9:04 Romney and McCain asked about stimulus proposal. Romney tries to outbid Bush. So does McCain. So does Giuliani. One thing about a recession: it brings out the borrow and spend instinct in politicians- Republicans with tax cuts, Democrats with spending. A plague on both your houses!
9:08 Giuliani takes on Sarbanes-Oxley. Talk about a Beltway issue!
9:09 Russert slams McCain, quoting McCain as stating that he knows much less about economics than foreign policy. McCain denies saying it. He points out Wall Street Journal article saying majority of economists on his side.
Huck says "We'll just borrow the 'stimulus' money from the Chinese, and it'll all get spent on retail goods from China.'" Good point!
9:12 Huckabee suggests stimulating the economy by building two more lanes on I-95. Yep, just build more pork, so people can drive more miles and give more money to the Saudis. Not so good point! On environmental issues, this guy is a disaster - more roads, more sprawl, more government. And he's not so good on spending either!
9:13 Romney cites his record as governor (good) then demagogues the tax issue against McCain (not so good). Romney runs as Bush II- let's just cut taxes and stimulate the economy, just like in 2002. He must not have listened to Huckabee mentioning the deficit.
9:15 McCain blames midterm losses on "bridge to nowhere." Is he kidding? The evidence from the poll data is, as I recall, pretty overwhelming: the Republicans didn't have any trouble holding their base, they lost independents.
9:16 Paul hits stimulus issue. He says we should stop interfering with "market" rate of interest. He hits old-fashioned basics- no more spending, no more borrowing. "We're literally spending ourselves on oblivion." Kind of free associating. But hits key point: you can't separate domestic policy and foreign policy; you can't really say "Government spending doesn't count as long as its for war." You can spend yourself into a hole just as easily on war as on welfare.
No one in this round was real coherent.
9:20 Russert asks everyone: after $2 trillion increase in national debt, doubling of gas prices, increase in unemployment, why trust Republicans on economics?
McCain attacks Dems, hitting all the usual bases. Also hits Bush on pork barrel, comes out for fiscal discipline. "We will clean up our act and we will regain the confidence of the American people ... we will balance our budget."
Huckabee says "I wasn't in Washington". Points out he was the only one who saw that the economy had problems a few months ago; everyone else was saying the economy was great.
