Everyone Missed the Biggest Gaffe at Republican Debate, Guess Who it Was?

The lies and inaccuracies flow so freely at Republican debates these days that everyone seems to have given up, especially (as Jordan Chariton notes) the moderators. In fact, they were some of the worst offenders last night, embedding misleading or false information right in their questions.

With all the buzz about dramatic storylines and narratives, precious little TV coverage was given to the many falsehoods and inaccuracies, and even the fact-checking outfits are intermittently useless. For example, Politifact asked themselves “Is Hillary Clinton under an FBI investigation?” and answered “Actually, Clinton is not under FBI investigation,” yet still rated the claim “Half-true.”

There was one major gaffe, the biggest of the night, that everyone seems to have missed, and it illustrates, I think, the degree to which not just facts have ceased to matter, but even basic math. See if you can spot it (emphasis mine):

BARTIROMO: Governor Christie, we have spoken much about cutting spending, given the $19 trillion debt. But according to one report, America needs $3.6 trillion in infrastructure spending by 2020.

Here in South Carolina, 11 percent of bridges are considered structurally deficient, costing drivers a billion dollars a year in auto repairs. What is your plan to fix the ailing roads and bridges without breaking the bank?

CHRISTIE: Well, I’m glad you asked that, Maria. Here’s — here’s our plan. We’ve all been talking about tax reforms tonight, and paying for infrastructure is caught right up in tax reform.

If you reform the corporate tax system in this country, which, as was mentioned before, is the highest rate in the world — and we double tax, as you know.

And what that’s led to over $2 trillion of American companies’ monies that are being kept offshore, because they don’t want to pay the second tax. And who can blame them? They pay tax once overseas. They don’t want to pay 35 percent tax on the way back.

So beside reforming that tax code, bringing it down to 25 percent and eliminating those special-interest loopholes that the lobbyists and the lawyers and the accountants have given — bring that rate down to 25 percent, but also, a one-time repatriation of that money.

Bring the money — the $2 trillion — back to the United States. We’ll tax it, that one time, at 8.75 percent, because 35 percent of zero is zero, but 8.75 percent of $2 trillion is a lot of money. And I would then dedicate that money to rebuilding infrastructure here in this country.

It would not necessitate us raising any taxes. It would bring the money back into the United States to help build jobs by American companies and get our economy moving again, and growing as a higher rate, and it would rebuild those roads and bridges and tunnels that you were talking about.

…We need to make the government run smarter and better, and reform this corporate tax system, bring that money back to the United States to build jobs and rebuild our infrastructure, and we need to use it also to protect our grid from terrorists.

Bartiromo never said a word, moving right on to Ben Carson without mentioning the fact that Chris Christie just told her he would pay for $3.4 trillion in infrastructure by raising $175 billion, which he would also use for terror-proofing the grid too, also.

I understand why it is that the optics and the narratives and the politics are so important in these debates, but if the moderators would pay attention, or the media would promote some sort of accountability, then maybe the facts would start to have an effect on the politics.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.