metro » debate s
Insults Fly, But Little Talk
Of Michigan Or Mideast
Democrats Focus
On Flint, Detroit
to get back in the schools. It worked beautifully.
Cleveland’s coming back.
etroit played host to a Republican debate
“If I were president, I’d take 104 federal pro-
that will go down in history as the one
grams, bundle them into four buckets and send
where Donald Trump defended the size
it to the states, because fixing schools rests at the
of his private parts.
state and the local level, and particularly at the
After a week that saw Sen. Marco Rubio making school board level.”
fun of Trump’s small hands, Trump
Sen. Ted Cruz was asked how he
defended himself within the first five
would do to bring back manufactur-
minutes of the March 3 debate that
ing jobs back to Detroit.
might have covered topics includ-
After stating “left-wing Democrats
ing the Flint water crisis, Michigan’s
have pursued destructive tax policies,
high unemployment figures, the
weak crime policies and have driven
Iran deal and Israel.
the citizens out,” he said, “The way
But after the first question to
you bring manufacturing back to
Trump about 2012 Republican
America is, No. 1, you lift the regu-
candidate Mitt Romney’s scathing
lations. As president, I will repeal
speech earlier that day, the modera-
Obamacare, the biggest job-killer in
tors questioned Rubio’s weeklong
America. I will pull back the federal
personal attacks on Trump, includ- Donald Trump in the spin regulators, the EPA and all the regula-
ing the size of his hands. But it was room after the debate
tors that are killing small businesses
Trump’s rebuttal that brought the
and manufacturing.
house down.
“We get rid of the corporate income tax and the
“He hit my hands,” Trump said. “I’ve never
death tax and the Obamacare taxes and the payroll
heard of this one. Look at those hands. Are they
tax. And we replace it with a 16 percent business
small hands?
flat tax that is border adjustable, which means all
“And he referred to my hands, if they’re small,
exports are entirely tax-free and all imports pay
something else must be small,” he added. “I guar-
the 16 percent business flat tax. That’s a 32 percent
antee you, there’s no problem. My guarantee.”
differential.
As the two-hour debate went on, the attacks
“What that will do, Chris, “he continued, “is
among three of four candidates intensified, and at
bring millions of manufacturing jobs back to
one point, Gov. John Kasich, the fourth candidate
this country, bring the steel industry back to this
said “And, people say everywhere I go, ‘you seem
country, create an environment where when we
to be the adult on the stage.’”
compete on a fair and level playing field, American
The moderators didn’t ask questions about con-
ingenuity can beat anyone. But right now, the
cerns facing Michiganders until it was nearly over.
federal government isn’t giving us a level playing
Sen. Rubio called the Flint water crisis a “sys-
field.”
temic breakdown at every level of government.”
In the spin room after the debate, Trump
He gave Gov. Rick Snyder credit for taking
addressed the federal response to the Flint water
responsibility and said the crisis should not be
crisis.
politicized, “the way the Democrats have tried to
“They have to work with the state government
turn this into a partisan issue.
and let it get done because it’s a really terrible
“There is a proper role for the government to
thing,” he said. “I feel very, very badly for the
play at the federal level, in helping local com-
people of Flint. But the federal government has to
munities to respond to a catastrophe of this kind,
work with the state and they have to get it done.”
not just to deal with the people that have been
In a wild debate where some 50 people in the
impacted by it, but to ensure that something like
audience were reportedly ejected for shouting over
this never happens again,” he said.
the moderators and candidates, it was hard to pick
Kasich was asked if the federal government
a winner.
should bail out the Detroit Public Schools in the
David Farbman of Bloomfield Hills said Kasich
same way that it bailed out the auto industry.
“showed very well and stood by his record and
“This is not much different than what happened kept his cool.
in Cleveland, Ohio, where the African-American
“He maxed his moments,” Farbman said.
Democrat mayor, the union and business leaders
“Trump was Trump and probably won the debate,
came to see me and said, “Would you help us to
I suppose. Admittedly, I was impressed with
pass legislation to really create a CEO environment Trump’s ability to keep his cool. That type of above
so that we can take control of the schools?” Kasich and clear focus is a great leadership skill. Short of
said.
something seriously changing, I think Trump is on
“We even invested in a buyout plan, where we
his way to a presidential showdown with Hillary.”
bought out the teachers who had been there a long
Trump led with 389 delegates, Cruz with 302,
time, because there were so many young teachers
Rubio with 149 and Kasich with 37 going into the
who had been laid off who were so enthusiastic
Michigan primary on March 8.
Samuel Gringlas |
Special to the Jewish News
Harry Kirsbaum | Contributing Writer
HARRY KIRSBAUM
D
*
26 March 10 • 2016
Flint
T
he state of Michigan got
a bright spotlight during
Sunday’s Democratic presi-
dential debate in Flint, particularly
as the city struggles to cope with
a water crisis that left many of its
citizens sick from lead poisoning.
Minutes into the debate, Hillary
Clinton, the former secretary
of state, for the first time said
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder should
resign or be recalled. Vermont Sen.
Bernie Sanders had already called
for Snyder’s resignation — and reit-
erated that view on Sunday.
The water crisis began more than
two years ago when city and state
officials made the decision to pro-
cure Flint’s drinking water from the
Flint River. Officials failed to treat
the water properly, allowing lead
from the city’s pipes to leach into
the water.
Both Democratic candidates have
staked out the Flint water crisis
as a campaign issue, and Sunday’s
nationally televised debate was per-
haps a pinnacle of that attention.
During the debate, both Sanders
and Clinton said those responsible
for the crisis — at all levels of gov-
ernment — should be fired or even
go to jail, should an investigation
result in criminal charges. Apart
from calls on the state to allocate
the necessary funding to respond
to the crisis, the Democrats each
promised to invest millions in
infrastructure all across the coun-
try and to provide continuing sup-
port for Flint’s residents as they
face the long-term impacts of lead
poisoning. For her part, Clinton
pledged to remove lead nationwide
— in pipes, paint and soil — with-
in five years of taking office.
Sanders, too, noted that the
problem is not unique to Flint.
“We have a higher rate of tested
lead in people in Cleveland than in
Flint,” Sanders said. “So I’m not sat-
isfied with just doing everything we
must do for Flint. I want to tackle
this problem across the board.”
One Flint resident asked how
people can expect to trust either
candidate when it was government
Candidates Discuss Faith
At Democratic Debate
Bernie
Sanders
Hillary
Clinton
Samuel Gringlas | Special to the Jewish News
Flint
V
ermont Sen. Bernie Sanders made history last month as the first
Jew to win a major party’s presidential primary — but without
the tip-off from his hallmark Brooklyn accent, you might not
have known it. That’s because the presidential candidate often shies from
talking about Judaism directly. In New Hampshire, he referred to himself
as the son of a Polish immigrant, not a Jewish one.
But on Sunday, Sanders received this question from an audience mem-