facing robots. there's out of merit a moment for that haven't been backsliding but they have in getting us through this. the engagement when it comes to democratic engagement like diving into the process. we carry our ancestors with us. >> one can be met with another coordinated and we are way out

of time. [laughter] >> i hope you are all expired. i'd like to express my gratitude both here and align figures that might again to those listening at home. further article partnership and justice build little power and

move us closer justice and in equity. , last month a partnership the effort to bring together black and brown voices to the coronation. special thank you to my building. they have made everything work thank you. mike today we have discussed a rise in hate crime across the nation's and divided resulting in real attacks and our freedom. the democratic institution have

discussed our time that is corruption of our hard earned rights. these concerns are real. they worry me as someone who's spent a decade researching hate crimes and democratic renewal. fewer rights today in the day he was born. they worry me as a humanitarian arrested for protesting to stand against this. but for every worry i have hope. i hope in the solutions we landed on today and we have started in the unity on display. united our community has the power to change the future of the country. our democracy is strongest when

our communities participate in while we may care about different issues or different priorities, our political power is august when we speak with one voice. martin luther king jr. said anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. you heard today they have shared the injustice and the challenges we face collectively. we know the solutions are only possible if and when we are united. [applause] it is important to remember the political tool is our right to

vote. give us the ballot before he told the world. we do not abandon our fight against injustice. that is the pope we hold in gathering today that we make strengthen our movement he sent in equity and continued discussion maintain diverse dialogue can achieve this. advancing the values of the key legacy realizing the of doctor martin luther king jr. something he called a beloved community.

equal opportunity and love of a fellow human being. through collective work and collaborative community we can build a community. no individual or organization can do it alone is a key step in that mission of unity. ... >> we must have a diversity of voices to advance our cause. diversity of choices and believes make us more effective. that is why the unity on display today is critical to our move and continuing to grow. this movement exemplifies the unity reminiscent of 1963 when

union workers and people of all races and creeds marched side-by-side just a few miles away from here to demand jobs and freedom on the steps of the lincoln memorial. it is the same unity today, that same commitment that we will need to meet today's challenges. we are at a time today where the hard-fought victories of the civil rights movement are being rolled back. people were beaten and assassinated just to pass the voting rights act. and it is been decimated. women marched for the right for the bottled autonomy, and is been take away. a along the country, specific groups continue to fuel a cultural war that marginalizes our most vulnerable fellow

americans. we must confront legislative hate. as coretta scott king said come freedom is never really one. you must earn it. you must earn it and each generation and feed the flames of heat and justice and equity. this conference is not about conversation. it is not earning that freedom here it's about taking action. the insight shared here can empower all of us to enact meaningful change within our community and advocate for the policies that are necessary to confront the challenges of our time. we came here today that only to educate but to offer tangible solutions to stop the rising tide of hate and in the erosion of our democracy. we came here to empower our communities and ensure that we participate in our election. we came here today to meet the

moment. as our ancestors did on the edmund pettus bridge, and at the east l.a. walk out, and on the national mall in 1963. now it's our turn. now we must do the work. i would like to say that this work isn't about collective guilt. it's about collective responsibility. we have the responsibility to our ancestors and to the generations that come behind us to take on this work and advance this movement. we are united today. now we must do the work to ensure that we are united tomorrow. we must do the work to ensure our movement continues to stand up to injustice. we must do the work to raise our voices and the voices of the oppressed. martin luther king, jr. did not march from selma to montgomery

alone. one person cannot carry the torch of our movement. we are united here today to share different worries, different solutions, and different hopes. but each with the same goal, to build a beloved community and continue to feed the flame of peace, of justice and equity for all. thank you all very much for joining us. i hope that you will continue to be a a part of our work. [applause] >> and you are dismissed. [inaudible conversations] race s

leaning democrat. it is about one hour. chris: good evening and welcome to the syracuse.com debate in the race for the 22nd congressional district in new york. i'm chris baker, editor with syracuse.com and the postandard and i'm here today with the two

candidates seeking to represent central new york in the next united states congress. those candidates are new york state senator john manion and our current congressional representative brandon williams . welcome. thank you for taking the time tonight. >> thank you. chris: early voting for the election begins saturday october 26 and election day is to learn tuesday, november 5. more about where and how to vote visit elections. ny.gov. we will start the debate with opening statements from each candidate and then move on to question and answer. each candidate will have 90 seconds for responses and time for rebuttal at my discretion we flipped a coin to determine who begins. brendan williams will go first. the floor is yours. >> thank you, chris and to

syracuse.com for hosting the important event and thank you to the students who are here. we are currently serving the united states house of representatives. two and a half years ago i was not in politics at all, i'm a political outsider, i'm a military veteran and i'm a businessman and as of thursday last week i'm a husband of 32 years. i ran for congress because i'm concerned about our children i'm concerned about their future i'm concerned about our community and i'm concerned about our constitutional republic. the approach that i've taken since being in congress is really a common sense approach . it's common sense on energy, it's common sense on reining in government spending and inflation, and it's common sense on our border and support for law enforcement. since being elected, i've brought back $45 million of project funds specifically for our communities here in central new york. we have solved over a thousand

cases for our constituents, everything from passports to veteran affairs to problems with the irs, but i've been focused on manufacturing, energy, and infrastructure, and i hope to get to those topics tonight. chris: thank you, congressman. senator? >> thank you for hosting, chris. thank you to the voters of the 22nd district for viewing in tonight and thank you to the students of the new house school . i've lived in the 22nd congressional district my entire life. i've spent my adult life in public service. i spent almost 30 years in a classroom teaching ap biology , chemistry, and environment. my wife is also a teacher

teaching at almost every elementary grade level and she is working in the syracuse city school district currently as a curriculum instructor. we have dedicated our lives to this community, we love this community, and i left the friendly confines of a job that i loved, the greatest job in the world because i watched the political dynamic that existed in this country and i couldn't simply watch it anymore. so i ran for state senate. and i feel like i am a good reflection of the district in serving this community. in that time i protected a woman's right to choose, i fully funded the foundation aid formula for our public schools and expanded universal pre-k. chris: brandon, the first question goes to you about the economy. rising prices and economic

unease remain among the top concerns for voters heading into november. when you first ran for office 2 years ago you made this a central piece of your campaign . republicans have held control of the house since 2022. what have you and your party done with that majority to ease economic woes? >> i think we all know for the last three and a half years under the biden economy we have had record inflation driven by a series of really bad policies. mostly it comes from bad energy decisions we have made. i'm the only nuclear engineer in congress, i have thousands of hours supervising the operation of nuclear power plants we have . we have to make common sense energy decisions because it's priced into everything that we buy, it's also about reing in government spending since being elected we were put the breaks

on the very reckless biden spending that has caused so so much harm to middle class families, that have driven up prices on everything from eggs to milk to gas that we put into our cars, and this has to stop . furthermore, we really need to make sure that we have jobs for people that are here in our country that are citizens of our country and the open border has actually driven down wages for a lot of working americans that make it even harder to meet the challenges of inflation. congress has stepped up to stop the far-left policies of the biden administration and we look forward to continuing to do that in the next two years. chris: john, some democrats have sought to distance themselves from president joe biden over his unpopularity on the economy . do you think the economic policies of biden's white house are to blame for things like rising prices and what should congress be doing differently to adjust people's struggles?

>> the inflation that exists is worldwide and largely attributed to the worldwide pandemic and also the supply chain challenges that came with that so i felt that pain like many people, my wife and i were teachers for a very long time and when i was in the state senate i took action i know that people were challenged by those increased costs so we acted. what we did was we accelerated the middle class tax cuts, we provided property tax relief even though property taxes are collected by municipalities, and we suspended the gas tax to give people release. we also found other ways that we could assist families in keeping more dollars in their pocket and one of the ways was to expand universal school meals so that more school districts, the entirety of that school district, all students can come get breakfast and lunch at school. the schools are already preparing those meals so that

keeps money in pockets. we also just recently passed the child tax credit in the state we must respond as elected officials. the other side of that is opportunity. what has been done over the past few years is an investment an investment in american manufacturing, in american jobs, and wages are up and i believe we will get through this. elation is going down, interest rates are going down, and we are meeting the day and listening to the people. chris: john, the tax cuts passed in 2017 lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and gave tax cuts to people making more than 400,000 but also did things like raise the standard deduction for most americans . those cuts expire next year. should we extend them, why or why not? >> they need to be amended. we have to end the salt deduction cap that was clearly targeted towards new york state

. it was putatively done. we need to turn it over. that is step one. step two, we have to make sure we are providing families, not the ultra-wealthy, but the lower and middle incomes with tax relief. corporate taxes are more complicated but what we've seen over the course of the past few years are record profits by corporations, ceo salaries expanding not what they used to be, a few times higher than the average worker, but upwards of 40 times more than the average worker salary. so corporations and the ultra wealthy do need to pay their fair share. we must protect social security and medicare. these are earned benefits that we're paid into by working people in this country. i will stand up and protect social security, we need additional changes to that to make sure that is sustainable moving forward and we don't have to come back a few years years at a time and have this argument

again. the working people of this country have earned it and i vowed to protect it. chris: brandon, question on the gop tax cuts. >> the tax cuts boosted the economy. i think everybody agrees that we were all better off economically three and a half years ago under the previous administration. what we've seen from my opponent in his comments is a tax and spend strategy. you notice that his way to boost your bottom line and to reduce inflation is to give you special benefits that also come out of your tax i think the tax cuts dollars. actually stimulate the economy, provide more growth, more jobs, and they certainly worked, and we saw that just three and a half years ago. in regards to the salt cap, i agree. he should be adjusted for

inflation. because the salt cap is now creeping down into middle class homes and on middle class families that was never intended to do and particularly in a high tax state like new york state , and my opponent knows all about that because he's part of the albany system that has given us these high taxes, the salt cap needs to be adjusted to account for this inflation. i know we will come back to it but in terms of social security, a few weeks ago i crossed the aisle and signed a what called a discharge petition on the floor of the house of representatives for the social security fairness act that restored benefits to public employees, including fire and police personnel as well as retired school teachers. chris: so you would support extending the tax cuts? >> correct. chris: and you would adjust but

not end the salt cap? >> i would adjust it for inflation. chris: ok. follow-up on this. brandon, we will start with you. donald trump has proposed cutting the corporate tax rate even further to 15%. kamala harris has proposed raising it from 21% to 28% which is still lower than the 35% it was back in 2016 which is a better option or should we leave that rate alone? >> i don't think increasing the corporate tax rate is the way to grow the economy. when i completed my military service i went to the wharton school, i got an mba in finance and operations and i have a good experience in the private sector of what it means to to grow the economy to to sign paychecks to start new businesses it's that kind of growth that we need to pick us up out of the malaise and high inflation and the

approaching it appears every day recession that seems to be the result of the biden harris economy. i think going back and and actually continuing to punish the companies and that are providing jobs that we're expecting to lure here to new york state to try to restart manufacturing and to attract manufacturing here is not the right way to go. john: when it comes to corporate taxes, it can be complex. we do want to make sure that corporations are staying in this country, that they're moving to this state like micron is, is and that also we're holding them accountable. we are seeing rapid profits and corporations some of them that do receive federal government subsidies and a lot of the time those profits are not transferred to the workers, often corporations are cutting benefits for individuals including health insurance, so what we have to do is make sure we hold them accountable. a lot of the profits and of

going back into stock buybacks. and some of the profit comes from price gouging so we have to look at corporate taxes carefully and it's not as simple as just cutting or raising them but what we do want is an investment in this country we do not want an investment in the investors of that country, the people that are doing the work, the hardworking people that lead to those corporations successes, we want to make sure that we support them. chris: brandon, we know you both have strongly opposing views on abortion. mark weiner this morning wrote a story about those views in a story on syracuse.com. brandon you've pushed back , against claims that you would support a national ban on abortion. how do you think your position has been represented -- misrepresented? >> it is hard being in politics because my opponent has

consistently lied about everything i have said about abortion. i have been very consistent from the beginning. i am pro-life, but i support three exceptions for abortion which include life of the mother , rape, and incest, all terrible events. no reason to compound the trauma. i have also stated again from the very beginning that i will not support a national ban . abortion was allowed for in law in new york state in 1974 has been the law of new york state for 50 years and it's not going to change by the federal government. that was actually what the court decided and it is for the people of new york state to decide. the fact that we end up you know in this environment where brazen bold lies can be told is very concerning to me so my stance on abortion has been the same from the beginning. i've also championed programs that support adoption and also have supported legislation to extend the child tax credit. chris: john what's your , justification for the claims you've made in your ads about

your opponent regarding a nationwide ban? >> they are fat -- they are backed up by facts, by his votes, by his statements. my opponent cannot be trusted when it comes to protecting a woman's right to choose. true, in this state preemptively to the overturning of dubs we protected a woman's right to choose we protected those providers to make sure that women can provide those services . but what we've seen across this country is a deterioration of those rights. in 22 states women cannot , receive abortion care and in about 11 or 12 of those states there is zero access to abortion . my opponent is a part of the republican study committee. when roe v. wade was overturned, he made a statement that it was a monumental victory. if it's a monumental victory to take away a woman's right to choose, then i don't believe you understand where women are and their supporters in new york 22

. it's not a states rights issue, it's a woman's rights issue. >> again, the only attack here is to lie about everything i have said and it is in fact with the courts decided was a states rights issue, i have laid out what new york state policies are nothing is going to change in new york state, regardless of which one of us is elected and it is very disingenuous and playing on the fears of women and women don't like being lied to, john, and you really should take note that you make these false statements. john: part of the agenda and the legislative priorities of the republican study committee and the conservative party is a national abortion ban with no exceptions. chris: a follow-up and i would like to give 30 seconds for the question. john, would you vote against the