Three Republicans, three Democrats lined up for a chance at Congress

April 29--Politics-watchers could be forgiven for thinking Marlin Stutzman has the 2014 campaign in the bag already. He's rolling through his second term in office. At the end of March, he had $430,000 available to stage a race. Better yet for the incumbent, he has a strongly Republican district as a venue in which to stage that re-election race.

Not everyone's convinced. Stutzman faces two Republicans who oppose him in the primary, and three Democrats are competing for the chance to face off against the Republican winner in November.

The Republicans

Marlin Stutzman, the incumbent

Several of those in the congressional primary who aren't the incumbent say Congress is a stagnant flop, incapable of governing, but Stutzman says he's still "enthusiastic." Republicans who hold the majority in the House of Representatives have accomplished more than they're routinely credited with.

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is a prime example. Noting the scores of times the House has voted to repeal the law without seeing it repealed is a standard measure of the prevailing haplessness in Congress. But Stutzman points out that through Congressional pressure (as well as many acts of litigation) the law has been sharply constrained.

By his count earlier this year, the Congress had forced 15 changes in Obamacare, the Supreme Court decision in 2013 brought two major changes and President Obama's administration itself has changed deadlines, rules and requirements 20 times.

Simply put, "it's death by a thousand cuts," he said.

More broadly, Stutzman sees three looming priorities that Congress and the nation need to tackle:

--The nation's debt. Although the annual deficit has recently dropped because of the spending cuts imposed by the sequestration deal and the tax cuts that lapsed, people shouldn't assume that improvement will continue. "If interest rates go up at all, it's going to blow," he said.

--Tax policy. "The nation's economy is ready to grow," Stutzman said, but that growth is going to be hobbled if taxes aren't reduced.

--Medicare. The biggest part of constraining future budget growth is restraining the growth of Medicare spending as more Baby Boomers age into eligibility for the federal insurance program.

In the past, President Obama has said he would discuss ideas for cutting the growth in entitlement programs, such as Medicare, but Stutzman said that the president has been "all talk and no action" on that pledge.

Mark W. Baringer

His challenging incumbent Marlin Stutzman is about Social Security more than any other issue, Mark Baringer says.

"My main point is Social Security," he said. "Both Republicans and Democrats have weakened Social Security." And ideas that would weaken the program even more continue to be floated, from changing the way inflation is tracked to reduce cost-of-living adjustments to raising the retirement age.

"To be a civilized country, we need to take care of our old," he said. "The American government has done a great job of scaring people."

To help preserve Social Security, he advocates removing the cap on the amount of income liable to the 6.2 percent tax employees pay. As it stands now, income above $117,000 per year is not subject to that tax. He would tax all income to support Social Security.

"When a person works from 18-68 -- 50 years at minimum wage -- I think they deserve retirement above poverty range," he said.

James Mahoney

"Unlike the incumbent, regarding some social issues, I am a moderate Republican," James Mahoney, another Republican facing Stutzman in the primary, says.

However, Mahoney doesn't emphasize social issues much when he talks about priorities for the country. Topping everything else is jobs. He said that fixing the infrastructure of the nation -- from parks that need maintenance to bridges at risk of falling down -- would be an investment crucial for country, both to maintain its assets and to provide more employment.

However, he would prefer to see local governments rather than the federal government run these rebuilding and renovating programs.

Mahoney, who said he has been disabled since a back injury at work in 1990, said that raising taxes on major companies and on people earning more than $400,000 per year would be a way to raise money for infrastructure work and to bring the budget toward balance.

"We can't balance it on the backs of the people making $25,000 compared with the people making $1 million," he said.

The Democrats

Justin Kuhnle

In his first run for Congress in 2012, Justin Kuhnle came in only fourth among six Democrats in the primary. But he's back, and the field is missing Kevin Boyd, the man who won the nomination and then lost to Stutzman in 2012.

The motivation that drew him into politics hasn't changed; as an inpatient case manager at Park Center, he's seen how funding cutbacks can hurt ordinary people. But there's much more on his mind than one symptom of trouble.

He proposes at least one startlingly big solution: spending an estimated $3.7 trillion to repair deficiencies in the nation's infrastructure, from roads and bridges and sewers to ports, airports and railroads. Yes, the cost over the seven years he advocates as a timetable is enormous, but he argues that the cost of not upgrading infrastructure would be even greater. Besides using conventional funding mechanisms such as bonds to pay for these seven years of catch-up, he suggests that governments should investigate investing in securities and other speculative financial instruments to help fund the work.

Even as he proposes a titanic program of construction work on public projects, he argues for the need to trim federal spending through finding waste in existing programs -- or wasteful processes, such as the partial shutdown that happened last fall because of an impasse between the president and the House of Representatives Kuhnle wants to join.

"We can't be so short-sighted as to ignore that if debt continues to rise, creditors will pull out," he said.

James Redmond

There's one contrast Jim Redmond draws immediately between incumbent Stutzman and the kind of congressman Redmond would be: "First of all, I'm never going to shut down the government," he said. "Government is the art of compromise. We can't afford to stagnate."

Despite the advantage of incumbency, Redmond cites two reasons he has cause to be optimistic about the chances of defeating Stutzman.

First, the partial shutdown of the government last year. "People are upset over the shutdown," he said.

Second, "two-thirds of voters are very concerned about excess money flowing into campaigns," Redmond said.

Redmond says that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, as advocated by President Obama, would provide an immediate economic lift for the country. "Raising the minimum wage will raise the wage for 28 million workers, who then turn around and spend money, boosting the economy," he wrote on his campaign website. In the longer term, reducing the number of people on public assistance will reduce government spending, he argues, citing a study that forecast $46 billion in federal savings over a decade as one effect of raising the minimum wage.

Tommy Schrader

Tommy Schrader did not respond to an invitation to be interviewed. He has run for local and federal offices several times in the past. In 2012, he finished a distant second after winner Kevin Boyd in the Democratic primary for 3rd District congressional representative.

His most successful foray into politics was in 2011, when he won one of three Democratic slots for City Council at large candidates in the Fort Wayne municipal race. He was removed from the ballot before the general election when he said that he had taken some steps toward establishing residency in Green Bay, Wis.

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