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Sunday, March 20, 2016

The 2016 Eleventh GOP Presidential Debate

Tweet of the Night
[Ed. 3/26/16. Whereas the tweets are timely, it's possibly that some points in the following discussion reflect the twelfth debate because of a blended note issue I recently discovered.]

The eleventh debate took place in Detroit. (I know this is a couple of weeks after the event; I'm publishing a full set of debate reviews over this election cycle.) Note that my links are current at the time of publication, but videos can be taken down without my knowledge. This review is not necessarily a comprehensive blow-by-blow, but I will discuss certain salient points from my perspective.

One thread that got some play was TPP (the giant pan-Pacific trade agreement) and TPA (fast track authorization: basically it gives the President more flexibility in negotiating a trade pact, and it restricts the mischief of special-interest anti-trade demagogues to derail a trade pact with unacceptable amendments) Generally, Republicans have been in favor of free trade over the last few decades, with a few notable exceptions like Bush's steel import tariffs, which were later reversed.  Let me point out that I favor TPP and TPA; most of us free traders are well-aware that a managed trade pact is not free trade but to the extent the pact improves overall trade liberalization, which we see as win-win, we support it as a glass half full. I would prefer declaring unilateral free trade but short of a free market economist elected to power, it's all but impossible.

Let's point out that even Rand Paul demagogued the issue, referring to TPP as "ObamaTrade" and TPA as unconstitutional delegation of power to the President at the expense of the Congress. Part of the story was a lurking suspicion of secret deals made by Obama undermining American sovereignty. So most politicians were afraid of having to defend a trade pact which seemed to be at the expense of American jobs and some globalist conspiracy. Cruz initially voted for TPA (May 22, 2015). The TPA bill included TAA,,a pot of money set aside to assist workers allegedly losing work under trade pact competitive challenges, e.g., to transition to other marketable positions/skills.

A funny thing happened in the House of Representatives.  For technical reasons, the House broke up TPA and TAA into separate votes. The House Democrats tried a  poison pill approach to killing the bill by counterintuitively voting AGAINST TAA, normally a union priority. There are ways, of course, to attach the TAA money elsewhere, but the key point is even though TPA had passed the Senate, the vote against TAA required a second vote in the Senate, which meant McConnell had to give the Senate Dems an incentive to pass stripped down TPA.  In the meanwhile WikiLeaks had disclosed some information behind the TPP negotiations, which touched on some immigration categories (Cruz would use TiSA as one of his reasons later for changing his mind). Senate Majority Leader McConnell started looking for bargaining chips to motivate Senate Democrat votes; one of these, in Cruz' opinion, was the Export-Import Bank (crony capitalism welfare), ironically supported by Dems because of strong union support from relevant companies (e.g.,Boeing). The Congress had finally seemed put a stop to Ex-Im (a key Cruz/GOP goal) for the first time since the Depression but Cruz thought that McConnell had reneged on a key partisan commitment not to resurrect Ex-Im from political death. (It wasn't attached to TPA, but Cruz felt that was just a technicality.) So he voted against TPA the second time, June 23.

Do I agree with Cruz' second vote/rationalization? No. I share Cruz' distaste for Ex-Im, but the House had opened that door. Worse, Cruz' contradictory votes not openly opened up the attack he voted for ObamaTrade, but allowed a second point of attack that he flip-flopped on the issue, in John Kerry fashion. Moreover, explaining all the nuances of House and Senate procedures and political gamesmanship to bring legislation to the floor of Congress defies debate time slices of 60-90 seconds or so of allocated time, not to mention going over the head of a debate audience. You can almost hear Chris Christie roll his eyes and repeat his charge about inexperienced senators yapping all the time and getting nothing done; you think Christie never had to negotiate with the NJ Dem-dominated legislature? Of course he had to.

I seriously wanted to kick Kasich's ass over the utterly predictable populist soundbite of  "free but fair trade". To me what's fair is the consumer gets to choose his vendor, whether it's the store down the street or halfway around the world, without some political whore getting in the way. Rubio pointed out that 95% of global consumers are outside our borders. Trump once again griped about currency manipulation. Cruz points out that it isn't foreign governments who pay for tariffs but the American consumer who is being taxed. Trump is insisting his tough guy act on trade will pay off in resourced jobs. (In fact, some resourced plants are returning--but not because of government policy; it has more to do with more competitive energy costs and other context-driven concerns. Mark Perry of Carpe Diem has discussed these.)

There was a correlated discussion (surprise! surprise!) on immigration. There were some hits on Trump's own gaming system of hiring legal and undocumented foreign workers; Trump tries to make it a feature, not a bug, by claiming that he knows all the loopholes and can stop them (never mind his own hypocrisy on immigration policy). Kasich is the main guy who brings up a guest worker program vs. the usual litany of policies to restrict immigration--fences, more Border Patrol, e-verify, etc.) Rubio talked about zero-sum games between family vs. merit-based systems (the current system is weighted towards the former)--I kept wanting to scream "expand the quotas".  Cruz was arguing too many unskilled workers, cracking down on sanctuary cities. (I am not impressed with Cruz' arguments here: I think the American economy can use both skilled and unskilled workers, and generally a top-down approach from Washington to local communities contradicts the localization/Subsidiarity principle of governance.)

There was a discussion of education policy. Trump seems to equate Common Core with some inappropriate federal mandate over education; he really doesn't understand Common Core. Moreover, Trump doesn't really have a coherent philosophy behind what things should be done at the federal vs. state level. Cruz has the broadest discussion, in terms of educational choice, ending federal mandates, etc. My basic concern with this discussion is what, if anything, should the federal government do about educational choice, besides devolving federal authority to the states. I agree with the concept of an open education market, but this needs to happen on the state/local level.

For one of the few times in the debates, social security comes into play. Rubio talks about the need to address the issue, do things like gradually increase the retirement age, no changes for people close to retirement. Trump is in a clueless state of denial, refusing to discuss any benefit changes, claiming that social security and Medicare can be fixed by eliminating waste. Once again, Cruz provides the most comprehensive response, including reconfiguring benefit increases of a cost vs. labor increase basis, private accounts, etc.

There was a continuation of  more recent personal attacks among candidates; Trump was after Cruz for backing "amnesty" and flip-flopping on ethanol; Cruz hit the Donald for corruptly funding politicians (including many of the Senate Gang of 8). Kasich is concerned at violence around Trump rallies.

Kasich keeps running on his record in Congress and as Ohio's governor; does someone want to clue him in on the fact this is an antiestablishment cycle and there's a reason every other governor has withdrawn from the race?

There was some discussion on climate change. Rubio points out Draconian environmental policies hurt our economy, with any savings more than offset by expanding emissions from developing economies and whether or not man's activities are material beyond natural causes beyond our control, the issue is to mitigate effects, e.g., on the coastline.  Kasich once again annoys me with his cliche "all of the above"energy policy; no, it's called an open energy market, John. No need for the government to pick winners and losers. In fact, slumping fossil fuel prices have hurt the prices for substitute alternative sources. The government should not be subsidizing yuppies wanting to purchase Teslas or alternatives.

There were some squirmishes over foreign policy. Cruz went after Trump on illegal orders on torture and going after terrorists' own families. Rubio considers Palestine a terrorist state (Hamas). Rubio doesn't like the idea of easing the Cuban embargo until he sees democratic reforms there. I don't believe in intervening in the internal affairs of other countries; the Cuban embargo is an anachronism from the days of containing the USSR; we resumed trade with China without changing their political system.  Do I prefer a socialist Cuba? Of course not: I'm a libertarian. But once the scapegoat embargo is gone, the corrupt Cuban government will be held responsible for its dysfunctional policies.

The final debate performances ranked from high to low:
  • Cruz
  • Rubio
  • Kasich
  • Trump
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