Republican Presidential Debate In New Hampshire pt.1

CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL

Republican Debate

Aired June 13, 2011 – 20:00   ET

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, and the first Republican presidential debate in this first-in-the-nation primary state. Behind me on this stage, the Republican candidates for president appearing together on the same stage for the first time tonight.

And tonight’s debate will be different than any presidential debate you’ve ever seen. Over the course of the next two hours, in addition to questions from myself and journalists from our partners, WMUR and the New Hampshire Union Leader, the candidates will take questions directly from voters right here in Manchester, as well as from voters at town meetings taking place tonight all across New Hampshire.

So let’s get right to it and meet the candidates. Now, we’ve asked for no opening statements. However, we will continue a tradition from our past New Hampshire debates, to ask each candidate in one short sentence — hopefully, five, maybe six or seven seconds — to introduce themselves to the voters of New Hampshire and the United States of America.

Let me begin with an example. I’m John King with CNN. I am honored to be your moderator tonight, and I am thrilled to be back in Red Sox nation.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, let’s start at the edge of the stage with Senator Rick Santorum.

FORMER SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Hello, New Hampshire. I’m Rick Santorum. I served 12 years representing Pennsylvania in the United States Senate, but I also have substantial executive experience making the tough decisions and balancing budgets and cutting spending. Karen and I are the parents of seven children.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Congresswoman?

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R), MINNESOTA: Hi, my name is Michelle Bachmann. I’m a former federal tax litigation attorney. I’m a businesswoman. We started our own successful company. I’m also a member of the United States Congress. I’m a wife of 33 years. I’ve had five children, and we are the proud foster parents of 23 great children. And it’s a thrill to be here tonight in the “Live Free or Die” state. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Mr. Speaker?

FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH: I’m Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House. And when 14 million Americans are out of work, we need a new president to end the Obama depression.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Governor?

FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R), MASSACHUSETTS: I’m Mitt Romney, and it’s an honor to be back at Saint Anselm. Hopefully I’ll get it right this year. And appreciate the chance to be with you and to welcome my wife. And I have five sons, as you know, five daughters-in law, 16 grandkids. The most important thing in my life is to make sure their future is bright and that America is always known as the hope of the Earth. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

REP. RON PAUL (R), TEXAS: I am Congressman Ron Paul. I’ve been elected to the Congress 12 times from Texas. Before I went into the Congress, I delivered babies for a living and delivered 4,000 babies. Now I would like to be known and defend the title that I am the champion of liberty and I defend the Constitution. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Governor?

FORMER GOV. TIM PAWLENTY (R), MINNESOTA: Good evening, I’m Tim Pawlenty. I’m a husband. My wife, Mary, and I have been married for 23 years. I’m the father of two beautiful daughters, Anna and Mara. I’m a neighbor. And I’m running for president of the United States because I love America, but like you, I’m concerned about its future. I’ve got the experience and the leadership and the results to lead it to a better place.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Mr. Cain?

HERMAN CAIN, GODFATHER PIZZA CEO: Hello, I’m Herman Cain. I am not a politician. I am a problem-solver with over 40 years of business and executive experience, father of two, grandfather of three, and I’m here tonight because it’s not about us. It’s about those grandkids. Happy to be here in New Hampshire.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: All right.

Our thanks to the candidates. You’ll get to know them better as the night goes on. Our rules are pretty straightforward. Each candidate will be given one minute to answer our leadoff questions. At my discretion, I may ask other candidates to weigh in on each topic. Now, candidates would get about 30 seconds to answer those follow-up questions. I say about 30 seconds, because we’re on the honor system tonight, no bells, no whistles. You won’t see any flashing lights up here.

If they’re running over time, I’ll try to gently remind them it’s time to move on. And we’re hoping some of the answers will be as short — maybe a sentence, maybe even just one word. We can hope, right?

We’ve also asked the candidates to answer the questions that they’re asked, rather than the question they might have wished to be asked.

That’s enough — uh-huh — that’s enough for me tonight. Let’s get straight to the people of New Hampshire. Now, our first question comes from a voter up in Plymouth. Also there is the New Hampshire Union Leader’s Tom Fahey. Tom?

(APPLAUSE)

JOHN FAHEY, NEW HAMPSHIRE UNION LEADER: Thank you, John.

I’m here with Mr. Marquez-Sterling. He is a retired professor from Plymouth State University, and he’s got a question about jobs.

QUESTION: Yes. Mr. Gingrich said that 14 million people are unemployed. My question is this. The Democrats say that the Republicans don’t have any plans to create jobs, and jobs — and jobs in the private sector, not in the government jobs. I’d like to know, what are those plans?

KING: Mr. Cain, let me start with you tonight. And be as specific as you can. I hope I don’t have to repeat this throughout the night. How would you — what would you do as president of the United States to create jobs?

CAIN: The thing we need to do is to get this economy boosted. This economy is stalled. It’s like a train on the tracks with no engine. And the administration has simply been putting all of this money in the caboose.

We need an engine called the private sector. That means lower taxes, lower the capital gains tax rate to zero, suspend taxes on repatriated profits, then make them permanent. Uncertainty is killing this economy. This is the only way we’re going to get this economy moving, and that’s to put the right fuel in the engine, which is the private sector.

KING: All right, let me come down to this. And, Senator Santorum, you mentioned — you said you have executive experience, as well as your Senate experience. Governor Pawlenty laid out an economic plan. A lot of tax cuts in that plan. Some economists said he had some unrealistic expectations, and he said you could grow the economy 5 percent a year, then 5 percent a year, then 5 percent a year. Do you believe that is a possible? Or is that too optimistic to the American people, who want help but don’t want to be misled?

SANTORUM: Yeah, I think we need a president who’s optimistic, who has a pro-growth agenda. I’m not going to comment on 5 percent or 4 percent. What we need is a — is an economy that’s unshackled.

And what’s happened in this administration is that they have passed oppressive policy and oppressive regulation after — Obamacare being first and foremost. The oppressiveness of that bill on businesses — anybody that wants to invest to get any kind of return, when you see the regulations that are going to be put on business, when you see the taxation.

Throw on top of that what this president’s done on energy. The reason we’re seeing this second dip is because of energy prices, and this president has put a stop sign again — against oil drilling, against any kind of exploration offshore or in Alaska, and that is depressing. We need to drill. We need to create energy jobs, just like we’re doing, by the way, in Pennsylvania, where we’re drilling 3,000 wells this year for gas, and gas prices are down — natural gas prices are down as a result.

KING: OK, I’m going to try to ask all of you to keep the follow- ups to 30 seconds as we — so we can get more in.

Governor Pawlenty, answer the critics — and as you do so — who say 5 percent every year is just unrealistic. And as you do so, where’s the proof — where’s the proof that just cutting taxes will create jobs? If that were true, why during the Bush years, after the big tax cut, where were the jobs?

PAWLENTY: Well, John, my plan involves a whole plan, not just cutting taxes. We’re proposing to cut taxes, reduce regulation, speed up this pace of government, and to make sure that we have a pro-growth agenda.

This president is a declinist. He views America as one of equals around the world. We’re not the same as Portugal; we’re not the same as Argentina. And this idea that we can’t have 5 percent growth in America is hogwash. It’s a defeatist attitude. If China can have 5 percent growth and Brazil can have 5 percent growth, then the United States of America can have 5 percent growth.

And I don’t accept this notion that we’re going to be average or anemic. So my proposal has a 5 percent growth target. It cuts taxes, but it also dramatically cuts spending. We need to fix regulation. We need to have a pro-American energy policy. We need to fix health care policy. And if you do those things, as I’ve proposed, including cut spending, you’ll get this economy moving and growing the private economy by shrinking government.

KING: I don’t want to do much of this, but I’m going to have to interrupt if people go a little bit long so we can get more done.

Governor Romney, I want you to come in on that point. Is 5 percent overly optimistic? And is it fair to compare the United States’ economy, a fully developed economy, to the Chinese economy, which is still in many ways developing?

ROMNEY: Look, Tim has the right instincts, which is he recognizes that what this president has done has slowed the economy. He didn’t create the recession, but he made it worse and longer. And now we have more chronic long-term employment than this country has ever seen before, 20 million people out of work, stopped looking for work, or in part-time jobs that need full-time jobs. We’ve got housing prices continuing to decline, and we have foreclosures at record levels.

This president has failed. And he’s failed at a time when the American people counted on him to create jobs and get the economy growing. And instead of doing that, he delegated the stimulus to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and then he did what he wanted to do: card-check, cap-and-trade, Obamacare, reregulation.

I spent my life in the private sector, 25 years.

KING: All right.

ROMNEY: And as I went around the world — this is an important topic — I went around the world…

KING: We’ll have a lot of time on the topic. We just — we won’t get through this…

ROMNEY: You can tell how — how to get jobs going in this country, and President Obama has done it wrong. And the ideas Tim described, those are in the right wheelhouse.

KING: Mr. Speaker, if you look at a poll in the Boston Globe just the other day, 54 percent of Republican voters in this state say they’re willing to have higher taxes on the wealthy to help bring down the deficit. Are they wrong?

GINGRICH: Well, the question is, would it, in fact, increase jobs or kill jobs? The Reagan recovery, which I participated in passing, in seven years created for this current economy the equivalent of 25 million new jobs, raised federal revenue by $800 billion a year in terms of the current economy, and clearly it worked. It’s a historic fact.

The Obama administration is an anti-jobs, anti-business, anti- American energy destructive force. And we shouldn’t talk about what we do in 2013. The Congress this year, this next week ought to repeal the Dodd-Frank bill, they ought to repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, they ought to start creating jobs right now, because for those 14 million Americans, this is a depression now.

KING: The speaker just said, Congresswoman, repeal Dodd-Frank. Answer the American out there who says maybe I don’t like all of the details, but after what happened in 2007 and 2008, I don’t want Wall Street to not have somebody looking at them, watching what they’re doing. BACHMANN: Well, I’m looking forward to answering that question, because I introduced the repeal bill to repeal Dodd-Frank, because it’s an over-the-top bill that will actually lead to more job loss, rather than job creation.

But before I fully answer that, I just want to make an announcement here for you, John, on CNN tonight. I filed today my paperwork to seek the office of the presidency of the United States today. And I’ll very soon be making my formal announcement.

So I wanted you to be the first to know.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: I appreciate that. Well, welcome. If you’re out there and you don’t get the distinction coming into the night, Congresswoman Bachmann was exploring. She hadn’t taken that last step. The other candidates had taken it. I’m sure they welcome you to the fray.

Let’s continue the conversation. I want to come to Congressman Paul. You’re all here saying the president of the United States is making the economy worse. Has he done one thing — has he done one thing right when it comes to the economy in this country?

PAUL: Boy, that’s a tough question.

(LAUGHTER)

No, no, I can’t think of anything, but may I answer the question that you alluded to before about whether or not 5 percent is too optimistic? No, there’s nothing wrong without — without setting a goal of 5 percent or 10 percent or 15 percent, if you have a free- market economy.

We’re trying to unwind a Keynesian bubble that’s been going on for 70 years, and you’re not going to touch this problem until you liquidate the bad debt and the mal-investment, go back to work. But you have to have sound money, and you have to recognize how we got in the trouble.

We got in the trouble because we had a financial bubble, and it’s caused by the Federal Reserve. If you don’t look at monetary policy, we will continue the trend of the last decade. We haven’t even — we haven’t developed any new jobs in the last decade. Matter of fact, we’ve had 30 million new people and no new jobs, and it’s because they don’t — the people don’t understand monetary policy and central economic planning things.

Free markets will give you 10 percent or 15 percent growth or whatever (ph) and you will not have to turn it off because you think it’s going to cause inflation. It doesn’t work that way.

KING: All right, I’m going to jump — I’m going to jump in here. I’m going to ask one more time politely. We want to get as many voters as we can involved, so please try to shorten the follow-up answers just a bit if you can. Let’s go back to Tom in Plymouth. He has another voter with a question.

FAHEY: Yes, thank you, John. I’m here with Sylvia Smith. She’s from Littleton. And she is a freelance journalist who’s written about the health care industry. She has a question about health care.

QUESTION: Yes. As a journalist who’s written frequently about health care and medicine for both newspapers and for corporate publications, I’m very concerned about the overreach of the massive health care legislation that was passed last year. My question is, what would each candidate do? What three steps would they take to de- fund Obamacare and repeal it as soon as possible? Thank you.

KING: Congresswoman Bachmann, let’s start with you on that.

BACHMANN: Thank you, John. Sylvia, thank you for that great question. I was the very first member of Congress to introduce the full-scale repeal of Obamacare. And I want to make a promise to everyone watching tonight: As president of the United States, I will not rest until I repeal Obamacare. It’s a promise. Take it to the bank, cash the check. I’ll make sure that that happens.

This is the symbol and the signature issue of President Obama during his entire tenure. And this is a job-killer, Sylvia. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office has said that Obamacare will kill 800,000 jobs. What could the president be thinking by passing a bill like this, knowing full well it will kill 800,000 jobs?

Senior citizens get this more than any other segment of our population, because they know in Obamacare, the president of the United States took away $500 billion, a half-trillion dollars out of Medicare, shifted it to Obamacare to pay for younger people, and it’s senior citizens who have the most to lose in Obamacare.