Mackenzie, Wild present different approaches on economic issues, Social Security
Editor’s note: This concludes our series that examines four issues in the 7th Congressional District race between incumbent Democrat Susan Wild and her Republican challenger Ryan Mackenzie, a state representative in the 187th District.
Besides economic issues, the other stories examined the candidates’ positions on abortion, immigration and foreign affairs. The 7th Congressional District covers all of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon counties and a tiny part of Monroe County. The Nov. 5 election is considered a toss-up by national political analysts.
The congressional candidates seeking to represent the 7th District agree that inflation has been a serious problem.
But Democratic incumbent Susan Wild and Republican state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie disagree about why the cost of food, gas and other items increased sharply and what to do about it.
The economy/inflation is the top issue, ranking No. 1 issue by 35% of Pennsylvania voters, according to a Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll released last month.
Food prices increased 28% since 2019. Inflation, the highest in 40 years, peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 but dropped since then and hit its lowest point of 2.4 in September, according to federal data.
Republicans and some economists say high inflation resulted from President Biden-backed legislation of billions in government spending through the American Rescue Plan, Infrastructure Act, CHIPs Act and Inflation Reduction Act.
“Massive overspending in Washington, D.C., is what has caused the inflation and the high prices that we are all struggling with. And so we need to reign in that wasteful spending in Washington, D.C., and that's something that I would do if elected to Congress,” Mackenzie said during a September debate on Blue Ridge Cable.
Democrats say other factors contributed to high inflation.
According to NerdWallet, an online finance and consumer news website, prices spiked because of the Ukraine war, which resulted in higher gas prices that affected other areas of the economy, including grocery store prices. Diseases also affected farm animals, supply chain issues persisted after the Covid pandemic, and food companies maintained or increased prices.
Other economic observers note that inflation was a worldwide problem, with some European nations having higher rates of inflation than the U.S.
Wild, who is seeking her fourth term in the House, said she understands that people are paying more for essential items such as food.
“I feel the impact of inflation too. I do my own grocery shopping. I pump my own gas. I am very aware of prices and although I'm happy that gas prices seem to be coming down, believe me, I understand what people have been going through,” she said during the Blue Ridge Cable debate.
It’s important to “reduce costs across the board for the average working family. That includes prescription drug prices, it includes groceries.”
Wild said “corporate gouging is a real thing” impacting costs.
“If you go to the grocery store and look at the box of cereal that you used to buy, it will be the same price that it always was, or perhaps a little more, but it'll have six ounces less of the cereal.”
She supports cutting income taxes for the middle class.
“The tax cuts that were enacted at the end of 2017 primarily benefited the 1%,” she said. For example, “workers who need supplies for their jobs, work boots and that kind of thing, used to be able to deduct those costs but no longer can since those tax cuts.” Reinstating those kinds of deductions is one way to help, she said.
“We've got to make sure that the [top] 1% is paying its fair share [in taxes]. It would go a long way toward solving a lot of the problems in this country if we didn't have tax cuts for billionaires.”
Mackenzie said he has never voted for a tax increase.
He pointed to his work as a state legislator that has given people tax breaks, which helps in times of higher costs.
“I've never voted to raise taxes, and also I've actually introduced legislation and passed it to eliminate things like the inheritance tax for small family businesses by closing corporate tax loopholes,” he said. “I was helpful in getting passed the childcare tax credit.”
Social Security
The Social Security Administration projects that starting in 2035 benefits will be reduced to 83 percent of what people now receive because the trust fund pays out more money than it receives.
Wild and Mackenzie support maintaining Social Security benefits at current levels beyond 2035, but disagree on how to do that.
“I think it is unfair to seniors to tax their Social Security, which was already taxed when they first were paid,” Wild said in the Blue Ridge Cable debate.
Mackenzie said, “We can continue to lower taxes on people, make sure we're putting money back in their pockets. That's why I support no taxes on tips and no taxes on Social Security that would directly put money back into people's pockets.”
Wild supports raising the level of income that is taxed for Social Security. For 2024, people pay no Social Security tax on income greater than $168,600. For 2025, that threshold rises to $176,100. Once their income hits that level, they pay no Social Security.
“As to the question about Social Security running out of money, there is a relatively easy fix, and it's called taxing billionaires as you should. At the present time, a billionaire stops paying into Social Security on his first day of work in any given year, whereas you, the ordinary citizen, continue to pay into Social security all year long. If we properly taxed the people at the very, very top who were doing just fine, we would not run out of money in Social Security.”
Wild said Republicans “are gung-ho on reducing Social Security benefits.”
Mackenzie said, “On the federal level, we need to do everything we possibly can to protect benefits like Social Security and Medicare that those individuals have paid into and that they earned and deserve. So I will do that every single day. What my opponent does though is massive deficit spending, absolutely reckless spending in Washington, D.C., which hurts our ability to fund those benefits.”
Drug prices
Wild points to the Democratic-backed accomplishment to lower certain prices for drugs through Medicare. The price for insulin was set at $35, and some pharmaceutical companies started charging the same amount for insulin purchased by people not eligible for Medicare.
“I came to Congress with a mission to reduce prescription drug prices. And guess what? We have, not across the board, but we are getting there,” Wild said during a “Business Matters” debate in September. “We made the first inroads we have ever made in this country against Big Pharma and getting the price of insulin down to $35 a month. Inhalers are down to $35 a month. And right now there are 10 more lifesaving, extremely expensive drugs that are being negotiated by Medicare that never happened before.”
Mackenzie criticized Wild for not doing more.
“If the congresswoman has been working for six years to bring down the cost of living for people, she has failed. … It should have been for every drug,” he said. “In the Pennsylvania state Legislature, I worked in a bipartisan fashion and [Gov.] Josh Shapiro just signed into law legislation that would tackle prices on prescription drugs across the board.”
CHIPs and Science Act
The CHIPS and Science Act, signed into law in 2002, will allow the U.S. government to spend nearly $53 billion to expand U.S. production of semiconductors to make American companies less reliant on semiconductors made in foreign countries.
The Lehigh Valley recently benefited from two grants from the CHIPs Act that Wild helped facilitate.
In August, Allentown received $20 million to help city residents get better jobs through financial assistance for training, education, child care and transportation.
And earlier this month, Inferna, a semiconductor company based in Silicon Valley with a plant in Upper Macungie Township, can receive up to $93 million to expand its operations in California and build a testing and production facility in Bethlehem.
“By supporting the construction of a new Advanced Test and Packaging Facility right here in Bethlehem,” Wild said in a press release, “this grant will not only create hundreds of new jobs in our community, but it will revitalize our local semiconductor industry and address key national security concerns.”
Mackenzie disagrees with the value of the CHIPs Act.
“While the goals of the CHIPS Act are good, the rollout has been a failure,” he said in a statement in a response to a question from Armchair Lehigh Valley.
“We learned that dozens of local Intel workers in the Lehigh Valley are going to be laid off despite billions of dollars in taxpayer money being awarded to Intel via the CHIPS Act. Washington shouldn’t be awarding giant handouts to companies that turn around and lay off local workers.”
In August, Intel said it was laying off 15,000 employees in the U.S. following second-quarter losses that totaled $1.6 billion.
According to an Intel press release, the proposed $8.5 billion in CHIPS funding would be used to advance its commercial semiconductor projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon.