By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many potential Republican presidential candidates have yet to lay out detailed plans on issues such as taxes and Iran, but several of them have put forth ideas to fix the struggling city of Detroit.
Republicans are highlighting Detroit, which emerged in December from a 17-month bankruptcy, as an example of the perils of big government and a possible testing ground for conservative ideas like tax reductions.
"If you want to do something for Detroit, why don't we dramatically cut the taxes?" said Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who called for a big federal tax cut for city residents.
Paul, who is considering a run for the White House in 2016, said tax breaks would lure new residents and bolster the city's economy in comments at Bowie State University in Maryland on Friday.
No matter what they say, Republicans are not likely to pick up many votes in the heavily Democratic city. Perhaps that's why they've been so willing to criticize it.
Jeb Bush, another possible 2016 contender, called Detroit's woes "a warning to all of us" during a visit to the Rust Belt city last month.
In a speech to the Detroit Economic Club, Bush, a former Florida governor, promised to outline policies in the coming months that will increase opportunities for the poor, but didn't provide many specifics.
Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who is weighing a presidential run, has argued that his state cannot afford to keep traditional defined-benefit pensions for public workers. "It bankrupted Detroit, it bankrupted General Motors, and it will bankrupt us," he said on February 25 in a town hall event in Moorestown, New Jersey.
Detroit, which filed for the biggest-ever U.S. municipal bankruptcy in July 2013, has long been synonymous with automobile manufacturing and industrial decay.
"It's an easy place to point to say, 'Here's where the politics of the past have failed,' and say what can be done," said Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and a native of Detroit.
Bush offered one idea in 2013 that angered some conservatives: using immigrants to repopulate the city.
At a gathering of conservative activists in February, Christie said that idea was "misdirecting the priorities."
"What I would be concerned about are the people who are in Detroit right now," he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference.