understands. bank fabailouts. government setting minimum wages and so on. our own student audience watched the debate, sometimes laughing. now they can vent about who made sense and who didn't. deroy murdoch of "the national view." libertarian and more hawkish than i am. austin peterson of the website libertarian republic. he's young but knows these issues often better than i do. let's start with you. who sounded good to you?

>> i don't think any of them really sounded that great to be honest. a lot of them were talking about their tax plans, they were talking about fiddling with the codes. the idea behind the free market is one person doesn't know how to live somebody's life better than them. if you look at marco rubio's tax code versus ted cruz's tax code they sounded like rand paul was talking six months ago. why is it all of a sudden we have a singular idea about how to control the tax code and the guy who came up with that idea is the one they're ignoring. i think this shows there's a problem in the republican party about what kind of message they really want to send. >> hadley? >> i'm going to disagree. i think we see a broad cast of characters on the stage. a lot of them just playing supporting reals. is royles. >> who's out now? who are the supporters, supporting role people? >> it's going to be hard for people to jump back in from the earlier debate tonight. i did think that governor jindal and actually governor christie

did a good job in that debate. other than that i think mike huckabee and the other participants in the first debate, rick santorum -- >> you're trying to remember him? >> i can remember. but they're polling too low and at this point it may not be that they have a path to the nomination. >> deroy? >> i think we all benefitted from a conversation with eight people onstage instead of 11. it was easier to follow what was going on. i think we saw a lot of talent. marco rubio came across very clearly. his answers to be able to involve his economic ideas, his thoughts on education, on international relations. i thought he came across very well and i think his star power is very strong. >> i heard marco rubio support from you folks? >> one thing is a clear breakout idea, wlsh you disagree or agree with it. last time we talked about the 9-9-9 tax plan. it was on the edge of people's

tuns. i've not seen any idea jump out where people have said, i like this idea, i dislike this idea but everyone's talking about it. i'm not seeing that in this campaign at all. >> marco rubio is jumping out. he's risen in the polls and as a candidate. i have some problems. rand paul brought up a couple. how can you call yourself a conservative and want to spend $1 trillion more on the military and do social engineering on the tax code? a special child -- >> very concerned about the rise of marco rubio. he's sort of like -- he's the jeb bush or what jeb bush was supposed to be. he wants to spend $1 trillion more on the military, he wants to establish a no-fly zone in syria, we'd have to be shooting down russian jets. everyone knows the iraq war was a complete failure. marco rubio wants to double down on all the failed policies of george w. bush. so let's elect the bush family, at least then we get the tiny. >> rand brought some of that up about the no-fly zone. the republicans are very

hawkish. they didn't pick up on it. >> deroy, you want to pom everybody? >> not everybody. be selective. from obama the lead from behind concept has brought us isis, russia in crimea -- >> bombing has been a -- >> a set of islands in the south seas. this country internationally has become a laughingstock because the idea of american leadership and preeminence have been demolished by this president. >> one thing i have to say, all the republicans other than rand paul have the same foreign policy as hillary clinton. rand paul called hillary clinton a neo-con war hawk last week. it's true. the only person who offers an alternative on that stage from a attorney policy perspective is paul. the republicans don't care for him. >> i agree but they don't care for him. the audience was not impressed by him. but we have a war hawk right here. i don't get your point. isis was also created by our

intervening in iraq. >> no, i disagree with that. iraq, when obama arrived are was certainly not switzerland or belgium or costa rica, but it was relatively calm and stable. obama decided it was more important to pull people out than succeed in iraq. what ended up happening was you had a vacuum and into the vacuum stepped isis. people who not only have been chopping off heads it looks like they've blown up a plane with civilians on it. god forbid they have other planes to bring down, perhaps with americans on them. >> the islands in china. these are barely above sea level. obama's so upset about them. but according to him global warming's going to erase these things anywawhy is that our bus? they're building these islands. we have to police the other end of the world? >> well, if things stay calm with china that's not a problem. if things become more tense, they decide it might be a good idea to close off sea lanes or limit trade lanes, that becomes a problem for commerce. a country like china, which may decide let's beat our chests and

put the americans in their place, if you will. that's something that propounds very negatively for our country and the people in this studio and the people at home watching. >> let's move on. spending. hadley, i haven't let you speak. what did you hear about spending that made sense? that's the big issue. we're going broke. >> first of all, i was disappointed that none of the candidates corrected the premise that tax reductions cost money because the implication was, oh, we want to do tax reform, you want to reduce taxes? that comes with a cost so how are you going to pay for that? we shouldn't be having to justify why taking less of the money that belongs to the people -- >> supply side argues you cut the tax, there will be so much more economic activity, more money coming in. but it probably isn't fully going to -- >> right, i think that's why it's important for candidates to be specific about how they would reduce spending. >> very little. >> it just troubles me to see someone, for example, like governor kasich from ohio, who actually increased per capita spending while he was governor there.

that's someone's record speaks much louder than their words. expanding medicaid is another fault of his that he expanded a federal government program associated with obamacare, putting more people dependent on the government when it comes to health insurance. that doesn't seem like a fiscally conservative thing to do. >> i agree, i found him annoying, kasich. he has dropped a little bit. but in his defense, there is this survey which compares what governors did year by year. so you're not comparing based on an expansion or depression. bush lowered spending the most. kasich was second. christie and huckabee were the worst at crediting spending. he may have increased it but compared to what else was going on he wasn't so bad. >> we have to pay attention to the federal dollars that he took for ohio to expand medicaid. because those are taxpayer dollars as well. just robbing peat tore pay paul.

it may look like a decrease in spend in ohio but it wasn't a decrease in overall spending. paying for the medicaid expansion in ohio has been expensive. >> kasich came across in terms of appearance better than in recent debates. really? >> in terms of his presentation. >> who agrees? i disagree what he said but i thought he was forceful and never jettic. i disagree with his attack on wall street, that's what i expect out of bernie sanders, not somebody on the gop debate stage. >> marco rubio broke from the field by saying we need to subsidize families. at its heart that is social engineering. if you're a limited government conservative and you think families are a good thing, those are the values we have to exemplify. to say, the government can't be involved in this, that, why do you want the government involved in the most intimate thing that you have, the most part part of our civilization? >> because we like families. >> kasich would say, think of

the children. that was one of his lines. >> as much as i like rubio, i agree. the best thing to do is get the tax rates as low as possible, let people keep more of their money, then they can decide to have children or not, how many kids to have, and get the government out of using the u.s. tax code as a blunt stick for social engineering -- >> i wish this were simpler so we could fill it out yourselves instead of having to fill out the child code. what about rubio supporting subsidies for sugar? >> i can't defend that at all. >> campaign money for the -- >> i think the sugar program, it's amazing. >> disgusting. >> it doesn't cost that much in tears of outlays. in terms of destruction it creates economically and environmentally. if you're in haiti thinking, we can grow sugar cane and sell to it america. we'll buy a small amount then say, we don't want any more, go back and enjoy your poverty for another 11 months until we buy more. it's an awful program that should have been wiped out years ago. >> don't let ted cruz off the

hook. while he was a private attorney in texas he was lobbying for stimulus money to be spent in texas. he wrote a paper in 2009 about how he thought the stimulus program was brilliant and we should bring it here. yes, he did. we need to take a look into that guy's record as well. >> certain inconsistency, you're suggesting. >> yeah, perhaps. >> the main driver of our bankruptcy is entitlements. we didn't hear much about that. it's not a political win foreare these guys. >> no, some candidates like huckabee and trump who say, we can't touch these. maybe they don't recognize the status quo is a train headed off the tracks. maybe changing the entire age, tweaking these programs would vote train down but we need to jump to another track, give younger workers the opportunity to decide for themselves what kind of health insurance to have in retirement and to save for our own retirement. >> to your point the social security disability program is going to go bankrupt next year. not 2020, 2030.

2016. and nobody's talking about the fact that this major entitlement is going to go broke next year. >> maybe they don't know. is it possible? the democrats who say, spend more, they don't know? >> they know. it's part of the congressional budget, the congressional budget office projects all this. nobody wants to talk about the disability program will run out of money next year. >> the focus groups say if you talk about making changes to these programs seniors get nervous and this will hurt you. when they suggest we can keep these programs that they are. >> one of the solutions they offer is let's raise the retirement age for social security. 25% of the federal budget is federal pensions. why don't we raise the pension aim for federal employees instead? >> there you go. >> do both. >> our studio audience takes on the debaters. and i'll give a couple of answers i wish a candidate gave. that and more when we come back. 

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did watching tonight's debate change your opinion about who would be a good president or who's likely to win? trump and carson lead the polling by quite a bit. informati fox runs poll numbers all the time but i say polls are garbage. no, that's not fair. they're mostly done by good polling companies and they're interesting. but when it comes to prediction, predicting election results, polls are not nearly as useful as prediction markets. the business audience ought to understand this. prediction markets are things like the stock market, commodities exchanges. they are the most accurate predictors of future events because lots of people participate and guess and they put their own money on the line. the prices change constantly and today's price is the best reflection of what the future

will bring. it's not perfect. but it's better than polls. in america, no good prediction market exists for politics. and that's because foolish republicans banned internet gambling so the only real prediction market that works is based in even hand. it's called betfair. and useful as it is to us americans, it's basically unintelligible. the prices are in pounds and it's tough to understand who's ahead. but look at this website. this is understandable. that's because fox producer maxim lott converted betfair's odds into percentages so we americans can process them. hillary clinton's a huge favorite to win the democratic primary. and on the right you see she's the 53% favorite to become our next president. in the middle is the betting on who will win the republican prime floyd mayweather. marc i don't cube i don't is the big favorite. not trump or ben carson. trump comes in second. but he's way down compared to rubio. then cruz, bush, carson and the

others. sadly, my first choice, rand paul, near the bottom. you can check these out on my website at johnstossel.com. any time, they update every five minutes. since the debate began rand paul's up a little. i can still hope. the betting. do you not agree, do you agree? the betting is more accurate than the polls? >> i understand. when you look at prior lex cycles people who are leading in the polls during this time don't end up being the nominee. furthermore these polls are mostly national polls or polls of specific states. the nomination process is state by state. it's a lot different than taking a national poll. >> the first comment from a candidate at the debate that made me want to scream was this from donald trump. >> i can't be neil. the reason i can't be is we are a country that is being beaten on every front, economically, militarily.

there is nothing that we do now to win. we don't win anymore. >> we're being beaten economically. what does this even mean? >> they say america's the greatest country in the world, yet we're far behind in china, right? so to me, i think donald trump's obviously just using flashy rhetoric in order to get people to like him. he speaks at a third grade level which gets a lot of people to support him and all the candidates are talking in longer terms. if you look at what donald trump is doing it's brilliant. he's breaking through the barriers of getting people interested in politics. >> in a bad way. >> well, politically incorrect and his politics are incorrect, but he's slayed the beast of political correctness and i think there's a victory here. >> that's good but economics is not war. we don't lose to china when they sell us stuff. >> the political correctness victory at what cost? when you look at his credentials, first of all, he doesn't have a record in office. his recorded statements and books or spoken, we can't tell

if this guy's for universal health care, when he's pro-choice, pro-life, where does he stand? in trade, obviously a protectionist. immigration, obviously a protectionist. eminent domain, that's something he's abused. >> it's going to be yuge! >> exactly. >> it will make your head spin. >> he does talk about america losing to china. look around your house. almost everything you buy is made in china. this is a positive thing. what i do think he does capture, why i think he's got popularity, is the sense of economic stagnation, economic anxiety. the economy's not growing much. people get the sense they're not going to be able to save up money for the retirement. the average american is $1,000 retirement savings or something like that. a lot of that economic anxiety plays into the sense that we're losing as a country. >> on social media, i made a comment about trump having no clue. on facebook, richard kawaki

responded, he has $10 billion! they don't give you billions for being stupid, how much do you have? just because his father gave him a million and he bet on real estate and made a ton doesn't make him intelligent about economics. >> donald trump owns a company that has products that are manufactured overseas. so why does he want to restrict trade for other people but not his own companies? >> right. more on the debates when we come back.

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republican candidates repeatedly say, we've got to strengthen the military. i'm glad rand paul interrupted at the debate to say this. >> do you know we spend more on our military than the next ten countries combined? i want a strong national defense but i don't want us to be bankrupt. >> deroy, i don't want us to be bankrupt either. >> i'm not for bankruptcy if that's your question. >> do you want to spend more on the military? >> i don't think it's so much a question of just what the spending is. but are we going to present ourselves as a country that is a leader and that is respected around the world -- >> how are you going to pay for it? >> or be in the posture we are now, getting laughed at, cut deals with iran -- >> how are you going to pay for it? >> they're going to do their own inspection how do you pay for it? >> defense spending the number one priority which it should be under the constitution. a lot of other spending, i think

we ought to be -- >> shut it down, it would barely dent the fence, foreign program is $100 million, it should be shut down. >> you heard discussion from carly fiorina about zero based budgeting. better way to put it, first dollar budgeting river every agency ought to explain and justify their budgets rather than, you spent $40 billion last year so we'll give you $5 billion on top of that and it keeps growing and growing and growing. >> i'm moving on. minimum wage. i'm glad we heard sensible things. marco rubio says you raise the minimum wage, we'll make people more expensive than machines. carson said, raise it, you create more unemployment. finally some people being articulate. >> he can say that because a lot of times it's the minority communities that are harmed the most by racing the minimum wage. when you raise the minimum wage all the people who are unemployed, unskilled, they're

unable to get jobs because they're not able to get into the marketplace. when an employer has to have a high minimum wage he has to find somebody who can fit that page. people without job skills can't find a place to meet them halfway. >> even a republican voter saying, yeah, we ought to raise the minimum wage. >> santorum for raising that federal minimum wage. >> a lot of this is magic wand thinking. rauts the magic wand, raise the minimum wage, employers say, great. no, they say, look, we can put in at mcdonald's, rather than have somebody there taking your order, we'll have a machine taking your order. you go to places like drugstores now and there are machines there to do your own checkout. at the airport, instead of somebody checking you in you check yourself in. this is automation and robotics. you'll see more and more as the cost of labor goes up. >> what's interesting about that moment is marc committee rubio was asked a different question but he went pack to minimum wage because he wanted to address minimum wage. which i thought was different for a republican because they're typically on the defense when it comes to some of these income

inequality questions. he did an excellent job framing it in terms of opportunity, which is i think what the next election's going to be about ultimately. he had a fantastic answer. >> a low-wage economy is better than a no-ca hino-wage economy. >> republicans are talking about free markets sort of. in the debate carly fiorina criticizing obamacare said this. >> we need to try the free market. the free market. where people actually have to compete. >> and that would be the only answer to stop bankruptcy. but americans don't think there should be a free market in medicine. nobody wants to -- do you want to pay for your own health care when you go to the doctor? no, you look for insurance coverage, right? and that's hardly a free market. that's somebody else paying. >> well, what we have now is a system of multi-party payers and insurance companies have turned into third-party payers for every aspect of medicine, including preventive care, which each of us could afford to pay for out of our own pockets.

but because of the support of federal legislation like obamacare that mandates each of us have this list of things covered by health insurance, that supports the third-party nature of our system. another problem, and this is typical, some people think we can get rid of obamacare and do nothing to replace it. but the fact of the matter is if we go back to the world before obamacare, there was not a free market in health care then either. one of the important problems was the distortion that favors people with employer-sponsored health insurance. >> insurance with somebody else paying. the only answer is the market and people are scared of that. more on these debates when we return. i think there was too much talk about a big wall.