Tenney, Brindisi battle for Congressional seat

Observer-Dispatch (Utica, NY)

Nov. 04--22nd Congressional District

Covers: All of Oneida, Madison, Chenango and Cortland counties and parts of Herkimer, Broome, Tioga and Oswego counties.

The candidates: U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney (R, C, REF), incumbent; Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi (D, WF, I, WE)

The issues: The race for New York's 22nd Congressional District has tackled a wide range of issues, including immigration, foreign policy, farmers, tariffs, education and health care policy. Here's where the candidates stand on some of those issues.

Health care

Both Tenney and Brindisi want to fix the American health care system, but have different plans to do so.

Tenney voted for the American Health Care Act, which she said would have helped people who are struggling with insurance. She believes that the Affordable Care Act is imploding and destroying people's health care.

Brindisi says the first thing that needs to be fixed is the Affordable Care Act and Congress needs to make health insurance more affordable for everyone. Despite voting for a plan referred to as "Medicare for All" in the state legislature, Brindisi does not support a similar plan for the entire country.

Immigration

Both candidates support a border wall of sorts to help control the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

Tenney does not support chain migration, and has supported increased penalties for illegal immigrants who illegally re-enter the country after being deported. She doesn't believe in sanctuary cities and said she does support ICE officials.

Brindisi believes that undocumented children brought into the country should be able to stay as long as they follow the law. He said he supports ICE officials, but he does not believe that family separation is right, and he supports immigration policy that is a mix of merit-based and family reunification.

Education

When it comes to education, neither candidate supports school vouchers, and neither believes that college should be the only choice for students after high school. Both are supporters of public education.

Brindisi said he supports charter schools but doesn't want them taking funding from public schools. Tenney said she isn't as sold on charter schools either, especially in New York.

Economy

Another major issue voters tend to focus on is taxes, which Tenney has been talking about a lot with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as the centerpiece.

She said if she stays in Congress, more tax cuts will come to help the lower and middle classes and that will help boost wages and the economy.

Throughout the campaign, Brindisi has been fighting that assertion, saying that most lower- and middle-class workers haven't seen a tax cut and that it only benefited the top 1 percent of earners.

Another issue involving the economy is the tariffs that President Donald Trump recently increased for some countries.

Tenney has said the end game with the increase in tariffs is to completely eliminate them worldwide and have a free economy. But until then, the country needed to get back on a new level and equalize how it trades with other countries, Tenney said.

Brindisi doesn't oppose all of the tariffs, but said he wants to see them limited and targeted to countries like China. He wants to see the president lead a coalition of the U.S.'s allies to push back against steel dumping and theft of intellectual property from countries like China.

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