 Good evening and welcome to the 2016 Hawke the Vote Media Lab at Roger Williams University. Tonight Hawke the Vote is proud to host our first live streamed event for this year's presidential election. My name is Dylan Stamboff, president of the Roger Williams University Society of Professional Journalists and I will be one of the moderators for tonight's debate. And my name is Kyle Souza. I'm the communications chair of the Roger Williams University Society of Professional Journalists chapter, a sponsor of tonight's event. The RWU chapter of SPJ is the only student chapter in Rhode Island. Tonight, the nonpartisan Hawke the Vote Media Lab winner of the 2012 Mark of Excellence Award hosts the Roger Williams University College Democrats and College Republicans in an hour long debate where the two teams will take on some of the pressing issues of the current presidential election. Again, thank you for being here. We are broadcasting live from the Roger Williams University campus in Bristol, Rhode Island on WQRI 88.3 FM. Tonight's debate is brought to you by the Journalism Program's award winning Hawke the Vote Election Media Lab and by the Roger Williams University chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Our goal at the Hawke the Vote Media Lab is to motivate the student body to engage in the electoral process. The participants in tonight's debate are Connor Fales, David Hayes and Andre Wolf of the College Democrats. And tonight, from the College Republicans, we have Beau Schauberg, Christian Chase and Ben Miller. The 60 minute debate is divided into six segments each 10 minutes long. Tonight's topics agreed upon by both parties include climate change, gun laws in the Second Amendment, health care affordability, tax cuts and employment trends, national debt and equal pay. Each side will be asked the same platform question and given two minutes to respond. The other side has the right of rebuttal. The questions for tonight's debate were prepared by students who are enrolled in the Hawke the Vote Media Lab. They have not been previously shared with the debate teams, but they were told in advance what to expect with six particular topics. As student journalists, we do follow the code of ethics which requires that we verify information that we present to the public. However, we have agreed not to fact check the responses of the participants in tonight's debate in response to a request from the debate teams who made this a condition of their appearance on the stage this evening. For that reason, Hawke the Vote encourages the audience to check their facts and the veracity of their claims made here tonight by going online to DonaldJTrump.com and HillaryClinton.com. I ask the audience at this point to remain silent and respectful for the duration of the debate. Thank you. I will now ask the members of each side to introduce themselves, starting with the college Democrats. Can everybody hear me okay? Good. Good evening, everyone. My name is Connor Fales. To my right is Andre Wolfe. And furthered, we have David Hayes. And we are representing the college Democrats here on Roger Williams University. We want to thank Hawke the Vote for hosting this event and the College Republicans for agreeing to debate us. We both know how much we like to make each other's blood boil. So tonight we will be discussing many issues that face our great nation. We will let our argument speak for themselves, but I wanted to remind everyone of something before we get started that seems to get lost in today's toxic political discourse. And that is this. Both the Democrats and the Republicans want the same thing. We want to call, we want a strong, vibrant America that we're proud to call our home. We want all our nation's people to be successful and be able to realize their full potential and their American dream. We just have slight disagreements about the best way to go about achieving that. This is not two completely opposite ends of a spectrum. This is not capitalism versus socialism. This is not fascism versus democracy. This is simply the contest of ideas to work towards the same goals and the best way to get there. Thank you and we hope you enjoy. Thank you, Connor. And College Republicans, can you introduce yourselves? Hello, everyone. And good evening. My name is Bo Schoberg. I'm the president of the College Republicans. To my left, we have Ben Miller, who is an active member of the College Republicans. And Christian Chase, who is the treasurer of the College Republicans. I'd like to thank the Hawke the Vote class for having us here today. I would especially like to thank the College Democrats for debating with us. I always have a pleasure doing it with you, Connor, especially. So yes, we're here to represent the College Republicans in the Republican platform. And we're here to talk about some of the most pressing issues facing us today, such as guns, the economy, health care. Like Connor said, we all agree on the American dream. We all agree that America should be prosperous and we should all achieve what we believe to be success the different ways we go about doing that and the different policies we have is what makes these debates. And we get to figure out whose policies and who our ideas are better. And hopefully tonight we'll be able to come out here with a different view, a different thought, and respect for each other. As it was a little bit coin toss that took place earlier, the College Democrats will begin tonight's debate. So we'll start off with gun law questions. First question is, in the Second Amendment states, the right to bear arms. As of Friday, guns have killed 11,437 people in the United States in 2016. Given the continuously rising body count, what course of action should the country take regarding gun safety? So I want to say very loudly and clearly, because this seems to be distorted by the other side on numerous occasions. We are not against the Second Amendment. We are not for repealing the Second Amendment. We just want more stringent background checks for those wishing to purchase a gun. And this is a pretty consensus issue. 90% of Americans feel the same way. And even a strong majority of members in the National Rifle Association have that same exact view. But I think we need to look at the Second Amendment from a little bit of context. When the Second Amendment was written, guns were more like pea shooters. You'd have to shoot, then spend the next 30 to 90 seconds reloading. That is not the world we live in today. Assault weapons and other firearms are able to kill dozens and seconds. There is an epidemic of gun violence in this country. Nearly 14,000 people were killed by firearms in 2015, and almost 27,000 were injured. And these figures, by the way, do not include gun-related injuries due to suicide. And I don't need to tell everyone here the horrors of mass shootings that we as a country have witnessed year after year after year. So how do we go about dealing with this problem while respecting gun rights? Well, first, we would say that we should have no assault weapons on our streets. We see this as kind of a middle ground here. No one is going hunting or protecting their home with an AK-47. Assault weapons are expressly for the purposes of war. To kill as many people as you can without reloading or having to pull the trigger. Why, again, sorry, why would we want those in our streets? So if I can own a rifle that's used in war, why can't I own a flamethrower? Why can't I own an RPG? It's my second amendment right. But we as a society put reasonable constraints on that. Second, we need to expand background checks and mental health screenings to ensure that those who shouldn't be able to buy a gun cannot buy a gun. The man who shot up the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Color-wise that you wrap it up. And the man who entered a middle school in Newtown, Connecticut and killed innocent children used weapons that were used for a war zone. Proud of the problem is when we try to have this discussion, the debate is skewed as we're trying to take away your guns. We're not. We just want reasonable compromises. Thank you. Thank you, Connor. College Republicans. Thank you. I will talk about my policy in a little bit. But first, I would like to talk about this notion that the liberal media and the liberal politicians keep stressing which is more guns equals more death. I will disprove this rumor. First, by looking at the lowest murder rate per capita in America, which is Plano, Texas. Now, in Plano, Texas, there are 0.4 murders per 100,000 residents annually. Plano, Texas has some of the most relaxed gun regulations in the country. In fact, if Plano, Texas carry or if the entire country carried like the town of Plano, America would be ranked 211 out of 218 countries conducted in that survey, which means we would be much safer. In fact, we'd even be safer than Switzerland in that survey. Now, on the other hand, let's take a look at Chicago. It's a city with extreme gun control. Chicago has a murder rate of a whopping 15.1 murders per 100,000 people. That is a massive number compared to the US national rate at 4.7 murders per 100,000 people. And there is no coincidence between the statistic and the fact that Chicago has some of the most tyrannic policies for gun control. The political policies shown in Chicago of disarming the public have been used by the powers like Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro. These policies have no room in a free democracy like the United States. Since the 2014 ban on handguns in Chicago, the percentage of Chicago murders committed with a handgun has averaged about 40% higher than before the law took an effect. I'm going to restate myself because this is a big point. After the Chicago banned all the guns from the city, an increase in gun murders occurred. This literally means the responsible gun owners are the ones that are being taken away. And they are the ones who are paying the price of the law. Now, in terms of policy, I do not believe that everyone in the country should have a gun. I believe that the responsible people should have a gun. I believe we need to create a coherent policy that discusses. Can I just see you wrap it up, please? I would like to discuss a current policy that has the responsible gun owners to carry the guns and the non-responsible owners to have those guns taken away and not to have the right. I would like to have mental background checks and more vetting of the gun owners. Thank you. And before you rebuttal, we would like to ask just a follow-up question. How would a ban on assault weapons affect the death toll that was just previously stated? And you could also incorporate in your response to rebuttal. Sure. Well, I don't have the exact number for the assault weapon deaths for this year in front of me. But I can tell you that in 2015, it was around, I want to say, 400 to 500 people who were killed with an assault weapon. Now, of course, that's a pretty statistically low number. But that's 500 people that could have been saved if a weapon that was once banned by the Reagan administration if those weapons would not be on the streets. We could have saved 500 people. That's probably more than the total combination of people watching this program right now. That's a lot. And it says a lot about human life. Now, I agree that the problem seems to be more with the small firearms with the pistols and everything. And we'll talk about that in our crosstalk here. Please, Feli. Although I don't know the specifics of how many people have been killed to assault weapons and the specifics of that, I can say that I view assault weapons and assault rifles as technological improvement. I see it as we are being more innovative in our private sectors and our businesses. We are creating better guns. I see it as kind of a car. Why would you tell someone you're only allowed to drive a Pontiac or a Ford? You say, I can't drive a Ferrari. It goes too fast. You need a nice, reliable car. You say, get a pistol. Get a shotgun. Nice, safe. Why would you ever need a gun that far is off that many rounds? And I'd say the same reason why someone drives a Ferrari. You don't have to go that fast. People enjoy it. We have made advancements in assault. This is, by the way, counting for our one minute crosstalk time. OK, assault weapons are made especially for the purposes of war. They were technological advancements for the purposes of war and being able to kill as many people as possible in the least amount of time. Right. We say that we don't say you can't own a Ferrari over a Subaru, but we don't say you can own a tank because that's a weapon of war. I agree with that. And there are many weapons of war that are not allowed, like fully automatic weapons. Many people think that when conservatives and Republicans talk about gun control, we're talking about AK-47s, high voltage machinery. Those weapons have already been banned. No one is allowed to have a bazooka. No one is allowed to have full automatic weapons. We are talking about the semi-automatic weapons, the AR-15s, in which our lawmakers have decided we're allowed to use and we're allowed to have. And so as a free American, we should do that and express our rights. Any kind of assault weapon that has high capacity rounds, whether it's an automatic machine gun or not, is going to take a good amount of life. Right, I agree, but this was previously debated on what guns should be banned by the public and what should not. And we've decided we should ban such things as automatic weapons, such things as bazookas, like the tanks you're saying, these are war. And then we figure where do we draw the line on where people are not allowed to have guns and where people can have guns? If we keep on drawing this line, then we'll say, okay, well then maybe, you know, no one's allowed to have a sniper rifle. No one's allowed to have a shotgun. We could keep on talking about where the ban should be, but the ban has already been set and I think we should go from it to there. I would not be opposed to sniper rifles being banned seeing how a sniper rifle was used to kill police officers in Texas as I'm sure you're aware. Now I'm not saying that does score a cheap political point but it does bring to question what kind of people can get their hands on guns in this country and what will they use them for? We aren't an Obama. When Obama issued his executive order, his most recent one on gun control, he had a open CNN town hall debate and the widow of Chris Kyle, the man from American Sniper, asked him why he wants to make it harder for law abiding citizens to get their guns. And I- You guys are gonna ask that we move on to the next question. And I think that his answer is telling, is that no, it would not prevent you from getting a gun. You as a citizen who went through the process already passed your background check. Already did all that. So you are not going to be penalized by increasing universal background checks. Okay, we're gonna move on to the topic of healthcare and we're gonna begin with this. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have both made their stance on healthcare clear over their campaign. Trump plans to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act while Clinton instead wants to build on it. What directions do you guys think that this country should head in to assure affordable healthcare for all of the Americans? College Republicans, you will have the first two minutes. Healthcare is an institution that is vital to our society. It does immense good for people. They're saving lives. We currently have some of the best technology for diagnosis or diagnostic and surgical technology in that keeping it in a free market allows this to happen. So by allowing private citizens to pay into healthcare providers that they choose to or getting healthcare from jobs that they have, they are able to continue and push the competition further which just allows for more advances and better, more efficient healthcare provided to all citizens. I'd like to bring in the example of Britain. They have in their emergency room, currently their goal is to keep people waiting for no longer than about four hours and the average of a U.S. emergency room currently is about 58 minutes to under an hour. And what we see here is that College Republicans answering a question about healthcare, they're just doing them on to each other, see if they can come up with a response here. As we are live at Roger Williams University broadcasting on 88.3 FM. So basically what this is, is the problem with the centrally planned healthcare system is it completely annihilates the beauty of the competitive market. When we have a privatized market with no state lines and each major healthcare provider is allowed to compete in their totality in whichever capacity they decide to choose, they will provide better, more comprehensive coverage to the people that they are, the consumers are providing for. It's the idea of the invisible hand by serving their own self interests, of building their companies, of building their consumer base by building their market share. Guys, will I see you wrap it up? They will in effect provide more comprehensive coverage, more lucrative coverage for their consumers and better value and eventually innovate technology and provide our healthcare in a whole. The beauty of the free market. Okay, two minutes, okay. So, healthcare is a very complicated issue. Anybody can tell you that. And part of why healthcare is so complicated is because it tries to reconcile two opposing factors, affordability and accessibility. But let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture here. Before the Affordable Care Act became law, the rate of uninsured population was slightly below 16%. Now, though 16% of people who would end up in the emergency room, the taxpayers would end up having to pick up the bill for them in the end. It was a system that a lot of people agreed was not working. Now, let's fast forward to today after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. The uninsured rate currently stands to be around 9% and it could even be lower according to data recently collected by the CDC. This is historic. We have never been closer to having accessible healthcare for everyone. Now, we agree, premiums, co-pairs, co-pays and prescriptions have gotten way too high. It's outrageous. And the party and Hillary Clinton as our nominee would like to work on the Affordable Care Act in order to rein in the costs and its issues. Both those who were receiving healthcare through private employers and those who received it through federally subsidized markets were afforded the same benefits from the rules that the law laid out. Those with pre-existing conditions could no longer be denied. There were no lifetime limits. Women couldn't be charged more than men for healthcare and 26-year-olds could stay on their parents' policies. I'm sorry, up to 26-year-olds could stay on their parents' policies. We want to keep the benefits of the Affordable Care Act and work on its issues to make sure that cost is brought down by providing more help to offset the burden on small businesses, especially. We hear a lot from small business leaders that there is some problems. So, but if Obamacare is repealed, which is basically the general Republican stance, you're gonna see a lot of problems and you're gonna see political backlash. A lot of people who benefit from it are from red states and have taken advantage of the increased insurance opportunities. And this basically kicks it back to the insurance companies. We're gonna ask a follow-up question and I'll allow you guys to continue for just a second. And I'll write repeal of the Affordable Healthcare Act would end coverage for those individuals who are covered under their parents' act up to the age of 26. Connor, you just started touching on that. Many developed nations do provide full coverage. So, what's your stance on that and how would that change if we repeal the act? I mean, those people who don't have healthcare? And look, that's a huge problem. The age demographic 18 to 26-year-olds aren't the most careful people in the world as I'm sure we've seen around campus from a few drunken incidents. We can tell you first thing about that. Yeah, so when those people end up in the emergency room and things like that, the taxpayer had to pick up the bill in the end anyway. What the Affordable Care Act does is extend their parents' coverage on to through 20s until they are 26. And I mean, that helped save the system money. And like I said, the system is not a perfect system, but you know what? It's better than the mess that we had in place eight years ago if unleashing the competitive market and letting the free economics do whatever it does. If that's gonna make it work and if that's going to help it, why didn't it eight years ago? Why didn't it 16 years ago? It's for the same reasons. Connor, I'm gonna ask you to allow them to respond. Could you repeat the question? Or the follow-up to that? Yes, so the follow-up question asked about the act changing with their parents. They were on their parents until the age of 26. And if that's repealed, how do you feel like that'll change things? Well, I believe that you are still on your parents before the act. You are still on your parents' insurance. It's not all the way up until 26, but it's over 18 and you're covered through college. And so with that, if you're in college and you're on your parents' insurance, the hope is that you're gonna be able to go out, find a job that's going to provide you with health insurance as a benefit with that. And then you're able to either use that or pay into healthcare insurance that you feel that is gonna cover the priorities and everything that you want in your health insurance. And from that, you're gonna be able to get better service, more efficient, less wait times. And it is not that if you are uninsured, you don't get any service whatsoever. Hospitals and emergency rooms will still provide service to people, and yes, that does get put on and the taxpayers do have to pay more for that. But there's also, with the plan, there's also a hike in tax. I believe it jumps up to about 9% extra or more with Clinton's plan. Okay, guys, we're gonna move on to the next topic because we're trying to keep time here. Just a quick reminder, we are here in the Hockville Media Lab broadcasting live on WQRI 88.3. And again, I am Dylan Stamman, joined by my moderator, Kyle Souza. Okay, for our next question, we're gonna talk about taxes and unemployment. Trump supports reducing taxes for all Americans, especially those in the middle and working class. His current plan is to cut the seven tax brackets down to three and to give low-income Americans a tax rate of zero. Clinton proposes an extreme tax increase for the wealthy or a minimum tax rate of 30% for anyone who earns over $1 million a year. Which tax proposal is better for the health of the American economy and why? We'll start with the college Democrats. Okay, so taxes to Democrats is we want a progressive tax system. And before I even get started on the progressive tax system, I wanna talk about trickle down economics, which is essentially what Donald Trump's on to do, cutting tax across the board. The fact is it doesn't work. The IMF, the International Monetary Fund, that's what that is, says it doesn't work. Pew Research Center doesn't work. The Brookings Institute says it doesn't work. It worked for three and a half years during the Reagan administration and then everything went bad after that. So what Hillary wants to do is the top tax bracket for people making $415,000 to $5 million would be 39.6%. And then after $5 million it would be 43.6%. And what this would do, this would mean, this would generate $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. Three-fourths of that would be paid by that 1%, which is making more money than they have in the history of our country. So the rest of us, the people that make a normal amount of money in the scheme of things, the 95% of us would see little to no change. The other argument to this is people think that billionaires are just gonna pull out and leave the country. And it's not true because people like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Carl Takai, they all support this. They think a progressive tax system would work. And the one last argument is that states would just deplete states of their billionaires and they would all leave. And it's not a coincidence that states like New York, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, the ones with all the millionaires and few billionaires is they have the most progressive tax codes and they're doing the best. So that's what I have to say about that. Thank you. You guys will have two minutes to respond. So first and foremost, I do not fully support Donald Trump's tax plan. I think that the only fair tax situation that this country could foreseeably undergo for all Americans is to impose a flat tax proportionally based tax. The rich should not be taxed more simply because they make more than their fellow Americans. Unfortunately, if you work harder and you make more money the government doesn't have a right to take it from you. That's, they shouldn't be penalized more by the government simply because they've made more money regardless of that. A more important thing I think we really need to focus on the economic stimulation is the idea of a small business tax cut and furthermore start-up small business tax cuts. Start-ups generally take about three to five years until they're fully linked into fruition and their revenue is outweighing their expenses. Now these start-ups bring innovation. They bring new competitors into the market. They allow for more employment. So ideas like giving them tax breaks and payroll taxes while they're starting up. Giving them a tax break on the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, which taxes 6.2% of every employee's salary up to $7,000 of that fiscal year. For the company they have to pay 6.2% on each of their employees' salaries. Now cutting these back for start-ups gives them more revenue, which they can then pay more people and invest more in expanding their companies and eventually bring more into the market. I would just like to also add that you said people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, they would be okay to this progressive tax rate. Yes, they supported that. Yeah, and that's true because those are very liberal and progressive people. Those people who don't mind giving up. They're also one of the richest. Excuse me, hold on one second. They're also not going to be a poster if you ask more conservative people. Within, if you ask the top, say, all the CEOs in the top, fortune 1,000, I'm sure a majority of them, if there was a crazy increased tax rate, I'm sure a majority of them will leave the country. I know that your Bill Gates, your Warren Buffetts, they're extremely liberal billionaires. They would be more than welcome to give up that money, but I'm talking about all of billionaires and a majority of billionaires are more conservative and they would be a little bit more tight when it comes to giving out their money. And I do not think that they would be... I'm going to ask you what the unresponsive... I do think that they would be opposed to the tax rates. I sincerely do. Okay, yeah, no, that's fair enough. I don't think you could say that just because that's a lot of people in to say that the majority of them without having prior information on this. To give the examples of Bill Gates... He let you talk, let's let him. Isn't this the one business you're up for? If you're up for him responding, that's fine. I use my term in the first two minutes, yeah. So I know I can't just say that a majority of the billionaires would be opposed to it, but you also can't go about saying that the millionaires and billionaires would be okay for it just because these two known, liberal, progressive people say. No, no, I know, that's those two people that you keep bringing up. Three people, but yeah. I know, but I'm saying a majority of the millions of billionaires, not just the two ones that are known to be liberals. What I'm saying is that these people have actually supported that. You're just going off on a tour. No, I know, I keep on talking about those people that you're supporting. Yeah, so yeah, you have no actual evidence that what you're saying makes any sense. I'm saying that. You're just assuming. Okay, hold on a second now. I'm just saying that the two people that you listed are known to be... Okay, can you repeat the three people? Just to make that very clear, it's Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Carl Tocani. All right, thank you, Andre. So those billionaires, billionaires that you said, everyone knows that they are liberal and progressive people. So the ones that are not, they would not be as willing as those are. That's just what I was trying to make. I don't have any evidence saying which ones would be more willing and which ones would not. But I'm saying that bringing up just those names is not sufficient enough to say that the millionaires and billionaires would be okay about this new taxes. All right, guys, we're gonna move on to the next topic, because I do want to leave a chance for a couple of audience questions. We're gonna move on to the topic of equal pay, but first I do want to remind that we are here at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, broadcasting live on 88.3 FM in the Huck to Vote Media Lab. We're gonna move on to the topic of equal pay. And I'd like to start with this question. According to the Institute of Woman's Policy Research, women make up half the workforce and receive more college degrees than men, yet are paid 80 cents less than every dollar that men earn. What are your thoughts on the wage gap and what will your party do to ensure equal pay for women? We will start with you guys. All right, so I think the first and foremost thing to say is the idea that there could be a discriminatory factor based completely on gender is absolutely, it shouldn't be a thing, it should not be, it's biased, it shouldn't happen. But this idea that a complete discrimination solely based on gender, and that's why this supposed wage gap exists is completely preposterous at the same time. In the United States alone, only 14.2% of our CEOs are women. 24 of the top 500 companies in the US have CEOs that are women. Now, the average salary of a CEO in the United States is $13.8 million. Right there, there's a massive, massive wage gap. And that's just simply based on who's employed and what position. This isn't an equal pay, equal work type of deal in that case. Furthermore, statistically in the US, and this is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more women work minimum wage jobs than men. And of those minimum wage jobs, men work more full-time minimum wage jobs than women do. Furthermore, there's an overwhelming majority of men working in labor and like construction, so we're talking masonry roofing, construction management. Jobs are categorized as dangerous, which are usually carry higher salary and that is also overwhelming majority of men working these jobs. Now, it's impossible to sit here and break down gender. We can't break down gender, we can't categorize simply. Each person brings a totally different thing to the table. So to just simply say gender is the only factor is impossible and naive. I mean, regardless of qualifications, some companies pay different pay for the same job. If you have a higher cloud of company, you know, Wall Street versus a small tax brokerage in... All right, I'm gonna ask you to let them respond so we can keep on time, please. You all done? Yeah? Okay. So equal pay is not something to make light of, it seems like they just did. I think we could break equal pay done to two things. One is stems from racism and the other stems from sexism. So I don't remember the number they said at the beginning of the question, but this Brookings Institute study says they make 79% of what men make and then this Pew Research Center said 83%. So since the 60s, women have held the majority of graduate and undergraduate degrees. That means that they statistically have been more educated than their male counterparts. And these jobs, we're not comparing these jobs from field to field. Like, of course, engineers make more than teachers, but men and women, so the best example I can give is teachers. 70% of teachers are female, but yet they only make 87% of what their male counterparts makes. And so that's the sexism part of it, but the racism part is this wage gap only grows farther when you take race into account. So for white women, this IMF and US Census agree that it was 78%. For black women, it's 64%. And for Spanish women, it's 53%. I think for Indian women, I think they said it was 66, but don't call me on that. So the Democratic Party is better equipped to handle this. There's more women represented in Congress. And the truth is that a lot of Republicans think that the equal pay is just a myth and that it doesn't exist. And the last point I would like to address is we're not expected to reach pay equity until 2056. I'm gonna be 58 by then. If I have a daughter, I don't want her making that 21% less than the male doing her same exact job. And when there's a recession that will stem probably from a Republican president, and one of you guys is laid off, I would hope that your wife is not making that 21% less because you guys are gonna need it. All right, I'm gonna allow you guys to respond. Each side for one minute, please. Then we have to move on. I thank you for looking out for my future and my wife's future. You're welcome. The notion that you have that says that the equal pay is the way it is, is because America is so racist and sexist. I think that's preposterous. There are many specifics to the wage gap that we need to look at. You need to look at certain skills. You need to look at certain skills that they have in relating to their job. You need to look at their graduate level if they went to high school, if they went to college, if they went to law school, if they have any kind of graduate. I know that if you went to law school, no matter what, even if you don't have a job specific to law, you will get a pay raise. There are advanced degrees that if you get those degrees, there are pay raises. There will people, if I have a skill that is very vital and is a huge asset to my work description, they're gonna pay me more. I think that this notion you have that it's racist and it's sexist. I know you might have the general facts and figures that say that, but I think you saying that America doesn't pay women as much as men because they're racist and sexist. I just think that that is all- I'll ask you to let them be about that. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, it's not all race and sexist, but there definitely is a, I think this is something we can agree upon that there definitely is a part of America that is fueled by that racism. But I wouldn't consider an institutional sexism or racism that would mean that overall men are paid more than women. I would say that there are people that are racist and there are people that are sexist, but until you show me the institution that is racist, then you can't tell me that it's racist. That would be Donald Trump's campaign. I'm talking about a policy in which it impacts you, not just someone who's running for president. All right, guys, we're gonna move on to the next topic. I'm gonna let Dylan take the next question. So our next topic is debt. Hillary Clinton said student loans are one of the biggest problems that the United States faces today. She advocates to change the payment schedule and expand financial aid, while Donald Trump has proposed an income-based cap on student loan programs. As college students, how do you think the next president should address college debt? And we'll start with Democrats, please. Hillary's plan as a college student, I think, is by far one of the most effective plans that we've been given as the American people. Hillary's plan, often referred to as the new college compact, has an article within it that says families with income under 85K will go to state schools for free. That is immensely great for a lot of kids, 18-year-olds applying to state schools. They're good state schools that still cost a lot of tuition. UConn, for example, for my home state of Connecticut, still costs a fair amount of money for most of the in-staters. And Hillary's plan that will progress gradually by 10,000 each year, which hopefully will reach 125,000 is the goal, will allow more kids to attend and get a higher level education for free without having to face a fear of coming out with debt, coming out with no job and still having to pay debt, being crippled and hindered and shackled by student debt. Hillary also plans to significantly cut interest rate on student debt. And one third of the fund for a plan will go to interest relief on student debt. So those who are already crippled and shackled by their student debt can breathe easy. They can go out and get a better job, a better apartment, a better neighborhood, which allow them to get a car and go to a better job. Hillary's plan will, in the long term, allow more Americans to get better jobs and will grow the economy because more Americans are getting better educated and getting better jobs. In the short term, it allows students to go to school without the stress, without the pain of having to bear the weight of student debt breathing down your neck. Okay, you guys have two minutes. So the concept of free college and these reduced debts is brilliant, it's utopian in a sense. In concept, it sounds wonderful, but in practice, it's impossible. There's no such thing as free in this country. To go off what you're saying, Hillary's proposed college plan is estimated to cost the country about $350 billion over the next 10 years. That's not $350 billion, that's just coming out of nowhere. That's taxpayer money. That's not a free college, that's just getting you another way. There's no such thing as free, unfortunately. And furthermore, when you sign up for this, you're accepting the fact that you're paying into something. You're paying for your education, you're paying for that. That's the idea behind it. You're not just entitled, there's this overwhelming sense in the United States that people are just entitled and the government is supposed to give them everything and that's how it is. And while, I mean, speaking economically, or I guess more fiscally responsible personally, it'd be great, it'd be wonderful to not have to worry about college debt. That would be beautiful, it would be great. We wouldn't have to worry about it, but that's not how the economy works. $350 billion doesn't come out of nowhere, unfortunately. It comes out taxpayer dollars that you all will pay into as well. College was free. You don't get away from not paying your fair share. You don't get away from just having free college and nothing comes of it. And unfortunately, that's how it goes. We just don't make $350 billion out of nowhere. I would like to add just two quick things. One about our debt and then one related more towards free college. So when Barack Obama entered the White House, the US government debt was $10.6 trillion. And today we are $19.5 trillion in debt, almost doubled. And before Obama leaves his presidency, it is expected to have an average of more than $1.1 trillion added. And the second thing I would like to talk about, and this is directed to the Bernie Sanders millennials who believe that college should be free. I recommend you joining the reserves or a branch of military that could provide you that free education and you'll be also serving your country and your military at the same time. If you join the military, if you join the reserves, you will be given your free college education. You will also be serving your country. Thank you. Okay guys, one minute here, respond. First off to the point of the Obama administration raising the debt. That is true, but a strong economic principle that is taught in most of our economic courses here at Roger Williams University is that you have to spend a little money to make a little money. Now, if we look back to history to try and fix our plans for the future, we can see that under Bill Clinton, there's a surplus under his administration to be exact from factcheck.org, $236.2 billion surplus under Bill Clinton. And then George Bush, a Republican, came with his administration and the surplus went away, but the financial crisis of 2008 came to stay until the Obama administration took over. Now, did they have to spend money? Yes, but that was to get the economy in a better place. As the economy is right now at an upward positive spiral. Unemployment right now is at 5%. That's nearly full employment. The economy may have gone up and so along with it the debt, but it was for a good cause. Now, to the point of free isn't free. Free isn't free, however. Okay, I'd like to just say something. You said that very smart economists, they say that you gotta spend money to make money. We've been spending the money. When are we gonna start making the money? We're continuously going more and more in debt. I've been hearing this since I was probably in second grade and grade school that say, well, don't worry, we're gonna have to keep on spending the money to make money. It's almost 2017. When are we gonna start making money? When are we gonna stop going massively, massively in debt to the point where we cannot break ourselves out? Well, we can learn to start investing. Sorry, Conor. No, no. Go ahead. We can learn to start investing so we should stop spending and we should start investing. If you can let me finish my investment point. If you can invest in the future generations, invest in the generations that will go to college, get a better education, get better jobs and improve the economy. We're funding the next Bill Gates. We're funding the next Bill Gates. Are you gonna continue to spending while you're funding these next Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? Are you gonna continue spending? Because then your investments aren't gonna be as... But we can always look at places to cut the budget as it currently exists. To lower the national debt, would you be personally comfortable with cutting the military budget by about 15%? There are certain things that we should be cutting and there are certain things that not at this day and age with Iran's nuclear missile, with North Korea testing, with Russia. We have no idea what Russia's doing. I think this would be a very stupid time. Guys, we're coming down for the end. I'll be a very stupid time to cut military spending, but I'm happy that Conor and I came to agreement that yes, we need to stop government spending in certain departments. All right, we need to move on to the final topic so we can leave room for at least one audience question. Our final topic this evening will be about the environment. I do just want to remind quickly that we are at Roger Williams University in the Hawke the Vote Media Lab, broadcasting live on 88.3 FM. My name is Kyle Suze. I'm joined by Dylan Stanbaugh as the moderators. Our final point this evening says that we haven't heard much about the environmental issues in this presidential race. What we do know is that Trump did call global warming and expensive hoax in a Twitter post on January 29 of 2014, while Clinton asserts the climate change is a damning threat. How does your party believe that we should address climate change? We will start with the Republicans, two minutes. I'm not gonna sit here and deny that the pollution and everything that we're doing to the country currently is not extremely bad. I mean, we have the waste circling around in the Pacific Ocean, just whirlpooling chunks of plastic. That's unacceptable to be doing to a planet. But I'm not also gonna sit here saying that what's been going on for the last however many decades and centuries is we're not seeing increases in heat, like the increase in heat that from the last, I believe it is two decades or three decades from the NASA is 0.7 degrees Celsius, which is about four times faster than the average or what it should be after coming out of an ice age or which is what it was. There's also proof that there are hurricane storms, El Nino, all of that stuff has not been altered or changed by what has been like the current practices of how we treat our environment. And so to get onto the point of how to go about further policies regarding the environment and global warming, I feel that incentives would be key, not putting restrictions on businesses for harming the environment further, but also incenting small businesses or big businesses for doing good for the environment. Why place restrictions on a free market that's gonna stop business and the economy from growing? Clearly we need to spend money to make money, so why not start making people spend more money on alternate resources and incentivizing them to do so, further expanding that and helping the environment at the same time instead of placing restrictions on them for trying to further their growth as a company. All right, we need to have the, I'll let them have their two minutes, please. Yeah, I'm sorry, you think deregulating will promote businesses to- This is your big statement, go ahead. Help them by that. You can do it, they're in a cross-examination. Yeah, David, do you want to go through your environmental points? Sure, so you can't agree that the damage is happening and then ignore the facts which say why the damage is happening. So as a Democratic party, first off, we need to make sure that people know that one, the damage is happening and two, why it's happening. You know, you cited NASA but NASA has also stated that sea levels have risen 17 centimeters due to increased global temperatures which have on record been steadily rising since 1880. 1880 for those of you in the audience who may not know is around the time of the Second Industrial Revolution. That is when a lot more coal was used in factories to create a lot more things. Technology advancements are great, however they did have a huge cost to the planet and the top 10 record hottest years were within the last 12 years. That's the last 12 years had the 10 hottest on record years. That's an increase in global temperatures. That's not American temperatures, that's global. That's temperatures from Russia to the United States, from England to South Africa. This is a global problem. And if your argument is that we shouldn't penalize businesses for restricting their corporations, they live in a global world. They work in global markets. They should equally be concerned for global problems. So a way that we can attack and challenge climate change as we see it today is by investing in renewable and alternative forms of energy. I'm talking about solar, I'm talking about hydroelectric, I'm talking about wind and there are even more that we can do. The other ones do need some more research and development such as fuel cells, hydrogen fuel cells for example, don't have any pollutants and their only byproduct is water. Thorium reactors have also been proven to be a lot more safer and a lot more energy productive than nuclear reactors. So says worldnuclear.org, which stated one ton of thorium can output one gigawatt of energy which compares to 250 tons of uranium. All right, we're gonna open it up for you guys then we come back. I'd like to say, just again, we're talking about our different ideals and we're coming with compromises. David just said that he believes solar panels, wind panels, various things like this that they need to happen. I agree with you, we need to start figuring out what else we can do. But I say that we do that in the private sector whereas when the businesses and the corporations, when they start putting on solar panels in their factories, when they start doing the winds and all the other things that they have the turbines, that's when we start doing the incentives, the taxes, the cut rates. And instead of taxing people more when they are polluting, I say we cut taxes, we give them more incentives to be green, to have a good footprint because all businesses want to make the most money. So if we make it to the way where they will actually make the absolute, like most amount of profit, if they make a green foot, then we will do that. No business wants to be taxed heavily. No business wants to have the heavy restrictions on them. So if we can move past the negative restrictions and we can go to the optimistic incentives. All right, I'll ask you to let them respond. We're gonna see a better footprint and more fiscal responsibility. No, and we absolutely agree that incentives are an important part of this issue of how to deal with businesses who aren't progressing ecologically as we would like them to. But the problem is, you can't just offer the carrot without the stick as well. When there is imminent danger to our globe, you need to take drastic measures. And if that means taxing businesses that do dumping illegal practices, don't that violate other provisions of clean water acts and so on and so forth, then how do you expect to get anything done? And to follow up on that, how do you expect to as a party get anything done when your front runner is Donald Trump, a man who claims that global warming is a Chinese conspiracy hoax and also, wait, while building his golf courses in Scotland, wanted to build a protective wall around it and his reason given in the document was global warming. So how can you stand behind this man to have a coherent global warming policy when he on one side- I'm not advocating for Trump's policy on global warming or anything like that. I'm coming off of my personal pragmatic position on what is happening right now. And I'm not advocating for the loss or the taking away of all the restrictions on businesses. I currently, big businesses with smokestacks, they have regulations as they can only run it certain amounts and that's fine. We don't want smokestacks like plummeting out immense amounts of toxic smoke into the air. That's bad for everyone. But I'm saying, let's not increase restrictions. Let's put more incentives on companies, so. All right guys, I'm gonna ask that we stop and we have a one minute closing statement for each of you, because we are pressing a little bit on time. So we'll each have one minute to close. Three minutes or one minute? One minute to close. All right, thank you guys all for coming tonight. It means a lot to not only college publicans, but college Democrats, so we can express our ideals. We can have these debates, figure out what ideals are better and what works, not only for us as college students, but for us as Americans. I think we have put forth the Republican platform in a great way. We discussed, we need to be environmentally conscious, but we also need to be fiscally conservative. The Hillary Clinton presidency I'm worried about as an American. I know that's coming from Donald Trump, that's saying something, but I see it as a lesser two evils. I understand that Donald Trump could be a tail president. He could be a great president. And Hillary Clinton, I just don't see as being a good a president as Donald Trump could be. Is there anything you'd like to add for the closing? All right, we're gonna have this. But again, thank you guys for coming out tonight. Really appreciate it and a special thanks to the hawk of vote people for putting this on. All right, guys, you guys, the close? Okay, I'm gonna try and avoid attacking Donald Trump in my closing because I could spend all night on that. But look, I think that the two parties put together, or put forth two pretty good platforms for you to decide on in November. And ultimately who you decide on is completely up to you. Now, I have my own concerns about Trump and I have a few concerns about my own party's nominee. But the question is, how do we move forward as a country? How do we stop ourselves from moving backwards? Do we repeal health insurance for millions and millions of people? Do we let the economy slow down? I mean, it was cut from the debate because of time issues, but the economy has done freaking awesome under Obama. Okay, 15.3 million private sector jobs have been added to the country's economy and 73 consecutive months of positive job growth. That's incredible to claim that this president and therefore his successor, Hilary Clinton, who was seen as an extension of him, is anti-business in any sort of way, is just absolutely false. The private sector does better under our party's platform. And sorry to kind of get in those few last barbs and not give you that chance to respond, but... Could we possibly do a quick little backflip? We're actually gonna open it up for one audience question before we do one thing. Can we do one thing right now? Absolutely. 30 seconds. Let's talk about the private sector. How many jobs did Obama create? Under Obama, 15.3 million private sector jobs have been added to the country's economy. Right, so that 15.3, that sounds impressive, but I actually did some research on that because I was looking up the private sector. And that was done, that job growth was stretched over six years. And during that six years, the work age population increased 15.8 million. And when that number you gave was 15.3 million, when that was measured, it was measured against the job market when it hit rock bottom in February of 2010. If you compare it to the current number of jobs, if you compare the current number of jobs to the previous peak, which was in January of 2008, you will see the number of private sectors only increased by 5.6 million. And we know the private... Which is okay, but I wouldn't go around bragging about my present creating five-week... And we know it. And we know the private sector did so well after 2008. It's still an increase, I'd like to add. Well, those 15 million jobs, when they were created... All right, guys, unfortunately we're out of time, so Dylan's gonna close this out. Sorry, we're... No, I love it. Thank you guys. And that concludes tonight's debate, brought to you by Hawk the Vote and Roger Williams University Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Again, thank you guys so much. We wanna thank the College Republicans, both and the College Democrats, for agreeing to do this with us. Really means a lot. We'd also wish to thank Joe Auger of Media Services for streaming and audio feed to WQRA 88.3. If you guys could give Joe a hand. He's done a lot for us, really appreciate it. And also, quick shout out to Journalist and Professor Dr. Paula Prado for her role as Director of Hawk the Vote in Media Lab. This year's Hawk the Vote Media Lab is produced by the following. Rachel Bemonte, Joe Carosi, Miranda Coker, Jamie Costa, Cassandra Cote, Lauren Desenzo, Kayla Ebner, Matt Oias, Holly Huntoon, Emily Kamens, Connor Linsky, Alex Morel, Shelby Payanus, John Perlstein, Alexander Schrey, Paul Struck, Johanna Walsh, and Casey, welcome. Please tune back on Tuesday, November 8th at 7 p.m. for live coverage of the 2016 presidential election. A reminder that the final presidential debate will take place tomorrow night at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. This concludes the live broadcast of the Hawk the Vote debate from Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. Thank you everyone for attending. Good night.