 Lakeland Public Television, the Bemidji Pioneer, the Brainerd Dispatch, and Northern Community Radio are proud to present Debate Night 2016, a look at our area legislative candidates, and now the State House of Representatives District 2A Debate. Your moderator tonight is Warren Larson. Good evening and welcome to Debate 2016, 11 state legislative debates over four nights. We're at Lakeland Public Television Studios in Bemidji. Our candidates for tonight's debate are Jerry Loud from the Democratic Farm Labor Party, and Matt Grussell from the Republican Party. Our panel this evening is Dennis Wyman from Lakeland Public Television News Director, Matthew Ledke from the Bemidji Pioneer Reporter, and Scott Hall, the Public Affairs Director for Northern Community Radio, K-A-X-E, and K-B-X-E. Our rules for tonight's debate. Each candidate will be given three minutes for opening comments. The panel will ask questions after opening comments. Some will be their own questions, others may be from the public. The candidates will rotate the order they speak, beginning with opening comments and finishing with closing comments. Each candidate gets two minutes to answer the questions. Each candidate will have a one minute rebuttal opportunity. New this year, candidates will have the option of using one minute of bonus time to add on to one of their answers tonight. This can be used during the answer to the initial question or during the rebuttal, but can only be used once. Questions continue until we are about 50 minutes into the debate when we will move on to closing comments. Each candidate will be given two minutes for closing comments. So let's start the debate. The first person to do the opening comments will be Jerry Laud. Well, thank you. I just want to thank everybody for this opportunity to debate and talk about the issues that are facing District 2A. I was born and raised in Bemidji, Minnesota. My father is Clarence Laud. He was a full-blood Ojibwe from the Red Lake Nation. He was also a World War II veteran. My mother, Donna Laud, she is from Laverne, Minnesota, and she's a full-blood Caucasian, and she worked 44 years at the Northwest, North Country Regional Hospital, which is amazing. I have three full-grown daughters. One I wanted to do real quick is to go over some of my qualifications, why I feel I would be the candidate to serve District 2A. I am a GED graduate. I graduated at Anoka in Bemidji Tech. I served in the U.S. Navy for 10 years. I was on the USS Enterprise. I did a world cruise and a Pacific cruise. I'm obviously a Desert Storm veteran, and I enlisted in the Advanced Electronics Program. I am a BSU graduate, and while I went to school, I worked full-time in college. I worked at the Evergreen Crisis Youth Shelter. I worked at the Gale-Fillin Center. I also worked at the Northwest Juvenile Training Center, working with adjudicated youth. From there, I taught high school at District 38, and then I became the Communications Director for Red Lake. After that, I worked in the Economic Development Department for Red Lake. Also, I was the Sales and Marketing Manager for Custom Door Plant. I was the General Manager for the Modular Home Manufacturing Plant. From there, I became a sales consultant for the sixth largest pharmaceutical company in the world. In between there, I was also the Vice President for the Boys and Girls Club in Bemidji, and I was also on the board for the Evergreen House. And then I came back to Red Lake. I'm currently the Executive Director for Oshima Jitada, which is New Beginnings in Ojibwe, where I oversee and run six programs for the Red Lake Nation. But one of the real part of my career has been, I chaired the Constitutional Reform Committee for almost three years, and I also was the President of the Board for Red Lake, Inc. And so I've been spending the last 30 years of my life helping individuals and helping communities to become prosper and breaking down barriers for individuals. And so I just wanted to start off with my credentials and thinking why I am the best candidate to serve District 2A. Well, thank you. Mr. Grussel, your opening comments. Okay, thank you. Good evening. I am Matt Grussel, and I'd like to thank the Lakeland Public Television and the hosts and such for inviting us here this evening and providing us the opportunity to discuss issues that matter the most here in the North Country. That matter the most to the people, the families and the communities of District 2A. I was born and raised in Northern Minnesota. My family is from Deer River, and I'm very proud to come from a legacy of service, a legacy of a service that shaped my life. At a father, my grandfather, he served in World War One in the U.S. Army. My father as well served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. Several uncles served during the Korean conflict, the Korean War, and two brothers served in the Vietnam War. Now they're in peacetime, an older brother and myself, we both served in the Armed Forces as well. He in the Air Force and I in the U.S. Army. That legacy of service continues on with my children. Two of them also served in the Armed Forces. One serves as a nurse and does quite a bit of mission work as well. From the military, I went to school. I got my education in junior college. And then I went into business for myself, driving truck over the road, supporting my family. After that, I felt the call to go back to school and finish up my law enforcement certificate. From there, I moved to this district. I started off as law enforcement as chief of police in Blackdeck, Minnesota. I served a year there where I was injured on the line of duty, shot in the line of duty. And I went from there after healing up, went from there to working on the Clearwater County Sheriff's Office on the Paul Bunyan Drug Task Force. I have been serving in this district since 2001 on the front lines, trying to make this a better place for our families, for your families, protecting your businesses, your schools, right on down the line. And it's been my honor to do so. I was called to serve in law enforcement, to protect and to serve. And I feel as though I'm called again to this service. My career was ended early in law enforcement. And now there's another call. The call to serve, the community to serve the public in district two-way at the House of Representatives. You'll get nothing less than my best in the House of Representatives. And I'll be there to represent you. I'm not there for myself, I'm not there for a pat on my back. I'm there to do my job, just as I did in law enforcement. And again, my goal is to cut taxes, reducing the regulations on farms, on farmers, to shrink the size of government, and to protect our constitution. So again, I thank you for this opportunity to come and answer questions and to look for support for the upcoming election. Thank you, thank you. Our first question is to Mr. Grussell, and it's from Matthew Ledke. Recently, there's been quite a bit of talk on the subject of miniature with some issues arising regarding that program. I was wondering if elected, where do you see the future of miniature going and what are some solutions you might have for the current issues it has? Okay, well, the miniature has definitely been an issue. And each place I go to, knock on doors and visit with people, that topic comes up. Recently, I talked to a young mother who has been improving their status as far as getting better jobs, getting more income. And as soon as that happened, their children were pushed off of miniature. They were dropped. Now, they spent the past month or so trying to get their children covered again. But because of the failures of miniature, they have not been able to get them reinsured. The network, in her words, the network is either saying it's compromised or it's down. And it has been very difficult for them to get any coverage back on their children. Another gentleman I talked to told me about that at the end of the year, he's gonna be dropped because of his single coverage by Blue Cross Blue Shield. And that is what miniatures, the high premiums have forced insurance companies out. Minnesota did have a good, excuse me, Minnesota did have a good public insurance program. Insurance program. And we were ranked among the top in the United States. Miniature has come in and has taken us backwards. It has cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. And in order to make that right, in order to get that straightened out, we need to take miniature and get rid of it. Get rid of it completely. That's the way I feel about it. And that will save several million dollars, at least $23 million over three years. By cutting the tax in half. And then from there, looking and exploring ways to get insurance companies back into the state, to come back in and make it a competitive market for better insurance programs. All right, well thank you. Mr. Laud, the same question. That's a great question. And having worked 10 years in the pharmaceutical industry in the healthcare arena, and which I covered Northwest Minnesota, we have wonderful doctors. They're amazing, they work hard. They practice medicine in the most ethical way. And so I am proud, I made a lot of friends to do the industry. One of the things that we need to do is we definitely need to work on miniature. So currently right now, as the executive director for Oshima Jitada in the TANF program, which is a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, we are in the process of taking over the healthcare portion from Beltrami County. And it is a mess. And so we do need to fix miniature. In the Affordable Care Act, there is a provision in section 1332, which provides Minnesota to create an innovative way to fix this system. And so one of the things that we can all agree on in healthcare is that it needs to cover, ensure that all people are covered, that they cover all types, dental, vision, hearing, mental health, which was brought up earlier today, chemical dependency treatment, prescription drugs, medical equipment and supplies, long-term care and home care. And then we need to, all patients need to choose their providers. Reduce the cost by cutting administrative bureaucracy. We need to set premiums based on ability to pay. And we need to focus on preventive care and early intervention. And one of the things we could do is to talk about more consumer awareness. And I think educating the consumer, the patients on how to prevent the illnesses and diseases would cut costs tremendously. And we also need to have our Medicaid, we need Medicare to be able to negotiate the pharmaceutical prices like Medicaid and the VA does. Okay, thank you, Mr. Russell. Any additional comments or rebuttal? No. Okay, Mr. Laud, any additional comments? Well, I just wanted to say, with that following up on that, doctors are practicing evidence-based medicine. And I sold the number one anti-hypertensive in the world. And what it did is it reduced the hospital, the biggest cost for healthcare is hospitalization. So if you can find ways to reduce hospitalization, they'll reduce our healthcare. Okay, thank you. Next question is for Mr. Laud. And it's from Scott Hall. Thank you, Orrin. There's a lot of bipartisan interest in Minnesota and around the United States to reform our criminal justice system. What reforms do you think we should try? And in that, within your answer, maybe you can tell us what you think of drug courts. That's a loaded question. And I mean, the fastest way to reduce poverty, to reduce crime is through education. And what we're doing at Oshima-Jitada right now is we're helping people break down barriers and we're working on successes. And so the crime is when you look on, when I worked at the juvenile training center and you looked at the Beltrami County area, it was 60% Native Americans. And you go into the Beltrami County website right now and it's still 60%. So we haven't, and I worked back in the, I believe it was like 1996, 97. And so we haven't had any progress. And so one of the things, like I said, is education, getting people jobs and helping families break down barriers and that will reduce the crime rate. All right, thank you. Mr. Grussell, same question. Would you repeat that again, please, sir? Sure. Yeah. Thank you. In reforms, do you think we should try it for our criminal justice system? And tell us what you know or think of drug courts in the context of reforming criminal justice. Well, the drug courts, I think, having been in law enforcement, having worked with the, in the criminal courts, et cetera, the drug courts I thought were a positive step. It wasn't the users that I targeted as far as investigations, as far as building cases. It was the dealers. The dealers were the problem. The dealers were the ones that were bringing the poison into the areas and polluting the communities, poisoning the communities, the children, the schools, right on the families. But so to have the drug courts start and taking the people that were first-time offenders, user type offenses, et cetera, and helping them to get on the right path, I thought it was a step in the right direction. Not everybody needs to go to jail. Not everybody needs to be locked up. And especially, you know, I thought the users and the people, the first-time offenders, such as like that, you know, they deserved another chance. They deserved a break. So, and like I said, it was the dealers that I primarily targeted in my investigations, et cetera. But it boils down to the families. It boils down. It starts at home. And it goes, carries over into the schools. Folks gotta, parents have to teach their children and to stay away from that kind of stuff, to teach them to abide by the laws. I grew up in a time where you respected the laws and you abide by them. And so, it starts at home. Before it gets to the stage of people being incarcerated, before it gets to, you know, the youth running out and getting in trouble and such. And if you can't, you know, if you catch the youth, catch them before they get to that point. Get them into mentoring. Something that's gonna help them get on the right track. So, thank you. Mr. Laud, any additional comments? Yeah, I just wanna add to the drug court is a positive way for low fenders. I don't know if you're aware, but in the Red Lake Nation, right now, that if somebody comes up and is selling drugs on the Red Lake Nation and our Red Lake Police Department bust these guys, we can't try them in our own court system. And so, that's one of the things that the state of Minnesota can help the Red Lake Nation because when you have a healthy Red Lake, you're gonna have a healthy Minnesota. And so, with the drug courts, I'm all for it for the low fenders. But then, the dealers, just like what Matt said, we need to prosecute them to the max. Mr. Gressel, any additional comments? Yes. I worked on the Red Lake Nation on the pulpit in drug task force and the Headwater Safe Trails Task Force. We worked extensively alongside of the Red Lake Police Department and we made quite an impact. And yes, there were some folks that came from outside and brought narcotics into the Red Lake Nation, but there's a lot of folks that actually lived there as well that were bringing it in. So, drug traffickers do not know borders. They don't know county lines. They don't know city lines. They don't know state lines. And so, it's gotta be a concerted effort of all law enforcement entities to hit them where it hurts, go after them, go after the dealers. Thank you. All right, thank you. Let's move on to our next question. Mr. Gressel, your question comes from Dennis Wyman. This is one of the debates, one of the races where we do not have an incumbent. So, either way, we're going to have a first-time legislator representing this district. Who do you look up to as state legislators? Are there people that you would like to emulate that have served in the state legislature or in the US House or the Congress? Like, just curious who you guys look up to. Well, you know, I don't have anybody in particular in the House or House representatives or in the state, or actually at the federal level, for that matter. The one that I would look up to and would be Abraham Lincoln. He was honest. He was there for the country. He was there to help the country, as have been most of our presidents. And that is what you'll have with me. I'll be up front, I'll be honest. I may not sugarcoat things, I may be blunt, but I believe that comes from a career in law enforcement as well. I'll stand for what is right. I'll fight to the bitter end to protect and to serve this district. Though, I guess it would be the presidents of old that I would really look to. All right, thank you, Mr. Laud. This whole process has been amazing. And you definitely, when times get hard, you definitely know who your supporters are and your friends. And so I look up to Senator Rod Scoey as a mentor and representative of Paul Marquardt over on the west end of Minnesota. And so those two gentlemen have showed tremendous support and I know I can lean on them for any question that I have that comes up. But I can tell you this is that I'm going in there. This is not gonna be a training ground for me. I'm gonna go in there running. I have chaired boards, I have chaired committees. I have worked with the federal government. I have worked with the state in negotiated contracts with the state. So I'm gonna hit the ground running and I have some initiatives that I will be passing and looking for on day one. And so I will be reaching out across aisles. One of the, as a pharmaceutical rep, I covered Northwest Minnesota and I was able to make relationships with doctors that wouldn't see anybody. And so I had people come in up north here to see how I could build the relationships and how I, and I can do that in St. Paul. I can work with anybody. And that has been one of my strongest points throughout my career is building relationships and in education. You can see throughout my career, all my successes have been through education. And so I'm gonna continue to lean on the experience legislator and we're gonna get some stuff done in St. Paul. Okay, thank you. Mr. Gressel, any other additional comments or rebuttal? No rebuttal, but I'd just like to say that I have to backtrack a little bit and say that until Dave Hancock. Thank you for his support. And I do look up to him, especially he's been mentoring me along the way and giving me some very sound and godly counsel as I've gone through this campaign trail. And along with Steve Green. There's, those are two men that have really, that have really stepped up and have really been very good, very supportive and very helpful along this campaign. All right, Mr. Loud, any additional comments or rebuttal? Nope, nope. Okay, then I'll move on to the next question. And this question is for Mr. Loud and it's from Matthew Ledke. Mr. Loud, this question is regarding LGA. I'm wondering if elected, what are your stances on local government aid? And if you're in support of any increases to local government aid, especially in this part of the state with not as much taxable property. Just give me one second here. Okay, LGA. So the whole premise of LGA is to help the counties, the cities that are a low tax base. And so the appropriations for LGA, they need and I support the 2002 levels. And when you support the cities with the LGA that it will help lower property taxes. So in one sense that's gonna help your farmers, the small farmers, it's gonna help your small businesses. And of course it's gonna help cities be able to look at their budgets because they're talking about law enforcement, fires, all the things that a city takes to run. And so I am supportive of increasing the LGA, the local government aid to the 2002 levels. And yesterday I was watching the debates and they were talking about all the, we have a lot of force in our area. And District 2A has the largest water base. And so a lot of those things will reduce the tax base. But by adding on the LGA is the way to go, it helps the lake homeowners and it will help lower the tax base. So. All right, thank you. Mr. Grussell, same question. I'm for supporting the local municipalities and helping them to provide for the communities. In this past legislation, I believe some of that bonding bill was supposed to go to the communities. The bonding bill that the government, the governor stopped and quashed with the Southwest Light Rail. A lot of that money was to go to infrastructure. A lot of that money was supposed to go to schools, et cetera. And it would have gone to help, and I agree with Jerry on that, that it would have gone to help farmers, businesses, et cetera. So I'm for helping the communities and to help them to keep their municipalities going. Because if we start losing our municipalities and they can't continue on with taking care of the cities, then people start moving away and we can't do that. We can't afford that. All right, Mr. Loud, any additional comments? Yeah, I'm gonna just add, Matt and I, we're buying for an open seat. So I'm not gonna go tit for tat with him, but what I understand about that bonding bill is that there was gonna be zero outstate dollars that was gonna contribute to the light rail project. And so 50% of it was gonna come from the federal government. That's like $997 million. And the thing that we need to know is that money was not gonna go back in the coffer. It was gonna go to another state, I believe it was Colorado. And so that's one. And then that's 50%. And then 40% of it was gonna come out of the local governments down in the metro area. And then the final 10%, which was the deal breaker, all of a sudden, Hennepin County said they'll take and they'll spend the rest. So the bonding bill could have been passed. And so that's what I, all the, it would have been zero dollars for outstate in that bond, in that light rail project. All right, thank you, Mr. Gressel. Any other additional comments? In Minnesota, yes, I do. In Minnesota, across the state, would be forced to pay for the ongoing operating losses for Southwest light rail. When the capital costs, operating costs, the capital maintenance costs are totaled up to spread over 10 years. The cost per rider is over $25. That would have gone out to us to pay for. The current cost of Southwest light rail was 1 billion, $858 million construction. And that's, that would have gone to us, not have gone to the taxpayers to have to pay for. The light rail would not have helped the congestion in the metropolitan area. It would have saved 20 seconds or eight seconds, actually, I'm sorry, eight seconds a year over 20 years and that's all it would have done. So I believe that that money, that because that light rail was still in litigation and would not be addressed until September of 2017, that that bonding bill should have been passed and the light rail should not have been considered at that time. All right, thank you. We need to move on to the next question. You could, you have the one minute if you want. I'll do one minute here, okay. So having lived throughout the United States, I've lived in San Francisco. I lived in Chicago. I've lived in Orlando. Any vibrant city has an amazing mass transit system. And so when you're looking at and you're thinking about, we need the metro, we need the cities. That brings in the economy and we need to make sure they're healthy and we have the arts, we have the sports, school breakings and then we need mass transit. And so that would have brought in jobs down there and believe it or not, there are people in northern Minnesota that will go down and hop onto a construction project for a year or two. I know many people that went down and helped on the construction on the stadium project. So to think long-term and to develop a mass transit system is the way to go and we need a mass transit. And all metro areas and mass transits are subsidized no matter where you go, it's gonna be subsidized. And so eventually that mass transit should be all over the metro area and it's a healthy city. Thank you. Next question would go to Mr. Grussell and it's from Scott Hall. Minnesota's two biggest utilities, Minnesota Power and XL Energy are taking serious Minnesota's renewable energy goals by installing wind and solar energy systems. What's your vision for a clean energy future in Minnesota? Well, my vision for a clean energy future in Minnesota, I look at the North Star Electric in Budette and I've visited with them and I've gotten quite a bit of information from them. They meet, they have met and exceeded the challenges put before them for clean energy. And I believe that they continue to work, they continue to experiment with the solar, with the wind, but I don't know about hydro, so. But in their coal capacity, their coal burning or their coal usage for energy has met and exceeded all requirements by the state and the federal governments. So the future of it, I believe we need to stay with what is stable, stay with what is dependable and keep experimenting, keep working on the technologies to improve on the wind, to improve on the solar. From what I understood, the wind, you can't save that energy, you can't store that energy yet. So when the wind is blowing at two, three o'clock in the morning and that's when it's generating the power, you don't have anybody using it at that time. So there are some things that need to be worked out. I agree with working towards more efficient, more environmentally friendly forms of energy. But right now, the most efficient and the most environmentally friendly and the most dependable is what we have are the fossil fuels. So as long as they meet and continue to meet and to exceed the regulations that are asked of them, why change? Okay, Mr. Loud, same question. I've also been up to the North Star in Barrett and I was pleased to find out that they are spending 40% of the resources on renewable energy. We are not in the wind zone in District 2A and so solar is the route to go. And when I came to Oshima Jitada four and a half years ago, I put four things on my whiteboard as goals and I've hit three of them. And the last one was renewable energy education. And currently right now I am in the process of building a vocational school, Oshima Jitada Institute of Technology. And in there currently we are developing welders. We have a welding one and welding two class and we are gonna be innovated and our welding two class where Northland Community Technical College is gonna be partnering with us because we're doing something that they've always wanted to do as far as creating an entrepreneur piece onto the trainings and the vocational schools. But lo and behold, about six months ago, the Red Lake Nation had an initiative to build a solar farm. And so within that solar farm, they're gonna be developing solar panels. And they are coming to us to ask us if we could help them develop a training program to build these solar panels. So I don't believe things just happened for a reason. I mean, we were both on two different planes and then all of a sudden it's all coming together. So renewable energy and solar is something that we need to invest in because not only, when you're talking about building economic workforce housing, you can add, there's tax credits that you can apply for that and then you can add on renewable energy piece to that to encourage not only the natural resources, but then the innovation in the area. All right, thank you. Mr. Grussel, any additional comments? Yes. I believe that we need to continue to look at renewable energies, such as wind and solar. And, but I do believe that since we are sitting on, this country is so vastly rich with its own natural resources that the Minn Kota plants are meeting and exceeding all the regulations. Why not continue to stay with the dependable energy? The energy that is going to be there every day when you turn on the light, every day when you turn on that shower, every day that it's dependability and it's going to be, if it goes down, it's gonna be repaired quickly. So I do agree that we need to keep considering renewable energies, but we have to stick with what works. Mr. Loud, any additional comments? Well, I don't disagree with what works, but the thing about what I've learned in the Ojibwe culture, and it's beautiful, is that we're always thinking seven generations ahead of time. And so working on renewable energy is not for us. It's for our children and our children's children. It's seven generations. And so that's the mindset we need to have. And so we need to work on renewable energies and we need to push that and push it and push it and still help the local companies with the energy that we have now, of course, but the long-term vision is to become and using the natural resources. Thank you. Next question is for Mr. Loud and is from Dennis Wyman. We encourage our viewers who watch the debates to send in questions, and we also ask those at times, and if you're watching at home tonight, you can send those questions to us at debates.lptv.org. This is one question that was sent to us. Minnesota has job openings, but there is a skills gap between existing jobs and workers' experience. What is your position on funding higher education, both the U of M and the Minsk U systems, to train the workers our businesses need? That's a great question. If you look at the current state budget, we're spending almost 50% of our budget on education. And everybody knows that the fastest way to get an individual, to get a family, and to get a community out of poverty, it's through education. And so I am a strong advocate and like I said, all of my successes throughout my career has been through education in one way or another. And so the biggest factor right now for the higher education is student debt. And we need to address that. I mean, there's different ways that you can do it. People talk about the forgiveness of debt relief. There's also tax credit. And then we need to maybe even look at exempting education on the state income tax. I mean, there's gotta be ways that we can work with higher education. And currently what we're doing through Oshima Dottara is we're breaking down barriers. And one of the big barriers is education through the family. So, and we're working on successes. One of the first things I'm gonna do, the bill that I'm gonna put in, back in 2013, the state of Minnesota, the federal government changed the GED. And the GED is just a brand name. So the adult basic education program got changed totally. And what happened there is that they changed the tests and they changed the format. Well, one of the things that happened is that the GED graduation rate went, it hit the floor. And it's not only on Red Lake, but it hit the floor nationwide through Minnesota. And one of the things they told me down, cause I addressed this to the commissioner of education, we brought tribal nations together to find out why we weren't a part of it in figuring out what the solution is. And so one of the things we did is that we brought this together and we come up with a solution to become a three test states. And I'll... Okay, thank you. Mr. Grussell, same question. Would you repeat that question, please? Yes, the question is Minnesota has job openings, but there is a skills gap between existing jobs and a worker's experience. What is your position on funding higher education, both the U of M and the Minsky systems to train the workers our businesses need? Okay, now to meet that disparity, I believe we need to expose our kids at the high school levels and to the industrial lads. Get industrial lads back going in the high schools. I remember in the days when I was in high school, we had metal shops, we had welding shops, we had woodworking, et cetera, all down the line. My sister benefited from the nursing program where she got exposed to the profession of working as an LPN. Well, you know, I got trained by an RN to work in the nursing field. So those are the types of things we need to expose the young people to. Again, get it back into the schools. As far as the work field, I would say to encourage businesses to start programs where they get some tax relief or tax breaks for having programs to bring people up to speed, training programs to bring people in that do not quite meet the qualifications that they need, but at least they can train them there and to benefit from bringing people in to train them there. Also, I would say to allow our veterans to use the GI bill for other types of licenses and certificates and to allow them to benefit and to grow when they come back out in the public sector. And again, I agree with Jerry on the debt relief. If you offer to these students that if you work in this field for five years, that your debt will be canceled. You know, that is a way to get people back in, get them into that field and get them going. So that would be another way. Thank you. All right, thank you. Mr. Laud, any other comments? Yeah, I just, I kind of got it. I'm really passionate about it. So I got a little brain freeze there. But one of the things that this is gonna do, again, is like I'm in it every day. We're breaking down barriers. And by doing that, it just created a wall for the people that didn't need it the most. And so one of the ideas about the GED piece was to grandfather the 2013 and go 10 years back and to bring those test scores in because what they did is they took, it used to be five tests. They broke down the four. They took the written test part of it away and then they incorporated in three of them. And so by doing that, you're gonna get people that are going to, because the GED, what that is, is just a key for their next step in their career. And so by having them accomplish that, feeling a sense of accomplishment, they're gonna go on to higher education, whether it's vocational school, hopefully it's an Oshima Jitada Institute of Technology and go on to college. BSU is a great place, the best choice ever. I can't remember the tagline, but anyways, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gressel, any other comments? Just to add to what I was saying before, the votex, they need to go back to being votex, vocational schools and not geared so much towards the four year school. A lot of kids go there to get their credits and then go off to a four year school. And some of the monies have, some of the votex have been affected by that. They're gearing more towards that than what they were set up to do. So I believe that the votex need to get brought back into concentrating on those trades types fields. There's a definite need out there for that type of workforce. And I just, in a lot of students in high school, they won't go off to a four year school, but they work very well in those types of fields. So I would say we need to encourage and need to help votex get back on course. Thank you. All right, next question is for Mr. Gressel and that is from Matthew Ledke. Mr. Gressel, this question is regarding transportation. In the past bonding bill from 2016, there was some money put aside for transportation funding, but would you support if elected a longer term transportation bill, a large scale transportation bill for the state's infrastructure? And subsequently, would you also be willing to support a gas tax to go along with that? Okay. The transportation, the transportation bill. You know, I don't believe there's a need for a raise in the gas tax. We have in the state, we pay enough taxes as it is. And to continue to raise taxes, we're gonna continue to fleece the people in our district. And there's no reason to do that. The tax relief bill that was supposed to go out would have given tax relief in long-term tax relief to farmers, veterans, families, college graduates and small businesses. And that was $800 million in tax cuts over the next three years, included a half a billion on ongoing permanent tax relief, which should have been done during the regular session but it was stopped. Now, that bonding and transportation, that was more than 700 million in roads and bridge funding, including a lot of key regional projects, such as Highway 14, 23 and 12 that won't be funded. In addition to the roads and bridges, the bonding bill invested in smart transit options, including funding the state's share for the orange line bus rapid transit, connecting Minneapolis, Richfield and Bloomington. If we're going to extend that even further than what the bonding bill said, it would have to be in a way that it wouldn't raise taxes on our Minnesota families. They're burdened to death as it is with taxes. And it would not be fair to burden them further. We in the house are to be good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars. We are to be good stewards of all the dollars. But especially when it's somebody else's, when it's all of our constituents' tax dollars, we need to keep that in mind. We need to keep them in mind their best interest, what's gonna be best for them. Thank you. Mr. Loud, the same question. So we have a $600 million deficit in our roads and transportation. I went to the Beltrami County Commissioners Forum, and their number one issue was transportation. And so we're gonna have to get the money from somewhere. And I do believe in a gas tax, but we need to do it equitable. And so if you have the metro area and the St. Paul Minneapolis, their gas tax should be a little higher than ours, because one of the things that would do, it would actually encourage people to come up to Northern Minnesota to relax and to enjoy what we experience every day. And so, and I'm just, just throwing out ideas. And so if we do an equitable gas tax where the metro area is an increase of 15 cents, smaller cities, 10 cents in Northern Minnesota, a five cents, and then spread those dollars around, I think that is a great topic of a discussion down in the house. And so 10 cents, a 10 cent increase in the gas tax would only increase the transportation budget by 300 million. So we're gonna have to think about innovative ways to our roads and bridges. All right, well, again, we've run out of time this evening. And so we're going to need to move on to closing comments. Each candidate has two minutes for closing comments. And up first is Mr. Gressel. Well, I first like to thank you for this opportunity to discuss some of the concerns that are weighing most heavily on the hearts of the folks here and the folks throughout the district. This is the first time I've ever run for a political office. But like I said before, you'll get nothing but 110% from me. I will stand firm on what I know is right and what is best for district two-way and for the state of Minnesota. I won't back down from other pressures or outside pressures. And I will do the best job that I possibly can for you. Again, I'd like to thank all of those who have been helping throughout this campaign and giving support, giving counsel, et cetera. One thing I'd like to leave you with is just a quote from Diktrick Bonhoeffer, that the silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act. So I just stand here, well, sit here before you and I encourage you, do not sit on your hands this election. Come out and vote your conscience. Come out and stand for what is right. Come out and speak out for what is right and what you believe. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Loud, closing comments. Hey, I'm not a politician either and I'm gonna go a little old school on you. This is my first briefcase that I ever owned and I brought it from Hawaii and I was managing an automotive shop there which I'm really proud of. And one of the things that they came out and did an article on how I turned that shop around, it was the best kept secret on the island. Another thing that I'm proud of is I was able to get into the pharmaceutical industry and there it took me four attempts in the sixth largest pharmaceutical company and so what you had to do is you had to go around and you brought a brag book and it talked about your accomplishments and what you can do for the company. And so, and I haven't updated this, this is back a few days, a few years ago and I have a lot of customers and that's what I'm running on. This is not gonna be a training exercise for me when I get down to the house and so I just want people to look at both candidates and Matt's a good guy and but it's about who can get the job done. You know, you're only down there for two years and so I can hit the ground running immediately. I'm talking about the first bill I'm gonna going to present is the adult basic education requirements. And then there's something else we didn't talk about is the Highway Trust Fund, which is a fund in how they determine what the usage of gas tax, the tabs and stuff like that. If you weren't aware, that only, those dollars are for cities that are 5,000 in population are above and so what we need to do is to change that distribution for the smaller cities, which is District 2A. And then there's another initiative that I wanted to talk about and get a chance to. It's to start an initiative called Start Up North and which would we encourage businesses that are wanting to build and invest in the communities. So I didn't get a chance to say that but just remember, on November 9th when the elections are over and you've chose one or another, we all become Minnesotans. We're not a Republican, we're not a Democrat. And so we need to send somebody down there that can get the job done and I'm asking for your vote on November 8th to vote loud for a fresh voice for Minnesota's future. Thank you. Thank you. And again, I'd like to take this time to thank the candidates for participating in tonight's debate. I have great admiration for individuals who are willing to serve our communities and our great state of Minnesota. Now remember, we have another debate coming up here at Lakeland Public Television. If you missed any portion of tonight's debate and would like to watch it again, it will be available on Lakeland Public Television website within 24 hours. That website is lptv.org. Also, to read a recap of tonight's debate, you can pick up a copy of tomorrow's Bemidji Pioneer or log on to the Bemidji Pioneer website at BemidjiPioneer.com. You can also listen to audio of the debates at kaxe.org. Coming up next is at 9 p.m. is House 2B, Brian Klabundi and Representative Steve Green. Good night and thank you. Thanks, guys.