Major party nominees for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat outlined their contrasting visions Tuesday in front of the Detroit Economic Club.
The forum covered topics that illuminated widely divergent plans from Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, especially on healthcare and taxes.
But some areas drew agreement from both candidates.
On tariffs, Rogers and El-Sayed agreed President Donald Trump's trade war with Canada has been hurting the state’s economy. Yet, both criticized free trade agreements as taking away manufacturing jobs.
When it came to growing Michigan’s economy and workforce, Rogers outlined a vision that involved cutting taxes and integrating skilled trades more in education.
“If you look at wages for new college graduates versus wages for the skilled trades, man, skilled trades is winning that fight all day long,” Rogers said.
Tying his trade education advocacy into his affordable housing plan, Rogers said the state could address its shortages by getting “a little creative.”
Rogers used Detroit as an example, where he wants to combine all vacant lots in the city into a revamped land bank.
“You allow builders to bid on those lots. Let’s get it pre-approved for the city council. I’ve already been talking with city council members here in the city of Detroit,” Rogers said. “You’d have a much cleaner, less regulatory burden to build that house.”
He suggested students could get involved with that new construction as apprentices.
On housing, El-Sayed agreed red tape was getting in the way of new costs. He also suggested further regulating short-term rental companies like Airbnb and Vrbo that have been blamed for taking some housing units off the market.
For the broader economy, El-Sayed said he wanted changes to make sure everyone can benefit, rather than the wealthy.
To illustrate his point, El-Sayed asked the audience to raise their hand if they had an Apple or Samsung phone. When the overwhelming majority did, he said that showed big companies have been squeezing competition from the marketplace.
“We need to actually start standing up to monopolies and oligopolies and start regulating them so we can get back to a system where there is competitiveness in a market,” El-Sayed said.
In terms of supporting small businesses, El-Sayed said he favored cutting employer-side payroll taxes.
“In an era where AI is coming, we don’t want to penalize businesses for hiring actual people. That’s what the employer side business tax does. We should be investing a lot more in small business growth,” El-Sayed said.
El-Sayed has previously supported getting rid of the cap on payroll taxes to support social safety-net programs. Above a certain income level, employees and employers no longer pay Social Security payroll taxes on additional earnings. El-Sayed said removing that cap is part of getting high-income earners to pay “their fair share.”
One of the clearest differences between the candidates involved healthcare. El-Sayed pushed his signature “Medicare for All” plan. He compared current healthcare premiums to a “tax.”
“If I could give you 25% cheaper, more durable coverage and you happen to pay that through the federal government, who by the way you happen to vote for rather than an insurance company headed by a CEO you have no say over, which do you choose?” El-Sayed said.
Rogers, however, said price transparency is a better way to lower costs. He argued Medicare relies too much on private insurance to create wholesale changes to the current system.
“This is a huge problem if we do this because people haven’t thought about the consequences. So let’s do something different before we break the whole thing,” Rogers said.
While each candidate spoke for roughly the same period of time and answered the same questions, neither shared the stage together Tuesday. They’ll face off head-to-head for their second televised debate Wednesday on WXYZ-TV Detroit.
