The question Republicans can't or won't answer

Republican candidates would have us believe that the problems in the economy are all the fault of the Democrats:    all those bank regulations, give-away programs, high taxes stifling business investment, and don't forget Obamacare.

But one of the debate moderators, Gerard Baker, who is editor of the Wall Street Journal, asked this question of Carly Fiorino: 

". . . in seven years under President Obama, the U.S. has added an average of 107,000 jobs a month. Under President Clinton, the economy added about 240,000 jobs a month. Under George W. Bush, it was only 13,000 a month. If you win the nomination, you'll probably be facing a Democrat named Clinton. How are you going to respond to the claim that Democratic presidents are better at creating jobs than Republicans?"

Here's a graph to illustrate those facts, attributed to NDN:


Fiorino went into full pirouette and never did address the basic premise of the question:  that the economy, especially as measured by job growth, does better during Democratic administrations than during Republican ones.

In fact, she completely ignored the facts in the question and said:   "Yes, things have gotten much worse under Democrats."   What??   Jonathan Cohn wrote this for Huffington Post:

"Fiorina responded with a generic pitch for smaller government, lower taxes and fewer regulations -- a strategy, she promised, that would boost growth, create jobs and raise wages. It was the same argument that other Republicans made, in different forms, throughout the evening. And it was consistent with their economic policy proposals, which consist primarily of massive tax cuts that would mainly benefit the wealthiest Americans.

"But neither Fiorina nor her counterparts could explain away the premise of Baker's question. . . .  In short, [George] Bush tried the preferred Republican strategy while Clinton and Obama tried the opposite -- yet job growth under Bush was the worst and the numbers aren't even close.

"Of course, this correlation between Democratic administrations and stronger employment doesn’t prove that one caused the other. . . .  Some taxes and regulations make sense.   Some don't.  Timing makes a huge difference, as do the trade-offs and policy nuances. . . . 

"But the available evidence . . . puts the burden of proof on Republicans, who are making the same old arguments on taxes and regulations that they've been making for decades. They need to provide evidence that their solutions will unleash a more robust economy -- one that's good not just for the richest 1 percent, but also for everybody else. That’s not an easy case to make."

As long as Republicans are debating each other, and all agree on this, then they can continue to dodge the question.   But in the end one of them is going to be on stage with a Democrat.   And that candidate better have an answer that deals with the facts.

Here's a thing:   the moderator who asked the question is editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal.   I would like to hear his answer to the question.

Ralph