PERRY: And he's going to pay for them all with raising your taxes. That is the issue. He had $800 billion worth of stimulus in the first round of stimulus. It created zero jobs, $400-plus billion dollars in this package. And I can do the math on that one. Half of zero jobs is going to be zero jobs.
Q: So whenever the president supports tax cuts, that has to be balanced with spending cuts?
PERRY: I would suggest to you that people are tired of spending money we don't have on programs we don't want.
BACHMANN: As president, I would not be reappointing Ben Bernanke. With the $700 billion bailout, the Federal Reserve was making loans to private American businesses. And not only that, they're making loans to foreign governments.
Q: Do you agree with Gov. Perry that Ben Bernanke is engaged in treason?
BACHMANN: Well, that's for Gov. Perry to make that decision. My opinion is, I would not reappoint Ben Bernanke.
Q: You stand by those remarks, Governor?
PERRY: I said that, if you are allowing the Federal Reserve to be used for political purposes, that it would be almost treasonous. I think that is a very clear statement of fact. I am not a fan of the current chairman allowing that Federal Reserve to be used to cover up bad fiscal policy by this administration. And that, I will suggest to you, is what we have seen.
PERRY: And he's going to pay for them all with raising your taxes. That is the issue. He had $800 billion worth of stimulus in the first round of stimulus. It created zero jobs. This president does not understand how to free up the small businessmen and women or, for that matter, Wall Street. You give people the opportunity to risk their capital by lowering the tax burden on them, by lowering the regulatory climate, and you will see an American economy that takes off like a rocket ship. And that's what we need to be focusing on in this country, freeing up the small businessmen and women to do what they know how to do, which is risk their capital and give them half a chance to have an opportunity to have a return on that investment, and they will go risk their capital. Quit the spending. Give clear regulatory relief and reform the tax code.
PERRY: While I've been governor, we have cut taxes by $14 billion, 65 different pieces of legislation. You may not have seen them, Representative Paul, but the fact of the matter is, there are people coming to Texas for five years in a row, the number one destination. They're not coming because we're overtaxing them. They're coming to Texas because they know there's still a land of freedom in America, freedom from over-taxation, freedom from over-litigation and freedom from over-regulation, and it's called Texas. We need to do the same thing for America.
ROMNEY: Oh, sure. But if you're dealt four aces that doesn't make you necessarily a great poker player. Under Ann Richards, job growth in Texas was under 2.5% a year; under George Bush 3% a year; under Rick Perry it's been 1% a year.
PERRY: The fact is the state of Texas has led the nation. While the current resident of the White House is overseeing the loss of 2.5 million jobs, Texas during my period of governor has created over a million jobs. And we did that during some pretty tough economic period. One of the things that's really important was tort reform that we passed. And you want to talk about some powerful job creation? Tell the trial lawyers to get out of your state and to quit costing businessmen and women. That's what needs to happen in the states, and it's also what needs to happen at the federal level, passing federal tort reform at those federal levels.
PERRY: No. It's a $17 trillion hole that we have in our budget we've got to deal with. And I think that's the issue of, how do you find the savings and still deliver the services? For instance, in Texas, we combined a substantial amount of our health and human services from 10 down to five agencies. We put an Office of Inspector General into place, and we saved over $5.3 billion.
Q: But if you were president, you wouldn't repeal prescription drug benefits for seniors under Medicare?
PERRY: That's what I said when I started the conversation.
Q: [to Romney] How about you?
ROMNEY: I wouldn't repeal it. I'd reform Medicare and reform Medicaid and reform Social Security to get them on a sustainable basis, not for current retirees, but for those in their 20s and 30s and early 50s.
PERRY: It was. And indeed, if I had it to do over again, I would have done it differently. I would have gone to the legislature, worked with them. But what was driving me was, obviously, making a difference about young people's lives. Cervical cancer is a horrible way to die. And I happen to think that what we were trying to do was to clearly send a message that we're going to give moms and dads the opportunity to make that decision with parental opt-out. Parental rights are very important in state of Texas. We do it on a long list of vaccines that are made, but on that particular issue, I will tell you that I made a mistake by not going to the legislature first.
Q: [to Perry]: Was what you signed a mandate?
PERRY: No, sir it wasn't. It was very clear. It had an opt-out. And at the end of the day, this was about trying to stop a cancer and giving the parental option to opt out of that. And at the end of the day, you may criticize me about the way that I went about it, but at the end of the day, I am always going to err on the side of life. And that's what this was really all about for me.
BACHMANN: In the midst of this executive order there is a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate.
PERRY: The company was Merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them. I raise about $30 million. And if you're saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I'm offended.
ROMNEY: Absolutely.
Q: [to Perry]: Can a state like Massachusetts go ahead and pass health care reform, including mandates? Is that a good idea, if Massachusetts wants to do it?
PERRY: Well, that's what Gov. Romney wanted to do, so that's fine. But the fact of the matter is, that was the plan that President Obama has said himself was the model for Obamacare. And I think any of us who know that that piece of legislation will draw a line between the doctor/patient relationship, that will cost untold billions of dollars, is not right for this country. And frankly, I don't think it was right for Massachusetts when you look at what it's costing the people of Massachusetts today. But at the end of the day, that was their call. So, from a just purely states get to decide what they want to do, I agree with that. And in the state of Texas, we don't think that's the way we want to go.
PERRY: If you've been in Texas for 3 years, if you're working towards your college degree, and if you are working and pursuing citizenship, you pay in-state tuition there. And the bottom line is it doesn't make any difference what the sound of your last name is. That is the American way. No matter how you got into that state, from the standpoint of your parents brought you there or what have you. I'm proud that we are having those individuals be contributing members of our society rather than telling them, you go be on the government dole.
Q: Is that basically the DREAM Act?
PERRY: I'm not for the DREAM Act that they are talking about in D.C.; that is amnesty. What we did in the state of Texas was clearly a states right issue. We were clearly sending a message to young people, that we believe in you. That if you want to live in Texas, that we're going to allow you the opportunity to be contributing members.
PERRY: We basically had a decision to make. Are we going to give people an incentive to be contributing members of this society or are we going to tell them no, we're going to put you on the government dole? In the state of Texas, and this is a states right issue, if in Massachusetts you didn't want to do it, that's fine. But in the state of Texas where Mexico has a clear and a long relationship with this state, we decided it was in the best interest of those young people to give them the opportunity to go on to college and to have the opportunity. They're pursuing citizenship in this country rather than saying, we're going to put you over here and put you on the government dole for the rest of your life. We don't think that was the right thing to do. And it's working. And it's working well in the state of Texas.
PERRY: First off, the people who are on Social Security today need to understand something. Slam-dunk guaranteed, that program is going to be there in place for those. Those individuals that are moving towards being on Social Security, that program's going to be there for them when they arrive there. But the idea that we have not had the courage to stand up and look Americans in the face, young mid-career professionals or kids that are my children's age and look them in the eye and say, listen, this is a broken system. It has been called a Ponzi scheme by many people long before me. But no one's had the courage to stand up and say, here is how we're going to reform it.
PERRY: If what you're trying to say is that back in the '30s and the '40s that the federal government made all the right decision, I disagree with you. And it's time for us to get back to the constitution and a program that's been there 70 or 80 years, obviously we're not going to take that program away. But for people to stand up and support what they did in the '30s or what they're doing in the 2010s is not appropriate for America.
PERRY: I think we ought to have a conversation.
ROMNEY: We're having that right now, governor. We're running for president.
PERRY: The issue is, are there ways to move the states into Social Security for state employees or for retirees? We did in the state of Texas back in the 1980s. I think those types of thoughtful conversations with America, rather than trying to scare seniors like you're doing and other people, it's time to have a legitimate conversation in this country about how to fix that program where it's not bankrupt and our children actually know that there's going to be a retirement program there for them.
ROMNEY: Suggesting that Social Security should no longer be a federal program and returned to the states and unconstitutional is frightening to seniors.
HUNTSMAN: We don't need 100,000 troops in Afghanistan nation-building at a time when this nation needs to be built. The time has come for us to get out of Afghanistan.
PERRY: I agree with Gov. Huntsman when we talk about it's time to bring our young men and women home and as soon and obviously as safely as we can. But it's also really important for us to continue to have a presence there. And I think the entire conversation about, how do we deliver our aid to those countries, and is it best spent with 100,000 military who have the target on their back in Afghanistan, I don't think so at this particular point in time. I think the best way for us to be able to impact that country is to make a transition to where that country's military is going to be taking care of their people, bring our young men and women home, and continue to help them build the infrastructure that we need, whether it's schools or otherwise.
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The above quotations are from 2011 GOP debate in Tampa, Florida, sponsored by the Tea Party Express.
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