If you like terrible ideas, you’d have loved debate
Perhaps you didn’t watch the Republican presidential debate this week. That in no way excuses you from having an opinion about it. It’s the last one until December, and all you’ll have to work with if you want political conversation at Thanksgiving dinner.
Jeb Bush sent out a mass email before the event began, asking all his “friends” to send him a dollar so he’d “know you’re at home cheering me on.” Doesn’t that sound a little pathetic?
As promised, the debate was more issue-oriented than the ones that went before. However, the subject was supposed to be the economy, and we have long since learned that when these people talk tax plans, we’re not going to hear anything except the word “low.” And occasionally “flat.”
“As you noted, I have rolled out a bold and simple flat tax: 10 percent for every American that would produce booming growth and 4.9 million new jobs within a decade,” said Ted Cruz. In a perfect world, someone would have jumped up and yelled, “Say what?” since Cruz was talking about a potential $3 trillion budget hole.
Later, Cruz volunteered that he’d impose sharp budget cuts, including the total elimination of five major agencies — only four of which he could remember. He got around it by listing the Department of Commerce twice, which was a little slicker than “Oops.” But still.
The only person who might have passed for the teller of hard truths was — are you ready? — Ben Carson. He volunteered that he’d ax deductions for charitable contributions and home mortgages.
Everybody liked them, Carson acknowledged. “But the fact of the matter is, people had homes before 1913, when we introduced the federal income tax, and later after that started deductions.”
Profile in courage or failure to think things through? Excellent topic for holiday discussion.
The only issues that sparked genuine debate were immigration and military affairs. On immigration, both Bush and John Kasich attempted to tear into Donald Trump’s plan to deport all undocumented immigrants.
Trump, for his part, claimed that President Dwight Eisenhower deported 1.5 million immigrants who were in the country illegally to Mexico and stayed popular. This was a program titled “Operation Wetback” during which some deportees drowned.
Cruz took the opportunity to say that his father “came legally from Cuba.” It’s actually a complicated story, but the important thing was that Cruz got to mention his immigrant parent. It is a rule in these debates that everybody who is not Bush or Trump tries to sneak in some detail about humble origins. There should be a drinking game in which everybody takes a swig each time Rubio says: “My father was a bartender. My mother was a maid.”
Trump and Bush tangled over American involvement in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Carson said America needed to make global jihadis “look like losers” by taking back a big oil field they control in Iraq.
Who won? Many experts seem to think Cruz and Rubio did well, which I guess they did if you like illogical economic programs and terrifying views on foreign affairs. I guess Jeb felt encouraged. After the debate he emailed a request for another donation, to “keep the momentum going.”