By Steve Rhodes
“Despite being the third debate in the same number of weeks, the Fox News/Google-organized debate last Thursday night clocked in as the most-watched debate on television of the 2012 cycle, and netted Fox News its high-rated primetime hour this year,” Mediaite reports.
Let’s take a look. This transcript edited for clarity and comedy.
BRET BAIER: What makes this debate unique is that not only did you submit the questions, you voted on them, letting everyone know which questions you think the candidates should be asked tonight.
RHODES: Of course, those using the finest tuned SEO strategies had their questions rise to the top. Plus, a lot of Santorum questions for some reason.
BAIER: Governor Perry, the thing we heard from most people who submitted questions is they wanted specifics. They wanted details. Most of the people on the stage, opponents, have a specific jobs plan on paper that people can read. Where is your jobs plan?
RHODES: For now it’s just a theory. It has a lot of gaps in it. But it’s evolving.
BAIER: Governor Romney, you have a specific plan. In recent days, actually, the top rising search of your name on Google actually dealt with people searching for specifics of that plan.
RHODES: That’s because he named it Santorum.
BAIER: But a Wall Street Journal editorial recently called your 59-point economic plan, quote, “Surprisingly timid and tactical considering our economic predicament.” Specifically, the editorial board had a problem with you picking the $200,000 income threshold for eliminating interest dividends and capital gains taxes, writing that you are afraid of President Obama’s, quote, “class warfare rhetoric.” How do you respond to that criticism?
ROMNEY: President Obama has done everything wrong.
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ROMNEY: I know what you have to do to make America the most attractive place in the world for business.
RHODES: Mandate health insurance?
ROMNEY: Government and regulators have to be allies of business.
RHODES: Because the revolving door industry is recession-proof.
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BAIER: So, sir, what do you consider rich? Is half a million dollars rich, a million dollars rich? At what income does someone reach your definition of rich?
ROMNEY: I don’t try to define who’s rich and who’s not rich. I want everybody in America to be rich.
RHODES: Doesn’t that make you a socialist?
ROMNEY: I know that the president’s party wants to try and take from some people and give to the others.
RHODES: And I’m sick of Wall Street getting everything and Main Street getting screwed!
ROMNEY: The way to lift America is to give people opportunity and to let them enjoy the freedoms that have made us the envy of the world.
RHODES: If we’re the envy of the world, why do we have to spend so much on defense?
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MEGYN KELLY: Congresswoman Bachmann, after the last debate a young member of the California Tea Party said he didn’t feel that he had had his question fully answered.
RHODES: And that question was, were you retarded by a vaccine?
KELLY: And the question was, “Out of every dollar I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?”
BACHMANN: And after the debate I talked to that young man. And I said I wish I could have answered that question because I want to tell you what my answer is. I think you earned every dollar. You should get to keep every dollar that you earn. That’s your money. That’s not the government’s money. That’s the whole point. Barack Obama seems to think that when we earn money, it belongs to him, and we’re lucky just to keep a little bit of it. I don’t think that at all. I think when people make money, it’s their money.
RHODES: So who should pay your salary?
BACHMANN: Obviously we have to give money back to the government so that we can run the government.
RHODES: So he can’t keep every dollar.
BACHMANN: What does work is private solutions that are permanent in the private sector.
RHODES: Maybe she’ll answer that young man in the next debate.
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KELLY: Senator Santorum, next question is for you.
RHODES: And as you have just seen, feel free to not answer it.
KELLY: As this map from Google depicts, 22 states in the U.S. are right-to-work states. In the other 28, if a business is a union shop, you have to join the union if you want to work there. Now, this next question is one of the top-voted questions online, and it comes to us via YouTube from Yates Wilburn of Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Q: With unemployment numbers remaining above 9 percent, union issues such as the National Labor Relations Board lawsuit against Boeing and several union battles in state legislatures across the country have become incredibly relevant to the national discussion. For all the candidates: Would you support some form of a federal right-to-work law allowing all workers to choose whether or not to join a union?
SANTORUM: I – I – I think the most important area that we have to focus in on when it comes to unions is public employee unions.
RHODES: That wasn’t the question, but apparently answering questions are voluntary – just like Ron Paul’s proposed air traffic control system.
SANTORUM: That’s the area of unionization that’s growing the fastest, and it’s costing us the most money. We’ve seen these battles on the state level, where unions have really bankrupted states from pension plans to here in the federal level for example, 30 to 40 percent union employees make above their private sector equivalents. I do not believe that state, federal or local workers should be involved in unions. And I would actually support a bill that says that we should not have public employee unions for the purposes of wages and benefits to be negotiated.
RHODES: I propose union rules forcing candidates to answer questions.
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KELLY: Speaker Gingrich, you criticized extending unemployment benefits, saying that you were, quote, “opposed to giving people money for doing nothing.” Benefits have already been extended to 99 weeks, and they are set to expire soon. If you were president today, would you extend unemployment benefits? And if not, how do you justify that to the millions of unemployed Americans who are looking in earnest and whose families are depending on those checks?
GINGRICH: Well, what I’ve said is that I think unemployment compensation should be tied directly to a training program. And if you don’t have a job and you need help, then in order for us to give you the help, you should sign up for a business-led training program so that that 99 weeks becomes an investment in human capital, giving us the best-trained workforce in the world.
RHODES: And with no jobs to place them in, we’ll have the most skilled unemployment lines in the world.
GINGRICH: But I believe it is fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing. That’s why we had welfare reform.
RHODES: I thought we had welfare reform so Bill Clinton could get re-elected.
GINGRICH: And frankly, the easiest thing for Congress to do if the president sends up a proposed extension is to allow all 50 states to experiment at the state level with developing a mandatory training component of unemployment compensation so you’d have 50 parallel experiments and not pretend that Washington knows best or that Washington can solve the problem by itself.
RHODES: Let’s pretend Illinois knows best instead.
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CHRIS WALLACE: Governor Huntsman, in Utah you offered millions of dollars in tax credits to promote clean energy. In June you said that, as president, you would subsidize natural gas companies. How is that different from the Obama administration, which gave the solar panel company Solyndra a half a billion dollars in federal loan guarantees? And as we all know, that company ended up bankrupt and we taxpayers ended up on the hook.
HUNTSMAN: We have learned that subsidies don’t work and that we can no longer afford them.
RHODES: Tell that to Pat Quinn and Rahm Emanuel.
WALLACE: But just a 30-second follow-up, sir, in June you told the New Hampshire Union Leader that, as president, you would subsidize the natural gas industry.
HUNTSMAN: I would be willing to begin an effort, so long as there was a rapid phaseout.
RHODES: Like my first answer.
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WALLACE: Mr. Cain, I want to follow up on your 9-9-9 . . .
RHODES: Drink!
WALLACE: . . . plan for economic growth. That’s a 9 percent flat corporate tax, a 9 percent flat income tax and a new 9 percent national sales tax. Now conservatives usually say repeal the income tax before you impose a new tax. Isn’t there a danger with your 9-9-9 plan, with these three taxes, that some government down the road after President Cain is going to increase three forms of taxation on Americans?
CAIN: No, there is no danger in that.
RHODES: Because there won’t be a President Cain.
CAIN: This economy is on life support. That’s why my 9-9-9 plan is a bold solution. It starts with throw out the current tax code and pass the 9 business flat tax, the 9 personal income and the 9 percent national sales tax. This is the most important part. It eliminates or replaces corporate income tax, personal income tax, capital gains tax, as well as the estate tax. Then it treats all businesses the same. And the people who are paying only payroll tax, 15.3 (percent), that 15.3 they don’t have to pay. Now they only have to pay that 9 percent. And unlike Governor Romney’s plan, my plan throws out the old one. He’s still hooked to the current tax code. That dog won’t hunt.
RHODES: Because he’s 9-years-old.
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WALLACE: Congressman Paul, I want to show you the video that got the most votes of all the video questions submitted to YouTube. And this one comes, as you can see, from Brandy and Michael in Spencer, Indiana.
Q: There’s growing concern among Americans about the size and the scope of the federal government and its infringement upon state and individual rights.
Q: If you’re elected president, how do you plan to restore the 10th Amendment, hold the federal government only to those enumerated powers in the Constitution and allow states to govern themselves?
PAUL: Well, obviously it would take more than one individual.
RHODES: Unless that individual was Herman Cain.
PAUL: But the responsibility of the president would be to veto every single bill that violates the 10th Amendment.
RHODES: Brandy and Michael don’t know what a veto is. They weren’t exactly star students at Spencer High – though they did plead with the city council that now was their time to dance.
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BAIER: Governor Johnson, same question to you about the 10th Amendment, with this added: You are an outspoken libertarian. What makes you a better choice for libertarian Republicans that Congressman Paul?
JOHNSON: I started a one-man handyman business in Albuquerque in 1974 and grew it to over a thousand employees . . .
RHODES: This is like a Bud Light commercial: Here we go . . .
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KELLY: Governor Perry, Governor Romney has been hammering you on your idea of turning Social Security back to the states, repeatedly. Can you explain specifically how 50 separate Social Security systems are supposed to work?
RHODES: Sort of like a Ponzi scheme.
PERRY: The bottom line is, is we never said that we were going to move this back to the states. What we said was we ought to have as one of the options – the state employees and the state retirees, they being able to go off of the current system onto one that the states would operate themselves. As a matter of fact, in Massachusetts, his home state, almost 96 percent of the people who are on that program, retirees and state people, are off of the Social Security program. So having that option out there to have the states – Louisiana does it – almost every state has their state employees and the retirees – that are options to go off of Social Security. That makes sense. It’s an option that we should have.
RHODES: It sounds like we already do!
ROMNEY: Well, it’s different than what the governor put in his book just, what, six months ago and what you said on your interviews following the book. So I don’t know – there’s a Rick Perry out there that’s saying that it – almost to quote, it says that the federal government shouldn’t be in the pension business, that it’s unconstitutional, and it should be returned to the states. So you’d better find that Rick Perry and get him to stop saying that.
RHODES: He’s busy right now injecting girls with vaccines.
PERRY: Speaking of books and talking about being able to have things in your books and back and forth, your economic adviser talked about “Romneycare” and how that was an absolute bust, and it was exactly what “Obamacare” was all about. As a matter of fact, between books, your hard copy book, you said that it was exactly what the American people needed to have – that’s “Romneycare” – given to them as you had in Massachusetts. Then in your paperback, you took that line out. So, speaking of not getting it straight in your book, sir . . .
ROMNEY: I actually wrote my book, and in my book I said no such thing. What I said – actually, when I put my health care plan together – and I met with Dan Balz, for instance, of The Washington Post. He said, is this a plan that if you were president you would put on the nation, have the whole nation adopt it? I said, absolutely not. I said, this is a state plan for a state, it is not a national plan.
And it’s fine for you to retreat from your own words in your own book, but please don’t try and make me retreat from the words that I wrote in my book. I stand by what I wrote. I believe in what I did.
KELLY: Congresswoman Bachmann has said that President Obama has “ushered in socialism during his first term. “Governor Perry says that this administration is “hell-bent toward taking America toward a socialist country.” When Speaker Gingrich was asked if he believes President Obama is a socialist, he responded, “Sure, of course he is.” Do you, Governor Romney, believe that President Obama is a socialist?
ROMNEY: Let me tell you the title that I want to hear said about President Obama, and that is “former President Barack Obama.”
RHODES: His socialism for Wall Street failed, and he lost re-election!
ROMNEY: Let me tell you this, what President Obama is, is a big-spending liberal. And he takes his political inspiration from Europe and from the socialist democrats in Europe.
RHODES: Really? That Obama must be with that other Rick Perry.
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KELLY: Governor Huntsman, this next one’s for you. This week, President Obama proposed a tax hike on millionaires, saying that they need to pay their “fair share.” According to an August Gallup poll, 66 percent of American adults actually believe that a tax hike on the wealthy is a good idea to help tackle our mounting debt. Is there any scenario under which you could side with the 66 percent of people who believe that it is a good idea to raise taxes on millionaires?
HUNTSMAN: We’re not going to raise taxes. This is the worst time to be raising taxes, and everybody knows that.
We need to grow. We need to be reminded of what Ronald Reagan told us so beautifully, that which is great about America – freedom.
RHODES: Right before he raised taxes seven times.
KELLY: Mr. Cain, this question was one of the top 10 video questions voted on by people online, and it comes to us from Lee Doren of Arlington, Virginia, via YouTube.
Q: My question is, if you were forced to eliminate one department from the federal government, which one would you eliminate and why?
CAIN: I would start with the EPA. It’s out of control. Now I know that makes some people nervous, but the EPA has gone wild.
RHODES: Especially on spring break.
CAIN: The fact that they have a regulation that goes into effect January 1st, 2012 to regulate dust says that they’ve gone too far.
RHODES: Maybe the EPA should regulate Herman Cain’s manure instead.
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KELLY: Every day the federal government takes in about $6 billion, but spends about 10. So we borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend. Now I understand that you believe that if we modernize the federal government that it will help a lot; it will saves billions. But given the resistance that we’ve seen in Washington, the seeming intractable resistance we’ve seen in Washington to spending cuts, how can you possibly slash spending by 40 percent? How can you do it?
GINGRICH: Well, the way you described the question, you can’t.
RHODES: Kobayashi Maru!
GINGRICH: I believe with leadership, we can balance the budget. I did it for four consecutive years.
RHODES: Who knew Republicans in 2011 would take credit for Bill Clinton’s presidency. I suppose Newt got those blow jobs too.
GINGRICH: We went from $2.2 trillion projected deficit over a decade to $2.7 trillion projected surplus when I left.
RHODES: Suck it, Boehner!
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BAIER: The next question is for all of the candidates. It comes to us from Atlanta, Georgia, on the topic of education.
Q: Hi, I’m Stella Lohmann from Atlanta, Georgia. I’ve taught in both public and private schools and now as a substitute teacher. I see administrators more focused on satisfying federal mandates, retaining funding, trying not to get sued, while the teachers are jumping through hoops trying to serve up a one-size-fits-all education for their students. What, as president, would you seriously do about what I consider a massive overreach of big government into the classroom?
JOHNSON: I am going to promise to advocate the abolishment of the federal Department of Education.
SANTORUM: Yeah.
GINGRICH: You need to dramatically shrink the federal Department of Education.
RHODES: To the size of a classroom.
PAUL: If you care about your children, you’ll get the federal government out of the business of educating our kids.
RHODES: And replace it with the nation’s highly effective state and local governments.
PERRY: There is one person on this stage that is for Obama’s Race to the Top, and that is Governor Romney. He said so just this last week. And I think that is an important difference between the rest of the people on this stage and one person that wants to run for the presidency. Being in favor of the Obama Race to the Top, that is not conservative.
ROMNEY: Nice try. (Laughter.) Let me tell you what I think I’d do. One, education has to be held at the local and state level, not at the federal level. We need to get the federal government out of education.
And secondly, all the talk about we need smaller classroom size. Look: That’s promoted by the teacher’s unions to hire more teachers.
RHODES: I mean, the student to teacher ratio at Cranbrook was 8:1!
ROMNEY: We looked at what drives good education in our state. What we found is the best thing for education is great teachers. Hire the very best and brightest to be teachers, pay them properly, make sure that you have school choice, test your kids to see if they’re meeting the standards that need to be met and make sure that you put the parents in charge. And as president, I’ll stand up to the national teacher’s unions.
RHODES: Just like Rahm.
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BAIER: Did Governor Perry say something that wasn’t true?
ROMNEY: I’m not sure exactly what he’s saying.
RHODES: No one is.
ROMNEY: I don’t support any particular program that he’s describing. I think that the secretary of education, Arne Duncan, is doing a good thing by saying, you know what? We should insist that teachers get evaluated and that schools have the opportunity to see which teachers are succeeding and which ones are failing and that teachers that are not successful are removed from the classroom. Those ideas by Secretary Duncan, that’s a lot better than what the president did, which is cutting off school choice in the Washington, D.C., schools.
BACHMANN: I would go over to the Department of Education, I’d turn out the lights, I’d lock the door . . .
RHODES: And accidentally drop a match on a bunch of oily rags in the basement.
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WALLACE: Governor Romney, in Massachusetts, you vetoed legislation to provide in-state tuition rates to the children of illegals. Governor Perry of course signed the Texas Dream Act to do exactly that.
But what about Governor Perry’s argument that it’s better you get these kids an education and to get them jobs than to consign them just to being a burden on the state?
ROMNEY: It’s an argument I just can’t follow. I got to be honest with you. I don’t see how it is that a state like Texas, to go to the University of Texas, if you’re an illegal alien, you get an in-state tuition discount. You know how much that is? It’s $22,000 a year. Four years of college, almost a $100,000 discount, if you’re an illegal alien, to go to University of Texas.
If you’re a United States citizen from any one of the other 49 states, you have to pay $100,000 more. That doesn’t make sense to me. And that kind of magnet draws people into this country to get that education, to get the $100,000 break. It makes no sense.
We have to have a fence. We have to have enough Border Patrol agents to secure the fence. We have to have a system like E-Verify that employers can use to identify who’s here legally and illegally. We have to crack down on employers that hire people that are here illegally. And we have to turn off the magnet of extraordinary government benefits like a $100,000 tax credit or discount for going to University of Texas.That shouldn’t be allowed. It makes no sense at all.
WALLACE: Governor Perry, Dave Hollenback of Arizona sent this: “To date, it appears that you have not tried to stop the illegals from coming. We have high unemployment and a considerable amount of jobs going to illegals. Are you going to exert an effort to stop the abuse of U.S. citizens by illegals?”
Now, last year more than 16,000 children of illegals, young people in Texas, took advantage of your in-state tuition rate. Speak to that issue. And just generally, how do you feel being criticized by a number of these other candidates on the stage for being too soft on immigration, sir?
PERRY: Well, I feel pretty normal getting criticized by these folks.
RHODES: Instead of the wild-eyed right-wing nutcase I usually feel like.
PERRY: But the fact of the matter is this: There is nobody on this stage who has spent more time working on border security than I have. For a decade I’ve been the governor of a state with a 1,200-mile border with Mexico. We put $400 million of our taxpayer money into securing that border. We’ve got our Texas Ranger recon teams there now. I supported Arizona’s immigration law by joining in that lawsuit to defend it. Every day I have Texans on that border that are doing their job.
But if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart. We need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society.
I think that’s what Texans wanted to do. Out of 181 members of the Texas legislature when this issue came up, only four dissenting votes. This was a state issue. Texans voted on it. And I still support it greatly.
WALLACE: Senator Santorum, you say that Governor Perry’s opposition to building a fence along the entire border shows that he is “a big-government moderate.” Is he soft on illegal immigration?
SANTORUM: Governor Perry, no one is suggesting up here that the students that are illegal in this country shouldn’t be able to go to a college and university. I think you’re sort of making this leap that unless the taxpayers subsidize it, they won’t be able to go. Well, most folks who want to go to the state of Texas or any other state out-of-state have to pay the full boat. The point is not that they can’t go. They can go. They just have to borrow money, find other sources to be able to go. And why should they be given preferential treatment as an illegal in this country? That’s what we’re saying.
And so yes, I would say that he is soft on illegal immigration. I think the fact that he doesn’t want to build a fence 0 he gave in a speech in 2001 where he talked about binational health insurance between Mexico and Texas. I mean, I don’t even think Barack Obama would be for binational health insurance.
RHODES: Would it be mandatory?
SANTORUM: So I think he’s very weak on this issue of American sovereignty and protecting our borders and not being a magnet for illegal immigration, yes.
PERRY: I’ve got one question for him: Have you ever even been to the border with Mexico?
SANTORUM: Yes.
RHODES: Crap.
PERRY: I’m surprised if you have, but you weren’t paying attention, because the idea that you are going to build a wall, a fence for 1,200 miles and then go 800 miles more to Tijuana does not make sense. You put the boots on the ground. We know how to make this work. You put the boots on the ground.
SANTORUM: But it’s not working –
PERRY: You put the aviation assets on the ground.
RHODES: Don’t you put them in the air? No wonder it’s not working!
SANTORUM: It’s not working.
PERRY: No, it’s not working, because the federal government is not –
SANTORUM: You’re saying we know how it works. Is it working in Texas?
PERRY: The federal government is not engaged in this at all.
RHODES: They returned it to the states.
PERRY: When I’m the president of the United States, I’ll promise one you one thing.
SANTORUM: But you’re saying you put the assets there. Has it worked in Texas?
PERRY: We will put the assets on the ground, the boots on the ground, the aviation assets on the ground. And we will stop illegal immigration, we will stop the drug cartels and we will make America secure.
SANTORUM: Can you answer the question? Is it working?
WALLACE: Well, you know, you asked your question, he gave his answer, sir.
RHODES: He did?
WALLACE: Sometimes we’re frustrated with all of you answering questions.
RHODES: And those asking them.
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WALLACE: Congressman Paul, I want to ask you a question about a comment you made a couple of weeks ago about a border fence with Mexico. Here’s what you said, sir. “There’s capital controls and there’s people control. So every time you think of a fence keeping all those bad people out, think about those fences maybe being used against us keeping us in.”
Do you know a lot of Americans who want to take their money and flee the United States of America? (Laughter.)
PAUL: There are some. All the candidates up here talk about repatriation of dollars. They’ve already taken them overseas. We’re talking about trying to bring in a trillion-and-a-half dollars because they leave our country because we make it uncomfortable; too many regulations, too much taxation; they can’t start a business; they’ve lost confidence. Yes, when countries destroy a currency, they do lead to capital controls and they lead to people control. So I think it is a real concern.
And also, once you have these databanks, the databanks means that everybody’s going to be in the databank. You say, oh, no, the databank’s there for the illegals. But everybody’s in the databank. That’s a national ID card. If you care about your personal liberty, you’ll be cautious when you feel comfortable, blame all the illegal immigrants for everything. What you need to do is attack their benefits. No free education, no free subsidies, no citizenship, no birthright citizenship. That will get to the bottom of it a lot sooner. But economically, you should not ignore the fact that in tough economic times, money and people want to leave the country. That’s unfortunate.
RHODES: So a fence can keep them in? I mean, I suppose if all aviation assets are on the ground, but . . .
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SANTORUM: Just because our economy is sick does not mean our country is sick and doesn’t mean our values are sick.
RHODES: Yeah, but I don’t wanna go to school today.
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KELLY: Congresswoman Bachmann, in 2006, you said that public schools are “teaching children that there is separation of church and state” and said “I am here to tell you that’s a myth.” Do you believe that there is a limit on government’s ability to inject religion into the public square?
BACHMANN: Well, I think that Thomas Jefferson stated it best.
RHODES: Indeed: “If we don’t get some cool rules ourselves, pronto, we’ll be bogus too.”
BACHMANN: He was the author of the religious liberty that he valued so much, and that’s that the United States government should not be a state church. That’s really what the fundamental was of separation of church and state. And when Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists, the Danbury Baptists wanted to know, will you have a national church in the United States? He said no because we believe in freedom of conscience. We believe in freedom of religious liberty and expression and speech. That’s a foundational principle in the United States.
RHODES: Yes. Let me recall that letter to the Danbury Baptists: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
BACHMANN: But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t people of faith and that people of faith shouldn’t be allowed to exercise religious liberty in the public square. Of course we should be able to exercise our faith. And whether that expression occurs in a public school or occurs in a public building, we should be able to have freedom for all people to express our belief in God.
RHODES: Including Muslims and their morning prayer during homeroom, Satan’s Prayer in the cafeteria and announcements by atheists during recess.
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KELLY: Senator Santorum, this question stirred up a whole lot of controversy online. It comes from Stephen Hill, who is a soldier serving in Iraq.
Q: In 2010 when I was deployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was because I’m a gay soldier, and I didn’t want to lose my job. My question is under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that’s been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military. (Boos.)
RHODES: That fag fought for our country! Boo! He tried to protect my freedom! Boo! He’s kinda cute! Boo!
SANTORUM: Yeah, I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.
RHODES: Good luck.
SANTORUM: And the fact that they’re making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege.
RHODES: What’s the special privilege, more stylish shoes?
SANTORUM: Removing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” I think, tries to inject social policy into the military.
RHODES: Which we should never do.
SANTORUM: And the military’s job is to do one thing, and that is to defend our country.
RHODES: Gay or not. Let’s not inject social policy into it.
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KELLY: Governor Perry, you and our former president, George W. Bush, have a lot in common. You’re both Republicans from Texas. You both ran on the same ticket for the statehouse. You both share a deep religious faith.
RHODES: And you’re both ill-suited to be president.
KELLY: And you’ve made a point of saying, well, we went to different colleges, Texas A&M and Yale, and point out that you have a different approach from President Bush when it comes to government spending.
But what are the other differences that you can cite between you and President Bush? And what say you about these reports that there is some bad blood between the two of you?
PERRY: Well, let me address the first – or the last issue first. And we got a great rapport. I talk to the president from time to time, call him on his birthday, wish him happy birthday, talk to him on a relatively regular basis. I highly respect the president and his public service. What we have in difference is probably as much as in style as in substance on various issues.
For instance, you know, I was very vocal in my disagreement with him on Medicaid Part B, that the federal government should be involved in that very expensive program. And I was also vocal against No Child Left Behind. It gets back to the federal government has no business telling the states how to educate our children.
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WALLACE: Mr. Cain, you are a survivor of stage four colon and liver cancer. But you say if “Obamacare” had been in effect when you were first being treated, you’d be dead now. Why?
CAIN: The reason I said that I would be dead on “Obamacare” is because my cancer was detected in March of 2006. And from March 2006 all the way to the end of 2006, for that number of months, I was able to get the necessary CAT scan tests, go to the necessary doctors, get a second opinion, get chemotherapy, go to get surgery, recuperate from surgery, get more chemotherapy in a span of nine months. If we had been on the “Obamacare” and a bureaucrat was trying to tell me when I could get that CAT scan, that would have delayed my treatment. My surgeons and doctors have told me that because I was able to get the treatment as fast as I could, based upon my timetable and not the government’s timetable, that’s what saved my life because I only had a 30 percent chance of survival. And now I’m here five years cancer free because I could do it on my timetable and not on a bureaucrat’s timetable.
This is one of the reasons I believe a lot of people are objecting to “Obamacare,” because we need to get bureaucrats out of the business of trying to micromanage health care in this nation.
RHODES: And leave it in the hands of insurance agents.
*
WALLACE: Governor Huntsman, you say that President Obama’s health care plan is “a trillion-dollar bomb dropped on taxpayers and job creation.” But I want to show you the top-voted question on YouTube that was submitted on health care, and it comes from Ian McDonald of Michigan, who says he has a health problem. Watch it, sir.
Q: Hi. I’m a student and I have a chronic heart condition. So for me and those like me, the Democrat health care reform, allowing us to stay on our parents’ insurance longer, was a godsend. If you were elected, would you work, as is the stated position of your party, to repeal this reform? And if so, are we supposed to sign up for 12 credit hours and pray really hard that our ailments don’t prevent us from going to class?
WALLACE: Governor, what about provisions that Ian talks about, for instance the one that allows kids to stay on their parents’ policies until they’re 26, or not limiting coverage for pre-existing conditions? President Obama says the only way that insurance companies can afford to provide those kinds of
HUNTSMAN: When I hear this discussion, I think of my daughter Elizabeth, who’s sitting on the front row, who suffers from juvenile diabetes. And I also am reminded that we’re fundamentally approaching health care reform the wrong way. This $1 trillion bomb that “Obamacare” means to this country over 10 years is creating such uncertainty in the marketplace that businesses aren’t willing to hire. They’re not willing to deploy capital into the marketplace. It has gummed up our system.
So you say what do we do? I say we go out to the states and let the states experiment and find breakthroughs in how we address health care reform.
RHODES: Let Pat Quinn, Michael Madigan and John Cullerton figure out how to save Ian’s life.
*
HUNTSMAN: Health care reform is a $3 trillion industry. It’s the size of the GDP of France. It’s large. It’s complicated. All I want to do is do the kind of thing we did in the state of Utah in direct response. We need affordable insurance policies. We don’t have affordable insurance policy today. We got one in the state of Utah, a stripped-down, bare-bones catastrophic coverage policy that young people could finally afford. And then you can start whittling down the high percentage of the people who are uninsured in this country because they have an affordable policy.
BAIER: Congresswoman Bachmann, in the last debate, you criticized Governor Perry for his executive order mandating that sixth-graders get the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. Then afterwards you suggested that the vaccine was linked to mental retardation, and you said that it could, quote, “potentially be a very dangerous drug.” But the American Academy of Pediatrics has looked at it and says that the HPV vaccine has an excellent safety record. So my question to you is, do you stand by your statement that the HPV vaccine is potentially dangerous, and if not, should you be more careful when you’re talking about a public health issue?
BACHMANN: Well, first, I didn’t make that claim, nor did I make that statement. Immediately after the debate, a mother came up to me, and she was visibly shaken and heartbroken because of what her daughter had gone through, and so I only related what her story was.
RHODES: I’m only relating that some members of your staff think you are a dolt. Not my claim, just what others are saying. Also: spaghetti causes cancer and evolution is just a theory.
BACHMANN: But here’s the real issue. Governor Perry mandated a health care decision on all 12-year-old little girls in the state of Texas. And by that mandate, those girls had to have a shot for a sexually transmitted disease. That is not appropriate to be a decision that a governor makes. It’s appropriate that parents make that decision in consultation with their doctor.
But here’s the even more important point, because Governor Perry made a decision where he gave parental rights to a big drug company. That big drug company gave him campaign contributions, and hired his former chief of staff to lobby him to benefit the big drug company. That’s what was wrong with that picture.
PERRY: I got lobbied on this issue. I got lobbied by a 31-year-old young lady who had stage four cervical cancer. I spent a lot of time with her. She came by my office. She talked to me about this program. I’ve readily admitted that we should have had an opt-in in this program, but I don’t know what part of opt-out most parents don’t get.
RHODES: The opt-out part.
PERRY: And the fact is, I erred on the side of life, and I will always err on the side of life.
RHODES: Except when it comes to the death penalty.
*
WALLACE: Governor Perry, Texas has the most uninsured residents of any state in the country, 25 percent. In the last debate, you blamed it on restrictions imposed by the federal government, but we checked about that, sir. In fact, the feds treat Texas like they do all the other big states. On its own, Texas has imposed some of the toughest eligibility rules for Medicaid of any state in the country. In fact, you rank 49th in Medicaid coverage of low-income residents. So the question is, isn’t Texas’ uninsured problem because of decisions made by Texas?
PERRY: Well, I disagree with your analysis there because we’ve had a request in for the federal government so that we could have a Medicaid waiver for years and the federal government has stopped us from having that Medicaid waiver. Allowing the state of Texas, or for that matter the other states that we’re making reference to here, to have waivers give them more options to be able to give the options. There’s a menu of options that we could have, just like Jon Huntsman talked about. That is how we go forward with our health care, each state deciding how they’re going to deliver that health care, not one-size-fits-all.
RHODES: Or none-size-fits-all.
*
WALLACE: Governor Romney, the other day Governor Perry called “Romneycare” “socialized medicine.” He said it has failed in Western Europe and in Massachusetts, and he warns that Republicans should not nominate – his words – “Obama Lite.”
RHODES: Isn’t “Obama Lite” redundant?
ROMNEY: I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about in that regard.
Let me tell you this about our system in Massachusetts. Ninety-two percent of our people were insured before we put our plan in place. Nothing’s changed for them. The system is the same. They have private, market-based insurance.
We had 8 percent of our people that weren’t insured. And so what we did is, we said let’s find a way to get them insurance – again, market-based, private insurance. We didn’t come up with some new government insurance plan. Our plan in Massachusetts has some good parts, some bad parts, some things I’d change, some things I like about it. It’s different than “Obamacare.” And what you heard from Herman Cain is one absolutely key point, which is “Obamacare” intends to put someone between you and your physician.
RHODES: I got news for you, Mitt: They’re already there.
PERRY: I think Americans just don’t know sometimes which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with. Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of – against the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment? Was it – was before – he was before the social programs from the standpoint of – he was for standing up for Roe versus Wade before he was against first – Roe versus Wade? Him – he was for Race to the Top. He’s for “Obamacare” and now he’s against it.
ROMNEY: I’ll use the same term again: nice try. Governor, I wrote a book two years ago and I laid out in that a book what my views are on a wide range of issues. I’m a conservative businessman. I haven’t spent my life in politics, I spent my life in business. I know how jobs come, how jobs go. My positions are laid out in that book. I stand by them.
Governor Perry, you wrote a book six months ago. You’re already retreating from the positions that were in that book.
PERRY: Not a – not a – not an inch, sir.
ROMNEY: Yeah, well, in that book it says that Social Security was forced upon the American people. It says that by any measure, Social Security is a failure. Not to 75 million people. And you also said that it should be returned to the states. Now, those are the positions in your book.
*
BAIER: Independent New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently fretted over the possibility of the unemployed rioting in the streets. Ohio’s Republican governor, John Kasich, recently said, “For the first time in my life, I’m worried about this country.” And recently a liberal columnist wrote this, quote: “We’ve lost our mojo.” You know, President Obama promised hope and change. And according to many polls, fewer and fewer Americans believe he’s delivered. Now, I’m not asking for your jobs plan here. What I’m asking for is how are you going to turn this country around?
RHODES: Give it back to the states.
CAIN: I’ve already laid out how I would do that with my 9-9-9 plan.
RHODES: Drink!
BACHMANN: It’s time to reach for the brass ring of liberty once again.
RHODES: The one attached to her husband’s nipple?
ROMNEY: These are tough times for a lot of people in this country, but we are a patriotic people. We place our hand over our heart during the playing of the national anthem. No other people on Earth do that.
RHODES: That’s true.
SANTORUM: America is a great country because we are a country that believes in God-given rights to every single man, woman and child in America.
RHODES: Except the gays.
*
JOHNSON: My next-door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.
*
BAIER: Our wild card question come from Darrell Owens in Richmond, Virginia.
Q: If you had to choose one of your opponents on the stage tonight to be your running mate in the 2012 election, who would you choose and why? And why would this person help you make the country better?
JOHNSON: Well, that would be the guy three down, Congressman Paul.
SANTORUM: Newt Gingrich.
GINGRICH: Yeah, I’m going disappoint those in the audience who want this to be a Hollywood game. I don’t have any idea who I would pick as the vice presidential nominee. What I do know is it would have to be a person capable of being the president of the United States, and that would be the first criteria.
PAUL: I don’t plan to make a choice at the moment because I am on national polls. It seems like I’m in third place now. I think it would be inappropriate.
As soon as I’m one of the two top tier, then I will start thinking along that line. But right now I’m going to defer and just work very hard and make sure that I stay in the top tier and then eventually be one of the top two contenders.
PERRY: Well, staying with the game show idea here, I don’t know how you would do this but if you could take Herman Cain and mate him up with Newt Gingrich, I think you would have a couple of really interesting guys to work with.
RHODES: Mate him up?
ROMNEY: There are a couple of images I’m going to have a hard time getting out of my mind. That’s one, and Gary Johnson’s dogs are the other.
*
BAIER: Governor Romney, I hate to follow up here, but you called Governor Perry unelectable based on his Social Security –
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Oooh!
ROMNEY: Actually, I didn’t use that term, but the newspaper did. That happens now and then.
BACHMANN: Obviously we need to have a strong constitutional conservative. And that’s what I would look for in a vice president. But I want to say this as well: Every four years conservatives are told that we have to settle. And it’s anybody but Obama – that’s what we’re hearing this year. I don’t think that’s true. I think if there’s any year – President Obama has the lowest public approval ratings of any president in modern time.
RHODES: Not even close.
CAIN: This is a game, and it is hypothetical. I’ll play the game. If Governor Romney would throw out his jobs growth plan and replace it with “999” . . .
RHODES: Drink!
CAIN: . . . he has a shot. If he does not, I would probably go with Speaker Gingrich, who I have the greatest admiration for, in all seriousness, because of his history and then because of his depth of knowledge.
HUNTSMAN: You know, I’m tempted to say that when all is said and done, the two guys standing in the middle here, Romney and Perry, aren’t going to be around because they’re going to bludgeon each other to death.
But I’m also reminded of about four years ago, we had two front-runners in similar situations, one by the name of Rudy Giuliani, I think, and the other by the name of Fred Thompson. They seemed to disappear altogether. I can’t remember where they went.
But I would have to say since Chris Wallace doesn’t qualify as somebody on the stage, so I can’t – I can’t pick one of you, that Herman Cain, because of his selection of ties, the fact that we both apparently agree with the gold standard; we’re, you know, wearing yellow ties here tonight – and because the good neighbor policy, 999, mixed with my tax policy, would be the most competitive thing this nation could ever achieve, I’d have to say Herman’s my man.
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Posted on September 25, 2011