BY GAETAN WHISTON

ST. PAUL, Minnesota - Jennifer Benton, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Congress in Minnesota's 5th district faced off her opponents October 29 at Augsburg College here. At the meeting, organized by the campus chapter of the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG), Benton debated Martin Olav Sabo, the Democratic candidate; Jack Uldrich, her Republican opponent; and Erika Anderson of the Grassroots Party. This was the second time in the campaign that Sabo, Uldrich, and Benton debated from the same platform.

Uldrich said that the federal Social Security fund will be bankrupt in five years. He claimed that social security has begun to pit younger people against older ones as the burden for payment is forced onto those who don't stand a chance today of collecting it in the future.

"This is not a conflict between younger and older people," responded Benton, a 27-year-old assembly line worker and member of the International Association of Machinists. "It is a conflict between workers who are defending the gains our grandparents fought for and won, and the capitalist ruling class that is attacking those entitlements." She urged the largely student audience to join in struggles to defend those entitlements.

Uldrich focused on the national debt. According to him, the students would be the ones who have to pay it back over the years. Sabo spoke in the same framework, but pointed with pride to cuts the Democrats had made over the past four years.

Benton disagreed with both of them. "This is not our debt," she said. "It is a debt held as an asset by the parasitic bondholders who collect interest payments by siphoning off surplus value created by working people. It is used as an excuse to cut welfare and social security, while lining the pockets of the rich."

In response to questions about the wetlands in Minnesota and other states, Benton said, "I see the problem of the disappearing wetlands as one that demonstrates the problem of capitalism. Think about it. Even though it is completely short sighted to destroy the wetlands, it continues to happen. Why? It is in the interests of immediate gain for those who appropriate and control the wealth workers produce. The narrow interests of profits for a few wins out against the long term interests of humanity under capitalism."

Uldrich defended a voucher system for public schools. Benton opposed any form of voucher system. She defended public education as a right and pointed to the Cuban revolution as an example. There, she said, "workers and farmers wiped out illiteracy after they took power and made access to free education a right." She raised the need for a social revolution to bring a government of workers and farmers to state power in this country.

While the rest of the candidates concentrated on their personal credentials, Benton used her opening remarks to explain that the socialist campaign presents ideas for a working-class alternative to the capitalist two-party system.

She said that "just as the economic crisis doesn't end November 5, neither does the work of socialist workers. We will continue to advocate the same course."

She invited people to participate in a Socialist Educational Conference in Peoria, Illinois, organized by the Young Socialists and the SWP at the end of November and to join the Young Socialists.

After the meeting students gathered round Benton to ask about her campaign, and looked at the books and literature at a campaign table staffed by Young Socialists.

Katie Bruggeman, who had come from Hamline University to find out more about the socialist campaign, expressed her support to Benton after the debate. "I'm so proud," she said.

Gaetan Whiston is an alternate member of the Young Socialists National Committee.  
 
 
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