is congestion and housing costs, that that would-- if they did come here it would just send that through the roof. >> well, we've added 200,000 jobs to our economy over the course of the power four years and more people working here than anytime in state history and a fairly big presence for amazon, 6 or 7,000 people here and rented a million square feet for another 2000 people. so, amazon's going to have a presence here no matter what. with respect to ge, the vast majority of the state funding that was involved in that was actually investments in property that we own, that they are currently leasing and that property is a state asset. it wasn't-- we didn't write them a check and it wasn't a big tax benefit to them, it was betterment investments in property that we owned in the seaport district that they're now occupying. >> how do you feel like this? >> we should not have spent $125 million to improve property in the hottest real estate district in our state for one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. i'm glad they're here, but we need to be investing in the things that government is supposed to do well, that will provide an environment here for business investment and growth, things like a great transportation system. an education system that is producing a work force that's the most talented work force in the world. affordable housing. >> should we want amazon to come with 50,000 jobs and everybody going 10 miles per hour and houses-- ends up like washington state? >> our transportation system, our housing supply can't support the work force we have. i don't know where 50,000 people are going to go. i'd be shocked if they chose to come here and we shouldn't be giving taxpayer subsidies away. we should support business growth there are thousands of businesses here in massachusetts who make decisions every day to invest or not. they need to depend on the work force to get to work on time. i've got a plan to do it, to raise 3 billion to invest to fix our transportation system much more aggressively than governor baker does. >> i want to be clear whether it's amazon or the next amazon, as governor would you not consider tax breaks and infrastructure support to lure a company? your view is we're just going to sell what-- >> i'm not saying never, maybe modest not $125 million. that's by far the biggest corporate tax break that we've given to anybody. >> amazon-- it wasn't a tax break. >> it wasn't a tax break. >> it was an investment in our real estate. >> amazon is going to want a ton of stuff. some place in this country talked about billions and what-- >> i would not give amazon anything. >> nothing? >> no. >> what would you be willing to give amazon. >> only things called public betterment. in some cases, public betterment and we do that with frequency. >> does that mean zero tax breaks. >> i would only do public betterments. if you think about the investments we make through various programs it's typically around infrastructure and other kinds of investments that benefit more than just the business that might be interested in coming there. and those turn out to be pretty effective. i mean, for a few million dollars in investments in infrastructure, road work, utilities and that kind of stuff in many cases you can get hundreds of millions of dollars worth of private investment alongside it and that's the sort of thing i could see doing. >> quickly, please. >> i don't oppose modest investments in infrastructure, i was a part of some of those in the patrick administration. knows like $125 million. and amazon is one of the wealthiest companies in the world. if they want to come here, it should be because of our great work force, because of our great assets here in massachusetts and we shouldn't need to be spending more taxpayer money to get them here. >> we're running low on time, gentlemen. and being treated to the public health issues and a nova documentary that's going to air in an hour and five minutes tonight, and it's not a moral failing, but a brain disorder. you praised the approachen you hoped to spread it throughout the state. quickly and specifically, what have you done to help guarantee that there are more gloucesters in massachusetts. >> we've worked with the national organization of police addiction recovery organizations and we've worked hard to expand the gloucester model in other places and added 1200 treatment beds and increased spending on addiction and recovery services by 70% and made sure that a lot of those investments have been in places where frankly we didn't have a lot of capacity previously. >> both republicans and democrats including like healy have praised the governor's actions on opioids. are you amongst those who praise him? if not what would you do? >> yes, i genuinely appreciate the fact the governor made this a priority. it's ruining people's lives and devastating communities. i see it everywhere. two of my campaign volunteers lost a son in the last seven months and i got to know one of the young men and. was a point where he was wanting to get into treatment and told he had to wait 15 days. we need to make sure, when someone is in that place when they want treatment they're able to get it. we need to be more aggressive than we're being right now. we're not getting the results we need. many more treatment resources, i think we need to try bold initiatives like safe injection sites and stop treating people addicted like criminals and this is an area i have experience in at health insurance company i worked at. and we had initiatives and the boston globe named is one of the game changing companies in massachusetts and take the same approach. >> and briefly, safe injection studies study out of alberta, a close radius, overdose deaths have decreased from 253 to 165 per hundred thousand with no change in the mortality. you've said things like the jury is still out. the jury is in in vancouver. >> the jury is not in. >> these numbers don't mean anything. >> i am a data driven guy and those numbers represent a small piece of what's going on in vancouver. the overdose rate in vancouver is almost twice per capita than here in the commonwealth even as they expand the safe injection sites. >> not with the injection sites. >> there are different kinds of safe injection sites and many operate on complete anonymity and i get why they do that, but the bottom line it's hard to collect data to tell the things you need to know. i think we landed in the rate place on that one in the second round of opioid legislation to put together a commission with supporters and skeptics and academics and do a study and have people visit a variety of different approaches to safe injection sites and figure out which versions have actually turned out to be successful. >> if i may, we only have a minute left and i want to end the debate with a question debated in every house in america, including the white house. colin koppernick, received an award about a mile from there, and he's not now about taking a knee for racial injustice. and quickly to you, jay, do you support what kaepernick is doing and if you do, and if you don't why not. >> i do and we have huge racial disparities in our country not just justice system, but wealth and income and life expectancy and health. and we need to address them and i appreciate he's speaking out. >> do you support kaepernick, governor? >> i support his right to do that and i especially support a lot of the community work that he's done and a lot of the fund raising work he's done to support organizations that are working on the issues he cares about. >> so you don't support his methods? >> i do, i think his methods. >> one of the things-- everybody focuses on that and forget about the fact that this guy has put a tremendous amount of time and a lot of his own resources and raised money from others to invest in a lot of the programming that deals with some of the issues that jay talked about and i think that in some respects is the part that gets missed in this. this is a guy who has taken a huge chance to begin with and paid a price for it and also done a tremendous amount of community-based work that generally speaking never gets much attention. we've got to go. that's it for tonight. we want to thank you all for watching. we want to thank you, gentlemen, for being here and asked you to hold your applause, here is an opportunity and please join us in thanking governor charlie baker and jay gonzalez. thank you both. [applaus [applause] >> and remember, thursday, november 6th, less than three weeks from now. she's margery and i'm jim, thank you for joining us. >> with the midterm elections just days away, watch the competition for the control of congress on c-span. see for yourself the candidates and the debates from key house and senate races. make c-span your primary source for campaign 2018. >> with 15 days until election day c-span's campaign coverage continues with two rallies today. former president barack obama will be in las vegas participating in the nevada democratic party get out the vote rally. our live coverage begins at 4 p.m. eastern. then at 7:30, president trump speaks at a rally in houston to support texas senator ted cruz in his reelection bid. live coverage of both rallies on c-span, your primary source for campaign 2018. now republican congressman leonard lance debates tom malinowski in the senate house race. the cook political report lists this race as a tossup. this is just over an hour. >> good evening, and welcome to the njtv news 7th congressional debate. welcome to our candidates. thank you both for being here. we've got a lot to cover. let's get right into it. this first question is for both of you, mr. malinowski, you're first. in light of the me too movement during the

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