The Fourth Republican Presidential Debate
On Tuesday night Nov. 10th the fourth Republican Presidential debate was held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Moderated by Fox Business Network reporters Neal Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo and Wall Street Journal reporter Gerard Baker, this debate was more civil, respectful and down to earth than the last debate. This time the moderators were more mature and refined and didn’t try to debate the candidates and get them fighting with each other like the CNBC ones did. Questions ranged from such topics as business, the economy, taxes, foreign affairs in Russia, the Ukraine, Syria and other issues.
This time there were only 8 candidates as Mike Huckabee and Gov. Chris Christy were relegated to the secondary team which debated earlier. Personally I don’t understand why they don’t eliminate that team altogether since they only have a 1% rating and don’t stand a chance, but I digress.
I thought John Kasich and Marco Rubio were more animated than usual. It was like somebody lit a firecracker under Kasich as he kept interrupting and went on chatting cutting the others off. Ted Cruz came across very passionate like he is and always does. Ben Carson showed more knowledge and common sense to answers than usual and was more talkative, but still is too soft spoken in my opinion to be a strong leader. He would serve best as Sec. of HHS. Donald trump was less bombastic than usual and showed more restraint and respect than usual, but he did get in another skirmish with John Kasich like in the last debate. When Kasich started talking about how great his state was under him Trump replied, ”You’re just lucky you struck oil.” Kasich replied that,”all my jobs came from the bottom up not from the top down.” I did notice that when it came time for Trump to answer questions, every answer he gave was word for word exactly verbatim as he says in all his speeches. Almost like it was scripted and rehearsed. I guess he decided to play it safe.
All the candidates agreed not to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour because it would cause massive layoffs and increase the already out of control unemployment roles and it would make prices go up which is true. Something the protestors who were protesting for a higher minimum wage outside didn’t seem to understand. I would be willing to bet that most of the protestors were low information voters who don’t understand economics. Besides, minimum wage is not supposed to be a permanent working wage, but a starting point to advance onto better things.
Carly Fiorina was more outspoken and said Obamacare wasn’t helping anyone and must be repealed as did several of the other candidates including Cruz, Rand Paul and Trump. Although libs disagree that it isn’t helping anyone, all they have to do is look at the high deductables and see that the exchanges are falling apart. Sure people have insurance through Obamacare just wait until they have to use it and pay the high deductables they can’t afford. Carly suggested the country resort to free markets and allow the people to choose and shop around for their own plan. She said, “Socialism starts when government creates the problem then steps in to resolve it. We must take our country back,” she said forcefully.
The candidates all agreed to get the economy moving again requires lowering taxes, but they had different amounts. Cruz favored a 10% across the board flat tax while business pays a 16% flat tax and eliminate the death tax and abolish the IRS. Rand Paul favored a 14% flat tax and really small government while Ben Carson favored getting rid of deductions and loopholes. Carly Fiorina favored a simplified tax code consisting of three pages. Trump summed it up nicely saying, ”Although we have different plans each plan is better than the mess we have now.” So true.
At one point Fox Business Network moderator Maria Bartiromo was briefly booed by a Republican-friendly debate crowd Tuesday night when she praised former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s résumé.
The moderator pointed out that Clinton has spent “more time in government than almost all of you on stage tonight.”
“Why should the American people trust you to lead this country even though she has been so much closer to the office?” she asked.
Marco Rubio replied that you must think about the future of this country and where it was going under Hillary and Obama and the democrats just want to stick with the past.
When the topics switched to ISIS and Putin, Ben Carson agreed that the biggest threat to the U.S. is Islamic terrorism and we have to stop their Caliphate in Iraq and kill them before they kill us, “Obama and Hillary don’t believe in leadership,” Carson said.
Overall the candidates all agreed on the fact that Hillary must be defeated and republicans must win this time or it will be a disaster for this country,” We cannot let Hillary, the worst Secretary of State win,” Trump said. To which I might add if Hillary gets in be afraid my friends, be very afraid.
FIGHT NIGHT: REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES MEET FOR 4TH DEBATE…
Bartiromo booed for praising Hillary’s ‘impressive resume’…
POLL: TRUMP, CRUZ, PAUL, RUBIO TAKE EARLY LEAD
Jeb Bush confronts Donald Trump: The Middle East isn’t ‘Monopoly’