Alex Lemieux

In their first face-off in one of America’s most competitive midterm elections, Republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock (VA-10) and Democratic challenger State Senator Jennifer Wexton debated in a match that outlines the narrative of resistance versus results. Democrats are attempting to takeover the Northern Virginia district that stretches from Loudoun County and parts of Fairfax and Prince William counties in the east to Clarke and Frederick counties in the west, a seat that has remained Republican for 38 years.

During the 90-minute debate, organized by the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce, in was said to be heavily scripted by many, with Wexton reading many of her answers from notes and occasionally stumbling, according to The Washington Post.

Unsurprisingly, the two candidates split sharply on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed by President Donald Trump in December, which lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The federal tax overhaul has allowed companies to invest more in equipment, new markets, and employee bonuses and wage increases, leading to continuous economic growth that had the gross domestic product (GDP) increasing by over four percent last financial quarter.

“When we have an economy that is booming the way it is now, it makes every issue that we have to deal with – poverty, homeless, social security, Medicare – easier when we have more money coming in,” Comstock said as reported by The Loudoun Times-Mirror.

The effects of the Republican-led tax reconfiguration has led to a $552 million tax surplus for Virginia. Furthermore, Comstock said she is going to work to expand and make permanent the personal income tax cuts that were part of the Trump package that expire by 2027, as well as increase tax cuts for small businesses.

However, Wexton attacked Comstock for her support of the Trump economic plan, which she said primarily benefits the rich.

“In Virginia we can’t keep printing money like our friends across the Potomac do,” Wexton said. “Our tax priorities need to benefit the middle class and encourage business and wage growth. My opponent does neither.”

“You all are business people,” Wexton charged against the debate crowd. “You know that’s not a sustainable model.”

As a self-described “tax and spend liberal,” Wexton has pledged to roll back the Republican-led tax overhaul, which has helped all taxpayers in Virginia’s Tenth District keep more of the money they rightfully earned.

Additionally, during the debate Wexton continuously said that Comstock voted for a pay freeze for federal workers, which is “incorrect,” Comstock said. She explained after the debate that the spending plan she voted for over the summer would have kept the federal pay bump in place.

Comstock fervently supports federal workers, thousands of whom are her constituents in suburban area of Washington, D.C. In a district with 35,500 federal workers, Comstock said she is the only member of Congress from the capital region who has never voted for a government shutdown.

One area of agreement between the two candidates was on tariffs. Comstock declared herself a “free trader” who has always opposed tariffs. President Trump’s duties have led to Virginia farmers having to sell their produce at lowered prices as the market as been flooded by domestic growers and producers who cannot sell as much internationally, especially with apples, a large industry in the western portion of the congressional district.

Comstock said she has worked with farmers in the district to utilize bailouts offered by the government to cushion the economic blow. “This is a short-lived negotiating posture…so that we get better long-term deals,” she said.

Wexton hit back hard saying that farmers “don’t want a bailout from the government. They want to sell their goods on the open market.” She added, “President Trump has needlessly and recklessly imposed tariffs that are hurting Americans.

On the topic of immigration, Wexton railed against nationwide rhetoric of Republicans “sitting on their hands” while families were separated at the border – an issue that stems back to President Bill Clinton. However, Comstock to a district-first approach to the issue and how she has worked to make sure that residents are kept safe from transnational gangs like MS-13, which have plagued the area for years. She introduced the Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act to target the aforementioned groups, expanding the authority of the federal government to deport or detain non-citizen immigrants suspected of gang activity.

During the Democratic primary, Wexton slammed the measure during an event, calling it a move of “fearmongering and race-baiting.” Though, right after Wexton clinched the nomination, she recanted her previous statements regarding the bill, saying that she now supports the legislation.

Commenting on the bill she formerly called “racist,” Wexton stated, “I support giving resources to law enforcement to do what they need to do.”

At a time when the transportation grid in the Northern Virginia area is becoming a bigger issue affecting a wide array of constituents, Comstock relayed a bill she is sponsoring that would extend federal funding for the Metro system at current levels, scaling back an increase in funding she proposed in December. Regardless, the trend for Metro seems to be edging towards privatization as the ill-maintained system is faced with long-term threats, including continuous stagnant ridership and unfunded pension and healthcare commitments made to current and future retirees — a tab of $2.8 billion that increases day by day.

Wexton raised an issue Democrats have previously lobbed at Comstock — a vote she made while in the House of Delegates against a tax increase that raised funds to build the Silver Line.

“That didn’t stop her from showing up at the ribbon-cutting and taking credit for it,” Wexton said.

For Comstock, throwing money at a mismanaged, broken system isn’t the answer – it requires new management, pension reforms, and different financial programs, all of which were included in the bill.

Amid the potential for a summer strike on the part of Metro workers during the MLB All Star Week hosted in Washington, Wexton decided to stay silent on reforms to Metro and even mulled over the possibility of using the strike as a campaign platform had it occurred. It could have something to do with the two $5,000 checks Maryland-based Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689, the largest Metro transit labor union, wrote to Wexton’s campaign.

For healthcare reforms at the federal level, Wexton promoted her vote this year to expand Medicaid in Virginia through state actions by the Obama-era Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Comstock suggested a “piece-by-piece, change and reform” approach to reforming the law.

Again attacked on her position by Wexton, Comstock responded, “My record is one of getting results on your priorities…results, not resistance.”

That is the name of the game between Wexton and Comstock – resistance v. results.

Recently, former President Barack Obama has come forth from the the shadows to wade into the progressive political quagmire professing resistance to anything and everything Republicans in Congress or President Donald Trump does. At a speech at the University of Illinois, Obama derided claims that some of the greatest economic numbers in the last 50 years, possibly even American history, are occurring under the tutelage of the Trump Administration.

“When you hear how great the economy is doing right now, let’s just remember when this recovery started,” Obama said during the speech, as reported by The Daily Caller. “I’m glad it’s continued but when you hear about this economic miracle that’s been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers, suddenly Republicans are saying ‘It’s a miracle.’ I have to remind them — actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016.”

Following Obama’s display of self-congratulations in Illinois, the White House tasked one of their top economists to fact-check the former president.

Kevin Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, showed a series of charts and data points at a recent press briefing while explaining that there are multiple economic trends that swung in the positive direction when President Trump was elected.

He cited small business optimism, which is now higher than it was even under President Reagan in the 1980s, spiking to 108.8 in August, according to the NFIB’s index.

Non-residential fixed investments were also the highest in years. The figure, which includes spending on equipment, structures, and intellectual property, increased by 8.5 percent during the second financial quarter, as reported by Investor’s Business Daily.

Capital spending is now at the highest level since 2007 – before the Great Recession.

Hassett also cited durable goods orders, the purchasing manager index, and new businesses created as reasons the Trump Administration should bear more of the responsibility for the booming U.S. economy.

“You have to look at the moment that President Trump was elected in both equity markets and incentive surveys,” Hassett said. “People started to ratchet up their expectations for the economy.”

After all, continuing over a year of strong domestic growth, during the second financial quarter of 2018, the U.S. economy expanded by a rate of 4.2 percent, the fastest pace in nearly four years.

Even the Associated Press (AP) – the media company that was awe-stricken during the eight years of the Obama Presidency and everything he did – fact-checked the former president, releasing a report entitled, “Obama doesn’t always tell the straight story.”

At the Illinois rally, Obama said, “The actions we took during that crisis [the Great Recession] returned the economy to healthy growth and initiated the longest streak of job creation on record.”

The facts, AP lays out, are that while “He’s right on jobs…whether the economy experienced ‘healthy growth’ is a matter of dispute.”

“As measured by the gross domestic product [GDP], the broadest measure of the economy’s output, the U.S. economy expanded at an average annual rate of 2.2 percent from 2010, after the Great Recession ended, through 2016, Obama’s last year in office,” the reports states.

Unfortunately for the former president, “That is the weakest growth of any post-recession recovery since World War II,” AP writes.

When the former cheerleaders of the Obama Administration begin to criticize the former president, that means something is definitely wrong with the narrative.

Obama said years ago that three percent growth in GDP is impossible. While he was campaigning for president, Trump said four percent not good enough. Well, it seems someone was wrong.