Murray, Vance meet in 2nd Senate debate

REDMOND (AP) — Republican Chris Vance continued his criticism that Sen. Patty Murray is too much of an entrenched partisan to solve congressional deadlock as the two met Sunday evening in their second debate.

“Senator Murray is a wholehearted supporter of Hillary Clinton’s, and I’ve yet to hear her criticize Democrats for anything,” Vance said in the debate at Microsoft’s Redmond campus.

Murray said of her party’s presidential nominee: “I know where her heart is. … I’ve worked with her and watched her as secretary of state lift up women around the globe.”

Murray, seeking her fifth term, pointed to efforts to end a 2013 budget impasse with Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan as an example of how she can work with the other side.

Vance argued again Sunday that the $19.7 trillion federal debt threatens the U.S. economy. He favors the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles plan’s call to raise the Social Security retirement age, to 68 by 2050, and raise the cap on income taxable for Social Security, now at $118,000.

Murray has said she opposes raising the Social Security retirement age and would instead seek a debt-reduction plan that doesn’t sting the middle class, without specifying what that is.