IU political groups hold yearly debate

The IU College Republicans and College Democrats kicked off their 2005 debates with a civil and scripted event Thursday night in the Georgian Room of Indiana Memorial Union. The debate touched upon events and issues each felt were important to their party.\nThe night began with both sides presenting their main arguments as political science professor Marjorie Hershey moderated.\n"Republicans are for states' rights, Republicans are for the power to choose, Republicans are for freedom of the market place, freedom of actions, freedom to do basically everything you can," said law student and member of the College Republicans debate team, Paul Rudolph. \nThe College Democrats and College Republicans presented information on how they feel about health care reform and social security reform along with issues over affirmative action to name a few.\n"Democrats have a vision that is based on core values, values which are shared by every single American," said senior Shaunica Pridgen in her opening statement for the College Democrats and who is an Indiana Daily Student employee.\nBoth parties believe Social Security is a core value, however the Democrats stated an overhaul was needed but did not agree with the Republican's plan of privatization. \n"Social Security is supposed to help those who do not have any other money," said sophomore and College Democrat Emma Cullen. "A universal pension plan would help to save money from the very moment they start working."\nAnother issue on the table is Governor Mitch Daniel's plan to reform the state budget within the next year. Both parties agreed the budget needed to be reformed, but disagreed with which areas. The College Republicans said education funding should be frozen; however, the College Democrats said it is hurting the state and the schools that it is affecting, which include small and minority school systems.\nThe debate began to heat up when discussion moved toward affirmative action.\n"The Republican party is against affirmative action," said Rudolph. "It doesn't help minorities, it doesn't help non-minorities, and there are just not very many people that it does help."\nThe Democrats argued that discrimination has not ended and there needed to be more done to fight discrimination in schools and in the workplace.\nSenior Kevin Bohannon said the debate was well run and very informative.\n"I was surprised by the depth of the questions," Bohannon said. "Although I believe the Republicans had ill-founded arguments against Social Security, I found everything else great debate material."\nPersonal views can also help to decide how much information one can gain from the debate as Sophomore Adrianne Dunlap experienced.\n"No matter what your views, it is very informational and can help you better understand what you already believe and provide substance behind it," she said.\n-- Contact Staff Writer Ryne Shadday at rshadday@indiana.edu.