Reflections of the Republican Debate: Congressional Authority

I'm starting to write this last post about the Republican debate 45 minutes before the next Democratic debate begins. It's possible that the Democratic debate will cause me to lose my train of thought, so I've got to organize my thought on this matter in 45 minutes or, well, less now. Let's get to it.

The subject: congressional authority, or the limits of presidential power, or bipartisanship. It's all pretty interrelated.

Reflections on the Republican Debate: Foreign Diplomatic Relations

Today, I'm continuing my reflection on the more interesting ideas proposed by the Republicans during their debate. This time, the subject is foreign relations--a critical subject, especially in this era in which we have thousands of troops stationed all over the world.

Specifically, I'm referring to diplomatic relations. Economic relations are a completely different thing and, I believe, much more complicated.

Reflections on the Republican Debate: Tax Reform

Yesterday I was so focused on typing up what the candidates were saying that I didn't actually give much commentary. Plus, sometimes I was actually trying to pay attention to what they were saying, which gave me even less time for typing and thoughts of my own. That's part of the problem with live commentary, I guess: balancing your attention between your comments and what you're commenting on means you get to give your full attention to neither. So, I probably won't do that again.

Anyway, today I want reflect a bit on what the Republicans talked about. I disagree with a lot of what they said, but so did many people, so I wouldn't be adding anything to the conversation by ripping apart their views.

Instead, I'm going to explore the things I thought were interesting; ideas that stood out to me as well-thought-out or, at the very least, worth a second thought. I've settled on three things:

1. Tax reform
2. Foreign diplomatic relations
3. Congressional authority

Today, I'm going to talk about tax reform. Let's see where their ideas and mine on these subjects align and diverge: