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Democrats Argue Over How Much to Tax the Rich: Debate Takeaways

Democrats Argue Over How Much to Tax the Rich: Debate Takeaways

(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden faced questions about his son’s work. Elizabeth Warren was hit over her Medicare for All plan. And Bernie Sanders was questioned about his health.

The fourth Democratic debate on Tuesday revealed sharper edges than its predecessors, as the candidates were tested by the moderators and challenged by each other.

With the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump sucking up attention and the clock ticking away to the Iowa caucuses, Pete Buttigieg showed a more aggressive side, while Cory Booker repeatedly called for peace among his Democratic rivals.

The candidates saved their harshest words for Trump, with every one of the dozen people on stage calling for his impeachment and several calling him the most corrupt president in history.

Democrats Argue Over How Much to Tax the Rich: Debate Takeaways

Warren Won’t Give a Yes or No on Taxes

Given her recent rise to a statistical tie with Biden at the top of the polls, Warren should have been expecting some sharp questions at Tuesday’s debate.

Yet early into the event she once again ducked the question when Buttigieg asked whether middle-class tax increases would be needed to fund her signature Medicare for All plan to create a government-run health care system that abolishes private insurance.

She responded obliquely, saying twice that “costs” would go up for the rich and would go down for the middle class, giving Buttigieg one of the evening’s most memorable moments. “We heard it tonight. A yes-or-no question that didn’t get a yes-or-no answer,” Buttigieg said. “Your signature is to have a plan for everything, except this.”

Buttigieg said voters should have the right to chose between public or private health insurance as he pitched his “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan. He said taking away private insurance would only further polarize an already divided nation. Warren, simply raised her hand while refusing to look at Buttigieg and fired back.

“So let’s be clear, whenever someone hears the term ‘Medicare for All who want it,’ understand what that really means: It’s Medicare for all who can afford it,” she said.

Rivals Rally Around Biden and His Son

Democrats at Tuesday’s debate rallied around Biden over his son’s involvement in business deals in Ukraine and China, suggesting that any criticism would only give Trump more ammunition for his unrelenting attacks on the former vice president.

“We are literally using Donald Trump’s lies and the second issue we cover on this stage is elevating a lie and attacking a statesman,” Booker said after CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Biden about whether it had been improper for his son Hunter to hold a position on the board of a foreign company.

In the weeks leading up to the debate, several of Biden’s opponents -- including Kamala Harris, Booker and Beto O’Rourke -- had suggested that work like Hunter Biden’s should not be allowed for the children of a president or vice president to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. On Sunday, Hunter Biden announced that he would leave the board of a Chinese firm at the end of October and would forgo all foreign work if his father were elected president.

But none of Biden’s rivals took him to task on the issue at the debate. He argued there was nothing to the story, which he blamed Trump and “his thugs” for spreading.

“My son did nothing wrong; I did nothing wrong,” Biden said. “I carried out the policy of the United States government in rooting out corruption in Ukraine.”

Democrats Argue Over How Much to Tax the Rich: Debate Takeaways

Sanders Is ‘Feeling Great’ After Heart Attack

Sanders saw the question about his heart attack coming, and jumped in, cutting off moderator Erin Burnett.

“I’m healthy, I’m feeling great,” he said. But first, he said, he wanted to respond to a back-and-forth on medical marijuana.

Booker interrupted to note that Sanders was in favor of medical marijuana. “I’m not on it tonight,” Sanders joked.

The 78-year-old was then pressed on how he would would reassure Democratic voters concerned about his recent emergency heart surgery and his age. His answer: by campaigning. “We’re going to be mounting a vigorous campaign all over this country,” he said. “That’s how I think I can reassure the American people.”

He hinted that a “special guest” would attend an upcoming rally in Queens. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York will endorse him on Saturday.

Democrats Argue Over How Much to Tax the Rich: Debate Takeaways

Warren to Billionaires: It’s Not Personal

Warren doesn’t “have a beef” with billionaires. She just thinks they should a lot pay more taxes.

At the debate, Warren and Sanders split with Biden over whether to chip away at the fortunes of the richest Americans through a wealth tax, one of the fault lines dividing the party’s mainstream party from its ascendant left flank.

Biden, the only top-polling candidate who hasn’t said he’d consider a wealth tax, instead pitched raising the top rate on capital gains income to nearly 40%. He rejected the idea that wealth taxes “demonize” rich Americans, saying merely that the idea isn’t realistic. “What I talk about is how to get things done,” he said.

Biden also made a few gaffes in the exchange. He first slipped and said he would eliminate the capital gains tax, rather than raise it. He then asked, cryptically, “why in God’s name should someone who is clipping coupons in the stock market” pay a lower tax than a teacher or a firefighter. It wasn’t clear what he meant: Securities for publicly traded companies don’t have coupons redeemable.

Trade Takes Center Stage

The candidates came out swinging against Trump’s trade policies with more force than in past debates, days after the White House announced a partial pact with China and as the administration struggles to get support for a new deal with Canada and Mexico.

Both O’Rourke and Booker attacked Trump for negotiating trade deals that don’t put workers first. That issue is at the heart of Democrats’ concerns with the new Nafta trade agreement -- known as USMCA -- and a key reason why Congress hasn’t yet passed it.

“Making sure that if we trade with Mexico, Mexican workers are allowed to join unions, which they’re effectively unable to do today,” O’Rourke said at the debate in Ohio. “Not only is that bad for the Mexican worker, it puts the American worker at a competitive disadvantage.”

Democrats have been working with Trump’s trade chief Robert Lighthizer to get Mexico to improve its labor-reform law before American lawmakers move forward with a vote. Lighthizer is also closely working with labor leaders in the U.S., with the goal of getting unions to support it or at least not publicly oppose the deal.

Imagine There’s No Pentagon

Biden found an image to show how hard it would be to pay the estimated $30 trillion price tag for Medicare For All: even doing away with the Pentagon would not be enough to cover the cost.

“If you eliminate the entire Pentagon — planes, ships, troops, the building, everything, satellites — it gets you a total of four months. Where do you get the rest?” Biden asked as he stood between Warren and Sanders, the two advocates of Medicare for All.

Biden went after his progressive rivals for failing to explain how they would fund their health care plans and pitched his plan to improve the health care system with a public option. Sanders responded that Biden’s proposal wouldn’t curb on the “greed and the profiteering” in the health insurance industry.

Turkey’s Invasion of Syria Is an Issue

Foreign policy made a rare foray into the Democratic debate with a focus on Trump’s widely criticized move to withdraw forces from northern Syria, opening the region to Turkey’s military to attack Kurdish militias previously allied with America.

Biden, who led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before he was vice president, vigorously attacked the president’s move, saying he would provide more air power to support 1,000 U.S. troops who he would keep in the region, for now.

He touted his previous experience meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and -- apologizing for going over his allotted time -- accused Trump of being “an erratic, crazy president who doesn’t know a damn thing about foreign policy and operates out of fear for his own re-election.”

On the other side was Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who served in Iraq and has been a longtime opponent of “regime change wars.” She said Trump has the “blood of the Kurds on his hands” but said other politicians did, too, for supporting U.S. engagement in Syria.

Her comments conflicted with those of Afghanistan war veteran Buttigieg, who said Trump’s decision to draw forces in Syria down quickly led to “the beginning of a genocide and the resurgence” of Islamic State.

--With assistance from Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou, Emma Kinery, Laura Davison and Jenny Leonard.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Teague Beckwith in New York at rbeckwith3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, John Harney

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