U.S. Reps. David Jolly, R-Indian Shores, and Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, faced off in their first debate Monday evening, duking it out on their paths to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in Washington next year.
The Open Debate Coalition sponsored Jolly and Grayson met at the University of Central Florida in Orlando for the debate, which aimed to focus on “real issues” facing Americans in 2016.
Debate moderators took questions on a variety of topics from the economic crisis, Social Security, college affordability, Planned Parenthood and other hot topics in Congress today. Most of the questions came from outside of Florida.
Jolly wasted no time in ripping into President Barack Obama, blaming him for the economic crisis in 2008.
Grayson disagreed.
“I don’t think Barack Obama was responsible for the economic crisis of 2008,” Grayson said. “If you, as an institution, are too big to fail, you’re too big to exist.”
The two also sparred over Social Security. Grayson said senior deserve a raise, proposing to raise the cap on the program. The Orlando Democrat has proposed to expand Social Security, tying increases to a recalculated Cost of Living Allowances.
“The greatest driver of our national debt isn’t programs that have been promised and have been earned,” said Jolly, saying the nation needs to focus on the impact of Social Security. “Just because Washington is bad at math doesn’t mean we get to look the other way and seniors should pay the penalty.”
Climate change was another hot topic in the debate.
“I can’t think of anything else that could destroy the planet other than climate change,” Grayson said, saying the world was playing dice with the earth by avoiding facing a changing climate.
Unlike many other Republicans, Jolly agreed climate change is a real issue affecting the world, but disagreed climate change was the biggest issue facing the U.S.
“The challenges from climate change are real,” said Jolly. “But is climate change the greatest threat to our nation?...No.”
Jolly instead said a nuclear-armed Iran was the greatest threat to the world, slamming the way politicians and local governments try to protect life, safety and property.
“There are a lot of things that need to be done to deal with what the scientists are saying is coming,” Jolly explained. “I’m happy to have that debate where the solutions are.”
Abortion also came up as a topic, with the two congressmen disagreeing on abortion.
“If men could have abortions, you could probably get them out of slot machines,” said Grayson.
The two exchanged jabs on minimum wage, with Grayson saying he believes the minimum wage should be raised to $15 an hour.
Jolly said he wanted to get people off of minimum wage and would consider indexing the minimum wage at the federal level like Florida does.
“You can study the economics all you want, but the impact on job loss is real,” said Jolly, saying raising the minimum wage would adversely affect small businesses.
Grayson believes in raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, even citing the time when he tried the “Minimum Wage Challenge” and failed when he had to take his son to the dentist.
“It’s impossible when you have anything...that might conceivably throw you off the track of eating ramen noodles for the rest of your life,” Grayson said, saying other countries who have implemented higher minimum wage haven’t experienced an economic collapse as a result.
The primary for the U.S. Senate seat will be held August 30.
Reach reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen.
