The third debate is particularly noted by the infamous clash of Bush and Rubio over Rubio's voting absentee record, Cruz' blasting debate moderators' questions and Christie's "get a life" moment over the discussion of regulating fantasy sports.
Who impressed me? Carson, Fiorina, and Christie. Rand Paul was very good, but for the most part, he was ignored by the moderators (I think he got one question during the entire first hour, except for introductions) and didn't have enough of an impact for me to place him in the money. Who disappointed me? Trump, Kasich and Huckabee. Bush was better than the reviews had led me to believe, although his slap at Rubio's attendance record/missing votes was an unforced impossible-to-understand blunder. The door had been opened by the moderator, and Rubio had not brought Bush into the discussion. I blame the moderator for not pointing out that Rand Paul has had a better attendance record and that Dole had resigned his Senate seat during his 1996 run. This is not to say I was pleased with Rubio's evasive response, that the Democrats, including POTUS, also had poor vote-casting records during their Presidential runs: true, the leftstream media is hypocritical, but since Rubio is not running for reelection, arguing that everybody else does it is not convincing. Similarly, his response of why he initially put personal expenses on a GOP credit card was unconvincing--talking about the tough times faced by other middle class people is evasive.
Similarly, I was not impressed with Cruz, setting aside a question about the national debt to launch a populist diatribe against moderators asking dumb, divisive questions. He then complained when the moderators went to another candidate (I think Rand Paul) after he squandered his question time with his rant.
Kasich got on my nerves from the get-go when the field was asked to describe their worst personal trait and were told not to give trite responses, like I'm a workaholic or I care too much. In my case, for example, I don't suffer fools gladly and can be impatient with certain people. Kasich used his time for political grandstanding.
Huckabee did some grandstanding on entitlements, arguing that reforms or cuts (e.g., means testing and/or raising the retirement age) are morally outrageous fearmongering. I think both Christie and Paul addressed the house of cards, that dwindling assets are little more than than IOU's in past wasteful spending. I am not going to engage in a lengthy discussion of the federal Ponzi schemes, but the fact is that longer time spans and costs required significantly more contributions than have occurred and in the case of Medicare we see a 3-1 distribution-contribution ratio:
The reality is that a male earning an average wage over his lifetime will receive from Medicare lifetime benefits in retirement that amount to $180,000.[1] Lifetime Medicare taxes for this average male would have amounted to only $61,000. Thus, over a lifetime, such an individual would have “earned” through payroll taxes only about one-third of their Medicare benefits. For a female earning the average wage, the situation faces even great discrepancy. Because she will live longer, her lifetime benefits will amount to $207,000 even though she will have paid in the identical amount of payroll taxes over a lifetime. In short, she will collect $146,000 more in benefits than the taxes she paid into the Medicare trust fund.I'm not going to analyze the debate line for line, but just a few notes on certain talking points:
- Trump's defense of his companies' 4 bankruptcies and emphasis that he has not filed a personal bankruptcy, that he was simply taking advantage of what lots of other business owners have also done in our American system, is unsatisfactory. The fact of the matter is that he victimized vendors and creditors, and if I'm not mistaken, he only personally survived the first bankruptcy by the grace of his creditors (it had to do with the terms of the creditor contracts). I find his explanations entirely self-serving.
- Christie's discussion of the (implied) Daraprim issue included a reference to price gouging laws. To me, price gouging laws are morally bad, economically counterproductive policy.
- Cruz got a 77-center question from the female moderator. This has long been debunked when you factor in things like experience, hours worked, marital status, etc. (I have written several comments on this; Mark Perry of Carpe Diem has devoted posts on the topic). Cruz did not debunk the claim, which he should have. Any free marketer would point out that there is an economic incentive to arbitrage any systematic bias.
- Bush got on my bad side by pushing for regulation of fantasy sports. As I recall, he seemed to suggest state vs. federal regulation, but he was going against the grain by pushing for more rather than less regulation.
- I thought that Kasich's response to the comparison of Ex-Im Bank subsidies, which he rightly opposes, to state wheeling and dealing to attract new businesses was weak.
- Huckabee's "cure" for Medicare solvency is to solve big-cost diseases like cancer. Government cannot cure disease by fiat; it can speed drugs to the marketplace by reforming or privatizing FDA authority.
- I think it's ironic that Cruz, vs. Paul, got a question on the Fed. His points on audit of the Fed, rule-based monetary policy, and convertible notes (e.g., backed by gold) were solid. I would have also included repeal of the full-employment mandate.
- Kasich made a good point of devolving money and authority to the states in regulatory reform.
- Fiorina had a persistent, solid talking point about crony capitalism and its manifest form in special interest-influenced mega-regulations.
- Fiorina's defense of HP's price performance under her leadership is still evasive and unconvincing.
- Trump's idea that entitlement reform will be a non-issue once he restores American economic growth is delusional. Economic growth might postpone the day of reckoning, but we have an intrinsic funding issue involving our aging workforce.
- Fiorina scored a bonus point by talking zero-based budgeting, and Carson repeatedly called for regulatory reform.
- Paul scored a solid point by blaming an unholy alliance of both parties for contributing to the budget problem. He should have fleshed out better how he would address this problem.
- Fiorina, and to a lesser extent Christie, explicitly singled out Hillary Clinton for criticism. Huckabee added how he had succeeded in beating the Clinton machine in Arkansas.
My rank order of debate winners (in descending order):
- Carson
- Christie
- Fiorina
- Paul
- Rubio
- Cruz
- Bush
- Kasich
- Huckabee
- Trump
