PAUL: [T]he consumers of America ... don't need the federal government hounding them and putting so much regulations on that our car industry has gone overseas.
(APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR: Mr. Speaker ... you wrote the foreword to Rick Perry's most recent book ... Does that mean, in terms of job creation credentials, he has your proxy?
GINGRICH: No, but it means that, if he wants to write another book, I'll write another foreword.
(:LAUGHTER)
GINGRICH: ... this is a president so committed to class warfare and so committed to bureaucratic socialism that he can't possibly be effective in jobs.
(APPLAUSE)
ROMNEY: [O]ne thing I'd do on day one ... is direct my secretary of health and human services to put out an executive order granting a waiver from Obamacare to all 50 states. It is bad law, it will not work, and I'll get that done in day one.
(APPLAUSE)
HUNTSMAN:
This is a perfect example of where presidential leadership matters. To have a president who would actually walk out from behind the TelePrompTer, get out of the way, speak from your heart and soul, just tell us about...
(APPLAUSE)
... just tell us about where you want this country to go ...
PAUL: OK, you can buy a gallon of gasoline today for a silver dime. A silver dime is worth $3.50. It's all about inflation and too many regulations.
(APPLAUSE)
PAUL: First off, you know, the governor of Texas criticized the governor of Massachusetts for Romneycare, but he wrote a really fancy letter supporting Hillarycare.
PERRY: Speaking of letters, I was more interested in the one that you wrote to Ronald Reagan back and said I'm going to quit the party because of the things you believe in.
PAUL: Oh, I need an answer on that.
(LAUGHTER)
REAGAN (in video clip): Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
(APPLAUSE)
MID-DEBATE SOCIAL SECURITY MELEE:
MODERATOR: Vice President Cheney though said [Social Security is] not a Ponzi scheme. You say it is.
PERRY: Absolutely. ... I don't care what anyone says. We know that, the American people know that, but more importantly, those 25-and-30-year-olds know that.
(APPLAUSE)
ROMNEY: ... [U]nder no circumstances would I ever say by any measure it's a failure. It is working for millions of Americans, and I'll keep it working for millions of Americans. And we've got to do that as a party.
(APPLAUSE)
PERRY: ... You cannot keep the status quo in place and not call it anything other than a Ponzi scheme. It is. That is what it is. ... [M]aybe it's time to have some provocative language in this country and say things like, let's get America working again and do whatever it takes to make that happen.
(APPLAUSE)
CAIN: ... Rather than continuing to talk about how broken it is, let's just fix it using the Chilean model.
(APPLAUSE)
PERRY (defending his stance on HPV vaccinations) : [A]t the end of the day, I will always err on the side of saving lives.
(APPLAUSE)
ROMNEY: This president is a nice guy. He doesn't have a clue how to get this country working again. And -- and...
(APPLAUSE)
PAUL: We're spending ... $20 billion a year for air conditioning in Afghanistan and Iraq in the tents ... Cut that $20 billion ... take $10 off the debt, and put $10 into FEMA or whoever else needs it, child health care or whatever. But I'll tell you what, if we did that and took the air conditioning out of the Green Zone, our troops would come home, and that would make me happy.
(APPLAUSE)
ROMNEY: We've got 4.7 million people waiting in line legally. Let those people come in first, and those that are here illegally, they shouldn't have a special deal.
(APPLAUSE)
GINGRICH: We should make English the official language of government. We should insist ...
(APPLAUSE)
BACHMANN: [O]ur immigration law worked beautifully back in the 1950s ... people had to demonstrate that they had money in their pocket, they had no contagious diseases, they weren't a felon. They had to agree to learn to speak the English language, they had to learn American history and the Constitution. And the one thing they had to promise is that they would not become a burden on the American taxpayer. That's what we have to enforce.
{APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR: I want to go back to your comments on 9/11 ... Do you think we're safer today?
HUNTSMAN: I think we've lost our confidence as a country. I think we have had our innocence shattered. I think, 10 years later, we look at the situation and we say, we have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. This is not about nation-building in Afghanistan. This is about nation-building at home. Our core is broken. We are weak. We have got to strengthen ourselves. I say we've got to bring those troops home.
(APPLAUSE)
PERRY: And I might add that [Obama] kept Gitmo open against the will of his base, and I'm glad he did that. America's safer for it.
(APPLAUSE)
BACHMANN: I sit on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We deal with the nation's classified secrets. And I firmly believe that the president of the United States has weakened us militarily and put us more at risk than at any time.
(APPLAUSE)
BACHMANN: Take a look at the oil revenues. We don't know if they will get in the hands of people who will have designs on radical Islam and the implication of a global caliphate. These are very serious issues, and I think it was wrong for the president of the United States to go into Libya.
(APPLAUSE)
PERRY: Well, I do agree that there is -- the science is -- is not settled on this. The idea that we would put Americans' economy at -- at -- at jeopardy based on scientific theory that's not settled yet, to me, is just -- is nonsense. I mean, it -- I mean -- and I tell somebody, I said, just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said here is the fact, Galileo got outvoted for a spell. But the fact is, to put America's economic future in jeopardy, asking us to cut back in areas that would have monstrous economic impact on this country is not good economics and I will suggest to you is not necessarily good science. Find out what the science truly is before you start putting the American economy in jeopardy.
(APPLAUSE)
GINGRICH: We could liberate an area the size of Texas for minerals and other development. That would raise even more revenue, not the normal Washington viewpoint.
(APPLAUSE)
ROMNEY: And that's why I've proposed that anybody who's earning $200,000 a year and less ought to be able to save their money tax-free, no tax on interest, dividends, or capital gains. Let people save their money, invest in America, and not have to give more money to the government. The middle class needs our help.
(APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR: Governor Perry, a question about Texas. Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. Have you...
(APPLAUSE)
Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?
PERRY: No, sir. I've never struggled with that at all ... [I]n the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed.
(APPLAUSE)
CAIN: The president simply does not understand that the business sector is the engine for economic growth.
(APPLAUSE)
PAUL: So this whole idea that there's something wrong with people who don't lavish out free stuff from the federal government somehow aren't compassionate enough. I resist those accusations.
(APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR: That wraps up our live coverage of this portion of the debate from Southern California.
(APPLAUSE) |
