USA TODAY International Edition
Punch, counterpunch ... and policy
Moderators keep questioning focused on economic issues
What? Substance? The crowded Republican presidential race so far has been in large part a test of big personalities and hot rhetoric, peppered lately with controversies over the reliability of childhood remembrances and the demands of family loyalty. The fourth debate, held in Milwaukee Tuesday night, was billed by sponsors Fox Business Network and The Wall Street Journal as a chance to focus on tax plans and economic policy in a way the previous debates, including one sponsored by rival CNBC, did not.
The first question posed was on raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour — opposed in turn by real- estate mogul Donald Trump, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. “You’re going to make people more expensive than a machine,” Rubio said.
But a discussion of competing versions of the tax code wasn’t
The top two candidates for the GOP presidential nomination said Tuesday night that the problem with the economy is that wages are too high.
Real estate tycoon Donald Trump and neurosurgeon Ben Carson used an opening question on the minimum wage to argue that high wages are a drag on job creation.
“We are a country that’s being beaten on every front economically, militarily,” Trump said. “Taxes are too high, wages are too high. We can’t compete.”
Carson cited high unemployment rate in the African- American community. “That’s because of high wages. If you lower wages, that comes down.”
That set the tone for a business- centric debate — sponsored by Fox Business News and The
Wall Street Journal — that allowed the top eight Republican candidates to tout their free- market credentials, rail against regulations and trumpet their tax plans. And with the prime- time debate stage pared down from 10 candidates and 90- second answers, the fourth round of GOP debates was more policy- oriented and focused than the freewheeling early rounds.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R- Fla. said raising the minimum wage would only result in more workers losing their jobs to machines. “If I thought that raising the minimum wage was the best way to help people increase their pay, I’d be all for it. But it’s not,” he said. “Here’s the real way to raise wages: Make America the best country in the world to expand a business, or start a business.”
Playing his role as the moderate alternative, Ohio Gov. John Kasich acknowledged that his state has enacted a modest in- crease in the minimum wage.
He said he can balance the budget by cutting taxes and spending, including efforts to slow Medicaid spending and a freeze on non- military spending. But he also defended safety net spending, saying, “You know what? people need help.”
The candidates took turns bashing President Obama for what they called a slow- growth economy, saying they are in the best position to revive it by cutting taxes and government regulations.
Carson also used the debate to defend his telling of his life story after a week of questions about whether he embellished details about his youth.
Asked whether the vetting of his biography was fair, Carson said: “Thank you for not asking me what I said in the 10th grade. I appreciate that.
“We should vet candidates,” Carson said. “What I do have a problem is being lied about.”
In the earlier, “undercard” debate featuring four second- tier candidates based on national polling, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was the aggressor, calling out his fellow Republicans for acting like a “second liberal party.”
“Just sending another big- government Republican to D. C. is not good enough,” Jindal said, directing the brunt of his criticism to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for expanding food stamps and Medicaid.
In return, Christie praised Jindal for his record in Louisiana and saved his own criticism for Democratic front- runner Hillary Clinton.
When Jindal continued to press his attack, Christie said, “I complimented Bobby. Imagine how much time he’d want if I actually criticized him.”
“Chris, I’ll give you a ribbon for participation and a juice box,” Jindal said. “But in the real world, it’s about results.”
Christie called for a “fairer, flatter, and simpler” tax code, while former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said his proposed “fair tax” on consumption — not income — would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service revive the nation’s manufacturing base.
Christie and Huckabee — two candidates who participated in three previous prime- time debates — found themselves relegated to the preliminary debate.
“If I thought that raising the minimum wage was the best way to help people increase their pay, I’d be all for it.”
Sen. Marco Rubio