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standard furniture reagan
>> announcer: race has been won by governorronald reagan of california >> announcer: george herbert walker bush,41st president of the united states >> announcer: governor clinton is now presidentbill clinton >> announcer: too close to call. >> announcer: here it is george w. bush re-elected. >> announcer: barack obama, president electof the united states. >> announcer: this is cnn. >> blitzer: tonight, the final face off beforeflorida voters choose >> announcer: a presidential race that breakingall the rules. comes to a state that wrote
the book on election cliffhangers. >> romney: here in florida >> gingrich: that’s how important florida is. >> announcer: only one thing is certain inthis contest. expect the unexpected. >> santorum: you have three candidates whohave won three primaries >> romney: you are going to have to make adecision. which of the three should become our nominee. i think you know. >> announcer: tonight. the candidates together,in jacksonville florida. newt gingrich, the south carolina winner. hoping to capitalizeon his recent victory and strong record in debates.
>> gingrich: it's not that i’m a good debater.it is that i articulate the deepest felt values of the american people. >> announcer: mitt ronmey, the new hampshirewinner. trying to broaden his appeal and reclaim the title of frontrunner. >> romney: we're not choosing a talk showhost. we are choosing the person who should be the leader of the free world. >> announcer: rick santorum, the iowa winner.looking for a new burst of momentum, after his upset in the heartland. >> santorum: there was one race that was innobody’s backyard. and we won that race.
>> announcer: ron paul, still in search ofa win. a fierce competitor with a die hard following. >> paul: we have the determination and wewill win this battle for peace and prosperity. >> announcer: now, the 2012 republicans, inflordia. its the biggest battleground so far and this could be the most important debateyet. >> blitzer: from the university of north floridain jacksonville, this is the florida republican presidential debate. [applause] >> blitzer: tonight, the four republican candidatesare here to tell us why they're the most qualified
to take on president barack obama. i'm wolfblitzer. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. wealso want to thank our co-sponsors, the republican party of florida and the hispanic leadershipnetwork. members of the florida republican party are here in the audience with us andsome of them will have a chance to question the candidates. in addition, our sister networkcnn in espanol is standing by in miami with members of the hispanic leadership networkwho will also have a chance to question the candidates. viewers can send us questionsonline. on twitter, make sure to include the hash tag #cnndebate; on facebook at facebook.com/cnnpolitics;and, of course, on cnnpolitics.com. it's now time to welcome the 2012 republican presidentialcontenders.
>> [applause] >> blitzer: joining us on stage, texas congressmanron paul. >> blitzer: former massachusetts governormitt romney. >> blitzer: the former speaker of the house,newt gingrich. >> blitzer: and the former u.s. senator frompennsylvania, rick santorum. >> blitzer: ladies and gentlemen, the republicancandidates for president of the united states. >> blitzer: ladies and gentlemen, please risefor our national anthem, performed by the university of north florida chamber singers. >> choir: o! say can you see by the dawn'searly light, what so proudly we hailed at
the twilight's last gleaming, whose broadstripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts we watched, wereso gallantly streaming? and the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proofthrough the night that our flag was still there; o! say does that star-spangled banneryet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? >> blitzer: candidates, please take your podiumswhile i tell you more about how this debate will work tonight. i'll be the moderator.and as i mentioned, our partners from the republican party of florida and the hispanicleadership network will also ask questions. i'll follow up and try to guide the discussion.candidates, i'll try to make sure each of
you gets your fair share of questions. you'llhave one minute to answer, 30 seconds for follow ups and rebuttals. and i'll certainlymake sure you get time to respond if you're singled out for criticism. now let's havethe candidates introduce themselves to florida voters. please keep it short. here is an example:i'm wolf blitzer and i'm thrilled to be here on the campus of the university of north floridain jacksonville. senator santorum, let's begin with you. >> santorum: i'm rick santorum, and i'm thrilledto be here on the campus of north florida. >> [laughter] >> santorum: and i'm especially thrilled becausei'm here with a north florida resident who
lives right down the beach from jacksonville,my mom, who is 93 years old, who is with me here tonight. >> santorum: i better just stop right there. >> gingrich: i'm newt gingrich, from the neighboringstate of georgia. i'm delighted to be in jacksonville, which will be the site of the next nuclearaircraft carrier battle group. >> romney: i'm mitt romney, and i'm pleasedto be here with my wife and my oldest son tagg romney. we're the parents of five sons,five daughters-in-law, 16 grandkids. and it's great to be back in jacksonville. thank you. >> ron paul: i'm ron paul. i'm a congressmanfrom texas, 12 terms. i am the champion of
a sound monetary system, a gold standard,as it is under the constitution, and a foreign policy based on strength which rejects thenotion that we should be the policemen of the world and that we should be a nation builder. >> blitzer: all right. let's start with aquestion from the audience. >> jonna flyn: hello. can you tell me whatspecific actions you'll take to address the costly consequences of illegal immigrationwhile preserving the rights of those who seek to immigrate legally? >> blitzer: all right. senator santorum, let'stake that question. but also, in the course of that question, express your opinion onwhat we heard from governor romney, that self-deportation,
or illegal immigrants leaving the countryvoluntarily, is a possible solution. >> santorum: well, the possible solution is-- i actually agree with governor romney. the bottom line is that we need to enforcethe laws in this country. we are a country of laws. people come to this country. my grandfathercame to this country because he wanted to come to a country that respected him. anda country that respects you is a country that lives by the laws that they have. and thefirst act when they come to this country, is to disobey a law, it's not a particularlywelcome way to enter this country. what i've said is from the very beginning, that we -- wehave to have a country that not only do you respect the law when you come here, but yourespect the law when you stay here. and people
who have come to this country illegally havebroken the law repeatedly. if you're here, unless you're here on a trust fund, you'vebeen working illegally. you've probably stolen someone's social security number, illegally.and so it's not just one thing that you've done wrong, you've done a lot of things wrong.and as a result of that, i believe that people should no -- should not be able to stay here.and so i think we need to enforce the law at the border, secure the border. secondly,we need to have employer enforcement, which means e-verify and then we need to have notonly employers sanctioned, but we have to have people who are found who are workinghere illegally, they need to be deported. that is again the principle of having a ruleof law and living by it. i am very much in
favor of immigration. i'm not someone -- mydad came to this country and i'm someone who believes that -- that we need immigration.we are not replacing ourselves. we have -- we need not only immigration for -- to keep ourpopulation going, but we need immigration because immigrants bring a vitality and alove of this country that is -- infuses this country with -- with great energy. and so,i support legal immigration, but we need to enforce the law and in fact, if you don'tcreate an opportunity for people to work, they will leave because they can't affordto stay here. >> blitzer: speaker gingrich, you've suggestedthat self- deportation as advocated by governor romney is in your words, "an obama level fantasy."why?
>> gingrich: well look, i think that firstof all, you should control the border, which i have pledged to do by january 1, 2014. youshould fix legal immigration in terms of visas so people can come and go easily -- more easilythan doing it illegally. you should also make deportation easier so when you deport peoplewho shouldn't be here. the 13 gang members, for example. it should be very quick and veryclear. you should have a guest worker program, probably run by american express, visa ormastercard so they minimize fraud, which the federal government won't do. and you shouldhave much stronger employer penalties at that point because you can validate it. i actuallyagree that self-deportation will occur if you're single. if you've only been here ashort time. and there are millions of people
who faced with that, would go back home, filefor a guest worker program and might or might not come back. the one group i singled out,were people who have been here a very long time who are married, who may well have childrenand grandchildren. and i would just suggest that grandmothers or grandfathers aren't likelyto self-deport. and then you've got a question. i -- i offered a proposal, a citizen panelto review whether or not somebody who had been here a very long time, who had familyand who had an american family willing to sponsor them, should be allowed to get residency,but not citizenship so that they would be able to stay within the law, but would nothave any chance of becoming a citizen, unless they went back home. i don't think grandmothersand grandfathers will self-deport.
>> blitzer: governor romney, the few timesand i think it was only once, that they experimented with self-deportation, only a handful of individualsvoluntarily left. what makes you think that -- that program could work? >> romney: well, you've just heard the lasttwo speakers also indicate that they support the concept of self-deportation. it's verysimply this, which is for those who come into the country legally, they would be given anidentification card that points out they're able to work here and then you have an e-verifysystem that's effective and efficient so that employers can determine who is legally hereand if employers hire someone without a card, or without checking to see if it's been counterfeited,then those employers would be severely sanctioned.
if you do that, people who have come hereillegally won't be able to find work. and over time, those people would tend to leavethe country, or self-deport. i don't think anyone is interested in going around and roundingup people around the country and deporting 11 million americans -- or, excuse me 11 millionillegal immigrants into america. now, let's look at -- and -- and i know people said,but isn't that unfair to those 11 million that are here and have lived their lives hereand perhaps raised children here? but i think it's important to remember, that there arethree groups of people that are of concern to us. one are those that have come here illegally,11 million. the second is the group of people who are brought over by coyotes and who arein many cases abused by virtue of coming into
this country illegally. and the third, arethe four to five million people who are waiting at home in their own nations trying to gethere legally. they have family members here asking them to come here. grandparents anduncles and aunts. those are the people we have a responsibility for. and the secondgroup as well, those that are abused. we -- we're concerned about them. let's focus our attentionon how to make legal immigration work and stop illegal immigration. >> blitzer: all right. governor paul -- sorry,excuse me, congressman paul you're from texas. the state with the longest border with mexico.is this a viable option, what we just heard? >> paul: well, i'd talk about it, but i don'tsee it as being very practical. i think it's
a much bigger problem. you can't deal withimmigration without dealing with the economy. the weaker the economy, the more resentmentthere is when illegals come in. if you have a healthy, vibrant economy, it's not a problem;we're usually looking for workers. even under today's circumstances, a lot of businessesare looking for workers and they don't have them. they're not as well-trained here. butalso, the way we're handling our borders is actually hurting our economy because the businesspeople-- you know, visitors have a hard time coming in. i mean, we don't have a well-managed border.so i think we need more resources and i think most of the other candidates would agree weneed more resources. but where are the resources going to come from? i have a suggestion. ithink we spend way too much time worrying
about the border between afghanistan and pakistan.use some of those resources on our own border. >> blitzer: speaker gingrich, you had an ad,but you pulled it this week, in which you described governor romney as the most anti-immigrant candidate. why did you do that? >> gingrich: why did we describe him thatway? because, in the original conversations about deportation, the position i took, whichhe attacked pretty ferociously, was that grandmothers and grandfathers aren't going to be successfullydeported. we're not -- we as a nation are not going to walk into some family -- andby the way, they're going to end up in a church, which will declare them a sanctuary. we'renot going to walk in there and grab a grandmother out and then kick them out. we're not going-- and i think you have to be realistic in
your indignation. i want to control the border.i want english to be the official language of government. i want us to have a lot ofchanges. >> gingrich: i am prepared to be very toughand very bold, but i'm also prepared to be realistic, because i've actually had to passlegislation in washington and i don't believe an unrealistic promise is going to get through,but i do believe, if there's some level of humanity for people who have been here a longtime, we can pass legislation that will decisively reduce illegality, decisively control theborder and will once again mean the people who are in america are here legally. >> blitzer: i just want to make sure i understand.is he still the most anti-immigrant candidate?
>> gingrich: i think, of the four of us, yes. >> blitzer: go ahead, governor. >> romney: that's simply unexcusable. that'sinexcusable. and, actually, senator marco rubio came to my defense and said that adwas inexcusable and inflammatory and inappropriate. mr. speaker, i'm not anti-immigrant. my fatherwas born in mexico. my wife's father was born in wales. they came to this country. the ideathat i'm anti-immigrant is repulsive. don't use a term like that. you can say we disagreeon certain policies, but to say that enforcing the u.s. law to protect our borders, to welcomepeople here legally, to expand legal immigration, as i have proved, that that's somehow antianti-immigrant is simply the kind of over-the-top
rhetoric that has characterized american politicstoo long. and i'm glad that marco rubio called you out on it. i'm glad you withdrew it. ithink you should apologize for it, and i think you should recognize that having differencesof opinions on issues does not justify labeling people with highly charged epithets. >> gingrich: i'll tell you what... >> gingrich: i'll give you an opportunityto self-describe. you tell me what language you would use to describe somebody who thinksthat deporting a grandmother or a grandfather from their family -- just tell me the language.i'm perfectly happy for you to explain what language you'd use.
>> romney: mr. speaker, i think i describedfollowing the law as it exists in this country, which is to say, i'm not going around androunding people up and deporting them. what i said was, people who come here legally geta work permit. people who do not come here legally do not get a work permit. those whodon't get work will tend, over time, to self-deport. i'm not going to go find grandmothers andtake them out of their homes and deport them. those are your words, not my words. and touse that rhetoric suggests to people that somehow, if you're not willing to keep peoplehere who violated the law, that you're anti- immigrant. nothing could be further from thetruth. i am pro-immigrant. i want people to come to america with skill and vitality andvibrance. i want them to come legally. there
are grandmothers that live on the other sideof the border that are waiting to come here legally. i want them to come here, too, notjust those that are already here. >> gingrich: well, so we have gone -- we'vegone from your washington attack when i first proposed this and you said it was outrageous;it would be a magnet to you're accepting the fact that, you know, a family is going totake care of their grandmother or their grandfather. the idea that you are going to push them outin some form by simply saying they can't go get a job -- i think the grandmother is stillgoing to be here. all i want to do is to allow the grandmother to be here legally with somerights to have residency but not citizenship, so that he or she can finish their life withdignity within the law.
>> romney: you know, our problem is not 11million grandmothers. our problem is -- all right. >> romney: our problem is 11 million peoplegetting jobs that many americans, legal immigrants, would like to have. it's school kids in schoolsthat districts are having a hard time paying for. it's people getting free health carebecause we are required under the law to provide that health care. and the real concern isthe people who want to come here legally. let's let legal immigrants come here. let'sstop illegal immigration. >> blitzer: the rhetoric on immigration, governor,has been intense, as you well know, as all four of you know, and anyone who watches televisionknows. you had an ad running saying that speaker
gingrich called spanish "the language of theghetto." what do you mean by that? >> romney: i haven't seen the ad, so i'm sorry.i don't get to see all the tv ads. did he say that? >> blitzer: did you say that? >> gingrich: no. what i said was, we wanteverybody to learn english because we don't -- and i didn't use the word "spanish." wedo not want anyone trapped in a situation where they cannot get a commercial job, theycannot rise, and virtually every parent of every ethnic group -- and by the way, theyare 94 languages spoken at the miami-dade college -- 94 languages. and that's why ithink english should be the official language
of government, and that's why i think everyyoung american should learn english. and my point was, no one should be trapped in a linguisticssituation where they can't go out and get a job and they can't go out and work. so iwould say as much as governor romney doesn't particularly like my use of language, i foundhis use of language and his deliberate distortion equally offensive. >> romney: i'd like -- i doubt that's my ad,but we'll take a look and find out. there are a bunch of ads out there that are beingorganized by other people. but i think our position on english in our schools and inour nation is the same, which i believe english should be the official language of the unitedstates, as it is. i also believe that in our
schools, we should teach kids in english.so, when i was governor, i fought for -- actually, before i was governor, i fought for, duringmy election and thereafter, a program to have english immersion in our schools so our kidscould learn in english. i think we agree on this, which is, you know what? kids in thiscountry should learn english so they can have all the jobs and all the opportunity of peoplewho are here. >> blitzer: i want to bring congressman pauland senator santorum into this. but let's take this question from miami. cnn en espanol'sjuan carlos lopez has a guest there. >> lopez: hola, wolf. we're at the viewingparty for the hispanic leadership network, and it really is a party. they are holdingtheir yearly conference, a meeting of hispanic
republican leaders. and i'm joined by raquelrodriguez. she's an attorney in miami. she practices business and international law,and she has a question for the candidates. >> rodriguez: yes, good evening. the u.s.has been largely away in its foreign and trade policy with latin america. in the meantime,iran and china have been increasing their influence over an involvement in latin americathrough the leftist and left-leaning governments. what would each of you do as president tomore deeply engage in latin america and, importantly, to support the governments and the politicalparties that support democracy and free markets? >> blitzer: congressman paul? >> paul: well, i think free trade is the answer.free trade is an answer to a lot of conflicts
around the world, so i'm always promotingfree trade. and you might add cuba, too. i think we would be a lot better off with cuba,trading with cuba. >> paul: so, i think the more you can do topromote this free trade, the better off we'll be. but as far as us having an obligation,a military or a financial obligation to go down and dictate to them what government theyshould have, i don't like that idea. i would work with the people and encourage free trade,and try to set a standard here where countries in central america or south america or anyplace in the world would want to emulate us and set the standards that we have. unfortunately,sometimes we slip up on our standards and we go around the world and we try to forceourselves on others. i don't think the nations
in south america and central america necessarilywant us to come down there and dictate which government they should have. and yet, i believewith friendship and trade, you can have a lot of influence, and i strongly believe thatit's time we have friendship and trade with cuba. >> blitzer: senator santorum, are you withcongressman paul? >> santorum: no, i'm not with congressmanpaul and i'm not with barack obama on this issue. our policy in central and south americaunder this administration has been abysmal. the way we have treated, in particular, countrieslike honduras, honduras, which stood up for the rule of law, which threw out a would-bedictator who was using the chavez playbook
from venezuela in order to try to run forre-election in honduras, and the united states government, instead of standing behind the-- the people in the parliament, the people in the supreme court, who tried to enforcethe constitution of honduras -- instead of siding with them, the democrats, presidentobama sided with two other people in south america -- excuse me -- central america andsouth america. chavez and castro and obama sided against the people of honduras. thisis a consistent policy of siding with the leftists, siding with the marxists, sidingwith those who don't support democracy, not standing up for our friends in colombia, notstanding up for our friends who want to engage and support america, who want to be greattrading partners and great allies for our
country, to be able to form that kind of bondthat is so essential in our own hemisphere. the european union understood how importantit was for diverse people to be able to come together in an economic unit. we only -- notonly have to come together as an economic unit, but the threat of terrorism, the threatof iran now in venezuela and in other places, and cuba and in nicaragua, the threat of radicalislam growing in that region -- is it important for -- it's absolutely important for us tohave a president who understands that threat and understands the solution is closer ties.i will visit that area of the world, repeatedly, to solidify those ties when i become president. >> blitzer: let me let congressman paul...
>> blitzer: quickly respond. >> paul: the -- the senator mentioned standingup for some of these nations, but he doesn't define it, but standing up for nations likethis usually means that we impose ourselves, go and pick the dictators, undermine certaingovernments, also sending them a lot of money. it doesn't work. most of the time, this backfires.they resent us. we can achieve what he wants in a much different way than us using thebully attitude that you will do it our way. this is the... >> paul: this is not a benefit to us. andbesides, where do you get the troops and where are you going to get the money? because you'retalking about force. and i -- i know of a
much better way than using force to get alongwith people. >> santorum: i don't know where... >> santorum: i don't know what answer congressmanpaul was listening to. he obviously wasn't listening to my answer. >> santorum: what i talked about is buildingstrong economic relationships, strong national security relationships. no one's talking aboutforce. nobody's talking about going into cuba or going into venezuela. it's talking aboutthe other countries in the region, which are being influenced greatly by those countries,that are tending and moving toward those militant socialists, instead of the united states.why? because we've ignored them. you've got
a president of the united states that helda colombian free trade agreement -- colombia, who's out there on the front lines, workingwith us against the narco- terrorists, standing up to chavez in south america. and what didwe do? for political -- domestic political purposes, the president of the united statessided with organized labor and the environmental groups and held colombia hanging out to dryfor three years. we cannot do that to our friends in south america. >> blitzer: all right, we're going to -- we'regoing to come back to this. >> blitzer: we're going to come back to cuba,as well. but stand by for that. we did double-check, just now, governor, that ad that we talkedabout, where i quoted you as saying that speaker
gingrich called spanish "the language of theghetto" -- we just double-checked. it was one of your ads. it's running here in floridain -- on the radio. and at the end you say, "i'm mitt romney and i approved this ad."so it is -- it is here. >> [booing] >> romney: let me ask -- let me ask a question.let me ask the speaker a question. did you say what the ad says or not? i don't know. >> gingrich: it's taken totally out of context. >> romney: oh, ok, he said it. >> gingrich: i did not -- no. i did not sayit about spanish. i said, in general, about
all languages. we are better for childrento learn english in general, period. >> romney: let's take a look at what he said.[applause] >> blitzer: all right. we have a very importantsubject, housing. not only here in florida, foreclosures really, really bad, but all overthe country. and a lot of people are wondering if the federal government contributed to thehousing collapse in recent years. we got a question that came in to us and -- let meput it up there and i'll read it to you. "how would you phase out fannie mae and freddiemac? does the private mortgage industry need additional regulation?" -- that from williamschmidt. let me start with governor romney. >> romney: well, i think you know that fanniemae and freddie mac were a big part of why
we have the housing crisis in the nation thatwe have. and we've had this discussion before. speaker gingrich was hired by freddie macto promote them, to -- to influence other people throughout washington, encouragingthem to -- not to dismantle these two entities. i think that was an enormous mistake. i think,instead, we should have had a whistle-blower and not horn-tooter. he should have stoodup and said, look, these things are a disaster; this is a crisis. he should have been anxiouslytelling the american people that these entities were causing a housing bubble that would causea collapse that we've seen here in florida and around the country. and are they a problemtoday? absolutely. they're offering mortgages, again to people who can't possibly repay them.we're creating another housing bubble, which
will hurt the american people. the right coursefor our -- for our housing industry is to get people back to work so they can buy homesagain. we have 9.9 percent unemployment in florida. it's unthinkable, 18 percent realunemployment here. get people back to work. we'll get people into homes. get the foreclosuresout of the system. let people get into homes, rent properties if necessary and get america'shousing industry growing again. >> blitzer: speaker gingrich? >> gingrich: let me start by saying, floridais one of the two or three most hard hit states on foreclosures. how many of you know somebodywho has had a house foreclosed? just raise your hand. raise your hand.
>> gingrich: okay. the governor has cheerfully-- the governor has cheerfully attacking me inaccurately and he knows it. the contractswe released from freddie mac said i would do no consulting, wrote in, no -- i mean nolobbying, none. but this is a more interesting story. we began digging in after monday nightbecause frankly i'd had about enough of this. we discovered to our shock, governor romneyowns shares of both fannie mae and freddie mac. governor romney made a million dollarsoff of selling some of that. governor romney owns share -- has an investment in goldmansachs, which is today foreclosing on floridians. so maybe governor romney in the spirit ofopenness should tell us how much money he's made off of how many households that havebeen foreclosed by his investments? and let's
be clear about that. >> romney: first of all, my investments arenot made by me. my investments for the last 10 years have been in a blind trust, managedby a trustee. secondly, the investments that they've made, we've learned about this aswe made our financial disclosure, have been in mutual funds and bonds. i don't own stockin either fannie mae or freddie mac. there are bonds that the investor has held throughmutual funds. and mr. speaker, i know that sounds like an enormous revelation, but haveyou checked your own investments? you also have investments through mutual funds thatalso invest in fannie mae and freddie mac. >> romney: let me -- let me -- i've got moretime. let me -- let me -- let me just -- let
me just continue. there's a big differencebetween buying like u.s. savings bonds and getting a return. that's a -- that's not takingmoney out of the united states, that's loaning money to the united states. and what my trusteedid, is he loaned money to fannie mae and freddie mac and -- and they got paid interestof course, just like if you buy u.s. savings bonds. but what the speaker did, was to workas a spokesman to promote fannie mae and freddie mac. to protect them from those people thatwanted to take them down. he got paid $1.6 million to do that. he said his first contractindicated there would be no lobbying. but his second contract didn't have that prescriptiontaken out of it. and so you have to ask yourself why is that? what he was doing was clearlypromoting fannie mae and freddie mac, in this
case freddie mac to the tune of $1.6 million.that is one of the reasons we're in the trouble we're in. >> blitzer: go ahead. >> gingrich: well, first of all, you'll noticethat the governor wasn't aware of the ad he was running. he's not aware of the investmentsthat were being made in his name. >> romney: of course, i can't it's a blindtrust. >> [crosstalk] >> gingrich: ...compare my investments withhis is like comparing a tiny mouse with a giant elephant. the fact -- the fact is...
>> gingrich: ...that there is a very substantialquestion. you didn't give any instructions to -- to say, gee, let's not do this or let'snot do that? you're very quick to draw the widest possible exaggeration. the fact is,the only time i ever spoke to the congress about this issue was in july of 2008. thenew york times reported it. i told the republicans in the house, vote no. do not give them anymoney. they need to be reformed. and in answer to the question earlier, i would break eachof them up into five or six separate units. and over a five year period, i would weanthem from all federal sponsorship because we need to get away from this gigantic systems. >> blitzer: let me bring congressman paul,then senator santorum.
>> blitzer: a follow up question to you bothspecifically. it seems they both acknowledge they both made money from fannie and freddie.should they return that money? >> paul: that -- that subject really doesn'tinterest me a whole lot. >> paul: but the question does. the -- thequestion is, what are we going to do about fannie mae and freddie mac. it should havebeen auctioned off right after the crash came. it would have been cleansed by now. >> paul: it should have been sold. >> paul: but maybe it's my physician background,but i think an ounce of prevention is what we ought to talk about so we can quit doingthis. but we know how the bubble came about.
it was excessive credit, interest rates heldtoo low, too long, the federal reserve responsible for that. community reinvestment act, whichis affirmative action telling banks they have to make these risky loans. and at the sametime, there was a line of credit which allowed fannie mae and freddie mac to, you know, makemore money. and it was -- it was assumed that they would always be protected. now, you can'targue. i've talked a long time about cutting off that credit from the fed. i was tryingto prevent this stuff. >> paul: also, i opposed the community reinvestmentact, as well as i had legislation in 10 years before the bust came to remove that line ofcredit to the treasury. >> blitzer: senator santorum?
>> santorum: well, i would just say, in answerto the question, that as i mentioned last debate, in 2006, i went out and authored aletter with 24 other senators asking for major reform of freddie and fannie, warning of ameltdown and a bubble in the housing market. i stood out, i stood tall, and tried to geta reform, and we couldn't do it. the reform we'd need is to gradually decrease the amountof mortgage that can be financed by freddie -- or underwritten by freddie and fannie overtime, keep reducing that until we get rid of fannie and freddie. the bigger issue hereis, these two gentlemen, who are out distracting from the most important issues we have beenplaying petty personal politics, can we set aside that newt was a member of congress andused the skills that he developed as a member
of congress to go out and advise companies-- and that's not the worst thing in the world -- and that mitt romney is a wealthy guy becauseworked hard and he's going out and working hard? and you guys should that alone and focuson the issues. >> blitzer: we're going to take a quick break,but we have a lot more to discuss. coming up, the debate questions go to space, thefinal frontier. stay with us. >> [commercial break] >> blitzer: we're continuing the debate herein jacksonville, florida. let's get to the issue of transparency, because voters outthere, they want to know as much about you four gentlemen as possible before they vote.tax returns -- let me bring this to speaker
gingrich. earlier this week, you said governorromney, after he released his taxes, you said that you were satisfied with the level oftransparency of his personal finances when it comes to this. and i just want to reiterateand ask you, are you satisfied right now with the level of transparency as far as his personalfinances? >> gingrich: wolf, you and i have a greatrelationship, it goes back a long way. i'm with him. this is a nonsense question. >> gingrich: look, how about if the four ofus agree for the rest of the evening, we'll actually talk about issues that relate togoverning america? >> blitzer: but, mr. speaker, you made anissue of this, this week, when you said that,
"he lives in a world of swiss bank and caymanisland bank accounts." i didn't say that. you did. >> gingrich: i did. and i'm perfectly happyto say that on an interview on some tv show. but this is a national debate, where you havea chance to get the four of us to talk about a whole range of issues. >> blitzer: but if you make a serious accusationagainst governor romney like that, you need to explain that. >> gingrich: i simply suggested -- >> gingrich: you want to try again? i mean--
>> romney: wouldn't it be nice if people didn'tmake accusations somewhere else that they weren't willing to defend here? >> gingrich: ok. all right. given that standard,mitt, i did say i thought it was unusual. and i don't know of any american presidentwho has had a swiss bank account. i'd be glad for you to explain that sort of thing. >> romney: ok. i will. i will. i'll say itagain. i have a trustee that manages my investments in a blind trust. that was so that i wouldavoid any conflicts of interest. that trustee indicated last week, when he was asked aboutthis, he said that he wanted to diversify the investments that i had. and for awhilehe had money in a swiss account, reported
in the u.s., full taxes paid on it, u.s. taxes.there's nothing wrong with that. and i know that there may be some who try to make a dealof that, as you have publicly. but look, i think it's important for people to make surethat we don't castigate individuals who have been successful and try and, by innuendo,suggest there's something wrong with being successful and having investments and havinga return on those investments. speaker, you've indicated that somehow i don't earn that money.i have earned the money that i have. i didn't inherit it. i take risks. i make investments.those investments lead to jobs being created in america. i'm proud of being successful.i'm proud of being in the free enterprise system that creates jobs for other people.i'm not going to run from that. i'm proud
of the taxes i pay. my taxes, plus my charitablecontributions, this year, 2011, will be about 40 percent. so, look, let's put behind thisidea of attacking me because of my investments or my money, and let's get republicans tosay, you know what? what you've accomplished in your life shouldn't be seen as a detriment,it should be seen as an asset to help america. >> blitzer: mr. speaker, i'm ready to moveon, if you are. >> gingrich: what? >> blitzer: i said i'm ready to move on tothe next subject if you are. >> gingrich: i'm happy to. i'm happy to simplysay, you know, it would be nice if you had the same standard for other people that youwould like applied to you and didn't enter
into personal attacks about personal activitiesabout which you are factually wrong. so i would be glad to have a truce with you, butit's a two-way truce. >> romney: i'm happy on any occasion to describethe things that i believe with regards to the speaker's background. we'll probably geta chance to do that as time goes on. >> blitzer: mr. speaker, explain why you thinkthe money that he made over these many years, recent years, under your tax -- hold on. mr.speaker, under your tax plan -- we're talking about taxes right now. this is substance.under your proposed tax plan, he would pay zero taxes. explain that. >> gingrich: well, it would depend on whetherthe particular kind of payments he made were
counted under that plan as capital gains orwhether they were counted as regular income. but even as regular income, he would pay aboutthe same. and i've said this. this is where i'm the opposite of obama. i believe we needto have somebody who fights for hardworking taxpayers. my interest is in reducing everybody'stax here to 15 percent, not trying to raise his to the obama level. so i proposed an alternativeflat tax -- >> gingrich: you know, i have proposed analternative flat tax that people could fill out where you could either keep the currentsystem -- this is what they do in hong kong -- keep the current system with all of itsdeductions and all its paperwork, or you'd have a single page -- i earned this amount,i have this number of dependents, here is
15 percent. my goal is to shrink the governmentto fit the revenue, not to raise the revenue to catch up with the government. and i'd behappy... >> let me just say, i'd -- i would be happyto have the mitt romney flat tax for every american to pay at that rate, and i haven'tcomplained about the rate he pays. >> blitzer: senator santorum, most of thepolls, almost all of the polls, want the wealthiest americans to pay more in taxes in order tobalance the budget. why are they wrong, in your opinion? >> santorum: because we need to have as muchmoney funneling through this economy as possible. and the people who make those investmentsare people who have resources and wealth,
and we want them to deploy that wealth inthe most productive way possible. and when you increase tax rates and you make thingsmuch more expensive to do -- in other words, the rate of return is not as profitable, thenthey tend to do things like investing in -- in nontaxable instruments and other things thatdon't employ people. and so what i believe is we need to reduce taxes. i don't -- look,i'm honest. i don't reduce the higher -- top rate as much as these other folks do. i takethe reagan approach. ronald reagan had a 28 percent top rate. if it was good enough forronald reagan, it's good enough for me. and that's what we put the top rate as. >> santorum: and -- and we have a bottom rateof 10 percent. i believe in a differential.
i don't believe in a flat tax. i believe ina simplified tax code with five deductions and -- and focus on simplify, creating tworates. i disagree with newt also on this. i don't believe in a zero capital gains taxrate. i don't think you need to get to zero to make sure that there's an efficient deploymentof capital and investment. i think, if you get to zero, then, in fact, guys like mittromney, who, again, i give him -- i wish i made as much money as mitt romney, but... >> santorum: but -- you know, but he wouldn'tprobably pay much at all in taxes. and i think that, as long as the tax is not one that detersa proper investment to be able to deploy capital and to get jobs created, then lower ratesare better than zero when it comes to the
issue of capital gains. >> blitzer: are you with ronald reagan asfar as the tax rates, as senator santorum has suggested, congressman paul? >> paul: no, he taxed too much. my goal isto get rid of the 16th amendment. and the only way you can do that... >> paul: the only way you can do that is notrun a welfare system and a warfare system in policing the world. but i do want to addressthis subject about taxing the rich. that is not a solution. but i understand and reallyempathize with the people who talk about the 99 percent and the 1 percent. because there'sa characteristic about what happens when you
destroy a currency. there is a transfer ofwealth from the middle class to the wealthy. and this has been going on for 40 years. sothe middle class is shrinking. they are getting poorer and they're losing their jobs and they'relosing their houses. but wall street isn't getting poorer. and they are the ones whoare getting the bailout. so we have to address the bailout and the system that favors a certaingroup over another group. if you don't have sound money and if you have a welfare state,no matter whether the welfare state is designed to help the poor, you know, the welfare systemhelps the wealthy. and there has been this transfer of wealth. so, if we could stop allof these transfers to the wealthy class, but the solution isn't to tax the wealthy. ifyou give an honest product and customers buy
that product, you deserve to keep that moneyand earn that money. but there's a big difference between those who earn money and those whorip us off through the government and the monetary system. >> blitzer: congressman paul, you're a physician.you're 76 years old. you would be the oldest president of the united states if you wereelected. are you prepared to release your medical records so voters out there know whatyour health is? >> paul: oh, obviously, because it's aboutone page, if even that long. but... >> paul: but i'm willing to... >> paul: i'm willing to challenge any of thesegentlemen up here to a 25- mile bike ride
any time of the day in the heat of texas. >> paul: and, you know -- you know, that subjecthas come up and sometimes in fun but sometimes not in fun. but, you know, there are lawsagainst age discrimination, so if you push this too much, you better be careful. >> blitzer: i raise the question because youremember, four years ago, the same question came up with john mccain and he released hisrecords, finally. i remember our own dr. sanjay gupta spent hours reviewing those records.so let me go down and ask all of you. are you ready to release your medical records? >> romney: happy to do so.
>> gingrich: i'm happy to. and i also wantto attest i'm confident that dr. paul is quite ready to serve if he's elected. watching himcampaign, he's in great shape. >> blitzer: all right, we have another questionfrom the audience. i'll look forward to seeing your medical records. >> blitzer: go ahead. let's take a questionright now. please introduce yourself, as well. >> question: good evening. my name is matthewbathel. my question is, what would your plan be for the future of manned space flight andthe future of nasa? >> blitzer: all right, let me go to governorromney on this one. an important issue, especially here in florida where a lot of people havelost their jobs as a result of the decline
of the space program. yesterday speaker gingrichoutlined a -- a pretty long plan on what to do about it and he said that by the end ofhis second term, if he were elected president, there would be a permanent base on the moon.good idea? >> romney: that's an enormous expense. andright now i want to be spending money here. of course the space coast has been badly hurtand i believe in a very vibrant and strong space program. to define the mission for ourspace program, i'd like to bring in the -- the top professors that relate to space areasand physics, the top people from industry. because i want to make sure what we're doingin space translates into commercial products. i want to bring in our top military expertson space needs. and -- and finally of course,
the -- the people from -- the administrationif i had an administration. i'd like to come together and talk about different optionsand the cost. i'd like corporate america as well as the defense network and others thatcould come together in a -- in a part -- in, if you will, a partnership basis to createa plan that will keep our space program thriving and growing. i -- i believe in a manned spaceprogram. i'd like to see whether they believe in the same thing. i'm not -- i'm not lookingfor a -- a colony on the moon. i think the cost of that would be in the hundreds of billions,if not trillions. i'd rather be rebuilding housing here in the u.s. >> blitzer: we have a question. i want tospeaker to weigh in as well.
>> blitzer: this question is related from-- we got it from twitter. speaker gingrich, how do you plan to create a base on the moonwhile keeping taxes down in eight years? >> gingrich: i think, look it's a great question.you start with the question, do you really believe nasa in it's current form is the mosteffective way of leveraging investment in space? we now have a bureaucracy sitting there,which has managed to mismanage the program so well that in fact we have no lift vehicle.so you almost have to wonder, what does the washington office of nasa do? does it sitaround and think space? >> gingrich: does it contemplate that someday we could have a rocket? my point in the speech i made yesterday, which is on cspanand i'd love to have all of you look at it.
it's based on having looked at space issuessince the late 1950's when missiles and rockets was a separate magazine. and working withnasa and others. i believe by the use of prizes, by the use of incentives, by opening up thespace port so that it's available on a ready basis for commercial fight, by using commonsensefor example the atlas-v could easily be fixed into a man capable vehicle so you didn't haveto rely on -- on a russian launch or a chinese launch. there are many things you can do toleverage accelerating the development of space. lindbergh flew to paris for a $25,000.00 prize.if we had a handful of serious prizes, you'd see an extraordinary number of people outthere trying to get to the moon first in order to have billed [ph] that. and i'd like tohave an american on the moon before the chinese
get there. >> santorum: i -- i believe america's a frontiernation and obviously the frontier that -- that we're talking about is -- is the next one,which is space. and that we need to inspire. one of the big problems we have in our countrytoday is that young people are not getting involved in math and science and not dreamingbig dreams. so nasa or the space program where space is important, nasa is one componentthat -- our -- our space defense is another area. i think both of -- both of which arevery, very important. i agree that we need to bring good minds in the private sectormuch more involved in nasa than the government bureaucracy that we have. but let's just behonest, we run a $1.2 trillion deficit right
now. we're -- we're borrowing 40-cents ofevery dollar. and to go out there and promise new programs and big ideas, that's a greatthing to maybe get votes, but it's not a responsible thing when you have to go out and say thatwe have to start cutting programs, not talking about how to -- how to -- how to grow them.we're going to cut programs. we're going to spend -- under my administration, we're goingto spend less money every year -- every year. year, to year, to year the federal governmentamount of spending will go down for four years until we get a balanced budget. and you can'tdo that by -- by -- by grand schemes. whether it's the space program or frankly whetherit's the speaker's social security program, which will create a brand-new social securityentitlement. those are things that sound good
and maybe make big promises to people, butwe've got to be responsible in the way we allocate our resources. >> blitzer: we're going to get to that ina moment, but... >> blitzer: congressman paul, texas, the spaceprogram very important there as well. where do you stand on this? >> paul: well, i don't think we should goto the moon. i think we maybe should send some politicians up there. >> paul: but i went -- i went into the airforce in 1962 and studied aerospace medicine. actually had a daydream about maybe becomingthe first physician to go into space. that
-- that didn't occur, but i see space -- theamount of money we spend on space, the only part that i would vote for is for nationaldefense purposes. not to explore the moon and go to mars. i think that's fantastic.that's -- i love those ideas. but i also don't like the idea of building government businesspartnerships. if we had a healthy economy and had more bill gateses and more warrenbuffetts, the money would be there. it should be privatized, and the people who work inthe industry, if you had that, there would be jobs in aerospace. and i just think thatwe don't need a bigger, a newer program, when you think of the people -- i mean, healthcare or something else deserves a lot more priority than going to the moon. so, i wouldbe very reluctant, but space technology should
be followed up to some degree for nationaldefense purposes, but not just for the fun of it and, you know, for -- you know, forscientific -- >> blitzer: we're going to leave this subject,but before we do, i want speaker gingrich to clarify what you said yesterday in thatmajor speech you delivered on space. you said that you would support a lunar colony or alunar base, and that if 13,000 americans were living there, they would be able to applyfor u.s. statehood from the moon. >> gingrich: i was meeting rick's desire forgrandiose ideas. but -- >> blitzer: that's a pretty grandiose idea. >> gingrich: but let me make just two pointsabout this. it is really important to go back
and look at what john f. kennedy said in mayof 1961 when he said, "we will go to the moon in this decade." no american had orbited theearth. the technology didn't exist. and a generation of young people went into scienceand engineering and technology, and they were tremendously excited. and they had a future.i actually agree with dr. paul. the program i envision would probably end up being 90percent private sector, but it would be based on a desire to change the government rulesand change the government regulations, to get nasa out of the business of trying torun rockets, and to create a system where it's easy for private sector people to beengaged. i want to see us move from one launch occasionally to six or seven launches a daybecause so many private enterprises walk up
and say, we're prepared to go do it. but i'lltell you, i do not want to be the country that having gotten to the moon first, turnedaround and said, it doesn't really matter, let the chinese dominate space, what do wecare? i think that is a path of national decline, and i am for america being a great country,not a country in decline. >> blitzer: we're going to move on, but goahead, governor romney. >> romney: i spent 25 years in business. ifi had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billiondollars to put a colony on the moon, i'd say, "you're fired." the idea that corporate americawants to go off to the moon and build a colony there, it may be a big idea, but it's nota good idea. and we have seen in politics
-- we've seen politicians -- and newt, you'vebeen part of this -- go from state to state and promise exactly what that state wantsto hear. the speaker comes here to florida, wants to spend untold amount of money havinga colony on the moon. i know it's very exciting on the space coast. in south carolina, itwas a new interstate highway, and dredging the port in charleston. in new hampshire,it was burying a power line coming in from canada and building a new vha hospital innew hampshire so that people don't have to go to boston. look, this idea of going stateto state and promising what people want to hear, promising billions, hundreds of billionsof dollars to make people happy, that's what got us into the trouble we're in now. we'vegot to say no to this kind of spending.
>> gingrich: i want to make two points. first,i thought we were a country where one of the purposes of candidates going around was toactually learn about the states they campaigned in and actually be responsive to the needsof the states they campaign in. for example, the port of jacksonville is going to haveto be expanded because the panama canal is being widened, and i think that's useful thingfor a president to know. i think it's important for presidents to know about local things.second -- and at the other end of the state, the everglades restoration project has tobe completed, and it's the federal government which has failed. but, second, in responseto what rick said, when we balanced the budget with the 1997 balanced budget act, and ultimatelyhad four consecutive balanced budgets, we
doubled the size of the national institutesof health because we set priorities. it is possible to do the right things in the rightorder to make this a bigger, richer, more exciting country. you don't just have to becheap everywhere. you can actually have priorities to get things done. >> blitzer: all right. we're going to moveon. but go ahead, ron paul. >> paul: i want to make a quick comment, becausenewt's mentioned this quite a few times about balancing the budget for four times. i wentback and looked at the record. the budget was -- the national debt during those fouryears actually went up about a trillion dollars. what he's talking about is, he doesn't countthe money he takes out of social security.
so, reagan nor you had a truly balanced budgetbecause the national debt goes up, and that's what we pay the interest on. so i think you'vestretched that a little bit more than you should have. >> blitzer: go ahead and respond. and thensenator santorum. >> gingrich: no, i... >> blitzer: you want to respond to congressmanpaul? >> gingrich: no, i would just say -- i wouldjust say, under the system that was used, we were $405 billion [inaudible]... >> gingrich: i agree with ron -- but let mefinish. i actually agree with you, and i propose
that we take social security off budget sono president can ever again get threaten, as obama did in august, that he would notsend the check out, and you could set social security back up as a free-standing trustfund. it does have enough money and you could in fact pay the checks without regard to politicsin washington. >> blitzer: go ahead, quickly. >> santorum: well, look, we just listenedto the president of the united states the other night completely ignore the biggestproblem facing this country when it comes to our financial health. we've been downgradedas a -- as a -- as a country and the president of the united states completely ignored anyof the heavy work, the hard work in being
honest with the american public about whatwe have to do to get our fiscal house in order. and i think that's the point i would makehere. going around and promising a whole bunch of new ideas and new projects and big ideas-- that was fine. and maybe we need it; we can do that. i supported the doubling of thenational institutes of health. but we didn't have a $1.2 trillion deficit. we didn't -- weweren't at over -- we are now going to reach $16 trillion, which is more than our wholegdp. we were not in that situation 20, 15 years ago. we are in a different world. weneed leaders who are going to be honest with the people of this country, of the problemswe have, and have bold solutions to make that happen. i'll do that.
>> blitzer: let's continue on this subject. >> blitzer: but let's take a question fromthe audience. go ahead. stand up and please introduce yourself. >> question: my name is lynn frazier and ilive here in jacksonville. and for the republican presidential candidates, my question is, i'mcurrently unemployed and i found myself unemployed for the first time in 10 years and unableto afford health care benefits. what type of hope can you promise me and others in myposition? >> blitzer: let's ask congressman paul. >> paul: well, it's a tragedy because thisis a consequence of the government being involved
in medicine since 1965. when i was growingup, we didn't have a whole lot, but my dad had a small insurance, but medical care costsweren't that much. and you should have an opportunity -- medical care insurance shouldbe given to you as an individual, so if you're employed or not employed, you have -- youjust take care of that and you keep it up. when you lose a job, sometimes you lose yourinsurance. but the cost is so high. when you pump money into something, like housing, cost-- prices go up. if you pump money into education, the cost of education goes up. when the governmentgets involved in medicine, you don't get better care; you get -- cost goes up and it distortsthe economy and leads to a crisis. but your medical care should go with you. you shouldget total deduction on it. it would be so
much less expensive. it doesn't solve everysingle problem, but you're -- you're suffering from the consequence of way too much governmentand the cost going up because government has inflated the cost and we have a government-createdrecession, and that is a consequence of the business cycle. >> blitzer: speaker -- speaker gingrich, whatshould lynn do? >> gingrich: well, look, the first -- sheactually put her finger on two different problems. the largest challenge of this country is toget the economy growing so she can have a job so it's easy for her to have insurance.we -- we need -- and the president did nothing about this the other night. in fact, his proposalon taxes would make the economy worse. we
need to have a program which would start with,frankly, repealing obamacare, repealing dodd-frank, repealing sarbanes-oxley. >> gingrich: and we need to give her a chanceat a job. second, we need real health reform, not the obama style, but we need health reformthat allows her to buy in. and dr. paul is right. she ought to get the same tax breakwhether she buys personally or whether she buys through a economy. she should also beable to buy into an association so that she's buying with lots of other people so it's notsingle insurance, which is the most expensive kind. but you combine those two, reformingthe insurance system and getting the economy growing again so people are back at work,you cure an awful lot of america's problems
with those two steps, and you put her backin a position where she's in charge of her life; she's not dependent on barack obamato take care of her. >> blitzer: that plan work for you, governor?romney: actually, what both these gentlemen said is pretty much spot-on. and i'd -- andi'll add a couple of things. one, i want to underscore something both of them said, andthat is, right now in america, if you have insurance, you most likely got it throughyour employer. and the reason is, your employer gets a deduction for you when they buy theinsurance for you. that means that, if you change jobs, you've got to get a new insurancecompany, most likely. and if you become unemployed, you lose your insurance. that doesn't makesense. and if an individual wants to own their
own insurance, they're not part of a big group,and so as a result they get a very high rate. what we should do is allow individuals toown their own insurance and have the same tax treatment as companies get. you do thatand people like this young woman would be able to own her insurance. the rates wouldbe substantial lower for her buying it individually than if she had to buy it individually today.secondly, getting people to work. this president has failed the american people. he got upthere and gave a speech last night. it was like groundhog day all over again. he saidthe same things and the same results we're seeing today. people are not working. >> romney: and we know what it takes to putpeople back to work. he said some of those
things last night -- lowering corporate taxes,lowering regulations, opening up all of the above in energy, cracking down on china. hejust doesn't do any of those things, and if i'm president, i will do those things andi'll get you back to work. thank you. >> santorum: all three of these folks soundgreat and i agree with them. i would just add that health savings account, which i introduced20 years ago with john kasich, is really the fundamental reform of getting consumers backinvolved in the health care system. the problem with the answers from congressman gingrichand governor romney is that, well, they didn't always say what they're saying. governor romneywas the author of romneycare, which is a top- down government-run health care system which,read an article today, has 15 different items
directly in common with obamacare, everythingfrom the increase in the medicaid program, not just that government is going to mandateyou buy something that's a condition of breathing, mandate that you buy an insurance policy,something that governor romney agreed to at the state level, something congressman gingrichfor 20 years advocated, that the federal government can force each and every person to enter intoa private contract. something that everyone now, at least up on this stage, says is radicallyunconstitutional, congressman gingrich supported for 20 years. governor romney supported itin the state, a state that is a -- pretty much a model for what obamacare is going tolook like -- the highest health care costs in the country, 27 percent above the average,average waiting time -- 94 percent of the
people in massachusetts are now insured, butthere was just a survey that came out and said one in four don't get the care they needbecause of the high cost. so, you have a card, you're covered, but you can't get care. thisis the top-down model that both of these gentlemen say they're now against, but they've beenfor, and it does not provide the contrast we need with barack obama if we're going totake on that most important issue. we cannot give the issue of health care away in thiselection. it is too foundational for us to win this election. >> blitzer: a quick rebuttal from speakergingrich and then governor romney. >> gingrich: well, in my case, i think rickis lumping us together rather more than is
accurate. if you go to healthtransformation.net,i founded the center for health transformation. i wrote a book in 2002 called "saving livesand saving money." it calls for you and your doctor and your pharmacist and your hospitalhave a relationship. i believe in something like patient power. i didn't advocate federalmandates. i talked about it at a state level, finding a way -- which included an escapeclause that people didn't have to buy it -- finding a way to try to have people have insurance,particularly for wealthy people who are simply free-riding on local hospitals. but the factis, it was a personal system, dramatically different than either romneycare or the versionrick just discussed. >> blitzer: governor romney?
>> romney: the system that we put in placein our state was something we worked out with the labor community, the health care community,business, and the citizens of the nation. we came together, it was voted by a 200-personlegislature. only two voted no. our system has a lot of flaws, a lot of things i'd dodifferently. it has a lot of benefits. the people of the state like it by about threeto one. we consider it very different than obamacare. if i were president, day one iwill take action to repeal obamacare. it's bad medicine. it's bad economy. i'll repealit. >> romney: and i believe the people -- i believethe people of each state should be able to craft programs that they feel are best fortheir people. i think ours is working pretty
well. if i were governor, it would work aheck of a lot better. >> blitzer: all right. and very quickly, goahead. >> santorum: what governor romney just saidis that government-run top-down medicine is working pretty well in massachusetts and hesupports it. now, think about what that means -- >> romney: that's not what i said. >> santorum: -- going up against barack obama,who you are going to claim, well, top-down government-run medicine on the federal leveldoesn't work and we should repeal it. and he's going to say, wait a minute, governor.you just said that top-down government-run
medicine in massachusetts works well. folks,we can't give this issue away in this election. it is about fundamental freedom. whether theunited states government or even a state government -- you have amendment 1 [ph] here offeredby scott pleitgen [ph], who, by the way, endorsed me today, and it's going to be on your ballotas to whether there should be a government mandate here in florida. according to governorromney, that's ok. if the state does it, that's ok. if the state wants to enforce it, that'sok. those are not the clear contrasts we need if we're going to defeat barack obama anda -- >> blitzer: let's go to miami. >> blitzer: very quickly.
>> romney: rick, i make enough mistakes inwhat i say, not for you to add more mistakes to what i say. i didn't say i'm in favor oftop- down government-run health care, 92 percent of the people in my state had insurance beforeour plan went in place. and nothing changes for them. they own the same private insurancethey had before. and for the 8 percent of people who didn't have insurance, we saidto them, if you can afford insurance, buy it yourself, any one of the plans out there,you can choose any plan. there's no government plan. and if you don't want to buy insurance,then you have to help pay for the cost of the state picking up your bill, because underfederal law if someone doesn't have insurance, then we have to care for them in the hospitals,give them free care. so we said, no more,
no more free riders. we are insisting on personalresponsibility. either get the insurance or help pay for your care. and that was the conclusionthat we reached. >> santorum: does everybody in massachusettshave a requirement to buy health care? >> romney: everyone has a requirement to eitherbuy it or pay the state for the cost of providing them free care. because the idea of peoplegetting something for free when they could afford to care for themselves is somethingthat we decided in our state was not a good idea. >> santorum: so, in massachusetts... >> santorum: just so i understand this, inmassachusetts, everybody is mandated as a
condition of breathing in massachusetts, tobuy health insurance, and if you don't, and if you don't, you have to pay a fine. whathas happened in massachusetts is that people are now paying the fine because health insuranceis so expensive. and you have a pre-existing condition clause in yours, just like barackobama. so what is happening in massachusetts, the people that governor romney said he wantedto go after, the people that were free-riding, free ridership has gone up five-fold in massachusetts.five times the rate it was before. why? because... >> romney: that's total, complete... >> santorum: i'll be happy to give you thestudy. five times the rate it has gone up. why? because people are ready to pay a cheaperfine and then be able to sign up to insurance,
which are now guaranteed under "romney-care,"than pay high cost insurance, which is what has happened as a result of "romney-care." >> romney: first of all, it's not worth gettingangry about. secondly, the... >> romney: secondly, 98 percent of the peoplehave insurance. and so the idea that more people are free-riding the system is simplyimpossible. half of those people got insurance on their own. others got help in buying theinsurance. look, i know you don't like the plan that we had. i don't like the obama plan.his plan cuts medicare by $500 billion. we didn't, of course, touch anything like that.he raises taxes by $500 billion. we didn't do that. he wasn't interested in the 8 percentof the people that were uninsured. he was
concerned about the 100 percent of the peopleof the country. "obama-care" takes over health care for the american people. if i'm presidentof the united states, i will stop it. and in debating barack obama, i will be able toshow that i have passion and concern for the people in this country that need health care,like this young woman who asked the question. but i will be able to point out that whathe did was wrong. it was bad medicine, it's bad for the economy, and i will repeal it. >> blitzer: let's move on, let's move on. >> santorum: wolf, what governor romney saidis just factually incorrect. your mandate is no different than barack obama's mandate.it is the same mandate. he takes over...
>> blitzer: all right. all right. >> santorum: you take over 100 percent, justlike he takes over 100 percent, requires the mandate. the same fines that you put in placein massachusetts are fines that he puts in place in the federal level. same programs. >> blitzer: congressman paul, who is right? >> paul: i think they're all wrong. >> paul: i think this -- this is a typicalresult of when you get government involved, because all you are arguing about is whichform of government you want. they have way too much confidence in government sortingthis out. so, i would say there's a much better
way. and that is allow the people to maketheir decisions and not get the government involved. you know, it has only been... >> paul: when i started medicine, there wasno medicare or medicaid. and nobody was out in the streets without it. now, now peopleare suffering, all the complaints going on. so the government isn't our solution. so,i'm not too happy with this type of debate, trying to blame one versus the other, so,but -- most likely we're going to continue to have this problem unless we straightenout the economy. and that means... >> blitzer: i'll give you 30 seconds, mr.speaker. paul: ... cut the spending. and they talk about these new programs and all, buthow many of the other candidates are willing
to cut anything? i'm willing to cut $1 trillionout of the first year. >> blitzer: all right. >> gingrich: well, i just want to say thati actually think if you look at what ron paul's background is as a doctor, and you look atmedicine in the early '60s, and you look at how communities solved problems, it was afundamentally more flexible and less expensive system. and there's a lot to be said for rethinkingfrom the ground up, the entire approach to health care. >> blitzer: let's go to miami. we have anotherquestion. >> blitzer: cnn espanol's juan carlos lopezis standing by. go ahead?
>> lopez: yes, wolf, our question now comesfrom jennifer coryn [ph] she is a -- the executive director of the hispanic leadership network,our cosponsor and she is the spouse of a marine corps gunnery sargent and i believe, jennifer,your question has to do with the future? >> question: yes. thank you very much andgood evening. we have many qualified, hispanic leaders. which of our hispanic leaders wouldyou consider to serve in your cabinet? >> santorum:: well, i mean i hate to throwone to florida, but obviously your senator marco rubio is a pretty impressive guy. >> gingrich: i think that there are a number,and i think for example of -- of when you think cabinet, i think for example of susanamartinez, the governor of new mexico. you
know, at the cabinet level i think of somebodylike ileana ros-lehtinen. i actually thought about marco rubio on a slightly more dignifiedand central role, then being in the cabinet, but that's another conversation. >> blitzer: governor? >> romney: we -- we are blessed -- we're blessedto have an enormous number of highly qualified hispanic-americans in the republican partyand leadership right now. brian sandoval, the governor of -- of nevada. you mentionedsusana martinez in new mexico. i -- both of the diaz-belart brothers, one retired fromcongress, the other currently there. ileana ros-lehtinen, mel martinez is back in theprivate sector. who knows, he could be pulled
back. of course, senator marco rubio a -- aterrific hispanic- american. i -- i'm sure i'm missing many, many others, but we havea -- a remarkable -- carlos gutierrez, formerly secretary of commerce. these individuals canfor membership in our -- in our cabinet, i believe. and -- and potentially as the -- asthe speaker indicates, other positions as well. >> paul: i -- i -- i don't have one particularname that i'm going to bring up, but my litmus test would be to get individuals, hispanicor otherwise to understand monetary policy and understand the system. but also the hispaniccommunity is especially attuned to the foreign policy of non-intervention. they -- they aremore opposed to war than other communities,
so i would think there's plenty in the hispaniccommunity that could give me good advice and an understanding of why a non-interventionforeign policy is very attractive to the hispanic people. >> blitzer: all right, gentleman stand by.much more to discuss. i want to take a short break. we have many more topics to include-- including this, we'll get into this a little bit, what would your wife -- why would yourwife make the best first lady. i'll ask these four candidates. stay with us. >> blitzer: i'm wolf blitzer. we're here injacksonville for cnn's florida republican presidential debate. many of you are watchingonline, commenting on twitter, facebook, at
cnn.com. we have many more questions for thecandidates, including one that hits close to home. stand by to find out why each manon this stage thinks his wife would be the best first lady. >> blitzer: want to get right back to therest of the debate, but first, on a lighter subject, i want to ask each of these gentlemenwhy they think their wife would make a great first lady. congressman paul? >> paul: well, she's been my wife for 54 years.and we're going to have an anniversary on february 1st. >> blitzer: congratulations.
>> paul: so -- but she's the mother of fiveof our children, and she's a grandmother of 18 grandchildren, does an excellent job. andshe's also the author of a very famous cookbook, "the ron paul cookbook." >> romney: i've got to take a little bit moretime, a little more seriousness. my -- nothing wrong with what you said -- i'm sorry. mywife is also a mom, as i pointed out early on, but in some respects, she is a real championand a fighter. she was diagnosed in 1998 with multiple sclerosis, and more recently withbreast cancer. she has battled both successfully. and as first lady, she will be able to reachout to people who are also struggling and suffering and will be someone who shows compassionand care. and she's also had a passion all
of her adult life on helping people in troubledsituations, young women in particular, understand the importance of getting married before theyhave babies and encouraging people to create families to raise kids in. >> gingrich: let me say, first of all, havinggotten to know them, i think all three of the wives represented here would be terrificfirst ladies. callista and i have gotten to know all three of them, and we think they'dbe fabulous people. so i would rather just to talk about why i like callista, and whyi'd like her to be first lady, but she's not necessarily in any way better. these are wonderfulpeople, and they would be wonderful first ladies. but callista brings a couple of things.one is a tremendous artistic focus. she's
done a video in music education, why it reallymatters. she's a pianist by background, plays the french horn in a community band, singsin the choir of the basilica of the national shrine of the immaculate conception. she reallycares about the arts and would bring a really strong feeling for music education and forart, and why it matters to people as part of their education. she's also very patrioticabout american exceptionalism. she's had a best-selling "new york times" book, children'sbook, and has really reached out to young people to get them to understand america.and she's helped produce and host seven movies now, so she would bring an entire, i think,artistic flavor. but -- and i, obviously, would be thrilled to be able to hang out withher at the white house. so it would be good.
>> blitzer: and i suspect you would be. unfortunately,senator santorum, your wife is not here tonight. >> santorum: yeah, she's not. she's -- she'sdoing what she does incredibly well, which is to be a mother to our seven children. andshe is -- she's my hero. she's someone who has been, you know, well- educated. she wasa neo-natal intensive care nurse for nine years at one of the most advanced nurseriesin the -- in the country. she went on to, because she saw all these ethical challengesthere, so she went on and got a law degree so she could -- she could deal with thosein the -- in the legal world. and then when she got married, she gave that up; she walkedaway and walked into something that she felt called to do, which was to be a mom and tobe a wife. and we've -- we've had eight children.
we are blessed to be raising seven. we'vebeen through a lot together, losing a child, having a child with a disability that we havenow, our little bella. and the -- the amount of love for these special kids is just palpablein her. she wrote a book about our son that we lost called "letters to gabriel," aboutthat ordeal that we went through. that book, that little book has saved countless -- idon't -- we know of at least hundreds of lives that were saved because people read that bookand realized that the child they we're carrying had the dignity to be love and nurtured irrespectiveof what malady may have -- may have befallen that baby in the womb. and so many childrenwere born and are alive today because of that book. she's also written a book on manners.that's something that i -- i -- we have seven
children, so we know that kids are not borngood. and... >> santorum: and so manners is very importantin our house. and she wrote a storybook because there were all sorts of how-to books on mannersbut there was no storybook, teaching manners through, well, how christ taught us, throughstories. and -- and that's what she did. and that book has hopefully somewhat civilizedsome children around this country. >> blitzer: very nice. all right, let's getback to the debate -- the debate now. >> blitzer: governor romney, you criticizedspeaker gingrich for not being as close to ronald reagan as he says he was. when youran for the senate, you said you were, quote, "you weren't trying to return to reagan-bush."so the question is, do you think you can claim
the reagan mantle more than speaker gingrich? >> romney: oh, of course not. no, i -- i was-- at the time ronald reagan was -- was president, i was just getting started. i went throughschool, came out of school, got my first job, worked my way up in a consulting company,and then, after awhile, started a business of my own. i was looking at politics fromafar and learning as time went on. i didn't get involved in politics early in my life.i instead spent my time building a business. and then later, as my business had been successfuland we'd been involved in some turnaround situations, some businesses in trouble thatwe were able to help -- not all worked out as we'd hoped, but a number did -- i got askedto go off and help get the salt lake city
olympics in 2002 on track and put aside mybusiness and went -- went to utah. and it was perhaps the greatest professional experienceof my life, going there and spending three years helping getting those games on track.i -- i happen to believe the olympics is one of the great showcases of the -- of the humanspirit that exists in the media world. and it was very successful. and then -- and then,after that, i was asked by some friends to come back and run for governor, did that.and that's when i became terribly politically involved. and in that involvement, i learneda lot of lessons. being governor taught me a lot of things. i became more conservative,by the way, as i was governor, and found the importance of lowering taxes, making it easierfor businesses to grow, the importance of
driving schools to be the best in the country.those are the things i did. and so i'm not suggesting -- the speaker was a congressmanat the time ronald reagan was president, so he -- he, of course, was closer to the ronaldreagan era than i. >> blitzer: mr. speaker, you've heard thecriticism lately that you weren't necessarily as close to the president as you suggest? >> gingrich: well, it's increasingly interestingto watch the romney attack machine coordinate things. and all of a sudden, today, thereare like four different articles by four different people that randomly show up. the fact is,i'm thrilled that michael reagan has endorsed me and will be campaigning with me here inflorida. i remember very fondly, in 1995,
when we were at the goldwater institute andnancy reagan said, you know, "barry gave ronnie the torch, and now ronny's passing the torchto newt and his team in congress. so i think it's reasonable to say, and i think the governorsaid it fairly, i am vastly closer to reagan. in that period the governor was an independentbusiness person. in '92 he was donating to the democrats for congress and voted for paultsongas in the democratic primary. in '94 running against teddy kennedy, he said flatly,i don't want to go back to the reagan-bush era, i was an independent. so there's a prettywide gap. now, he's more mature. he's more conservative, i accept that. i think it'sa good thing. but those of us who were in the trenches fighting in the '80's, it wouldbe nice to be recognized for what we actually
did and not to have orchestrated attacks totry to distort the history of that period. >> blitzer: governor romney, you can respondplease. >> romney: just a -- just a short clarification.i -- i've never voted for a democrat when there was a republican on the ballot. and-- and in my state of massachusetts, you could register as an independent and go vote inwhich -- either primary happens to be very interesting. and any chance i got to voteagainst bill clinton or ted kennedy, i took. and so i -- i'm... >> romney: ...i have voted -- i have alwaysvoted for a republican any time there was a republican on the ballot. with regards tothe speaker's involvement in the reagan years,
he can speak for himself. the reagan diariesand the other histories that were written at that time can lay that out as well. i -- i-- i think, i think what he said speaks for itself and i'm proud of the things i was ableto accomplish. >> blitzer: let's take another question fromthe audience. go ahead. please stand up and give us your name? >> question: hi, my name is george miatus[ph], i live here in jacksonville and when i was 3-years-old i was very blessed thatmy parents brought me here from cuba. they brought me here so that i could be raisedin freedom and in liberty. president obama has recently announced that he is liberalizingtrade and travel policies. what would be your
position as president toward the island ofcuba? >> santorum: i would oppose it. i've been100 percent in support of the cuban people and their right to have a free cuba and theunited states should stand on the side of the cuban people against these despots whoare not just reigning terror, continuing reign of terror in cuba. but now have their -- their-- their puppet, chavez in -- in venezuela and noriega and morales and it keeps -- itkeeps like a cancer growing. so the idea that a president of the united states would takethe heart of the cancer that is in central and south america, and begin to reward behaviorthat has spread this cancer because of our dilly-dallying and our inattentiveness tothe problems in central and south america.
now, we're going to reward the secret police.we're going to [inaudible] president of venezuela as they are in cuba. we're going to rewardthis type of thuggery, this type of marxism in our region. we're going to reward a countrythat is now working with these other countries to harbor and bring in iran and the terrorist-- the jihadist's who want to set up missile sites and to set up training camps. and sowe're going to reward this behavior by opening up and liberalizing. this is the exact wrongmessage at the exact wrong time. >> blitzer: congressman paul... >> blitzer: ...you said the u.s. should talkto everyone. imagine you're in the oval office, you speak to raul castro. what would you sayto him?
>> paul: well, i'd ask him what he calledabout, you know? >> paul: what was the purpose of his call?no, i would ask him what can -- what can we do to improve relations? because i wouldn'tsee them as likely to attack us. when i was drafted in october of '62, that was a differentworld. i mean there were nuclear weapons in cuba. that was a different story. but -- buttoday to -- not to talk to them and take the call and see what you can work out, helps-- helps castro. it hurts the people, the dissidents, the people who want to overthrowhim have always had to be, you know, nationalistic and unified behind the leader. so as wellintended as these sanctions are, they almost inevitably backfire and they help the dictatorsand hurt the people.
>> paul: so it's time to change. the cold-- the cold war -- the cold war is over. they're not going to invade us and i just think thata better relationship and trade relationship, so many people -- i think -- i've noticedalready since i've been talking about this issue the last four of five years, i thinkthe people have changed their mind. it's very -- the american people are getting much moreopen. not nearly as frightened. and people -- i don't think they see a jihadist underthe bed every night... >> paul: ...and we have to worry about that.i think there's -- i -- i worry about overreaction, over concern and lack of ability to talk tothem when they call you. >> blitzer: i want both of you to weigh in,governor romney first?
>> romney: two -- two major flaws with presidentobama's foreign policy. >> blitzer: well what about ron paul's policy? >> romney: well, i'm talking about presidentobama right now. we can get back to ron paul in a moment. >> romney: first of all, i think the presidenthas largely ignored latin america, cuba in particular, venezuela, and other nations.i think we have to change that dramatically. i think we have to have economic initiativesto build trade throughout latin america, particularly with colombia and panama, now part of freetrade agreements. i want more of that throughout latin america. but that's the first flaw,ignoring latin america. and number two is
reaching out with accommodations to some ofthe world's worst actors, whether it was putin in russia, giving him what he wanted, or castro,saying we're going to let you have remittances coming from the u.s. to fund your future,or relaxed trade restrictions. throughout the world, with ahmadinejad opening an openhand, tyrants look for weakness to take advantage. that's the wrong course. the right coursefor cuba is to continue to honor helms-burton. and if i'm president of the united states,i will use every resource we have, short of invasion and military action, congressmanpaul. i'll use every resource we can to make sure that when fidel castro finally leavesthis planet, that we are able to help the people of cuba enjoy freedom. they want it.it's a god-given right. and it is our responsibility
to help share the gift of freedom with peoplethroughout the world that are seeking it. >> blitzer: are you open -- mr. speaker, areyou open to improving relations with cuba? >> gingrich: well, let me start with wherethe governor correctly pointed out. i was very proud as speaker to be able to make surethat the helms-burton act passed, and i'm delighted that congressman dan burton is heretonight and is campaigning with me, because it was a very important step towards isolatingthe castro regime. i think it's amazing that barack obama is worried about an arab spring,he's worried about tunisia, he's worried about libya, he's worried about egypt, he's worriedabout syria, and he cannot bring himself to look south and imagine a cuban spring. andi would argue that we should have, as a stated
explicit policy, that we want to facilitatethe transition from the dictatorship to freedom. we want to bring together every non-militaryasset we have, exactly as president reagan and prime minister thatcher and pope johnpaul ii did in poland and in eastern europe. they broke up the soviet empire without ageneral war by using a wide range of things, one of which is just psychological, sayingto the next generation of people in cuba, the dictatorship is not going to survive.you need to bet to moving to freedom in order to have prosperity in cuba, and we will helpyou get to that freedom. >> blitzer: let's take another question fromthe audience. please give us your name and tell us where you are from.
>> [question]: abraham hassel [ph] from jacksonville,florida. how would a republican administration help bring peace to palestine and israel whenmost candidates barely recognize the existence of palestine or its people? as a palestinian-americanrepublican, i'm here to tell you we do exist. >> blitzer: all right. let's ask governorromney, first of all. what would you say to abraham? >> romney: well, the reason that there's notpeace between the palestinians and israel is because there is -- in the leadership ofthe palestinian people are hamas and others who think like hamas, who have as their intentthe elimination of israel. and whether it's in school books that teach how to kill jews,or whether it's in the political discourse
that is spoken either from fatah or from hamas,there is a belief that the jewish people do not have a right to have a jewish state. thereare some people who say, should we have a two-state solution? and the israelis wouldbe happy to have a two-state solution. it's the palestinians who don't want a two-statesolution. they want to eliminate the state of israel. and i believe america must say-- and the best way to have peace in the middle east is not for us to vacillate and to appease,but is to say, we stand with our friend israel. we are committed to a jewish state in israel.we will not have an inch of difference between ourselves and our ally, israel. this presidentwent before the united nations and castigated israel for building settlements. he said nothingabout thousands of rockets being rained in
on israel from the gaza strip. this presidentthrew -- >> romney: i think he threw israel under thebus with regards to defining the '67 borders as a starting point of negotiations. i thinkhe disrespected prime minister benjamin netanyahu. i think he has time and time again shown distancefrom israel, and that has created, in my view, a greater sense of aggression on the partof the palestinians. i will stand with our friend, israel. >> blitzer: thank you, governor. >> blitzer: speaker gingrich, you got intoa little hot water when you said the palestinians were an invented people. gingrich: it wastechnically an invention of the late 1970s,
and it was clearly so. prior to that, theywere arabs. many of them were either syrian, lebanese, or egyptian, or jordanian. thereare a couple of simple things here. there were 11 rockets fired into israel in november.now, imagine in duvall county that 11 rockets hit from your neighbor. how many of you wouldbe for a peace process and how many of you would say, you know, that looks like an actof war. you have leadership unequivocally, and governor romney is exactly right, theleadership of hamas says, not a single jew will remain. we aren't having a peace negotiationthen. this is war by another form. my goal for the palestinian people would be to livein peace, to live in prosperity, to have the dignity of a state, to have freedom. and theycan achieve it any morning they are prepared
to say israel has a right to exist, we giveup the right to return, and we recognize that we're going to live side-by-side, now let'swork together to create mutual prosperity. and you could in five years dramatically improvethe quality of life of every palestinian. but the political leadership would never toleratethat. and that's why we're in a continuous state of war where obama undermines the israelis.on the first day that i'm president, if i do become president, i will sign an executiveorder directing the state department to move the embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem tosend the signal we're with israel. >> blitzer: let's go to miami. let's takeanother question from miami. juan carlos, go ahead?
>> lopez: thank you, wolf. i'm joined nowby elizabeth cuevas- neunder. she is the ceo and founder of the puerto rican chamber ofcommerce in florida. she is based out of tampa. and i'm pretty sure, elizabeth, your questionhas to do with the beautiful island of puerto rico. >> elizabeth cuevas: [speaking in spanish].good evening. [speaking in spanish]. i am bilingual, proud of it. my question to thecandidates, we have 4 million puerto ricans in the united states, voters, 3.8 in puertorico. we have been treated as second class citizen and just now our governor's name wasnot mentioned as a v.p. possibility, a great governor. my question to you is, where doyou stand for puerto rico to become a state?
and secondly, how do you -- where do you standon domestic trade between florida and puerto rico, between tampa bay and ponce ports whichhave been neglected? thank you. blitzer: all right. senator santorum, let's throw thatquestion to you. the question about, do you support puerto rico potentially as the 51ststate? >> santorum: well, first, i will give a shout-outto governor luis fortuno, who is a good friend of mine, and someone -- i know him and hisfamily, we have known each other for many years, we actually used to go to church together.and so i spoke to luis this week. and i've been to puerto rico many times. and actually,when i was a united states senator, we did a lot of work with puerto rico. because ofmy relationship with many friends down there,
i was made aware of problems, for example,in the medicaid program. we went down and we actually passed things to help with reimbursementrates, which were deplorably low in puerto rico. we also worked on hurricane relief anda whole lost of other things as a result of my relationship with many puerto ricans inpennsylvania, and developed those relationships on the island. i believe that -- i believein self-determination. that, you know, the puerto rican people should have the opportunityto be able to be able to speak on this. i have supported that. i don't take a positionone way or the other on statehood, commonwealth, independence, that's for the people of puertorico to decide. but i also supported a lot of things to help the puerto rican economy.puerto ricans are united states citizens,
and the poverty, the unemployment rates simplyare -- are simply not something that we as americans should allow to occur in our country.and we need to make sure that there are pro-growth, supply side economics to make sure that puertorico can be successful as an economy on that island, and i believe they can. and undermy administration, that's something that i would work towards. >> blitzer: i'll take that as a maybe. statehood,not statehood. >> santorum: no, i take no position on that.that's -- i would -- i've supported, you know, the opportunity for them to make that decision. >> blitzer: let's take another question fromthe audience here. go ahead, please. what
is your name? >> suzanne bass: suzanne bass, i'm an attorneyin jacksonville. welcome to the great city of jacksonville. my question, how would yourreligious beliefs, if you're elected, impact the decisions that you make in the officeof the presidency? >> paul: well, my religious beliefs wouldn'taffect it. my religious beliefs affect my character in the way i treat people and theway i live. the only thing it would affect... >> paul: the only thing that would affectme in the way i operate as a president or a congressman is my oath of office and mypromises that i've made to the people. >> romney: ron paul makes very good point.i concur with that. i would also seek the
guidance of -- of providence in making criticaldecisions. and of course, ours is a nation which is based upon judeo- christian valuesand ethics. our law is based upon those values and ethics. and in some cases, our law doesn'tencompass -- encompass all of the issues that we face around the world. the conviction thatthe founders, when they wrote the declaration of independence, were writing a document thatwas not just temporary and not just for one small locale but really something which describedthe relationship between god and man -- that's something which i think a president wouldcarry in his heart. so when they said, for instance, that the creator had "endowed uswith certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,"i would seek to assure that those principles
and values remain in america and that we helpshare them with other people in the world, not by conquering them, but by helping themthrough our trade, through our various forms of soft power, to help bring people the joyand -- and -- and opportunity that exists in this great land. >> blitzer: mr. speaker? >> gingrich: i would say that there are threeways in which religion would affect me. the first is, i agree with governor romney. ithink anyone who is president is faced with decisions so enormous that they should goto god. they should seek guidance. because these are decisions beyond the ability ofmere mortals to truly decide without some
sense of what it is we should be doing. iwould say, second, that we have a real obligation to recognize that, if you're truly faithful,it's not just an hour on sundays or saturdays or fridays. it's in fact something that shouldsuffuse your life, to be a part of who you are. and in that sense, it is inextricablytied in with how you behave. but i would say, third, one of the reasons i am running isthere has been an increasingly aggressive war against religion and in particular againstchristianity in this country, largely by... >> ginrich: largely by a secular elite andthe academic news media and judicial areas. and i frankly believe it's important to havesome leadership that stands up and says, enough; we are truly guaranteed the right of religiousfreedom, not religious suppression by the
state. >> blitzer: senator? >> santorum: faith is a very, very importantpart of my life, but it's a very, very important part of this country. the foundational documentsof our country -- everybody talks about the constitution, very, very important. but theconstitution is the "how" of america. it's the operator's manual. the "why" of america,who we are as a people, is in the declaration of independence, "we hold these truths tobe self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certainunalienable rights." the constitution is there to do one thing: protect god-given rights.that's what makes america different than every
other country in the world. no other countryin the world has its rights -- rights based in god-given rights, not government-givenrights. and so when you say, well, faith has nothing to do with it, faith has everythingto do with it. if rights come... >> santorum: if our president believes thatrights come to us from the state, everything government gives you, it can take away. therole of the government is to protect rights that cannot be taken away. and so the answerto that question is, i believe in faith and reason and approaching the problems of thiscountry but understand where those rights come from, who we are as americans and thefoundational principles by which we have changed the world.
>> blitzer: thank you, senator. >> blitzer: we have one more break to take,but we have a lot more to discuss. don't go too far away. coming up, the final debatequestion before florida votes. >> blitzer: all right. we're in the last fewminutes of the last question to these four presidential candidates before the floridaprimary on tuesday in this debate format. here is the question, and it involves thepresident of the united states. i want you to tell voters who are watching or are hereon this campus right now why you are the one person on this stage that is most likely tobeat barack obama. congressman? >> paul: well, you know, so far, we have somepretty good evidence that i'll do quite well
and have a better chance than the rest tobeat him, because if you do a national poll, i do very, very well against obama. but oneof the reasons is, is that the freedom message in the constitution is very appealing to everybodyin all political beliefs because it includes free markets, which conservatives endorse,but it also protects civil liberties, the way people run their lives. if it is a god-givenlife, and it's your life, you should have the right to run your life as you so chooseas long as you don't harm other people. this means a lot more tolerance that some wouldlike to give. so that brings people in who are concerned about civil liberties, and allof a sudden, my position undermines obama completely and totally because the foreignpolicy is different. he promises to end the
wars, but the wars expand. a constitutionalforeign policy will end the wars. and if you want somebody to talk about peace and prosperity,it has to be somebody who understands money and a foreign policy and free markets. >> blitzer: governor romney, why are you theone person on this stage most likely to beat president obama? >> romney: the people of america recognizethat this is a critical time. this is not just an average election. this is a time wherewe're going to decide whether america will remain the great hope of the 21st century,whether this will be an american century, or, instead, whether we'll continue to godown a path to become more and more like europe,
a social welfare state. that's where we'reheaded. our economy is becoming weaker. the foundation of our future economy is beingeroded. government has become too large. we're headed in a very dangerous direction. i believeto get america back on track, we're going to have to have dramatic, fundamental, extraordinarychange in washington to be able to allow our private sector to once again reemerge competitively,to scale back the size of government and to maintain our strength abroad in our militarycapacities. i believe that, to change washington in such a dramatic way, you cannot do it bypeople who have been there their entire careers. i believe, if you just elect the same peopleto change chairs in washington, not much happen. i think, if you want to change washington,you're going to have to bring someone in who
has been on the outside. i have lived in theprivate sector. i know how it works. i've competed with businesses around the world.i know how to win. i know what it takes to keep america strong. i know how to work ingovernment. i've had experience for -- four years, rather, working as the governor ofmassachusetts. i will use the experience of my life to get america right. and i will beable to convince the american people that someone with my experience is very differentthan barack obama. and that experience is how i'll beat him. >> blitzer: mr. speaker... >> blitzer: why are you the one person onthis stage most likely to beat president obama?
>> gingrich: you know, i have participatedin the two largest republican sweeps in modern time, 1980, in the reagan campaign, and 1994,with the contract with america, which had the largest one-party increase in americanhistory, 9 million extra votes. i believe that what we need this fall is a big-choiceelection that goes to the heart of who we are. i'm running more than anything for mytwo grandchildren, maggie and robert. i'd like them to be able to look back 50 yearsfrom now and say that what we did, what we the american people did, the choice we madein 2012 to unleash the american people, to rebuild our country based on the core values,to pose for the american people a simple choice: do you want freedom and independence and apaycheck and a job, or do you want dependence
and big government and food stamps and a lackof future? and i believe, if we have a big election with truly historic big choices,that we can defeat barack obama by a huge margin. but it won't be by running just asa republican. it will be an american campaign open to every american who prefers a paycheckto food stamps, who prefers the declaration of independence to saul alinsky and who prefersa strong national security to trying to appease our enemies. >> blitzer: i'll repeat the question for you.why do you think you're the best, most qualified person on this stage to beat president obama? >> santorum: i agree with the previous twospeakers that this is a big election. this
is an election about fundamental freedom.it's about who america is going to be. are we a country that's going to be built greatfrom the bottom up, as our founders intended, or from the top down? i just think i'm a lotbetter than the previous two speakers to be able to make that case to the american people.i'm not for a top- down government-run health care system. i wasn't for the wall streetbailouts like these two gentlemen were. governor romney talks about the private sector andhow he's going to bring private sector. when the private sector was in trouble, he votedfor government to come in and take over the private sector and be able to -- and to bailthem out. cap-and-trade -- both of them bought into the global warming hoax, bought intothe cap-and-trade, top-down control of our
energy and manufacturing sector. if you lookat president obama's speech the other night, what did he lead with? he lead with manufacturing.he led with manufacturing why? because the base of his party, the ones that are alwaysthe ones -- not the base -- the swing vote in his party, the ones that ronald reaganwas able to get -- we call them reagan democrats up in pennsylvania. those are the blue-collarworking people of america who know that this president has left them behind. he has a planfor them, and it's more dependency, not work, not opportunity. so he went out and triedto make a play for manufacturing. that's been the center point of my campaign. the centerpoint of my campaign is to be able to win the industrial heartland, get those reagandemocrats back, talking about manufacturing,
talking about building that ladder of successall the way down so people can climb all the way up. that's why i'm the best person tobe able to go out and win the states that are necessary to win this presidency and governwith the mandate that newt just talked about. >> blitzer: and thank you to the four presidentialcandidates. >> blitzer: i also want to thank our partnersin this debate, the republican party of florida, the hispanic leadership network. thank youvery much to them. >> blitzer: we'd also like to thank our hostshere on the campus of the university of north florida in jacksonville.