Illinois 10th Congressional District has one of the most expensive races in the country as democrats try to take control of the seat for the first time in more than 30 years. Theyre aided by the recent remap of the district which makes it the most democratic Congressional District in the country that is held by a republican. The newlydrawn 10th Congressional District runs along Lake Michigan and up to the illinois wisconsin border and includes northern sub you ares such as buffalo grove, lake forest and glen cove. A couple of quick notes. This forum is being streamed live on our web site, wttw. Com chicago tonight, and you can join a live chat. If you have a question for the candidates, you can ask it there, and we may use it on the air. Also a note about our format tonight. This is not a formal debate. The candidates will not give opening or closing statements, their answers will not be timed, and they will not necessarily be asked the same questions. I will use fairness as my guide to move the discussion along. And we asked the candidates to stay on topic and not give campaign speeches. Now joining us, seated in the order they appear on the ballot are Brad Schneider from deerfield, hes a management consultant. And congressman robert dold, republican from kennelworth who was elected to the house of representatives in 2010. Before that he was president of a Pest Control Company in northfield and served as investigative counsel for the u. S. House oversight and government reform committee. Gentlemen, welcome to chicago tonight. Its good to have you here. Thank you. Good to be here. Moderator youre both on record as saying youd be open to raising revenue as part of a plan to balance the budget. Congressman dold, your opponent says hed support 70 in cuts versus 30 in new revenues. What percentage breakdown would you support . Dold im not so sure i have a percentage breakdown. I have worked with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the only bipartisan budget thats come to the floor in a generation and, frankly, we need to be talking about how we can get folks together, republicans and democrats alike. Running an organization, i certainly know that the only successful organizations are those that come together and actually solve problems and have some sort of compromise. Moderator but in terms of a compass point, you were asked recently would you accept the 1 tax increase for 10 in cuts, and you said yes. Dold sure. Moderator somewhere between that and 70 30, i mean, just as a general proposition . Dold well, certainly what i took as a framework in what we did, we laid out a broad framework that was talking about a bipartisan budget that would put revenues on the table and also spending cuts. I dont want to say wed say its got to be this or that simply because we dont know what the proposals are going to be. We do face a fiscal cliff, and the only way i think were going to resolve this problem is by coming together and working together as ive done in this last 22 months. Moderator Brad Schneider, how did you come up with the split . Schneider if you look at what weve had in this past congress, a congress that has done everything but address the challenges we face, you have a ryan plan that not once, but twice my opponent voted for that continues to give additional benefits and cuts to the most fortunate americans, additional subsidies to large Oil Companies and companies shipping jobs overseas. And to pay for that it is asking seniors to take medicare, the medicare guarantee and turn it into a voucher which will cost seniors 6400 a year more. Taking students and asking them to pay more for loans, cutting pell grants. Its taking middle class families and increasing their taxes moderator im hearing you say the general sense of fairness, this 70 30 that youve come up with. Congressman, you signed a pledge for Grover Norquists americans for tax reform to never raise taxes, but now youre saying you would consider deficit Reduction Solutions that would include increased revenue. Why the change . Dold well, certainly if youre going to lower rates or raise rates in one area, youve got to lower them in another. And i dont believe that raising taxes is necessarily the answer moderator but youre now open to increased revenue, and two years ago im asking why the change . Dold because when i got to washington, things were worse than even i anticipated. What i am looking to try to do is solve these big problems. So ive come forth with an idea and a plan. Certainly, i want to focus on my main street jobs agenda as we look at more and more people that are out of work than we want to see. Weve got 23 million americans out of work or unemployed, and yet my opponent has yet to come up with a plan. So what we do have is a plan to, in essence, just criticize me for coming moderator one of the subtexts of the question i was asking you, congressman, is it part of attacking the defender that is sort of reasonable in terms of representing a district like the 10th . Dold thats where ive been. Every independent analysis has ranked me as one of the most independent, bipartisan members of the United States congress, and thats where i think weve had thoughtful, independent leadership in the 10th district for the last 30 some odd years. Thats what i told the 10th district i would be, and thats exactly what ive done moderator and, Brad Schneider, youve been on the show twice before, and you said you were, quote, progressive. Lately youve been describing yourself as a moderate. What are you . Schneider i said a pragmatic proyes, sirrive on progressive. Im 100 supportive of womens rights, the right of a woman to make her own choice. On rights of equality, i support marriage equality, i support the opportunity for everyone to be able to have security in their employment whether theyre straight or gay or lesbian. I believe that we should have repealed dont ask, dont tell. And these are real differences between me and my opponent who is not 100 prochoice, who has voted to, um, or wanted to delay the repeal of dont ask, dont tell. Moderator youve raised a series of important things. A real Quick Response from congressman dold. Dold first of all, i am prochoice. So to say that im anything but that, i think, is disingenuous. Schneider he voted to defund planned parenthood, he voted for a bill that would have penalized Small Business that provided Women Health Care moderator okay, real quick, is that right . Dold actually, its wrong. Its disingenuous to paint it that way. What i did do is to fund the government. If you remember earlier on in this term, we had to fund the government to keep the doors open, so i wanted to make sure seniors got their Social Security checks, to make sure men and women in uniform were able to feed their families, to make sure that the government was being run. But the bill that hes talking about i actually stood up on the house floor and was the only republican to speak out to say we need to make sure planned parenthood keeps its funding, but to suggest otherwise is to [inaudible conversations] if you take a look at the daily herald, they actually came out and said these attempts to blatantly misrepresent my record are troubling schneider or youve voted against the amendment, but the very next day you voted for the bill that would have defunded planned parenthood. It didnt become law, and the government didnt shut down. You didnt have to moderator gentlemen, i guess let me jump ahead to a topic i was thinking of taking up later, but since its on the table, congressman dold, your opponent says that on the 20 most important votes you did not break with your leaders even once, and that led the tea party to pull congress to the fringe. What is your response . Dold that was, actually, 24 votes. 20 of those votes pass with the the democratic majority. Ten of those volts tenny hoyer voted for. Not a single one talked about Womens Health care, the environment, not a single one was talking about transportation infrastructure, not a single one of those votes were dealing on education or a single one on gun control, all things that i think are important to the people of the 10th district and i think are critical votes [inaudible conversations] schneider. If we look at the record of this congress which is the most ineffective in our lifetimes, he voted twice with the ryan plan. He talks he voted with this congress over 200 times against our environment, over 28 times against obamacare. Hes voted with them on issue after issue, on every core issue moderator okay. You raised an important one. Congressman dold, your votes on obamacare. You voted against it. Why . Dold if we look at the Affordable Care act, i think we can agree there are some things moderator by the way, you call it the Affordable Care act as opposed to obamacare. Dold i think we got 23 new taxes on this. The estimates in terms of the cost estimates on the new set of tenures doubled. It didnt double. Dold it did. Now after two years it is doubling, and so i do think this is wildly troubling because Small Businesses are looking at how can i, in essence, pay the penalty and tell people theyre on their own for Health Insurance . As one who has to deal with 100 employees, for me its an extended family, to tell them that theyre going to be on their own for Health Insurance, i can think of more things that would be more troubling or terrifying for them moderator [inaudible] schnide or every year when we met with the Health Insurance agent, they came in and told us we had a doubledigit increase. We had to make a choice, my partner and i, do we put more burden on our employees or take more on ourself . The Affordable Care act is not perfect, but it takes us in a step in the right direction taking us from a system that currently was based on volume, Emergency Care and moves us to a system that is much better based on quality and outcomes. Were spending oneandahalf times per capita on health care in this country, and were not Getting Better outcomes. Dold but it doesnt address equality. Moderator Quick Response. Dold it doesnt address cost or quality. We can agree that we dont want to deny someone with a preexisting condition access to insurance, but it didnt address medical malpractice reform, it doesnt allow individuals the same tax breaks as businesses. It doesnt involve consumerdriven care. Schneider it focuses on quality, it has an emphasis on preventive care, its taking us in the right direction. I dont say its perfect. We need to work [inaudible conversations] dold it takes 716 billion out of medicare moderator from our online chat, the question is last week the defense of marriage act was struck down by the courts. Do you support this law, and do you believe that marriage is only between man and a woman . Brad schneider . Schneider i believe two people life is hard. Raising a family is hard, having a career is hard. Having a partner to do that together, having someone to be standing by your side in tough times but also in good times. If two people want to commit for a lifetime, god bless them. I dont want to prevent two loving individuals from having a life together. One of the reasons why i supported, in essence, a piece of legislation that would allow domestic partners to have Health Benefits and be able to be on their Partners Health benefits, and ive come forward to say i believe that civil unions should be acceptable. So we want to make sure that they have these rights, but i do believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I believe two people who want to make this commitment, it should be marriage. This is why the Human Rights Campaign gave me their endorsement. Moderator congressman, do you think your sentiment is reflected in your district . Dold it is a moderate district, no doubt about it. Its more fiscally conservative and socially moderate. Schneider i know the majority of my district supports marriage equality, the majority of this country supports the employment nondiscrimination act. Yet mr. Dold opposes that. Moderator lets go to another question, the question is for mr. Schneider. You have refused to ri lease your tax release your tax returns. Why is that . To congressman dold, do you believe governor romney should release his returns . Schneider what i think people want to know are included moderator doesnt show what you pay in taxes. Dold it does not. Thats been reported as well. My wife has her own career. She is a professional. She has clients and competitors. Shes not running for congress. I believe my wife has the right to a certain degree of privacy. Everything voters want to know moderator some would say that theyre entitle today transparent is si from a candidate. Schneider ive released my returns. I believe the voters do have a right to transparency, and, frankly, the fact that we dont know what deduction cans were taken, we dont know if taxes were paid on domestic employees, we dont know any of those types of things and i think that, obviously, we know from past history these are some of the things that voters have wanted to know and have tripped up potential moderator those are all legitimate or, arguably legitimate [inaudible] let me follow up with that question from sam. Having said that, do you think mitt romney should release his tax records . Dold i do. Schneider we need to have a conversation focusing on jobs, focusing on getting our Education Systems back to leading the world, focusing on making sure we bring manufacturing, that our health care is addressed. [inaudible conversations] moderator all right. Lets open up that conversation with this question. And congressman dold, do you believe that the tax cuts for the wealthy stimulate the economy . Dold i believe keeping tax rates low are going to be helpful. President obama said in 2010 said in a fragile economy, we should not be raising rates. Thats when the economy was growing at 3. 5 . The Economy Today is growing at 1 minute 5 . I asked my opponent how raising taxes was going to help more people get employed, how it was going to help these Small Businesses who are struggling to make ends meet. Frankly, there was no response. Moderator do you believe tax cuts for the wealthy stimulate the economy . Schneider i stand with the president that we should keep tax rates for all earners under 250,000 where they are. But we have a fiscal imbalance. We need to address that. By raising the tax rates, going back to the tax rates of the 1990s where we had a growing economy, we were creating 23 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office looked at the plan to go back to 1990 rates on income over 250,000, they said it would reduce our net debt over ten years by almost a trillion dollars. Thats a significant step in bringing balance back to our budget and fiscal policy. The reason Standard Poors brought, lowered our Credit Rating a year ago wasnt because our economy wasnt able to grow, it was because congress was unwilling to address the challenges we face. We cant continue to keep giving the most fortunate americans tax cuts and expect that well be able to address the challenges and pass our children the kind of future that our parents gave to us. Moderator congressman dold, what do you make of the observation that theres no connection between lower taxes for the wealthy and a vibrant, robust economy . Dold my opponent said he wants all the rates to rise, that he wants all of the tax cuts to go up moderator you did say that earlier. Since then schneider i could have been more artful. I think we need to keep rates below at the current level moderator so you misspoke when you said what you said before . Schneider i stand with the president. Dold on his web page it was changed. Was it inartful or convenient . Schneider look in, bob, in 1999 we had a balanced budget, we had a projection to balance our debt. We had two bush tax cuts, two unfunded wars, an unfunded Prescription Drug benefit, and we had a fail your of oversight of failure of our oversight committee. Moderator congressman, i have more questions for you. Dold brad, you have no plan. Ive laid out a clear vision for how we get people back to work. Schneider thats just not true. Moderator gentlemen, i have to interrupt, mr. Schneider dold you sound like a lot of investing means a lot of spending. Moderator gentlemen, speaking of tax policy, which of these deductions would you eliminate . Congressman dold, mortgage interest . Keep it or lose it . Dold id like to keep it. Schneider i would like to keep it but cap it on higher income on second houses, for example, but we need to continue to support our housing industry. Moderator how about Capital Gains . Brad schneider . Schneider i would support taking it back to what it was in the 1990s under clinton. Moderator congressman . Dold we want to keep investing. Having said that, when we talk about a grand scheme or something working across the aisle, that could be on the table. Moderator congressman, charitable deductions, should they stay or go . Dold its one of the things that has to stay. Schneider one of the things that makes us stronger is the sense we have of taking care of our neighbors. I would keep it. Gld Brad Schneider, one Corporate Tax loophole you would like to close . Dold i think we have to lower the rates to make ourselves more globally competitive. So comprehensive tax reform, certainly something ive supported and, actually, one of the things that i passed out of the house of representatives, my opponent talked about how this is t