U.S. Senate Hopefuls Talk Budgets

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At a debate in Riverton Thursday night, candidates for U.S. Senate offered up their suggestions for balancing the federal budget. Contenders for the U.S. Senate seat were asked how they would avoid jumping off the proverbial fiscal cliff if elected to office.

Democratic nominee Tim Chesnut said the government needs to limit its spending overseas, cut fiscal programs, micromanage the budget for even relatively small expenditures like travel, and cut U-N costs, among other measures.

“With social security and Medicare we need to be maybe upping the ages on those. And with defense spending I agree with Simpson-Bowles about 10% cuts in military. I don’t think we can take anything off the table.”

Republican Senator John Barrasso defended military spending and took some things off the table definitively.

“I don’t think you should raise taxes on anybody in economic times like these. What you want to do, really, is raise tax revenue overall, and the way we do that is getting people back to work.”  

Country Party candidate Joel Otto agreed with Barrasso that raising taxes is a bad idea, and proposed limiting regulations across the board.