Breaking Down the First Debate: Jonathan Williams on News Talk St. Louis

Jonathan Williams, ALEC’s Executive Vice President of Policy & Chief Economist, was on with the morning crew on News Talk St. Louis discussing the challenges facing this year’s potential GOP presidential candidates when sharing their messages and policies in the opening round of the 2024 debates. Through the traditional mix of questionable accusations and grandstanding, there were a number of relevant issues that will make a true impact on the lives of everyday Americans addressed.

It was an interesting debate. As a policy guy, we are going to be following all the Republican and Democrat debates this cycle, and we’re in for a long haul. We’re going to have a lot of these conversations. Tim Scott did a very good job of connecting the dots on why policies matter for the individual. That’s always been the challenge for conservatives because we can talk numbers, but facts tell a story. That is something that Senator Scott I thought did incredibly well.

As a policy guy, I was somewhat dissatisfied by the format and the short-order questions, especially the lightning round, and then all the different rounds of rebuttals. The boos from the crowd didn’t help much either. I would love to see people go a little bit deeper and hopefully we will see that in future debates.  One big thing missing from the discussion was the national debt and the debt downgrade. We can complain about Bidenomics here and there but what’s the positive vision for the future of America and how do we get the GDP growing or the economy going again?