Rick Perry on Corporations Republican Governor (TX)

Reduce business' tax burden & regulatory climate

PERRY: What we have done in the state of Texas over the course of the last decade is to lower that tax burden on the small businessmen and women, have a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable, and sweeping tort reform that we passed in 2003 that told personal injury trial lawyers, don't come to Texas, because you are not going to be suing our doctors frivolously.

That's the way you get the government off of the back of small businessmen and women. And that's the way you free up those small business entrepreneurs, where they know that they can risk their capital and have a chance to have a return on investment.

If it will work in the state of Texas, it will work in Washington, D.C. And that's exactly what I'm going bring to Washington when I go there in January of 2013.

Free up small businessmen and -women to risk capital

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.

Texas is the land of freedom from over-regulation

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.