“Trump took 38 percent of the vote in the Drudge Report poll as of 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, followed by Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) at 22 percent, Rand Paul (Ky.) at 16 percent and Marco Rubio (Fla.) at 12 percent. Other candidates took 5 percent or less in the that poll. Trump also led in Time magazine’s online poll, taking 43 percent, followed by Paul at 19 percent, Rubio at 15 percent, Cruz at 7 percent, Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 5 percent and Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson at 4 percent each.” – Washington Post And from a much better WSJ poll -> “Among GOP voters, Mr. Trump was declared the winner by 28%, with 23% naming Mr. Rubio. Mr. Cruz followed, with 16%, while Mr. Carson had 14%. Other candidates were in single digits among GOP voters: Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina were named the winner by 7% of GOP debate-viewers, while Jeb Bush had 3% and John Kasich 2%” – Wall Street Journal.
Republican Rantings (based on AP analysis):
CARSON: “Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases.”
NOPE: When the minimum wage was increased in 1996 and 1997, the unemployment rate fell afterward. In June 2007, when the first of three annual minimum wage increases was implemented, the unemployment rate was unchanged until the Great Recession began six months later.
Economic research has found that when states raise their minimum wages higher than neighboring states, they don’t typically fare any worse than their neighbors.
RUBIO: “Welders make more money than philosophers.”
NOPE: Rubio is arguing that the U.S. has failed to invest in vocational training — a point also stressed by President Barack Obama’s now-defunct jobs council. But Rubio is wrong to suggest that studying philosophy is a waste of money and time. PayScale, a firm that analyzes compensation, put the median mid-career income for philosophy majors at $81,200 in 2008, with welders making $26,002 to $63,698.
And Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce said in a 2014 analysis that median incomes were $68,000 for people with an advanced degree in philosophy or religious studies.
CRUZ, holding out his hand and unfolding one finger at a time to punctuate his point: “Five major agencies that I would eliminate: the IRS (his thumb), the Department of Commerce (index finger), the Department of Energy (middle finger), uh, the Department of Commerce (ring finger), and HUD (pinkie).”
Oops: He flubbed his own list, naming the Commerce Department twice and leaving out one of the agencies he proposes to close, according to his website: the Education Department. Another Texan Wannabee President, Rick Perry back in November 2011, could come up with only two of the three departments he wanted to close, Commerce and Education. “Oops,” he said’
BUSH: “We could get to 4 percent growth.”
Hunhh?: Remember Reagan and Voodoo Economics? Bush frequently holds out hope of 4 percent growth, but even conservative economists who like his fiscal and tax plans consider it a false hope. According to current forecasts, growth is expected to average roughly half that rate.
DONALD TRUMP: The Pacific trade agreement signed by President Obama with 11 other nations “was designed for China to come in through the back door and take advantage of everyone.”
China???: The Trans-Pacific Partnership does not include China, In fact is is opposed by China because it builds an alliance of everybudy on the Pacific Rim except the Eternal Kingdom. China may be forced, out of its own needs, to join later, but without having any influence on the agreement’s terms.
DONALD TRUMP: “… China takes advantage (of the U.S.) through currency manipulation.
Out of date: The conservative Peterson Institute for International Economics concluded in 2012 that China’s currency by then was fully valued. The International Monetary Fund has reached the same conclusion.
CARLY FIORINA: “Obamacare isn’t really helping anybody.”
THE FACTS: In the two years it’s been in effect, the share of Americans without health insurance has declined to 9 percent, a historic low. People with pre-existing health conditions can no longer be turned away by insurers, and everyone is required to have coverage or face fines. This part of the law is what many Republicans dislike, but it comes from conservative roots. The universal coverage is built on Mitt Romney (and the Heritage Institute)’s solution to the problem of keeping costs low. The alternative of state-run high-risk health insurance pools like the one Fiorina proposes to replace the law have been tried before and failed to solve the problem.
Fiorina’s other solution, a “free market” will be a fantasy until she or someone proposes a system that is not like our present system based on local health care monopolies. Marcus Welby is not coming back.
CRUZ: Since 2008, the economy has grown on average only 1.2 percent a year, showing “the Obama economy is a disaster.”
Too clever by half: Cruz picks his dates with care. “2008” masks the fact that Obama inherited a raging recession in his first year, when the economy shrank by 2.5 percent. In the five years since, the economy expanded an average of 2 percent, more than Cruz’s figure. Obama also inherited a debt of as much a $4 trilion dollars for Bush’s unfunded war and tax cuts. Meanwhile, the uS under Obama has doen better than any other developed country in the face of the world wide cponsequences of the crach of 2008 and th competition with China.
TRUMP: “I will tell you, I don’t have to give you a website because I’m self-funding my campaign. I’m putting up my own money.”
Such modesty! Errr ahhh. Trump started out with a “loan” (tax deductible!) of 1.9 million. In his bracket that means at least half of the loan cam form Uncle Sugar Daddy. But, the investment proves good in terms of return on ivestment (but still not taxable). Trump’s latest campaign finance report, filed Oct. 15 with the Federal Election Commission, shows that of $3.9 million his campaign raised in the latest fundraising quarter just $100,000 came from Trump, and the rest from donors.
BUSH: “We need to raise the (banks’) capital requirements. … Dodd-Frank has actually done the opposite, totally the opposite. … Bigger banks have more and more control over the financial assets of this country.”
Three Pinnochios : Actually, the Dodd-Frank legislation, passed in 2010 in the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, has pushed banks to raise more capital — in other words, to obtain more of their funding from investment, rather than debt. Dodd-Frank was criticized earlier this year by the right-leaning American Action Forum for effectively forcing banks to raise more capital.
CARSON: Discussing the presence of Russian troops in Syria, added that “the Chinese are there” as well.
Mental fart? China has no publicly known deployment of military forces in Syria. In recent days, some news reports have suggested that China would send a warship to Syria, but China’s foreign ministry has denied that. China has used its status as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to block the U.N. from taking action on Syria, citing a commonly heard argument against violating Syrian sovereignty.