Fiscal crisis looms large in Sixth District debate

Facing off under the shadow of the nation's financial crisis, Rep. Michele Bachmann and DFLer Elwyn Tinklenberg offered different remedies Wednesday in their first debate of the Sixth Congressional District race, with the incumbent deploring an expensive bailout and the challenger arguing that funds are needed to avert a deeper crisis.

Bachmann, a Republican who voted against a $700 billion rescue plan Monday, urged changes in accounting and investment rules and greater federal insurance protection of bank deposits instead of a large bailout.

"This is not the way to do it," she said of the $700 billion bailout. "There's a better way."

But Tinklenberg, who also has been endorsed by the Independence Party (IP), said a bailout of some kind is necessary to restore confidence in the nation's credit system.

"What the financial markets needed most of all Monday was confidence," he said. "Instead, they got uncertainty and chaos."

A third participant Wednesday, Bob Anderson of the IP, said Congress needs to take more time to come up with a rescue plan. The crisis "didn't happen overnight," he said. "We don't need to fix it overnight."

The debate in Stillwater, attended by about 150 people, came hours before Bachmann was expected to return to Washington for a vote on a revised rescue package. The earlier plan failed in the House; Democrats supported it by a 3-2 margin, while Republicans voted against it 2-1 after public opposition mounted against a taxpayer bailout.

Bachmann continued to criticize a potential multibillion-dollar bailout and said the kind of package advancing Wednesday in the Senate was essentially the same as the rejected House measure.

"If the bill remains in this form, and I believe it will, I will be a no vote," she said. After the debate she added, "It looks like the core of the bill remains the same."

She called for relaxing federal rules that require banks to value mortgage-backed securities at their market value, a requirement Republicans say reduces lending ability but some accountants say had little impact on the crisis.

"This is something Congress mandated," she said. "That's overregulation." She added that the rules had put pressure on banks to grant mortgages to people "who did not have means to pay them back."

Tinklenberg said the crisis stems from a lack of regulations that led Wall Street institutions to make reckless investments with mortgage securities that caused a credit crunch. He said that a major construction project in the district stalled after the House rejected the rescue plan Monday. "It all fell apart because of that vote," he said.

Bachmann has one of the most conservative voting records in Congress and is a vocal opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage. Tinklenberg, who describes himself as a moderate Democrat, is a former mayor of Blaine and was transportation commissioner under former Gov. Jesse Ventura, during which he promoted transit projects.

Anderson, who is the IP candidate though not its endorsee, is emphasizing better insurance coverage for mental illness. At the debate, he said he wasn't accepting contributions for his campaign and urged listeners to "put somebody in ... who is not tied to all this money and special interests."

The Sixth Congressional District covers northern and western Twin Cities suburbs and exurbs in Anoka, Benton, Sherburne, Stearns, Washington and Wright counties.