GOP congressional candidate Ben Quayle visited the Tempe campus Thursday night to speak to a crowd of College Republicans.
He focused on the economy, saying by reducing corporate tax rates, the country can keep more jobs and profits in the U.S. Corporations have been shifting their operations overseas where there are more favorable tax conditions, he said.
“Because of the tax situation that we have, we’re putting these corporations at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the world,” Quayle said. “If we have a lower tax rate, we can give corporations a more competitive advantage here.”
Keeping these corporations in the U.S. is best for not only the companies, but will also create jobs and increase tax revenues, he said.
“Right now we’re getting 35 percent basically of nothing. But if you can get 17-and-a-half percent of a large pie, that’s going to a big boon for our economy,” Quayle said.
Quayle is the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, and is running in Congressional District 3 after narrowly winning his party’s nomination in a crowded primary on Aug. 24.
Around the time of the primary, the 33-year-old lawyer was accused by Nik Richie, operator of TheDirty.com, of having helped create the racy website’s precursor called DirtyScottsdale.com. Quayle admitted to having written comments on the site to try and increase traffic.
Audience members got a chance to ask questions of Quayle, which ranged from immigration to transparency of special interest groups’ donations.
College Republicans president Tyler Bowyer said he was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the group’s questions.
“The tough questions tell me that we are interested and engaged in real issues,” Bowyer said. “Students two years ago were much more interested in slogans and mantras than the candidate’s actual speeches.”
Secondary education senior Zack Powers has been a College Republicans member for two years and asked Quayle how he would “create a sense of transparency to ensure the American people that their politicians are not being bought by special interest groups.”
Quayle said the current amount of transparency works.
“The biggest thing that we have to do is elect people who will stand true to their values and not be influenced by any outside groups,” Quayle said.
“[Politicians who] are only influenced by their constituents.”
Powers said his question stemmed from the recent scandal over claims that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was using millions in foreign contributions to help elect Republican candidates to Congress. He wanted to hear what Quayle thought about the issue from the standpoint of being a Republican congressional candidate.
“We got to understand who he was as a person and where he stood on the issues,” Powers said.
Another audience member asked what Quayle might change about the process of immigrating legally.
Quayle said the current process is extraordinarily difficult and expensive.
“As unemployment starts to ease and more jobs are created, we need to have a process for people to come in legally that is a lot more efficient than what we currently have right now,” he said.
The College Republicans also used this event as an opportunity to inform members about early voting.
Michael Wong, vice president of policy for the Undergraduate Student Government, spoke to the group about polling options this November.
The only early voting location in the Tempe area is at ASU’s Palo Verde West residential hall on the north end of campus, which is open now through Oct. 29.
Tempe Library was formerly an early voting location, but is closed due to construction.
Bowyer said people this year are concerned about what candidates can do for them.
“Today was just a really great example of the differences between 2008 and now,” he said.
Reach the reporter at ymgonzal@asu.edu
