Democrat Debate Long On Rhetoric, Short on Reform

The GOP Presidential candidates have debated twice, but finally taxpayers were able to hear from the Democrat field of contenders running to replace President Obama. In their first nationwide debate, five candidates gathered on stage in Las Vegas to field questions about a wide range of issues the country is faced with today. Unfortunately, much of the discussion and the answers left much to be desired.

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) will not be endorsing a candidate for either party’s nomination, our goal is to analyze what all of the candidates are saying on the issues that matter most to taxpayers. In the first debate amongst the field of Democrats, those issues were largely ignored.

Comprehensive tax reform is an issue that TPA has been working on for years, and each year the urgency has grown to get something done in Washington. Our tax code with regulations now totals more than ten million words, and there’s a good chance that number will continue to increase if Congress continues to do nothing. The five Democratic candidates only mentioned taxes in passing.  No candidate delved into any specific plan for overhauling the tax code and the usual left-leaning mantra of “tax the rich” could be heard a time or two.

In Forbes, Jeremy Scott summed up the discussion on taxes:

Taxes were discussed. Bernie, of course, wants to use them to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, something it’s not clear his plan even addresses. Chafee wants a new 45 percent bracket on higher incomes. And Hillary talked some about the numerous small tax provisions she would like to enact to accomplish extremely specific, targeted goals. But nothing said onstage Tuesday night should give any tax reform observers hope that a Democratic White House in 2017 will be any more behind a broad tax reform effort than President Obama has been.

Reforming Pentagon spending is another issue that is important to taxpayers and an area that TPA has called on all the candidates to focus on. The GOP debates have offered little to nothing when it comes to plans or even a discussion about how to get the Pentagon budget under control. Anyone with hopes for hearing differently in the Democrat debate were severely let down. There was limited talk about issues of foreign affairs and in that brief discussion there was no mention of how to reform spending at the only federal agency that hasn’t submitted a full audit as required by law. William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Project, at the Center for International Policy took to the Huffington Post to highlight the obvious missing conversation on Pentagon spending and why that could lead to even more money being wasted, or at least the promise of more money wasted:

As noted above the Democratic candidates for president also failed to highlight the issue of the Pentagon’s misguided spending priorities, from buying weapons we don’t need at prices we can’t afford to the billions in waste caused by its inability to pass an audit. The candidates need to prepare themselves to address the Pentagon spending question in the general election, if for no other reason than to avoid getting into a bidding war over who can throw more money at the department.

Defense is critical, but if our leaders are not being smart about how federal agencies are allocating taxpayer money for needed resources, that puts the entire nation at risk.

Finally, spending reduction overall was something we heard almost nothing about from any of the candidates. Unfortunately at a time when the United States is $18 trillion in debt, the field of Democrats running for President used the first debate to tell taxpayers how much they would be spending. Proposals that dealt with education, healthcare, energy, immigration, and taxes all combined to add up to over $1.3 trillion in additional annual spending.  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tallied up the most in spending with proposals that cost over $1 trillion. The National Taxpayers Union noted that former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chaffee was the lone candidate who had no quantifiable spending proposals to measure.  As far as spending reduction, both Secretary Hillary Clinton and Sen. Sanders had proposals for criminal justice reform that would reduce spending. The takeaway however is very clear, the five candidates had no plans for any serious spending reduction.

A record 15.3 million viewers tuned in to watch the Democrats debate on CNN, it’s a shame that there was a lack of substance on some of the key issues that taxpayers care about most. With two hours and only five people on stage, the opportunity to get serious and specific on tax reform, spending reduction, and Pentagon reform was absolutely missed. Going forward, TPA hopes that the candidates on both the GOP and Democrat side of the aisle use their time on stage to talk about how they will make the tax code work better for Americans; how they will reform the Pentagon so that billions of dollars aren’t thrown away every year on wasteful programs; and how they will get our national debt under control with a clear plan for a budget that spends and saves responsibly. Everyone is listening, it’s time all the candidates say something meaningful on these key issues.