10 Debate Questions
The first 2024 presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump is in two days, and moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper surely hope the event will shed more light than heat.
We at the Washington Monthly are here to help.
This week we published our July/August print issue, featuring former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley K. Clark’s assessment of how Biden’s economic strategy is strengthening America’s standing in the world.
The issue also includes deep dives on policy matters that have escaped the attention of most media outlets, such as gun tracing, high-impact tutoring, munitions manufacturing, and privatization of anti-poverty programs.
Our last issue was another policy-rich serving, comprehensively comparing the records of Biden and Trump with our Presidential Accomplishment Index.
(Click here for video from CNN of Editor in Chief Paul Glastris discussing the Presidential Accomplishment Index with Tapper.)
Together, the two most recent print editions of the Washington Monthly provide an excellent source of substantive presidential debate questions.
Here are 10 for Thursday’s moderators to consider:
1. Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley K. Clark argues that “on almost every measure of national strength—from GDP to energy output to technological innovation to military alliances—America’s dominant position relative to other major countries is growing, and has been for several years.” How would your economic and diplomatic strategies help maintain America’s strong position?
2. Washington Monthly Editor Will Norris finds that “Biden committed to the [antitrust] cause like no other president had in modern times” whereas Trump’s antitrust approach was market by a “selective application of the law.” Should the newly aggressive antitrust enforcement continue?
3. School aid from the American Rescue Plan Act gave $7.5 billion to tutoring programs, observes Thomas Toch and Liz Cohen of the FutureEd think tank, with “high-impact” tutoring—involving small groups during the school day—proving to be “strikingly successful.” Would you commit more federal funds to high-impact tutoring?
4. As noted by Merrill Goozner, the noted health care journalist, Trump tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, while Biden increased subsidies for ACA health insurance coverage through 2025. In your second term, would you extend the subsidies, let them expire, or repeal the program entirely?
5. “War games demonstrate that the United States would deplete essential munitions within just eight days of engaging in a high-intensity conflict with China concerning Taiwan,” says Mike Lofgren, a former congressional national security aide. What would you do to build back up America’s munitions capacity?
6. Anne Kim’s new book Poverty for Profit concludes that many private companies involved in the delivery of federal aid to the poor are wasteful and exploitive. How would you reform federal anti-poverty programs?
7. “Privatization threatens the VA’s ability to deliver high-quality, specialized care to patients,” claim Suzanne Gordon of the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute and Steve Early, a longtime labor journalist. And they argue that neither the current nor the former president addressed the problem. Would either of you reverse the privatization of veterans health care in your second term?
8. Both of you have expressed support for a national paid family leave program, as Brigid Schulte of the Better Life Lab at New America has recognized, but neither of you was able to get such a plan approved by Congress. What would you do differently in a second-term to help win paid family leave?
9. Republicans twenty years ago enacted policies that made it difficult for the public to access information about the origin of guns used in crimes, and to hold dealers accountable when supplying guns used in crimes. Jamaal Abdul-Alim of The Conversation noted that Biden “has taken steps in recent years to release more information about problem gun shops,” but congressional action remains needed. Will you push to remove restrictions on gun trace information and lift immunity protections on gun dealers?
10. Garphil Julien, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, explains that the trade deficit declined “slightly between 2017 and 2020” under Trump, but “in 2023 contracted by the largest amount in 14 years” under Biden. How does that data inform your trade strategy for a second term?
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Best,
Bill Scher, Washington Monthly politics editor
