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-