In the fourth televised GOP primary debate last night, eight Republican candidates for president laid out their positions as they sparred over taxes, immigration, government spending, and to a lesser extent, foreign policy.
They clashed heatedly over what it means to be a conservative and the immigration issue, particularly amnesty.
The debate venue was the same storied Milwaukee auditorium where Theodore Roosevelt gave a 90-minute speech Oct. 14, 1912 after being shot in the chest by a deranged saloonkeeper. Roosevelt, who served as president from September 1901 to March 1909 as a Republican, was campaigning at the time for president on the Progressive Party ticket.
Last night’s debate was — fortunately — less eventful.
It was also the best, most business-like of the four GOP primary debates so far.
It stood in stark contrast to the televised firing squad 10 Republican contenders faced on CNBC on Oct. 28. That was the debacle of a debate in which moderators acted like prosecutors cross-examining hostile witnesses and obnoxiously playing candidates off against each other.
Unlike left-wing CNBC charlatan John Harwood, the moderators of Fox Business Network last night recognized it was their job to elicit answers and facilitate constructive conversations, not oversee gladiatorial combat. FBN anchors Maria Bartiromo and Neil Cavuto, along with Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker, were well-behaved, reasonable, and professional. (The main debate transcript is available here.)
One of the evening’s more interesting multi-debater exchanges came when Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) trolled Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) over foreign policy and child tax credits.
After Baker told Rubio his tax plan includes a significant expansion of child tax credits that would raise the incomes of struggling parents, the moderator asked if there was “a risk you’re just adding another expensive entitlement program to an already over-burdened federal budget?”
Rubio stressed the paramountcy of the family in American society and said he was “proud” of his child tax credit increase, which he said was part of a “pro-family tax plan” that would strengthen the family unit.
Paul interjected, perhaps thinking of himself an an ideological gatekeeper like William F. Buckley Jr., saying,
We have to decide what is conservative and what isn’t conservative. Is it fiscally conservative to have a trillion-dollar expenditure? We’re not talking about giving people back their tax money. He’s talking about giving people money they didn’t pay. It’s a welfare transfer payment … Add that to Marco’s plan for $1 trillion in new military spending, and you get something that looks, to me, not very conservative.
Rubio shot back, saying “this is their money” that Americans have paid. Using an argument often employed by left-wingers, the senator said his program would allow parents to “invest” in their children, “in the future of America and strengthening your family … [the] most important institution in society.”
Paul replied, “Nevertheless, it’s not very conservative, Marco.”
Rubio said he wanted to rebuild the military and slammed Paul as “a committed isolationist.” Rubio added, “I’m not. I believe the world is a stronger and a better place, when the United States is the strongest military power in the world.”
