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Ron Paul: Federal income Tax Rate should be Zero Percent

Posted on 17 January 2012 by admin

At the Fox News Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Monday night the five remaining candidates were queried about what they believed the highest possible federal income tax rate should be.

While the rest of the field offered substantive percentages, Texas Rep. Ron Paul set himself apart by saying that Americans’ income tax rate should be zero percent. (RELATED: Full coverage of Ron Paul’s campaign)

“We should have the lowest tax that we’ve ever had, and up until 1913 it was zero percent,” Paul said. “What’s so bad about that?”

By contrast Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the highest rate should be 20 percent, Gingrich said the highest rate should be 15 percent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said 25 percent and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said it should be 28 percent.

Paul added, however, that the real culprit in the tax game is inflation.

“Now I would like to follow up on that because I think the question on taxes is generally misleading, because anytime you spend money it’s a tax,” Paul added. “You might tax, you might barrow, you might inflate. The vicious tax that is attacking the American people, the retired people today, is the inflation tax. The devaluation of the currency. The standard of living is going down and you need to address that. And that is why I want to make the inflation tax zero as well.”

Fox News host Brett Baier attempted to clarify his statement, asking “So your answer is zero?”

“Zero,” Paul answered.

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Tags: Ron Paul

Political Policy – Positions of Dr. Ron Paul

Posted on 01 January 2012 by admin

The political positions of Ron Paul (R-TX), United States presidential candidate in1988, 2008, and 2012, have been labeled conservative,^[1] Constitutionalist,^[2] andlibertarian.^[3] Paul’s nickname “Dr. No”^[4] reflects both his medical degree and his assertion that he will “never vote for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution“.^[5] This position has frequently resulted in Paul casting the sole “no” vote against proposed legislation. The central tenet of Paul’s political philosophy is that “the proper role for government in America is to provide national defense, a court system for civil disputes, a criminal justice system for acts of force and fraud, and little else.”^[6]

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[edit]Economy

In January 2008, Paul released an economic revitalization plan^[7] and named Peter Schiff and Donald L. Luskin as economic advisors to his campaign.^[8]^[9] National Journal labeled Paul’s overall economic policies in 2010 as more conservative than 78% of the House and more liberal than 22% of the House (85% and 15%, respectively for 2009).^[10] For 2008, his ratings were more conservative than 91% of the House and more liberal than 8% of the House (80% and 20%, respectively for 2007).^[11] In 2006, as more conservative than 48% of the House and more liberal than 51% of the House.^[12]^[13]

His warnings of impending economic crisis and a loss of confidence in the dollar in 2005 and 2006 were at the time derided by many economists, but accelerating dollar devaluation in 2007 led experts like former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan to reconsider hard money policies such as those of Paul.^[14]^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Lower spending and smaller government

Paul believes the size of the federal government must be decreased substantially. In order to restrict the federal government to what he believes are its Constitutionally authorized functions, he regularly votes against almost all proposals for newgovernment spending, initiatives, or taxes,^[15] in many cases making him in a minority of members of the house by doing so. For example, on January 22, 2007, Paul was the lone member out of 415^[16] voting to oppose a House measure to create aNational Archives exhibit on slavery and Reconstruction, seeing this as an unauthorized use of taxpayer money.

Paul advocates substantially reducing the government’s role in individual lives and in the functions of foreign and domesticstates; he says Republicans have lost their commitment to limited government and have become the party of big government.^[17] His 2012 “Plan to Restore America”^[18] would eliminate five Cabinet-level departments: Energy, HUD,Commerce, Interior, and Education. He has called for elimination of other federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,^[19] and the Internal Revenue Service,^[20] calling them “unnecessary bureaucracies”. Paul would severely reduce the role of the Central Intelligence Agency; reducing its functions to intelligence-gathering. He would eliminate operations like overthrowing foreign governments and assassinations. He says this activity is kept secret even from Congress and “leads to trouble”.^[21] He also commented, “We have every right in the world to know something about intelligence gathering, but we have to have intelligent people interpreting this information.”^[22]

Paul calls for the elimination of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is tasked with coordinating preparedness and relief for natural disasters. He regards the argument for FEMA as “symptomatic of a blind belief in big government’s ability to do anything and everything for anyone and everyone…. When people are starving, injured and dying they need speed and efficiency, yet FEMA comes along with forms and policies and rubber stamps.”^[23] He complains that FEMA is a mismanaged and nearly-bankrupt bureaucracy, open to corruption.^[24]^[25]^[26]^[27] He also argues that the socialized insurance concept which underlies FEMA is deeply flawed, encouraging risk-taking – such as building beachfront homes in hurricane-prone coastal areas – that would be too expensive to consider if the sole source of disaster insurance were private-sector insurance purchased in the free market.^[27]^[24]^[25] In his view, disaster response management should be coordinated at the state and local level, without any federal involvement, and should be entirely voluntary and based on charitable goodwill.^[23]^[27]^[24] As Hurricane Irene bore down on the country’s coast in August 2011, Paul said, “I live on the Gulf Coast. We put up with hurricanes all the time…. In 1900, before FEMA, the local people rebuilt the city, built a seawall, and they survived without FEMA….”^[28]

In a speech on June 25, 2003, criticizing giving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair a Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, Paul said, “These medals generally have been proposed to recognize a life of service and leadership, and not for political reasons—as evidenced by the overwhelming bipartisan support for awarding President Reagan, a Republican, a gold medal. These awards normally go to deserving individuals, which is why I have many times offered to contribute $100 of my own money, to be matched by other members, to finance these medals.”^[29] Texas Monthly awarded him the “Bum Steer” award for voting against a congressional honor for cartoonist Charles Schulz, but also noted, “When he was criticized for voting against the [Parks] medal, he chided his colleagues by challenging them to personally contribute $100 to mint the medal. No one did. At the time, Paul observed, ‘It’s easier to be generous with other people’s money.’”^[30] In February 2009, he joined with Democratic congressman Harry Mitchell of Arizona to call for an end to automatic Congressional pay increases, through a proposed amendment to the economic stimulus package.^[31]

There are criticisms^[32]^[33] which contend that Paul’s position is disingenuous because he often requests earmarks for bills that he supposedly knows will pass no matter which way he votes. For example, during 2007, he requested about $400 million in earmarks in bills he voted against.^[34] A spokesman in the Fox News article says, “Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked. What people who push earmark reform are doing is they are particularly misleading the public—and I have to presume it’s not by accident.” One group supporting fiscal conservatism^[32] finds Paul’s actions with earmarks to be contradictory and cites his 2003 speech regarding the award of a Congressional Gold Medal, at which time the Congressman declared, “I will continue in my uncompromising opposition to appropriations not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution;”^[29] however, Paul himself has inserted appropriations for projects such as the renovation of a movie theater and subsidies for the shrimp industry, whereas reportedly, “neither of which is envisioned in the Constitution as an essential government function”.^[33] The Congressman has responded to criticism about earmarks by providing an explanation in his weekly column. Paul says, “In an already flawed system, earmarks can at least allow residents of Congressional districts to have a greater role in allocating federal funds – their tax dollars – than if the money is allocated behind locked doors by bureaucrats.”^[35]

[edit]The Plan To Restore America (Budget for 2013)

In October 2011, Paul released a federal budget proposal for 2013, entitled the “Plan to Restore America.”^[36]^[37]^[38] The plan calls for cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget in the first year, along with other measures which Paul says would balance the federal budget within 3 years. To achieve these goals, the plan would seek

Spending Cuts

eliminate 5 cabinet-level agencies (Education, Interior, Commerce, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development)
privatize the FAA and the TSA
cut the federal workforce by 10%
cut funding (down from 2006 levels) for the

Food and Drug Administration by 40%

Centers for Disease Control by 20%

Department of Homeland Security by 20%

National Institutes of Health by 20%

Environmental Protection Agency by 30%

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration by 20%

cut the Department of Defense budget by total 15%; eliminate all foreign war funding
freeze funding for most other federal agencies at 2006 levels
eliminate all foreign aid
eliminate international drug programs
substantially reduce foreign travel
eliminate international organizations and commissions
administer Medicaid and other joint federal-state social welfare programs (SCHIP, food stamps, etc) through block-grantfunding mechanisms to the states

Revenue Changes

cut the top corporate tax rate to 15% (down from 35%)
allow companies to repatriate capital without additional taxation
permanently extend the Bush administration tax cuts
eliminate capital gains and dividends taxes
eliminate estate and gift taxes
end taxes on personal savings
sell federal lands and other federal assets

Other Economic and Regulatory Measures

repeal the new healthcare law (“Obamacare”) as well as the Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley financial services and banking regulations
cancel certain “onerous” regulations instituted under executive order by previous presidents
conduct a full audit of the Federal Reserve
seek competing currency legislation “to strengthen the dollar and stabilize inflation”

Social Security and Medicare commitments to older workers and retirees would be honored, while workers younger than 25 would be given the option to opt out of participating in these programs. The Veterans Administration would be the only agency whose funds would be maintained at current levels of growth. Federal-state social welfare programs like Medicaid would be shifted from the mandatory section of the budget to the discretionary section, so that Congress would need to approve funding allocations each year.^[39]

The president’s salary would be cut from $400,000 to approximately $39,000 per year (the median personal income of the American worker), and Congressional pay and perks would be slashed.

Paul has stressed that certain essential responsibilities currently performed by agencies which he proposes to eliminate would be assumed by remaining agencies, or in the case of aviation management (FAA and TSA), would be transferred to the private sector.^[40]

Although Paul has often said that his ultimate goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and eliminate the income tax, the Plan to Restore America does not address that specific goal.

On the unveiling of the plan, critics were quick to remark on the negative consequences that changes in the budget of the magnitude being proposed could have in the short term on the economy. Kevin Hassett, economic policy director of theAmerican Enterprise Institute and chief economic adviser to John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign, praised Paul’s aim of reducing the size of government, but worried that, “At the scale he’s talking about, it’s unlikely you could have an immediate reduction in government without hurtling the economy into recession.” ^[41] Economist Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that “This is almost having the economy fall off a cliff.”^[41]

[edit]Lower taxes

Paul’s campaign slogan for 2004 was “The Taxpayers’ Best Friend!”^[42] He would completely eliminate the income tax by shrinking the size and scope of government to what he considers its Constitutional limits, noting that he has never voted to approve an unbalanced budget; he has observed that even scaling back spending to 2000 levels eliminates the need for the 42% of the budget accounted for by individual income tax receipts.^[20] He has asserted that Congress had no power to impose a direct income tax and supports the repeal of the sixteenth amendment.^[43] Rather than taxing personal income, which he says assumes that the government owns individuals’ lives and labor, he prefers the federal government to be funded throughexcise taxes and/or uniform, non-protectionist tariffs.^[19] However, during the 2011 CPAC conference, he said he would support a flat income tax of 10% at 19:23 of that speech.^[44] A citizen would be able to opt out of all government involvement if they simply pay a 10% income tax.

Paul has signed a pledge not to raise taxes or create new taxes, given by Americans for Tax Freedom.^[45] Paul has also been an advocate of employee-owned corporations (such as employee stock ownership plans).^[46] In 1999, he co-sponsored The Employee Ownership Act of 1999, which would have created a new type of corporation (the employee-owned-and-controlled corporation) that would have been exempt from most federal income taxes.

Paul’s position on taxes has led to support for him from the National Taxpayers Union,^[47] the National Federation of Independent Business^[48]

Paul has stated: “I agree on getting rid of the IRS, but I want to replace it with nothing, not another tax. But let’s not forget theinflation tax.”^[49]^[50] In other statements, he has permitted consideration of a national sales tax as a compromise if the tax need cannot be reduced enough. He has advocated that the reduction of government will make an income tax unnecessary.^[51]

[edit]Inflation and the Federal Reserve

In the words of the New York Times, Paul is “not a fan” of the Federal Reserve.^[52] Paul’s opposition to the Fed is supported by the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, which holds that instead of containing inflation, by which it means monetary inflation rather than price inflation, the Federal Reserve, in theory and in practice, is responsible for causing monetary inflation, which in turn usually causes price inflation.^[53] In addition to eroding the value of individual savings, this creation of monetary inflation leads to booms and busts in the economy. Thus Paul argues that government, via a central bank (the Federal Reserve), is the primary cause of economic recessions and depressions. He believes that economic volatility is decreased when the free marketdetermines interest rates and money supply.^[54] He has stated in numerous speeches that most of his colleagues in Congress are unwilling to abolish the central bank because it funds many government activities. He says that to compensate for eliminating the “hidden tax”^[55] of monetary inflation, Congress and the president would instead have to raise taxes or cut government services, either of which could be politically damaging to their reputations. He states that the “inflation tax” is a tax on the poor, because the Federal Reserve prints more money which subsidizes select industries, while poor people pay higher prices for goods as more money is placed in circulation.^[56]

Paul adheres to Austrian School economics and libertarian criticism of fractional-reserve banking, opposing fiat currency and the monetary inflation.^[57] He views monetary inflation as an underhanded form of taxation, because it takes value away from the money that individuals hold without having to directly tax them. He sees the creation of the Federal Reserve, and its ability to “print money out of thin air” without commodity backing, as responsible for eroding the value of money,^[58] observing that “a dollar today is worth 4 cents compared to a dollar in 1913 when the Federal Reserve got in.” In 1982, Paul was the prime mover in the creation of the U.S. Gold Commission, and in many public speeches Paul has voiced concern over the dominance of the current banking system and called for the return to a commodity-backed currency through a gradual reintroduction of hard currency, including both gold and silver.^[59] A commodity standard binds currency issue to the value of that commodity rather than fiat, making the value of the currency as stable as the commodity.

He condemns the role of the Federal Reserve and the national debt in creating monetary inflation.^[60]^[61] The minority report of the U.S. Gold Commission states that the federal and state governments are strictly limited in their monetary role by Article One, Section Eight, Clauses 2, 5, and 6, and Section Ten, Clause 1, “The Constitution forbids the states to make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debt, nor does it permit the federal government to make anything a legal tender.” The Commission also recommended that the federal government “restore a definition for the term ‘dollar’. We suggest defining a ‘dollar’ as a weight of gold of a certain fineness, .999 fine.”^[62] On multiple occasions in congressional hearings he has sharply challenged two different chairmen of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.

He has also called for the removal of all taxes on gold transactions.^[63] He has repeatedly introduced the Federal ReserveBoard Abolition Act since 1999,^[64] to enable “America to return to the type of monetary system envisioned by our Nation’s founders: one where the value of money is consistent because it is tied to a commodity such as gold”. He opposes dependency on paper fiat money, but also says that there “were some shortcomings of the gold standard of the 19th century … because it was a fixed price and caused confusion.” He argues that hard money, such as backed by gold or silver, would prevent monetary inflation (and, thus, would inhibit price inflation), but adds, “I wouldn’t exactly go back on the gold standard but I would legalize the constitution where gold and silver should and could be legal tender, which would restrain the Federal Government from spending and then turning that over to the Federal Reserve and letting the Federal Reserve print the money.”^[65]

Paul supports legalization of parallel currencies, such as gold-backed notes issued from private markets and digital gold currencies.^[66] He would like gold-backed notes (or other types of hard money) and digital gold currencies^[67] to compete on a level playing field with Federal Reserve Notes, allowing individuals a choice whether to use sound money or to continue usingfiat money.^[68]^[69]^[70] Paul believes this would restrain monetary and price inflation, limit government spending, and eventually eliminate the ability of the Federal Reserve to “tax” Americans through monetary inflation (i.e., by reducing the purchasing power of the currency they are holding), which he sees as “the most insidious of all taxes”.^[71]

He suggests that current efforts to sustain dollar hegemony, especially since the collapse of the Bretton Woods systemfollowing the United States’ suspension of the dollar’s conversion to gold in 1971, exacerbate a rationale for war. Consequently, when petroleum producing nations like Iraq, Iran, or Venezuela elect to trade in Petroeuro instead of Petrodollar, it devalues an already overly inflated dollar, further eroding its supremacy as a global currency. According to Paul, along with vested American interests in oil and plans to “remake the Middle East”, this scenario has proven a contributing factor for the war in Iraq and diplomatic tensions with Iran.^[72]^[73]

[edit]Nonviolent tax resistance

In an interview with economic analyst and commentator Neil Cavuto on Fox News Channel, June 26, 2007, in speaking of income tax resistance, Paul said that he supports the right of those who engage in nonviolent resistance when they believe a law is unjust, bringing up the names of Martin Luther King, Jr., Lysander Spooner, and Mahatma Gandhi as examples of practitioners of peaceful civil disobedience; but he cautioned that those who do should be aware that the consequences could be imprisonment.^[74]^[75] He said that current income tax laws assume that people are guilty and they must then prove they are innocent, and he believes this aspect of tax law is unfair. However, he said that he prefers to work for improved tax laws by getting elected to Congress and trying to change the laws themselves rather than simply not paying the tax.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Social Security

Paul has given 12 updates on his Texas Straight Talk archive on the issue of Social Security.^[76] Paul considers Social Security unconstitutional,^[77] and he has sought for many years for the program to be phased out.^[78]^[79] He says that the Social Security system, which he has called “a giant Ponzi scheme,”^[80] is in “bad shape … The numbers aren’t there”; funds are depleting because Congress borrows from the Social Security fund every year to fund its budget.^[81] Paul’s 2013 budget proposal would guarantee to uphold Social Security commitments to older workers while allowing Americans under 25 to opt out of participating in the program.^[36]^[82]

[edit]Minimal market interference

Paul endorses defederalization of the health care system. Paul also states that he has an opposition to virtually all federal interference with the market process.^[83]

Paul was one of only eight members of the entire Congress who voted to block implementation of the National Do Not Call Registry act, which prohibits telemarketers from telephoning those who have opted out of receiving such advertising.^[84]^[85] He argued that “legislation to regulate telemarketing would allow the government to intrude further into our lives,” and that “The fact that the privately-run Direct Marketing Association is operating its own ‘do-not-call’ list is evidence that consumers need not rely upon the national government to address the problems associated with telemarketers.”^[86]

Paul was one of three members of Congress that voted against the Sarbanes-Oxley Act: it “imposes costly new regulations on the financial services industry [that] are damaging American capital markets by providing an incentive for small US firms and foreign firms to deregister from US stock exchanges”.^[87] The Sarbanes-Oxley law was drafted in response to accounting scandals, such as with Enron Corporation.

In an interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Paul said he favors ending the United States Post Office legal monopoly onfirst class mail delivery by legalizing private competition.^[88]

Paul argued against the $700 billion bailout proposal to purchase toxic debt during the economic crisis of 2008. His vote was among the majority of “nay” votes cast to defeat the initial measure in the U.S. House of Representatives.^[89] The House passed a “sweetened” version of the bill, against which Paul voted a second time, later in the week.^[90]

[edit]Civil liberties

[edit]Public religious expression

Paul believes that prayer in public schools should not be prohibited at the federal or state level, nor should it be made compulsory to engage in.^[91]^[92] He rejects the notion of “separation of Church and state“, instead seeing the issue as “free exercise of religion” and “no establishment of religion“. Importantly he views the latter as specific government endorsement of one particular religion, and does not see it as a mandate to ban all policies that would benefit religion in general. He argues that churches give people a moral base that government cannot provide. He views churches as more effective and more established providers of social welfare than the government. He also argues this leads to a more orderly people who have less need for the government to actively seek to control them. He opposes efforts to force religion out of the public sphere.^[93]

In 2005, Paul introduced the We the People Act, which would have removed “any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion” from the jurisdiction of federal courts.^[94] If made law, this provision would purportedly permit state, county, and local governments to decide whether to allow displays of religious text and imagery, but would not interfere with the application of relevant federal law.^{[citation needed]}

Paul has sponsored a constitutional amendment which would allow students to participate in individual or group prayer in public schools, but would not allow anyone to be forced to pray against their will or allow the state to compose any type of prayer or officially sanction any prayer to be said in schools.^[95]

[edit]Freedom of speech

In 1997, Paul introduced a Constitutional amendment giving states the power to prohibit the destruction of the flag of the United States.^[96] In June 2003, he voted against a Constitutional amendment to prohibit the physical “desecration” of the flag of the United States.^[97] He believes that prohibiting flag burning is a state power, not a federal power.^[98]

Internet

He believes the internet should be free from government regulation and taxation, and is opposed to internet gamblingrestrictions and network neutrality legislation.^[99]

He was the only member of the House of Representatives to vote against an anti-spam email bill in 2000,^[100] and one of only 5 members of the entire Congress to vote against a subsequent anti-spam email bill in 2003.^[101]

Paul voted against a provision in an act^[102] that would have legally protected net neutrality.

Paul has been criticized by CNET for voting against legislation to help catch online child predators. Paul argues that parents should have the responsibility to protect their own children from such actions.^[103]

Paul was one of two representatives to vote against the Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online Act of 2007,^[104] which states that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi Internet connection to the public, who “obtains actual knowledge of any facts or circumstances” in relation to illegal visual media such as child pornography transferred over that connection, must register a report of their knowledge to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.^[105]

Campaign-related speech, campaign finance, and corporate personhood

Paul opposes federal attempts to regulate campaign spending and speech intended to influence elections. Following the passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, he wrote, “First, although the new campaign rules clearly violate the First amendment, they should be struck down primarily because Congress has no authority under Article I of the Constitution to regulate campaigns at all. Article II authorizes only the regulation of elections, not campaigns, because our Founders knew Congress might pass campaign laws that protect incumbency.”^[106]

In 2002, he also joined with others to sue the Federal Election Commission over provisions of the McCain-Feingold law, arguing for his part that it was a violation of his First Amendment rights for the government to subject him, as a federal elected official seeking re-election, to more stringent campaign requirements, including limitations on the financial contributions he could receive from individual donors, than were placed on news media corporations that were taking positions on public policy issues relevant to campaigns.^[107]

Commenting on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, in 2010 Paul said, “You should never restrict lobbying because the Constitution is rather clear about the people being allowed to petition Congress, and whether you’re an individual or you belong to a [special interest group] … you should be allowed to do that.”^[108] He argues that corporations should be able to spend their money in any way that they want.^[108] He also opposes taxpayer-funded public campaign financing.^[109]

Paul rejects the notion that corporations are people, with collective rights. He says that only individuals have rights; people are individuals, not groups or companies.^[110]^[111] ”Corporations don’t have rights per se, but the individual who happens to own a corporation or belong to a union does have rights, and these rights are not lost by merely acting through another organization.”^[109]

Immunity for Whistleblowers

At a campaign rally, Paul said that whistleblowers are “the ones who need immunity.” Alluding to Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning, Paul said, “So if we have an American citizen and is willing to take the consequences and practice civil disobedience and say this is what our government’s doing, should he be locked up and in prison, or should we see him as a political hero? Maybe he is a true patriot who reveals what’s going on in government.”^[112] However, Paul voted against the Offshore Oil and Gas Worker Whistleblower Protection Act of 2010.^[113]

[edit]Gun control

Paul has been a lead sponsor of legislation in Congress attempting to maintain individual Second Amendment rights.^[114] He has also fought for the right of pilots to be armed.

In the first chapter of his book, Freedom Under Siege, Paul argued that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to place a check on government tyranny, not to merely grant hunting rights or allow self-defense. When asked whether individuals should be allowed to own machine guns, Paul responded, “Whether it’s an automatic weapon or not is, I think, irrelevant.”^[115] Paul also argues that weapons bans only keep them out of the hands of law abiding citizens, not dangerous criminals.^[116] He sees school shootings, plane hijackings, and other such events as a result of prohibitions on self-defense.^[117] He supports the right of citizens to carry concealed weapons if they are legally owned.^[118]

[edit]Jury related issues

Paul believes that juries deserve the status of tribunals, and that jurors have the right to judge the law as well as the facts of the case. “The concept of protecting individual rights from the heavy hand of government through the common-law jury is as old as the Magna Carta. The Founding Fathers were keenly aware of this principle and incorporated it into our Constitution.” He notes that this principle is also stated in Thomas Paine‘s Rights of Man, Supreme Court of the United States decisions by Chief Justice John Jay, and writings of Thomas Jefferson. Paul states that judges were not given the right to direct the trial by “instructing” the jury.^[119]

[edit]Habeas corpus

In the first Republican debate (2007) in California, Paul stated that he would never violate habeas corpus,^[120] through which detainees can seek relief from unlawful imprisonment. This is also a pledge in the American Freedom Agenda signed by Paul.^[121]

[edit]Federal legislation and civil liberty

PATRIOT Act

Paul broke with his party by voting against the PATRIOT Act in 2001; he also voted against its 2005 enactment.^[122] He has spoken against federal use of what he defines as torture and what he sees as an abuse of executive authority during the Iraq War to override Constitutional rights.^[123]

REAL ID Act

Paul voted against the REAL ID Act of 2005, an Act to create federal identification-card standards, which has been challengedas violating the Constitutional separation of powers doctrine, and other civil liberties.^[124]^[125] Enforcement of the Act has been postponed until 2011.^[126]

Domestic surveillance

Paul has spoken against the domestic surveillance program conducted by the National Security Agency on American citizens. He believes the role of government is to protect American citizens’ privacy, not violate it.^[127] He has signed the American Freedom Agenda pledge not to violate Americans’ rights through domestic wiretapping and to renounce autonomous presidential signing statements, which rely on unitary executive theory.^[121] In December 2007, he stated his opposition to theUS House Resolution 1955, arguing that it “focuses the weight of the US government inward toward its own citizens under the guise of protecting us against violent radicalization.”^[128]

Conscription

Paul is opposed to reintroducing the draft.^[129] In 2002 he authored and introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives expressing that reinstatement of a draft would be unnecessary and detrimental to individual liberties, a resolution that was endorsed by the American Civil Liberties Union.^[130] In the 110th Congress, he has proposed a bill which would end Selective Service registration.^[131]

Eminent domain

Paul opposes eminent domain. He wishes to “stop special interests from violating property rights and literally driving families from their homes, farms and ranches”. He also opposes regulatory taking.^[132]

Affirmative action

In 1997, Paul voted to end affirmative action in college admissions.^[133]^[134] Paul criticizes both racism and obsession with racial identity.^[135]

American Community Survey

He has called the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey ”both ludicrous and insulting”, arguing that the information demanded is simply none of the government’s business.^[136]

[edit]Sexual harassment

In his 1987 book, Freedom Under Siege, Ron Paul expressed the view that those who experience sexual harassment in the work force should remedy the situation by quitting their jobs. He further argued that governmental oversight is warranted only where victims are physically forced into sexual actions.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Same-sex marriage

Asked his opinion on same-sex marriage in October 2011, Paul replied, “Biblically and historically, the government was very uninvolved in marriage. I like that. I don’t know why we should register our marriage to the federal government. I think it’s a sacrament.” In the same interview, when asked whether he would vote for or against a state constitutional amendment like California’s Proposition 8, he said, “Well, I believe marriage is between one man and one woman.”^[137]

In a 2007 interview, Paul said that he supported the right of gay couples to marry, so long as they didn’t “impose” their relationship on anyone else, on the grounds of supporting voluntary associations.^[138] He also said, “Matter of fact, I’d like to see all governments out of the marriage question. I don’t think it’s a state function, I think it’s a religious function.” Paul has stated that in a best case scenario, governments would enforce contracts and grant divorces but otherwise have no say in marriage.^[139] He has also said he doesn’t want to interfere in the free association of two individuals in a social, sexual, and religious sense.^[140]^[141] When asked if he was supportive of gay marriage, Paul responded, “I am supportive of all voluntary associations and people can call it whatever they want.”^[140]

Paul has also said that at the federal level he opposes “efforts to redefine marriage as something other than a union between one man and one woman.” He believes that recognizing or legislating marriages should be left to the states and local communities, and not subjected to “judicial activism.”^[142] He has said that for these reasons he would have voted for theDefense of Marriage Act, had he been in Congress in 1996. The act allows a state to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states or countries, although a state will usually recognize marriages performed outside of its own jurisdiction. The act also prohibits the U.S. Government from recognizing same-sex marriages, even if a state recognizes the marriage.

He has opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would amend the US Constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, because he worries that with its passage “liberal social engineers who wish to use federal government power to redefine marriage will be able to point to the constitutional marriage amendment as proof that the definition of marriage is indeed a federal matter! I am unwilling either to cede to federal courts the authority to redefine marriage, or to deny a state’s ability to preserve the traditional definition of marriage.”^[142]

Paul has been a cosponsor of the Marriage Protection Act in each Congress since the bill’s original introduction. It would bar federal judges from hearing cases pertaining to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. Speaking in support of the Marriage Protection Act in 2004, he urged those of his fellow congressional representatives who “believe Congress needs to take immediate action to protect marriage” to vote for the bill because its passage, requiring only simple majorities in both Houses of Congress, would be much more readily achieved than the passage of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which, as a Constitutional amendment, would require not only much larger majorities in both Houses but also ratification by the state legislatures.^[142]

In 2005, Paul introduced the We the People Act, which would have removed from the jurisdiction of federal courts “any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction” and “any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation.”^[94] If made law, these provisions would remove sexual practices, and particularly same-sex unions, from federal jurisdiction.

In February 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama administration’s Justice Department had determined that a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional and, as a result, the administration would no longer argue in support of the act’s constitutionality in court.^[143] Paul issued a statement to Iowa Republicans criticizing the Obama administration’s position, saying: “Like the majority of Iowans, I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and must be protected. I supported the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress’ constitutional authority to define what other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a same sex marriage license issued in another state.”^[144]^[145]

[edit]Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

In the third Republican debate on June 5, 2007, Paul said about the U.S. military’s ”don’t ask, don’t tell” policy:

I think the current policy is a decent policy. And the problem that we have with dealing with this subject is we see people as groups, as they belong to certain groups and that they derive their rights as belonging to groups. We don’t get our rights because we’re gays or women or minorities. We get our rights from our Creator as individuals. So every individual should be treated the same way. So if there is homosexual behavior in the military that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. But if there’s heterosexual behavior that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. So it isn’t the issue of homosexuality. It’s the concept and the understanding of individual rights. If we understood that, we would not be dealing with this very important problem.^[141]

Paul elaborated his position in a 65-minute interview at Google, stating that he would not discharge openly gay troops if their behavior was not disruptive.^[140]

Ultimately, Paul voted in the affirmative for HR 5136, an amendment that leads to a full repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell“, on May 27, 2010.^[146] He subsequently voted for the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 on December 18, 2010.

[edit]Sodomy laws

Paul has been a critic of the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas decision, in which sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. In an essay posted to the Lew Rockwell website, he stated his opposition to what he called ridiculous sodomy laws, but expressed his fear that federal courts were grossly violating their role of strictly interpreting the Constitution, and felt that they were setting a dangerous precedent of what he characterized as legislating from the bench, by declaring privacy in regards to sexual conduct a constitutional right. Ron Paul said:

Consider the Lawrence case decided by the Supreme Court in June. The Court determined that Texas had no right to establish its own standards for private sexual conduct, because gay sodomy is somehow protected under the 14th amendment “right to privacy”. Ridiculous as sodomy laws may be, there clearly is no right to privacy nor sodomy found anywhere in the Constitution. There are, however, states’ rights – rights plainly affirmed in the Ninth and Tenth amendments. Under those amendments, the State of Texas has the right to decide for itself how to regulate social matters like sex, using its own local standards.^[147]

[edit]States’ powers

Paul’s positions on civil liberties are often based on states’ rights, certain rights and political powers that U.S. states possess in relation to the federal government. He cites the Tenth Amendment, “States’ rights simply means the individual states should retain authority over all matters not expressly delegated to the federal government in Article I of the Constitution.”^[148] For instance, the lack of federal murder statutes makes murder a state and local offense.

[edit]Abortion

Paul calls himself “strongly pro-life”^[149] and “an unshakable foe of abortion“.^[150] In 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011, Paul introduced the Sanctity of Life Act, which would have life defined as beginning at conception at the Federal level.^[151] However, he believes regulation of medical decisions about maternal or fetal health is “best handled at the state level”.^[152]^[153]^[154] He believes that according to the U.S. Constitution states should, for the most part, retain jurisdiction.

Paul refers to his background as an obstetrician as being influential on his view, recalling inadvertently witnessing a late-term abortion performed by one of his instructors during his residency, “It was pretty dramatic for me to see a two-and-a-half-pound baby taken out crying and breathing and put in a bucket.”^[155] During a May 15, 2007, appearance on the Fox News talk showHannity and Colmes, Paul argued that his pro-life position was consistent with his libertarian values, asking, “If you can’t protect life then how can you protect liberty?” Furthermore, Paul argued in this appearance that since he believes libertarians support non-aggression, libertarians should oppose abortion because abortion is “an act of aggression” against a fetus, which is alive, human, and he believes possesses legal rights.^[156]

Paul has said that the ninth and tenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution do not grant the federal government any authority to legalize or ban abortion, stating that “the federal government has no authority whatsoever to involve itself in the abortion issue.”^[157] However, this has not stopped Paul from voting in favor of a federal ban on partial-birth abortion in 2000^[158] and 2003.^[159]

In addition to defining human life to begin at conception at the Federal level, Paul’s Sanctity of Life Act would remove challenges to prohibitions on abortion from federal court jurisdiction.^[151] In 2005, Paul also introduced the We the People Act, which would have removed “any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of … reproduction” from the jurisdiction of federal courts. If made law, either of these acts would allow states to prohibit abortion^[94]or any sex act. In 2005, Paul voted against restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions.^[160]

In order to “offset the effects of Roe v. Wade“, Paul voted in favor of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. He has described partial birth abortion as a “barbaric procedure”. He also introduced H.R. 4379 that would prohibit the Supreme Court from ruling on issues relating to abortion, birth control, the definition of marriage and homosexuality and would cause the court’s precedents in these areas to no longer be binding.^[161] He once said, “The best solution, of course, is not now available to us. That would be a Supreme Court that recognizes that for all criminal laws, the several states retain jurisdiction.”^[162]

[edit]Contraception

Paul says that government, especially at the federal level, should not be involved in medical matters, including contraception.^[163] He has proposed legislation to block federal funding of any family planning activity, which would include contraception;^[164]^[165]^[166] and in July 2011, when asked how he would work as president to provide contraceptive services for Americans who have no health insurance, he vowed to block all government payments for contraception: “Whether it’s buying a loaf of bread or getting a birth control pill, in a free country, that’s your responsibility.”^[167]

Paul has asserted that a right to privacy in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protects the use of contraceptives^[168]^[169] and that the Interstate Commerce Clause protects the sale of contraceptives.^[168]

However, legislation which Paul has repeatedly introduced into Congress [see the We The People Act] has been criticized for potentially freeing states to ban the prescription or use of contraception, by stripping the federal courts and the Supreme Court of the authority to rule on the constitutionality of such bans.^[170]

As a firm believer that human life begins the moment an egg is fertilized,^[169] and that from that moment has a right to life that government is charged with protecting,^[171] Paul has also been challenged for simultaneously holding the apparently contradictory position of supporting access to emergency contraception, such as the morning-after pill, in cases of “honest rape.”^[172]^[173] He wrote, in Liberty Defined, published in 2011, “Very early pregnancies and victims of rape can be treated with the day after pill, which is nothing more than using birth control pills in a special manner. These very early pregnancies could never be policed, regardless. Such circumstances would be dealt with by each individual making his or her own moral choice.”^[174]

[edit]Stem-cell research

Paul supports stem-cell research generically, as evidenced by his authoring the Cures Can Be Found Act of 2007 (H.R. 457; H.R. 3444 in 2005), a bill “to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide credits against income tax for qualified stem cell research, the storage of qualified stem cells, and the donation of umbilical cord blood”. However, Paul believes the debate over the embryonic category of stem-cell research is another divisive issue over which the federal government has no jurisdiction.

[edit]Human cloning

Paul joined with conservative colleagues in voting “no” on HR 2560, the Democrats’ version of a federal ban on human cloning.^[175] The Bush White House had strongly opposed HR 2560, saying “The Administration is strongly opposed to any legislation that would prohibit human cloning for reproductive purposes but permit the creation of cloned embryos or development of human embryo farms for research, which would require the destruction of nascent human life.”^[176]

[edit]Capital punishment

Paul stated in August 2007 that at the state level “capital punishment is a deserving penalty for those who commit crime”, but he does not believe that the federal government should use it as a penalty.^[177]

According to longtime Paul associate and former chief of staff Lew Rockwell, Paul opposes capital punishment as part of his “consistent pro-life ethic”.^[178]

[edit]Education

Elementary and Secondary School

Paul sought in the 1980s and 1990s to eventually abolish all public schools;^[179]^[180]^[181]^[182] but by the 2008 presidential election campaign, he had adopted a more moderate stance.^[183] Paul insists that “the federal government has absolutely no role in education” under the Constitution, “regardless of what the Supreme Court has claimed.”^[184]^[185] He argues that the best way to improve the quality of education while fighting rising costs, growing numbers of dropouts, and higher levels of violence and drug use among students is to reduce the reach of centralized government in the schools and return control over school curricula, funding, and administration back to parents and local communities.^[184]

He has long opposed the idea of federally-mandated testing being used to measure student performance against federally-determined national education standards. He voted against national testing measures first proposed by the Clinton administration;^[185]^[186] and he similarly has never supported the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which he voted against when it was proposed in 2001.^[187]

Paul is a proponent of school choice, saying that private, parochial, and home schools provide a healthy counterweight to “the near monopoly control over indoctrination of young people”^[184] of the public schools, which he considers “socialist”;^[188] and he notes that the nation’s Founders themselves were largely home-schooled or taught in church-associated schools. In support of school choice and local control of education, he has introduced into every Congress since 1997 measures to provide families with education tax credits.^[189] His Family Education Freedom Act would give families a tax credit of up to $5,000 per student to pay for any educational expenses whether the student attends public, private, or parochial school, or is home-schooled.^[190]His Education Improvement Tax Cut Act would provide families with an additional tax credit of up to $5,000 for donations of cash or educational materials made to schools of their choice.^[191] He has said of the latter proposal, “The Education Improvement Tax Cut Act relies on the greatest charitable force in history to improve the education of children from low-income families: the generosity of the American people. As with parental tax credits, the Education Improvement Tax Cut Act brings true accountability to education since taxpayers will only donate to schools that provide a quality education.”^[192]^[193]

Although Paul supports the right of state and local school districts, under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, to implementeducation voucher plans, he rejects federal government-controlled school voucher plans, preferring federal education tax credits instead. He regards federal voucher programs as a form of “taxpayer-funded welfare” in which money is taken from middle-class families to unfairly provide private-school educations to a particular group of children favored by politicians and bureaucrats.^[192] He also worries that with federal school vouchers inevitably come further central government regulation and loss of local control over education. Private, religious schools, for instance, would feel pressured to conform to government dictates in order to become accredited by the Department of Education to qualify for participation in the voucher program. He points to how the federal government has used the threat of cutting off funding to dictate to universities which policies they must accept; he argues that the government would try to do the same with private schools.^[192]

College and Other Higher-Education

Paul asserts that access to “education is not a right.” He opposes all federal government scholarships and government loans for higher education, but is supportive of the offering of financial aid by private organizations.^[194]

In a March 2, 2011 interview, when asked whether the government should provide financial aid to a poor student with good grades who wants to further his education, Paul responded that no, the government should not because “nobody has a right to someone else’s wealth. You have a right to your life and you have a right to your property but you don’t have a – education isn’t a right. Medical care isn’t a right. These are things you have to earn.” (He went on to explain that there were no government loans when he went to school, yet education costs were much lower and he was able to finance his medical school education by obtaining private loans through the medical school.)^[194]

Paul’s “Restore America” budget plan, which he laid out in October 2011,^[195] calls for the immediate elimination of the Department of Education. College Pell grants and other federal financial aid programs would be transferred to another branch of government during a transition period, following which all federal financial aid for education would be eliminated.^[196]^[197]

[edit]Environment

[edit]Privatizing federal lands

Paul has long held that land owned by the government should be sold to private parties.^[198]^[199]^[200] In addition to closing the Department of the Interior, his “Restore America” budget plan proposes selling off at least $40 billion worth of public lands such as national parks, and other federal assets, between 2013 and 2016.^[36]^[201]

[edit]Free-market environmentalism

As a free-market environmentalist, Paul sees polluters as aggressors who should not be granted immunity from prosecution or otherwise insulated from accountability. Paul argues that enforcing private property rights through tort law would hold people and corporations accountable, and would increase the cost of polluting activities—thus decreasing pollution.^[202] He claims that environmental protection has failed due to lack of respect for private property:

The environment is better protected under private property rights … We as property owners can’t violate our neighbors’ property. We can’t pollute their air or their water. We can’t dump our garbage on their property … Too often, conservatives and liberals fall short on defending environmental concerns, and they resort to saying, “Well, let’s turn it over to the EPA. The EPA will take care of us … We can divvy up the permits that allow you to pollute.” So I don’t particularly like that method.^[203]

He believes that environmental legislation, such as emissions standards, should be handled between the states or regions concerned. “The people of Texas do not need federal regulators determining our air standards.”^[204]

Paul says he opposes government assistance to private businesses intended to help shape research and investment decisions, including to promote alternative energy production and use. During a June 2011 presidential primary campaign debate, Paul said, “There shouldn’t be any assistance to private enterprise. It’s not morally correct, it’s not legal, it’s bad economics. It’s not part of the Constitution. If you allow an economy to thrive, they’ll decide how R&D works or where they invest their monies. But when the politicians get in and direct things, you get the malinvestment.”^[205] Similarly, in an October 2011 presidential primary campaign debate, he said, “The government shouldn’t be in the business of subsidizing any form of energy.”^[206]

However, in 2008 Paul urged the Department of Energy to approve a federal loan guarantee to help an energy company build two new nuclear reactors in South Texas. Asked to explain the apparent contradiction between his stated opposition to federal financial involvement in private-sector business decisions and his personal intervention in the case of the nuclear company, Paul’s campaign issued a statement saying, “As a Congressman and as President, Dr. Paul will work to eliminate all federal intervention in the energy market. However, until that happens, he will do his best to ensure that the money Congress appropriates is spent in the best way possible.”^[206]

Paul objects to “the demand to recycle everything from paper to glass to plastic,” saying that although recycling aluminum makes economic sense, “recycling for the most part consumes more energy than it saves.”^[207]

[edit]Global warming

In an October 2007 interview, Paul, whose congressional district’s largest companies are Dow Chemical, the former Union Carbide (a subsidiary of Dow Chemical since 2001), and many petrochemical companies,^[208] held that climate change is not a “major problem threatening civilization,” stating “I think war and financial crises and big governments marching into our homes and elimination of habeas corpus — those are immediate threats. We’re about to lose our whole country and whole republic!^[209] He declined to name any particular environmental heroes and affirmed no special environmental achievements other than his educating the people about free-market solutions rather than “government expenditures and special-interest politics”.^[209]

[edit]Environmental-related legislative activities

During the 2008 presidential campaign Paul said that he had been active in the Green Scissors campaign.^[210] However, when asked by a different interviewer a few months later to discuss his Green Scissors involvement, Paul did not know what the interviewer was talking about.^[209]

Paul says that he opposes and votes against subsidies for oil and gas companies. However, unlike many others in government, industry, and the newsmedia, Paul does not include tax credits or tax deductions in his definition of subsidies. He uses the term “subsidy” only in the very narrow sense of a direct grant of money from the government to a company.^[211]^[212]

Paul voted on multiple occasions in 2007—2012 to block measures that would have eliminated or reduced tax breaks for oil and gas producers. For example, in January 2007, he voted against the Energy Independence and Security Act, which supporters said would have rescinded $14 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas drillers.^[213]^[214] In February 2008, he voted against the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act, which supporters said would have eliminated $18 billion in tax benefits for oil companies and substituted tax credits for wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources.^[215]^[216] In May 2008, he voted against the Energy Improvement and Extension Act, which supporters said contained provisions to cut tax breaks for oil companies and to expand tax breaks for alternative energies like solar and geothermal power, biodiesel fuels, and plug-in hybrid vehicles.^[217]^[218] In July 2010, he voted against the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act of 2009, which would have removed federal caps on oil companies’ liability for oil spills, and would have cut certain tax breaks for oil companies.^[219]^[220]^[221] In February 2011, he voted against a measure to reinstate royalties assessed for oil drilled when oil prices are high.^[222] In March, April, and May 2011, he voted against measures that would have allowed consideration of legislation to eliminate tax breaks for oil companies and promote production and use of alternative energy sources.^[223]^[224]^[225]^[226]

In 2005, supported by Friends of the Earth, Paul cosponsored a bill preventing the U.S. from funding nuclear power plants in China.^[227]
Paul is opposed to federal subsidies that favor certain technologies over others, such as ethanol from corn rather than sugarcane, and believes the market should decide which technologies are best and which will succeed in the end.^[81]
In 2005, he advocated the repeal or temporary suspension of the federal gas tax in order to alleviate the economic effects of Hurricane Katrina.^[228]
He believes that nuclear power is a clean and efficient potential alternative that could be used to power electric cars.^[81]
He believes that states should be able to decide whether to allow production of hemp, which can be used in producing sustainable biofuels, and has introduced bills into Congress to allow states to decide this issue; North Dakota, particularly, has built an ethanol plant with the ability to process hemp as biofuel and its farmers have been lobbying for the right to grow hemp for years.^[229]
He voted against 2004 and 2005 provisions that would shield makers from liability for MTBE, a possibly cancer-causing gasoline additive that seeped into New England groundwater. The proposal included $1.8 billion to fund cleanup and another $2 billion to fund companies’ phaseout programs.^[230]^[231]^[232]

The League of Conservation Voters gave Paul a pro-environment voting-record score of 6% for 2011, and 0% for 2009-2010.^[233] (The League considers a perfect score of 100% a measure of strong support for environmental protection.)^[234]Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP), whose scorecards rate only Republican lawmakers, gave Paul a score of only 5% for 2010, and 2% for 2009-2010, on a 0 – 100% scale in which a perfect score of 100% is considered by REP to be a measure of strong support for environmental protection. Republicans for Environmental Protection rated Paul “Worst in the House” on the environment of all Republican representatives in the 111th Congress (2009-2010).^[235]

[edit]Health policy

[edit]Health care costs

Paul says that contrary to what most Americans believe, access to health care is not a right, but a good whose value should be determined by the free market.^[236]^[237]^[238] In his view, government has no business in the delivery of health care. When government becomes involved, he says, costs rise and quality of care falls.^[239]^[240]^[241]

Paul calls for the eventual elimination of Medicare (federally-funded health care for the elderly and disabled) and Medicaid(health care for the poor, jointly funded by the federal and state governments),^[242]^[243] and he has been a staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act health insurance reform law that was enacted in 2010.^[244]^[240]^[245] He says that federally-funded healthcare is “unconstitutional” and that the costs of the programs are unsustainable and are bankrupting the government.^[246]^[238]^[247]

Paul says that when he entered medical practice in the early 1960s, before the Medicare and Medicaid programs were established, the poor and the elderly were hospitalized at about the same rates as they have been under Medicare and Medicaid in the 2000s, and that they received good care. He says further that in those days, doctors and hospitals provided cut-rate or free care to people who did not have health insurance – “every physician understood that he or she had a responsibility toward the less fortunate, and free medical care for the poor was the norm” – and that this was possible because healthcare costs were much lower. At a church charity hospital where he worked in his early years of practice, “nobody was turned away” for lack of ability to pay.^[239]^[247]^[237]

Paul claims that government meddling in health care delivery is to blame for healthcare costs having skyrocketed over the past few decades. He recalls that in the early 1960s, patients typically paid for basic medical services with cash, as there was almost no government payment for care, and as those Americans who had private insurance were typically only covered for hospitalization and emergency care.^[237]^[247] In that setting, he says, providers almost always charged minimal fees for services in order to improve the chance of being paid. He argues that the emergence of government as a payer for healthcare services in the form of Medicare and Medicaid, along with government policies of the 1970s that led to the expansion of private insurance to cover routine medical services in addition to hospitalization and emergency care, and which required most employers to provide health insurance for their employees, interfered with the traditional physician-patient relationship. The incentive for healthcare providers and patients to keep costs as low as possible was lost. He says that now providers always charge the maximal fees for services, since the government or insurance company can be counted on to pay the bills.^[239]

Paul additionally argues that government contributes to rising healthcare costs through yet other ways, such as through government regulations, one example being restrictions imposed by the Food and Drug Administration on the manufacture and sale of medications and dietary supplements, and through licensing of physicians and other healthcare practitioners, which Paul says interferes with market-based competition for healthcare services. He also criticizes the legal system’s approach to the handling of medical malpractice claims, which he says needlessly inflates the cost of healthcare further still.^[239]^[237]^[247]^[248]^[249]

[edit]Medical research funding

Paul has long opposed government funding of medical research. Although he considers himself “pro-research,”^[250] he believes that “all research in a free society should be done privately.”

In the mid-1980s, when no effective medication was yet available for AIDS treatment, Paul spoke publicly against all federal funding for AIDS research.^[251] He also wrote, in his book Freedom Under Siege, published in 1987, “Victims of the disease AIDS argue … for crash research programs (to be paid for by people who don’t have AIDS), demanding a cure…. The individual suffering from AIDS certainly is a victim – frequently a victim of his own lifestyle – but this same individual victimizes innocent citizens by forcing them to pay for his care. Crash research programs are hardly something, I believe, the Founding Fathers intended when they talked about equal rights.”^[252]

More recently, Paul has called federal funding for medical research unconstitutional and has complained that “neither party in Washington can fathom that millions and millions of Americans simply don’t want their tax dollars spent on government research of any kind….”^[253]

He argues that the availability of federal research funds distorts “the natural market for scientific research” by inducing scientists to eschew pursuit of radical lines of potentially-promising research that might not appeal to politicians and bureaucrats who hold influence over the allocation of grant monies. “Federal funding of medical research guarantees the politicization of decisions about what types of research for what diseases will be funded. Scarce tax resources are allocated according to who has the most effective lobby, rather than on the basis of need or even likely success. Federal funding also causes researchers to neglect potential treatments and cures that do not qualify for federal funds.”^[253] In his view, eliminating government sources of funds for medical research would probably improve the quality of research being performed.^[253]^[254]

[edit]Medicare prescription drug program

In 2003, Paul went against the majority of Republicans and voted to block implementation of the Medicare Part D program, which expanded Medicare to cover the costs of medications for the elderly and disabled, and which prohibited the government from negotiating directly with pharmaceutical companies to try to get lower prices for the covered medications.^[255]^[256] In 2007, he again went against the majority of House Republicans when he voted with all of the Democrats in support of the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act, which, if enacted, would have given the government the authority to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices with the manufacturers.^[257] During the 2012 presidential primary campaign, Paul said that although he remains opposed to Medicare Part D, repealing it was not one of his immediate priorities.^[258]

[edit]Tax credits for healthcare expenses & Children’s Health Insurance Program

Paul voted in 2007 and 2009 against reauthorization and expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which is a joint state-federal program to provide health insurance for children and pregnant women in low-income families who do not qualify for Medicaid.^[259]^[260]^[261]^[262]^[263]

He has been a consistent advocate for offering tax credits for healthcare expenses. In each Congress since 2000 Paul has proposed bills that would provide families with tax credits of up to $500 for the healthcare expenses of each dependent family member, and up to $3000 for the care of each dependent with a disability or serious disease such as cancer.^[264]^[265]

Since 2003, Paul has several times introduced into Congress proposals to provide tax credits for the cost of health insurance premiums, and to increase the allowable tax deduction for healthcare expenses (by removing the 7.5% deduction limit). He has also advocated expanding the tax benefits of health savings accounts.^[266]^[267]^[268]

[edit]Discrimination based on genetic predisposition to disease

Paul was the only member of the entire Congress to vote against the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act in 2008, which prohibits health insurers and employers from discriminating against an individual on the basis of carrying a gene(s) that is associated with an increased risk for developing a disease.^[269] His alternative proposal, offered in 2006, would have prohibited genetic-information-based discrimination by federal, state, and local governments or government contractors, but would also have allowed such discrimination by health insurers and other employers. ^[270]

[edit]Emergency medical care

Paul opposes the federal law that requires physicians to treat all patients who go to emergency rooms seeking medical care regardless of the patient’s ability to pay. He asserts that the law is unconstitutional: “The professional skills with which one earns a living are property. Therefore, the clear language of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment prevents Congress from mandating that physicians and hospitals bear the entire costs of providing health care to any group.”^[271] He has proposed measures that, if enacted, would shift the burden of paying for such care to the government, by providing physicians with tax credits for 100% of the cost of uncompensated care they provide under such laws, and hospitals with a 100% deduction.^[272]^[273]

[edit]Insurance coverage of pre-existing medical conditions

Paul opposes laws that require health insurance to cover pre-existing conditions. He argues that “once insurance companies are required by government to insure against preconditions, it’s no longer insurance – it’s a social welfare mandate and will result in bankrupting the insurance companies, or they will be bailed out by a government subsidy, further bankrupting the government. So far no one has mandated insurance companies sell fire insurance to a person whose house is on fire.”^[237]

During a primary debate in the 2012 presidential election campaign, Paul was asked who would pay for the medical care of a previously-healthy 30-year-old man without medical insurance who suddenly falls seriously ill and requires six months of intensive medical care.^[258] Paul said that “what he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself.” When asked specifically whether the man should just be left to die, Paul then replied that he should not be left to die, but should be able to rely on the kindness of neighbors, friends, churches, and charities, as would have occurred back when Paul worked in a church charity hospital early in his career, at a time when healthcare paid for by the government was not available.

Following the debate, Paul was criticized by some political commentators for his refusal to yield in his opposition to the 2010 health insurance reform law (“Obamacare”), which prohibits insurers from denying coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition, when it was pointed out that Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign chair and friend had contracted a sudden severe illness necessitating a prolonged hospital stay before dying. He had not had any medical insurance through his employer and had been unable to purchase insurance due to a pre-existing condition. Although he had been able to receive medical care he required over the course of his illness, when he died the bills for that care amounted to about $400,000. His friends, including Paul, were able to raise about $50,000, but that still left $350,000 to be passed to his estate — or left unpaid (and passed on to other consumers and taxpayers).^[274]^[275]^[276]^[277]

[edit]Medical malpractice law reform

Paul has proposed radical changes in the way medical malpractice claims are handled.^[237] Under bills he has introduced multiple times beginning in 2003, a patient planning pregnancy, surgery, or other major medical procedures or medical treatment would be able to buy “negative outcomes” insurance at very low cost. If the patient were to experience a negative outcome in association with the medical procedure or treatment, he or she would then seek compensation through bindingarbitration, rather than through a medical malpractice trial before a jury. Paul claims that “using insurance, private contracts, and binding arbitration to resolve medical disputes benefits patients, who receive full compensation in a timelier manner than under the current system,” as well as physicians and hospitals, since their litigation costs, and malpractice insurance premiums, would be markedly reduced.^[278]^[279]^[280]

[edit]Proposal to eliminate Medicare

Paul proposes that all government funding of medical care be eliminated (with the exception, perhaps, of care for veterans). His Plan to Restore America budget proposal would begin a phase out of Medicare starting in 2013, when workers younger than 25 would be able to opt out of participating in the program.^[36] He says that during the transition period, the commitments for coverage under Medicare that have already been made to older workers could be honored by cutting other government spending, such as by closing all US military bases overseas and ceasing to engage in foreign military “adventurism.”

[edit]Food and Drug Administration policy

Paul proposes sharply reducing the government’s regulation of medications and health supplements by reducing the role of, and ultimately eliminating, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).^[281] In a 2011 interview, Paul said, “Well, the FDA just serves the drug companies, you know…. [and] they also prevent drugs from coming on the market [until] 10, 15 years later than other countries have it. So, yes, government just gets in the way on so many of those things.”^[281] He favors allowing FDA-approved prescription drugs to be imported from foreign countries and sold at a lower cost than the same drugs otherwise sell for in the US^[248] – thereby allowing international markets to set drug prices in the US market – a practice that has been prohibited by the FDA. In the interest, as he sees it, of fighting for greater freedom of choice for consumers, he has also introduced bills that would significantly reduce the government’s ability to prevent manufacturers or sellers of dietary supplements and certain other health products from making what government regulators believe to be false or misleading claims about the health effects of the products. He essentially feels that consumers should be able to buy whatever health aids they want from whomever they want, without the need for guidance by the government.^[282]

[edit]Physician licensure

Paul argues against the prevailing system of government licensure of physicians and other healthcare practitioners.^[283] In a 2007 interview, Paul accused the medical profession of choosing to maintain a strict licensing system that permits only a small number of individuals to practice in order to be able to charge much higher fees.^[241] He insisted that with a truly competitive marketplace for health services, a patient with a sore throat, for instance, would be able to be seen by a nurse more rapidly than by a medical doctor and treated by the nurse for only a fraction of the cost of what a medical doctor would charge. “Patients can sort this out. I mean, they’re not going to go to the nurse if they need brain surgery. They can go there for a sore throat.”^[241] He believes that patients would be best served by healthcare practitioners operating under the rules of the free market in voluntary contractual arrangements. Paul feels that anyone who claims to be a healthcare practitioner (whether of allopathic, homeopathic, or naturopathic medicine) should be able to offer healthcare services, without interference from the “nanny state.”^[237]

[edit]Marijuana

Paul favors the right to use marijuana as a medical option. He was cosponsor of H.R. 2592, the States’ Rights to Medical Marijuana Act.^[284] He is currently a supporter of the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008. He also believes marijuana should be completely legal at the federal level.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Drug prohibition

Paul contends that prohibition of drugs is ineffective and advocates ending the War on Drugs.^[285]^[286]^[287] ”Prohibition doesn’t work. Prohibition causes crime.” He believes that drug abuse should be treated as a medical problem: “We treat alcoholism now as a medical problem and I, as a physician, think we should treat drug addiction as a medical problem and not as a crime.” The Constitution does not enumerate or delegate to Congress the authority to ban or regulate drugs in general.

Paul believes in personal responsibility, but also sees inequity in the current application of drug enforcement laws, noting in 2000, “Many prisoners are non-violent and should be treated as patients with addictions, not as criminals. Irrational mandatory minimal sentences have caused a great deal of harm. We have non-violent drug offenders doing life sentences, and there is no room to incarcerate the rapists and murderers.”^[288]

When asked about his position on implementing the tenth amendment, Paul explained, “Certain medical procedures and medical choices, I would allow the states to determine that. The state law should prevail not the Federal Government.” Speaking specifically about Drug Enforcement Administration raids on medical marijuana clinics Paul said, “They’re unconstitutional”, and went on to advocate states’ rights^[289] and personal choice: “You’re not being compassionate by taking medical marijuana from someone who’s suffering from cancer or AIDS … People should have freedom of choice. We certainly should respect the law and the law says that states should be able to determine this.”

[edit]Veterans’ hospital access

Paul believes that the Veterans Administration should not be building more hospitals, and that VA hospitals should instead be phased out. He believes that government should pay to treat veterans in private hospitals, arguing they will get better care more cost-effectively.^[290]

[edit]Government non-intervention in medical field

Paul has also stated that “The government shouldn’t be in the medical business.” He also thinks that the talk about swine fluand getting vaccinated by the Federal Government is being blown out of proportion.^[291]

Paul, was asked a hypothetical question at a Tea Party debate by CNN host Wolf Blitzer about how society should respond if a healthy 30-year-old man who decided against buying health insurance suddenly requires intensive care for six months. Paul said it shouldn’t be the government’s responsibility. “That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks,” Paul said. Paul mentioned he does not believe society should let the aforementioned hypothetical man die but emphasized that churches and communities – rather than governments – should take care of those in need.^[292]

[edit]Election law

[edit]Ballot access

As a former Libertarian Party candidate for President, Paul has been a proponent of ballot access law reform, and has spoken out on numerous election law reform issues.

In 2003, he introduced H. R. 1941, the Voter Freedom Act of 2003, that would have created uniform ballot access laws forindependent and third political party candidates in Congressional elections. He supported this bill in a speech before Congress in 2004.^[293] In 2007 he reintroduced a similar version of the bill.

[edit]Voting Rights Act

In 2006, Paul joined 32 other members of Congress in opposing the renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, originally passed to remove barriers to voting participation for minorities.^[294] Paul has indicated that he did not object to the voting rights clauses, but rather to restrictions placed on property rights by the bill.^[295] He felt the federal interference mandated by the bill was costly and unjustified because the situation for minorities voting is much different than when the bill was passed 40 years ago. Many of Texas’ Republican representatives voted against the bill, because they believe it specifically singles out some Southern states, including Texas, for federal Justice Department oversight that makes it difficult for localities to change the location of a polling place or other small acts without first receiving permission from the federal government.^[296] The bill also mandated bilingual voting ballots upon request, which Paul objected to on the grounds that one of the requirements of gaining United States citizenship is ability to read in English, and that as it currently stands it often forces large expenditures to prepare materials that are in some cases never used.^[297]

[edit]Civil Rights Act of 1964

Paul opposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the grounds that it was an unconstitutional infringement on liberty and by leading to quotas has in his view increased racial disharmony.^[295]

[edit]State representation

Paul would like to restore State representation in Congress. During a speech in New Hampshire in February 2007 Paul called for a repeal of the seventeenth amendment,^[298] which replaced state election of U.S. Senators with popular election. Instead Paul would have members of state legislatures vote for U.S. Senators as they had done under Article One, Section 3. Direct popular representation would be retained in the U.S. House of Representatives. Paul believes that increased representation of state interests at the federal level encourages greater sharing of power between state and federal government.^[299]

[edit]Electoral college

In 2004, he spoke out against efforts to abolish the electoral college, stating that “Democracy, we are told, is always good. But the founders created a constitutionally limited republic precisely to protect fundamental liberties from the whims of the masses, to guard against the excesses of democracy. The electoral college likewise was created in the Constitution to guard against majority tyranny in federal elections. The President was to be elected by the states rather than the citizenry as a whole, with votes apportioned to states according to their representation in Congress.”^[300]

[edit]Foreign policy

Paul’s views are generally attributed to those of non-interventionism, which is the belief that the United States should avoid entangling alliances with other nations, but still retain diplomacy, and avoid all wars not related to direct territorial self-defense.^{[citation needed]} Paul is quoted as stating “America [should] not interfere militarily, financially, or covertly in the internal affairs of other nations”, while advocating “open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations”.^[301] Ronald Reagan spoke in support of Paul’s foreign policy views in the early 1980s, stating “Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country.”^[302] Daniel Ellsberg, famous for releasing the Pentagon Papers, has said of Paul in 2010: “On foreign policy, on the Constitution, on Homeland Security, on intervention, he speaks very well.”^[303] Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich has said that he and Paul “agree tremendously on international policy”.^[304]

[edit]Non-intervention

Paul’s stance on foreign policy is one of consistent non-intervention,^[305]^[306] opposing wars of aggression and entangling alliances with other nations.^[307]

Paul advocates bringing troops home from U.S. military bases in Korea, Japan, and Europe, among others.^[81] He also proposes that the U.S. stop sending what he deems massive, unaccountable foreign aid.^[308] The National Journal labeled Paul’s overall foreign policies in 2010 as more conservative than 60% of the House and more liberal than 40% of the House (53% and 47%, respectively, in 2009).^[10] For 2008, his ratings were 57% more conservative and 42% more liberal (48% and 52%, respectively, in 2007).^[11]

In an October 11, 2007 interview with The Washington Post, Paul said, “There’s nobody in this world that could possibly attack us today… we could defend this country with a few good submarines. If anybody dared touch us we could wipe any country off of the face of the earth within hours. And here we are, so intimidated and so insecure and we’re acting like such bullies that we have to attack third-world nations that have no military and have no weapons.”^[309]

[edit]Afghanistan

Paul voted with the majority for the original Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists in Afghanistan.^[310]considering that it was a response to the September 11 attacks. But over the years even though he initially supported the War in Afghanistan, Paul also advocates withdrawing troops from Afghanistan because he believes a decade of war in Afghanistan is enough.

Paul also stated,

“There really is nothing for us to win in Afghanistan. Our mission has morphed from apprehending those who attacked us, to apprehending those who threaten or dislike us for invading their country, to remaking an entire political system and even a culture … This is an expensive, bloody, endless exercise in futility. Not everyone is willing to admit this just yet. But every second they spend in denial has real costs in lives and livelihoods … Many of us can agree on one thing, however. Our military spending in general has grown way out of control.”

[edit]Iraq

Paul was the only 2008 Republican presidential candidate who voted against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002,^[311]^[312] and he opposed the U.S. presence in Iraq, charging the government with using the War on Terror to curtail civil liberties. He believes a just declaration of war after the September 11, 2001, attacks should have been directed against the actual terrorists, Al-Qaeda, rather than against Iraq, which has not been linked to the attacks.^[313] In 2003, Paul said that when America seeks war, it must be sought only to protect citizens, it must be declared by the U.S. Congress, and it must be concluded when the victory is complete as previously planned, which would allow all resources to be dedicated to victory; he added, “The American public deserves clear goals and a definite exit strategy in Iraq.”^[314] However, the original authorization to invade Iraq (Public Law107-243), passed in late 2002, authorized the president to use military force against Iraq to achieve only the following two specific objectives: “(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq”.^[315] Accordingly, Paul introduced legislation to add a sunset clause to the original authorization.^[316]

During the 2003 invasion, Paul found himself “annoyed by the evangelicals being so supportive of pre-emptive war, which seems to contradict everything that [he] was taught as a Christian”.^[59] Paul’s consistent opposition to the war expanded hisconservative and libertarian Republican support base^[317] to include liberal^[318] Democrats.^[229]

[edit]Israel

Paul argues that if the United States cares about Israel, the U.S. should allow them to be more independent. He states that “the surrounding Arab nations get seven times as much aid as Israel gets and also a recent study came out that showed that for every dollar you give to an Arab nation it prompts Israel to spend 1.4 dollars.”^[319] Paul would not stop Israel from defending its interests in any way it saw fit.^[319]

Our foreign military aid to Israel is actually more like corporate welfare to the U.S. military industrial complex, as Israel is forced to purchase only U.S. products with the assistance. We send almost twice as much aid to other countries in the Middle East, which only insures increased militarization and the drive toward war.^[320]

We have adopted a foreign policy that has left Israel surrounded by militaristic nations while undermining Israel’s sovereignty by demanding that its foreign and defense policies be essentially pre-approved in Washington. That is a bad deal for Israel, as sovereign nations must determine on their own what is a most appropriate national defense. On foreign policy as well, the U.S. steps in to prevent Israel from engaging in dialogue with nations of which the U.S. administration disapproves.^[320]

Paul was in Congress when Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 and—unlike the United Nations and the Reagan administration—defended its right to do so. He says Saudi Arabia has an influence on Washington equal to Israel’s. He votes against support for Israel due to his opposition to foreign aid by the US in general. ^[321]

In an interview with Don Imus, Paul was asked for his view of the Gaza flotilla raid. He responded, “…I think it’s absolutely wrong to prevent people that are starving and having problems, that are almost like in concentration camps, and saying yes we endorse this whole concept that we can’t allow ships to go in there in a humanitarian way…” Imus remarked, “They are allowing humanitarian aid in… what they’re concerned about is weapons falling into the hands of Hamas…” Paul responded, “Well, they’re an elected government, I mean Hamas; We have thousands of our soldiers dying to say that we want elections and we want democracy, so we finally get one in Palestine, and they elect Hamas, and then all of a sudden whoa you’ve elected the wrong people…”^[322]

At the ABC News Iowa Republican Debate, Paul was asked if he agreed with Newt Gingrich’s “characterization, that the Palestinians are an invented people.” Paul responded, “No, I don’t agree with that. And that’s just stirring up trouble. And I believe in a non-interventionist foreign policy. I don’t think we should get in the middle of these squabbles. But to go out of our way and say that so-and-so is not a real people? Technically and historically, yes– you know, under the Ottoman Empire, the Palestinians didn’t have a state, but neither did Israel have a state then too.”^[323]

[edit]Iran

Paul rejects the “dangerous military confrontation approaching with Iran and supported by many in leadership on both sides of the aisle”.^[324] He claims the current circumstances with Iran mirror those under which the Iraq War began,^[325] and has urged Congress not to authorize war with Iran.^[326] In the U.S. House of Representatives, only Paul and Dennis Kucinich voted against the Rothman-Kirk Resolution, which asks the United Nations to charge Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating its genocide convention and charter.^[327] Paul was one of 12 representatives to vote against the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act,^[328] and said, “Sanctions are literally an act of war.”^[329]

[edit]Sudan

In his speech before the House on a related bill, H. Con. Res. 467,^[330] Paul rejected the proposal for “[urging] the Administration to seriously consider multilateral or even unilateral intervention to stop genocide in Darfur should the UN Security Council fail to act”. Paul argued the proposal was unrelated to “the US national interest” or “the Constitutional function of [United States] military forces”.^[331] The resolution passed unanimously, with Paul among 12 non-voters.^[332]

Paul was the only “no” vote on H.R. 180, the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007 (passed House 418-1-13, not reported out of committee in the Senate), which would “require the identification of companies that conduct business operations in Sudan [and] prohibit United States Government contracts with such companies”.^[333] Among the bill’s findings were Colin Powell‘s Senate testimony that the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias it supported were responsible for genocide, and the observation that many Americans inadvertently invest in foreign companies which disproportionately benefit the Sudanese regime in Khartoum.^[334] Paul cited the past ineffectiveness of sanctions against Cuba and Iraq as evidence against divestment from businesses connected to the Sudanese government.^[335]

[edit]Cuba

Paul advocates ending the United States embargo against Cuba, arguing, “Americans want the freedom to travel and trade with their Cuban neighbors, as they are free to travel and trade with Vietnam and China. Those Americans who do not wish to interact with a country whose model of governance they oppose are free to boycott. The point being – it is Americans who live in a free country, and as free people we should choose who to buy from or where to travel, not our government…. Considering the lack of success government has had in engendering friendship with Cuba, it is time for government to get out of the way and let the people reach out.”^[336]

[edit]International organizations

Paul advocates withdrawing U.S. participation and funding from organizations he believes override American sovereignty, such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the Law of the Sea Treaty, NATO, and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.^[306]^[337]^[338]

[edit]The World Trade Organization

Paul states that the WTO is a barrier to free trade and that the economic argument for free trade should be no more complex than the moral argument.

Tariffs are taxes that penalize those who buy foreign goods. If taxes are low on imported goods, consumers benefit by being able to buy at the best price, thus saving money to buy additional goods and raise their standard of living. The competition stimulates domestic efforts and hopefully serves as an incentive to get onerous taxes and regulations reduced…. By endorsing the concept of managed world trade through the World Trade Organization, proponents acknowledge that they actually believe in order for free trade to be an economic positive, it requires compensation or a “deal”.^{[citation needed]}

Paul introduced HJR 90 to withdraw membership from the World Trade Organization.^[339]

[edit]International trade

Paul is a proponent of free trade and rejects protectionism, advocating “conducting open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations”.^[340] He opposes many free trade agreements (FTAs), like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),^[341] stating that “free-trade agreements are really managed trade”^[342] and serve special interests and big business, not citizens.^[343]

He voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), holding that it increased the size of government, eroded U.S. sovereignty, and was unconstitutional.^[341] He has also voted against the Australia–U.S. FTA, the U.S.–Singapore FTA, and the U.S.–Chile FTA, and voted to withdraw from the WTO. He believes that “fast track” powers, given by Congress to the President to devise and negotiate FTAs on the country’s behalf, are unconstitutional, and that Congress, rather than the executive branch, should construct FTAs.^[343]

Paul also has a 57% voting record in favor of free trade in the House of Representatives, according to the Cato Institute.^[344]

[edit]Borders and immigration

Paul considers it a “boondoggle” for the U.S. to spend much money policing other countries’ borders (such as the Iraq–Syriaborder) while leaving its own borders porous and unpatrolled;^[325] he argues the U.S.–Mexico border can be crossed by anyone, including potential terrorists.^[345] During the Cold War, he supported Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative,^[346]intended to replace the “strategic offense” doctrine of mutual assured destruction with strategic defense.

Paul favors legal immigration to the United States—today, approximately 1 million people per year—^[347] and opposes illegal immigration.^[348]^[349]

Paul believes illegal aliens take a toll on welfare and Social Security and would end such benefits, concerned that uncontrolled immigration makes the U.S. a magnet for illegal aliens, increases welfare payments, and exacerbates the strain on an already highly unbalanced federal budget.^[350]

Paul believes that illegal immigrants should not be given an “unfair advantage” under law.^[351] He has advocated for a “coherent immigration policy”, and has spoken strongly against amnesty for illegal aliens because he believes it undermines therule of law, grants pardons to lawbreakers,^[352] and subsidizes more illegal immigration.^[353] Paul voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, authorizing an additional 700 miles (1100 kilometers) of double-layered fencing between the U.S. and Mexico mainly because he wanted enforcement of the law and opposed amnesty, not because he supported the construction of a border fence.^[354]

Paul believes that mandated hospital emergency treatment for illegal aliens should be ceased and that assistance from charities should instead be sought because there should be no federal mandates on providing health care for illegal aliens.^[354]

Paul also believes children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens should not be granted automatic birthright citizenship.^[355] He has called for a new Constitutional amendment to revise fourteenth amendment principles and “end automatic birthright citizenship”,^[356] and believes that welfare issues are directly tied to the illegal immigration problem.^[357]

[edit]Terrorism

[edit]Letters of marque and reprisal

Calling the September 11, 2001, attacks an act of “air piracy”, Paul introduced the Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001. Letters of marque and reprisal, authorized by article I, section 8 of the Constitution, would have targeted specific terrorist suspects instead of invoking war against a foreign state.^[313] Paul reintroduced this legislation as the Marque and Reprisal Act of 2007.^[358] He voted with the majority for the original Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists in Afghanistan.^[310] In April 2009, following the Maersk Alabama hijacking, he proposed issuing letters of marque to combat the problem of piracy in Somalia.^[359]

[edit]Airport security

Following the 9/11 attacks, Paul “opposed the federalization of airport security, the creation of the DHS and increased police state measures, but did propose legislation that would allow airline pilots to begin carrying firearms in cockpits”, on the theory that “it’s much harder for terrorists to commandeer an airplane when pilots can fight back.”^[360]

[edit]Investigation

Paul supports reopening investigation into the attacks to discover why the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not act on 70 internal field tips: “We had one FBI agent, I think sent dozens and dozens of memos to his superiors saying that there are people trying to fly airplanes but not land them, and nobody would pay any attention.”^[361] He also advocates investigating why the various intelligence agencies could not collaborate on information to prevent the attacks while spending $40 billion per year.^[361]^[362] He has called the 9/11 Commission Report a “charade”, saying “spending more money abroad or restricting liberties at home will do nothing to deter terrorists, yet this is exactly what the 9-11 Commission recommends.”^[363]

[edit]Rejection of 9/11 conspiracy theory

Paul does not believe the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks were a government conspiracy and has explicitly denied being a 9/11 “truther”, arguing that the issue is not a conspiracy but a failure of bureaucracy.^[361]^[362] He believes the 9/11 Commission Report‘s main goal was “to protect the government and to protect their ineptness—not […] to do this so they can use this as an excuse to spread the war […] Some who did want to spread the war would use it as an opportunity. But, it wasn’t something that was deliberately done.”^[361]^[364] He does not think the government would have staged such an attack.^[365]When asked whether “9/11 was orchestrated by the government”, Paul responded, “Absolutely not.”^[366] Paul has stated that he is concerned that someone might create a “contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident” to justify the invasion of Iran or suspend the democratic process, adding, “Let’s hope I’m wrong about this one.”^[326]

[edit]Operation to kill Osama bin Laden

In May 2011, Paul said he would not have ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, calling the operation “absolutely not necessary”.^[367] Instead he would have done it differently, stating that America should have worked with the Pakistani Authorities who in the past had arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorists who were then tried in court. Paul also stated that other alternatives were viable that were less of a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Operation to kill Anwar al-Awlaki

On September 30, 2011, Paul said “If the American people accept this blindly and casually – have a precedent of an American president assassinating people who he thinks are bad. I think that’s sad.”^[368]

External links

Official sites

Speeches, statements and issues

RonPaul2012.com – The Issues
Ron Paul Library (Site discontinued; archived as of August 17, 2010), more than 1,000 articles and speeches by Ron Paul
Ron Paul Videos
LewRockwell.com archived commentaries by Ron Paul
Ron Paul in America: Freedom to Fascism
The Case For Gold: A Minority Report of the U.S. Gold Commission
The Partial Birth Abortion Ban speech
Ron Paul at the first 2008 Republican presidential debate
Ron Paul Quotes on Medical Marijuana
Previous Views Accusations of Ron Paul as a racist *Needs link to rebuttals.
The Ron Paul Archive, Dedicated to archiving the complete collection of Ron Paul’s writings, speeches, interviews, and media appearances.

Topic pages and databases

On the Issues issue positions
Project Vote Smart candidate profile including issue positions

[edit]See also

References

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^ The Inflation Tax
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Tags: 2012 Liberty Candidates, Debates, Michele Bachmann, Republican, Ron Paul

‘Your Money, Your Vote’ Republican Presidential Debate in Rochester, Michigan

Posted on 09 November 2011 by admin

November 9, 2011 – Rochester, Michigan

The ninth Republican debate was held at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan and was sponsored by CNBC and theMichigan Republican Party. It was moderated by Maria Bartiromo and John Harwood. It focused on the economy. Rick Perry was embarrassed when he could only remember two (Commerce and Education) out of the three departments which he wants to abolish. The department that he could not remember was the United States Department of Energy.

CNBC Transcript and NYT Transcript
Complete video from CNBC (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3), 2012 Election Central, and Dakota Voice
Bloomberg Businessweek Fact Check
New York Times Fact Check
Washington Post Fact Check

CNBC Transcript of ‘Your Money, Your Vote’ Republican Presidential Debate

POLITICS, GOVERNMENT

CNBC.com

| 09 Nov 2011 | 10:08 PM ET

CNBC’s “Your Money, Your Vote: The Republican Presidential Debate” Live from Oakland University in Rochester, MI …

**************

BARTIROMO: And good evening, everyone. I’m Maria Bartiromo.

HARWOOD: I’m John Harwood.

And welcome to CNBC’s Republican Presidential Debate.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Tonight, we are here in the great state of Michigan for a debate that will focus almost exclusively on the economy and how to fix the financial problems of our country.

On the stage tonight from left to right: Senator Rick Santorum.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Speaker Newt Gingrich.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Governor Mitt Romney.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Mr. Herman Cain.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Governor Rick Perry.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Congressman Ron Paul.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: And Governor Jon Huntsman.

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: The candidates will have 60 seconds to respond to questions, 30 seconds for follow-ups and rebuttals. Those will be at the discretion of the moderators.

We also want you, the candidates, to help us out a little bit, by answering the questions as directly and specifically as you can. I know you want to. You have proven that. But just in case you get off topic, maybe by accident, we may have to interrupt you.

BARTIROMO: Throughout the evening tonight we will be joined by an all-star lineup of the smartest people on CNBC.

First up tonight, Jim Cramer, the host of “Mad Money.”

Jim, welcome.

CRAMER: Thank you, Maria.

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: And we also want to hear your voice. Go to our Web site, Debate.CNBC.com, and tweet us at CNBCDebate.

All night we’ll be showing your tweets on the bottom of the screen, so all of the candidates will have even more of a motive to impress.

BARTIROMO: In the interest of time, the candidates have agreed to forego opening and closing statements tonight. So let’s get started.

And we begin with you, Mr. Cain. I want to begin with what we saw today, another rough day for our money, for our 401(k)s. Once again, we were all impacted by the news that the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 400 points today. The reason, Italy is on the brink of financial disaster.

It is the world’s seventh largest economy. As president, what will you do to make sure that their problems do not take down the U.S. Financial system? It is the world’s seventh largest economy.

As president, what will you do to make sure their problems do not take down the U.S. financial system?

CAIN: Let’s start with two things. First, we must grow this economy. We have the biggest economy in the world. And as long as we are stagnant in terms of growth in GDP, we impact the rest of the world. We must do that.

But we’re not going to be able to do that until we put some fuel in the engine that drives economic growth, which is the business sector. This administration has done nothing but put stuff in the caboose, and it’s not moving this economy. We must grow this economy, number one.

Number two, we must assure that our currency is sound. Just like a dollar must be dollar when we wake up in the morning, just like 60 minutes is in an hour, a dollar must be a dollar. If we are growing this economy the way it has the ability to do and at the same time we are cutting spending seriously, we will have things moving in the right direction in order to be able to survive these kind of ripple effects.

BARTIROMO: So, to be clear, focus on the domestic economy, allow Italy to fail?

CAIN: Focus on the domestic economy or we will fail, so, yes, focus on the domestic economy first. There’s not a lot that the United States can directly do for Italy right now, because they have — they’re really way beyond the point of return that we — we as the United States can save them.

BARTIROMO: Governor Romney, should we allow Italy to fail? Should we have a stake in what’s going on in the eurozone right now?

ROMNEY: Well, Europe is able to take care of their own problems. We don’t want to step in and try and bail out their banks and bail out their governments. They have the capacity to deal with that themselves. They’re a very large economy.

And there will be, I’m sure, cries if Italy does default, if Italy does get in trouble. And we don’t know that’ll happen, but if they get to a point where they’re in crisis and banks throughout Europe that hold a lot of Italy debt will — will then face crisis and there will have to be some kind of effort to try and uphold their financial system.

There will be some who say here that banks in the U.S. that have Italian debt, that we ought to help those, as well. My view is no, no, no. We do not need to step in to bail out banks either in Europe or banks here in the U.S. that may have Italian debt. The right answer is for us…

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: But — but the U.S. does contribute to the International Monetary Fund, and the IMF has given $150 billion to the eurozone. Are you saying the U.S. should stop contributing to the IMF?

ROMNEY: I’m happy to continue to participate in world efforts like the World Bank and the IMF, but I’m not happy to have the United States government put in place a TARP-like program to try and save U.S. banks that have Italian debt, foreign banks doing business in the U.S. that have Italian debt, or European debt. We’re just — banks there.

There’s going to be an effort to try and draw us in and talk about how we need to help — help Italy and help Europe. Europe is able to help Europe. We have to focus on getting our own economy in order and making sure we never reach the kind of problem Italy is having.

If we stay on the course we’re on, with the level of borrowing this administration is carrying out, if we don’t get serious about cutting and capping our spending and balancing our — our budget, you’re going to find America in the same position Italy is in four or five years from now, and that is unacceptable. We’ve got to fix our — our deficit here.

CRAMER: Congressman Paul…

(APPLAUSE)

(inaudible) to say, and I really get that. But I’m on the frontlines of the stock market. We were down 400 points today. We’re not going to be done going down if this keeps going on, if Italy keeps — the rates keep going up. Surely you must recognize that this is a moment-to-moment situation for people who have 401(k)s and IRAs on the line and you wouldn’t just let it fail, just go away and take our banking system with it?

PAUL: No, you have to let it — you have to let it liquidate. We’ve had — we took 40 years to build up this worldwide debt. We’re in a debt crisis never seen before in our history. The sovereign debt of this world is equal to the GDP, as ours is in this country. If you prop it up, you’ll do exactly what we did in the depression, prolong the agony. If you do — if you prop it up, you do what Japan has done for 20 years.

So, yes, you want to liquidate the debt. The debt is unsustainable. And this bubble was predictable, because 40 years ago we had no restraints whatsoever on the monetary authorities, and we piled debt on debt, we pyramided debt, we had no restraints on the spending. And if you keep bailing people out and prop it up, you just prolong the agony, as we’re doing in the housing bubble.

PAUL: Right now, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are demanding more money because we don’t allow the market to determine what these mortgages are worth. If you don’t liquidate this and clear the market, believe me, you’re going to perpetuate this for a decade or two more, and that is very, very dangerous.

CRAMER: Governor…

(APPLAUSE)

(inaudible) Italy’s too big to fail. It’s great. I’d love it if we were independent. It would be terrific to say, “It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your problem.” But if this goes, the world banking system could shut down. Doesn’t that involve our banks, too?

HUNTSMAN: So we wake up this morning, and we find that the yield curve with respect to Italy is up, and prices are down. So if you want a window into what this country is going to look like in the future if we don’t get on top of our debt, you are seeing it playing out in Europe right now.

You are seeing the metastasy (ph) effect of the banking sector. And what does it mean here? What am I most concerned about, Jim? I’m concerned that it impacts us in way that moves into our banking sector where we have got a huge problem called “too big to fail” in this country.

We have six banks in this country that combined have assets worth 66 percent of our nation’s GDP, $9.4 trillion. These institutions get hit. They have an implied bailout by the taxpayers in this country, and that means that we are setting ourselves up for disaster again.

Jim, as long as we have banks that are “too big to fail” in this country, we are going to catch the contagion and it’s going to hurt us. We have got to get back to a day and age where we have properly sized banks and financial institutions.

HARWOOD: Thank you, Governor.

Governor Romney, I want to switch…

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: … to the bailout drama that we lived through in this country, and no state understands it better than the state of Michigan. I’m going to talk a little bit about your record on that. Four years ago when you were running for the Republican nomination and the auto industry was suffering, you said, where is Washington? After the election, when the Bush administration was considering financial assistance for the automakers, you said, no, let the Detroit go bankrupt.

Now that the companies are profitable again, after a bailout supported by your Republican governor here in Michigan, you said, well, actually, President Obama implemented my plan all along — or he gravitated to my plan.

With a record like that of seeming to be on all sides of the issue, why should Republicans be confident in the steadiness of your economic leadership?

ROMNEY: John, I care about this state and about auto industry like — I guess like no one else on this stage having been born and raised here and watched my parents make their life here. I was here in the 1950s and 1960s when Detroit and Michigan was the pride of the nation.

I have seen this industry and I’ve seen this state go through tough times. And my view some years ago was that the federal government, by putting in place CAFÉ requirements that helped foreign automobiles gain market share in the U.S., was hurting Detroit. And so I said, where is Washington? They are not doing the job they ought to be doing.

My view with regards to the bailout was that whether it was by President Bush or by President Obama, it was the wrong way to go. I said from the very beginning they should go through a managed bankruptcy process, a private bankruptcy process.

We have capital markets and bankruptcy, it works in the U.S. The idea of billions of dollars being wasted initially then finally they adopted the managed bankruptcy, I was among others that said we ought to do that.

And then after that, they gave the company to the UAW. They gave General Motors to the UAW and they gave Chrysler to Fiat. My plan, we would have had a private sector bailout with the private sector restructuring and bankruptcy with the private sector guiding the direction as opposed to what we had with government playing its heavy hand.

HARWOOD: Governor, let me follow up, because…

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: … the auto bailout is part of a larger issue facing your candidacy, as you know. Your opponents have said you switched positions on many issues. It is an issue of character, not personal, but political, you seemed to encapsulate it in the last debate when you said, “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake.”

What can you say to Republicans to persuade them that the things you say in the campaign are rooted in something deeper than the fact that you are running for office?

ROMNEY: John, I think people know me pretty well, particularly in this state, in the state of Massachusetts, New Hampshire that’s close by, Utah, where I served in the Olympics. I think people understand that I’m a man of steadiness and constancy.

I don’t think you are going to find somebody who has more of those attributes than I do. I have been married to the same woman for 25 — excuse me, I will get in trouble, for 42 years.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMNEY: I have been in the same church my entire life. I worked at one company, Bain, for 25 years. And I left that to go off and help save the Olympic Games. I think it is outrageous the Obama campaign continues to push this idea, when you have in the Obama administration the most political presidency we have seen in modern history.

They are actually deciding when to pull out of Afghanistan based on politics. Let me tell you this, if I’m president of the United States, I will be true to my family, to my faith, and to our country, and I will never apologize for the United States of America. That’s my belief.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Governor Perry, I want to ask you about this, because you have raised this issue yourself about Governor Romney. And you are running as a politician with strong convictions.

HARWOOD: From the flip side, Ronald Reagan raised taxes when the deficit got too big, George W. Bush supported TARP and the auto bailout when he thought we might face a great depression — second great depression. Does that — examples like that tell you that good, effective leaders need to show the kind of flexibility that Governor Romney has shown on some issues?

PERRY: The next president of the United States needs to send a powerful message not just to the people of this country, but around the world, that America is going to be America again, that we are not going to pick winners and losers from Washington, D.C., that we are going to trust the capital markets and the private sector to make the decisions, and let the consumers pick winners and losers. And it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s Wall Street or whether it’s some corporate entity or whether it’s some European country. If you are too big to fail, you are too big.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Speaker Gingrich, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has called unemployment in this country a national crisis due to the amount of days people are out — months that people are out of work and the number of people out of work. Many of you have come up with tax reform plans. Why is tax reform the path to job creation? And if it’s not the only path, what else can you implement to get people back to work?

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, I think Ben Bernanke is a large part of the problem and ought to be fired as rapidly as possible.

(APPLAUSE)

GINGRICH: I think the Federal Reserve ought to be audited and we should have all the decision documents for 2008, ’09 and ’10 so we can understand who he bailed out, why he bailed them out, who he did not bail out, and why he did not bail them out.

(APPLAUSE)

GINGRICH: So, I’m glad that Ben Bernanke recognizes some of the wreckage his policies have led to.

The reason we follow — I think most of us are for tax policies that lead to jobs is because we have had two cycles in my lifetime, Ronald Reagan, and the Contract with America, both of which had the same policy: lower taxes, less regulation, more American energy, and have faith in the American job creator as distinct from the Saul Alinsky radicalism of higher taxes, bigger bureaucracy with more regulations, no American energy, as the president announced again today in his decision on offshore, and finally class warfare.

So I would say that all of us on the stage represent a dramatically greater likelihood of getting to a paycheck and leaving behind food stamps than does Barack Obama.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Congresswoman Bachmann, same question to you. How can you create jobs as quickly as possible?

BACHMANN: Well, I think one thing that we know is that taxes lead to jobs leaving the country. All you need to know is that we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world.

And if you go back to 1981, and you look around the world, we had a lot of high corporate tax countries. It was 47 percent on average on a lot of countries across the world.

But if you look today in the United States, we have an effective rate if you average in state taxes, with federal taxes, of about 40 percent. But the world took a clue, because capital is mobile, and capital went to places where corporate tax rates went to 25 percent and falling.

We’re still stuck in a 1986 era of about a 40 percent tax rate. We have to lower the tax rate because it’s a cost of doing business, but we have to do so much more than that.

Our biggest problem right now is our regulatory burden. The biggest regulatory problem we have is Obamacare and Dodd/Frank. I will repeal those bills. I have written those bills to repeal those bills that have got to go. But beyond that –

(APPLAUSE)

BACHMANN: But beyond that, we have to legalize American energy. And here is something else that we have to do that will help the economy. We have to build the fence on America’s southern border and get a grip on dealing with our immigration problem.

BARTIROMO: OK.

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Senator Santorum, you proposed a zero tax on manufacturing businesses.

SANTORUM: I have.

HARWOOD: I understand the sentiment behind that. And the state of Michigan has lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs over the last few decades. Isn’t that the kind of distortion in the tax code that people want to get away from in order to get rates down: flatter, simpler, fairer?

SANTORUM: I think getting the rate down to zero is down — is pretty far down. That’s good.

HARWOOD: But it’s down for the manufacturing industry, as opposed to people doing other things. Isn’t that picking winners and losers?

SANTORUM: It’s down for a sector of the economy, not picking an individual winner or loser. It’s down for an entire sector of the economy that we are getting our hat handed to us by losing jobs.

We see that here in Michigan, we see it across this country. And the reason is government has made us uncompetitive.

We need to compete on taxes. We need to compete on regulations. We need to repeal Obamacare. We need to — I’ve said I’m going the repeal every single Obama-era regulation that cost businesses over $100 million. Repeal them all. We’ll — we’ll send a very clear message out to manufactures in this country and all over the world that America will compete.

Some have suggested we need to go into a trade war with China and have tariffs. That just taxes you. I don’t want to tax you. I want to create an atmosphere where businesses and manufacturers can be profitable. We’ll lower taxes, repatriating funds, 0 percent tax if you repatriate those funds and invest them in plant and equipment.

And then, of course, an energy policy that everyone on this stage is going to agree with that says, we are going to produce energy in this country. I’m different than many of them, that I’m going to cut all the subsidies out and let the market work, as opposed to creating incentives for different — different forms of energy that the government supports.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: You have all said that — that you will repeal the president’s health care legislation. We will get into that, because we want to know, then what? What is the plan once you repeal Obamacare?

But, first, Mr. Cain, the American people want jobs, but they also want leadership. They want character in a president. In recent days, we have learned that four different women have accused you of inappropriate behavior. Here we’re focusing on character and on judgment.

(BOOING)

You’ve been a CEO.

CAIN: Yes. BARTIROMO: You know that shareholders are reluctant to hire a CEO where there are character issues. Why should the American people hire a president if they feel there are character issues?

CAIN: The American people deserve better than someone being tried in the court of public opinion based on unfounded accusations. That’s…

(APPLAUSE)

And I value my character and my integrity more than anything else. And for every — one person that comes forward with a false accusation, there are probably — there are thousands who would say none of that sort of activity ever came from Herman Cain.

You’re right. This country’s looking for leadership. And this is why a lot of people, despite what has happened over the last nine days, are still very enthusiastic behind my candidacy. Over the last nine days…

(APPLAUSE)

Over the last nine days, the voters have voted with their dollars, and they are saying they don’t care about the character assassination. They care about leadership and getting this economy growing and all of the other problems we face.

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Governor Romney, when you were at Bain Capital, you purchased a lot of companies. You could fire the CEO and the management team or you could keep them. Would you keep a CEO — are you persuaded by what Mr. Cain has said? Would you keep him on if you bought his company?

(BOOING)

ROMNEY: Look, look, Herman Cain is the person to respond to these questions. He just did. The people in this room and across the country can make their own assessment. I’m not…

(CROSSTALK)

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Governor Huntsman, let me switch back to the economy. The…

(APPLAUSE)

Many Republicans have criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement, but we had an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll this week that showed a large proportion of the American people — 76 percent — said they believe there’s something wrong with our economy that tilts toward the wealthy at the expense of others. Do you consider something wrong with the structure of our economy in the income inequality that it produces? Is that something government should do something about? And if so, what?

HUNTSMAN: Let me just say that I want to be the president of the 99 percent. I also want to be the president of the 1 percent. This nation is divided, and it’s painful, and it is unnatural for the most optimistic, blue-sky people this world has ever known. We are problem-solvers.

When I hear out the people who are part of the Wall Street protests, I say, thank goodness we have the ability to speak out. I might not agree with everything they say. I don’t like the anti- capitalism messages. But I do agree that this country is never again going to bail out corporations. I do agree…

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. I do agree that we have blown through trillions and trillions of dollars with nothing to show on the balance sheet but debt, and no uplift in our ability to compete, and no addressing our level of unemployment.

HUNTSMAN: And I do agree that we have institutions, banks that are too big to fail in this country. And until we address that problem — we can fix taxes. We can fix the regulatory environment. We can move toward energy independence. So long as we have instant banks (ph) that are too big to fail, we are setting ourselves up for long-term disaster and failure.

HARWOOD: So, Governor, you agree with Governor Romney that the bailout that Governor Snyder supports in Michigan was a mistake?

HUNTSMAN: The bailout here in the auto sector, $68 billion worth, we are going to end up footing a bill — Governor Snyder knows that — of probably $15 billion when all is said and done. I don’t think that’s a good use of taxpayer money.

Instead, there ought to be some way of taking the auto sector through some sort of reorganization, get them back on their feet. The people in this country are sick and tired of seeing taxpayer dollars go toward bailouts, and we’re not going to have it anymore in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

CRAMER: Governor Romney, do you believe public companies have any social responsibility to create jobs, or do you believe, as Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, the most important, most influential conservative economist of the 20th century held, that corporations should exist solely to create maximum profit for their shareholders?

ROMNEY: This is a wonderful philosophical debate. But you know what? We don’t have to decide between the two, because they go together.

Our Democratic friends think when a corporation is profitable, that’s a bad thing. I remember asking someone, “Where do you think profits go? When you hear that a company is profitable, where do you think it goes?” And they said, “Well, to pay the executives their big bonuses.”

I said, “No, actually, none of it goes to pay the executives. Profit is what is left over after they have all been paid.”

What happens with profit is that you can grow the business. You can expand it. You have working capital and you hire people.

The right thing for America is to have profitable enterprises that can hire people. I want to make American businesses successful and thrive.

What we have in Washington today is a president and an administration that doesn’t like business, that somehow thinks they want jobs, but they don’t like businesses. Look, I want to see our businesses thrive and grow and expand and be profitable. I want to see more –

(APPLAUSE)

CRAMER: Governor Perry, 30 seconds to you.

Do you think that companies can both be profitable and be able to create jobs? Do you think it’s a dichotomy? Do you think they can do it?

PERRY: There better be. And that’s the reason the tax plan that I laid out, a 20 percent flat tax on the personal side and a 20 percent corporate tax rate, that will get people working in this country. We need to go out there and stick a big old flag in the middle of America that says “Open for business again.”

(APPLAUSE)

CRAMER: Mr. Speaker, how about to you, can corporations do both?

GINGRICH: Sure. Look, obviously, corporations can and should do both. And what is amazing to me is the inability of much of our academic world and much of our news media and most of the people on Occupy Wall Street to have a clue about history.

(APPLAUSE)

GINGRICH: In this town, Henry Ford started as an Edison Electric supervisor who went home at night and built his first car in the garage. Now, was he in the 99 percent or the one percent?

Bill Gates drops out of college to found Microsoft. Is he in the one percent or the 99 percent?

Historically, this is the richest country in the history of the world because corporations succeed in creating both profits and jobs, and it’s sad that the news media doesn’t report accurately how the economy works.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Mr. Speaker — I’m sorry, but what is the media reporting inaccurately about the economy?

GINGRICH: What?

BARTIROMO: What is the media reporting inaccurately about the economy?

(LAUGHTER)

GINGRICH: I love humor disguised as a question. That’s terrific.

I have yet to hear a single reporter ask a single Occupy Wall Street person a single rational question about the economy that would lead them to say, for example, “Who is going to pay for the park you are occupying if there are no businesses making a profit?”

(APPLAUSE)

CRAMER: Senator Santorum, I want to talk about a high-quality problem our country has.

I just came back from North Dakota. We have made the largest oil discovery in a generation there. Not only is it a — the find a big step toward creating energy independence, it stands to create as many as 300,000 jobs. But what the guys tell me up there is that they can’t handle the rush without federal help.

Would you favor incentives, incentives to get workers and businesses to where the jobs are to support this boom?

SANTORUM: No, because we have done it in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has Marcellus Shale. It took a while for us to ramp up, but we’re drilling 3,000 to 4,000 wells.

The price of natural gas, because of Marcellus Shale, which is the second largest natural gas find in the world, has gone from $12 to $3.65. And we let the marketplace work. So, no, we didn’t have the federal government come in and bail us out.

I want to make the point about manufacturing jobs again, because if you’re — if you’re talking about creating jobs that trickle down, I agree with Newt. We have folks who have innovators. But he always — he talked about innovators that — that created jobs for blue- collar workers. The unemployment rate among non-college-educated is well into the double digits in America. It’s 4 percent or 5 percent for people who have college degrees.

The reason I put forth this manufacturing plan is not just so we can say “Made Here in America,” that we can create opportunities for everyone in America, including those that don’t have that college skill set, people who built this country, like my grandfather, who was a coal miner. So — so that is a very important part that Republicans, unfortunately, are not talking about.

We need to talk about income mobility. We need to talk about people at the bottom of the — of the income scale being able to get necessary skills and rise so they can support themselves and a family. And that’s what manufacturing does, and that’s why I’m laser-beam focused on it.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Let’s get back to tax reform. Mr. Cain, let’s talk fairness in taxation. Ever since this country started taxing income 100 years ago, our system charges those people who make more money a higher rate than those people who make less money. Governor Perry has said he doesn’t believe in that approach, and your 9-9-9 plan suggests you don’t, either.

Why now, when the higher income group is doing better than the rest of America, is the time to switch to the same rate for all of us?

CAIN: My proposal is the only one that solves the problem by throwing out the current tax code, which has been a mess for decades, and we need to put in something different that I proposed, 9-9-9. It satisfies five simple criteria. It is simple. The complexity costs us $430 billion a year. It is transparent. People know what it is. There are thousands of hidden sneak-a-taxes in the current tax code. That’s why I want to throw it out.

It is fair. The reason it’s fair is because of the definition in Webster which says everybody gets treated the same. All businesses get treated the same, not having Washington, D.C., pick winners and losers. This is why I have proposed a bold plan of 9-9-9, 9 percent business flat tax, 9 percent tax on personal income, and a 9 percent national sales tax. It treats everybody the same. And it will boost this economy.

BARTIROMO: How do you ensure that, when the government needs more revenue, that the sales tax doesn’t go up and that plan doesn’t turn in 19-19-19?

CAIN: Tax codes do not raise taxes. Politicians do.

(APPLAUSE)

And as long as (inaudible) the people will hold the politicians’ feet to the fire. It’s not the code that raises taxes. It’s the politicians, because the code — because the approach, 9-9-9, would be very visible, the American people are going to hold the rates at 9.

HARWOOD: Governor Romney, Mr. Cain’s got a flat tax. Rick Perry’s got a flat tax. Congresswoman Bachmann is talking about a flat tax. You don’t have a flat tax. You’re proposing to preserve the Bush-era tax rates. What is wrong with the idea that we should go to one rate? Why do you believe in a progressive tax system?

ROMNEY: Well, I would like to see our tax rates flatter. I’d like to see our code simpler. I’d like to see the special breaks that we have in the code taken out. That’s one of the reasons why I take the corporate rate from 35 down to 25, is to take out some of the special deals that are there.

With regards to our tax code, what I want to do is to take our precious dollars as a nation and focus them on the people in this country that have been hurt the most, and that’s the middle class. The Obama economy has really crushed middle-income Americans.

This president has failed us so badly, we have 26 million people out of work, working part-time jobs that need full-time work, or stopped looking for work altogether. Median incomes have dropped 10 percent in the last three years. At the same time, gasoline prices are up, food prices are up, health care costs are up.

And so what I want to do is help the people who’ve been hurt the most, and that’s the middle class. So what I do is focus a substantial tax break on middle-income Americans. Ultimately, I’d love to see — see us come up with a plan that simplifies the code and lowers rates for everybody. But right now, let’s get the job done first that has to be done immediately. Let’s lower the tax rates on middle-income Americans. HARWOOD: Congresswoman Bachmann, Governor Romney is accepting the premises of the Democratic argument that you have to have a fair approach to taxation that preserves different rates for different people. Why is he wrong?

BACHMANN: Well, I would say President Obama is the one that’s wrong, because President Obama’s plan for job creation has absolutely nothing to do with the true people who know how to create jobs. He should really be going to job-creators if he wants to know how to create jobs. Instead, he continues to go to a General Axelrod in Chicago to look for his orders to figure out how to deal with the economy. That won’t work.

We know what needs to be done. We have a real problem. When you have 53 percent of Americans paying federal income taxes, but you have 47 percent of Americans who pay no federal income taxes, you have a real problem.

And that’s why in my tax plan, I have everyone paying something because everyone benefits by this magnificent country. So even if it means paying the price of two Happy Meals a year, like $10, everyone can afford to pay at least that.

And what it does is create a mentality in the United States that says that freedom is free. But freedom isn’t free. We all benefit. We all need to sacrifice. Everybody has to be a part of this tax code.

BARTIROMO: Congressman Ron Paul…

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: … you have said you want to close down agencies. Tell us about your tax plan as well as closing agencies — federal agencies. Where do those jobs go?

PAUL: Well, eventually they go into the private sector. Then don’t all leave immediately when the plan goes into effect. But what my plan does is it addresses taxes in a little different way.

We are talking about the tax code. But that’s the consequence, that’s the symptom. The disease is spending. Every time you spend, spending is a tax. We tax the people, we borrow, and then we print the money and the prices go up, and that is a tax.

So you have to address the subject of spending. That is the tax. That is the reason I go after the spending. I propose in the first year cut $1 trillion out of the budget in five departments.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) PAUL: Now the other thing is that you must do if you want to get the economy going and going again is you have to get rid of price- fixing. And the most significant price-fixing that goes on, that gave us the bubble, destroyed the economy, and is preventing this from coming out, is the price-fixing of the Federal Reserve, manipulating interest rates way below market rates.

You have to have the market determine interest rates if you want a healthy, viable economy.

BARTIROMO: So you think the economy would be stronger if interest rates were higher right now?

PAUL: You would have more incentive. You would take care of the elderly. They get cheated. They get nothing for their CDs. Why cheat them and give the banks loans at zero percent? And then they loan it back to the government at 3 percent. They are ripping us off at the expense of those on fixed incomes and retirees.

BARTIROMO: Even though higher interest rates would make it much more expensive to borrow, mortgages.

PAUL: But you want is the market to determine this. Whoever thought that one person, the Federal Reserve Board chairman, knows what the money supply should be? Just in the past six months, M1 has gone up at the rate of 30 percent. That spells inflation. That spells lower standard of living and higher prices and watch out. They are coming.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: We are just getting started tonight. When we return, how will the candidates breathe new life into the lifeless housing market?

HARWOOD: Plus, the view of the economy from the corner office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): I think we are in serious trouble. Business people are struggling.

(UNKNOWN): The problems in the economy didn’t arrive in 20 minutes and they won’t be resolved in 20 minutes.

(UNKNOWN): The most important economic issue of concern to me is lack of leadership in government, and the lack of any focus on building confidence both with consumers and the business community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARWOOD: So how are the candidates going to turn things around? CNBC’s “Republican Presidential Debate” will be right back. Stay with us.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Welcome back to be CNBC’s Republican Presidential Debate.

With us for this portion of the program, CNBC’s senior economic reporter, Steve Liesman.

Welcome, Steve.

LIESMAN: Great to be here, Maria. Thank you. BARTIROMO: Most economists agree that there can be no economic recovery without a recovery in housing. American families have lost some $7 trillion in home value in the last five years. Right now, four million people are behind on their mortgage or in foreclosure, 25 percent of homeowners owe more to the banks than their house is actually worth.

Governor Romney has said that the government should let the foreclosure process play out so that the housing market can recover and the free markets can work.

Speaker Gingrich, is Governor Romney right?

GINGRICH: We, he’s certainly right in the sense that you want to get through to the real value of the houses as fast as you can, because they’re not going to rise in value as long as you stay trapped, as Japan has done now for 20 years. But I think there are two specific steps you have got to understand in terms of housing.

To pick up on something Congresswoman Bachmann said, if the Republican House next week would repeal Dodd/Frank, and allow us to put pressure on the Senate to repeal Dodd/Frank, you would see the housing market start to improve overnight. Dodd/Frank kills small banks, it kills small business. The federal regulators are anti- housing loan, and it has maximized the pain level.

You could also change some of the rules so it would be easier to do a short sale where the house is worth less than mortgage than it is to do a foreclosure. Today, the banks are actually profiting more by foreclosing than encouraging short sales.

But in the long run, you want the housing market to come back? The economy has to come back.

When you are at four percent unemployment, you suddenly have a dramatic increase in demand for housing. When you’re at nine percent- plus unemployment, it’s hard to get the housing market to come back.

BARTIROMO: Governor Romney, respond in 30 seconds. Not one of your 59 points in your economic plan mentions or addresses housing. Can you tell us why?

ROMNEY: Yes, because it’s not a housing plan. It’s a jobs plan. And the right way to get –

(APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: The best thing you can do for housing is to get the economy going, get people working again, seeing incomes, instead of going down, incomes coming up so people can afford to buy homes. The things the Speaker just indicated are excellent ideas as well. You have to let the market work and get people in the homes again, and the best way for that to happen is to allow this economy to reboot.

What we know won’t work is what this president has done, which is to try and hold off the foreclosure process, the normal market process, to put money into a stimulus that failed, and to put in place a whole series of policies from Obamacare to Dodd/Frank that it made it hard for this economy to get going. You want to get America’s economy going? We know how to do it. Just do almost the exact opposite of what President Obama has done.

(APPLAUSE)

LIESMAN: Governor Romney, we have created 2.7 million jobs since February, 2010. Over that period of time, the housing market has continued to decline. We are at 2003 price levels now.

LIESMAN: If we keep going the way we are going, in four or five years, we’ll be at 1999 price levels. The $7 trillion figure that Maria mentioned could almost double.

Are you willing to let that happen in America?

ROMNEY: And exactly what would you do instead? Would you decide to have…

LIESMAN: I’m asking you.

ROMNEY: … well, to have the federal government go out and buy all the homes in America? That’s not going to happen in this country. Markets work. When you have government play its heavy hand, markets blow up and people get hurt.

And the reason we have the housing crises we have is that the federal government played too heavy a role in our markets. The federal government came in with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd told banks they had to give loans to people who couldn’t afford to pay them back.

(APPLAUSE)

And so — and so our friends — our friends in Washington today, they say, oh, if we’ve got a problem in housing, let’s let government play a bigger role. That’s the wrong way to go. Let markets work. Help people get back to work. Let them buy homes. You’ll see home prices come back up if we allow this market to work.

(APPLAUSE)

LIESMAN: But, Governor — Governor Perry, every quarter I get to report the GDP figures, and it’s a negative number for housing, and we’ve lost some 2 million construction jobs. Housing creates jobs, as well, doesn’t it?

PERRY: Not a negative number in Texas. And one of the reasons is because we have put policies into place that follow my plan to get America back working again.

LIESMAN: OK, so translate that plan to America.

PERRY: When — when you look at what I’ve laid out, whether it — the energy side and getting the energy industry going — and Rick Santorum is absolutely correct on that, is let’s get our energy industry freed up, federal lands, federal waters, pull back all of those regulations. Everybody on this stage understands it’s the regulatory world that is killing America.

(APPLAUSE)

The tax side of it, yeah. Have a flat tax. Have a corporate flat tax in there, as well. But the real issue facing America are regulations. It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s the EPA or whether it’s the federal banking — the Dodd-Frank or Obamacare. That’s what’s killing America.

And the next president of the United States has to have the courage to go forward, pull back every regulation, since 2008, audit them for one thing: Is it creating jobs, or is it killing jobs? And if that regulation is killing jobs, do away with it.

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Congresswoman Bachmann, in one of the last debates, you were asked what you would do about foreclosures, and you told moms to hang on. But your advice, as your colleagues have mentioned, was let the economy recover. So you agree with Governor Romney that the way to fix the housing market is to let the foreclosure process proceed more rapidly?

BACHMANN: Well, what I agree with is that we have got to stop what we’re doing now. When we had the financial meltdown, 50 percent of the homes are being financed by Fannie and Freddie. Today it’s 90 percent of the homes. In other words, the government is the backer of the homes.

Well, let’s take a look, an analysis of what a great, brilliant job Freddie and Fannie are doing. They just applied this week for another $7 billion bailout because they’re failing. The other one applied for a $6 billion bailout because they’re failing.

But what did they do? They just gave bonuses of almost $13 million to 10 top executives. This is the epicenter of capital — crony capitalism. That’s what’s wrong with Washington, D.C.

For these geniuses to give 10 of their top executives bonuses at $12 million and then have the guts to come to the American people and say, “Give us another $13 billion to bail us out just for the quarter,” that’s lunacy. We need to put them back into bankruptcy and get them out of business. They’re destroying the housing market.

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Since — since you mentioned Fannie and Freddie, Speaker Gingrich, 30 seconds to you, your firm was paid $300,000 by Freddie Mac in 2006. What did you do for that money?

GINGRICH: Were you asking me?

HARWOOD: Yes.

GINGRICH: I offer them advice on precisely what they didn’t do.

(LAUGHTER)

Look — look, this is not — this is not…

HARWOOD: Were you not trying to help Freddie Mac fend off the effort by the Bush administration…

(CROSSTALK)

GINGRICH: No. No, I do — I have never…

HARWOOD: … and the — to curb Freddie Mac.

GINGRICH: I have — I assume I get a second question. I have never done any lobbying. Every contract was written during the period when I was out of the office, specifically said I would do no lobbying, and I offered advice.

And my advice as a historian, when they walked in and said to me, “We are now making loans to people who have no credit history and have no record of paying back anything, but that’s what the government wants us to do,” as I said to them at the time, this is a bubble. This is insane. This is impossible.

GINGRICH: It turned out, unfortunately, I was right and the people who were doing exactly what Congresswoman Bachmann talked about were wrong. And I think it’s a good case for breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and getting much smaller institutions back into the private sector to be competitive and to be responsible for their behavior.

(APPLAUSE)

LIESMAN: Mr. Cain, government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as Congresswoman Bachmann said, now underwrite or guarantee 90 percent of the home financing in this country. What would you do with these — with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Would you shut them down even though it could mean higher interest rates for America? Does it make it even harder than it is right now for Americans to get home loans?

CAIN: You don’t start there. You start with fixing the real problem, which is growing this economy, which is why I have put a bold solution on the table, 9-9-9.

Secondly, then you get the regulators off of the backs of the banks like someone mentioned. Get the regulators out of the way, such that the small banks and the medium-sized banks aren’t being forced out of the business.

They would then be in a better position, and they might develop a desire in order to help homeowners reset their mortgages if they were able to see, number three, some certainty. Uncertainty is what’s killing this economy. And until we throw out the tax code, and put in something bold, get government out of the way by reducing the regulatory environment, we are going to still have our housing problem.

LIESMAN: I’m sorry, Mr. Cain, but you would come into office and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be there. The question was, what would you do with them?

CAIN: OK. After I did those three things that I outlined, then deal with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

You don’t start solving a problem right in the middle of it. So we’ve got to do that first.

I would also turn those GSEs into private entities. The government does not need to be in that business. I would find a way to unwind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, such that the marketplace can determine the future of the housing market.

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Governor Huntsman, I want to go back to the issue that you raised before about too big to fail. If anything, that problem has gotten worse since the financial crisis than before. The 10 biggest bank holding companies in this country now hold nearly 90 percent of all the assets in the banking system, up from 75 percent in 2006.

So, what would you do? Would you break up the banks to remove the risk, or diminish the risk for American taxpayers?

HUNTSMAN: Let me just say, on the housing discussion here, lost in all of this debate is the fact that there are people tuning in tonight who are upside down in terms of the financing of their homes. They are feeling real pain. People who probably heard today that they lost a job.

These issues are very real. They are complicated. For us to say that there is an easy solution to housing, that’s just not right, and that’s not fair. The economy does have to recover in order for the housing market to pick up its slack and for us to get on to housing starts, which ought to be 15 percent of our nation’s GDP, and today it’s two percent.

With respect to the banks that are too big to fail, you know today we’ve got, as I mentioned earlier, six institutions that are equal to 60, 65 percent of our GDP, $9.4 trillion. They have an implied guarantee by the taxpayers that they will be protected. That’s not fair, that’s not right for the taxpayers.

HARWOOD: So you break them up?

HUNTSMAN: I say we need to right-size them. I say, in the 1990s, you had Goldman Sachs, for example. That was $200 billion in size. By 2008, it had grown to $1.1 trillion in size. Was that good for the people of this country, or –

HARWOOD: Well, how would you accomplish that? How would you right-size that?

(CROSSTALK)

HUNTSMAN: I think we ought to set up some sort of fund. I think we ought to charge some sort of fee from the banks that mitigates the risk that otherwise the taxpayers are carrying. There has got to be something that takes the risk from the taxpayers off the table so that these institutions don’t go forward with this implied assumption that we’re going to bail them out at the end of the day. That’s not right, and it’s not fair for the taxpayers of this country.

BARTIROMO: Let’s stay on regulation for a moment. You have all said that you will repeal President Obama’s health care legislation.

Down the line, 30 seconds, if you repeal Obamacare, what’s the answer?

Jon Huntsman?

HUNTSMAN: I would say — and I would meet with the 50 governors of this country, and I would say, I did health care reform in my state, it took us three years to get it done. We delivered an insurance connector that was not a costly mandate.

You can sit down with the 50 governors and you can address cost containment. This is a $3 trillion industry, half of which any expert will tell you is totally nonsense and superfluous spending.

How do you get costs out of the system? How do you empower patients to better understand what they are getting when they go into the doctor’s office?

Number two, we need to do a better job in harmonizing medical records so that we can pull up on a consistent basis the most efficacious course of treatment for patients.

HUNTSMAN: And third, we need to close the gap on the uninsured without a costly mandate, letting the free market work and bringing people together with truly affordable insurance.

BARTIROMO: That’s time.

We want to get each of your comments on what the plan is.

Ron Paul?

PAUL: We need to get the government out of the business, and we do need to have the right to opt out of “Obama-care.” But we ought to have the right to opt out of everything. And the answer to it is turn it back over to the patient and the doctor relationship with medical savings accounts.

So I would say that we have had too much government. I have been in medicine, it has gone downhill. Quality has gone down. Prices have skyrocketed because of the inflation. So you need to get a market force in there, a medical savings account.

But this mess has been created — it’s a bipartisan mess. So it has been there for a while. So what we need is the doctor-patient relationship and medical savings account where you can deduct it from your taxes and get a major medical policy. Prices then would come down.

BARTIROMO: Thirty seconds, Governor Perry?

PERRY: Obviously on the Medicare side, you have to have an insurance type of a program where people have options of which — give them a menu of options of which they can choose from. I think you have to have the doctors and the hospitals and the other health care providers being given incentives on health care rather than “sick care.”

And then on Medicaid, it is really pretty simple, just like Jon and Mitt both know, you send it back to the states and let the states figure out how to make Medicaid work, because I will guarantee you we will do it safely, we will do it appropriately, and we will save a ton of money.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Mr. Cain. CAIN: The legislation has already been written. H.R. 3000. In the previous Congress it was H.R. 3400. And what that does — it has already been written. We didn’t hear about it in the previous Congress because “Princess Nancy” sent to it committee and it stayed there. It never came out.

(LAUGHTER)

CAIN: H.R. 3000 allows the decisions to be with the doctors and the patients, not with the bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. The legislation has already been written.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Governor Romney?

ROMNEY: Health care in 30 seconds is a little tough. But let me try. Number one, you return to the states the responsibility for caring for their own uninsured. And you send the Medicaid money back to the states so they can craft their own programs. That’s number one.

Number two, you let individuals purchase their own insurance. Not just getting it through their company. But buy it on their own if they want to, and no longer discriminate against individuals who want to buy their insurance.

Number three, you do exactly what Ron Paul said. I don’t always say that. But I have got to say it right now.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMNEY: And that is, you have to get health care to start working more like a market. And for that to happen, people have to have a stake in what the cost and the quality as well as of their health care. And so health savings account, or something called co- insurance, that’s the way to help make that happen.

And finally, our malpractice system in this country is nuts. We have got to take that over and make sure we don’t burden our system with it.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Mr. Speaker?

GINGRICH: Well, I just want point out, my colleagues have done a terrific job of answering an absurd question. To say in 30 seconds…

BARTIROMO: You have said you want to repeal “Obama-care,” correct?

GINGRICH: I did. Let me finish, if I may. To say in 30 seconds what you would do with 18 percent of the economy, life and death for the American people, a topic I’ve worked on since 1974, about which I wrote about called “Saving Lives and Saving Money” in 2002, and for which I founded the Center for Health Transformation, is the perfect case of why I’m going to challenge the president to seven Lincoln- Douglas style three-hour debates with a timekeeper and no moderator, at least two of which ought to be on health care so you can have a serious discussion over a several-hour period that affects the lives of every person in this country.

BARTIROMO: Would you would like to try to explain…

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Would you like to — would you like to try to explain in simple speak to the American people what you would do after you repeal the president’s health care legislation?

GINGRICH: In 30 seconds?

BARTIROMO: Take the time you need, sir. Take the time you need.

GINGRICH: I can’t take what I need. These guys will gang up on me…

(CROSSTALK)

BARTIROMO: Do you want the answer the question tonight on health care or no?

(CROSSTALK)

BARTIROMO: Do you want to try to answer the question tonight, Speaker?

GINGRICH: Let me just say it very straight. One, you go back to a doctor-patient relationship and you involve the family in those periods where the patient by themselves can’t make key decisions. But you re-localize it.

Two, as several people said, including Governor Perry, you put Medicaid back at the state level and allow the states to really experiment because it’s clear we don’t know what we are doing nationally.

Three, you focus very intensely on a brand-new program on brain science because the fact is the largest single out-year set of costs we are faced with are Alzheimer’s, autism, Parkinson’s, mental health, and things which come directly from the brain.

GINGRICH: And I am for fixing our health rather than fixing our health bureaucracy because the iron lung is the perfect model of saving people so you don’t need to pay for federal program of iron lung centers because the polio vaccine eliminated the problem. That’s a very short (inaudible).

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Congresswoman.

BACHMANN: The main problem with health care in the United States today is the issue of cost. It’s just too expensive. And President Obama said that’s what he would solve in Obamacare, we’d all save $2,500 a year in our premiums.

Well, we have Obamacare, but we didn’t have the savings. So what I would do to replace it is to allow every American to buy any health insurance policy they want anywhere in the United States, without any federal minimum mandate. Today there’s an insurance monopoly in every state in the country. I would end that monopoly and let any American go anywhere they want. That’s the free market.

Number two, I would allow every American to pay for that insurance policy — their deductible, their co-pay, their pharmaceuticals, whatever it is that’s medical-related — with their own tax-free money.

And then, finally, I’d have true medical malpractice liability reform. If you do that, it’s very simple. People own their own insurance policies, and you drive the costs down, because what we have to get rid of is government bureaucracy in health care. That’s all we bought in Obamacare, was a huge bureaucracy. That has to go away.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Senator?

SANTORUM: This is, I think, the difference between me and a lot of the candidates here. I heard a lot of responses, but I haven’t — I haven’t seen a lot of consistency in some of — some of those responses on the last few questions.

When it comes to health care, back in 1992, I introduced the first health savings account bill that everybody up here said was the basis for consumer-driven health care. I was leading on that before anyone else was even talking about it. Secondly, I was someone who proposed a block grant for Medicaid way back in 1998 with Phil Gramm, again, leading on this issue. Same thing, reforming the Medicare program back in the 1990s, again, I led on these issues.

I was always for having the government out of the health care business and for a bottom-up, consumer-driven health care, which is different than Governor Romney and some of the other people on this panel.

Number two — and I didn’t get a chance to answer any of the housing questions. I was on the banking housing committee in — in the United States Senate. I was one of 24 people who wrote a letter to Harry Reid saying, please let us bring up this housing legislation, which I voted for in the committee, that would have put curbs on Fannie and Freddie. I — I was out there before this bubble burst saying this was a problem. I — I was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the other day, and I had one of a — a home-builder, who was a head of the association, came up to me and said, Rick, I’m here to apologize. We came here to push you so you would oppose, you know, putting caps on Fannie and Freddie. You were right; we were wrong.

Time and time again, Wall Street, the Wall Street bailout, five of the eight people on this panel supported the Wall Street bailout. I didn’t. I know that we saw problems best from the bottom up, not the top down and government intervention in the marketplace.

BARTIROMO: Governor Romney, you have 30 seconds to respond.

ROMNEY: That’s — that’s fine. I believe very deeply in the functioning of markets. The work I’ve done in health care, actually worked as a consultant to the health care industry, to hospitals and various health institutions. I had the occasion of actually acquiring and trying to build health care businesses. I know something about it, and I believe markets work.

And what’s wrong with our health care system in America is that government is playing too heavy a role. We need to get our markets to work by having the consumer, the patient have a stake in what the cost and quality is of health care, give them the transparency they need to know where the opportunities are for lower cost and better quality, to make sure that the providers offer them the broadest array of options that they could have.

And once we have that happening, you’ll see us — 18 percent of our GDP is spent on health care. The next highest nation in the world is 12 percent. It’s a huge difference. We have to get the market…

BARTIROMO: Time.

ROMNEY: … to work to make sure that we get the kind of quality and value that America deserves.

HARWOOD: But, Governor, let me ask you about health care, because Congressman Paul said, put it back to the doctor and the patient. You said a few moments ago that you thought states should have the responsibility for insuring the uninsured. And, of course, in Massachusetts, you enacted an individual mandate and subsidies to have people who didn’t have insurance get it. So you think there’s a pretty large role for government in this area.

ROMNEY: Well, I think that people — that people have a responsibility to receive their own care, and the doctor-patient relationship is, of course, where that — where that exists — where that exists.

HARWOOD: But the government has the responsibility to force them?

ROMNEY: I — I didn’t know whether Ron Paul was saying we’re going to — he’s going to get rid of Medicaid. I would not get rid of Medicaid. It’s a health program for the poor.

What I said was I would take the Medicaid dollars that are currently spent by the federal government, return them to the states so that states can craft their own programs to care for their own poor, rather than having the federal government mandate a one-size- fits-all plan in the entire — entire nation. Obamacare is wrong. I’ll repeal it. I’ll get it done.

(APPLAUSE)

(UNKNOWN): John?

HARWOOD: Congressman?

PAUL: My plan of cutting the budget by a trillion dollars does deal with Medicaid. And that is that it preserves it, and there is a transition period, with the goal that eventually we would hope to move that back into the economy. But right now, it would be too much to do it in one year.

You know, finding a trillion dollars was a job and a half, and getting rid of five departments.

So, yes, my budget takes into consideration health care for the elderly, health care on Medicaid, as well as child health care. At the same time, we deal with the bailouts, the banks, and all the benefits that they get from the financial system, because what we’re facing today is the crisis in this housing crisis.

If I could just have one second on that.

We face a housing crisis once again because it’s price-fixing. They’re fixing the prices of these mortgages too high, and this is why nobody will buy them.

This is why you have to get rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, sell all of that into the marketplace. And the reason they do this is to prop up the banks, because the banks have invested in Europe, they’ve invested in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and these credit defaults swaps.

They’re in big trouble, and that is why they’re getting bailed out. And that’s why they are not allowing these mortgages to go down, and that is why we will most likely bail out Europe, which will be a real tragedy.

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Congressman, thank you for that. It’s time for a quick break.

LIESMAN: Hold it, John. I wanted to give them 15 seconds each to solve the deficit problem.

(LAUGHTER)

BARTIROMO: We’ll come back to the deficit.

HARWOOD: When we return, balancing the budget, cutting the deficit, making college education more affordable.

BARTIROMO: Plus, a little lesson on Social Security.

You’re watching CNBC’s “Your Money, Your Vote: The Republican Presidential Debate.”

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Next, we tackle the issues of Social Security, a spiraling deficit, and so much more, when “Your Money, Your Vote: The Republican Presidential Debate” continues in 90 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARWOOD: And welcome back. Joining us for this portion of the debate, Rick Santelli, CNBC’s on-air editor…

(APPLAUSE)

… and Sharon Epperson, our personal finance correspondent.

Now, we’ll get to them in a moment, but, first, Senator Santorum, you were known as a tough partisan fighter in the Senate, but look where partisan fighting got us this summer, gridlock and a debt-rating downgrade. The American people don’t much like it, and neither does Doug Oberhelman, the CEO of Caterpillar. Let’s take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBERHELMAN: Most people think our politicians are not helping the country get back on its feet. The last two presidents made promises to work across party lines, and both failed. How will you put our country ahead of your political party and solve the issues that are so critical for Americans? Be specific, please. These are promises.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARWOOD: And, Senator, let me ask you about — to set up that question. If everyone on this stage rules out any tax increases, even at a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts, as you have done, what could you possibly offer Democrats to get them to go along and compromise with you on the things that Republicans want? SANTORUM: You create — you create a platform that they can buy into, because they see advantages of your — of your plan. For example, one of the reasons that I — I’ve put forward this manufacturing plan is because folks here in Michigan, Democrats and Republicans will vote for it.

I was at the New Hampshire House of Representatives the other day and spoke to a bipartisan group, talked about the — the tax plan, not just the manufacturing, but the broad-based plan that I have. And I had two Democratic House members go over to — to my chairman, Dan Tamburello, and said, hey, I want him to come to my district and talk about this. We can support it.

So when you put together a plan — look, if the Republican Party is just about keeping the top rate, you know, lower or cutting taxes, we’re not going to be reaching people. We’ve got to look at plans that bring people together. That’s why I focused on this sector. I understand, John, that the Wall Street Journal won’t like that I’m picking one sector over another. I don’t care.

What I need to do is bring America together, find a plan that can work, that can be implemented right away. It may not be the boldest plan in the world, but it’s one that will work. It’ll put people back to work. It will give the ability of people to rise in our society. It’s help with the jobs out in rural America, where the manufacturing loss has been the greatest and the employment rate is the highest.

You put a plan like that together, you’ll get Democrats and Republicans, and we’ll create jobs in the country, and we’ll get things done.

HARWOOD: Governor Romney, you’ve shown that you can work with Democrats. When you were governor, of course, you collaborated with Ted Kennedy on the health care plan that you enacted. You raised fees to balance the budget, and you used that as an argument to get the credit rating of your state upgraded. Independent voters might like that. Should Republican primary voters be nervous about it?

ROMNEY: Thanks for reminding everybody.

(LAUGHTER)

You know, what I found is, in a state like mine where there are a few Democrats in the legislature — 85 percent of my legislature was Democrat — to get anything done — I was always in an away game, if you will. And to get something done, I had to see if there were Democrats who cared more about the state than they cared about their re-election or their party, and there were.

And right now, America faces a crisis. I think people on both sides of the aisle recognize that this is no longer a time just for worrying about the next election. This is a time to worry about America.

GINGRICH: You deal with Social Security as a free-standing issue. And the fact is, if you allow younger Americans to have the choice to go to a Galveston or Chilean-style personal Social Security savings account, the long-term effect on Social Security is scored by the Social Security actuary as absolutely stabilizing the system and taking care of it.

The key is there is $2.4 trillion in Social Security which should be off budget, and no president of the United States should ever again say because of some political fight in Washington, I may not be able to send you your check. That money is sitting there. That money is available. And the country ought to pay the debt it owes the people who put the money in there.

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Governor Romney, if I could follow up, Speaker Gingrich just said he is not prepared to raise taxes on the American people in the middle of a slow economy like this. That’s what would happen if the payroll tax cut is not extended.

Do you agree with him, and would you also support, when it comes down to it, an extension of the payroll tax cut?

ROMNEY: I don’t want to raise taxes on people in the middle of a recession. Of course not.

HARWOOD: So you’re for it?

ROMNEY: And that’s one of the reasons why we fought so hard to make sure the Bush tax cuts weren’t taken away by President Obama.

But, look, this issue of deficits and spending is not about just dollars and cents. It’s a moral issue. It’s a moral imperative.

We can’t continue to pass on massive debts to the next generation. We can’t continue to put at risk the greatest nation in the history of the Earth because of the profligate spending that’s going on in Washington, D.C.

HARWOOD: But to clarify, you agree with President Obama the payroll tax cut should be expanded?

ROMNEY: I want to keep our taxes down. I don’t want to raise any taxes anywhere. Let me tell you, I’m not looking to raise taxes. What I’m looking to do is to cut spending. And that’s why this last week I put out a plan that dramatically cuts spending in Washington, that gets us to a 20 percent cap, and makes sure that we have a balanced budget thereafter. And how do I do it? I have three major steps.

Number one, cut programs. Get rid of programs we don’t have to have like Obamacare.

Take a lot of programs that we have at the state level, number two — excuse me, at the federal level — and send them back to the states where they can be better run with less fraud and abuse.

And number three, finally, bring some productivity and management expertise to the federal government. I would cut the workforce by 10 percent and — I want to say one more, and that is this — I want to make sure we link the compensation of our federal bureaucrats to that which exists in the private sector. People who are public servants shouldn’t get more money than the taxpayers that they’re serving.

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Does any candidate on this stage disagree? Does any candidate disagree and oppose an extension of the payroll tax cut?

BACHMANN: Say that again.

HARWOOD: Does any candidate disagree with the Speaker and Governor Romney and oppose the extension of the payroll tax cut?

(UNKNOWN): Yes.

HARWOOD: You oppose it?

BACHMANN: I do. I opposed it when it was first proposed, because I knew that it would blow a hole of $111 billion in the Social Security trust fund.

President Obama clearly did this for political reasons. That’s why he did it. And so I had made that warning then, because we actually have already run Social Security in the red. We aren’t just about to, we already have, six years ahead of time.

Now, consider the context. We have baby boomers in their peak earning years. This is when money should be flooding into the Social Security trust fund. Instead, we’re already in the red.

When we talked this evening about how much trouble we are in with spending, we are in a tremendous amount of trouble with spending. Just consider we pay a lot of taxes in this country, $2.2 trillion is what we send into Washington. The problem is, we spent at the government level $3.7 trillion. Your started out tonight talking –

(CROSSTALK)

HARWOOD: Out of time, Congresswoman. Governor Huntsman?

HUNTSMAN: Thank you. It’s getting a little lonely over here.

SANTELLI: Our federal government still owns 500 million shares of GM stocks, guarantees trillions — trillions with a “T” — dollars of mortgages. They are basically the lender doing 90 percent of all the mortgage origination right now. And you consider the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve has purchased $2.62 trillion — again, with a “T” — of treasury securities, agency securities, and mortgage securities.

If you were president, how would your administration and would your administration reverse these obligations?

HUNTSMAN: I would clean up the balance sheet. And let me tell you what I worry about as much as anything else.

We talk about failed leadership. We certainly have failed leadership.

President Obama had two years to get this economy going and to move us toward an environment that speaks to job growth, and he’s failed miserably. But along with that, we have a real trust crisis in this country.

Between the American people and our institutions of power, Congress, the executive branch, Wall Street as well, there is no trust. We are running on empty. And when a democracy begins to run on empty because of government holdings and bailouts and being involved in ways that are absolutely inappropriate, based on constitutional and where we should be, that results in a diminution of trust by the American people. We’ve got to raise that trust.

So let me just tell you what I think needs to be done, in terms of bringing our economy up. We’ve heard about all these great tax plans. I think I’m the only one on this stage who’s actually delivered a flat tax. And I did that as governor of my state.

I put forward a proposal that I think is right for this country and getting it back on its feet. The Wall Street Journal has come out — the most respected editorial page economically, maybe in the entire world — has come out and endorsed my plan, said it’s the very best of the bunch.

And it very simply calls out just as I did as governor. So I’m not sitting here talking about academic theory. I stand here as a practitioner. I’ve done it before. I want to phase out the loopholes and the deductions on the individual side, phase out corporate welfare and subsidies on the corporate side, and lower the rates, make us more competitive. That’s the kind of work that is realistic. It can get done in Congress and fire the engines of growth that are so desperately needed to boost trust in this country.

(UNKNOWN): Sharon Epperson?

EPPERSON: I want to turn the attention to why we’re here on this campus and what many students are very interested in, and that is the fact that, Congressman Paul, right now, we are looking at student loan debt that is near $1 trillion. Americans owe more on student loans right now than credit cards, and the average debt for a college senior right now is over $25,000. It’s obviously a very hot topic right here on this campus and with students across the country. Just listen to what they have to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): Tuition rates have increased roughly three times that of inflation over the last three decades.

(UNKNOWN): More students have to take out loans or forego college.

(UNKNOWN): My generation is graduating with student debt levels at an unprecedented level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

EPPERSON: So, Congressman Paul, you’ve already talked about the fact that you want to get rid of the Department of Education. You’ve said that you want to get rid of federal student loans. So how would you make college more accessible, more affordable for these students and students around the country?

PAUL: Well, I think you proved that the policy of student loans is a total failure. I mean, a trillion dollars of debt?

(APPLAUSE)

And it’s going to be dumped on the taxpayer? And what have they gotten? A poorer education and costs that have skyrocketed because of inflation, and they don’t have jobs. There’s nothing more dramatically failing than — than that program.

So, no, there’s no authority in the Constitution for the federal government to be dealing with education. We should get rid of the loan programs. We should get rid of the Department of Education and give tax credits, if you have to, to help people.

But the inflation is the big problem. It’s three times the rate that the government admits that inflation is, and that is natural and normal. When governments inflate the currency, it goes in the areas that the government gets involved in, housing, high prices, stock market, skyrocketing prices, medical care, skyrocketing, education…

EPPERSON: But how do they pay for it? How do they now pay for college, if they’re not…

PAUL: The way — the way you pay for cellphones and computers.

(APPLAUSE)

You have the marketplace there. There’s competition. Quality goes up. The price goes down. Can you imagine what it would have been like if the Department of Homeland Security was in charge of finding one person or one company to make the cellphones? I mean, it would have been a total disaster. So when the government gets involved in the delivery of any service — whether it’s education, medical care, or housing — they cause higher prices, lower quality, create bubbles, and they give us this mess that we’re in. That’s why we have to eventually get our — we have to wise up.

And look at where the bubbles come from. It’s from the Federal Reserve. And we should start by auditing the Fed, and then we should end the Fed.

(APPLAUSE)

EPPERSON: Thank you, Congressman.

Speaker Gingrich, Congressman Paul just talked about a bubble. And there are many that are concerned that, unlike other types of debt, student loan debt does not have the same type of consumer protections. It cannot be wiped out in bankruptcy by law. There’s really little way to refinance it. Are you worried about student loan debt becoming the next government bailout?

GINGRICH: You know, this is a good place to talk about the scale of change we’re about to live through. We’re at the end of the welfare state era of dependency, debt, distortion, and dishonesty.

The student loan program began when Lyndon Johnson announced it, I think, with a $15 million program. It’s an absurdity. What does it do? It expands the ability of students to stay in college longer because they don’t see the cost. It actually means they take fewer hours per semester on average. It takes longer for them to get through school. It allows them to tolerate tuitions going up absurdly. By 2014, there will be one administrator for every teacher on college campuses in the United States.

Now, let me give you a contrast that’s very startling. The College of the Ozarks is a work-study college. You cannot apply to it unless you need student aid, and they have no student aid.

You have to work 20 hours a week during the year to pay tuition and books. You work 40 hours a week during the summer to pay for room and board. Ninety-two percent of the students graduate owing no debt, the eight percent who owe debt owe $5,000 because they bought a car.

Now, that is a model so different, it will be culture shock for the students of America to learn we actually expect them to go to class, study, get out quickly, charge as little as possible, and emerge debt free by doing the right things for four years.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Governor Perry, name the top programs that you would cut in terms of long-term deficit reduction. Include Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and defense spending in the order you see fit.

PERRY: Well, every one of those — and by the way, that was the Department of Energy I was reaching for a while ago.

(APPLAUSE)

PERRY: So here what’s we have to look at as Americans. And it’s the entitlement programs that are eating up this huge amount of money that’s out there.

And it’s also the spending, Congressman Paul. And when you look at Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and those unfunded liabilities, I think are over $115 trillion just in those three programs. Those are the places where you go where you have to make the really hard decisions in this country.

BARTIROMO: So what is your order? And you didn’t mention defense spend.

PERRY: Well, obviously, Social Security is one of those where we either can go to a blended type of a program where we blend price and wages, and come up with a program, and can save billions of dollars there. But the people who are on Social Security, they need to understand something today. It’s going to be there for them.

Those that are working their way towards Social Security, we’ve made a pledge to them. Those individuals are going to have those dollars there for them.

But the young people out there, who is going to stand up for the young people in this country, those that are at the workforce today, and stand up and say, we are going to transform this program so it’s going to be there for you? I will do that. I will stand up for the young people in this country and put a program into place that will be there for them.

HARWOOD: Speaking of young people, a quick answer. Do you agree with Congressman Paul that we should kill the federal student loan program?

PERRY: I happen to think there are a substantial number of ways. As a matter of fact, I’ve called for a $10,000 graduate program –

HARWOOD: But would you kill the federal student loan program?

PERRY: I don’t think the federal government should be in the business of paying for programs and building up huge debt out there. I think we need to look at, how do you –

HARWOOD: So get rid of it?

PERRY: — force these universities to be efficient? And one of the ways is that the governors who appoint the trustees, they step in and they basically say, listen, you are going to have graduation rates that are moving upwards, you’re going to have tuition that is moving down. You have to have control over those boards of regents, of that’s how you do that, or the legislature has to have control.

But the bottom line is, we have to put powerful economic forces into place. And one of those is using our technology –

HARWOOD: Thank you, Governor.

PERRY: — to be able to let our kids have the opportunity to get an education through long distance learning, for instance.

BARTIROMO: That’s time.

HARWOOD: Thank you, Governor.

BARTIROMO: We’re going to take one more quick break. When we return, final questions to the candidates.

HARWOOD: Our CNBC’s Republican Presidential Debate will be right back.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Welcome back to CNBC’s “Republican Presidential Debate.”

HARWOOD: Mr. Cain, let me ask you a question, under a Republican governor, the state of California hired a company in China to build major portions in the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, creating thousands of jobs in China. And California did that because it was cheaper. Is that smart, purchasing by government in a global economy, or is there something wrong with that?

CAIN: There’s something wrong that, which is why I have proposed a bold plan, 999…

(LAUGHTER)

CAIN: … and allow me to explain how on the 999 that that company would be more inclined to keep the business here. On the first 9, you take sales minus purchases, net exports, and capital, it levels the playing field between goods produced here in the United States and the rest of the world.

It makes the United States much more competitive and businesses won’t be tempted to build overseas and send jobs overseas. The tax code is what sends jobs overseas. The tax code is what caused them to buy the articles from the Chinese. It starts with replacing the tax code.

HARWOOD: Governor Romney, was it a mistake for Governor Schwarzenegger to hire the firm in China to build portions of that bridge?

ROMNEY: Well, that’s a — a long answer to that, because what China is doing is not playing fairly by the rules that exist in our — in the WTO and the world. China is, on almost every dimension, cheating. And we’ve got to recognize that. It is good for America…

(APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: It is good for America to have free trade. It is good for us to be able to send our goods and services around the word and vice versa.

HARWOOD: So a good decision to build the bridge over there?

ROMNEY: That is normally a good thing. But China is playing by different rules. One, they are stealing intellectual property. Number two, they’re hacking into our computer systems, both government and corporate. And they are stealing, by virtue of that as well, from us.

And finally, they are manipulating their currency, and by doing so, holding down the price of Chinese goods, and making sure their products are artificially low-priced. It’s predatory pricing, it’s killing jobs in America.

If I’m president of the United States, I’m making it very clear, I love free trade. I want to open markets to free trade. But I will crack down on cheaters like China. They simply cannot continue to steal our jobs.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: But how do you crack down? How do you crack down, Governor? Are you talking about new tariffs? How are you cracking down?

ROMNEY: I’m sorry, pardon?

BARTIROMO: How would you crack down on China?

ROMNEY: Well, number one, I would do something this president should have done a long time ago, which is to label China a currency manipulator. And then I would bring in action at the WTO level, charging them with being a currency manipulator.

Number three, where they have stolen intellectual property, where they have hacked into computers, and where their artificial pricing is causing their goods to have predatory levels of pricing, I would apply, if necessary, tariffs to make sure that they understand we are willing to play at a level playing field.

We want — we have to have free trade. That’s essential for the functioning of a strong economy. But we cannot allow one nation to continue to flaunt the rules and kill our jobs by allowing them continue as they have.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Speaker, in addition to that, so many companies — multinational companies, want to try to get a foothold in China and sell to the billion-and-a-half people there. They can only do joint ventures. They’re not getting a fair shake in terms of selling to that 1.5 billion person population. How would you move the needle?

GINGRICH: Well, there are two things here. And let me say in advance that I would yield in part to Governor Huntsman, because he speaks fluent Chinese, he has worked in China, and he’s been the ambassador. And I’d be curious to get his reaction.

But there are two different parts here. The problem with building the bridge is simple. What — what is it about American regulations, American taxation, American labor cost and attitudes that makes it cheaper to go to China than to go to the United States? Now, we…

(APPLAUSE)

… first of all, you’ve got to decide, how are we going to be more competitive and how are we going to be the lowest cost? And there’s a new Boston consultant (ph) that says, by 2015, South Carolina and Alabama will be cheaper than the Chinese coastal provinces to manufacturing.

Second, in terms of dealing with China strategically, I think we’re going to have to find ways to dramatically raise the pain level for the Chinese cheating, both in the hacking side, but also on the stealing and intellectual property side. And I don’t think anybody today has a particularly good strategy for doing that.

BARTIROMO: Time. Thirty seconds. Jon Huntsman, you were the ambassador to China, 30 seconds to respond.

HUNTSMAN: Thirty seconds? For Heaven’s sake. Let me just say that we’ve had a 40-year relationship with China. It’s a — it’s a troublesome and problematic relationship, very, very complicated.

But the bottom line is, I mean, you can give applause lines and you can kind of pander here and there. You start a trade war if you start slapping tariffs randomly on Chinese products based upon currency manipulation. That’s not a good idea.

But longer term, we’re just going to have to keep doing business the way we’ve always done, is sit down, you find solutions to the problems, and you move forward. It isn’t easy. It isn’t glamorous. It’s grinding it out the way we’ve done for 40 years. And for 40 more years, we’re going to have to do it the same way.

HARWOOD: Are you saying Governor Romney’s pandering?

HUNTSMAN: I’m saying that you can throw out applause lines and you can say that you’re going to slap on tariffs. You know, that doesn’t work…

(CROSSTALK)

HARWOOD: But you’re suggesting it. He’s standing right here. Would you say that he’s pandering on this issue?

HUNTSMAN: Well, I’ve said it before. I think that — that that policy is one of simply pandering, just throwing a tariff on for the sake of an artificially valued currency, which is, in fact, the case.

But here’s what they do in response. They say, you have an artificially valued currency, too, with those quantitative easing programs. You, too, are manipulating you’re — and we’re going to slap something on your products. And before long, you have a trade war.

But let me tell you longer…

(APPLAUSE)

HARWOOD: Governor Romney, are you pandering?

ROMNEY: Look, I’ve been in business all my life, 25 years. I consulted to businesses around the world. I’ve been in business where we competed around the world. I understand free trade; I like free trade. I know that America can compete with anyone in the world. Newt is right about — about our capacity to manufacture and compete heads-on versus the Chinese.

But I’ve also seen predatory pricing. I’ve seen people price their goods at an artificial level for an extended period of time, such that they can drive other people out of business. And then when the other people are out of business, they can raise their prices. That’s what China’s doing, by holding down the value of their currency.

Let the currencies float. If the U.S. currency, for instance, is being inflated, let it float. Let us float. Let us have a market mechanism determine the value of our respective currencies, as opposed to the Chinese government continuing to put an advantage to their — their producers. This — this is no longer a time for us just to sit back and say we’re going to let them steal our jobs.

BARTIROMO: Congresswoman Bachmann, weigh in here. How do you open the markets in China for American companies?

BACHMANN: Well, the Chinese have been bad actors. Recently we found out that they dumped counterfeit computer chips here in the United States. We’re using some of those counterfeit computer chips in the Pentagon in some of our weapons systems. This has national security implications.

We also found out that the Chinese just finished building 3,000 miles of underground tunnels where they are housing some nuclear weapons. There’s some very real consequences to the United States overspending to such an extent that we’re in hock to them over a trillion dollars.

We’ve sent so much interest money over to the Chinese to pay our debts off that we effectively built their aircraft carrier. And by 2015, we will be sending so much interest money over, we will be paying for the entire People’s Liberation Army of China, the number- one employer of the — of the world.

What we need to do is stop enriching China with our money. And we do that by stop borrowing from them, by stop spending money that we don’t have.

(APPLAUSE)

CRAMER: Mr. Cain, I want to go to you with this question. This does not lend itself to 9-9-9 or any other number.

CAIN: Sorry, I didn’t hear the first part.

CRAMER: This question does not lend itself to 9-9-9 or any other thing. This is our final word, OK? And it comes from our viewers. And it is all about restoring trust and faith in our markets and in our way of life. I’m going to be quoting Joanne Kornbly (ph). She e- mails us.

She says, “Our stock market has turned into a casino with high- frequency computerized trading comprising 70 percent of all transactions and hedge fund speculation resulting in market swings. Before privatizing Social Security, how would you make the stock market safer for individual investors?

And Mr. Cain, just simple, how do we restore faith in the markets for the little guy?

CAIN: The first thing we do is restore faith in business by providing certainty so businesses can grow. A lot of the volatility is being driven by uncertainty.

Businesses are uncertain about what the health care rules are going to be, they don’t know what the tax rules are going to be. All of the uncertainty has this economy stagnated.

So, the way you restore that, grow this economy. That’s job one.

Many of the things we talked about up here today starts with growing the economy. And that’s why we have got to use a bold plan — I won’t mention it — in order to grow the economy.

(LAUGHTER)

CRAMER: When the economy was going great, sir, there was no trust. When the economy was going great, people were getting ripped off and there was insider trading. When the economy was going great, people were getting hurt in the stock market.

Forget the economy. Talk about the way the market is regulated.

CAIN: Jim, I feel your pain. Look, here is what I’m saying.

CRAMER: How about the 90 million people that got –

(CROSSTALK) CAIN: Jim, you’ve got to provide certainty in this environment so businesses will grow. They have been in a mode of survive. They need to be in a mode of growth. That’s where we have got to do first.

And I agree with some of the others who have said we have got to repeal Dodd/Frank. There’s three big things wrong with Dodd/Frank, which is why it needs to be a top priority to repeal.

Number one, it doesn’t provide oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And we all agree that that was a catalyst for the meltdown in 2008.

The two other biggest problems with Dodd/Frank, Dodd and Frank.

(APPLAUSE)

BARTIROMO: Governor Perry, same question to you. The same question to you and Congressman Ron Paul.

How do you restore faith in the public markets?

PERRY: Well, we have the regulations in place, and we had the regulations in place well before the meltdowns occurred. We have a culture in Washington, D.C., where these corporate lobbyists have these cozy relationships with the people that they are regulating. And we have to have leadership in this country that not only recognizes that, but demands that those individuals who are working for us are in those agencies, whether it’s in the stock market or whether it’s Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

And when there are individuals who are breaking the laws, who are pushing the bounds, that there are clear efforts that are made to take those people either out of those jobs or prosecute them for criminality. One of the two, that has to happen.

And you can pass legislation like you said until the world looks level. But you have got to have men and women who are committed to the laws of this country and a president that will push his administration to make sure that they’re done.

HARWOOD: Congressman Paul, Governor Perry was just talking about the culture of Washington. His critics in the state of Texas — you’re a congressman from Texas — say crony capitalism is what he practices as governor. Are they right?

PAUL: I haven’t analyzed it enough to call him a crony or not. So, no, I don’t know the details of that. But there is a lot of crony capitalism going on in this country.

And that has to be distinguished from real capitalism, because this occupation stuff on Wall Street, if you’re going after crony capitalism, I’m all for it. And those are the people who benefit from contracts from government, benefits from the Federal Reserve, benefits from all of the bailouts. They don’t deserve compassion, they deserve taxation, or they don’t — they deserve to have all their benefits removed. But crony capitalism isn’t when somebody makes money and they produce a product. That is very important. We have to distinguish the two.

And unfortunately, I think some people mix that. But this, to me, is so vital, that we recognize what crony — what capitalism is versus crony capitalism. And believe me, when you have an inflationary environment, and all this speculation, and all the bailouts due to monetary system, believe me, you get a majority of crony capitalism, and that’s why we’re facing this crisis today.

BARTIROMO: We want to thank all of you tonight. That is all the time we have for CNBC’s Republican Presidential Debate.

We thank all the candidates for being here tonight and spending the time and putting their plans forward.

We hope you now have a better understanding of where each of them stand on the economy, jobs, and your money.

HARWOOD: We would also like to thank our partners, the Michigan Republican Party, and all of the Grizzlies of Oakland University.

(APPLAUSE)

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/45232734/

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Tags: Federal Reserve, MSNBC, Ron Paul

Ron Paul on MSNBC Morning Joe: Fed is finally ‘on the defensive’

Posted on 03 November 2011 by admin

http://youtu.be/CkUlsJhMW6s

Article from The Hill (thanks LatinsforPaul):

http://thehill.com/video/…

MSNBC video – Thanks ryan_judice

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From Ron Paul’s Facebook page:
“I’m scheduled to be on Morning Joe tomorrow on MSNBC around 7:00 AM Eastern.”
www.facebook.com/ronpaul

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Tags: Ron Paul

Ron Paul’s Plan to Restore America

Posted on 28 October 2011 by admin

SYNOPSIS:

America is the greatest nation in human history. Our respect for individual liberty, free markets, and limited constitutional government produced the strongest, most prosperous country in the world. But, we have drifted far from our founding principles, and America is in crisis. Ron Paul’s “Restore America” plan slams on the brakes and puts America on a return to constitutional government. It is bold but achievable. Through the bully pulpit of the presidency, the power of the Veto, and, most importantly, the united voice of freedom-loving Americans, we can implement fundamental reforms.

DELIVERS A TRUE BALANCED BUDGET IN YEAR THREE OF DR. PAUL’S PRESIDENCY:

Ron Paul is the ONLY candidate who doesn’t just talk about balancing the budget, but who has a full plan to get it done.

SPENDING:

Cuts $1 trillion in spending during the first year of Ron Paul’s presidency, eliminating five cabinet departments (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education), abolishing the Transportation Security Administration and returning responsibility for security to private property owners, abolishing corporate subsidies, stopping foreign aid, ending foreign wars, and returning most other spending to 2006 levels.

ENTITLEMENTS:

Honors our promise to our seniors and veterans, while allowing young workers to opt out. Block grants Medicaid and other welfare programs to allow States the flexibility and ingenuity they need to solve their own unique problems without harming those currently relying on the programs.

CUTTING GOVERNMENT WASTE:

Makes a 10% reduction in the federal workforce, slashes Congressional pay and perks, and curbs excessive federal travel. To stand with the American People, President Paul will take a salary of $39,336, approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.

TAXES:

Lowers the corporate tax rate to 15%, making America competitive in the global market. Allows American companies to repatriate capital without additional taxation, spurring trillions in new investment. Extends all Bush tax cuts. Abolishes the Death Tax. Ends taxes on personal savings, allowing families to build a nest egg.

REGULATION:

Repeals ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and Sarbanes-Oxley. Mandates REINS-style requirements for thorough congressional review and authorization before implementing any new regulations issued by bureaucrats. President Paul will also cancel all onerous regulations previously issued by Executive Order.

MONETARY POLICY:

Conducts a full audit of the Federal Reserve and implements competing currency legislation to
strengthen the dollar and stabilize inflation.

CONCLUSION:

Dr. Paul is the only candidate with a plan to cut spending and truly balance the budget. This is the only plan that will deliver what America needs in these difficult times: Major regulatory relief, large spending cuts, sound monetary policy, and a balanced budget.

CHARTS AND GRAPHS

DISCRETIONARY SPENDING

MANDATORY SPENDING

MISCELLANEOUS SAVINGS

REVENUES

SUMMARY TABLE

BUDGET COMPARISONS

AGENCY BUDGET COMPARISON

HISTORICAL SPENDING, REVENUE, AND DEFICITS

http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/ron-paul-plan-to-restore-america/

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Tags: Dow Jones, McGraw-Hill, Standard & Poor’s

4 Companies Control 147 Companies That Own Everything

Posted on 26 October 2011 by admin

There may be 147 companies in the world that own everything, as colleague Bruce Upbin points out and they are dominated by investment companies as Eric Savitz rightly points out. But it’s not you and I who really control those companies, even though much of our money is in them. Given the nature of how money is invested, there are four companies in the shadows that really control those companies that own everything.

Before I reveal them, some light math:

According to the 2011 annual factbook from the Investment Company Institute, there is $24.7 trillion in all the mutual funds in the world (a little less than half from the US). Based on data from the ICI, $1.24 trillion of this is directly invested in index funds, plus another $992 billion in assets beyond that $24.7 trillion in Exchange Traded Funds, which aren’t mutual funds but are index funds. That means the bulk of that money is in “active” managed funds or fund of funds.

But then consider this: the chief of hedge funds at a very large asset manager told me last week (alas, I cannot identify either) that an internal study his firm recently performed found that the vast majority of mutual funds defined as actively managed see 95% of the assets they hold determined by an index. That means just 5% of actively managed funds really are driven by the active manager’s judgment.

This less-than-active management is for two reasons: one is to maintain the fund in a style box (i.e. large value stock, medium value stocks) and comply with the reality all mutual funds are required to have a benchmark index they compare their relative performance to. The other reason is to adhere to risk metrics to which most of the fund industry is beholden. This second point is partly due to Modern Portfolio Theory (a complex topic we won’t debate here) and to the human nature that active managers tend to build portfolios close to the indexes they benchmark against to avoid really awful downward relative performance years that ends up costing them their jobs.

So of the $25.69 trillion in worldwide assets we’ve identified, $2.23 trillion are directly in indexes (ETFs and index mutual funds) with another $22.3 trillion indirectly beholden to indexes (that 95% of actively managed fund holdings said to be determined by an index).

You can see where I’m headed here. That means the real power to control the world lies with four companies: McGraw-Hill, which owns Standard & Poor’s, Northwestern Mutual, which owns Russell Investments, the index arm of which runs the benchmark Russell 1,000 and Russell 3,000, CME Group which owns 90% of Dow Jones Indexes, and Barclay’s, which took over Lehman Brothers and its Lehman Aggregate Bond Index, the dominant world bond fund index. Together, these four firms dominate the world of indexing. And in turn, that means they hold real sway over the world’s money.

While that may seem benign – they are indexers after all you may say – a financial index isn’t cut and dried like the index of a book. It’s a misperception indexers merely do some simple math like identifying the 500 largest US companies and voila! you have the S&P 500. Every indexer has a fudge factor that allows them to say one company is more “economically significant” for the index at hand than another company. To again take the S&P 500 as an example, the 502-largest company by market cap could get the nod over number 500 by size if S&P decides it wants to.

The power is even more obvious in bonds. The now-Barclays Aggregate Bond Index attempts to mirror volume of bond issuance in a region or the world, but it can’t include even a sizable percentage of all the bonds issued. Essentially, there’s a big judgment call in there in what bonds it adds to its index. A judgment that influences bond fund flows worldwide.

What does all this mean? Researchers at a desk in midtown Manhattan are the butterflies that cause the hurricanes in the markets. For instance, 37% of all index funds in stocks are in a S&P 500 index fund. That’s $370 billion directly buying and selling stocks based on when the S&P analysts decide to drop ITTfrom the S&P500 and replace it with just one of three ITT spin-off, Xylem, as announced on Monday. Then add on top of that all of the so-called active mutual funds aiming to beat the S&P 500 (but still reflect 95% of the S&P in their funds) who react to the change and then all of the hedge funds who trade ahead of time trying to guess what S&P may drop or add.

I don’t have a grudge against any indexer (and full disclosure, I’ve done work for some of them). And the folks at McGraw-Hill don’t seem to spook people the way George Soros manages to. But when you discuss power in the world markets, the answer isn’t what you think it is.

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Tags: 2012 Liberty Candidates, Debates, Michele Bachmann, Republican, Ron Paul

Western Republican Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, Nevada

Posted on 18 October 2011 by admin

October 18, 2011 – Las Vegas, Nevada

The eighth Republican debate was held at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada and was sponsored by CNN and the Western Republican Leadership Conference. It was moderated by Anderson Cooper. Jon Huntsman boycotted the debate, citing a scheduling spat between the Nevada Republican Party and the New Hampshire Republican Party over whose primaries would be held first.^[16] Gary Johnson was excluded from the debate because he did not meet CNN’s eligibility requirements.

The debate was described as the most contentious thus far.^[17] The debate started with all the candidates piling on Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax reform plan.^[18] Mitt Romney squared off separately with Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. Santorum hammered Romney over his health care reform initiative in Massachusetts, saying, “You just don’t have credibility. Your consultants helped craft Obamacare.”^[18] Perry, whose performance was seen as an improvement over past debates, attacked Romney because he hired a lawn service using illegal immigrants; Perry said, “The idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you’re strong on immigration is on its face the height of hypocrisy.”.^[18]

CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL

Full Transcript CNN Western Republican Presidential Debate (08:00pm – 10:00pm)

Aired October 18, 2011 – 20:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR AND DEBATE MODERATOR: I’m Anderson Cooper in Las Vegas.

Tonight, the presidential candidates come here to win the West.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NARRATOR: The west. From the mountain majesty of the Rockies, to the desert sands of the Mojave, the American frontier is a historic land of opportunity for Republicans.

GOV. RICK PERRY (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Believe in America.

NARRATOR: Tonight, the fight for the GOP presidential nomination comes here, to a region where Barack Obama made inroads four years ago, to a state that could be decisive in the primary season and the general election, to a city where dreams are made and crushed.

Stand by for a Las Vegas event, the Republican presidential contenders on stage and in depth after a dramatic reshuffling of the pack.

Herman Cain, now among the leaders surging in recent weeks.

PERRY: We put more boots on the ground.

NARRATOR: Rick Perry, trying to get back on track after a meteoric rise.

FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks for being here today.

NARRATOR: And Mitt Romney, steady, holding his place in the top tier.

They could have the most to win or lose. But Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul could be wildcards. And Rick Santorum, eager to beat the odds.

The candidates facing tough questions about jobs and the economy, the immigration wars, and other issues that matter to westerners and voters across the nation.

Now, with nothing less than America’s future at stake, the presidential campaign goes West.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: And welcome to the Sands Convention Center at the Venetian in Las Vegas, our host of the Western Republican Presidential Debate.

Tonight, seven contenders will be on this stage to convince you he or she should be the Republican nominee for the president of the United States.

I’m Anderson Cooper.

Welcome to our viewers in the U.S. and around the world.

Tonight’s debate is airing on CNN, CNN International, CNN en Espanol, and the American Forces Network.

We want to thank our cosponsors, the Western Republican Leadership Conference, representing 16 western states and territories. Western voters will play an active role in tonight’s debate. Voters here in our audience will have a chance to put questions directly to the candidates on this stage.

Let’s meet the 2012 Republican presidential contenders.

Joining us on stage, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: The former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Texas Governor Rick Perry.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: The former president and CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, Herman Cain.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: And the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Republican candidates for president of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Well, the crowd is on its feet. Everyone, please remain standing. It’s time now for our national anthem performed tonight by Tony award-winner Anthony Crivello, starring as the Phantom in “Phantom Las Vegas,” the Las Vegas spectacular. Please stand for the national anthem.

(APPLAUSE)

CRIVELLO: (SINGING NATIONAL ANTHEM)

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: I want to ask the candidates to please take your podiums. While the candidates are taking their podiums, I just want to tell you a little bit more about how tonight’s debate is going to work. I’ll be the moderator. I’ll ask questions on a wide range of issues. And I’ll work to make sure that each candidate is getting his or her fair share of questions.

Also, Western voters right here in the hall will be asking questions, as well, and viewers watching at home can participate, also. We’re accepting questions for the candidates on Twitter. If you send a question for the candidates on Twitter, make sure to include the hash tag #cnndebate, on Facebook at facebook.com/cnnpolitics, and on cnnpolitics.com.

Now, each candidate will have about one minute to answer the questions and 30 seconds for follow-ups and rebuttals. I’ll make sure candidates get time to respond if they’re singled out for criticism. There are no buzzers. There’s no bells. I’ll just politely inform the candidates when they need to wrap things up.

We want everyone watching to emerge from this debate more informed about the candidates, more able to judge who should be the next president of the United States.

Now that everyone is in place, it’s time for the candidates to introduce themselves to our audience. All the candidates are going to keep it short. Here’s an example. I’m Anderson Cooper. I’m usually anchoring “AC 360″ on CNN, but I’m honored to be here in Las Vegas at the Western Republican Presidential Debate. That will be my introduction.

(APPLAUSE)

So, Senator Santorum, you’re first. Let’s start with you.

FORMER SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R-PA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you, Anderson. I’m Rick Santorum. My wife, Karen, and I are the parents of seven children. And my little girl, Isabella, 3 years old, had some surgery today. She’s doing fine. But I just wanted to send to her a little “I love you” and I will take the red eye home to be with you tomorrow and make sure that you’re feeling fine.

(APPLAUSE)

REP. RON PAUL (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I’m Congressman Ron Paul from Texas. I’m the champion of liberty. I am the only one that has offered a balanced budget in — in a sincere method. And also, I present the case for a free society as being the best defense for peace and prosperity.

(APPLAUSE)

HERMAN CAIN, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am businessman Herman Cain. I’ve been married to my wife, Gloria, for 43 years. And I’m a 42-year businessman, which means I solve problems for a living.

(APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: I’m Mitt Romney. I was a businessman for 25 years. Then I had the fun of getting the chance to help run the Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City next door. And then I had the fun also of being governor of Massachusetts. I also solve problems, sometimes for a living, sometimes for other people to make things better. And I hope to be your president. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

PERRY: Good evening. I’m Texas Governor Rick Perry, a proven job-creator and a man who is about economic growth, an authentic conservative, not a conservative of convenience.

(APPLAUSE)

FORMER REP. NEWT GINGRICH (R-GA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I’m Newt Gingrich. And unlike President Obama, I’m glad to be in Las Vegas. I think it’s a great place to have a convention.

(APPLAUSE)

And — and when I am president, we’re going to replace class warfare with cooperation so all Americans can get off food stamps and onto paychecks.

(APPLAUSE)

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hi, my name is Michele Bachmann. I am thrilled to be able to be with you tonight in Las Vegas. And this is one night when I hope what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: All right. Let’s — time to begin. We’ll begin with actually a question in the hall.

QUESTION: This is for all candidates. What’s your position on replacing the federal income tax with a federal sales tax?

COOPER: I’ll direct that to Congresswoman Bachmann. You’ve been very critical of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, which calls for a 9 percent sales tax, a 9 percent income tax, and 9 percent corporate tax. In fact, you’ve said it would destroy the economy. Why?

BACHMANN: Well, I am a former federal tax litigation attorney. And also, my husband and I are job-creators.

One thing I know about Congress, being a member of Congress for five years, is that any time you give the Congress a brand-new tax, it doesn’t go away. When we got the income tax in 1913, the top rate was 7 percent. By 1980, the top rate was 70 percent. If we give Congress a 9 percent sales tax, how long will it take a liberal president and a liberal Congress to run that up to maybe 90 percent? Who knows?

What I do know is that we also have to be concerned about the hidden tax of the value-added tax, because at every step and stage of production, you’d be taxing that item 9 percent on the profit. That’s the worry.

In my plan — again, that’s a tax plan, it’s not a jobs plan — my plan for economic recovery is real jobs right now. I have a tax plan. I have a jobs plan. I have an energy plan and a plan to really turn this country around and create millions of high-paying jobs.

COOPER: Mr. Cain, a lot of prominent conservatives now are coming forward saying that your 9-9-9 plan would actually raise taxes on middle-class voters, on lower-income voters.

CAIN: The thing that I would encourage people to do before they engage in this knee-jerk reaction is read our analysis. It is available at hermancain.com. It was performed by Fiscal Associates. And all of the claims that are made against it, it is a jobs plan, it is revenue-neutral, it does not raise taxes on those that are making the least. All of those are simply not true.

The reason that my plan — the reason that our plan is being attacked so much is because lobbyists, accountants, politicians, they don’t want to throw out the current tax code and put in something that’s simple and fair. They want to continue to be able to manipulate the American people with a 10-million-word mess.

Let’s throw out the 10-million-word mess and put in our plan, which will liberate the American workers and liberate American businesses.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Senator Santorum, will his plan raise taxes?

SANTORUM: Herman’s well-meaning, and I love his boldness, and it’s great. But the fact of the matter is, I mean, reports are now out that 84 percent of Americans would pay more taxes under his plan. That’s the analysis. And it makes sense, because when — when you don’t provide a standard deduction, when you don’t provide anything for low-income individuals, and you have a sales tax and an income tax and, as Michele said, a value-added tax, which is really what his corporate tax is, we’re talking about major increases in taxes on people.

He also doesn’t have anything that takes care of the families. I mean, you have — you have a situation where, under Herman’s plan, a single person pays as much in taxes as a — as a man and a woman raising three children. Ever since we’ve had the income tax in America, we’ve always taken advantage of the fact that we want to encourage people to — to have children and not have to pay more already to raise children, but also pay that additional taxes — we gave some breaks for families. He doesn’t do that in this bill.

And we’re going to — we’ve seen that happen in Europe. And what happened? Boom, birth rates went into — into the basement. It’s a bad tax for — again, it’s bold. I give him credit for — for starting a debate, but it’s not good for families, and it’s not good for low-income…

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: I’m going to give you 30 seconds to respond. That 84 percent figure comes from the Tax Policy Center.

CAIN: That simply is not true. I invite people to look at our analysis, which we make available.

Secondly, the — the point that he makes about is a value-added tax — I’m sorry, Representative Bachmann — it’s not a value-added tax. It’s a single tax.

And I invite every American to do their own math, because most of these are knee-jerk reactions. And we do provide a provision, if you read the analysis, something we call opportunity zones that will, in fact, address the issue of those making the least.

COOPER: I want to bring in Congresswoman Bachmann since she was referenced by you.

BACHMANN: But Anderson, how do you not have a value-added tax? Because at every level of production you have a profit, and that profit gets taxed, because you produce one portion at one level, and then you take it to the next supplier or vendor at the next level, and you have an exchange. That is a taxable event.

And ultimately, that becomes a value-added tax. It’s a hidden tax. And any time the federal government needs revenue, they dial up the rate and the American people think that it’s — that it is the vendor that creates the tax, but it’s the government that creates the tax.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Perry, in your state, you have a 6.25 percent sales tax. Would taxpayers pay more under the 9-9-9 plan?

PERRY: No.

Herman, I love you, brother, but let me tell you something, you don’t need to have a big analysis to figure this thing out. Go to New Hampshire, where they don’t have a sales tax, and you’re fixing to give them one.

They’re not interested in 9-9-9. What they’re interested in is flatter and fairer. At the end of the week, I’m going to be laying out a plan that clearly — I’ll bump plans with you, brother, and we’ll see who has the best idea about how you get this country working again.

And one of the ways, right here in Nevada you’ve got 8-plus percent. You want nine cents on top of that, and nine cents on a new home — or 9 percent on a new home, 9 percent on your Social Security, 9 percent more?

I don’t think so, Herman. It’s not going to fly.

COOPER: Mr. Cain, 30 seconds.

(APPLAUSE)

CAIN: This is an example of mixing apples and oranges. The state tax is an apple. We are replacing the current tax code with oranges. So it’s not correct to mix apples and oranges.

Secondly, it is not a value-added tax. If you take most of the products — take a loaf of bread. It does have five taxes in it right now. What the 9 percent does is that we take out those five invisible taxes and replace it with one visible 9 percent.

So you’re absolutely wrong. It’s not a value-added tax.

Now one other quick thing.

COOPER: Your time’s up, I’m sorry.

CAIN: This whole thing about –

COOPER: You’ll have another 30 seconds. Trust me, they’re going to go –

CAIN: Tonight?

COOPER: Yes, I guarantee it. In about a minute.

Congressman Paul, you called his plan dangerous today.

PAUL: Oh, it is, because it raises revenues, and the worst part about it, it’s regressive. A lot of people aren’t paying any taxes, and I like that. I don’t think that we should even things up by raising taxes.

So it is a regressive tax. So it’s very, very dangerous. And it will raise more revenues.

But the gentlemen asked the question — he didn’t even ask what we’re talking about. He asked the question, what are you going to replace the income tax with? And I say nothing. That’s what we should replace it with.

(APPLAUSE)

PAUL: But I do want to make a point that spending is a tax. As soon as the governments spend money, eventually it’s a tax. Sometimes we put a direct tax on the people. Sometimes we borrow the money. And sometimes we print the money.

And then when prices go up, like today, the wholesale price index went up 7 percent rate, and if you look at the free market, prices are going up 9 and 10 percent. So that is the tax.

So, spending is the tax. That is the reason I offered the program, to cut $1 trillion out of the first year budget that I offer.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Mr. Cain, in 30 seconds?

CAIN: Once again, unfortunately, none of my distinguished colleagues who have attacked me up here tonight understand the plan. They’re wrong about it being a value-added tax.

We simply remove the hidden taxes that are in goods and services with our plan and replace it with a single rate 9 percent. I invite every family to do your own calculations with that arithmetic.

COOPER: Governor Romney, you have your only 59-point plan. In the last debate, Mr. Cain suggested it was too complicated. Is simpler better?

ROMNEY: Oftentimes simpler is better. And I know we’re not supposed the ask each other questions, but if you permit.

Herman, are you saying that the state sales tax will also go away?

CAIN: No, that’s an apple.

ROMNEY: OK.

CAIN: We’re replacing a bunch of oranges.

ROMNEY: OK.

So, then Governor Perry was right that –

CAIN: No, he wasn’t. He was mixing apples and oranges.

ROMNEY: Well, but will the people in Nevada not have to pay Nevada sales tax and in addition pay the 9 percent tax? CAIN: Governor Romney, you’re doing the same thing that they’re doing. You’re mixing apples and oranges. You’re going to pay –

ROMNEY: I’m –

CAIN: No, no, no, no. You’re going to pay the state sales tax, no matter what.

ROMNEY: Right.

CAIN: Whether you throw out the existing code and you put in our plan, you’re still going to pay that. That’s apples and oranges.

ROMNEY: Fine. And I’m going to be getting a bushel basket that has apples and oranges in it because I’ve got to pay both taxes, and the people in Nevada don’t want to pay both taxes.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: Now let me make this comment. Let’s just step back here. We’ve got a lot of people in America that are out of work. We’ve got a lot of people in this state, 13.4 percent of the people in this state out of work. We’ve got home prices going down. We’ve got to talk about how to get America growing again, how to start adding jobs, raising incomes, and tax is part of it.

I want to reduce taxes on our employers to make it easier to invest in America. I want to reduce taxes on middle income families. I like your chutzpah on this, Herman, but I have to tell you, the analysis I did, person by person, return by return, is that middle income people see higher taxes under your plan.

If it’s lower for the middle class, that’s great. But that’s not what I saw. I have to tell you, I want to get our burden down on our employers, on our people. I want to make sure our regulations work to encourage the private sector as opposed to putting a damper on it.

I want to get trade, opening up new markets for America. I want to also find a way to get our energy resources — and they’re all over the world, are all over this country, used for us. This is time to get America growing again. And that’s what this campaign ought to be about.

COOPER: Thank you, Governor.

Mr. Speaker…

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Speaker Gingrich, you have said in recent days that Mr. Cain’s 999 plan would be a harder sell than he lets on. How so?

GINGRICH: Well, you just watched it.

(LAUGHTER) GINGRICH: I mean, look, there are — first of all, I think that Herman Cain deserves a lot of credit. He has had the courage to go out and take a specific very big idea at the right level.

(APPLAUSE)

GINGRICH: And he has us at least talking about something that matters as opposed to the junk that all too often is masquerading as politics in this country. So I think that’s important.

There are two parts to this. The first is, if you take his plan, and I think it’s in the interest of the whole country to have serious people take his plan and go through it step by step. There are much more complexities than Herman lets on. OK. I mean, 999, when you get into details like you pay it on a new product, you don’t pay it on an old product, et cetera, there’s a lot more detail here than he lets on.

Second, I favor very narrow, focused tax cuts such as zero capital gains, 100 percent expensing, because I think, as Governor Romney said, jobs are the number one challenge of the next two or three years. Get something you can do very fast. Change on this scale takes years to think through if you’re going to do it right.

COOPER: Congresswoman Bachmann, you said in the last debate that everyone should pay something. Does that mean that you would raise taxes on the 47 percent of Americans who currently don’t pay taxes?

BACHMANN: I believe absolutely every American benefits by this magnificent country. Absolutely every American should pay something, even if it’s a dollar.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BACHMANN: Everyone needs to pay something in this country. That’s why with my tax plan, I take a page out of not theory but what’s provable and what works. What is provable and what works was the economic miracle that was wrought by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. That’s the plan that I look at.

I also want to completely abolish the tax code. I want to flatten the tax for all of Americans, simplify that tax for all of Americans. And that creates job growth, which is exactly what we need to have.

Because to be able to fuel the fire for this economy, again, it is the tax code, but it doesn’t end with the tax code. It’s the regulatory burden that costs us $1.8 trillion every year, but it’s more than that cost. It’s jobs that are lost.

So we need to repeal “Obama-care,” repeal the jobs and housing destruction act known as Dodd-Frank. President Obama’s plan has been a plan for destruction of this economy and failure.

COOPER: Thank you.

BACHMANN: I plan to change that with real jobs right now at michelebachmann.com.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: We’ve been talking about Herman Cain’s plan. Let’s talk about Governor Romney’s plan.

Governor Perry, you have said that Governor Romney was an abject failure at creating jobs when he was governor of Massachusetts. If you’ve read his 59-point plan, has it changed your mind?

PERRY: Well, here’s the nine that we need to get focused on. And it’s not 999, it’s not 59. It’s that 9 percent unemployment in this country. And that’s where we’ve got to get focused in America, is how to create an environment where the men and women get back to work.

It’s the reason I laid out a plan, Newt, this last week to get this energy that’s under our feet. We’ve got 300 years of resources right under our feet in this country. Yet we’ve got an administration that is blockading our ability to bring that to the surface, whether it’s our petroleum, our natural gas, or our coal. And 1.2 million jobs could be put to work.

Americans who are sitting out there listening to this conversation tonight, somebody wants someone on this stage to say: Listen, we got an idea here how to get you to work and take care of your family and have the dignity of a job. And that’s exactly what I did with my plan, laid it out where Americans understand we don’t have to wait on OPEC anymore. We don’t have to let them hold us hostage. America’s got the energy. Let’s have American energy independence.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Romney, does Governor Perry have the answer?

ROMNEY: Well, he’s absolutely right about — about getting energy independence and taking advantage of our natural resources here. We’re an energy-rich nation that’s acting like an energy-poor nation. And that’s something I’ve been talking about for some time, as the governor has. He’s absolutely right.

But there are also a lot of good jobs we need in manufacturing, and high-tech jobs, and good service jobs, technology of all kinds. America produces an economy that’s very, very broad. And that’s why our policy to get America the most attractive place in the world for investment and — and job growth encompasses more than just energy. It includes that, but also tax policy, regulatory policy, trade policy, education, training and balancing the federal budget, and that starts with repealing Obamacare, which is a huge burden on this economy.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Senator Santorum, does Mitt Romney have the answers for jobs? SANTORUM: I agree with — with all of what Governor Romney and both — and Governor Perry said. I would add the fact that — that I’ve put forward the plan that’s going to allow for income mobility. That’s a new term, but I’ve been using it for a long time, which is people at the bottom part of the income scale being able to rise in society.

Believe it or not, studies have been done that show that in Western Europe, people at the lower parts of the income scale actually have a better mobility going up the ladder now than in America. And I believe that’s because we’ve lost our manufacturing base. No more stamp “Made in America” is really hurting people in the middle.

And that’s why I focus all of the real big changes in the tax code at manufacturing. I cut the corporate rate for manufacturing to zero, repeal all regulations affecting manufacturers that cost over $100 million and replace them with something that’s friendlier, they can work with. We repatriate $1.2 trillion that manufacturers made overseas and allow them to bring it back here, if they invest in plants and equipment. They can do it without having to pay any — any excise tax.

The final point I would make to Governor Romney, you just don’t have credibility, Mitt, when it comes to repealing Obamacare. You are — you are — your plan was the basis for Obamacare. Your consultants helped Obama craft Obamacare. And to say that you’re going to repeal it, you just — you have no track record on that that — that we can trust you that you’re going to do that.

COOPER: Governor Romney, 30 seconds.

(APPLAUSE)

SANTORUM: You don’t.

ROMNEY: You know, this I think is either our eighth or ninth debate. And each chance I’ve — I’ve had to talk about Obamacare, I’ve made it very clear, and also in my book. And at the time, by the way, I crafted the plan, in the last campaign, I was asked, is this something that you would have the whole nation do? And I said, no, this is something that was crafted for Massachusetts. It would be wrong to adopt this as a nation.

SANTORUM: That’s not what you said.

ROMNEY: You’re — you’re shaking — you’re shaking your head.

SANTORUM: Governor, no, that’s not what you said.

ROMNEY: That happens — to happens to be…

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: It was in your book that it should be for everybody.

ROMNEY: Guys… PERRY: You took it out of your book.

SANTORUM: You took it out of your book.

ROMNEY: Hey, his turn. His turn, OK, and mine.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: I’ll tell you what? Why don’t you let me speak?

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: You’re allowed — you’re allowed to change — you’re allowed to change…

ROMNEY: Rick, you had your chance. Let me speak.

SANTORUM: You can’t change the facts.

ROMNEY: Rick, you had your chance. Let me speak.

SANTORUM: You’re out of time. You’re out of time.

COOPER: He ate into your time.

(BOOING)

Rick…

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: I haven’t had a chance to respond yet, because you were interrupting the entire time I was trying to speak.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: Let me make it very clear.

COOPER: I’ll give another 20 seconds.

ROMNEY: And — look — look, we’ll let everybody take a look at the fact checks. I was interviewed by Dan Balz. I was in interviews in this debate stage with you four years ago. I was asked about the Massachusetts plan, was it something I’d impose on the nation? And the answer is absolutely not.

It was something crafted for a state. And I’ve said time and again, Obamacare is bad news. It’s unconstitutional. It costs way too much money, a trillion dollars. And if I’m president of the United States, I will repeal it for the American people.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: All right. Senator Santorum?

SANTORUM: Mitt, the governor of Massachusetts just is coming forward saying we have to pick up the job left undone by Romneycare, which is doing something about cutting health care costs.

What you did is exactly what Barack Obama did: focused on the wrong problem. Herman always says you’ve got to find the right problem. Well, the right problem is health care costs. What you did with a top-down, government-run program was focus on the problem of health care access. You expanded the pool of insurance without controlling costs. You’ve blown a hole in the budget up there. And you authored in Obamacare, which is going to blow a hole in the budget of this country.

COOPER: Governor Romney, I’m going to give you 30 seconds.

ROMNEY: I’m — I’m sorry, Rick, that you find so much to dislike in my plan, but I’ll tell you, the people in Massachusetts like it by about a 3-1 margin.

And we dealt with a challenge that we had, a lot of people that were expecting government to pay their way. And we said, you know what? If people have the capacity to care for themselves and pay their own way, they should.

Now, I can tell you this, it’s absolutely right that there’s a lot that needs to be done. And I didn’t get the job done in Massachusetts in getting the health care costs down in this country. It’s something I think we have got to do at the national level. I intend to do that.

But one thing is for sure. What Obama has done is imposed on the nation a plan that will not work, that must be repealed. And when it comes to knowledge about health care and how to get our health care system working, I may not be a doctor like this one right over here, but I sure understand how to bring the cost of health care down and how to also make sure that we have a system that works for the American people.

SANTORUM: It didn’t do it. It didn’t do it.

COOPER: Speaker Gingrich, you’ve also been very critical of Mitt Romney’s plan not only on Obamacare, but his plan to lower the capital gains tax only on those earning under $200,000.

GINGRICH: I want to say on health for a minute — OK, let’s just focus. “The Boston Herald” today reported that the state of Massachusetts is fining a local small business $3,000 because their $750-a-month insurance plan is inadequate, according to the bureaucrats in Boston.

Now, there’s a fundamental difference between trying to solve the problems of this country from the top down and trying to create environments in which doctors and patients and families solve the problem from the bottom up.

And candidly, Mitt, your plan ultimately, philosophically, it’s not Obamacare, and that’s not a fair charge. But your plan essentially is one more big government, bureaucratic, high-cost system, which candidly could not have been done by any other state because no other state had a Medicare program as lavish as yours, and no other state got as much money from the federal government under the Bush administration for this experiment. So there’s a lot as big government behind Romneycare. Not as much as Obamacare, but a heck of a lot more than your campaign is admitting.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Romney, 30 seconds.

ROMNEY: Actually, Newt, we got the idea of an individual mandate from you.

GINGRICH: That’s not true. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.

ROMNEY: Yes, we got it from you, and you got it from the Heritage Foundation and from you.

GINGRICH: Wait a second. What you just said is not true. You did not get that from me. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.

ROMNEY: And you never supported them?

GINGRICH: I agree with them, but I’m just saying, what you said to this audience just now plain wasn’t true.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: OK. Let me ask, have you supported in the past an individual mandate?

GINGRICH: I absolutely did with the Heritage Foundation against Hillarycare.

ROMNEY: You did support an individual mandate?

ROMNEY: Oh, OK. That’s what I’m saying. We got the idea from you and the Heritage Foundation.

GINGRICH: OK. A little broader.

ROMNEY: OK.

BACHMANN: Anderson?

COOPER: He still has time. Let him finish.

ROMNEY: I get a little time here.

Number two, we don’t have a government insurance plan. What we do is rely on private insurers, and people — 93 percent of our people who are already insured, nothing changed. For the people who didn’t have insurance, they get private insurance, not government insurance.

And the best way to make markets work is for people to be able to buy their own products from private enterprises. What we did was right for our state, according to the people in our state. And the great thing about a state solution to a state issue is, if people don’t like it, they could change it.

Now, there are a lot of things.

BACHMANN: Anderson?

COOPER: Congresswoman Bachmann.

BACHMANN: Anderson, I think it has to be stated that Obamacare is so flat-out unpopular, that even the Obama administration chose to reject part of Obamacare last Friday, when they tried to throw out the CLASS Act, which is the long-term care function.

Secretary Sebelius, who is the head of Health and Human Services, reported that the government can’t even afford that part and has to throw it out. And now the administration is arguing with itself.

When even the Obama administration wants to repeal this bill, I think we’re going to win this thing. We’re going to repeal it! And I will!

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: We’ve got to take a quick break. We will continue this discussion on the other side.

We have a long way to go. We’ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And welcome back to the continuing debate. We got a Twitter question. We ended talking about medicine, Obamacare. We actually have a Twitter question about it. It was a question left at CNN debate.

If Obama’s health plan is bad for the U.S., what is the alternative, and how will you implement it?

Congressman Paul, is there any aspect of Obamacare that you would like to keep, whether it’s keeping kids to stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26 or no pre-existing conditions?

PAUL: Really not, because he’s just adding on more government. There’s been a lot of discussion about medicine, but it seems to be talking about which kind of government management is best. Our problem is we have too much. We’ve had it for 30, 40 years. We have Medicare. We have prescription drug programs. We have Medicaid.

And what we need — I mean, there’s a pretty good support up here for getting rid of Obamacare, because it’s a Democratic proposal, and we want to opt out. I think we’d all agree on this.

But if you want better competition and better health care, you should allow the American people to opt out of government medicine. And… (APPLAUSE)

And the way to do this is to not de-emphasize the medical savings account, but let people opt out, pay their bills, get back to the doctor-patient relationship. There is inflation worked into it. When a government gets involved in an industry, prices always go up. We have tort laws to deal with. And we need more competition in medicine.

But the most important thing is letting the people have control of their money and getting it out of the hands of the third party. As soon as you go to the government, the lobbyists line up, the drug companies line up, these insurance companies line up. And even with Obamacare, the industries, the corporations get behind it and affect the outcome, and already insurance premiums are going up.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Herman Cain, same question. Is there any aspect of so- called Obamacare that — that you would keep?

CAIN: No. I think we all agree that Obamacare must be repealed because it is a disaster. And the more we learn about it and the more time goes along, the more we see. We’re all in agreement with that.

But here’s where I would start in answering that question. It’s called H.R. 3400. This was introduced back in 2009, but you didn’t hear a lot of talk about it. Instead of government being imposed on — on our system, it imposes — it basically passes market-centered, market-driven, patient-centered sort of reforms to allow association health plans, to allow loser pay laws, to allow insurance products to be sold across state lines, and a whole list of other things. So that’s a great place to start.

It allows the patient and the doctors to make the decisions, not a bureaucrat. I’d start with HR-3400.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Perry, in the last debate, Governor Romney pointed out that Texas has one of the highest rates of uninsured children in the country, over one million kids. You did not get an opportunity to respond to that. What do you say? How do you explain that?

PERRY: Well, we’ve got one of the finest health care systems in the world in Texas. As a matter of fact, the Houston, Texas, Medical Center, there’s more doctors and nurses that go to work there every morning than any other place in America. But the idea that you can’t have access to health care, some of the finest health care in the world — but we have a 1,200-mile border with Mexico, and the fact is we have a huge number of illegals that are coming into this country.

And they’re coming into this country because the federal government has failed to secure that border. But they’re coming here because there is a magnet. And the magnet is called jobs. And those people that hire illegals ought to be penalized.

And Mitt, you lose all of your standing, from my perspective, because you hired illegals in your home and you knew about it for a year. And the idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you’re strong on immigration is on its face the height of hypocrisy.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: Governor Romney?

ROMNEY: Rick, I don’t think I’ve ever hired an illegal in my life. And so I’m afraid — I’m looking forward to finding your facts on that, because that just doesn’t –

PERRY: Well, I’ll tell you what the facts are.

ROMNEY: Rick, again — Rick, I’m speaking.

PERRY: You had the — your newspaper — the newspaper –

ROMNEY: I’m speaking. I’m speaking. I’m speaking.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: You get 30 seconds. This is the way the rules work here, is that I get 60 seconds and then you get 30 second to respond. Right?

Anderson?

PERRY: And they want to hear you say that you knew you had illegals working at your –

ROMNEY: Would you please wait? Are you just going to keep talking?

PERRY: Yes, sir.

ROMNEY: Would you let me finish with what I have to say?

(BOOING)

ROMNEY: Look, Rick –

COOPER: I thought Republicans follow the rules.

ROMNEY: This has been a tough couple of debates for Rick, and I understand that. And so you’re going to get testy.

(APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: But let’s let — I’ll tell you what, let me take my time, and then you can take your time. All right?

PERRY: Great. Have at it.

ROMNEY: All right.

My time is this, which is I have in my state — when I was governor, I took the action of empowering our state police to enforce immigration laws. When you were governor, you said, I don’t want to build a fence. You put in place a magnet.

You talked about magnets. You put in place a magnet to draw illegals into the state, which was giving $100,000 of tuition credit to illegals that come into this country, and then you have states — the big states of illegal immigrants are California and Florida. Over the last 10 years, they’ve had no increase in illegal immigration.

Texas has had 60 percent increase in illegal immigrants in Texas. If there’s someone who has a record as governor with regards to illegal immigration that doesn’t stand up to muster, it’s you, not me.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Perry, you have 30 seconds.

PERRY: You stood here in front of the American people and did not tell the truth that you had illegals working on your property. And the newspaper came to you and brought it to your attention, and you still, a year later, had those individuals working for you.

The idea that you can sit here and talk about any of us having an immigration issue is beyond me. I’ve got a strong policy. I’ve always been against amnesty. You, on the other hand, were for amnesty.

COOPER: I’ve got 30 seconds, then we’ve got move on to another immigration question.

ROMNEY: OK.

You wrote an op-ed in the newspaper saying you were open to amnesty. That’s number one.

Number two, we hired a lawn company to mow our lawn, and they had illegal immigrants that were working there. And when that was pointed out to us, we let them go. And we went to them and said –

PERRY: A year later?

ROMNEY: You have a problem with allowing someone to finish speaking. And I suggest that if you want to become president of the United States, you have got to let both people speak. So first, let me speak.

(APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: So we went to the company and we said, look, you can’t have any illegals working on our property. I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake, I can’t have illegals. It turns out that once question, they hired someone who had falsified their documents, had documents, and therefore we fired them. And let me tell you, it is hard in this country as an individual homeowner to know if people who are contractors working at your home, if they have hired people that are illegal. If I’m president, we’ll put in an E-Verify system, which you have opposed –

COOPER: Out of time.

ROMNEY: — to make sure that we can find out who’s here illegally and not, and crack down on people who come here illegally.

COOPER: All right. We’re going to stay on the topic of immigration.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: We’re going to stay on the topic of immigration. Everyone is going to get a chance to weigh in.

This is a question that was left at CNNPolitics.com. “As president, will you order completion of the physical border fence along the entire border between the U.S. and Mexico?” That’s from Marilyn L.

Herman Cain, let me start with you. Obviously, over the weekend, you got a lot of headlines by saying you would have an electrified fence. You then later said it was — you then later said it was a joke. And then last night, you said, “It might be electrified. I’m not walking away from that. I just don’t want to offend anyone.”

(LAUGHTER)

So…

(APPLAUSE)

So would you build an entire fence along the entire border, and would you have it be electrified?

(LAUGHTER)

CAIN: Allow me to give a serious answer. Yes, I believe we should secure the border for real, and it would be a combination of a fence, technology, as well as possibly boots on the ground for some of the more dangerous areas. I don’t apologize at all for wanting to protect the American citizens and to protect our agents on the border, no.

(APPLAUSE)

Secondly, the second thing that I would do — see, I believe in let’s solve the whole problem. We must shut the back door so people can come in the front door. Secondly, promote the existing path to citizenship by cleaning up the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.

Thirdly, enforce the laws — the immigration laws that are already on the books. (APPLAUSE)

And here’s another one of these bold ideas by the non-politician up here. Empower the states to do what the federal government is not doing in terms of enforcing those laws.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Perry, you have — you have the — your state has the longest border with Mexico. Is it possible — to the question — is it possible to build a fence, an — across the entire border?

PERRY: Sure. You can — you can build a fence, but it takes anywhere between 10 and 15 years and $30 billion. There’s a better way, and that’s to build a virtual defense zone, if you will, along that border, which — not unlike what Herman’s talking about, and you can do it with strategic fencing in the obvious places where it matters.

But the way you really stop the activities along that border that are illegal, whether it’s the drug cartels or whether it’s bringing in illegal weapons or whether it’s illegal immigrants that are coming in, is to put boots on the ground.

I will tell you, Herman, you put a lot of boots on the ground. You use Predator drones that are being trained right up here at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada to use that real-time information to give those boots on the ground that information, and they can instantly move to those areas. And that is the way to shut that border down, to secure that border, and really make America safe from individuals, like those Iranians that are using the drug cartels to penetrate this country.

COOPER: Congresswoman Bachmann, do you agree with Governor Perry?

(APPLAUSE)

BACHMANN: Well, I think the person who really has a problem with illegal immigration in the country is President Obama. It’s his uncle and his aunt who are illegal aliens…

(APPLAUSE)

… who’ve been allowed to stay in this country, despite the fact that they’re illegal.

This last Saturday, I was the very first candidate that signed a pledge that said that, by a date certain, I will build a double-walled fence with — with an area of security neutrality in between. I will build that, because this is what we know. This is an economics issue and a jobs issue. Every year…

COOPER: You’re saying you would build a fence along the entire border? BACHMANN: I will build it on the entire border, and I’ll tell you why. Every year, it costs this country $113 billion in the costs that we put out to pay for illegal aliens. It costs the state and local government of that amount $82 billion. For every household of an American citizen, it costs us $1,000 a year. We are robbing the household of Americans who can’t afford that.

I will build the fence. I will enforce English as the official language of the United States government.

(APPLAUSE)

And every — every person who comes into this country will have to agree that they will not receive taxpayer-subsidized benefits of any American citizen…

COOPER: Time.

BACHMANN: Thank you.

COOPER: Governor Perry, does that — can you actually — does that make sense? She says she can build the — the fence along the entire border.

PERRY: As I said, you can build that fence, but by the time that fence gets built…

COOPER: She’s also talking about your taxpayer-subsidized benefits.

PERRY: But my — my point is that, by the time that fence gets built, there is a lot better way than to stand here and to — to play to some group of people somewhere and say, “We’re going to build a fence,” and then wipe our hands of it.

I’ve been dealing with this border for 10 years as the governor. And the reason that we have this issue is because the federal government has failed miserably to defend and secure that border.

BACHMANN: Which is why we build…

(CROSSTALK)

PERRY: You know, for someone that’s been in the United States Congress to — to lecture me on the issues that are going on, on that border is not right. Let me tell you, we’ve had to deal with that issue in the state of Texas. We’ve had to deal with the impact on our state. And I put $400 million on that border of Texas, taxpayers’ money, Texas Ranger recon teams there.

We know how to secure the border. I shared with you earlier how to do it. You put the boots on the ground, the aviation assets in the air, and you secure that border.

COOPER: Governor…

BACHMANN: Anderson, can I respond?

COOPER: He wasn’t talking about you directly.

BACHMANN: No, he did respond.

ROMNEY: Let’s step back. I think it’s important for us as Republicans on this stage to say something which hasn’t been said. And that is I think every single person here loves legal immigration. We respect people who come here legally.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: And the reason we’re so animated about stopping illegal immigration is there are 4.5 million people who want to come here who are in line legally, we want that to happen in an orderly and legal process.

And in terms of how to secure the border, it’s really not that hard. You have a fence, you have enough Border Patrol agents to oversee the fence, and you turn off the magnets. And that’s employers that hire people who they know are here illegally.

That’s why you have an E-Verify system so they can know that. And, number two, you turn off the magnets like tuition breaks or other breaks that draw people into this country illegally. It is not that hard. We have to have the political will to get the job done.

And, Governor Perry, you say you have got the experience. It’s a bit like saying that, you know, the college coach that has lost 40 games in a row has the experience to go to the NFL.

But the truth is, California — I’ll say it again, California and Florida have both had no increase in illegal immigration and yours is up 60 percent…

COOPER: Time.

ROMNEY: … over the last 10 years.

COOPER: Governor Perry, 30 seconds to respond.

PERRY: Well, the bottom line is that we have a federal government that has failed. There is a clear problem here. And he hit the nail on the head a while ago. He said there was a magnet of people that will hire illegals. And you are number one on that list, sir.

And people need to understand that. You’re one of the problems, Mitt.

COOPER: I think we’ve been down that road.

ROMNEY: Yes…

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: We’ve been down that road sufficiently. It sounds like the audience agrees with me.

COOPER: We are continuing on immigration. We have a question in the audience.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

ROBERT ZAVALA, LAS VEGAS RESIDENT: Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to ask my question. We have 50 million Latinos and not all of us are illegal. What is the message from you guys to our Latino community?

COOPER: Speaker Gingrich? President Obama got I think 67 percent of the Latino vote last time around.

GINGRICH: Look, I think that there’s a very clear message to Americans of all backgrounds. Latinos, Korean-Americans, Vietnamese- Americans, there are hundreds of different groups who come to America.

As Governor Romney said, I think anybody who understands America has to be proud of our record as the country which has been the most open in history to legal immigration.

But the truth is most Latinos in the United States aren’t immigrants. Most Latinos in the United States now have been born in the United States. And the fact is they want virtually exactly what everyone else wants.

They want an economy that is growing. They want a job that has take home pay. They want access to health insurance that they can afford. They want a chance to get educated that is actually useful and worthwhile. They want to be able to know that their family is going to grow up in safety. And they want to have a chance that their country is going to work to give their children and their grandchildren a better future.

I think we have to have the same message for every American of every ethnic background that we want to make America work again. And you’ll know it’s working because you will have a job and you’ll have a chance to take care of your family.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Congressman Paul, there’s some Latino voters who believe that some of these strong anti-immigration laws — anti-illegal immigration laws are actually anti-Latino laws. What do you say to them?

PAUL: Well, I think some people do believe that. I think a fence is symbolic of that. And I can understand why somebody might look at that. But when we approach this immigration problem, we should look at the incentives and that — or the mandates from the federal government saying that you must educate, you must give them free education.

You have to remove these incentives. But I don’t think the answer is a fence whatsoever. But in order to attract Latino votes, I think, you know, too long this country has always put people in groups. They penalize people because they’re in groups, and then they reward people because they’re in groups.

But following up on what Newt was saying, we need a healthy economy, we wouldn’t be talking about this. We need to se everybody as an individual. And to me, seeing everybody as an individual means their liberties are protected as individuals and they’re treated that way and they’re never penalized that way.

So if you have a free and prosperous society, all of a sudden this group mentality melts away. As long as there’s no abuse — one place where there’s still a lot of discrimination in this country is in our court systems. And I think the minorities come up with a short hand in our court system.

COOPER: Herman Cain, the 14th Amendment allows that anybody born in the United States is an American citizen. Should that change?

CAIN: I want to go back and answer this question first, OK? And that is, my message to Latinos, blacks, whites, and all Americans is that we must first start with significantly boosting this economy, which is on life support.

This is why I have put forth a very bold plan, and I’m not afraid to try and sell it to the American people. I’m not afraid to fight for it when I become president of the United States of America. So that’s my message.

If we have this economy growing, people will be able to take care of their families and go after their American dream. And until we boost this economy, all of us are going to suffer for a long time.

COOPER: Then let me ask the question of Governor Perry.

Governor Perry, the 14th Amendment allows anybody. A child of illegal immigrants who is born here is automatically an American citizen. Should that change?

PERRY: Well, let me address Herman’s issue that he just talked about.

COOPER: Actually, I’d rather you answer that question.

PERRY: I understand that. You get to ask the questions, I get to answer like I want to. And Herman talked about –

COOPER: That’s actually a response, that’s not an answer, but go ahead.

PERRY: — the issue of how we get this country back working. And truly, the plan that I laid out last week, where we talk about the energy industry and this treasure trove that we have under this country, and we need to recognize that the administration that we have today is blocking mining that could be going on in the state of Nevada. I talked to Brian Sandoval before I came in here today. You have an administration that is killing jobs because they want to move us to a green energy. You have a secretary of energy who has basically said he wants to see gas prices up close to the European model. The president himself said electricity rates are necessarily going to skyrocket.

That’s what we’ve got to stop. That’s the reason we got to have a president of the United States that understands that if you get Americans working, and it addresses these issues that we have in this country, then the fastest way to do it is open up these federal –

COOPER: Time.

PERRY: — plants, to pull back those regulations, and get America working again.

COOPER: Time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: To the question on the 14th Amendment, do you support repealing the 14th Amendment?

PERRY: No.

COOPER: No, you do not?

PERRY: I do not.

COOPER: Congresswoman Bachmann, do you support it?

BACHMANN: I think there’s a very real issue with magnets in this country. And I think the issue that you’re referring to is the issue of anchor babies. And that’s an issue that — I was just in Arizona this last weekend, and the state is very concerned, because when someone comes illegally across the border, specifically for the purpose of utilizing American resources for having a baby here, then all of the welfare benefits then attach to that baby.

This is an issue that we don’t have to deal with the Constitution. This is an issue that we can deal with legislatively. And there are a lot of Americans that would like us to deal with this issue of anchor babies legislatively.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Senator Santorum?

SANTORUM: I’d like to address the issue that the gentleman brought up, which is, what are we going to say to the Latino community? And not one person mentioned the issue of family, faith, marriage.

This is a community that is a faith-filled community, that family is at the center of that community. I disagree in some respects with Congressman Paul, who says the country is founded on the individual.

The basic building block of a society is not an individual. It’s the family. That’s the basic unit of society.

(APPLAUSE)

SANTORUM: And the Latino community understands that. They understand the importance of faith and marriage. They understand that bond that builds that solid foundation, and that inculcation of faith and religious freedom. And I think the Latino community knows that’s at stake in this country.

There’s a lot going on right now that’s eroding our religious freedom, that’s eroding the traditional values of marriage and family. And there’s one candidate up here who consistently sounds that theme.

Look, I’m for jobs, too. I have got an economic plan, and I agree with everything that’s been said. But we keep running roughshod over the fact that family in America and faith in America is being crushed by the courts and our government, and someone has stand up and fight for those institutions (ph).

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Time.

Congressman Paul, you were referenced directly. Thirty seconds.

PAUL: Well, I would like to explain that rights don’t come in bunches. Rights come as individuals, they come from a God, and they come as each individual has a right to life and liberty.

But I might add about the border control and the Latino vote, is we lack resources there. I think we should have more border guards on it, a more orderly transition, and run it much better. But where are our resources?

You know, we worry more about the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. We need to bring the guard units home and the units back here so we can have more personnel on our border.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: We have a question in the audience.

QUESTION: My question for you is, do you support opening the national nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain?

COOPER: Speaker Gingrich, we’ll start with you.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Sorry, go ahead.

GINGRICH: Look, we — we worked on this when I was speaker. I think that it has to be looked at scientifically. But I think at some point we have to find a safe method of taking care of nuclear waste. And today, because this has been caught up in a political fight, we have small units of nuclear waste all over this country in a way that is vastly more dangerous to the United States than finding a method of keeping it in a very, very deep place that would be able to sustain 10,000 or 20,000 and 30,000 years of geological safety.

COOPER: Is Yucca Mountain that place?

GINGRICH: I’m not a scientist. I mean, Yucca Mountain certainly was picked by the scientific community as one of the safest places in the United States. It has always had very deep opposition here in Nevada. And, frankly…

COOPER: You were for opening it in Congress, right?

GINGRICH: Huh?

COOPER: When you were in the Congress, you were…

(CROSSTALK)

GINGRICH: When I was in Congress, frankly, I worked with the Nevada delegation to make sure that there was time for scientific studies. But we have to find some method of finding a very geologically stable place, and most geologists believe that, in fact, Yucca Mountain is that.

COOPER: Congressman Paul, you oppose this?

PAUL: Yes. Yes, I’ve — I’ve opposed this. We’ve had votes in the Congress. There was a time when I voted with two other individuals, the two congressmen from Nevada. And I approach it from a state’s rights position. What right does 49 states have to punish one state and say, “We’re going to put our garbage in your state”? I think that’s wrong.

But I think it’s very serious. I think it’s very serious. But quite frankly, the government shouldn’t be in the business of subsidizing any form of energy. And nuclear energy, I think, is a good source of energy, but they still get subsidies. Then they assume this responsibility. Then we as politicians and the bureaucrats get involved in this. And then we get involved with which state’s going to get stuck with the garbage.

So I would say, the more the free market handles this and the more you deal with property rights and no subsidies to any form of energy, the easier this problem would be solved.

COOPER: Governor Romney, where do you stand on this?

(APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: Congressman Paul was right on that.

(APPLAUSE) I don’t always agree with him, but I do on that. The — the idea that 49 states can tell Nevada, “We want to give you our nuclear waste,” doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think the people of Nevada ought to have the final say as to whether they want that, and my guess is that for them to say yes to something like that, someone’s going to have to offer them a pretty good deal, as opposed to having the federal government jam it down their throat.

(APPLAUSE)

And by the way, if — if Nevada says, “Look, we don’t want it,” then let other states make bids and say, hey, look, we’ll take it. Here’s a geological site that we’ve evaluated. Here’s the compensation we want for taking it. We want you electric companies around the country that are using nuclear fuel to compensate us a certain amount per kilowatt hour, a certain amount per ton of this stuff that comes.

Let — let the free market work. And on that basis, the places that are geologically safe, according to science, and where the people say the deal’s a good one will decide where we put this stuff. That’s the right course for America.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Perry?

PERRY: You know, from time to time, Mitt and I don’t agree. But on this one, he’s hit it, the nail, right on the head. And I’ll just add that when you think about France, who gets over 70 percent of their energy from nuclear power, the idea that they deal with this issue, that their glassification, and that the innovation — and, Congressman Paul, you’re correct when it comes to allowing the states to compete with each other. That is the answer to this.

We need to have a — a — a discussion in — in this country about our 10th Amendment and the appropriateness of it, as it’s been eroded by Washington, D.C., for all these many years, whether it’s health care, whether it’s education, or whether it’s dealing with energy. We don’t need to be subsidizing energy in any form or fashion, allow the states to make the decision. And some state out there will see the economic issue, and they will have it in their state.

COOPER: We’re going to move on to an issue very important here in the state of Nevada and throughout the West. We have a question from the hall.

QUESTION: Yeah, my question is, those of us who own property here in Nevada have been devastated by the real estate bubble. What would you do as president to help fix the overall problem of real estate and foreclosures in America?

COOPER: Senator Santorum, Nevada has the highest rate of foreclosure. SANTORUM: Yeah, I mean, it’s — it’s a situation right now where obviously the market’s in — has been decimated. And so now you’re looking at, how do you repair it? The problem is — in the first place, is that several people up here, the, quote, “businesspeople,” supported the TARP, supported the bailout. Governors Perry, Romney…

PERRY: Wrong.

SANTORUM: No, you wrote a letter on the day of the vote — you wrote a letter on the day of the vote, Governor, saying to vote for the plan. That’s what you — I mean, that — the letter’s been…

PERRY: No, I didn’t.

SANTORUM: Yes, you did, Governor. You sent…

COOPER: You’ll have a chance to respond. Let him finish.

SANTORUM: Joe Manchin signed it with you. So you — you supported it. Governor Romney and Herman Cain all supported the — the TARP program, which started this ball…

CAIN: Not all of it.

(LAUGHTER)

SANTORUM: I mean, I — I mean, you guys complain about Governor Romney flip-flopping. I mean, look at what’s going on here. I mean, the — the bottom line is, you all supported it, you all started this ball rolling, where the government injected itself in trying to make — trying to fix the market with the government top-down trying to do it, and (ph) managed decline. And what happened was, people who did things that were wrong invested in things, took risks, were bailed out, and the folks who acted responsibly are now getting hurt because their houses have gone down in value. We need to let the market work, and that’s what hasn’t been happening so far.

COOPER: I’m going to allow each of the three of you to respond.

Governor Perry, you have 30 seconds.

PERRY: The fact is, Rick just has that wrong. We wrote a letter to Congress asking them to act. What we meant by acting was, cut the regulations, cut the taxation burden, not passing TARP.

There is clearly a letter out of our office that says that, Rick. I’ll get you a copy of it so you’ll understand it.

SANTORUM: Hold on. I need to respond to that.

He sent a letter the day of the vote on the floor of the House saying, pass the economic plan. There was only one plan, and that was the plan that was voted on the floor. It was TARP.

You sent a letter on that day saying, vote for that plan. Now, you can send a letter later saying I didn’t mean it, but when you said it, it was the only plan that was in play, and that was the TARP plan.

COOPER: Governor Perry — do you want to respond, Governor Perry?

PERRY: I’m just telling you I know what we sent, I know what the intention was. You can read it any way you want, but the fact of the matter, I wasn’t for TARP, and have talked about it for years since then.

COOPER: Governor Romney, 30 seconds.

ROMNEY: There’s an effort on the part of people in Washington to think somehow they know better than markets, how to rebalance America’s economy. And the idea of the federal government running around and saying, hey, we’re going to give you some money for trading in your old car, or we’re going to give you a few thousand bucks for buying a new house, or we’re going to keep banks from foreclosing if you can’t make your payments, these kind of actions on the part of government haven’t worked.

The right course is to let markets work. And in order to get markets to work and to help people, the best we can do is to get the economy going. And that’s why the fundamental restructuring I’ve described is so essential to help homeowners and people across this country.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Mr. Cain, I want you to be able to respond. Thirty seconds.

CAIN: I have said before that we were in a crisis at the end of 2008 with this potential financial meltdown. I supported the concept of TARP, but then, when this administration used discretion and did a whole lot of things that the American people didn’t like, I was then against it. So yes, and I’m owning up to that.

Now, getting back to the gentleman’s question in terms of what we need to do, we need to get government out of the way. It starts with making sure that we can boost this economy and then reform Dodd-Frank and reform a lot of these other regulations that have gotten in the way –

COOPER: Time.

CAIN: — and let the market do it just like Mitt has talked about.

COOPER: Congresswoman Bachmann, does the federal government have a role in keeping people in their homes, saving people from foreclosure, in the state of Nevada?

BACHMANN: That was the question that was initially asked. And what I want to say is this — every day I’m out somewhere in the United States of America, and most of the time I’m talking to moms across this country. When you talk about housing, when you talk about foreclosures, you’re talking about women who are at the end of their rope because they’re losing their nest for their children and for their family. And there are women right now all across this country and moms across this country whose husbands, through no fault of their own, are losing their job, and they can’t keep that house. And there are women who are losing that house.

I’m a mom. I talk to these moms.

I just want to say one thing to moms all across America tonight. This is a real issue. It’s got to be solved.

President Obama has failed you on this issue of housing and foreclosures. I will not fail you on this issue. I will turn this country around.

We will turn the economy around. We will create jobs. That’s how you hold on to your house.

Hold on, moms out there. It’s not too late.

COOPER: We have another question. This one is a Twitter question.

“How do you explain the Occupy Wall Street movement happening across the country? And how does it relate with your message?”

Herman Cain, I’ve got to ask you, you said, — two weeks ago, you said, “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks. If you don’t have a job, and you’re not rich, blame yourself.”

That was two weeks ago. The movement has grown. Do you still say that?

(APPLAUSE)

CAIN: Yes, I do still say that. And here’s why.

(APPLAUSE)

CAIN: I still stand by my statement, and here’s why.

They might be frustrated with Wall Street and the bankers, but they’re directing their anger at the wrong place. Wall Street didn’t put in failed economic policies. Wall Street didn’t spend a trillion dollars that didn’t do any good. Wall Street isn’t going around the country trying to sell another $450 billion. They ought to be over in front of the White House taking out their frustration.

(APPLAUSE)

So I do stand by them.

COOPER: Congressman Paul, you’ve been — Congressman Paul, you’ve been critical of Governor Romney for — for holding fundraisers with — with Wall Streeters. Do you think he understands what the protest is about? Do you understand?

PAUL: Well, I think Mr. Cain has blamed the victims. There’s a lot of people that are victims of this business cycle. We can’t blame the victims.

But we also have to point — I’d go to Washington as well as Wall Street, but I’d go over to the Federal Reserve.

(APPLAUSE)

They — they create the financial bubbles. And you have to understand that you can’t solve these problems if you don’t know where these bubbles come from.

But then, when the bailout came and supported by both parties, you have to realize, oh, wait, Republicans were still in charge. So the bailouts came from both parties. Guess who they bailed out? The big corporations of people who were ripping off the people in the derivatives market. And they said, oh, the world’s going to come to an end unless we bail out all the banks. So the banks were involved, and the Federal Reserve was involved.

But who got stuck? The middle class got stuck. They got stuck. They lost their jobs, and they lost their houses. If you had to give money out, you should have given it to people who were losing their mortgages, not to the banks.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Mr. Cain, do you want to respond? He referenced you. So if you want to respond, you have 30 seconds.

CAIN: All I want to say is that representative Paul is partly right, but he’s mixing problems here. It’s more than one problem. Look, the people — the banks — yes, the banks and the businesses on Wall Street, yes, the way that was administered was not right.

But my point is this: What are the people who are protesting want from bankers on Wall Street, to come downstairs and write them a check? This is what we don’t understand. Take — go and get to the source of the problem, is all I’m saying.

COOPER: I’ve got to give you 30 seconds.

CAIN: And that’s the White House.

COOPER: And then we’ll go to Governor Romney.

PAUL: Yes, the argument is it’s — the program was OK, but it was mismanaged. But I work on the assumption that government’s not very capable of managing almost anything…

(APPLAUSE)

… so you shouldn’t put that much trust in the government. You have — you have to trust the marketplace. And when the government gets involved, they have to deal with fraud. And how many people have gone to jail either in the government, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, that participated in this? And nobody suffers the consequences. All these investigations, and yet the people who lose their jobs and lose their houses, it’s their fault, according — that’s why they’re on Wall Street. And we can’t blame them. We have to blame the business cycle…

COOPER: Time.

PAUL: … and the economic policies that led to this disaster.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Romney, you — you originally called the protests “dangerous.” You said it was class warfare. You recently sounded more sympathetic. Where do you stand now? What is your message to those people protesting?

ROMNEY: Look, we can spend our time talking about what happened three years ago and what the cause was of our collapse. But let’s talk about what’s happened over the last three years. We’ve had a president responsible for this economy for the last three years, and he’s failed us.

He’s failed us in part because he has no idea how the private sector works or how to create jobs. On every single issue, he’s made it harder for our economy to reboot. And as a result, we have 25 million Americans out of work or stopped looking for work or in part- time work and can’t get full-time employed. Home values going down. You have median income in America that in the last three years has dropped by 10 percent.

Americans are hurting across this country, and the president’s out there campaigning. Why isn’t he governing? He doesn’t — he doesn’t have a jobs plan even now. This — this is a critical time for America.

(APPLAUSE)

And I — and I can tell you that this is time to have someone who understands how the economy works, who can get America working again. Instead of dividing and blaming, as this president is, let’s grow America again and have jobs that are the envy of the world. And I know how to do it.

COOPER: We’ve got to take a quick break. We’re going to continue on the other side. We’ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: I’m Anderson Cooper, the western Republican presidential debate, live from the Venetian in Las Vegas. As you watch the debate tonight, send us your comments and questions for the candidates on Twitter. Use the hashtag #CNNDebate. Also contact us on Facebook and cnn.com.

When we come back, the right to bears and should a candidate’s faith matter? We’ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And welcome back to the CNN GOP debate live from the Venetian in Las Vegas. Let’s continue. We’ve got an e-mail question that was left at cnnpolitics.com. This is from a Mike Richards who says: “With the controversy surrounding Robert Jeffress, is it acceptable to let the issue of a candidate’s faith shape the debate?”

Senator Santorum, this is in reference to a Baptist pastor who, at the Values Voter Summit, after introducing Governor Rick Perry, said of — said that “Mitt Romney is not a Christian,” and that “Mormonism is a cult.” Those were his words.

Should…

(BOOING)

COOPER: Should voters pay attention to a candidate’s religion?

SANTORUM: I think they should pay attention to the candidate’s values, what the candidate stands for.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

SANTORUM: That’s what is at play. And the person’s faith — and you look at that faith and what the faith teaches with respect to morals and values that are reflected in that person’s belief structure. So that’s — those are important things.

I — I’m a Catholic. Catholic has social teachings. Catholic has teachings as to what’s right and what’s wrong. And those are legitimate things for voters to look at, to say if you’re a faithful Catholic, which I try to be — fall short all the time, but I try to be — and — and it’s a legitimate thing to look at as to what the tenets and teachings of that faith are with respect to how you live your life and — and how you would govern this country.

With respect to what is the road to salvation, that’s a whole different story. That’s not applicable to what — what the role is of being the president or a senator or any other job.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Speaker Gingrich, you agree with that?

GINGRICH: Well, I think if the question is, does faith matter? Absolutely. How can you have a country which is founded on truths which begins we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights? How can you have the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which says religion, morality and knowledge being important, education matters. That’s the order: religion, morality and knowledge.

Now, I happen to think that none of us should rush in judgment of others in the way in which they approach God. And I think that all of us up here I believe would agree. (APPLAUSE)

But I think all of us would also agree that there’s a very central part of your faith in how you approach public life. And I, frankly, would be really worried if somebody assured me that nothing in their faith would affect their judgments, because then I’d wonder, where’s your judgment — how can you have judgment if you have no faith? And how can I trust you with power if you don’t pray?

(APPLAUSE)

Who you pray to, how you pray, how you come close to God is between you and God. But the notion that you’re endowed by your creator sets a certain boundary on what we mean by America.

COOPER: Governor Perry, Mitt Romney asked you to repudiate the comments of that pastor who introduced you on that stage. He didn’t make the comments on the stage; he made them afterward in an interview. Will you repudiate those comments?

ROMNEY: Well, our faith — I can no more remove my faith than I can that I’m the son of a tenant farmer. I mean, the issue, are we going to be individuals who stand by our faith? I have said I didn’t agree with that individual’s statement. And our founding fathers truly understood and had an understanding of — of freedom of religion.

And this country is based on, as — as Newt talked about, these values that are so important as we go forward. And the idea that we should not have our freedom of — of religion to be taken away by any means, but we also are a country that is free to express our opinions. That individual expressed an opinion. I didn’t agree with it, Mitt, and I said so. But the fact is, Americans understand faith. And what they’ve lost faith in is the current resident of the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Time.

Governor Romney, is that — is that acceptable to you?

ROMNEY: You know, with — with regards to the disparaging comments about my faith, I’ve heard worse, so I’m not going to lose sleep over that.

(LAUGHTER)

What I actually found was most troubling in what the reverend said in the introduction was he said, in choosing our nominee, we should inspect his religion. And someone who is a good moral person is not someone who we should select; instead, we should choose someone who subscribes to our religious belief.

That — that idea that we should choose people based upon their religion for public office is what I find to be most troubling, because the founders of this country went to great length to make sure — and even put it in the Constitution — that we would not choose people who represent us in government based upon their religion, that this would be a nation that recognized and respected other faiths, where there’s a plurality of faiths, where there was tolerance for other people and faiths. That’s bedrock principle.

And it was that principle, Governor, that I wanted you to be able to, no, no, that’s wrong, Reverend Jeffress. Instead of saying as you did, “Boy, that introduction knocked the ball out of the park,” I’d have said, “Reverend Jeffress, you got that wrong. We should select people not based upon their faith.” Even though — and I don’t suggest you distance yourself from your faith any more than I would. But the concept that we select people based on the church or the synagogue they go to, I think, is a very dangerous and — and enormous departure from the principles of our — of our Constitution.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Would you still like him to say that?

(UNKNOWN): I’m sorry?

COOPER: Would — would you still like the governor to say that? Or was that something you wanted him to…

ROMNEY: I’ll let him — that’s his choice.

COOPER: Do you want to respond to that, Governor Perry?

PERRY: I have. I said I did not agree with the — Pastor Jeffress’s remarks. I don’t agree with them. I — I can’t apologize any more than that.

ROMNEY: That’s fine.

COOPER: We’ve got a question from the audience.

QUESTION: Currently, there’s a deficit reduction measure to cut defense spending by $500 billion. Would you support such a reduction in defense spending? And if elected president, how will you provide a strong national defense?

COOPER: Congresswoman Bachmann, should defense be cut?

BACHMANN: Well, $500 billion is the amount that the questioner had mentioned. And don’t forget, this was an historic week when it came to American foreign policy.

We saw potentially an international assassination attempt from Iran on American soil. That says something about Iran, that they disrespect the United States so much, that they would attempt some sort of heinous act like that.

Then, we saw the president of the United States engage American troops in a fourth conflict in a foreign land. This is historic.

Then, on Sunday, we heard the reports that now that — in Iraq, the 5,000 troops that were going to be left there won’t even be granted immunity by Iraq. This is how disrespected the United States is in the world today, and it’s because of President Obama’s failed policies.

He’s taken his eyes off the number one issue in the world. That’s an Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. That makes all of us in much danger.

COOPER: Time.

BACHMANN: And the president of Iran is a genocidal maniac. We need to stand up against Iran.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Congresswoman –

BACHMANN: And as president of the United States, I will. We will be respected again in the world.

COOPER: The question though was about budget cuts. And is everything on the table in terms of cutting the budget?

BACHMANN: Absolutely everything.

COOPER: So defense spending would be on the table, should be?

BACHMANN: Defense spending is on the table, but again, Anderson, now with the president, he put us in Libya. He is now putting us in Africa. We already were stretched too thin, and he put our Special Operations Forces in Africa.

COOPER: I just want to make sure. OK. It’s on the table.

BACHMANN: It’s on the table, but we cannot cut it by $500 billion. We can’t do that to tour brave men and women who are on the ground fighting for us.

COOPER: Speaker Gingrich?

GINGRICH: I mean, if you want to understand how totally broken Washington is, look at this entire model of the super committee, which has now got a magic number to achieve. And if it doesn’t achieve the magic number, then we’ll all have to shoot ourselves in the head so that when they come back with a really dumb idea to merely cut off our right leg, we’ll all be grateful that they’re only semi-stupid instead of being totally stupid.

(APPLAUSE)

GINGRICH: Now, the idea that you have a bunch of historically illiterate politicians who have no sophistication about national security trying to make a numerical decision about the size of the defense budget tells you everything you need to know about the bankruptcy of the current elite in this country in both parties. The fact is, we ought to first figure out what threaten us, we ought to figure out what strategies will respond to that. We should figure out what structures we need for those strategies. We should then cost them.

I helped found the Military Reform Caucus. I’m a hawk, but I’m a cheap hawk. But the fact is, to say I’m going to put the security of the United States up against some arbitrary budget number is suicidally stupid.

COOPER: Congressman Paul, you’ve proposed –

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Congressman Paul, you just proposed eliminating the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Interior, Housing and Urban Development. You say it will save a trillion dollars in one year.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: You’re proposing a 15 percent cut to the Defense Department. Can you guarantee national security will not be hurt by that?

PAUL: I think it would be enhanced. I don’t want to cut any defense. And you have to get it straight. There’s a lot of money spent in the military budget that doesn’t do any good for our defense.

How does it help us to keep troops in Korea all these years? We’re broke. We have to borrow this money.

Why are we in Japan? Why do we subsidize Germany, and they subsidize their socialized system over there? Because we pay for it. We’re broke.

And this whole thing that this can’t be on the table, I’ll tell you what, this debt bubble is the thing you better really worry about, because it’s imploding on us right now. It’s worldwide.

We are no more removed from this than man the man on the moon. It’s going to get much worse.

And to cut military spending is a wise thing to do. We would be safer if we weren’t in so many places.

We have an empire. We can’t afford it. The empires always bring great nations down. We spread ourselves too thinly around the world. This is what’s happened throughout history, and we’re doing it to ourselves.

The most recent empire to fail was an empire that went into, of all places, Afghanistan…

COOPER: Time.

PAUL: … they went broke. So where are we? In Afghanistan. I say it’s time to come home. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

COOPER: It’s time.

We have a Twitter question. Given that Israel has just negotiated with Palestine for a soldier, would any of you negotiate for a hostage?

Herman Cain, let me ask this to you. A few hours ago you were asked by Wolf Blitzer, if al Qaeda had an American soldier in captivity, and they demanded the release of everyone at Guantanamo Bay, would you release them? And you said, quote: “I can see myself authorizing that kind of a transfer. Can you explain?

CAIN: The rest of the statement was quite simply, you would have to consider the entire situation. But let me say this first, I would have a policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists. We have to lay that principle down first.

Now being that you have to look at each individual situation and consider all the facts. The point that I made about this particular situation is that I’m sure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to consider a lot of things before he made that.

So on the surface, I don’t think we can say he did the right thing or not. A responsible decision-maker would have considered everything.

COOPER: But you’re saying you could — I mean, in your words, you’ve said that I could see myself authorizing that kind of a transfer. Isn’t that negotiating with, in this case, al Qaeda?

CAIN: I don’t recall him saying that it was al Qaeda-related.

COOPER: Yes, he did. He said…

CAIN: Well, I don’t really — my policy will be we cannot negotiate with terrorists. That’s where we have to start as a fundamental principle.

COOPER: Senator Santorum?

SANTORUM: Oh, absolutely not. I mean, you can’t negotiate with terrorists, period.

To address Congressman Paul’s answer and the other answer on military spending, I would absolutely not cut one penny out of military spending. The first order of the federal government, the only thing the federal government can do that no other level of government can do is protect us. It is the first duty of the president of the United States is to protect us.

(APPLAUSE)

SANTORUM: And we should have the resources — we should have all the resources in place to make sure that we can defend our borders, that we can make sure that when we engage in foreign countries, we do so to succeed.

That has been the problem in this administration. We’ve had political objectives instead of objectives for success. And that’s why we haven’t succeeded. And as Michele said and correctly said, the central threat right now is Iran.

The disrespect, yes, but it’s more than that. They sent a message. The two countries that they went after was the leader of the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia, and the leader of the, quote, “secular world,” the United States.

This was a call by Iran to say we are the ones who are going to be the supreme leader of the Islamic world…

COOPER: Time.

SANTORUM: … and we are going to be the supreme leader of the secular world. And that’s why they attacked here. And, by the way, they did it in coordination…

COOPER: Time.

SANTORUM: … with Central and South Americans, which I have been talking about and writing about and talking about for 10 years.

COOPER: Congressman Paul, you were referenced in that answer, 30 seconds.

PAUL: Well, I think we’re on economic suicide if we’re not even willing to look at some of these overseas expenditures, 150 bases — 900 bases, 150 different countries. We have enough weapons to blow up the world about 20-25 times. We have more weapons than all the other countries put together essentially.

And we want to spend more and more, and you can’t cut a penny? I mean, this is why we’re at an impasse. I want to hear somebody up here willing to cut something. Something real.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

PAUL: This budget is in bad shape and the financial calamity is going to be much worse than anybody ever invading this country. Which country — are they going to invade this country? They can’t even shoot a missile at us.

COOPER: We have a question in the hall that gets to your question. The question in the hall on foreign aid? Yes, ma’am.

VICKI O’KEEFE, BOULDER CITY, NEVADA: The American people are suffering in our country right now. Why do we continue to send foreign aid to other countries when we need all the help we can get for ourselves?

COOPER: Governor Perry, what about that? I mean…

(APPLAUSE) PERRY: Absolutely. I think it’s time for this country to have a very real debate about foreign aid. Clearly there are places. As a matter of fact, I think it’s time for us to have a very serious discussion about defunding the United Nations.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

PERRY: When you think about — when you think about the Palestinian Authority circumventing those Oslo Accords and going to New York to try to create the conflict and to have themselves approved as a state without going through the proper channels is a travesty.

And I think it’s time not only to have that entire debate about all of our foreign aid, but in particular the U.N. Why are we funding that organization?

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Romney, should foreign aid be eliminated?

ROMNEY: Foreign aid has several elements. One of those elements is defense, is to make sure that we are able to have the defense resources we want in certain places of the world. That probably ought to fall under the Department of Defense budget rather than a foreign aid budget.

Part of it is humanitarian aid around the world. I happen to think it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to borrow money from the Chinese to go give to another country for humanitarian aid. We ought to get the Chinese to take care of the people that are — and think of that borrowed money on today (ph).

And finally there’s a portion of our foreign aid that allows us to carry out our activities in the world such as what’s happening in Pakistan where we’re taking — we’re supplying our troops in Afghanistan through Pakistan.

But let me tell you: We’re spending more on foreign aid than we ought to be spending. And Congressman Paul asked, is there a place we can cut the budget? Let me tell you where we cut the budget. Discretionary accounts you bring back to 2008 level. We get rid of Obamacare. Number three, we take Medicaid, turn it back to the states, grow it at only 1 percent to 2 percent per year. Number three, we cut — number four, rather, we cut federal employment by at least 10 percent through attrition. And finally, we say to federal employees: You’re not going to make more money than the people in the private sector who are paying for you. We link their compensation.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Time.

Congressman Paul?

PAUL: On foreign aid, that should be the easiest thing to cut. It’s not authorized in the Constitution that we can take money from you and give it to particular countries around the world. To me, foreign aid is taking money from poor people in this country and giving it to rich people in poor countries. And it becomes weapons of war. Essentially, no well — no matter how well-motivated it is…

COOPER: Congressman Paul, would you cut aid to Israel?

PAUL: I would cut all foreign aid. I would treat everybody equally and fairly. And I don’t think aid to Israel actually helps them. I think it teaches them to be dependent. We’re on a bankruptcy course.

And — and look at what’s the result of all that foreign aid we gave to Egypt? I mean, their — their dictator that we pumped up, we spent all these billions of dollars, and now there’s a more hostile regime in Egypt. And that’s what’s happening all around Israel. That foreign aid makes Israel dependent on us. It softens them for their own economy. And they should have their sovereignty back. They should be able to deal with their neighbors…

COOPER: Time. Congresswoman Bachmann…

PAUL: … at their own will.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Should we cut foreign aid to Israel?

BACHMANN: No, we should not be cutting foreign aid to Israel. Israel is our greatest ally. The biggest problem is the fact…

(APPLAUSE)

… that the president — the biggest problem with this administration in foreign policy is that President Obama is the first president since Israel declared her sovereignty put daylight between the United States and Israel. That heavily contributed to the current hostilities that we see in the Middle East region.

Cutting back on foreign aid is one thing. Being reimbursed by nations that we have liberated is another. We should look to Iraq and Libya to reimburse us for part of what we have done to liberate these nations.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, I need to add something on this issue of negotiating for hostages. This is a very serious issue. For any candidate to say that they would release the prisoners at Guantanamo in exchange for a hostage would be absolutely contrary to the historical nature of the United States and what we do in our policy. That’s naive; we cannot do that. The United States has done well because we have an absolute policy: We don’t negotiate.

COOPER: Herman Cain, I’ve got to give you 30 seconds, because she was referring to — basically saying you were naive or if — if that’s what you were suggesting. CAIN: No, I — I said that I believe in the philosophy of we don’t negotiate with terrorists. I think — I didn’t say — I would never agree to letting hostages in Guantanamo Bay go. No, that wasn’t — that wasn’t the intent at all.

But let me go back to this, if I could, very quickly in the time that I have left, the question that you asked about, foreign aid. My approach is an extension of the Reagan approach: Peace through strength, which is peace through strength and clarity. If we clarify who our friends are, clarify who our enemies are, and stop giving money to our enemies, then we ought to continue to give money to our friends, like Israel.

COOPER: You have 30 seconds, Congressman Paul, and then we’ve got to go.

PAUL: Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, I don’t want to make a statement. I want to ask a question. Are you all willing to condemn Ronald Reagan for exchanging weapons for hostages out of Iran? We all know that was done.

SANTORUM: That’s not — Iran was a sovereign country. It was not a terrorist organization, number one.

PAUL: Oh, they were our good friends back then, huh?

SANTORUM: They’re not our good friends. They’re — they’re — they’re a sovereign country, just like the — the Palestinian Authority is not the good friends of Israel.

PAUL: He negotiated for hostages.

SANTORUM: There’s — there’s a role — we negotiated with hostages (inaudible) the Soviet Union. We’ve negotiated with hostages, depending on the scale. But there’s a difference between releasing terrorists from Guantanamo Bay in response to a terrorist demand…

PAUL: But they’re all suspects. They’re not terrorists. You haven’t convicted them of anything.

SANTORUM: Then — then — then negotiating with other countries, where we may have an interest, and that is certainly a proper role for the United States, too.

COOPER: We’ve got to take a quick break. I do want to give Speaker Gingrich 30 seconds, and then…

GINGRICH: Just very straightforward. Callista and I did a film on Ronald Reagan. There’s a very painful moment in the film when he looks in the camera and says, “I didn’t think we did this. I’m against doing it. I went back and looked. The truth is, we did. It was an enormous mistake.”

And he thought the Iranian deals with a terrible mistake.

COOPER: We’re going to take a short break. Our debate though continues on the other side of the break, so stay tuned.

When we return, which candidate has the best chance to beat Barack Obama, and should it matter in your vote?

Stay with us.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And welcome back. The GOP debate is under way.

Let’s talk about probably the most important issue to everybody on this stage, and probably just about everybody in this room, which is, who can beat President Barack Obama in this next election?

In today’s new CNN/ORC poll, 41 percent of Republican voters think that Governor Romney has the best chance of beating the president.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: To Senator Santorum, you got one percent. Why shouldn’t Republican voters go with the candidate they feel that can best beat President Obama?

SANTORUM: Well, the Pew poll last week asked how many people in this country can name any of us? And less than 50 percent could come up with even one. So, the idea that this has any relevance to people who aren’t paying close attention to this debate is, in fact, irrelevant. What’s relevant is to look at the track record.

No one in this field has won a swing state. Pennsylvania is a swing state. We win Pennsylvania, we win the election. The Republicans nominate it.

I’ve won it twice. I defeated a Democratic incumbent, winning it the first time, and I won the state of Pennsylvania, the only senator to win a state who was a conservative that George Bush lost. Bush lost it by 5, I won it by 6.

So, you have someone who is defeated and been matched up against three Democratic incumbents. I’m 3-0.

Nobody in this field has won a major race against a Democratic incumbent except me. No one has won a swing state except me as a conservative.

I didn’t run as a Democrat in Texas when it was popular, won and win there. I didn’t run as a liberal in 1994. I ran in 1994, the same year Mitt did in Massachusetts. He ran as a liberal, to the left of Kennedy, and lost. I ran as a conservative against James Carville and Paul Begala, and I won.

In 2002, he ran as a moderate. He ran as a moderate in — in Massachusetts. I ran for re-election having sponsored and passed welfare reform, having authored the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

COOPER: Time.

SANTORUM: I was a — a moral conservative, I was a foreign policy conservative…

COOPER: Time, Senator.

SANTORUM: … I was a fiscal conservative, and I got elected in a state that hasn’t elected a president since 1988 as a Republican.

COOPER: Thank you.

Governor Romney, I’ve got to give you 30 seconds, since he referenced you.

ROMNEY: I think the people of America are looking for someone who can beat President Obama and can get the country on the right track. And I believe that they’ve recognized that if they elect someone who’s spent their life in politics that they’re not going to be able to post up well against President Obama and convince the American people of the truth of the — of the principles that we believe in.

I believe that, having spent my life in the private sector, having actually created jobs is what allows me to have the kind of support that’s going to allow me to replace President Obama and get the country on the right track again. That, for me, is a distinguishing feature that’s going to get me elected as the president of the United States.

COOPER: Governor…

(APPLAUSE)

Governor Perry, was he referring to you?

PERRY: If you want to know how someone’s going to act in the future, look how they act in the past. I mean, so, Mitt, while you were the governor of Massachusetts in that period of time, you were 47th in the nation in job creation. During that same period of time, we created 20 times more jobs. As a matter of fact, you’d created 40,000 jobs total in your four years. Last two months, we created more jobs than that in Texas.

What we need is someone who will draw a bright contrast between themselves and President Obama. And let me tell you one thing: I will draw that bright contrast.

COOPER: I’ve got to give you 30 seconds. Governor Romney?

ROMNEY: Yeah. With regards to track record in the past, Governor, you were the chairman of Al Gore’s campaign, all right?

(LAUGHTER) And there was a fellow — there was a fellow Texan named George Bush running. So if we’re looking at the past, I think we know where you were.

Secondly, our unemployment rate I got down to 4.7 percent, pretty darn good. I think a lot of people would be happy to have 4.7 percent. And with regards…

(APPLAUSE)

With regards to the — to the record — to the record in Texas, you probably also ought to tell people that if you look over the last several years, 40 percent, almost half the jobs created in Texas were created for illegal aliens, illegal immigrants.

PERRY: That is an absolute falsehood on its face, Mitt.

COOPER: You have 30 seconds, Governor Perry.

ROMNEY: It’s actually — it’s actually…

PERRY: That is — that is absolutely incorrect, sir.

ROMNEY: Well, take a look at the study.

PERRY: There’s a third — there’s been a third party take a look at that study, and it is absolutely incorrect. The fact is, Texas has led the nation in job creation. eBay and Facebook and Caterpillar didn’t come there because there weren’t jobs and there wasn’t an environment to be created.

That’s what Americans are looking for. They’re looking for somebody that they trust, that knows has the executive governing experience. I’ve got it. You failed as the governor of Massachusetts.

COOPER: I’ve got to give Governor Romney 30 seconds. He said you failed.

(BOOING)

ROMNEY: I’m very proud of the fact — actually, during the four years we were both governors, my unemployment rate in Massachusetts was lower than your unemployment rate in Texas. That’s number one.

Number two, getting it down to 4.7, I’m pretty happy with. We worked very hard to balance our budget, did every year, put in place a rainy-day fund of $2 billion by the time I was finished.

And I’ll tell you this, the American people would be happy for an individual who can lead the country who’s actually created jobs, not just watching them get created by others, but someone who knows how the economy works because he’s been in it. I have. I’ve created jobs. I’ll use that skill to get America working again. That’s what we want.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Herman Cain, you’re — Herman Cain, you’re tied with Governor Romney in some of the polls for the top leadership position right now. Is a — are they the ones — are either Governor Perry or Governor Romney, are they the ones who should be president?

CAIN: No, I should be president.

COOPER: Well, obviously.

(APPLAUSE)

CAIN: Governor Romney has a very distinguished career, and I would agree with much of what he has said. And there’s one difference between the two of us in terms of our experience. With all due respect, his business executive experience has been more Wall Street- oriented; mine has been more Main Street.

I have managed small companies. I’ve actually had to clean the parking lot. I’ve worked with groups of businesses, et cetera.

And as far as contrasting me with President Obama, if I am fortunate enough to become the Republican nominee, it’s going to be the problem-solver who fixes stuff versus the president who hasn’t fixed anything in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Governor Romney, you’ve got 30 seconds.

ROMNEY: I — I appreciate that. And probably the fact that we’re doing as well as we are is we both have a private-sector background. That probably helps.

But I just want to set the record state on my record — record straight on my record. I’ve been chief executive officer four times, once for a start-up and three times for turnarounds. One was a financial services company. That was the start-up. A — a consulting company, that’s a mainstream business. The Olympics, that’s certainly mainstream. And, of course, the state of Massachusetts. In all those settings, I’ve learned how to create jobs.

COOPER: Your campaigns are telling us we have to end. It’s time…

(CROSSTALK)

BACHMANN: Oh, no, no, no…

GINGRICH: Wait a second.

COOPER: Sorry.

BACHMANN: Anderson, Anderson, that is…

COOPER: It’s your campaigns. I’m… BACHMANN: Anderson…

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: If you want to defy your campaigns, go ahead. Congresswoman Bachmann, 30 seconds.

BACHMANN: Anderson — Anderson, the good news is, the cake is baked. Barack Obama will be a one-term president; there’s no question about that.

(APPLAUSE)

Now the question is, we need to listen to Ronald Reagan who said no pastels, bold colors. I am the most different candidate from Barack Obama than anyone on this stage.

COOPER: Speaker Gingrich?

BACHMANN: We can’t settle in this race.

COOPER: Speaker Gingrich?

GINGRICH: Let me — let me just point out for a second that maximizing bickering is probably not the road to the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

And the — the technique you’ve used maximizes going back and forth over and over again.

I just want to say two things. I think that I would be the strongest candidate because of sheer substance, if you go to newt.org and look at the 21st Century Contract with America. As the nominee, I will challenge Obama to meet the Lincoln-Douglas standard of seven three-hour debate, no time — no moderator, only a timekeeper. I believe we can defeat him decisively to a point where we re-establish a conservative America on our values. And I think that is a key part of thinking about next year.

COOPER: We’d love to host those on CNN.

I want to thank all the candidates, the GOP candidates tonight.

(APPLAUSE)

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: I want to thank all the candidates for a spirited debate on the stage. We also want to thank our co-sponsors, the Western Republican Leadership Conference, our host, the Sands Convention Center at the Venetian. Our coverage of “America’s Choice 2012″ continues right now here on CNN.

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Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Debates, Democracy, Obama, Republican, Ron Paul

Barack Obama vs Abraham Lincoln | 2012 Puppet Election Debates

Posted on 12 October 2011 by admin

2012 Puppet Election Debates | Obama vs Abraham Lincoln

by: AmericanBuilt

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Tags: 2012 Liberty Candidates, Debates, Michele Bachmann, Republican, Ron Paul

2012 Republican Presidential Debate Hanover, New Hampshire

Posted on 11 October 2011 by admin

October 11, 2011 – Hanover, New Hampshire

The seventh Republican debate was held at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and was sponsored byBloomberg and The Washington Post. It was moderated by Charlie Rose with Julianna Goldman and Karen Tumulty. As Rose described it: “This debate is different and distinctive. It is only about the economy. So we debate this evening about spending and taxes, deficit and debt, about the present and the future, about rich and poor, and about the role of government.” Former Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson was excluded from the debate.

REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES PARTICIPATE IN A DEBATE SPONSORED BY BLOOMBERG AND THE WASHINGTON POST, HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

OCTOBER 11, 2011

SPEAKERS: REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, R-MINN.

REP. RON PAUL, R-TEXAS

GOV. RICK PERRY, R-TEXAS

FORMER SEN. RICK SANTORUM, R-PA.

FORMER REP. NEWT GINGRICH, R-GA.

FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY, R-MASS.

FORMER GOV. JON HUNTSMAN JR., R-UTAH

HERMAN CAIN

CHARLIE ROSE, PBS ANCHOR

KAREN TUMULTY, WASHINGTON POST POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

JULIANA GOLDMAN, BLOOMBERG TV WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT

[*] ANNOUNCER: Live from Spaulding Auditorium on the campus of Dartmouth College, the Bloomberg-Washington Post Republican Presidential Debate.

ROSE: I’m Charlie Rose. Welcome to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, this great college established in 1769 in a state that often plays a crucial role in picking presidents. Tonight, it is the site of an important Republican presidential debate brought to you by Bloomberg, the Washington Post, and WBIN Television.

This is a time of anxiety about our country and our children’s future in a continuing economic crisis. Many are in despair, not only about policy, but politics. And so we ask who has the character, who has the ideas, and who has the experience to lead.

This debate is different and distinctive. It is only about the economy. So we debate this evening about spending and taxes, deficit and debt, about the present and the future, about rich and poor, and about the role of government. And because we’re at a table — this is the kind of table I like — the kind of kitchen table where families for generations have come together to talk and solve their problems.

The rules are one minute for an answer, 30 seconds for follow-up and rebuttal. If a candidate is singled out by name for criticism, they have 30 seconds to respond. Later in the debate, they will question each other.

I’m the moderator. Joining me are Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post and Julianna Goldman of Bloomberg News.

Joining us at the table, the eight Republican candidates. They are: former Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman; Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann; Texas Governor Rick Perry; former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain; former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum; former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich; Texas Congressman Ron Paul; former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

I am pleased to be here at this table to have an opportunity to talk to them about the issues that all of us are thinking about.

And I begin this evening first with Herman Cain. As you know, when Standard & Poor’s downgraded American credit, they noted not only the economic difficulties, but the political dysfunction. So we begin this evening with the question: What would you do specifically to end the paralysis in Washington?

CAIN: Two things. Present a bold plan to grow this economy, which I have put my 9-9-9 plan on the table, and it starts with throwing out the current tax code and putting in the 9-9-9 plan.

Secondly, get serious about bringing down the national debt. The only way we’re going to do that is, the first year that I’m president and I oversee a fiscal year budget, make sure that revenues equals spending. If we stop adding to the national debt, we can bring it down.

So the answer is, we must grow this economy with a bold solution, which is why I have proposed 9-9-9, and at the same time get serious about not creating annual deficits so we can bring down the national debt. That would re-establish confidence in our system, and I believe we could get our credit rating back.

ROSE: Governor Perry, are you prepared — even though you’ve said that you want to make Washington inconsequential — to go to Washington and, as Ronald Reagan did, compromise on spending cuts and taxes in order to produce results?

PERRY: Well, certainly as the governor of the second largest state, I’ve had to deal with folks on both sides of the aisle. I’ve signed six balanced budgets as the governor of — of Texas. So working with folks on both sides of the aisle and — and bringing ideas, whether it’s ways to redo your tax structure or what have you.

One of the things that I laid out today I think is a pretty bold plan, to put 1.2 million Americans working in the energy industry. And you don’t need Congress to do that. You need a president with a plan, which I’m laying out over the next three days, and, clearly, the intent to open up this treasure trove that America’s sitting on and getting America independent on the domestic energy side. It’s time for another American Declaration of Independence. It’s time for energy independence.

ROSE: We’ll come back to energy, also your economic plan this evening, but I go now to Governor Romney. The paralysis there, and everybody’s concerned about it. What specifically would you be prepared to do to make the country moving again on addressing its problems?

ROMNEY: I’d be prepared to be a leader. You can’t get the country to go in the right direction and get Washington to work if you don’t have a president that’s a leader. And three years ago, we selected a person who had never had any leadership experience, never worked in the private sector, never had the opportunity to actually bring people together, and he hasn’t been able to do so.

He said he’d bring us hope and change. Instead, he’s divided the nation and tried to blame other people.

The real course for America is to have someone who is a leader, who can identify people in both parties who care more about the country than they care about getting reelected.

There are Democrats like that. There are Republicans like that. I was the governor of a state that had a few Democrats. People in this room know how many we had in Massachusetts.

ROSE: So it’s essential to deal with Democrats and be prepared to compromise on the big issues of our time?

ROMNEY: You have to stand by your principles. At the same time, you know that good Democrats and good Republicans who love the country first will be able to find common ground from time to time and recognize we can’t keep on spending like we’re spending, we can’t demand more from tax revenue from people, because that kills jobs and hurts working families.

We have got to help the middle class in this country. The only way that will come together is if you have people on both sides of the aisle who listen to a leader who has the experience of leading. And that’s what America is looking for and desperately longing for.

ROSE: And back to Governor Perry, this plan that you would like to lay out, because Governor Romney has said you have had two months to produce a plan, an economic plan, he’s had a 59 point plan, what is the plan? What will you say specifically?

PERRY: Well, clearly, opening up a lot of the areas of our domestic energy area. That’s the real key. You have got an administration that, by and large, has either by intimidation or over-regulation, put our energy industry and the rest of the economy in jeopardy. And we have got to have a president who is willing to stand up and to clearly pull back those regulations that are strangling the American entrepreneurship that’s out there.

And it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s Obamacare, whether it’s Dodd-Frank, or whether it’s the tax burden. A president, particularly with the plan that I’m going to be laying out over the next three days — and I’m not going to lay it out all for you tonight — Mitt has had six years to be working on a plan. I have been in this for about eight weeks. But, clearly, we’re going to be focused on initially the energy industry in this country and making a America again independent, and clearly the place where domestic energy needs to be produced from.

ROSE: Let me introduce my friend Karen — Karen.

TUMULTY: Congresswoman Bachmann, three years after the financial meltdown, Main Street continues to suffer. People have lost their jobs, they’ve lost their homes, they’ve lost their faith in the future. But Wall Street is thriving. The banks not only got bailed out by the government, they have made huge profits, they’ve paid themselves huge bonuses.

Do you think it’s right that no Wall Street executives have gone to jail for the damage they did to the economy?

BACHMANN: I think if you look at the problem with the economic meltdown, you can trace it right back to the federal government, because it was the federal government that demanded that banks and mortgage companies lower platinum level lending standards to new lows.

TUMULTY: But the federal government has also deregulated them.

BACHMANN: It was the federal government that pushed the subprime loans. It was the federal government that pushed the Community Reinvestment Act. It was Congressman Barney Frank and also Senator Chris Dodd that continued to push government-directed housing goals.

They pushed the banks to meet these rules. And if banks failed to meet those rules, then the federal government said we won’t let you merge, we won’t let you grow.

There’s a real problem, and it began with the federal government, and it began with Freddie and Fannie. If you look at these secondary mortgage companies which the federal government is essentially backing 100 percent, they put American mortgages in a very difficult place.

We had artificially low interest rates, Freddie and Fannie were the center of the universe on the mortgage meltdown, and we had lending standards lowered for the first time in American history. The fault goes back to the federal government, and that’s what’s wrong with Dodd- Frank.

Dodd-Frank institutionalized all of these problems that were put into effect by the federal government. That’s why I introduced the bill to repeal Dodd-Frank. It’s the Jobs and Housing Destruction Act.

TUMULTY: So, Speaker Gingrich, it sounds like Congresswoman Bachmann does not believe that Wall Street is to blame for the financial mess. You’ve said that the current protests on Wall Street are, in your words, “the natural product of Obama’s class warfare.”

Does this mean that these people who are out there protesting on Wall Street, across the country, have no grievance?

GINGRICH: No, let me draw a distinction. I think there — virtually every American has a reason to be angry. I think virtually every American has a reason to be worried.

I think the people who are protesting on Wall Street break into two groups. One is left-wing agitators who would be happy to show up next week on any other topic, and the other is sincere middle-class people who, frankly, are very close to the Tea Party people and actually care.

And you can tell which group is which. The people who are decent, responsible citizens pick up after themselves. The people who are just out there as activists trash the place and walk off and are proud of having trashed it. So let’s draw that distinction.

If they want to really change things, the first person to fire is Bernanke, who is a disastrous chairman of the Federal Reserve. The second person to fire is Geithner.

The fact is, in both the Bush and the Obama administrations, the fix has been in. And I think it’s perfectly reasonable for people to be angry. But let’s be clear who put the fix in: The fix was put in by the federal government.

And if you want to put people in jail — I want to second what Michele said — you ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and let’s look at the politicians who created the environment, the politicians who profited from the environment, and the politicians who put this country in trouble.

ROSE: Clearly you’re not saying they should go to jail?

GINGRICH: Well, in Chris Dodd’s case, go back and look at the countryside (sic) deals. In Barney Frank’s case, go back and look at the lobbyists he was close to at — at Freddie Mac. All I’m saying is…

(UNKNOWN): So if he were… GINGRICH: Everybody — everybody in the media who wants to go after the business community ought to start by going after the politicians who have been at the heart of the sickness which is weakening this country and ought to start with Bernanke, who has still not been exposed for the hundreds of billions of dollars.

(APPLAUSE)

And I’m going to say one last thing. I want to repeat this. Bernanke has in secret spent hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out one group and not bailing out another group. I don’t see anybody in the news media demanding the kind of transparency at the Fed that you would demand of every other aspect of the federal government. And I think it is corrupt and it is wrong for one man to have that kind of secret power.

TUMULTY: So, Congressman Paul, where you come down on this?

(LAUGHTER)

PAUL: One thing I might — might say is, we have made some inroads on the Federal Reserve. We passed a bill last year. We got a partial, you know, audit of the Fed. We’ve learned a whole lot. They were dealing in $15 trillion; $5 trillion went overseas to bail out foreign banks.

But you know what? Congress did a lot. I’ve worked on it for a good many years. But Bloomberg helped and Fox helped. They had court cases, Freedom of Information Act. And there are some even at this table who didn’t think auditing the Fed was such a good idea, that we could call up the Fed and ask them and they would tell us what they’re doing. I’ve been calling them up for 30 years and they never tell me.

(LAUGHTER)

But we’re getting to the bottom of it. But if you want to understand why we have a problem, you have to understand the Fed, because the cause comes from the business cycle. We shouldn’t be asking what to do exactly with the recession — obviously, we have to deal with that — but you can’t solve — you can’t cure the disease if you don’t know the cause of it.

And the cause is the booms. When there are booms and they’re artificial, whether it’s the CRA or whether it’s the Fed, easy credit, when you have bubbles, whether it’s the Nasdaq or whether it’s the housing bubbles, they burst. And when they do, you have to have corrections. And that’s what we’re dealing with. And we can do this by building coalitions and not sacrificing any principles.

ROSE: Julianna?

GOLDMAN: Thank you, Charlie.

Senator Santorum, I want to turn to jobs, because you’ve said that when you were growing up in a steel town in Pennsylvania, 21 percent of the country was involved in manufacturing. Now it’s down to 9 percent. Can those jobs ever return? And what would you do to create jobs now?

SANTORUM: Yeah, the jobs can come back if you create a climate for them to be profitable. I — I — we have a lot of businesspeople, manufacturers in Pennsylvania. I don’t know a single one who wanted to shift their jobs offshore, who didn’t want them in their own community to be able to employ people and see the fruits of their labor being benefiting the community that they live in.

What happened was, we became uncompetitive. So we need to be competitive. And that’s why I’ve proposed taking the corporate tax for manufacturers and processors, taking it from 35 percent and eliminating it. Zero percent tax. Allow this to be the — the manufacturing capital of the world again.

Take that money, $1.2 trillion that’s overseas from manufacturers who did send their jobs overseas, bring it back, zero percent tax rate if you invest it in plant and equipment in this country.

Repeal every regulation the Obama administration has put in place that’s over $100 million. Repeal them all. May have to replace a few. Let’s repeal them all, because they’re all antagonistic to businesses, particularly in the manufacturing sector, and do as Governor Perry suggested. We need a bold energy plan — I put one out there — to drill — Pennsylvania, I don’t want to brag, Governor, but Pennsylvania is the gas capital of the world right now, not Texas, because we are…

ROSE: All right.

SANTORUM: … we’re doing a great job. And energy prices and gas went down by 75 percent.

GOLDMAN: Let me just follow up, because we’re in a crisis. So what would you do right now to create jobs?

SANTORUM: The cool thing about my plan, as opposed to Herman’s plans and some of the other plans out here, it will pass tomorrow. It would pass tomorrow.

Why? Because industrial state Democrats want those jobs. And they know if we put a pro-manufacturing jobs plan on the table, it will pass over night. We’ll get votes from Indiana and Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan, all of those states.

So, it’s not just proposing a plan that will get things started, that “The Wall Street Journal” will smile at — excuse me, “The Washington Post” — but it’s a plan that will actually pass and get things done and bring people together. That’s why I put it on the table.

GOLDMAN: Thank you.

I want to follow up now to Governor Huntsman. From the Erie Canal to the Internet, innovation is what has always fueled economic recoveries. So shouldn’t the focus now not be on trying to create the innovative jobs of tomorrow? And what do you think those are?

HUNTSMAN: We need to regain our industrial base. I would, first and foremost, disagree with Rick on one measure. That is, Pennsylvania is not the gas capital of the country. Washington, D.C., is the gas capital of the country.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNTSMAN: There are two things that critically need to be done for us to stay ahead in this highly-competitive world. And when we lose one or both of them, we lose out to the Chinese and the Indians.

One is maintaining a strong commitment to innovation entrepreneurship and freedom in the marketplace. We have the sense of innovation that no country has been able to replicate. Some have tried, and some will continue to try, but nobody does it like we do here, and that gives rise to high technology, to regular manufacturing jobs across the board. It makes this economy hum when it’s working well.

The second part of it is, you need a marketplace like Rick described a moment ago in which you can translate those innovations into products. We are losing our ability to maintain a competitive marketplace today.

ROSE: All right.

HUNTSMAN: That’s taxes, that’s regulation. We have lost it to others. So, right now, we are not able to translate innovation to the — we’ve got to regain the magic of a strong marketplace so that we have the complete package.

ROSE: Karen.

TUMULTY: Congressman Gingrich — Speaker Gingrich, Medicare is going broke. Consider the fact that half of all Medicare spending is done in the last two years of life, and research that has been done right here at Dartmouth by “The Dartmouth Atlas” would suggest that much of this money is going to treatments and interventions that do nothing to prolong life or to improve it. In fact, some of it does the opposite.

Do you consider this wasteful spending? And, if so, should the government do anything about it?

GINGRICH: I am really glad you asked that, because I was just swapping e-mails today with Andy von Eschenbach, who was the head of the National Cancer Institute, the head of the Food & Drug Administration. But before that, he was the provost M.D. Anderson, the largest cancer treatment center in the world.

And he wrote me to point out that the most recent U.S. government intervention on whether or not to have prostate testing is basically going to kill people. So, if you ask me, do I want some Washington bureaucrat to create a class action decision which affects every American’s last two years of life, not ever.

I think it is a disaster. I think, candidly, Governor Palin got attacked unfairly for describing what would, in effect, be death panels.

And what Von Eschenbach will tell you if you call him is, the decision to suggest that we not test men with PSA will mean that a number of people who do not have — who are susceptible to a very rapid prostate cancer will die unnecessarily. And there was not a single urologist, not a single specialist on the board that looked at it. So, I am opposed to class intervention for these things.

TUMULTY: Well, Congresswoman Bachmann, of course no one wants the government to come between a doctor and a patient. But do you think that Americans are getting the most for their money in Medicare spending? And how can we make sure that the money that is being spent is being spent on the treatments and the preventive treatments that do the most?

BACHMANN: We have a big problem today when it comes to Medicare, because we know that nine years from now, the Medicare hospital Part B trust fund is going to be dead-flat broke, so we’ve got to deal with this issue. I was in the White House with President Obama this summer. We asked him not once, but three times, “President Obama, what is your plan to save Medicare?”

And the president mumbled and he didn’t give an answer the first time, the second time. And the third time the president said something very interesting, Karen. He said Obamacare.

I think that senior citizens across the country have no idea that President Obama plans for Medicare to collapse, and instead everyone will be pushed into Obamacare.

And just like Newt Gingrich said, the way that Obamacare runs, there’s a board called IPAB. It’s made up of 15 political appointees. These 15 political appointees will make all the major health care decisions for over 300 million Americans. I don’t want 15 political appointees to make a health care decision for a beautiful, fragile 85- year-old woman who should be making her own decision.

ROSE: We’ll come back to Medicare, as well, and medical issues and then the cost of Medicare in the United States.

I want to talk about advisers and appointees. Tell me, Governor Huntsman, whose advice do you seek on economic issues? And who — what’s the profile of the kind of person you’d like to have advising you in your White House?

HUNTSMAN: I’d like the profile of my own father, who’s a great entrepreneur. And he started with nothing, and he built a great business. And my brother now runs that business.

People who have been out in the world, who have actually had their hands on products and manufacturing and know something how to build something from the ground up, that’s what this country has always done. It’s what we need to continue to do.

But in order to have the right policies in place — and some I’ve put forward as governor of the great state of Utah — tax reform. I created a flat tax in the state of Utah. It took that state to the number-one position in terms of job creation. Regulatory reform and energy independence, I want the kind of people who understand what makes an economy work. But let’s be real about what it takes to get into federal government service these days. Who on Earth from the private sector is ever going to want to give up their privacy and enter government service with the background checks, the financial disclosures, and everything else that serve as tremendous disincentives for good people to get into government?

So what we have today, Charlie, we’ve got a professional governing class of people on one end and then you’ve got private- sector people on the other.

ROSE: And so what would you do about that to change that, to attract those kind of people so that they would be willing to serve a cross-section of people from every gender…

HUNTSMAN: Let’s get back to what we did a generation or two ago, when we were more open in terms of accommodating people from all backgrounds who wanted to take a little bit of their life and serve in government, and then leave, and go back to what it is they did best, whether on the farm, or whether insurance, or whether business, or whether academia.

ROSE: When you mention a flat tax, does that mean that you look with some favor upon 9-9-9 that Herman Cain mentioned at the beginning of this conversation?

HUNTSMAN: I think it’s a catchy phrase. In fact, I thought it was the price of a pizza when I first heard about it.

(LAUGHTER)

ROSE: Price of a pizza?

HUNTSMAN: Well, here’s — here’s — here’s what — here’s what we need. We need something that’s doable, doable, doable. And what I have put forward is a tax program that is doable. It actually wipes clean all of the loopholes and the deductions.

This is right out of what the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommended, a bipartisan group of people that took a thoughtful approach to tax reform.

ROSE: Corporate and individual?

HUNTSMAN: Individual, and on the corporate side, phase out all of the corporate welfare, all of the subsidies, because we can’t afford it any longer, in a revenue-neutral fashion, buy down the rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, leveling the playing field for businesses big and small, allowing us to be a whole lot more competitive in the second decade of the 21st century.

ROSE: Julianna?

GOLDMAN: OK. We will be coming back to 9-9-9, but first…

CAIN: Wait, wait. GOLDMAN: Well…

CAIN: He mentioned me.

ROSE: Give him 30 seconds.

CAIN: He mentioned me, and you didn’t give me an opportunity to respond.

ROSE: You have that opportunity now.

CAIN: I thank you very much. 9-9-9 will pass, and it is not the price of a pizza, because it has been well-studied and well-developed. It starts with, unlike your proposals, throwing out the current tax code. Continuing to pivot off the current tax code is not going to boost this economy. This is why we developed 9-9-9, 9 percent corporate business flat tax, 9 percent personal income flat tax, and a 9 percent national sales tax. And it will pass, Senator, because the American people want it to pass.

ROSE: This is beginning to sound more like my table.

Julianna? I mean, Karen?

TUMULTY: So, Mr. Cain, who do you turn to for political advice and for economic advice?

CAIN: My advisers come from the American people. Now, I will have some experts. One of my experts that helped me to develop this is a gentleman by the name of Rich Lowery (ph) out of Cleveland, Ohio. He is an economist, and he has worked in the business of wealth creation most of his career.

I also have a number of other well-recognized economists that helped me to develop this 9-9-9 plan. It didn’t come off a pizza box, no. It was well-studied and well-developed, because it will replace the corporate income tax, the personal income tax, the capital gains tax, the death tax, and most importantly, the payroll tax.

TUMULTY: So — so who are some of these economists?

CAIN: Rich Lowery (ph) out of Cleveland, Texas, is one of the economists that I have used. He’s been my lead economist on helping to develop this.

ROSE: Julianna?

GOLDMAN: Thank you.

Governor Romney, it’s 2013, and the European debt crisis has worsened. Countries are defaulting. Europe’s largest banks are on the verge of bankruptcy. Contagion has spread to the U.S. And the global financial system is on the brink.

What would you do differently than what President Bush, Henry Paulson, and Ben Bernanke did in 2008?

ROMNEY: Well, you’re talking about a scenario that’s obviously very difficult to imagine. And –

GOLDMAN: But it’s not a hypothetical, because more than half –

ROMNEY: It is. I’m afraid it is a hypothetical.

GOLDMAN: Governor, it’s not –

ROMNEY: Do you want to explain why it’s not a hypothetical?

GOLDMAN: Yes.

ROMNEY: OK.

GOLDMAN: Because more than half the country believes that a financial meltdown is likely in the next several years, and the U.S. banks have at least $700 billion in exposure to Europe. So it’s a very real threat, and voters want to know what you would do differently.

ROMNEY: It’s still a hypothetical as to what’s going to precisely happen in the future. I’m not very good at being omniscient, but I can tell you this, that I am not going to have to call up Timothy Geithner and say, how does the economy work? Because I spent my life in the economy.

I spent my entire career working in the private sector, starting businesses, helping turn around businesses, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. And I know how to make tough decisions and to gather the input from around the country to help make the important decisions that have to be made.

Clearly, if you think the entire financial system is going to collapse, you take action to keep that from happening. In the case of Europe right now, they are looking at what’s happening with Greece. Are they going to default on their debt, are they not? That’s a decision which I would I would like to have input on if I were president of the United States and try and prevent the kind of contagion that would affect the U.S. banking system and put as at risk.

But I can tell you this — I’m not interested in bailing out individual institutions that have wealthy people that want to make sure that their shares are worth something. I am interested in making sure that we preserve our financial system, our currency, the banks across the entire country. And I will always put the interest of the American people ahead of the interest of any institution.

GOLDMAN: So would you or would you not be open to another Wall Street bailout?

ROMNEY: No one likes the idea of a Wall Street bailout. I certainly don’t.

GOLDMAN: But you said in 2008 that it prevented the collapse of the financial –

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: There is no question but that the action of President Bush and that Secretary Paulson took was designed to keep not just a collapse of individual banking institutions, but to keep the entire currency of the country worth something and to keep all the banks from closing, and to make sure we didn’t all lose our jobs. My experience tells me that we were on the precipice, and we could have had a complete meltdown of our entire financial system, wiping out all the savings of the American people. So action had to be taken.

Was it perfect? No. Was it well implemented? No, not particularly.

Were there some institutions that should not have been bailed out? Absolutely.

Should they have used the funds to bail out General Motors and Chrysler? No, that was the wrong source for that funding. But this approach of saying, look, we’re going to have to preserve our currency and maintain America — and our financial system is essential.

ROSE: So do you agree with Speaker Gingrich about Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed?

ROMNEY: I wouldn’t keep Ben Bernanke in office. I would choose someone of my own — ROSE: And who might that be?

ROMNEY: Well, I haven’t chosen that person. I haven’t even chosen a vice president. I’m not sure I’m the nominee yet.

(LAUGHTER)

ROSE: Well, we would like to have — nor has anyone else, but we would like to have an idea of the kind of people that you would have confidence in, in playing this very important role, although Congressman Paul may differ about how important it is.

ROMNEY: Well, I wish we could find Milton Friedman again, although what Milton said to us was — he said, you know, “If you took all the economists in America, and you laid them end to end, it would be a good thing.” And I have more respect for economists than that.

The people who help guide my economic policy are Greg Mankiw at Harvard –

ROSE: Right.

ROMNEY: — and Glenn Hutchins (ph) at Columbia. They were both former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers. And I didn’t always agree with them.

I also talk to a number of business leaders. I talked to people who are currently in the economy, in the financial sector, and in the manufacturing sector. And on the basis of these various viewpoints, I make my decisions. And I believe that drawing on the best minds of this country, including economists, is something that’s essential to make sure that we preserve our financial system.

Right now, America is in crisis. We don’t need to think about a hypothetical of what happens if Europe explodes and pulls us under, although if that does happen, you want to have someone who is smart, who has experience, who knows how the financial services sector works, who knows how to protect American jobs, and I do. I have done it.

ROSE: And as far as you’re concerned, there is no institution, no financial institution, that is too big to fail?

ROMNEY: Well, no. You don’t want to bail out anybody.

The idea of trying to bail out an institution to protect the shareholders or to protect a certain interest group, that’s a terrible idea. And that shouldn’t happen.

You do want to make sure that we don’t lose the country and we don’t lose our financial system and we don’t lose American jobs, and that all the banks don’t go under. So, you have to take action very carefully to make sure that you preserve our currency and preserve our financial system. But bailouts of individual institutions? No one has interest in that, I don’t think.

GOLDMAN: Mr. Cain, back in 2008, you wrote that the Wall Street bailout was a win-win for the taxpayer. You just heard Governor Romney. Do you agree?

CAIN: Conceptually I made that statement based upon the concept, but I happen to agree with Governor Romney. The way it was administered is where it got off-track. They were discretionary in which institutions they were going to save, rather than apply it equitably, which is what most of us thought was going to be done. The implementation of it is where they got off-track. I didn’t agree with it. I don’t think Governor Romney agreed with it. So did a lot of us. The implementation was at fault.

ROSE: Housing is considered one of the real problems, in terms of our economy, and getting housing starts up.

GINGRICH: Can I say one thing, before we go to housing?

ROSE: Yes.

GINGRICH: Because I think this is really important. There’s a real possibility that you can’t have the euro and the Greek economy in the same system. There’s a possibility we could have a meltdown in the next year.

The thing that is most obvious looking back is that Paulson and — and Bernanke and Geithner didn’t have a clue, not because they’re not smart, but because they were operating in a world that had suddenly changed so radically they didn’t know.

ROSE: All right.

GINGRICH: One of the reasons I’ve said that the Congress should insist that every decision document from 2008, 2009 and 2010 at the Fed be released is we are not any better prepared today for a crisis of that scale because the people who were in that crisis and were wrong are still in charge. And I think we need to learn, what did they do right and what did they do learn — wrong, precisely for the reason you raised about 2013?

ROSE: Let me go to housing, what you’d do. Would you get the federal government out of housing? Yes?

PAUL: Absolutely. I mean, there’s no need to. Look at…

ROSE: No Freddie — no Freddie Mac, no Fannie Mae, nothing?

PAUL: The — no. You — that’s where the distortions come. That’s where the moral hazard comes from. That’s where the malinvestment, overbuild.

It was predictable. You talked about what economists we should look to. And, unfortunately, we’ve been living with Keynesian economics for many, many decades. And everybody who was right about predicting the bubbles were Austrian economists. They said they were coming. And yet they’re also saying — and I agree with them — that everything that we’re doing right now is wrong.

So what we did with the housing bubble, yes, we had too many houses. It was glaring in our face. The bubble was doomed to burst, and it came because of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, easy credit, and also Community Reinvestment Act.

So who — who got into trouble? The people who did the speculating, the Wall Street, the derivatives market? They got the bailout. They got (inaudible) so what happened to the middle class? They lost their jobs. They lost their houses.

This whole system is all messed up. And you’re — what I hear here is just tinkering with the current system and not looking at something new and different, and it’s a free-market economy without a Federal Reserve system, with sound money. If you don’t have that, you’re going to continue with the bubble.

And this propping up this debt and keeping the correction, you need the correction. You need to get rid of the malinvestment and the debt.

ROSE: All right. Time.

PAUL: The debt is the burden on the economy.

ROSE: All right. We’ll be back — take a break and be right back. Stay with us from Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSE: In order to take the pulse of America, we have partnered with LinkedIn. And they have some hundred 120 billion network professionals. And we’ve asked them to take part of this by giving us some polling that they have done.

But before I bring some of those results in, I want to take a look at a series of clips we’ll show you in this segment, beginning with this one of a former president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD REAGAN, 40TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The single most important question facing us tonight is, do we reduce deficits and interest rates by raising revenue from those who are not now paying their fair share? Or do we accept a bigger budget deficits, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment simply because we disagree on certain features of a legislative package which offers hope for millions of Americans at home, on the farm, and in the workplace?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSE: Let me go to the governor of Texas. Do you agree with the former president?

PERRY: Well, I think we are certainly talking about different times, because what I heard him say there, that he was willing to trade tax increases for reductions. And I don’t think he ever saw those reductions, he just saw the tax increase. As a matter of fact, in his diary, he made that statement that he is still looking around for those reductions.

So, I mean, from the standpoint — that is one of the problems that we have got in Washington, D.C. One of the reasons that I think Americans are so untrustworthy of what is going on in Washington is because they never see a cut in spending. They always hear the siren song of, you know, if you will allow us to raise taxes, then we’ll make these reductions over here.

When the fact of the matter is, the issue is we need to have a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution. And the next president of the United States needs to spend his time passing a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution.

ROSE: But I want to stay with this idea of spending cuts and revenue increases. And go back to you, Governor Romney. This is where it is, it seems, in Washington right now. Not only the paralysis, but also you have got the super committees. And if, in fact, they can’t find an agreement, you are going to have a trigger with automatic cuts, including defense.

So doesn’t that demand some kind of compromise, as Reagan suggested?

ROMNEY: Well, I don’t know which particular compromises he was referring to, we could take a look at that. But I can tell you this, if you go back a few years before that clip and go to JFK’s time, the government at all levels, federal, state, and local, was consuming about 27 percent of the U.S. economy. Today it consumes about 37 percent of the U.S. economy. It is on track to get to 40 percent.

We cease, at some point, to be a free economy. And the idea of saying, we just want a little more, just give us some more tax revenue, we need that. That is not the answer for America. The answer is to cut federal spending. The answer is to cap how much the federal government can as a percentage of our economy and have a balanced budget amendment.

And the second part of the answer is to get our economy to grow, because the idea of just cutting and cutting and taxing more — I understand mathematically those things work, but nothing works as well as getting the economy going. Get Americans back to work. Get them paying taxes. Get — get corporations growing in America, investing in America. Bring dollars back, as Rick said, repatriation dollars. Bring $1.3 trillion back from overseas. Invest in the United States. Get this economy going, and I’ll tell you, these kinds of problems will disappear.

TUMULTY: But could we get back to the actual choice that is likely to confront Congress at the end of the year, which is some mix of revenues and cuts or these draconian automatic spending cuts that would include defense, which of those two, if that is the choice, would you prefer?

ROMNEY: Well, my choice is not to cut defense. I think it’s a terrible idea to cut defense. I think it’s a terrible idea to raise taxes. Particularly at a time when the economy’s struggling, the idea of raising taxes, taking more money away from the American people so government can spend it, and can spend it — right now, the president has a jobs bill.

TUMULTY: So this is…

ROMNEY: How’d his last jobs bill work out for us?

TUMULTY: But this is automatic cuts?

ROMNEY: Not so well.

(CROSSTALK) ROMNEY: No, I do not want the automatic cuts. I want to see that super-committee take responsibility for getting the economy going again by reining in the scale of the federal government and saying we’re going to pull back on some of the programs we have and reform our entitlements so they’re sustainable.

The American people want to see growth and jobs, and they believe that the right way to do it is by cutting back on the scale of government, and they’re right.

ROSE: Without any increase in revenue?

(APPLAUSE)

(CROSSTALK)

GINGRICH: I just want to say — I want to say one thing about the entire way Washington works, which was just posed in that question. First of all, the Congress couldn’t figure out how to get the debt ceiling done with a president who showed zero leadership, so they adopt a truly stupid bill, OK?

(LAUGHTER)

And the bill basically says, we’re either going to shoot ourselves in the head or cut off our right leg, and we’ll come in around Thanksgiving and we’ll show you how we’re going to cut off the right leg, and the alternative will be shooting ourselves in the head.

Let me just say it bluntly. All of the spending cuts that are built into the debt ceiling bill, all of them are acts of Congress. They can all be repealed at any moment. It is nonsense to say we’re going to disarm the United States unilaterally because we’re too stupid to balance the budget any other way.

(APPLAUSE)

ROSE: All right.

Congresswoman Bachmann?

BACHMANN: Charlie, last summer I was a leading voice in the wilderness of Washington and a lone voice, as a matter of fact, saying: Do not increase the debt ceiling. By that, what I was saying is, let’s not give Barack Obama another $2.4 trillion blank check to spend.

Think of what this means. Our government right now — this is significant — we are spending 40 percent more than what we take in. We all paid a lot of taxes this year. We paid $2.2 trillion in taxes. That’s a lot of money from all the American people. The American government spent 100 percent of that $2.2 trillion, but the travesty is they spent $1.5 trillion more than that. That’s the problem.

Every year, we are spending about 40 percent more than what we take in. Our answer has to be that we cut back on the spending so we get to balance. We can’t do this because all…

ROSE: Will cutting back on the spending…

BACHMANN: … all around us are young people that are going to be paying for this burden. And their tax rates won’t be our tax rates. Their tax rates could come at some point.

Their overall effective burden — I’m a federal tax lawyer. That’s what I do for a living. And my — my background is in economics. Their tax rate someday in their peak earning years, Charlie, could be as much as 75 percent. Who’s going to get out of bed in the morning to go to work if they’re paying 75 percent tax rates? We’ve got to get our spending house in order and cut back on spending.

ROSE: Cutting back on spending, in your judgment, will do it?

BACHMANN: That’s one piece of the answer. That’s not the whole answer. But we have to cut back on spending.

ROSE: Take — I want you to take a look. We’ll come to all of you. Let me take a look at another clip. This one you will recognize, as well. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAIN: It’s called the 9-9-9 plan.

(APPLAUSE)

It imposes a 9 percent business flat tax, a 9 percent personal flat tax, and a 9 percent national sales tax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSE: Julianna?

GOLDMAN: I said we would get back to 9-9-9.

Mr. Cain, you say that your plan is revenue-neutral. And last year, the U.S. collected $2.2 trillion dollars in tax revenue, but Bloomberg Government has run the numbers, and your plan would have raised no more than $2 trillion. And even with that shortfall, you’d still be slapping a 9 percent sales tax on food and medicine.

CAIN: The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

CAIN: The reason it is incorrect is because they start with the assumptions that we don’t make. Remember, 999 plan throws out the current tax code. And it starts with three simple economic driving principles: production drives the economy, risk-taking drives growth, and we need sound money, measurements must be dependable.

Now what 999 does, it expands the base. When you expand the base, we can arrive at the lowest possible rate which is 999. The difference between the 999 plan and the other plans that are being proposed is that they pivot off of the existing tax code.

We have had an outside firm, independent firm dynamically score it. And so our numbers will make it revenue neutral.

ROSE: All right — go ahead, I’m sorry, go ahead.

GOLDMAN: But then explain why under your plan all Americans should be paying more for milk, for a loaf of bread, and beer?

CAIN: Pizza, I don’t buy beer.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDMAN: Yes, and pizza.

CAIN: You have to start with the biggest tax cut a lot of Americans pay, which is the payroll tax, 15.3 percent. That goes to 9 percent. That is a 6 percentage point difference. And the prices will not go up. So they have got a 6 percentage point difference to apply to the national sales tax piece of that, and in doing so, they have the flexibility to decide on how much they want to spend it on new goods, how much they want to spend it on used goods. Because there is no tax on used goods.

GOLDMAN: But, Congresswoman Bachmann, you’re a former IRS lawyer, do you agree?

BACHMANN: I would have to say that the 999 plan isn’t a jobs plan, it is a tax plan. And I would say that from my experience being in Congress, but also as a federal tax lawyer, when you — the last thing you would do is give Congress another pipeline of a revenue stream. And this gives Congress a pipeline in a sales tax.

A sales tax can also lead to value-added tax. The United States Congress put into place the Spanish-American War tax in 1888. We only partially repealed that in 2006. So once you get a new revenue stream, you are never going to get rid of it.

And one thing I would say is, when you take the 999 plan and you turn it upside down, I think the devil is in the details.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

ROSE: We have given several chances to respond. I will come back. We will continue to talk about taxes and spending. We also know here that there has been a paradigm shift in the world economic order. We know about China and we know about India.

Here is our next clip and we will respond from that. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: I will label China as it is, a currency manipulator. And I will go after them for stealing our intellectual property. And they will recognize that if they cheat, there is a price to pay. I certainly don’t want a trade war with anybody. We are going to have a trade war, but we can’t have a trade surrender either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSE: Karen.

TUMULTY: Governor Huntsman, you were also ambassador to China. And you say that this would risk a trade war. But if China is indeed keeping its currency low, that means that everything they sell in this country is artificially cheap and everything that our companies tried to sell in China is artificially expensive.

So what do you say to people who ask, aren’t we already in a trade war with China?

HUNTSMAN: Well, first of all, I don’t subscribe to the Don Trump school or the Mitt Romney school of international trade. I don’t want to find ourselves in a trade war. With respect to China, if you start slapping penalties on them based on countervailing duties, you are going to get the same thing in return because what they are going to say, because of quantitative easing part one and part two, you are doing a similar thing to your currency.

And then you’re going to find yourself in a trade war very, very quickly. And what does that do? That disadvantages our small businesses. It disadvantages our exporters. It disadvantages our agricultural producers.

So I say for the first and the second largest economies in the world, we have no choice. We have to find common ground. We have to, of course, use our trade laws and use them very, very aggressively.

But at the end of the day, we have got to find more market opening measures. We have got to get more governors from this country together with governors from provinces of China, mayors together with mayors, and exploit the opportunities that exist for exporters.

That is a job creator in this country. It is a huge job creator. And we have to get used to the fact that as far as the eye can see into the 21st Century, it’s going to be the United States and China on the world stage.

TUMULTY: You know, Governor Romney, this issue does carry a lot of resonance, especially in the states like New Hampshire, which, as you probably know, has lost a greater percentage of its manufacturing jobs to China than any other state.

But voters have heard candidates talked tough on China before. George W. Bush did it, Barack Obama did it, only to see that once elected, the president takes a much more cautious approach because of the complexity of the relationship and the fact that this is our biggest creditor.

Why should voters believe that you would be any different?

ROMNEY: I’m afraid that people who have looked at this in the past have been played like a fiddle by the Chinese. And the Chinese are smiling all the way to the bank, taking our currency and taking our jobs and taking a lot of our future. And I am not willing to let that happen.

I’m in this race to try to get America to make sure we’re strong again and we’re creating jobs where the best place in the world to be middle class again. And for that to happen, we have to call cheating for what it is.

And people say, we might have a trade war with China. Well, now, think about that.

We by this much stuff from China, they buy that much stuff from us. You think they want to have a trade war?

I mean, this is a time when we are being hollowed out by China, that is artificially holding down their prices, as you just said a moment ago, and that’s having a massive impact on jobs here. It is the wrong course for us.

When people have pursued unfair trade practices, you have to have a president that will take action. And on day one, I have indicated, day one, I will issue an executive order identifying China as a currency manipulator. We’ll bring an action against them in front of the WTO for manipulating their currency, and we will go after them. If you are not willing to stand up to China, you will get run over by China, and that’s what’s happened for 20 years.

(APPLAUSE)

ROSE: Let me go to Governor Perry and then Governor Huntsman. Governor Perry.

PERRY: We’re missing this so much. What we need to be focused on in this country today is not whether or not we are going to have this policy or that policy. What we need to be focused on is how we get American working again. That’s where we need to be focused.

And let me tell you, we are sitting on this absolute treasure trove of energy in this country. And I don’t need 999. We don’t need any plan to pass Congress. We need to get a president of the United States that is committed to passing the types of regulations, pulling the regulations back, freeing this country to go develop the energy industry that we have in this country.

I can promise you that we do that, then we will create an environment in this country where the manufacturing will come back to this country. We did in Texas.

We brought key manufacturing that had business in China back to the state of Texas. You free up this country’s entrepreneurs, where they know that they can’t risk their capital and have a chance to have a return on investment, and all of this conversation that we’re having today becomes substantially less impacting (ph).

ROSE: All right.

I want to come back to these issues, but let me introduce — speaking of CEOs and business, this is a New Hampshire native. His name is David Cote. He is chairman and CEO of Honeywell, and he is a former member of the Simpson-Bowles Commission.

Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COTE: Twenty years ago, there were a billion people actively participating in the global economy. Today, there are more than four billion active participants in the global economy, with China, India, former CIS states, and other emerging economies now in the game.

While that is a good and peaceful phenomenon, it also means we need to compete more strongly that we did in the past. We need an American competitiveness agenda. We need to inspire that American competitive spirit that has served us for so well for over 200 years.

I would like to ask, what would be on your American competitiveness agenda? And with one last small request, my guess is all of us are ready to accept that we are a great country and a great people. So, if your response could focus on specifics, it would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSE: Senator Santorum, we talked about jobs in Pennsylvania. A competitive agenda of yours would be what?

SANTORUM: Well, I already put forward a plan.

You know, Mitt, I don’t want to go to a trade war, I want to beat China. I want to go to war with China and make America the most attractive place in the world to do business. And we need to do that with the agenda that I outlined, which, unlike Herman’s plan, which could not pass, because no — how many people here are for a sales tax in New Hampshire? Raise your hand.

There you go, Herman. That’s how many votes you’ll get in New Hampshire.

We’re not going to give the federal government, Nancy Pelosi, a new pipeline, a 9 percent sales tax for consumers to get hammered by the federal government.

How many people believe that we’ll keep the income tax at 9 percent? Anybody?

There. That’s why people won’t trust giving people –

(CROSSTALK)

ROSE: So if you keep mentioning “999″ and Herman Cain, I’m going to have to go back to him every other question.

(APPLAUSE)

SANTORUM: Hold on.

CAIN: That’s right.

SANTORUM: I am not done yet. I’ve only been able to answer one question, unlike everybody else here, so let me just finish what I’m saying.

ROSE: Right.

SANTORUM: We need to repeal Obamacare. That’s the first thing we need to do.

SANTORUM: You want to create jobs? I went to OSIPI (ph) yesterday and I talked to a small businessman there, and he said, “I will not hire anybody, I will not make a move until I find out what is going to happen with this health care bill and how it’s going to crush me.”

And so, repealing Obamacare, and we can do it, not by waivers. That’s the wrong idea, Mitt. The reason it’s the wrong idea, because you get a waiver, California going to waive that? No. New York going to waive it? No. All of these states, many of them, liberal states are going to continue on, and then states like New Hampshire that will waive it will end up subsidizing California.

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: We need to repeal it…

ROSE: All right. But the time…

SANTORUM: I know.

(CROSSTALK)

ROSE: You see the red light, time.

SANTORUM: We need to repeal it by doing it through a reconciliation process. And since I have experience and know how to do that, we’ll take care of it…

(CROSSTALK)

ROSE: I’ve got to go to the break, and I’m — but I’m going to give both Herman Cain and Governor Romney a chance to make their point, because they were both mentioned, first Cain, then Romney, then break.

CAIN: Therein lies the difference between me, the non- politician, and all of the politicians. They want to pass what they think they can get passed rather than what we need, which is a bold solution. 9-9-9 is bold, and the American people want a bold solution, not just what’s going to kick the can down the table — down the road.

ROSE: Governor Romney?

(APPLAUSE) ROMNEY: Rick, you’re absolutely right. On day one, granting a waiver for all 50 states doesn’t stop in its tracks entirely Obamacare. That’s why I also say we have to repeal Obamacare, and I will do that on day two, with the reconciliation bill, because as you know, it was passed by reconciliation, 51 votes.

ROSE: All right.

ROMNEY: We can get rid of it with 51 votes. We have to get rid of Obamacare and return to the states the responsibility…

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: No, not if you get rid of it. And particularly — by the way, the Supreme — the Supreme Court may get rid of it.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: Let me finish. Let me finish.

ROSE: OK, let’s — then we’ll go to Huntsman, then we’ll go to the break, and then when we come back, each of you can question each other.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMNEY: Hold on, guys.

HUNTSMAN: Thank you.

ROMNEY: Let me just — let me just say this, which is we all agree about repeal and replace. And I’m proud of the fact that I’ve put together a plan that says what I’m going to replace it with. And I think it’s incumbent on everybody around this table to put together a plan that says this is what I’ll replace it with, because the American people are not satisfied with the status quo. They want us to solve the problem of health care, to get it to work like a market, and that’s what has to happen.

ROSE: All right. Governor Huntsman, then we go.

HUNTSMAN: It’s disingenuous to — to just say that you can — you can waive it all away. The mandate will be in place. The IRS is already planning on 19,500 new employees to administer that mandate. That will stay, and that’s the ruinous part of — of Obamacare. And that — Mitt, your plan is not going to do anything.

ROMNEY: I said we had to repeal it. Did you miss that?

HUNTSMAN: No. It doesn’t — it doesn’t repeal the mandate.

ROMNEY: No, no, I said I’m going to repeal it through reconciliation.

(CROSSTALK) SANTORUM: Through reconciliation, you can repeal the taxes, you can repeal the spending, and therefore, the mandate has no teeth, because there’s no tax penalty if you don’t enforce it.

ROSE: All right. We have much to talk about.

When we come back, the candidates will ask questions of each other, after this break.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSE: Welcome back. We are at the Republican presidential candidates’ debate. We are at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. And we are pleased now to turn it around a bit and have the candidates question each other.

They will each have 30 seconds to pose and answer. We’ll have one minute to respond, 30 seconds for a question, one minute to respond. We will proceed in alphabetical order. I want you to remember, as we talk about this, we are talking about the economy, or those things that affect the economy.

Beginning in alphabetical order, Congresswoman Bachmann.

BACHMANN: Thank you.

Well, in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan produced an economic miracle, and while all of us were wishing and yearning for a third term for Ronald Reagan, Governor Perry, you were campaigning and co-chairing Al Gore’s election campaign for president of the United States.

You went on to increase spending in Texas by over 50 percent. And you financed that spending by increasing bond debt by over 137 percent. That is exactly what Barack Obama has been doing, increasing debt by trillions of dollars.

How can we trust you to not go down the Obama way and overspend and pay for that spending with indebtedness on the backs of the next generations?

PERRY: Well, I, like most people in the state of Texas and those southern states, grew up a Democrat. Michael Reagan and I were talking just the other day, Charlie, that I came to the Republican Party sooner in age than his dad, Ronald Reagan, did.

And let me just address this issue of the debt in the state of Texas. Texas has the sixth lowest debt per capita when I started as governor back in 2000. And today, Texas has the second lowest debt per capita in the United States. I think that is what America is looking for is a president of the United States that understands how to balance budgets, how to deal with the spending issue, and how to get Americans back working again.

ROSE: Herman Cain, question.

CAIN: Yes. One of my guiding principles has been and will always be, surround yourself with good people. The 999 plan that I have proposed is simple, transparent, efficient, fair, and neutral.

My question is to Governor Romney. Can you name all 59 points in your 160-page plan, and does it satisfy that criteria of being simple, transparent, efficient, fair, and neutral?

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: Herman, I have had the experience in my life of taking on some tough problems. And I must admit that simple answers are always very helpful, but oftentimes inadequate.

And in my view, to get this economy going again, we’re going to have to deal with more than just tax policy and just energy policy, even though both of those are part of my plan.

And the other parts of my plan are these. One is to make sure that we stop the regulatory creep that has occurred in Washington. And all of the Obama regulations, we say no to, we put a halt on them, and reverse all those that cost jobs.

Number two, we have trade policies that open up new markets to American goods. And I lay out a number of things that I would do in that 59 points to open up more markets to American goods. And, we, of course, stop the cheating that goes on.

We also have to have the rule of law. By that I mean you can’t have the federal government, through its friends at the National Labor Relations Board, saying to a company like Boeing that you can’t build a factory in a non-union state. That’s simply wrong and violates the principle of the rule of law.

We also have to have institutions that create human capital. We’re a capitalist system. But we don’t just believe in physical capital or financial capital, also human capital. We need great schools, great institutions.

Finally, you have got to have a government that does not spend more money than it takes in. Those are the seven major pillars of those 59.

CAIN: So, no, it is not simple, is what you are saying?

ROMNEY: Let me tell you, to get this economy restructured fundamentally, to put America on a path to be the most competitive place in the world to create jobs, is going to take someone who knows how to do it. And it is not one or two things. It is a good number of things to get America…

(CROSSTALK)

ROSE: All right. Speaker Gingrich, question.

GINGRICH: Governor Romney, I’d like to say, first of all, there is an awful lot in your plan that is very good, and that I think would be very helpful if implemented, a lot better than what Obama is doing.

But one of the characteristics of Obama in his class warfare approach has been to talk about going after people who made over $250,000 a year and divide us.

And I was a little surprised — I think it’s about page 47 of your plan — that you have a capital gains tax cut for people under $200,000, which is actually lower than the Obama model. Now, as a businessman, you know that you actually lose economic effectiveness if you limit capital gains tax cuts only to people who don’t get capital gains.

So, I’m curious, what was the rationale for setting an even lower base marker than Obama had?

ROMNEY: Well, the reason for giving a tax break to middle income Americans is that middle income Americans have been the people who have been most hurt by the Obama economy. The reason that you’re seeing protests, as you indicated, on Wall Street and across the country is, middle income Americans are having a hard time making ends meet.

Not only do we have 25 million people out of work, or stopped looking for work, or part-time jobs needing full-time employ, we just saw this week that median income in America has declined by 10 percent during the Obama years. People are having a hard time making ends meet.

And so if I’m going to use precious dollars to reduce taxes, I want to focus on where the people are hurting the most, and that’s the middle class. I’m not worried about rich people. They are doing just fine. The very poor have a safety net, they’re taken care of. But the people in the middle, the hard-working Americans, are the people who need a break, and that is why I focused my tax cut right there.

ROSE: Governor Huntsman?

HUNTSMAN: Since this discussion is all about economics, Governor Romney, I promise this won’t be about religion.

Sorry about that, Rick.

Since some might see you because of your past employment with Bain Capital as more of a financial engineer, somebody who breaks down businesses, destroys jobs, as opposed to creating jobs and opportunity, leveraging up, spinning off, enriching shareholders, since you were number 47 as governor of the state of Massachusetts, where we were number one, for example, and the whole discussion around this campaign is going to be job creation, how can you win that debate given your background?

ROMNEY: Well, my background is quite different than you described, John. So the way I’ll win it is by telling people an accurate rendition of what I have done in my life. And fortunately, people in New Hampshire, living next door, have a pretty good sense of that.

They understand that in the business I was in, we didn’t take things apart and cut them off and sell them off. We, instead, helped start businesses, and they know some of the names.

We started Staples. We started the Sports Authority. We started Bright Horizons children’s centers. Heck, we even started a steel mill in a farm field in Indiana, and that steel mill operates today and employs a lot of people.

So, we began businesses. Sometimes we acquired businesses and tried to turn them around, typically effectively. And that created tens of thousands of new jobs.

And I am proud of the fact that we were able to do that. That is a big part of the American system.

People are not going to — in my opinion, are not going to be looking for someone who is not successful. They want someone who has been successful and who knows how fundamentally the economy works.

Look, I would not be in this race had I spent my life in politics alone. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but right now, with the American people in the kind of financial crisis they are in, they need someone who knows how to create jobs, and I do.

ROSE: All right.

Congressman Paul?

PAUL: Since the Federal Reserve is the engine of inflation, creates the business cycle, produces are recessions and our depressions, the Federal Reserve obviously is a very important issue. And fortunately, tonight we have a former director of the Federal Reserve at Kansas City. So I have a question for Mr. Cain.

Mr. Cain, in the past you have been rather critical of any of us who would want to audit the Fed. You have said — you’ve used pretty strong terms, that we were ignorant and that we didn’t know what we are doing, and therefore, there was no need for an audit anyway, because if you had one, you’re not going to find out anything, because everybody knows everything about the Fed.

But now that we have found and we have gotten an audit, we have found out an awful lot on how special businesses get bailed out — Wall Street, the banks, and special companies, foreign governments. And you said that you advise those of us who were concerned, and you belittled — you say call up the Federal Reserve and just ask them.

ROSE: Question?

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: Do you still stick by this, that that this is frivolous, or do you think it’s very important? Sixty-four percent of the American people want a full audit of the Fed on a regular basis.

ROSE: Mr. Cain?

CAIN: First of all, you have misquoted you. I did not call you or any of your people ignorant. I don’t know where that came from.

PAUL: I’ll get it for you.

CAIN: All right. Now, so you’ve got to be careful of the stuff that you get off the Internet, because that’s just not something that I have said.

Secondly, when I served on the board of the Federal Reserve in the 1990s, we didn’t do any of the things that this Federal Reserve is doing. I don’t agree with the actions of this Federal Reserve. I don’t agree with the actions that have been undertaken by Ben Bernanke. We didn’t have a $14 trillion national debt to prop up with some of the actions that they’re taking.

And I have also said, to be precise, I do not object to the Federal Reserve being audited. I simply said, if someone wants to initiate that action, go right ahead. It doesn’t bother me.

So you — I’ve been misrepresented in that regard. I don’t have a problem with the Federal Reserve being audited. It’s simply not my top priority. My top priority is 9-9-9, jobs, jobs, jobs.

(APPLAUSE)

ROSE: Governor Perry, question for…

PERRY: Governor Romney, your chief economic adviser, Glenn Hubbard, who you know well, he said that Romneycare was Obamacare. And Romneycare has driven the cost of small-business insurance premiums up by 14 percent over the national average in Massachusetts. So my question for you would be: How would you respond to his criticism of your signature legislative achievement?

ROMNEY: You know, the — the great thing about running for president is to get the chance also to talk about your experience as a governor. And I’m proud of the fact that we took on a major problem in my state.

And the problem was that we had a lot of kids without insurance, a lot of adults without insurance, but it added up to about 8 percent of our population. And we said, you know what, we want to find a way to get those folks insured, but we don’t want to change anything for the 92 percent of the people that already have insurance. And so our plan dealt with those 8 percent, not the 92 percent.

One of the problems with Obamacare is he doesn’t just deal with the people without insurance. He takes over health care for everyone. Then he does something else that Chris Christie said today. He said the problem with Obamacare is he spends an extra trillion dollars and raises taxes. And raising taxes is one of the big problems, something we didn’t do in Massachusetts. He also cuts Medicare. Only — but people out there are talking about cutting Medicare, it’s President Obama that did that.

And I’m proud of what we are able to accomplish. I’ll tell you this, though. We have the lowest number of kids as a percentage uninsured of any state in America. You have the highest. You…

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: I’m still — I’m still speaking.

(CROSSTALK)

PERRY: … criticism.

ROMNEY: I’m still speaking. We — we have — we have less than 1 percent of our kids that are uninsured. You have a million kids uninsured in Texas. A million kids. Under President Bush, the percentage uninsured went down. Under your leadership, it’s gone up.

I care about people. Now, our plan isn’t perfect. Glenn Hubbard is a fine fellow. Take a look at his quote. Some people say that. Just because some people say something doesn’t mean it’s true.

The truth is, our plan is different, and the people of Massachusetts, if they don’t like it, they can get rid of it. Right now, they favor it 3 to 1.

But I’m not running for governor of Massachusetts. I’m running for president of the United States. And as president, I will repeal Obamacare, I’ll grant a waiver on day one to get that started, and I’ll make sure that we return to the states what we had when I was governor, the right to care for our poor in the way we thought best for our respective states.

ROSE: Senator Santorum?

SANTORUM: Romney’s before me, R.

ROSE: No, I’m sorry. You’re right. Governor Romney?

(LAUGHTER)

Very good. I — I missed school that day.

(CROSSTALK)

ROSE: I missed school that day when they said R is before S.

GINGRICH: Think of us as your…

(CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER)

ROMNEY: You’d think someone from PBS would know that.

(CROSSTALK)

ROSE: We’d know that, wouldn’t we?

(LAUGHTER)

I was thinking how much I was enjoying this.

ROMNEY: Exactly. Exactly right.

Let me turn to Congresswoman Bachmann and just — just as you, Congresswoman. As — as we’ve spoken this evening, we’re all concerned about getting Americans back to work. And you’ve laid out some pretty bold ideas with regards to taxation and cutting back the scale of the federal government. And there’s no question that’s a very important element of getting people back to work.

And I’d like to ask you to expand on your other ideas. What do you do to help the American people get back to work, be able to make ends meet? You’ve got families that are sitting around the kitchen table wondering how they’re going to make — make it to the end of the month. You’ve got — you’ve got young people coming out of college, maybe not here at Dartmouth, but a lot of colleges across the country wondering where they can get a job.

What — what would you do — beyond the tax policies you describe — to get people back to work?

BACHMANN: Well, I do understand that. I’m — I’m a mother of 28 kids, 22 foster kids, 5 biological kids. I get how difficult it is for young people right now to get jobs right out of college. It’s very, very tough.

And the solutions that I’m offering in my plan, which if I can give a commercial, are at michelebachmann.com. The solutions that I’m offering aren’t just a silver bullet. It’s not just the tax code. It’s also dealing with the regulatory burden, because businesses — my husband and I started our own successful business. I’m 55. I spent my whole life in the private sector. I get job creation, too. And the business world is looking at 1.8 trillion every year in compliance costs with government regulations.

That has to go. So I want to get rid of that, it’s the mother of all repeal bills. But the number one reason that employer say that they are not hiring today is “Obama-care.” And I was the leading critic for President Obama in Washington, D.C., against “Obama-care.” That is why I was the first member of Congress to introduce that bill to repeal “Obama-care.” I understand that is what is inhibiting job creation and job growth.

We have to repeal that. I also introduced and I fought on Barney Frank’s committee against Dodd-Frank, which is the “housing and jobs destruction act.” That’s why I was the chief author of that bill as well. There is much more to my solutions, go to michelebachmann.com and you can find out.

ROSE: Ask now?

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: We are in the “live free or die!” state, and I oppose the single biggest government intrusion into the private sector, the Wall Street bailout, the TARP program. I opposed it because it violated the principles of our Constitution, the spirit of our Constitution, and because the experience I had that if you open up the door of government involvement in the private sector, some president will and in fact did drive a truck through it and explode the size of the federal government and constrict our freedom.

The interesting thing here is, is the four people on this panel that actually supported TARP at the time of its passage are the people who say that they are the anti-Washington candidates, that they are the business candidates. And they are the four on this program that supported the Washington bailout, giving Washington, naively, I would say, tools to constrict our freedom. And since…

TUMULTY: So do you have a question for one of them?

SANTORUM: My question is — you prompted it perfectly, because here is my question. My question is, since I think Herman Cain is giving naively a tool in his 999 plan of giving Washington a huge new tax burden — tax opportunity to get money through a sales tax, can we trust you that with your lack of experience that you won’t continually give Washington the ability to take freedom away from freedom-loving people here in the “live free or die!” state?

CAIN: There are three deterrents to the…

SANTORUM: And, by the way, the four people were Governor Huntsman, Governor Perry, Herman Cain, and Governor Romney, all supported TARP.

CAIN: There are three deterrents to this nightmare scenario you described in terms of how bad things are going to be, because we are trying to fix the real problem.

The first deterrent is that I’m going to ask the United States Congress to include a two-thirds majority vote before they can raise the 999 tax. The second deterrent, the second deterrent is the fact that because it is visible, simple, and transparent, the American people are going to be the ones to hold Congress’s feet to the fire.

The third return is that I will be president and I won’t sign anything that raises the 999.

ROSE: With that, we will take a break, and come back for our final segment. Stay with us.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSE: We are back at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire, talking with the eight Republican candidates about a variety of issues.

Clearly, we come back to health care. And I want to go to Governor Perry.

Explain to me what you think the difference is about your health care ideas and Governor Romney’s health care ideas, and how you see mandates and how he sees mandates and the Constitution, because not only has there been some exchange here, Governor Christie got involved today.

PERRY: Well, certainly the issue of health care is probably one of the biggest ones that’s facing us. I mean, there are a lot of Americans sitting out there today, and getting those people back to work is the most important thing that we do as a country so that they can have the opportunity to purchase health care.

And I think that is probably the biggest issue that are facing Americans. There are people sitting out there around the kitchen table watching TV tonight who are looking for someone to lay out an idea that truly will get this country back working again. And that’s why I lay out, without having any congressional impact of all, how to get our energy industry back to work, and back to work very quickly.

But in the state of Texas, from the standpoint of what we have done to make access of health care better, we passed the most sweeping tort reform in the nation in 2003. We also passed Healthy Texas, which expands the private sector insurance. And we have driven down the cost of insurance by 30 percent.

So, those are some of the ways that the states — but the real issue for us is Medicaid and how to get the flexibility on Medicaid so that the innovators can occur in the states. I can promise you, whether it’s Governor Jindal or myself or Susana Martinez over in New Mexico, that’s where you will find the real innovation in health care. The way to deliver health care more efficiently, more effectively is to block-grant those dollars back to the state and keep this federal government that has this one-size-fits-all mentality from driving the thought process that we have seen destroy health care in this country today.

TUMULTY: But, Governor Perry, Texas as “The Washington Post” fact-checker noted, Texas has had 16 waivers for Medicaid. So how can you say that the problem is that the federal government has not given Texas enough flexibility?

PERRY: They haven’t anywhere near given the states — I think what you should see is the block-granting, not having to go to Washington, D.C., and ask them, mother, may I every time you come up with a concept or an idea. Block-granting back to the states, I’ll guarantee you, the governors and their innovators in their states will come up with ways to better deliver health care more efficiently, more effectively, more cost-efficiently, and that’s what this country is looking for, is a president who understands that we have these 50 laboratories of innovation, free up these states from Washington, D.C.’s one size fits all.

ROSE: Julianna.

GOLDMAN: Thank you, Charlie.

Mr. Cain, you disapprove of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and we all know that your priority is 999. But one of the most important appointments that you’re going to have to make your first year, should you be president, would be Fed chairman.

So which Federal Reserve chairman over the last 40 years do you think has been most successful and might serve as a model for that appointment?

CAIN: Alan Greenspan.

GOLDMAN: Why?

CAIN: Because that’s when I served on the board of the Federal Reserve in the early 1990s. And the way Alan Greenspan oversaw the Fed and the way he coordinated with all of the Federal Reserve banks, I think that it worked fine back in the early 1990s.

Now, on that same point, I have already identified two candidates — which I cannot give their names — to replace Mr. Bernanke, in anticipation of having that responsibility.

We must narrow the mission of the Fed first. I don’t believe in ending the Fed. I believe we can fix the Fed by getting their mission refocused on monetary price stability. And I have candidates in mind that will help us do that.

GOLDMAN: So you have two appointments waiting in the wings for — for 2013, for — when his term is up, 2014?

CAIN: Yes, I have two candidates waiting in the wings… GOLDMAN: How about a hint?

CAIN: … to take that job. I’ve got to keep them confidential.

GOLDMAN: OK.

Congressman Paul?

PAUL: Spoken like a true insider.

No, Alan Greenspan was a disaster.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

Everybody in Washington — liberals and conservatives — said he kept interest rates too low, too long. Of course, the solution was, lower them even more, and they think that’s going to solve our problem.

But if I had to name one person that did a little bit of good, that was Paul Volcker. He at least knew how to end — or help, you know, end the inflation.

But, of course, with my position that I don’t think highly of the Federal Reserve, I think we should have sound money and we shouldn’t have somebody deciding what the interest rate should be and how much money supply we should have, I mean, nobody satisfies me.

But certainly, Alan Greenspan has ushered in the biggest bubble. And what did we do? We’ve continued the same thing, doing the same thing. We think the inflation under Alan Greenspan was bad so we’re trying to solve the problem by inflating even further. So Bernanke compounds the problem. He’s inflating twice as fast as — as Greenspan was.

But Greenspan caused so much trouble. And he used to believe in the gold standard. I think he’s coming around to that. Before he retires, he’ll write his — his biography and explain why he’s coming back to the gold standard.

ROSE: I want to go from the gold standard to a small-business person who is from New Hampshire who’s in the audience with us and has a question about small business, of which she has founded one. Margot Thompson?

QUESTION: Businesses like mine have great difficulty obtaining credit. What specifically would you do to make bank lending more accessible to small businesses?

ROSE: Direct it to…

QUESTION: I was told to direct it to you.

(LAUGHTER) ROSE: Oh, oh. So, Governor Romney?

(LAUGHTER)

ROMNEY: Give her the answer, Charlie.

(LAUGHTER)

ROSE: I ask questions, not answer them, Governor.

ROMNEY: Oh, oh, OK.

ROSE: I forget to explain that.

ROMNEY: OK. What’s happened in this country under the Obama administration is that you have a president who I think is well meaning, but just over his head when it comes to the economy.

And the absolute wrong time to have the absolute wrong people put together a financial regulatory bill was right now in Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. They were the wrong guys at the wrong time, because what they did with this new bill is usher in what will be hundreds and thousands of pages of new regulations.

The big banks, the big money-center banks on Wall Street, they can deal with that. I spoke with one banker there that said they have hundreds of lawyers working on that legislation and trying to implement it.

For community banks that provide loans to businesses like yours, they can’t possibly deal with a regulatory burden like that. Then you have inspectors coming in and writing down their assets and saying they’re not worth as much as the bank thought they were worth, and therefore the banks are unable to lend.

Small community banks across this country are starving and struggling because of inspectors that are making their job impossible and because of regulation that’s fine for the big banks, because they can deal with it. It’s a killer for the small banks. And those small banks loaning to small businesses and entrepreneurs are what have typically gotten our economy out of recession. What’s — what the president has done on almost every dimension is exactly the wrong thing to get this economy going again.

ROSE: Congresswoman Bachmann?

BACHMANN: I’d like to add to that, because the Dodd-Frank bill is the jobs and housing destruction act. And I have spoken to — to Iowa bankers, and they told me that they are going to see the collapse of community banks, just like Mitt said, all across the state.

BACHMANN: I talked to a banker in Texas who owns multiple branch banks. He said he’s going to lose $20 million on his bottom line this year because of all of the compliance.

So, government is putting a huge layer of regulation on banks. We will see literally thousands of banks close their doors. That will be hard for small business owners like you and like me. And so that’s going to hurt real people and it will lead to job destruction.

That’s why I introduced the bill to repeal Dodd-Frank, because it will hurt credit, not add to credit. And by the way, that’s why we see the new $5 debit card fee that people are paying every month that they are upset about, because of Dodd-Frank. And that was insider dealing, because Senator Durbin had former staffers that came to lobby him on behalf of retailers.

This is dirty dealing. As president of the United States, I would end all of these payoffs to political donors by our legislators. That’s wrong. That’s got to end.

ROSE: Here, and then go over to you. First and then there.

CAIN: In addition to what Governor Romney said, I agree, repeal Dodd-Frank. But also, get rid of the capital gains tax. That’s a big wall between people with ideas and people with money. And we know which plan gets rid of the capital gains tax.

(LAUGHTER)

PAUL: I just want to add one quick thing. Dodd-Frank obviously is a disaster. It’s estimated it’s going to cost a trillion dollars.

I think one the reasons we’re not getting anywhere and we’re not getting anywhere in Washington, it’s a partisan fight. It’s a fight over power, because Sarbanes-Oxley, which was done by the Republicans, it cost a trillion dollars, too.

Let’s repeal that, too. I mean, if you look at what we have done as Republicans, we have caused a lot of problems.

To say it’s all in these past two years, I mean, I think that is so misleading. And that’s why the American people are sick and tired of listening to the politicians.

ROSE: All right.

I want to bring my colleagues in — Karen.

TUMULTY: Governor Perry, taxpayers stand to lose half a billion dollars in the collapse of Solyndra, which is a solar energy firm that was a centerpiece of the Obama green jobs initiative. Do you think there were inadequate safeguards there, or do you think this is just the risk we run when the government gets involved in subsidizing new industries and technologies?

PERRY: Well, I don’t think the federal government should be involved in that type of investment, period. If states want to choose to do that, I think that’s fine for states to do that.

TUMULTY: And you have in Texas done that with the emerging technology fund. But your own state auditor said earlier this year that that fund is neither accountable nor transparent. “The Dallas Morning News” reported that that fund gave $16 million to companies that are connected to your campaign contributors. And like Solyndra, some of the emerging technology funds investments have gone bust.

So how is this different in principle from the Obama administration’s efforts to pick winners in the future economy?

PERRY: Well, first off, the Texas legislature has full oversight of that committee. It has approved it for — I think since 2003. So, every two years, the Texas legislature looks at it. It’s had full oversight.

And I can promise you, the 54,600 jobs that have been created and the $14 billion-plus worth of investment that has come out of the Enterprise Fund in the state of Texas, those people that have jobs today in the state of Texas, they are absolutely happy that we have got a program like that. And 75 percent of those emerging technology fund dollars, my appointees, never made a contribution to me, period.

TUMULTY: But you talk about oversight. The fact is, that in some instances, your appointees have overruled the regional boards that have tried to turn back some of these deals.

PERRY: Every one of those projects had the lieutenant governor, the Speaker, and the governor’s office, so there is an extraordinary amount of oversight in those programs, and we are proud of them. I mean, we feel like that those are part of the reason that Texas has led the nation in the creation of jobs.

While this country was losing 2.5 million jobs, Texas was creating one million jobs. That’s the kind of leadership that America is longing for, someone that actually understands that you have to be able to give a climate where people know they can risk their capital and have a chance to have a return on that investment.

ROSE: All right.

We have one more video I want to show. Here is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The more people who own their home, the better off America is. And we’re making good progress. Our nation’s 68 percent homeownership rate is the highest ever. Most people own homes now than ever before in the country’s history, and that’s exciting for the future of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSE: Speaker Gingrich, is the American dream of owning a home no longer a realistic dream, and is it too easy in America?

GINGRICH: You know, there is a stream of American thought that really wishes we would decay and fall apart and that the future be bleak so the government could then it share the misery.

It was captured by Jimmy Carter in his “malaise” speech. It is captured every week by Barack Obama in his apologias disguised as press conferences.

(LAUGHTER)

GINGRICH: The fact is, and the governor is exactly right, when we get back — I mean, a lot of these folks are right about a lot of things. His energy plan, his industrial manufacturing plan, most of what he put down, a fair amount, but not totally what my good friend said there, hard money with a very limited Federal Reserve.

BACHMANN: Repeal “Obama-care.” Repeal “Obama-care.” GINGRICH: What Huntsman has done — and she’s right on repealing Dodd-Frank. I am shocked that the House Republicans have not repealed Dodd-Frank. They ought to do it now. They ought to repeal Sarbanes- Oxley now.

If we get back on track, and you know this as a former ambassador, the Chinese couldn’t compete with us in 100 years if we got our act together in this country and we got back to doing the right things in this country, at which point we could afford to buy houses, which would solve virtually everything else.

You have got to be able to afford it to be able buy it, and that is where things went wrong in the last decade.

ROSE: All right. Julianna.

GOLDMAN: Mr. Cain…

(APPLAUSE)

GOLDMAN: … you recently said, quoting you, “don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself.” So are you telling 14 million unemployed Americans that it is their fault that they don’t have a job?

CAIN: No, the question was — that response was directed at the people that are protesting on Wall Street, not that 14 million people who are out of work for no reason of their own other than this economy is not growing, not the millions of people that are under-unemployed.

That statement was not directed at them. It was specifically directed at the people who are protesting on Wall Street. And I also said that they have basically targeted the wrong target. It should be against the failed policies of this administration, not Wall Street is where they should be protesting.

GOLDMAN: Governor Romney, I want to ask you, because President Obama’s jobs bill stalled in the Senate today, and so it may have to be broken into component parts for Congress to vote on.

If the payroll tax cut is not extended, that would mean a tax increase for all Americans. What would be the consequences of that?

ROMNEY: No one likes to see tax increases, but look, the stimulus bills the president comes out with that are supposedly going to create jobs, we have now seen this played in the theater several times, and what we’re seeing has not worked.

The American people know that when he went into office and borrowed $800 billion for a massive job stimulus program, then they did not see the jobs. Some of those green jobs we were supposed to get, that is money down the drain.

The right course for America is not to keep spending money on stimulus bills, but instead to make permanent changes to the tax code. Look, when you give — as the president’s bill does, if you give a temporary change to the payroll tax, and you say, we’re going to extend this for a year or two, employers do not hire people for a year or two.

They make an investment in a person that goes over a long period of time. And so if you want to get the economy going again, you have to have people who understand how employers think, what it takes to create jobs.

And what it takes to create jobs is more than just a temporary shift in a tax stimulus, it needs instead fundamental restructuring of our economy to make that sure we are the most attractive place in the world for investment, for innovation, for growth, and for hiring. And we can do that again.

GOLDMAN: So you would be OK with seeing the payroll tax cuts?

ROMNEY: Look, I don’t like temporary little Band-Aids, I want to fundamentally restructure America’s foundation economically.

ROSE: Before closing questions, I want not this hour-and-a-half to pass without some recognition and conversation about the question of disparity in America.

TUMULTY: Governor Perry, over the last 30 years, the income of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans has grown by more than 300 percent, and yet we have more people living in poverty in this country than at any time in the last 50 years.

Is this acceptable? And what would you do to close that gap?

PERRY: The reason we have that many people living in poverty is because we have got a president of the United States who is a job- killer. That’s what’s wrong with this country today.

You have a president who does not understand how to create wealth. He has over-taxed, over-regulated the small-business men and women to the point where they are laying off people.

Two-and-half million Americans are out there who have lost their jobs. We have got 14 million without work. This president, I will suggest to you, is the biggest deterrent to getting this country back on track, and we have to do everything we can to replace Barack Obama in 2012.

(APPLAUSE)

(CROSSTALK)

ROSE: OK. But we are almost out of time. I want to give you a chance, and then we have to go the final questions.

SANTORUM: There is more to it than that. And I agree with Rick, what he said, but the biggest problem with poverty in America, and we don’t talk about here, because it’s an economic discussion — and that is the break down of the American family.

You want to look at the poverty rate among families that have two — that have a husband and wife working in them? It’s 5 percent today. A family that’s headed by one person? It’s 30 percent today. We need to do something, and we need to talk about economics. The home — the word “home” in Greek is the basis of the word “economy.” It is — it is the foundation of our country. We need to have a policy that supports families, that encourages marriage…

ROSE: All right.

SANTORUM: … that has fathers take responsibility for their children. You can’t have limited government — you can’t have a wealthy society if the family breaks down, that basic unit of society. And that needs to be included in this economic discussion.

ROSE: All right. I’ve got one last question, one last question, with 30 minutes…

PROTESTOR: (OFF-MIKE)

ROSE: One last question…

PROTESTOR: (OFF-MIKE)

ROSE: All right. One last question, as we close this evening, and, each of you, 30 seconds. What is it about you that you want to connect with the American people, in their both despair and in their hope for the future that says something essentially about who you are?

And I begin with Congresswoman Bachmann.

BACHMANN: I’m sorry, Charlie.

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: A little distraction.

(LAUGHTER)

ROSE: It is about the individual. We have 30 seconds here. We’ve talked about issues here, but I want to talk for a moment, as a last impression, a sense of what it is about you that you want to say here and let the American people know about you and your sense of recognizing their own pain, as well as their hope?

BACHMANN: Well, I do. I grew up in a middle-class home. We went to below…

ROSE: Thirty seconds, too, I’m sorry.

BACHMANN: We went to below poverty when my parents divorced. And my mother worked very hard. We all did. We all got jobs. And we were able to work our way through college. And — and eventually my husband and I started a business.

We have broken hearts for at-risk kids, Charlie. That’s why we took 23 foster children into our home. I believe the best solutions are the ones closest to home. If we reach out as individuals to help people and have broken hearts for people and care for them on a personal basis, then we don’t need big government to step in and do that job. The more that we can do to love people, the better off this…

(CROSSTALK)

ROSE: Herman Cain, 30 seconds?

CAIN: I can connect with people’s pain because I was po’ before I was poor. My dad worked three jobs. I understand what that means. But more importantly, with my career and with my records, I understand that leaders are supposed to make sure we’re working on the right problems, we’re assigning the right priority.

Surround yourself with the right people, which will allow you to put together the right plans, and, yes, sometimes those plans will be bold plans, because this economy is on life support. We don’t need to trim around the edges. We need a bold plan.

ROSE: Congressman — Speaker Gingrich?

GINGRICH: Well, look, I grew up in an Army brat family. We moved all over the country. In recent years, I’ve had relatives out of work. I’ve had folks who are trying to find jobs for up to a year. We have, I think, a pretty good sense of the pain level.

But I also think it’s important to say that, of leaders, that you find solutions. I don’t think people hire one of us just to say, “I sympathize with you.” I think they hire us to say, “This is how we will solve it.” And I would say every person at this table is more likely to solve those problems than Barack Obama.

ROSE: Congressman Paul?

(APPLAUSE)

PAUL: My motivation, my goal has always been to promote liberty, believing that’s what made America great. If we want prosperity, if we want peace, we understand what the cause of liberty is all about, and we have to understand that a free-market system and sound money gives us the prosperity.

And it also is the humanitarian program, because once you get into the welfare state and the socialist state, it all backfires. So if you care about people, you believe in liberty, that’s what made America great. That’s what I want to restore.

ROSE: Senator Santorum?

SANTORUM: (inaudible) I grew up in a steel town. And one of the things that I realized is that, when manufacturing left, a lot of the people in the middle income of America left.

SANTORUM: And what we — I just read a recent study that actually income mobility from the bottom two quintiles up into the — up into the middle income is actually greater, the mobility in Europe than it is in America today.

We need to change that. And the way you do it is by — by creating jobs in the manufacturing sector of the economy, which is what I will do. It will create that income mobility. It’ll create the opportunity for semi-skilled and lower-skilled and — and skilled workers to rise in society. It will take those people off of occupy and bring them into the workplace, where they can — they can family- sustaining jobs.

ROSE: Governor Huntsman?

HUNTSMAN: Not only have I seen and participated in the creation of a great family business, where jobs mean something, but I presided over a state that delivered the lowest level of unemployment in this country, 2.4 percent. And when I saw on the faces of people who had the dignity of a job, you knew what it meant to moms and dads and entire families.

And when Sheriff Hardy, who is here in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, when he talks about his deputies who for the first time are handing out foreclosure notices to the middle class, and they’re seeing a rise in suicides, they’re seeing a rise in spousal abuse, they’re seeing a rise in substance abuse, it gives you a sense of what it means to have the dignity of a job. We don’t have enough of them in this country.

ROSE: Governor Perry?

PERRY: Charlie, as the son of tenant farmers and a young man who had the opportunity to wear the uniform of my country, and then the great privilege to serve as the governor of the second-largest state in this country, I’ve got not only the CEO experience, but also working with the private sector to create the jobs.

And that’s what people are begging for. Talking to that out-of- work rig worker out in the Gulf of Mexico today, they’re begging for someone to make America America again.

ROSE: Governor Romney?

ROMNEY: You know, we’ve talked about crisis this evening, economic crisis, people out of work, incomes going down. But there’s another crisis, and that’s that people wonder whether their future will be brighter for the kids than it’s been for them. It’s always been what it means to be American, to have a greater degree of confidence in the future than even what we’ve enjoyed ourselves.

And what we have to do is to have leadership in this country, like the men and women at this table, who believe in America. My experience will help us get our values strong, get our economy strong, and make sure that our military is second-to-none in the world.

I’m absolutely devoted to making America the strongest nation on Earth. And if you don’t want that as your objective, don’t vote for me. We already have a president that doesn’t make that his first — first objective.

ROSE: All right. I want to thank each and all of the candidates who sat at this table this evening. As I said at the beginning, I believe in tables, and I believe that places where you can come and talk about the country and its future and your beliefs in important.

Secondly, I want to thank Karen and thank Julianna for joining us. I want to thank all of you who came here this evening to hear these candidates. Thank you very much. For those at home, thank you for watching. A post-debate program will follow this. We thank you for your time. Good night.

(APPLAUSE)

END

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Tags: Audit The Fed, Federal Reserve, HR 2786, National Debt, Ron Paul

H.R. 2768 Would Cancel $1.6 TRILLION in Treasury Debt Held by Fed

Posted on 01 August 2011 by admin

H.R. 2768: To cancel public debt held by the Federal Reserve System and to lower the public debt limit by by an equal amount

112^th Congress: 2011-2012

Sponsor: Rep. Ronald Paul [R-TX14]

To cancel public debt held by the Federal Reserve System and to lower the public debt limit by an equal amount.

Status: This bill is in the first step in the legislative process. Explanation: Introduced bills and resolutions first go to committees that deliberate, investigate, and revise them before they go to general debate. The majority of bills and resolutions never make it out of committee. [Last Updated: Aug 2, 2011 6:24AM]

COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS

Committees are like “mini Congresses”. Most bills begin by being considered by one or several congressional committees which may “report” the bill favorably or unfavorably to the Senate or House as a whole allowing it to receive consideration by the full body and move forward, or may fail to consider a bill at all preventing the bill from moving forward. Most bills never receive any committee consideration and are never reported out. House bills start in House committees and enter Senate committees only after being passed by the House and received by the Senate, and similarly for Senate bills.

Information on committee proceedings is notoriously opaque: committees vary in what information they make public and often do not provide basic public information such as the results of votes electronically or in an understandable format. Furthermore, if your Member of Congress does not sit on any committee relevant to this bill, you generally have no opportunity to voice your opinion on the bill while the bill is receiving its most important consideration.

The bill has been referred to the following committees:

House Ways and Means

The Hill reports Rep. Ron Paul introduced legislation on Monday to cancel the $1.6 trillion of federal government debt held by Federal Reserve. The Hill writes,

Paul has argued for the last few weeks that the idea represents a quick way to make the growing fiscal crisis more manageable. Under his bill, H.R. 2768, the $1.6 trillion that the Treasury owes to the Federal Reserve would disappear.

The Federal Reserve began buying Treasury bonds in earnest late last year as part of its effort to keep long-term interest rates down. But Paul has argued that Fed purchases of Treasury debt represent a debt that the government owes to itself, and one that also leads to an unwanted and inflationary increase in the money supply…

“If the federal government cannot cut spending and bring the budget back into balance, the Fed undoubtedly will be forced to simply monetize trillions of dollars in Treasury debt, which is nothing more than a stealth form of default,” Paul said back in May.

Wow! Our Asian creditors better beware of xenophobic Congressman. What Bizarro times in which we live.

source: http://www.businessinsider.com/hr-2768-would-cancel-16-tn-in-treasury-debt-held-by-fed-2011-8#ixzz1TwAcX51T

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Archive | Economy

Tags: Federal, Ron Paul, Taxes

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Contents

[edit]Economy

[edit]Lower spending and smaller government

[edit]The Plan To Restore America (Budget for 2013)

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Tags: 2012 Liberty Candidates, Debates, Michele Bachmann, Republican, Ron Paul