At last, a debate that lived up to its billing. The Fox Business Network promised this would be about economic policy, and not about fantasy football, or personalities, and its panelists delivered. Despite an occasional barb, including a neat put-down of Donald Trump by Carly Fiorina, we actually learned where the candidates stand on important issues.
In what is called the under-card, we also learned two things. First, that the Republican bench is indeed deep. Second, that four is twice as good as eight when it comes to staging a debate: in my view, the answers were crisper, and with the exception of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, who combined detailed policy knowledge, hard-edged conservatism and a dollop of personal nastiness, respectful. Giving Chris Christie an opportunity to soften his image by responding to Jindal’s criticism of his fiscal stewardship of New Jersey by praising Jindal’s performance in Louisiana. Christie, Rick Santorum and Jindal all favor some form of a flat or almost flat income tax, fewer and lower rates, the only deductions retained to be for mortgage interest payments and charitable deductions, policies differing in some details from those espoused by most candidates in the later debate. Mike Huckabee is more radical and in a sense more conservative – no taxes on work or investment, to be replaced by a consumption tax. With some interesting ideas: Santorum would return the bulk of gasoline taxes to the states, Jindal would replace current zero taxes on the lowest earners with a 2% tax because everyone should pay something. That is a wrinkle also favored by Ben Carson, whose 15% flat tax would apply to everyone, no matter how low their income. If the early debate was the minor leagues, it was triple-A quality, with one player, Christie, clearly deserving promotion to the bigs.
The candidates in the longer debate all seem to agree that the Fed has it wrong, that it should be audited – with John Kasich alone warning that turning monetary policy over to the politicians would result in further debasing the dollar by running the presses even harder. Several candidates – Rand Paul (no surprise) and Ted Cruz among them – favor basing the dollar on something: a basket of commodities or, a policy that dare not speak its name, a return to the gold standard. And most, with the exception of Carson, who wants to think about it, rate Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen a highly political central banker whose policies are exacerbating the income inequality that all see as an increasing problem.
Since debate day coincided with demonstrations by unions and others demanding a $15 minimum wage, it was no surprise that the candidates were asked where they stood. Donald Trump is opposed, on the ground that it would reduce America’s ability to compete with lower-wage economies. Carson agreed: He thinks it would further reduce the ability of young African-Americans to obtain entry-level jobs of the sort he was able to get when entering the labor market. Marco Rubio used the question to explain the need for vocational training – welders make more than philosophers.
Perhaps the question that demonstrated the differences between the candidates was one that asked them whether they would bail out JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, if it were teetering on the brink of failure. Kasich most certainly would; I am not sure what Carson said – the mind boggles at the thought of an Oval Office meeting on such a crisis chaired by President Carson; Cruz would let it go under; and Jeb Bush, after a stumble in which he said there would not be another financial crisis, and Kasich both rambled incoherently about saving depositors, who they seem to have forgotten already have government insurance. Bush did retrieve by calling for higher capital requirements for system-threatening banks. This was only one issue on which Kasich espoused positions that can charitably be called compassionate conservatism, less kindly mini-liberalism of the sort that he says he practiced so successfully in Ohio when “people need help”. On the right side of the platform stood Paul, accusing others of being untrue to conservative principles, in Rubio’s case because of his plan to increase child tax credits and military spending at a time when the budget is drowning in red ink.
Carson helped himself by smilingly fended off questions about his early years; Fiorina showed muscle on foreign policy issues and a belief that repetition of a need for zero-based budgeting is a winning strategy; Cruz delighted the supporters who admire his tough-minded conservatism; and Bush might, only might, have avoided the knock-out punch that Rubio’s advance men said their candidate would throw, and which they later said he had landed. All demonstrated that the Republican Party is the party that believes in American exceptionalism, that the American nightmare can be re-converted to the American dream by changing mistaken Obama policies, most especially Obamacare, and keeping Hillary Clinton from spending, taxing and regulating.
But it was Rubio who to this and most other observers once again was the clear winner, if such there can be in a debate. He came across as coherent, thoughtful, optimistic, and, like others, strong on foreign policy and defending the realm against ISIL and other enemies. Only Paul and Trump, both of whom seem to be in the George McGovern “Come home America” tradition, do not want America to be more interventionist than it now is. A newly restrained Trump carefully avoided getting involved in detailed discussion of economic issues, not his strength. He is long on the “what” but rather short on the “how”, with the exception of handling illegal immigrants. A President Trump would deport five million illegals, build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Nothing new there. What was new was his demeanor – he was either tired or carefully beginning to adopt a more Presidential stance. If the latter, he succeeded, as Neil Cavuto, the principal moderator, pointed out in his post-debate comments.
The real winner was Fox Business News. With the exception of a confused Lou Dobbs, who couldn’t frame an interesting question – before the debates he asked about personal issues rather than policy, when it was over the best he could muster were “who won” questions of those he was interviewing – all the FBN regulars and the Wall Street Journal’s Gerry Baker demonstrated a knowledge of the issues, kept to the economic issues, and controlled the candidates, with the possible exception of the, er, irrepressible Kasich.