I missed the US soccer team losing to Ecuador for this?
Between the kids lecturing us on economics in the breaks and Charlie Rose wagging his finger at the candidates, followed by a crypt keeper-like Mike Barnicle to bring the show to a halt, this debate was snore-worthy.
Mitt Romney didn’t lose, but he seemed to be phoning in much of the debate. His worst moment was when he was forced to defend RomneyCare, and he came close to making one of those “compassionate” arguments that runs us into the ditch of big government. Cain was as present and interesting as ever, but the 999 plan isn’t wearing well over time (or repeated mentions). Gov. Perry didn’t bring the pain to Romney so he is going to have to get back into the race outside the debate halls. He offered a great answer on lifting Americans out of poverty — replace Obama, the job killer. Bachmann was better than she has been in past recent debates. Gingrich remains the master of ideas and debating. He is just never at a loss for an answer to anything. Santorum accidentally declared war on China, and Huntsman had really great seats for a lively conversation that was going on around him. Ron Paul was Ron Paul.
This debate didn’t change anything. If anyone benefits, it’s probably Cain.
I think you just gave the best, brief, summary of the debate I have heard so far. Really, some of these articles I’m seeing already are 5 to 8 pages long – is that necessary? If someone has the time to spend 40 minutes reading a review of the debates then they’re better off actually watching the debate for 40 minutes. Anyways, thanks Bryan for keeping it short and concise. Overall I think this will be the most inconsequential debate of 2011.
Yeah! 999! I want to pay an extra 9% for everything I buy! And of course, the government, would never, ever raise it.
Yeah, and it cuts your income tax and payroll tax, and it cuts corporate income tax which YOU pay because the corporations just add that to the price of goods. So, you have more money to spend.
Sure, the rate might go up, just like every other tax out there. But it’s transparent, so Congress couldn’t hide that increase, unlike all the ways they hide increases in the current billion-page tax code.
Like magic.
How could anybody possibly be hurt? Other than the real estate industry, the charity industry, any industry that is tax-subsidized today, homeowners, people with child-care deductions, old people who don’t pay much taxes today, young people who don’t pay much taxes today, people who have to buy stuff, and people with businesses that they have designed in compliance with the tax system that has been in place for 100+ years.
What could go wrong?
Right on the money, Bryan. Though I’ll counter just slightly and say that Cain doesn’t “probably” benefit he certainly does. This was Perry’s moment to regain the Tea Party’s confidence. And he didn’t.
Forget 9-9-9! I want a consumption tax. Just get rid of the whole IRS and then everybody pays. State and Fed can duke out the percentages.
That’s Cain’s long-term plan.
Full disclosure – I’m voting Cain.
I think that Cain’s history as a FED boss is going to sink him, the 9-9-9 crap is just fire on the boat.. Ron Paul 2012
Ron Paul would open the borders wide, and we’d lose the country inside of a week. That stuff didn’t work when he was playing libertarian with it, let alone now.
What makes you think that Cain did well in thee debate when he clearly lied about his stance on the Federal Reserve?? Please tell me how you can write a 223 word article on this debate and all you have to say about Ron Paul was a 5 word sentence with no input using his name for 4 of the words??? If Ron Paul didn’t have that much of an impact it’s because he was largely ignored AGAIN. At the very least he called out out Herman Cain on what he said as recently as December 29, 2010 “Some people say that we ought to audit the Fed. Here’s what I do know. The Federal Reserve already has so many internal audits it’s ridiculous. I don’t know why people think we’re gonna learn this great amount of information by auditing the Federal Reserve. I think a lot of people are calling for this audit of the Federal Reserve because they don’t know enough about it. There’s no hidden secrets going on in the Federal Reserve to my knowledge,”, This is long after the Fed began engaging in the lending Cain says he opposed, yet you say it benefited him?
Ron Paul has great, passionate, committed followers … it’s a pity he isn’t up to their standards.
What was ‘clear’ about his lie regarding the Federal Reserve?
Rick Perry is to debating what Richard Simmons is to arm wrestling. Out of his element and painful to watch.
If they had a consolation debate for the also-rans…Jon Huntsman would be an also-ran in it.
Rick Sanitorium just ordered a fortune cookie…to go.
Ron Paul, still crazy after all these years.
Michele Bachman, lip synching like Milli Vanilli.
Newt Gingrich, stage presence…supporter absence.
Mitt Romney, if this was a football game, his play calling would consist of “take a knee”.
Herman Cain, even if he stands still …he’s passing the rest of this crowd. They all are losing gainage.
And, I’ll give him this…he is willing to mix it up, throw some haymakers and put something out there for others to have to respond to…courage is its own reward. If Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor aren’t running….my man, his man, Herman…he’s alright by me.
There is pundit-talk that Perry needed to hit it out of the park, but Perry probably doesn’t see it that way. He was up to the task & improved over his previous encounters, & I expect that his approach is ‘slow & steady wins the day’ once his other campaign skills come to bear.
Cain was engrossing as usual, but his 9-9-9 plan is starting to wear thin without further explanation & study. Tonight played to his strong suit – we’ll see how he does with the other debates.
Santorum was really on tonight, probably his best performance (other than forgeting to slip the word ‘trade’ into his desire for ‘war with China’), as when he turned to the audience as a prop to show a lack of support for Cain’s 9-9-9.
Bachmann still has nothing, certainly nothing new.
Huntsman just begs for stupid faux-pas, such as his crack at Perry about religion (already amply refuted).
Romney was scrambling at times as the rest of the pack starts to finally zero in on him. Obamacare – states can opt out . . . I’ll repeal it . . . we can do both. Or “I’ve spent my whole adult life in the private sector.” Yes, other than working on my dad’s gubernatorial campaigns, & his presidential campaign, & my mom’s senate campaign, & my gubernatorial campaign, & my term as governor, & my failed campaign for the senate, & my failed campaign for president last time, & my continued below-the-radar campaign ever since. Other than that . . .
Seriously, our candidates are demagoguing the 9-9-9 Plan? We already have a president that lambasts our plan while presenting a fictional plan of his own, do we need our own guys doing it?
If 9-9-9 is bad/wrong/tired, that’s only because Cain is the only one with a plan (good, bad or indifferent) who is talking about it. Perry is a career politician and quite frankly, Texas is doing well because it’s Constitution is set up to minimize the damage even a lousy politician can do. Massachusetts is a basket case– Romney might have raised the angle of the slide, but not much more than that. He’s a technocra, that thinks all this government needs is the right person to “fix” it. Bachmann let her crazy show with that “turn 9-9-9 upside down” crap (apparently, her plan is to be a tax lawyer– just what we need.) Paul and Gingrich make great points, and if we were playing “Presidential and Monetary Politics Jeopardy” it would be a close fight, and both of them would lose it and tell Alex Trebek to go to Hell. Huntsman is a sop to the liberals in the party, Santorum is a sop to the social conservatives in the party (I think they are used to keep the ratings for these things up a little.)
There are only 2 candidates (Cain and Paul) talking about the real problems in this country and offering REAL MEASURABLE solutions, and only one of them has business experience to back it up! They are both surging in the polls, too, which gives me hope that the Republican primary voters are looking past the 30-second-soundbite nature of these debates.
“Perry is a career politician and quite frankly, Texas is doing well because it’s Constitution is set up to minimize the damage even a lousy politician can do.”
For the former, Perry was an Air Force pilot for 5 years & a cotton farmer for 13. As to the latter about the Constitution minimizing the damage of politicians, then the reason for the great economy in Texas is . . . what?
Rick Perry was elected to the Texas State Legislature in 1984. He’s been a politician for 27 years. I would say that makes his career… what? Cotton farmer? Yell Leader? C-130 pilot?
As for what caused Texas to get jobs, a whole bunch of things– since we’re all conservatives here (I think, minus the trolls) we can all agree that government doesn’t create jobs, therefore, neither do politicians. They can, however, destroy them, or cause them to seek better opportunities. Texas has no state income tax, a booming oil industry, a strong, young labor force and a decent educational system. It also has a system of government that leaves the governor relatively week and only allows the legislature to meet once every 2 years for about 6 months (minus any emergency/special sessions) and also demands a balanced budget. This makes it hard to change things, like adding an income tax (not that it hasn’t been tried.) None of this was caused or created by Perry– it simply wasn’t changed. If Perry was touting the Texas SYSTEM as the one that worked, I’d be behind him– but as it is, he sounds like a politcian, “I created jobs…” I’m afraid he doesn’t really know why Texas is successful, and that scares me…
As you yourself said, the Texas legislature is less than a part-time job. Perry was still primarily a cotton farmer during that time & thus not a ‘career politician’. He actually started his political ‘career’ full time when he became the Agriculture Commissioner. Give him his due.
I agree that the main mover in the economy is Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ of the market, & thus government is often the ‘invisible foot’ that can damage it. But I can’t agree that if Perry just let the economy in Texas alone after years of Democrat legacies, it would be where it is today. I fully agree that politicians can ‘destroy jobs’ as you say, but some can effect a recovery from that toxic atmosphere to create opportunities to improve the economy. (Isn’t that exactly what we’re trying to do by removing Obama in favour of a Republican?)
As for the ‘weak governor’ argument, you work within the system you find. That doesn’t mean that the Texas governor is ineffectual. Do you want to know who else is weak? The President of the United States. The Constitution grants him the power of commander-in-chief of the armed forces, & the power to appoint judges & officials of the Executive (subject to approval of most). That’s about it. That is where Teddy Roosevelt’s famous quip came from, where he said that at least the presidency has a ‘bully pulpit’ (or a ‘bully teleprompter’ in the case of Obama). But surely you don’t argue that the President has no real power.
Nobody operates completely on their own, but Perry can justifiably claim no small responsibility for tort reform (a term where Democrats ‘dare not speak its name’, except Howard Dean, who freely admits the enormous power of the trial lawyers), and the ‘loser pays’ rule. He has been instrumental in reducing spending (the most since the 1950s), principally through his line-item veto, backed up by the budget schedule that gives him final say. He’s cut taxes on small business & property, while plowing money to the appropriate areas of education, cutting the overall budget but increasing teacher’s salaries & putting more into the classroom instead of administration & teachers unions. He has been a main force in the incentive funds that have helped create successful businesses.
The ‘booming oil industry’ (I certainly wouldn’t call it ‘booming’ at present) accounts for just over 2% of the work force. If others claim that all the new jobs are minimum wage, well, you can’t have the best economy in the nation with a state full of burger-flippers. Do you think that the Texas economy would be this way if the ‘system’ were controlled by Democrats?
They’re all scared to criticize the lunatic 9 9 9 plan…and it will be hung around the neck of the eventual candidate for 9 months, confirming the fears of anybody who every suspected that Republicans are all about lining the pockets of rich people. No matter who is nominated, the mere fact that the crazy plan has seen the light of day will cost Republicans 5% of the vote, minimum.
At least Bachmann took it on in a mild way, but there are dozens of frightening things about it she didn’t even touch on.
9 9 9 is the equivalent of throwing the economy in the air and shooting sectors with a shotgun. What it will do can’t even begin to be predicted. The unintended consequences are unimaginable. Why would any sane person support the most radical proposal by any candidate since McGovern?
Cain is our own little FDR. Casually playing god with 300 millions people’s lives, with a plan he has no qualifications to produce, and appears to have developed by appealing to the farthest right of the farthest right. Only FDR had popular support. 9 9 9 will have popular support from the 20% of the country who see a benefit in it for themselves; i.e., all of the people paying in the 25% bracket today. I’d love to hear Paul Ryan’s real opinion of 9 9 9.
Moreover, taxes aren’t even the problem. The problem is big governement’s out-of-control spending. Tax policy is barely relevant as long as the rates are low and corporate taxes are lowered to make the US more competitive. If taxes were the issue, every candidate would focus on them. 9 9 9 stirs a dangerous pot that doesn’t need to be stirred.
The race is still between Romney and Perry…unless the make believe media can convince enough thoughtless people to jump on the Cain bandwagon, and rational people stay away from the primaries because they are unhappy with all of the candidates.
Newt should win, but of course, he won’t. The mbm destroyed him years ago, even with conservatives. Almost every pjm’er is fully on board with the mbm’s themes about the best brain in the conservative universe. Meanwhile, Cain’s napkin plan is getting the publicity: no, getting the love. What a disaster.
To me I heard Newt Gingrich taking Ron Pauls views stealing Rons Strongest points. Seemed as if they intentionally gave him the questions first to steal Rons thunder.
As far as Cain I think 999 is all hes got. everytime he speaks even when the question is not related he somehow turns it to 999…hes going for obama style slogans with no content.
Why won’t anyone just come out and say that the insipid 999 plan calls for a tax on income and consumption. That’s a plan for growth in spending, debt, and deficit. It’s the type of plan you’d expect from a Fed. Reserve insider. Bachmann came close to pointing this out but wasn’t aggressive enough. I don’t understand you anyone concerned about government growth and individual rights would support it.
Cain and Romney (the current front-runners) both said TARP was the right move and didn’t back away from their original support of it. They just would’ve spent the money differently. Any way you slice it, TARP was a big bank bailout at tax-payer expense. At least, Ron Paul pointed out that it was the middle class that got beat up in the deal.
The only candidates that show any real consistency and heart are Paul and Bachmann. The other guys flip-flop all over the place and lack any true sincerity.