Debate questions that might shed some light

OPINION:

Democratic presidential contenders have 10 more debates to go, starting up again in September.

Here are a few suggested queries to liven things up and educate viewers:

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) indicates that nearly 1 million people will have crossed illegally into the United States just within the last fiscal year. The Border Patrol is overwhelmed and has effectively lost control. Question: How many millions of illegal aliens should we allow to cross our southern border before it’s too many? Five million? Ten million? Twenty million? Is there any limit you would support?

At the first Democratic debate, all candidates raised their hands when asked if they would give free health care to illegal immigrants. Is this your position today?

Follow-up question: If people living here illegally receive taxpayer-funded, free health care, how high should taxes be raised on the middle class to pay for it?

Many observers say that the Democratic Party is lurching to the left, with media favorites like the House freshpersons known as “The Squad” openly embracing socialism. Given socialism’s unbroken track record of misery, poverty and tyranny up to and including mass murder (communism, Nazism, Fascism and now, see Venezuela), can you point to any nations where socialism has improved the standard of living and increased liberty?

Before answering, one caveat, please. Consider that Scandinavian nations such as Sweden, which once touted socialism, have backed away and are market-driven economies with largely small, homogenous populations. They have low corporate taxes, no estate tax on “the 1 percent” and they do not give health care insurance coverage to people living there illegally. So, where has socialism worked?

Here’s a cultural one. In public libraries across the nation, Drag Queen Story Hour features a man or men in outrageously flamboyant female attire reading books to children as young as preschoolers that encourage sexual experimentation and gender identity confusion. Do you think this is a valid use of taxpayer dollars? More importantly, is it right or wrong? Why?

Crime question: A study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes that racial disparities in police shootings stem from disparities in criminal behavior, not police bias. As The Wall Street Journal’s Jason L. Riley reports, “young black men commit homicides at nearly 10 times the rate of white and Hispanic young men combined” and that most of the victims are of the same race as the shooter.

A 2016 Harvard study that looked at 1,000 police shootings in 10 major cities also found no racial bias. Do you think that groups like Black Lives Matter, which promote a profoundly inaccurate picture of police-minority interactions that has put police officers at risk should be condemned? If not, why not?

Would you take a walk after dark in most Baltimore neighborhoods? If not, why not?

While we’re on touchy subjects, do you think statues of America’s Founders such as slaveholders Washington and Jefferson be torn down, schools and cities renamed, and textbooks be rewritten to exclude them?

Do you regard the black-hooded “activists” of Antifa as domestic terrorists? If not, why not?

When the Affordable Care Act was passed, millions of Americans lost their coverage and their primary care doctors, and were forced to spend more for less coverage. How do we know “Medicare for All” won’t make things worse? Given that it would turn all health care over to the federal government, can you name any government programs that operate as efficiently and cost effectively as their private-sector counterparts?

Now for some economic questions. America still has some of the highest corporate taxes in the world, and most of you want to raise them. How would this create more jobs?

The proposed “Green New Deal” would return us to Medieval energy sources such as windmills while costing an estimated $50 trillion to $90 trillion. It would wipe out entire industries (oil, natural gas and coal), do away with cows and take away the internal combustion engine, which means no airplanes, cars and lawnmowers.

Due to fracking and other innovative extraction, America has become the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas and is now energy independent if need be.

Question: Apart from America’s enemies and well-connected Swamp cronies, who is it that would directly benefit from the Green New Deal? And, a related question: Did you really say you favored extending the vote to polar bears? Even undocumented ones?

Studies show that when the minimum wage is raised, people on the lowest rungs of the employment ladder fall off and unemployment rises. Lifting the minimum wage to $15, as some jurisdictions have done, has resulted in the closure of businesses. How does this help the poor and working poor?

It’s unlikely that candidates will be asked any of these, but just to hold their souls up to a mirror for all to see, I’d settle for the ones about Drag Queen Story Hour.

• Robert Knight is a contributor to The Washington Times.