Pete Ricketts seized the offensive Sunday night in a televised Senate debate, arguing that Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson has been “an ineffective senator” who has failed to lead in Washington.

Nelson said he has led the way in protecting Nebraska’s interests and has been effective in reaching across party lines.  He helped forge the agreement that broke a Senate logjam over President Bush’s judicial nominations, Nelson noted.

The choice for Nebraska voters in November is whether they would prefer “blind party loyalty,” Wall Street values and the “radical bad ideas” championed by his Republican opponent, Nelson said.

Ricketts, who resigned as chief operating officer of Ameritrade to enter the Senate race, said the choice really is about leadership and change.

“If you want change in Washington,” he said, “you’re going to have to send somebody new.”

Nelson and Ricketts squared off in an hourlong, dinner-hour debate televised live from KETV studios in Omaha. 

Ricketts said his contest with Nelson may determine which party controls the Senate.  And that, he said, has “policy ramifications” in terms of issues like tax relief, confirmation of federal judges and a proposed ban on so-called “partial birth” abortions.

Nelson said Ricketts would bring “bad ideas” to the Senate, including a national sales tax, diversion of Social Security payroll taxes into the stock market and a plan to phase out farm payments.

Ricketts repeatedly described Nelson’s allegations as “outright lies,” misrepresentations and misleading scare tactics.

“I never supported a national sales tax,” Ricketts said, responding to a central theme of Nelson’s TV advertising campaign. Rather, Ricketts said, he included a sales tax, or consumption tax, among the options he’d weigh in considering income tax reform.

“My opponent has flirted with this,” Nelson responded, pointing to a series of prior statements by Ricketts about a national sales tax.

“He will not take it off the table,” Nelson said. “It needs to be taken off the table (as) a bad idea.”

Ricketts said his position favoring consideration of Social Security reform that includes voluntary investment of a portion of younger workers’ payroll taxes in a private investment account has been “totally misrepresented” by Nelson as privatization of Social Security.

Nelson said guaranteed benefits should be protected in any reform of Social Security, and incentives for additional private savings or investments should be layered on top of that program.

Nelson and Ricketts clashed over earmarking of Senate appropriations for specific projects and a proposed hike in the federal minimum wage.

The earmark issue was raised by a question about the appropriations earmark obtained by former Sen. Bob Kerrey for a $19 million pedestrian bridge across the Missouri River connecting Omaha and Council Bluffs, Iowa.

“It absolutely is a piece of pork,” Ricketts said. 

Nelson, he said, recently supported an earmarked federal appropriation for a parking lot at Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha.  That, Ricketts said, should be privately funded.

Nelson said that project also was needed as a result of construction of a new Omaha Central High School football stadium near Joslyn.

If earmarks were ended, Nelson said, vital funding would be denied to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, for timely improvements at Offutt Air Force Base and to fund projects like western Nebraska’s Heartland Expressway.

The latter would be reduced to “nothing more than a cow path,” he said.

“Ben wants to spend money,” Ricketts said, arguing that an end to appropriations earmarks is the only way to combat “the culture of pork.”

Nelson supported an increase in the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage.  Ricketts opposed it unless it’s accompanied by compensating benefits for small businesses.

Both candidates accused each other of shifting positions on immigration.

During his six years in the Senate, Nelson has not had one bill he sponsored enacted into law, Ricketts said.

“One of the most important ways to be effective is to work with my colleagues,” Nelson responded.

They’ll go face to face one more time — in Scottsbluff on Oct. 15.

Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.