>> they have coaches, right? >> of course. this is almost like a sporting event. they come in ready. and they've had 20 previous debates so they've got some experience going into this one. >> all right. well, wolf blitzer, thank you very much. thanks for telling me what goes on behind the scenes. i'm curious. last few minutes, you would think there would be butterflies in your stomach. if there are butterflies in john king's stomach, they're going away right now because he is about to host the debate in mesa, arizona. >> the presidential race has been won by governor ronald reagan of california. >> george herbert walker bush, 41st president of the united states. >> governor clinton is now president bill clinton. >> too close to call. >> here it is, george w. bush re-elected. >> barack obama. president-elect of the united states. >> this is cnn. >> right now, the republican presidential candidates and their final debate before a series of contests that could change everything.

>> in arizona tonight, a grand showdown in a presidential contest that's been all over the map. >> you don't like the state of the race right now, wait a couple weeks. >> this has been like riding space mountain in disney. >> the republican race could take another turn right now. when the gop candidates return to the debate stage. rick santorum, the late contender, says it's a two-man duel now, and he'll be the one left standing. >> i stand here to be the conservative alternative to barack obama. >> mitt romney, the long-distance runner, says every rival that's threatened him has made him stronger. >> my conservativism is to the core. >> newt gingrich, the determined challenger, vowing to compete, win or lose, until the last votes are cast. >> we intend to change washington, not accommodate it. >> ron paul, the delegate hunter, keeping his campaign going by picking and choosing his battles.

>> we have the message that america needs at this particular time. >> the final four in arizona. a state rich in presidential campaign history. a front line in the immigration wars. and the fight to bounce back from recession. >> we know how to help the american people create jobs. >> it's been tough for middle-income families in america. >> here in the west, they know a thing about fights to the finish. and this debate could change the land came once again. [ applause ] >> good evening from the mesa, arizona, art center just outside of phoenix. this is the arizona republican presidential debate. tonight the four candidates in their final debate before 14 critical contests across the

country, including the primary right here in arizona on tuesday. welcome. i'm john king. arizona republicans are here in our audience tonight. some of them will have a chance to question the candidates. and crowds even gathering outside to watch a viewing party here in downtown mesa. you can also take part in this debate. send us your questions online, on twitter, make sure to include the hashtag, on facebook, and of course on cnnpolitics.com. time to meet the 2012 republican presidential contenders. joining us on stage, the former speaker of the house, newt gingrich. the former massachusetts governor, mitt romney.

the former senator from pennsylvania, rick santorum. and the texas congressman, ron paul. ladies and gentlemen, the republican candidates for president of the united states. [ applause ] just before we came on the air tonight, we recruited the pledge of allegiance. we want to ask everyone here now in the hall to rise and at home, as well, as we have the national anthem performed. it is our honor to welcome the arizona state university similar phonic corrko choral. ♪ o, say can you see by the dawn's early light

what's so proudly ♪ ♪ we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ♪ ♪ whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight ♪ ♪ o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming ♪ ♪ and the rockets 'red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night ♪ ♪ that our flag was still there o, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ ♪ o'er the land of the free

and the home of the brave ♪ >> thank you. our thanks to the arizona state university similar fphonic cho l chorale. gentlemen, take your seats. i'll question the candidates and take questions from members of the audience. i'll follow up and guide on the's discussion. we're going to try to make sure each of you get your fair amount of questions. you'll have a minute to answer and 30 seconds for rebuttal and follow-ups. if you're singled out for a particular criticism, i'll make sure you get a chance to respond. we'll have each candidate introduce themselves. please keep it short. i'm john king from cnn. i'm honored to be a moderator

tonight and thrilled to be in a state that reminds us baseball season is just around the corner. congressman paul, we begin with you, sir. >> i'm congressman ron paul, congressman from texas. i am the defender of the constitution. i'm the champion of liberty. this shows the roadmap to peace and prosperity. >> i'm -- [ applause ] i'm rick santorum, and we have a lot of troubles around the world that you see, the middle east in flames, what's going on in this country with gas prices and the economy. i'm here to talk about a positive solutions that confront this country that include everybody from the bottom up. [ applause ] >> i'm mitt romney, and tlchher was a time in this country you knew if you worked hard and went to school and learned the values of america in your home, you could count on a secure future

and a prosperous life. that was an american promise, and it's been broken by this president. i want to restore america's promise, and i'm going to do that -- [ applause ] that's good enough. as george costanza would say, when they're applauding, stop. >> right. >> i'm newt gingrich, and i've developed a program for american energy so no future president will ever bow to a saudi king again and so every american can look forward to $2.50 a gallon gasoline. [ applause ] >> gentlemen, it's good to see you again. let's get started on the important issues with a question from the audience. sir, please tell us who you are and state your question. >> i'm gilbert fiddler from gilbert, arizona, and i'd like to ask this question to all the candidates if i could. since the first time in 65 years our national debt exceeds our

gross national product, what are you going to do to bring down the debt? >> thank you, sir. senator santorum, let's begin with you. >> thank you, gilbert. i put together a specific plan that cuts $5 trillion over five years, that spends less money each year for the next four years that i'll be president of the united states, so it's not inflation adjusted, it's not baseline budgeting. we're actually going to shrink the actual size of the federal budget. we're going to do so by dealing with the real problem. here's where i differentiate myself from everybody else, including the president. i have experience on tackling the tough problems of the country, growth of entitlement spending. the first thing to do is repeal obama care. that's the one entitlement we can get rid of. that's a couple trillion dollars in spending over the next ten years. but there's bigger issues. when i was born less than 10% of the federal budget was entitlement spending. it's now 60% of the budget.

some people suggest defense spending is is the problem. when i was born, defense spending was 60% of the budget. it's now 17%. if you think defense spending is the problem, you need a remedial math class to go back to. defense spending will not be cut under my administration, but we will go after the entitlement programs -- medicaid, food stamps, all those programs and do what we did with welfare. we cut the welfare -- we cut spending on welfare, froze it, and then we gave it to the states and gave them the flexibility to run that program the way they saw fit with two provisos. number one, there would be a time limit on welfare and a work requirement. we were going to say that poverty is not a disability, that nies programs need to be transitional in nature, and we can do the same thing with medicaid, the same thing with food stamps, all the other entitlement programs. unlike the paul ryan plan, we also will deal with medicare and social security, not ten years from now, but we have to start dealing with it now because our

country is facing fiscal bankruptcy. >> thank you, senator. governor romney, i'm wondering if that answer satisfied you. just in recent days you said this -- if you want a fiscal conservative, you can't vote for rick santorum because he's not. did he answer your questions there? >> well, i'm looking at a historic record, which voting for raising the debt ceiling five different times without voting for a compensating cuts. voting to keep in place davis bacon, which costs about $100 billion over ten years. a whole series of votes. voting to fund planned parenthood, expand the department of education. during his term in the senate, spending grew by some 80% in the federal budget. but gilbert's question is a critical one. looking at this country, i've lived in the world of business. if you don't balance your budget in business, you go out of business. so i've lived balancing budgets. i also served in the olympics, balanced the budget there, and served in a state and in all four years i was governor we balanced the budget. here's what i would do at the

federal level. i would divide all the programs into three major places for opportunity to reduce costs. one, i'm going through every single program and ask if we can afford it, and if not, i'm going to say is this program so critical that it's worth borrowing money from china to pay for it? if not, i'm going to get rid of it. number two, i'm going to take programs -- i'm going to take programs that are important but that could be better run at the state level and send them back to the states as a block grant, and that includes medicaid and housing vouchers and food stamps. these programs for the poor could be run more efficiently and could be run with less fraud and abuse at the state level. finally, number three, with what's left of government, i'm going to cut the employment by 10% and link the pay of government workers with the pay in the private sector. governmenter is vans shouldn't get paid more than the people who are paying taxes. >> senator, the governor singled you out. take a few seconds. >> yeah. [ applause ] well, the governor talk about raising the debt ceiling.

there was a debt ceiling bill this summer and the governor was asked whether he would have voted to raise it and he said yes because government has to pay their bills. we can't default ultimately. what happened the 12 years i was in the united states senate, we went from the debt to gdp ratio, which is now over 100%, when i came to the senate it was 68% of gdp. when i left the senate, it was 64% of gdp. so government as the size of the economy went down when i was in the united states senate. i think we've all had votes that i look back on, i wish i wouldn't have voted about no child left behind. it led to education spending. that's why i said we need to cut and eliminate it and education from the federal government, move it back to the local level where parents and local communities can deal with that. if you look at my record on spending, taking on entitlements, never voted for an appropriation bill increase. look at my record of never having raised taxes. governor romney raised $700 million in taxes and fees in

massachusetts. i never voted to raise taxes. governor romney today suggested raising taxes on the top 1%, adopting the occupy wall street rhetoric. i'm not going to adopt that rhetoric. i'm going to represent 100% of americans. we're not raising taxes on anybody. >> i want to bring the congressman and the speaker into the conversation. respond. >> there were so many misrepresentations in there it will take me a little while. one, i said today we're going to cut taxes on everyone across the country by 20%, including the top 1%. that's number one. two, i said yes, we should increase the debt ceiling in this last vote but only if we have a cut, cap, and balance provision put in place. only in that case. and therefore i did not agree with the deal that was done in washington. that was the wrong way to go. finally, senator, during your term in congress, the years you've been there, government has doubled in size. you voted to raise the debt ceiling five times without compensating cuts in spending. in my view, we should not raise the debt ceiling again until we get compensating cuts in spending, a cut, cap, and

balance approach must be taken. >> mr. speaker -- mr. speaker, join the conversation. address gilbert's question. if you so choose, address some criticism you have received on this issue from mitt romney questioning your credentials on fiscal conservative. he said when you were the speaker, earmarking became an art. >> when i was speaker, we balanced the budget four consecutive years, the only time in his lifetime. i think that's a good place to start with gill ber's question. we're meeting tonight on the 280th anniversary of george washington's birth. you go back and look at the founding fathers, they'd have had very clear messages. hamilton would have said you have to have jobs and economic growth to get back to a balanced budget. you're never going to balance the budget on the back of the highly unemployed country. and so i would be committed, first of all, to a program of jobs and economic growth. second, the energy issue is enormous. the leading developer of north

dakota oil estimated recently that if we would open up federal land and open up offshore you would have $16 trillion to $18 trillion in royalties to the government in the next generation, an enormous flow that would drive prices down to $2.50 a gallon, balance the budget and create jobs. finally, we need to reform government. i think if we were prepared to repeal the 130-year-old civil service laws, go to a modern management system, we could save a minimum of $500 billion a year with a better system. if we then applied the tenth amendment, as governor rick perry has agreed to head up a project on, i think we can return to the states an enormous share of the power in washington, d.c. >> congressman paul, you questioned the fiscal conservative credentials of all these gentlemen but particularly this week senator rick santorum. you have a new television ad that labels him a fake. why?

>> because he's a fake. >> i'm real. i'm real. >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> no. i find it really fascinating that when people are running for office they're really fiscally conservative. when they're in office, they do something different. then when they explain themselves they say oh, i want to repeal that. the senator voted for no child left behind, but now -- he voted for it, but now he's running on the effort to get rid of it. so i think the record is so bad, you know, with the politicians. and, you know, nobody accuses me of not having voted for too much. they always accuse me of not voting for enough. i've been running in office off and on for a good many year, and over all those years i've never voted for a budget deficit, i never voted to increase the national debt. as a matter of fact, there's only one appropriation bill i voted for, and that was for veterans. i assumed from the 1970s on that

we were embarking on a very dangerous path, and we're involved in that danger right now. so this idea of being fiscally conservative now that we're running for office and we're going to repeal something that we did before, i mean, it loses credibility is what our problem is. [ applause ] and the one thing that i think should annoy all americans is that voting for foreign aid? i mean, just think, foreign aid packages, they're huge, and when the member votes for it they don't say, well, this money is going to abc because i love that country, but it's the principle, the way the government works. you vote for foreign aid because for some weird reason it's supposed to be good for america, but then it goes and helps all our enemies. that's what i disapprove of. [ applause ] >> senator santorum, respond quickly. >> ron, "the weekly standard"

just did a review, citizens against government waste and measured me up against the other 50 senators serving when i did and said that i was the most fiscally conservative senator in the congress in the 12 years that i was there. my ratings with the national tax ratings were as or bs, they were very high for the government waste, i got a hero award. i was a leader, as you know, taking on tough issues, which is entitlement programs, not just welfare reform, but i also worked on medicare reform and medicaid reform and also was leader on trying to deal with social security. i did that not representing one of the most conservative districts in the state of texas but in the state of pennsylvania, with the second largest per capita population of seniors in the country. i can tell you those seniors really cared about social security. why? because all my seniors moved to florida and arizona. and what's left -- what's left in pennsylvania is folks who relied on social security. i was out there as a republican senator, a conservative voting record over a 90% conservative voting record from the american

conservative union. by the way, ron, you ranked 145th in the bottom half of republicans this year in a conservative voting record from that same organization. we had a strong record in a tough state to be a conservative. if i can stand up in the state of pennsylvania, which hasn't elected a republican president since 1988, and have a strong principled voting record on issues that were tough in my state, senior issues, imagine now, as president of the united states, with a tea party movement and a conservative -- a riled-up conservative base what we can accomplish in washington, d.c. [ applause ] >> congressman -- >> that's always a cop-out when you compare yourself to the other members of congress. people are sick and tired of the members of congress. they get about a 9% rating. [ applause ] but this whole thing about comparison of conservative, i think you make a very important point. i don't rate at the top. if it's spending or on taxes i'm at the very top because i vote

for the least amount of spending and the least amount of taxes, which means that some of the conservative ratings you have to realize sometimes conservatives want to spend money, too. when it comes to overseas spending, you vote for the foreign aid. conservatives are quite pleased with spending money overseas. but if you're a strict fiscal conservative and a constitutionalist you don't vote for that kind of stuff so you can't just go by the ratings. >> as you can see, it's an important issue to the people in the audience. i think it's one of the reasons this race has been so volatile. voters are looking and saying which of these candidates can i trust? each of you are trying to make your case. as you try to do so, governor romney, you said recently as governor you're a severely conservative governor of massachusetts. what did you mean by that? >> well, severe, strict. i was without question a conservative governor in my state. we balanced the budget all four years i was in office. we cut taxes 19 times. i enabled our state police to enforce illegal immigration p u

laws. we drove our schools fight for english immersion. my policies in massachusetts were conservative and in a state, as rick indicated, that was a relatively liberal state, i stood up and said i would stand on the side of life when the legislate passed a bill saying life would be defined at conception but later. i said no. when there was an effort to put in place embryo farming and cloning, i vetoed that. when the catholic church said we're not going to allow you to continue to place children in homes where there's a preference for a man and a woman being the mom and dad, i worked with the catholic church to put legislation in place to protect their right to exercise their religious conscience. i have through my record as a governor demonstrated that kind of conservative belief. but also look a step back. look at my record running the olympics. balanced the budget there, made it successful with the help of a terrific team. look back at the business.

you can't be anything but a fiscal conservative and run a business because you don't balance your budget, you go out of business. >> mr. speaker, as you know, when deficit reduction and economic growth are priorities at the same time, some people see a collision. some people see a conflict. you've outlined your views on taxes. governor romney today outlined a tax plan that would put the top rate at 28%, eliminate capital gain taxes for incomes below $200,000, cut the corporate tax rate to 25%. is that the right approach? and is it consistent -- it's a tough one sometimes -- with spurring economic growth at a time this state and other states are looking for jobs? but as you have gill ber's question, also looking to make sure the next president works on the deficit? >> well, first of all, i think that governor romney today moved in the right direction, and i think that that's a serious step towards trying to find -- closer to supply side. i wouldn't agree with him on capping capital gains cuts at $200,000 because i think that's

frankly economically destructive, and i don't believe in class warfare. and that's a number below obama's class warfare number. we can argue later about capital gains cuts. but i think there's a different question. everybody talks about managing the current government. the current government is a disaster. i mean, we don't -- [ applause ] the reason i started with the idea that came out of strong america now to repeal the 130-year-old civil service laws and go to a modern management system is you change everything. and the fact is, if we're serious -- in a funny kind of way ron and i are closer on the scale of change, we approach it slightly different, but i think you've got to start and say what would a modern system be like? and a modern system would be -- just take control of the border. it is utterly stupid to say that the united states government can't control the border. it's a failure of will, a failure of enforcement. so let me just take that one

example. let's assume you could tomorrow morning have a president who wanted to work with your governor. instead of suing arizona, help arizona. who actually worked with arizona. now -- what's the fiscal reality three years from now in your emergency rooms, in your schools, in your prisons of controlling the border? it's a lot less expensive. you just took a major step forwards a less expensive future. so i think it is possible to modernize the federal government and cut taxes and develop energy simultaneously. and the three lead you to gilbert's concern. let's get back to a balanced budget. >> i hope we spend most of the night doing that. as you know, there's a lot of anger in the base of the party about some of the things that have happened in the past, tea party, especially, earmarks, pork barrel spending, a tiny slice of the budget. but if you talk to a tea party activist, they think of a gateway to corruption. senator, you have said there are good earmarks and bad earmarks.

you've talked about yours in the past. any you specifically regret? and why do you think the money that went to governor romney for security at the olympics, why was that a bad earmark? >> i didn't suggest it was a bad earmark. i voted for it and about a little over half the money that went to the salt lake games. governor romney asked for that earmark. that's the point here. he's out on television ads right now unfortunately attacking me for saying that i'm this great earmarker when he not only asked for earmarks for the salt lake olympics in the order of tens of millions of dollars, sought those earmarks and used them, and he did as the governor of massachusetts $300 million or $400 million. he said i would be foolish if i didn't go out and try to get federal dollars. that somehow earmarks during the time i was in congress the thing that drove up spending in washington, d.c., if you look at it, as i said before, as a percentage of gdp, the debt went down. what happened is there was

abuse. when the abuse happened, i said we should stop the earmarking process. but i did say there were good earmarks and bad earmarks. we wouldn't have the v-22 os pray, the most essential air platform or our marines in particular in the war against the radical islamists, we wouldn't have it if it wasn't for an earmark. that would have been killed under george bush 41. dick cheney, defense department, wanted to kill that, and many of us, including myself, stood up and made sure that was there. congress has a role to play when it comes to approach rating money, and sometimes the president and the administration doesn't get it right. what happened was an abuse of the process. that abuse occurred. i stepped forward, as jim demint did, who, by the way, was an earmarker, as almost everybody in congress was, why? because congress has a role of allocating resources when they think the administration has it wrong. i defended that at the time. i'm proud i defended it at the time because i think they did make mistakes. i do believe there was abuse, and i said we should stop it,

and as president i would impose e -- oppose earmarks. >> i didn't follow all of that, but i can tell you this. i would put a ban on ear mashes. i think it opens the door to excessive spending, spending on projects that don't need to be done. you voted for the brim bridge to nowhere p. if congress wants to vote in favor of a bill, they should take that bill, bring it forward with committees, vote it up or down on the floor of the house or the senate. the earmark process is broken. i'll tell you this, you mentioned the olympics coming to the united states congress, asking for support. no question about it. that's the nature of what it is when you lead an organization or a state. you come to congress and you say, these are the things we need. in the history of the olympic movement, the federal government has always provided the transportation and security. so we came to the federal government asking for help on transportation and security.

i was fighting for those things. our games were successful. while i was fighting to save the olympics, you were fighting to save the bridge to nowhere. >> quickly. [ applause ] it's really interesting, governor, because the process you just described of an open process where members of congress put forth their suggestions on how to spend money, had them voted on individually, is exactly how the process worked. what you just suggested as to how earmarks should work in the future is exactly how they worked in the past. so i suspect you would have supported earmarks if you were in the united states senate. >> i'm sorry. the 6,000 earmarks put in place under the speak ear es term, for instance, were oftentimes tagged onto other bills -- i'm sorry. i don't mean to be critical. that was the process. there were thousands -- i mean, we've had thousands and thousands of earmarks. they are typically tagged onto, bundled onto other bills. okay. go ahead.

mr. speaker. >> you're entitled to your opinions, mitch. you're not entitled to -- >> i've heard that before. >> you're misrepresenting the facts. you don't know what you're taking about. what happened in the earmark process -- what happens in the earmark process was that members of congress would ask formally, publicly request these things, put them on paper, and have them allocated and have them voted on a committee, have them voted on on the floor of the senate. congressman paul -- >> and attached to a bill. >> as part of the bill. >> and the president can veto it. >> the bill. >> the whole bill but not the earmark. >> we tried to do that, by the way. i asked for a line-item veto. >> that's what i support. >> hold on. i agree with you. i support the line-item veto. i voted for it so we could do just that. unfortunately, the supreme court struck it down. i would like to go back as president, again, and give the president the authority to line-item veto. that's not the issue.

the issue was were they transparent? when i was there, there was transparency and ron paul, one of the most prolific earmarkers today, will tell you -- not criticizing, but that's a fact -- >> all right. let me -- >> i'll give you a chance. >> mr. speaker, you were referenced by the governor. you first then congressman paul. don't worry. we'll get to you, congressman. i promise. [ boos ] >> let me just say flatly all you need to think about this because this is one of those easy demagogic fights that gets you in a lot of trouble. if you have barack obama as president and you have a republican house, you may want the house imposing certain things on the president. when i was speaker, for example, a liberal democrat in the white house, i want to reinforce what the governor said -- i helped the atlanta olympics get the

support they needed from the u.s. government to be successful. i thought it was totally appropriate. i went to your former governor and sat down with the people originally planning the winter olympics and said this is what we did, this is what you need to do. i think it was totally appropriate for you to ask for what you got. i think it's kind of silly for you to turn around and run an ad attacking for somebody else claiming that what you got was right and what they got was wrong. >> congressman paul, answer senator santorum. >> i followed that. there's reason for the confusion, because it's all congress 'fall, they're all messed up and they don't know what they're doing in congress, is the real reason. this whole idea of earmarking, it's designating how the money is spent. what a lot of people don't understand, if the congress doesn't say the way the money should be spent, it goes to the executive branch, and that's the

bad part. if you were actually cutting, it would make a difference. but you don't want to give more power to the executive branch. even if i'm president, i don't want more power over that funding. it should be with the people and with the congress. but earmarking -- the reason we get into trouble is the irresponsibility of congress. take your highway funds. supposed to pay a user fee, pay our gasoline tax, should get our fair share back. but they take the highway funds and spend this money overseas in these wars that we shouldn't be fighting. then when the highways need building, you have to go and fight the political system and know who to deal with and maneuver and try to get some of your money back. but if you say you're against the earmarking, and fuss and fume over, the answer is vote against the bill. that's what i do. i argue for the case of the responsibility being on congress, but it's the responsibility of us who believe in fiscal conservativism. we need a vote against the spending is what we need to do.

[ applause ] >> another important economics question. senator santorum, first you on this question. your friends on the stage tonight opposed auto bailout. michigan votes tuesday along with arizona. we assume folks are watching there tonight. address your answer to an autoworker who may believe strongly that he or she has that job tonight because of the bailout. >> i would say to them i in principle oppose government coming in and bailing out a sector of the economy or an industry with government dollars and with government manipulation of that market, which is exactly what happened twice in 2008 and 2009. the first time it happened was the wall street bailout. on principle, i oppose the wall street bailout even though i understand people -- reasonable

people could disagree, i felt that having the government come in in such a major way and have such a huge influence over the direction of that industry, that that would be damaging to what i believe is the best way to resolve these types of problems, which lets the market work. constructive capitalism, as governor romney was talking about, in his days of paying capital, and destructive capital. that means paying. i understand that. it also means limited government and allowing markets to work because we believe they're more efficient over time. i held the same consistent position when it came to the auto bailouts. i can say that with respect to governor romney that was not the case. he supported the folks on wall street and bailed out wall street, was all for it. when it came to the autoworkers and the folks in detroit, he said no. that to me is not a consistent principled position. i have one. i believe in markets not just when they're convenient for me. >> governor?

>> nice try, but now let's look at the facts. all right. first of all -- first of all, lel's go back in the auto industry and go back to -- i think it's 2008. president bush was still in office. and the three chief executive officers of the three major auto companies got in their private planes and flew to washington and said please write us a check. i think they wanted $50 billion. i wrote an op-ed in the paper and i said absolutely not. don't write a check for $50 billion. these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy, just like airlines have, just like other industries have, go through a managed bankruptcy, and if they go through that managed bankruptcy and shed the excess of cost that's been put on them by the u actiaw and then mismanagement, if they need help coming out of bankruptcy, the government can provide guarantees. no way would we allow the auto industry in america to totally implode. that was my view. go through bankruptcy. when that happens, the market

can help lift them out. with regards to t.a.r.p., it's very simple. look, i don't want to save any wall street bank. i just want to make sure we don't lose all of our banks. like president bush at the time, i was concerned if we didn't do something there was a pretty high risk that not just wall street banks but all banks would collapse. like many other people and economists, they were concerned our entire currency system would go down. my view is this. we have to have industries that get in trouble go through bankruptcy. senator, you voted in favor of the bailout of the airline industry after 9/11. i think that was the right thing to do. it was an emergency. you also voted for the bailout of the steel industry. i don't think i agree with that one. but i do believe the right course for the auto industry was to go through a managed bankruptcy process and get help getting out. [ applause ] >> governor, you mentioned president bush's position on the wall street bailout. if you talk to people in the bush administration at the time, they say they would have preferred the structured bankruptcy route you talked about but there was no private capital available, that nobody would give the auto companies money, and that their choice

they say at the time was to either give the government money or have them liquidate. >> it was really interesting. i wrote my piece and said, look, these companies need to go through managed bankruptcy. and the head of the uaw said we can't, the industry will disappear if that happens. the politicians, barack obama's people, oh, no, we can't go through managed bankruptcy. six months they wrote i think it was $17 billion in checks to the auto companies. they finally realized i was right. they finally put it through managed bankruptcy. that was the time they needed help to get out of managed bankruptcy. those moneys they put in before hand was wasted money. and, number two, because they put that money in, the president gave the companies to the uaw. they were part of the reason the companies were in trouble. giving these companies to the ua weath w was wrong. >> as governor romney wells

knows, the american government shut down the airline industry after 9/11. and the government by its actions stopped the airline industry from functioning. and, yes, as a result of government action, which i thought it was appropriate for governments since we shut down the industry -- >> i agree with you. >> but government didn't shut down the banks, they didn't shut down the financial services industry. so when you compare those, it's not apples to apples, mitt, and it's not a fair comparison. >> mr. speaker, come in on the conversation. it's a tough one. a major american industry in a time op trouble. >> not tough. >> not tough you say. >> first of all, a huge amount of the auto industry was just fine. bmw was terrific. mercedes in alabama was doing just fine. honda in ohio was just fine. toyota was just fine. what you have is a united autoworkers and a management system that had grown very, i think, incapable of tough decisions because they were used to selling out to the united autowarkers. so they came in and said we

can't change. this president on behalf of the united autoworkers said you're right. chrysler is now fiat. let's be clear what they were doing. i think they would have been much better off to have gone through a managed bankruptcy, agreeinging with governor rom y romney. i think it would have happened. what would have happened is the uaw would have lost all their advantages, and the result was what i thought was an unprecedented violation of 200 years of bankruptcy law by barack obama to pay off the uaw at the expense of every bondholder. >> congressman paul, as you join the conversation, the criticism of president obama, but i also want you to address the state's current republican governor, rick schneider, who supports mitt romney, but that's irrelevant to this point. he says, the bailout was something that actually worked. is that wrong? >> it's interesting when they argue that case -- first, i don't like the idea you have good bailouts and bad bailouts. if bailouts are bad, they're bad

and we shouldn't be doing it. but this argument about maybe one that works, you know, well now that the bankruptcy or the bailing out of gm worked, i said that's sort of like if a criminal goes out and robs a bank and he's successful, therefore, you endorse what he did, because he's successful. but you have to rob people, you have to distort the law. the government is supposed to protect contracts, not regulate contracts or undermine contracts. that's what we've been doing. in the housing bubble, we undermined contracts. and this is what we're doing here. so you want to respect the contracts. a lot of people will accuse me of advocating a free market and there's no regulations. actually, the regulations are tougher because you have to go through bankruptcy and you have to face up to this. and it isn't like general motors would be destroyed. newt made that point there, that there were good parts of general motors. but politicians can't figure this out. then they serve the special interests and then you have

labor fighting big business. i opt for the free market in defense of liberty. that's what we need in this country. >> all right. we're off to a good start, gentlem gentlemen. we'll take our first break of the evening. in a moment, our republican presidential debate in arizona continues. we'll discuss immigration and faith. my name is marjorie reyes, and i'm a chief warrant officer.

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welcome back to the mesa arts center and the arizona republican presidential debate. back to questioning the four contenders. we take a question from cnnpolitics.com. you can see it on the screen here. since birth control is the latest hot topic, which candidate believes in birth control and if not, why? as you can see -- [ boos ] -- it's a -- it's a very popular question in the audience as we can see. look, we're not going to spend a ton of time on this but -- please. >> can i make a point? >> sure. >> a lot of guys will get some feedback. >> look, two quick points, john. the first is there is a legitimate question about the power of the government to impose on religion activities which any religion opposes. that's legitimate. >> sure is. >> but i just want to point out, you did not once in the 2008 campaign, not once did anybody

in the elite media ask why barack obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide. okay? so let's be clear here. if we're going to have a debate about who the extremist is on these issues, it is president obama who as a state senator voted to protect doctors who kill babies by abortion. it is not the republicans. >> john, what's happened -- and you recall back in the debate we had george stephanopoulos talking out about birth control, we wondered why in the world is contraception -- why is he going there? we found out when barack obama continued his attack on religious conscience. i don't think we've seen in the history of this country the kind of attack on religious conscience, religious freedom, religious tolerance we've seen under barack obama. most recently, of course -- [ applause ] most recently requiring the catholic church to provide for its employees and various

enterprises health care insurance that would include birth control, sterilization, and the morning-after pill. unbelievable. he retried to retreat from that but did so in a way that was not appropriate because these insurance companies want to provide these things and the catholic church will end up paying for them. don't forget the decision just before this where he said the government, not a church, but the government should have the right to determine who a church's ministers are for the purposes of determining whether they're exempt from eeoc or from workforce laws or labor laws. he said the government should make that choice. that went all the way to the supreme court. there are a few liberals on the supreme court. they voted 9-0 against president obama. his position -- his position on religious tolerance, on religious conscience is clear and it's one of the reasons the people in this country are saying we want to have a president who will stand up and fight for the rights under our

constitution, our first right, which is for freedom of religion. >> let's focus the time we spend on this on a role of the president and your personal views and question the role of government. senator santorum, yes, it's come up because of the president's decision in the campaign and also because of some of the things you said on the campaign trail. campaigning in iowa, you told a blog, if elected you will talk about, quote, what no president has talked about before -- the dangers of contraception. why? >> charles murray just wrote a book about this and it's on the front page of "the new york times" two days ago, which is the increasing number of children being born out of wedlock in america, teens who are sexually active. what we're seeing is a problem in our culture with respect the children being raised by children, children being raised out of wedlock, and the impact on society economically, the impact on society with respect to drug use and a host of other things, when children have children.

and so, yes, i was talking about these very serious issues. and, in fact, as i mentioned before, two days ago on the front page of "the new york times," they're talking about the same thing. the bottom line is we have a problem in this country, and the family is fracturing. over 40% of children born in america are born out of wedlock. how can a country survive if children are being raised in homes where it's so much harder to succeed economically? it's five times the rate of poverty in single-parent households than it is in two-parent homes. we can't have limbed government, lower tax -- we hear this all the time, cut spending, limit the government, everything will be fine. no, everything's not going to be fine. there are bigger problems at stake in america. and someone has got to go out there -- i will -- and talk about the things. and you know what, here's the difference. the left gets all upset, oh, look at him talking about these things. here's the difference between me and the left, and they don't get this. just because i'm talking about it doesn't mean i want a government program to fix it. that's what they do. that's not what we do. >> congressman paul.

>> as an o.b. doctor, i've dealt with contraception a long time. we fight over how we dictate how this should be distributed sort of like in schools. once the government takes over the schools, especially at the federal level, then there's no right position, then which prayer, are you allowed to pray. the problem is the government is getting involved in things they shouldn't be involved in, especially at the federal level. but sort of along the line of the pills creating immorality, i don't see it that way. i think the immorality creates the problem of wanting to use the pills. you don't blame the pills. it's like the argument -- conservatives use the argument all the time about guns. guns don't kill, criminals kill. so in a way it's the morality of society that we have to deal with. the pill is there and, you know, it contributes maybe, but the

pills can't be blamed for the immorality of our society. >> senator, please. >> yeah. >> yon, you know, i think as rick just said, this isn't an argument about contraceptives. this is a discussion about are we going to have a nation which preserves the townation of the nation, which is the family. or are we not. and rick is absolutely right. when you have 40% of kids being born out of wedlock and among certain ethnic groups the vast majority being born out of wedlock, you ask yourself how are we going to have a vote in the future? because these kids are raised in poverty in many cases, in abusive settings. the likelihood of them finishing high school or college drops dramatically in single-family homes. when we have programs that say we're going to teach abstinence in schools the liberals go crazy and try and stop us from doing that. we have to have a president who's willing to say that the best opportunity an individual can give to their unborn child

is the opportunity to be born in a home with a mother and a father. and i think -- [ applause ] >> it's an issue of which all of you have criticism on the obama administration, an issue on which some of you have criticized each other. during your tenure as governor, you allowed catholic hospitals to provide services. >> of course not. there was no requirement in massachusetts for the catholic church to provide a morning-after pills to rape victims. that was entirely voluntary on their report. there was no such requirement. likewise in massachusetts health care bill. there's a provision in massachusetts general laws that says people don't have to have coverage for contraceptives or other type of medical devices, which are contrary to their religious teachings. churches al don't have to provide that to intenties which are the church themselves or entities they can control. we have provisions that make

sure something of that nature does not occur. that's why when i worked closely with the leaders of the catholic church, i met with the cardinal a number of times and his emissaries, we talked about the issues we were concerned about. we battled to help the catholic church stay in the adoption business. the amazing thing was that while the catholic church was responsible for half the adoptions in my state, half the adoptions, they had to get out of that business because the legislature wouldn't support me and give them an exemption from having to place children in homes where there was a mom and a dad on a preferential basis. absolutely extraordinary. we have to have individuals that will stand um for religious conscience, and i did and i will again as president. >> mr. speaker? >> well, the reports we got were quite clear, that the public health department was prepared to give a waiver to catholic hospitals about a morning-after abortion pill, and that the governor's office issued

explicit instructions saying that they believed it wasn't possible under massachusetts law to give them that waiver. now, that was the newspaper reports that came out. that's something both senator santorum and i have raised before. but i want to go a step further because this makes a point that ron paul has been making for a generation and that people need to take very seriously. when you have government as the central provider of services, you inevitably move towards tyranny because the government has the power of force. you inevitably -- and i think this is true whether it's romney care or obama care or any other government centralized system -- you inevitably move towards the coercion of the state and the state saying, if you don't do what we, the politicians, have defined, you will be punished either financially or you will be punished in some other way like going to jail. and that's why we are i think at an enormous crossroads in this country. and i think the fact is for almost all of us who have been

at this for any length of time, who are now looking at an abyss that forcious to change what you may have once thought -- and i suspect all four of us are much more worried today about the power of the state than we would have been with the possible exception of congressman paul than we would have been at any point in the last 25 years. >> john, may i follow up? >> congressman, please. >> we talk about the morning-after pill, actually the morning after bill is nothing more than a birth control pill, so if you're going to legalize birth control pills you can't separate the two. they're all basically the same hormonally. but once again, the question is if you voted for planned parenthood like the senator has, you voted for birth control pills. and you literally, because funds are fungible, you literally vote for abortion because planned parenthood gets the money, by birth control pills, but then they have the money left over to do the abortion. that's why you have to have a

pretty strong resistance of voting for these bunches of bills put together. planned parenthood should get nothing, let alone designate how it's spent. >> senator santorum. >> as congressman paul knows i've always opposed title 10 fund but it includes funding for the national institutes of health and human services and it's a multimillion-billion-bill. what i did because it was pushed through, i did something no one else did. i said we're going to create something called title 20, which will provide programs that actually work in keeping children from being sexually active instead of facilitating children from being sexually active. i pushed title xx to accomplish

that goal. so while, yes, i admit i voted for large appropriation bills and there were things in there i didn't like, things in there i did, but when it came to this issue, i proactively stepped forward and said that we need to do something at least to counterbalance it, a, and b, i would say that i've always been very public that as president of the united states i will defund planned parenthood,ly not sign any appropriation bill that funds planned parenthood. >> senator, go ahead. >> john, this demonstrates the problem that i'm talking about. there's always an excuse to do this. [ applause ] title xx, i don't know if you implied something. it's not a program of the federal government to get involved in our lives this way. if you want laws like that, the federal government shouldn't even be spending money on abstinence. that's way too much more. i don't see that in the constitution. >> just a brief comment. senator, i just saw a youtube

clip of you being interviewed where you said you personally oppose contraceptives but that you voted for title x. but you used that as an argument saying this is something i did proactively. you said it in a positive light, i voted for title x. >> i think i was making it clear that while i have a personal moral objection to it, even though i don't support it, that i voted for bills that included it. and i made it very clear in subsequent interviews that i don't support that, i've never supported it, and on an individual basis have voted against it. that's why i proposed title xx to counterbalance it. governor romney, i can just say that you were talking about this issue before of, you know, religious conscience and protects. but the whole reason this issue is alive is because of the bill that you drafted in massachusetts, romney care, which was the model for obama care and the government takeover of health care.

[ boos ] >> wait a second. wait a second. wait a second. >> there was a study that just came out about ten days ago, two weeks ago that listed 15 ways in which romney care was the model for obama care. everything from individual mandates, everything from fines. yours is different. you required businesses over ten employees. president obama's is over 50 employ employees. but there is -- and even the drafter of your bill when they were working on obama's bill said, in fact, it was the model. so here we have, as newt said, the real fundamental issue here is government coercion, and government coercion, when you give government the right to be able to take your responsibility to provide for your own health and care and give it to the government. that's what governor romney did in massachusetts. it would be a very difficult task for someone who had the model for obama care, the biggest issue in this race for government control of your lives, to be the nominee of our party, you would take that issue completely off. >> governor, 30 seconds to

respond. >> much longer than 30 seconds. >> i hope not. >> that's a long answer. first of all, let's not forget that four years ago, well after romney care was put in place, four years ago, you not only endorsed me, you went to laura ingram and said this is the guy who is really conservative and we can trust him. let's not forget you said that. [ applause ] >> number one. number two, under the tenth amendment, states have the right to do things they think are in their best interests. i know you agree with that. point this out, our bill was 70 pages. his bill is 2,700 pages. there's a lot in those pages i don't agree with. if i'm president of the united states, i will repeal obama care for a lot of reasons, one, i don't want to spend another trillion dollars. we don't have that kind of money. it's the wrong way to go. two, i don't believe the federal government should cut medicare by some $500 billion. three, i don't think they should raise tacks by $500 billion, and therefore, i will repeal obama

care. one more. the reason we have obama care is because you supported, pat toomey in pennsylvania, arlen specter, the pro-choice senator of pennsylvania that you supported and endorsed in a race over pat toomey, he voted for obama care. if you had not supported him, if we had said no to arlen specter, we would not have obama care. so don't look at me. take a look in the mirror. >> senator, please, quickly. >> okay, governor. let's get this straight. first off, number one, you funded romney care through federal tax dollars through medicaid. i know it well. it's called disproportionate share provider tax, about $400 million that you got from the federal taxpayers to underwrite romney care to make sure you didn't have to raise taxes right away. but of course you had to. you asked for the $8 billion of

tax increases. yes, you balanced the budget for four years. off constitutional requirement to balance the budget for four years. no great shakes. i'd like to see it federally. but don't go around bragging about something you have to do. michael dukas kis balanced the budget for ten years. does that qualify him for president of the united states? i don't think so. what you did was use federal dollars to fund the government takeover of health care in massachusetts, used it -- and barack obama -- >> arlen specter. >> i'll get to that in a minute. and then barack obama used it as a model for taking over this health care system in america. why i supported arlen specter, number one, because -- because arlen specter was a senator who's going to be the chairman of the judiciary committee at the time when the most important issue that was coming up in the next session of congress was two to three supreme court nominees that were going to be available and one or maybe two or maybe even all three were going to be out of the conservative bloc.

and arlen specter, as chairman of the judiciary committee, we had a conversation. we asked me to support him. i said will you support the president's nominees? we had a majority in the senate. he said i will as chairman. every nominee arlen specter supported from the time he took on judge fork and saved justice thomas, every nominee he supported passed. why? it gave republicans and democrats someone to vote for. he wouldn't have been able to give moderate republicans and conservative democrats the leeway to then support that nominee, which is exactly what arlen specter did. he defended roberts, defended alito. we have a 5-4 majority on the court that struck dounl that case that you just talked about and is there as a guardian of liberty. and i did the right thing for our country. >> i'm going to tell you, arlen specter -- >> gentlemen, let's -- >> supporting arlen specter over pat toomey, that was a torturous

route. >> just about torturous as -- >> by the way, in 1996 -- >> for obama care. >> let's move the conversation along and take a question from a voter down here in our audience. sir, identify yourself and ask your question, please. >> gentlemen, my name is gary lott, and i'm from kingman, arizona. it seems that arizona has come under federal attacks just for wanting to secure its southern border. what will you and your straights do to fix the situation, to secure our border, and to protect the american people? >> congressman paul, i want to go to you first on this one. you're from a border state. a recent federal analysis says the cost of secure fencing, which they have a good deal along the border of this state, is about $3 million per mile. is that a good investment? money well spent? >> probably not, but we can do a bert job, and the best way to do it is forget about the border between pakistan and afghanistan

and deal with our borders. this is what we need. but we need to change the rules. we reward illegal immigration. they get benefits, texas hospitals, and, you know, schools are going bankrupt. the restranls on the states, obama's restraints on the states to deal with it. why is it if an illegal comes across the border and go on private property, why isn't that trespassing? why don't you have the right to stop it? but there should be no mandates from the federal government about what you must do under the ninth and tenth. there would be essentially none. but the federal government does have a responsibility for these borders. and i just hate to see all these resources. i think that we should have much more immigration service on the border to make it easier -- it's hard to even get to visit this country. we're losing a lot of visitors and workers that could come in this country because we have an inefficient immigration service. and then that invites illegal.

we have to deal -- we can't endorse the illegal, but the program today endorses the illegal problems. and a weak economy is always detrimental, too, because of the welfare state. we have welfare at home and some jobs go begging, we have jobs going begging in the midst of the recession, has to do with the economy. you can't ignore the economy. but also the welfare state, allowing immigrants to come over and then get the benefits if you subsidize something, you get more of. there's a lot we can do and should do and certainly this president is not doing a very good job. >> mr. speaker, the fence has been a point of contention in the race. one of your high-profile supporters, a gentleman who's been up here during this campaign, governor rick perry of texas, is here tonight. he said this. if you build a 30-foot wall from el paso to brownsville, the 35-foot ladder business gets really good. you signed a pledge to construct the double fence. why is governor perry wrong? >> he's not wrong. you need two 35-foot ladders because it's a 35-foot fence.

the fact is i helped duncan hunter pass the first fence bill in san diego when i was speaker of the house. san diego and tijuana are the most densely populated border. it turned out it worked. it worked dramatically. however, it stopped. it stopped in part because there was a wetlands. it turned out none of the illegal immigrants cared about wetlands policy. then you had to build around the wetlands, which we did. the further we have gone with the fence, the fewer people have broken into california. now, the thing that's fascinating, john, is you quoted a government study of how much it would cost. that's my earlier point. if you modernize the federal government so it's competent, you could probably do it for 10% of the cost of that study. the fact is what i would do, i have a commitment at newt.org to finish the job by january 1, 2014. i would initiate a bill that would waive all federal

regulations, requirement, and studies. i would ask governor martinez, governor brown, and governor perry to become the co-leaders in their state. we would apply as many resources as are needed to be done by january 1 of 2014, including, if necessary, there are 23,000 department of homeland security personnel in the d.c. area, i'm prepared to move up to half of them to arizona, new mexico, and texas. this is a doable thing. >> governor romney, the border security is part of the equation, what to do about whether it's 8 million or 11 million illegal immigrants in the country is another part of the equation. sheriff joe arpaio with us tonight told me this week here in mesa, it's called political garbage, if you will, to not arrest illegals already in this country. you've talked to the governor about deportation, if businesses do their job asking for the right document, people will leave. what about arresting? should there be aggressive, seek

them out and arrest them as the sheriff advocates? >> i think you see a model in arizona. they passed a law that says that people who come here and try and find work, that the employer is required to look them up and e verify. this system allows employers in arizona to know who's here legally and who's not. as a result of that being put in place, the number of people in arizona that appear illegally has dropped by some 14%, while the national average has only gone down 7%. back to the question, the right course for america is to drop these lawsuits against arizona and other states trying to do the job barack obama isn't do g doing, which -- and i will drop those lawsuits on day one. i'll also complete the fence. i'll make sure we have enough border patrol agents to secure the fence. and i'll make sure we have an everify system and require employers to check the documents of workers and if an employer

hires someone that has not gone through everify, they'll get sanctioned like they do for not paying tacks. you do that, and just as arizona is finding out, you can stop illegal immigration. >> governor romney talks about everify. what about the individual? you said in the last debate, employers should be sanctioned. about a quarter of all workers in private households are undocumented. what about the homeowner who hires somebodies a a household cleaning worker, as a nananny, perhaps? should that person be sanctioned? >> i'm not going to require homeowners to do everify. that's one step too far. what we need to do is give law enforcement the opportunity to do what they're doing in arizona or what sheriff arpaio was doing before he ran into issues with the fosm, which is to allow folks to enforce the laws of

this country, for people breaking the law or suspicious of breaking the law to be detained and deported if they're found in this countkucountry il as well as those seeking employment. >> it's a tough policy question, obviously, and this state has been part of the driving force. it also becomes for the poor gentleman who would like to be the next president of the united states, a difficult political question, in the sense the latino population is the fastest growing population in our country. senator mark rubio said this recently. he worries some of the rhetoric used by republican politicians on this issue has been harsh, intolerable, inexcusable. mr. speaker, is he right? >> i don't know who he's referring to, so i'm not going to comment in general on a statement. is there somebody somewhere who's done that? sure. was it also intolerable for

president obama to go to el paso and make a totally demagogic speech in which he fundamentally -- no. the great failure here -- i voted in 1986 for the bill which was supposed to solve all this, which ronald reagan solved -- signed. in re gan's diary, he says, i signed this bill because we have to get control of the boarder and we have to have an employer-sanctioned program with a guest-worker program. now, all of us who voted for that bill got shortchanged on everything we were supposed to get. president bush couldn't get it through. president obama can't get it through. i believe you cannot pass a single large comprehensive bill, a 2,700-page kind of bill you described. you have to go one step at a time. the first step is to control the border. i don't believe anybody who's here illegally -- i talked last night, for example, with folks who are of hispanic background who are in the import/export business dealing with mexico

every day. they don't want a border that's closed. they want a border that's controlled that has easy access for legality and impossible access for illegality. that's the model i think you can talk about in my community of any ethnic background in this country. >> all right, gentlemen. another quick break. we'll continue in a moment. here's a question. one of these men could be president just 11 months from now. how would they deal with threats from iran and north korea? and a great question sent to us at cnnpolitics.com. define yourselves using one word and one word only. we're america's natural gas

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we're just moments away from getting the answer to this question from a viewer. please define yourself from using one word and one word only. a lot of excitement in mesa, arizona, and a lot more of our presidential debate just ahead. stay with us. i came to work. i chose to stay. >> i came to visit. i chose to stay. >> i came for business. and then moved the global headquarters here. >> i came to stay, and now i'm the governor. arizona, a great climate for business and vacation.

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even when you're away from home. it's the at&t network -- a network of possibilities, creating and integrating solutions, helping business, and the world...work. rethink possible. for arizona republican presidential debate. gentlemen, we have a question from cnnpolitics.com. congressman paul? >> consistent. [ applause ]

>> senator santorum. >> courage. >> governor? >> resolute. >> mr. speaker. >> cheerful. >> that was a good exercise. let's move our conversation now -- let's move our conversation now to the important responsibilities one of you gentlemen could have in just 11 months as commander in chief of the united states. governor romney, 11 months from you if you're successful you would be our commander in chief. the pentagon announced plans to open up 14,000 new jobs to women, putting they will closer and close ore the front lines of combat. senator santorum says he sees a lot of things wrong with this. what do you think? >> i would look to the people serving in the military to give best assessment of where women can serve. we've had over 100 women lose their lives in the conflicts in

afghanistan and iraq. governor bob mcdonnell's daughter has served as a platoon leader in afghanistan. she doesn't get emotional when she faces risk. he's the one that gets emotional. i believe the women have capacity to serve in our military in positions of significance and responsibility as we do throughout our society. i do think the key decisions being made by president obama related to our military are seriously awry. this is a president who is shrinking our navy, our air force, wants to shrink our active duty personnel by 150,000, is cutting our military budget by roughly a trillion dollars. the world is more dangerous. it is not safer. north korea is going through transition. the arab spring has become the arab winter. syria is in flux. and of course pakistan with 100 nuclear weapons or more represents a potential threat. northern mexico is a real danger

area. looking around, you have hezbollah in latin america and mexico? we have a very dangerous world. the right course is to add ships to our navy, modernize and add craft to our air force, add to our active duty personnel and strengthen america's military. >> i want to get to some of those hotspots but speaker gingrich, good idea or bad idea, combat for women? >> i think it's a misleading question in the modern era. you live in a world of total warfare. anybody serving our country in uniform virtually anywhere in the world could be in danger virtually any minute. a truck driver can get blown up by a bomb as readily as the infant infantrymen. ask the combat leader what is they think is an appropriate step as opposed to the social engineers of the obama administration. but everybody needs to understand -- by the way, we live in an age where we genui

genuinely have to worry about nuclear weapons going off in our own cities. everybody who serves in the fire department, the police department, not just the first responders, national guard, anyone who responds, all of us are at risk today, men and women, boys and girls, than at any time in history. we need to understand that's the context in which we're going to have to move forward in understanding the nature of modern combat. i think this is a very sober period, and i believe this is the most dangerous president on national security grounds in american history. [ applause ] >> congressman paul. >> the problem is the character of our wars. and i don't like to think of people in groups. individuals have rights, not groups. you don't have women's rights or men's rights. we still have draft legislation. what i fear is the draft coming back because we're getting way overly involved. if we keep registering our 18-year-olds. so when the draft comes, we're

going to be registering young women and because of this they're going to be equal. now, the wars we fight aren't defensive war. they're offensive war. we're involved in way too much. or they're undeclared, not declared by the congress. so we're in wars that shouldn't be involved. so i don't want even the men over there. i don't want the women being killed but i don't want the men being killed in these wars. but because now we have accepted now for ten years that we're allowed to start war, we call it preem-emptive war, preventive w, that's an aggressive war. i believe many the theory that you have to morally justify war as a defense. now, if we're defending our country and we need to defend, believe me, with men and women we'll be in combat and defending our country, and that's the way it should be. but when it's an offensive war, going where we shouldn't be, that's quite a bit different. it's the foreign policy that needs examined. >> senator? >> i agree with the comments

made by the two gentlemen to my left, that there are different roles of women in kol bat. they are on the front line. their combat zone, as newt said, is everywhere in that environment. i didn't say it was wrong. i said i had concern about certain roles with respect to particularly in infantry. i still have those concerns. but i would defer to at least hearing the recommendations of those involved. but i think we'd have civilian control of the military, and these are things that should be decided not just by the generals or social engineering like from this president but look at the proper roles for everybody in combat. >> let's continue the question about the commander in chief question. from our audience. sir? >> hi. my name's ken taylor from wickenburg, arizona. my question to all the candidates is how do you plan on dealing with the growing nuclear threat in iran?

>> a pressing question at the moment. mr. speaker, to you first. i want to ask you in the cont t contincontext of this president's general dempsey told cnn last week, "a strike at this time would be destabilizing and would not achieve israel's long-term objectives." if you win this election, general dempsey would be your chairman of the joint chiefs. if the prime minister of israel called you and said he wanted to go forward and question, sir, do you agree, mr. president, do you agree with your chairman of the joint chief, would you say, yes, mr. prime minister, please stand down or give israel the green light? >> well, first of all, this is two different questions. general dempsey wept on to say he thought iran was a rational actor. i can't imagine why he would say that. but i just cannot imagine why he would say that. the fact is this is a dictator, ahmadinejad, who has said he doesn't believe the holocaust existed. this is a dictator who said he wants to eliminate israel from the face of the earth.

this is a dictator who said he wanls to drive the united states out of the middle east. i'm inclined to believe dick dictators. it's dangerous not to. if an israeli prime minister haunted by the history of the holocaust recognizing that three nuclear weapons is a holocaust in israel, if an israeli prime minister calls me and says i believe in the defense of my country -- this goes back to a point that congressman paul raised that we probably disagree on -- i do believe there are moments when you preempt. if you think a madman is about to have nuclear weapons and you think that madman is going to use those nuclear weapons, then you have an absolute moral obligation to defend the lives of your people by eliminating the capacity to get nuclear weapons. >> the american people often don't pay much attention to what's going on in the world until they have to. this is an issue, this confrontation with iran, that is partly responsible for what we

have seen daily at the gas pumps, prices going up and up and up. as we have this showdown, confrontation, call it what you will, should our leadership, including the president of the united states and the four gentlemen here tonight, be prepared to look the american people many the eye and say -- and i want to hear everybody's plans -- over the long run i can bring down the price of gasol e gasoline, or i can't, if yo that's your plan, but we need to have a conversation about as long as this continues the prices are likely to keep going up. >> the price of gasolies pales comparison to ahmadinejad having nuclear weapons. they could bring it to latin america, across the border to the united states to let off dirty bombs here or more sophisticated bombs here. we simply cannot allow iran to have nuclear weaponry. this president has a lot of failures. it's hard to think about economically his failures, his

policies in a whole host of areas have been troubling. but nothing in my view is as serious a failure as dealing with iran appropriately. he should have placed crippling sanctions against iran. he did not. he decided to give russia their number-one foreign policy objective, remove all our missile defense sites from eastern europe, and got nothing in return. he could have gotten crippling sanctions against iran. he did not. when dissident voices took to the streets in iran to protest an election there, he bowed. he's made it clear through his administration and almost every communication we've had so far that he does not want israel to take action, he opposes military action. he should have instead commune kalted to iran that we are prepared, that we are considering military options. they're not just on the table. they are in our hand. we must not allow iran to have a nuclear weapon. if they do, the world changes. america will be at risk. and someday nuclear weaponry will be used.

if i'm president, that will not happen. if we re-elect barack obama, it will happen. >> senator an stosantorum, plea. >> i agree with governor romney's comment. i think they're absolutely right on and well spoken. i would say that if you're looking for a president to be elected in this country that will send that very clear message to iran as to the seriousness of the american public to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon, there would be no better candidate than me because i have been on the trail of iran and trying to advocate for stopping them getting a nuclear weapon for about eight years now. i was the author of a bill in 2008 that talked about sanctions on a nuclear program that our intelligence community said didn't exist and president bush opposeeds me for to years. by the way so, did joe biden on the floor of the senate and barack obama. i always say if you want to know what foreign policy position to take, find out what joe biden's

position is and take the opposite opinion and you'll be right 100% of the time. they opposed me. he actively opposed me. we did pass that bill eventually at the end of 2006, and it was to fund the pro democracy movement. $100 million a year. here's what i said -- we need to get this -- these pro-american iranians who are there, who want freedom, want democracy, and want somebody to help them and support them. well, we put some money out there and guess what? barack obama cut it when he came into office. and when the green revolution rose, the pro democracy prose, we had nothing. we had no connection, no correlation, and did absolutely nothing to help them. in the meantime, when the radicals in egypt and the radicals in libya, the muslim brotherhood, when they rise against either a feckless leader or a friend of ours in egypt, the president is more than happy to help them out. when they're going up against a dangerous theocratic regime that wants to wipe out the state of

israel, that wants to dominate the radical islamic world and take on the great satan, the united states, we do nothing. that is a president that must go and you want a leader who will take them on. i'll do that. >> congressman paul, all three of your rivals make a passionate case that this is a vital u.s. national security interest. but you disagree. >> i disagree because we don't know if they have a weapon. as a matter of fact, there's no evidence that they have it. [ boos ] israel -- israel claims they do not have it and our government doesn't. i don't want them to get a weapon. but i think what we're doing is encouraging them to have a weapon because they feel threatened. if you look at a map of iran, we have 45 bases around their country, plus our submarines. the iranians can't possibly attack anybody. and we're worrying about the possibility of one nuclear weapon. now, just think about the cold war. the soviets had 30,000 of them. and we talked to them.

the soviets killed 100 million people and the chinese, and we worked our way out of it. if you want to worry about nuclear weapons, worry about the nuclear weapons that were left over from the soviet union. they're still floating around. they don't have them all detailed. so we're ready to go to war. i say going to war rapidly like this is risky and it's reckless. now, if they are so determined to go to war, the only thing i plead with you for, if this is the case, is do it properly. ask the people and ask the congress for a declaration of war. this is war. people are going to die. you have to get a declaration of war. just to go and start fighting -- but the sanctions are already backfiring. all that we do is literally doing the opposite. when we've been attacked, we all came together. when we attacked -- when we put them under attack, it

neutralizes it. they rally around their leaders. so what we're doing is literally enhancing the power. think of the sanctions we dell with castro. 50 years and castro is still there. it doesn't work. so i would say a different approach. we need to at least -- we talked to the soviets during the cuban crisis. we at least can talk to somebody who does not -- we do not have proof that he has a weapon. why go to war so carelessly? >> stay on this theme. you can see the question on the screen. in regards to syria, should the united states intervene and should we arm the rebellion? senator santorum, let me start with you on this one. the american people have watched these videos that starred months ago and accelerated in recent days. what is the role for the united states today? >> syria is a puppet state of iran. they are a threat not just to israel, but they have been a complete destabilizing force within lebanon, which is another problem for israel and

hezbollah. they are a country that we can do no worse than the leadership in syria today, which is not the case, and some of the other countries we readily got ourselves involved in. it's sort of remarkable to me we would have -- here again, i think it's the timidness of this president in dealing with the iranian threat, because syria and iran is an axis. the president couldn't reach out to iraq but did reach out to syria and established an embassy there. the only reason he removed that embassy was because it was threatened to being overtaken, not because he was objecting to what was going on in syria. this president has obviously a very big problem in standing up to the iranians in any form. if this would have been any other country given what was going on and the mass murders that were seen there, this president would have quickly joined the international community, calling for his ouster and stop of this, but he's not. he's not. because he's afraid to stand up

to iran. he opposed the sanctions in iran against the central banks until his own party finally said you're killing us. please support these sanctions. ladies and gentlemen, we have a president who isn't going to stop them. he isn't going to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon. we need a new president or we will have a cataclysmic situation with a power that is the most prolific proliferator of terror in the world, that will be able to do so with impunity because they will have a nuclear weapon to protect them from whatever they do. it has to be stopped, and this president is not in a position to do that. >> in the question of syria, mr. speaker, governor romney, if you were president today, what would you do differently from this president tomorrow? >> the first thing i would do across the board for the entire region is create a very dramatic american energy policy of opening up federal lands and opening up offshore drilling, replacing the epa.

the iranians have been practicing closing the straights of hormuz, which has 1 out of every 5 barrels of oil in the world going through it. we have enough energy in the united states that we would be the largest producer of oil in the world by the end of this decade. we would be capable of saying to the middle east we frankly don't care what you do. the chinese have a big problem because you ain't going to have any oil. but we would not have to be directly engaged. it's a very different question. first of all, you have to set the stage, i think, here to not be afraid of what might happen in the region. second, we clearly should have our allies -- this is an old-fashioned word -- we have have our allies covertly helping destroy the assad regime. there are plenty of arab-speaking groups that would be quite happy. there are lots of weapons available in the middle east. and i agree with senator santorum's point. this is an administration which, as long as you're america's enemy, you're safe. the only people you have to worry about is if you're an american ally. >> governor? >> i agree with both these

gentlemen. it's very understanding you're seeing on the republican platform a very strong commitment to say we're going to say no to iran. it's unacceptable for them to have nuclear weapons. syria is their key ally, the only ally in the arab world, also their route to the sea. syria provides a shadow over lebanon. syria is providing the armament of hezbollah and lebanon. we have very bad news that's come from the middle east over the past several months, a lot of it in part because of the feckless leadership of our president. one piece of good news, the key ally of iran, syria, has a leader that's in real trouble. and we ought to grab a hold of that like it's the best thing we've ever seen. we have a hard time getting our heads around what's happening in egypt. syria, with assad in trouble, we need to communicate with the

alawites. we need to work with turkey and say provide the kind of weaponry needed inside syria. this is a critical time. if we could turn syria and lebanon away from iran, we have the capacity to get iran to pull back and at that point with crippling sanctions and a very clear statement that military action is an action that will be taken if they per sue nuclear weaponry, that could change the course of world history. >> congressman, quickly, please. >> i get a minute. not quickly. you know, i've tried the moral argument. i've tried the constitutional argument on these issues. and they don't go so well. but there's an economic argument, as well. shaft, al qaeda has had a plan to bog us down many the middle east and bankrupt this country. that's what they're doing. we've spent $4 trillion of debt in the last ten years being bogged down in the middle east. the neoconservatives who now want us to be in syria, want us to go to iran and have another war.

we don't have the money. we're already -- today gasoline hit $6 a gallon in florida. we don't have the money. i don't believe i'm going to get the conversion on the moral and the constitutional arguments in the near future. but i'll tell you what, i'm going to win this argument for economic reasons. just remember when the soviets left. they left not because we had to fight them. they left because they bankrupted this country and we better wake up. because that is what we're doing here. we're destroying our currency. we have a financial crisis on our hands. >> let's take another question from our audience, please. identify yourself and ask your question. >> i'm marsha krozland from scottsda scottsdale, arizona. what is your stand on education reform and the no child left behind act? >> this came up earlier in the debate. some of you mentioned it in a general way. senator santorum, what do you do about no child left behind today if you're president. >> you know what, i supported no child left behind. it was the principal priority of president bush to try to take on

a failing education system and try to impose some sort of testing regime that would be able to kwaunlt fi how well we're doing with respect to education. i have to admit i voted for that. it was against the principles i believed in, but, you know, when you're part of the team sometimes you take one for the team for the leader and i made a mistake. [ boos ] you know, politics is a team sport, folks. and sometimes you got to rally together and do something. and in this case, you know, i thought testing was -- and finding out how bad the problem was wasn't a bad idea. what was a bad idea was all the money put out there and that, in fact, was a huge problem. i admit the mistake. and i will not make that mistake again. you have someone who is committed. look, i'm a home schooling father of seven. i know the importance of customized education for our children. i know the importance of parental control of education. i know the importance of local control of education.

and having gone through that experience of the federal government involvement, not only do i believe federal government should get out of the education business, i think the state government should start to get out of the education business and put it back to the state -- to the local and into the community. >> senator romney, you were governor you had to deal with this in a way. as you do, it's designed, like it or not, to help the public school system, which has struggled. senator santorum the other day called public school systems in this country factories. >> well, i'm not going to come out on that unless you'd like to. with regards to your question, i came into a state where republicans and democrats had worked to -- before i got there to make some very important changes. they said they were going to test our kids every year. they said to graduate from high school you're going to have to pass an exam in english and math. i was the first governor that had to enforce that provision. there were a lot of people that said oh, no, no, no let people graduate even if they can't pass that exam. i enforced it. we fought it. it was hard to do. we added more school choice.

my legislature tried to say no more charter schools. i vetoed that, overturned that. school choice, testing our kids, giving our best teachers opportunities for advancement. these kinds of principles drove our schools to be pretty successful. as a matter of fact, there are four measures on which the federal government looks at schools state by site. my state's number one of all ooh stays in all four of those measures, fourth and eighth-graders english and math. those principles, testing our kids, excellent curriculum, superb teachers, and school choice. those are the answers to help our schools. with regards to no child left behind, the right answer -- president bush stood up and said, you know what, the teachers unions don't want school choice. i want school choice to see who's succeeding and failing. he was right to fight for that. there are things that should be changed in the law, but we have to stand up to the federal teachers unions and put the kids first and the unions behind. >> mr. speaker, on that point, this is a conversation about what is the proper role of the federal government in the education issue.

the to the point the governor just raised about teachers unions. you have complimented president obama to a degree on that issue, saying he had some courage to stand up to the teachers union. you went on tour with al sharpton in support of the race to the top program, essentially stimulus but insens to states to schools ooh that perform and refo reform. >> we talked about the influence of charter schools, which is the one area i thought the president showed some courage, going into philadelphia or baltimore or mon gomry, alabama, and say charter schools are an important step in the rilg direction. there are two things wrong in with the president's approach. i would dramatically shrink the department of federal education around to doing nothing but research, return all the power of the tenth amendment back to the states. i would urge the states, then, to turn most of the power back

to the local communities and urge the local communities the turn most of the power back to the parents. [ cheers ] the fact is we bough over the last 50 years three huge mistakes. we bought the mistake that the teachers unions actually cared about the kids. it's increasingly clear they care about protecting bad teachers. if you look at l.a. unified, it is almost criminal what we do to the poorest children in america, entrapping them into places. they are doing so much damage. the second thing we bought into was the whole school of education theory that you don't have to learn, you have to learn about how uld learn, so when you finish learning about how you learn, you have self-esteem because you're told you have self-esteem, even if you can't read the word self-esteem. [ applause ] and the third thing we bought, which rick alluded to, which is really important, we bought this notion that you could have carnegie units and you could

have state standards and you could have a curriculum -- every child is unique. every teacher is unique. teaching is a missionary vocation. when you bure ok ra tiz it, you kill it. we need a fundamental rethinking from the ground up. >> congressman paul. [ applause ] >> newt's going in the right direction, but not far enough. the constitution is very clear. there's no authority for the federal government to be involved in education. [ applause ] there's no prohibition in the constitution for the states to be involved in education. that's not a bad position, and we can sort things out. but once again, the senator was for no child left behind, but now he's running for president and running to repeal no child left behind once again. he calls this a team sport. he has to go along to get along. that's the problem is with

washington. that's been going on for so long. so i don't accept that form of government. i understand that is the way it works. you were the majority, were the whip, organized and got these votes all passed. but i think the obligation of all of us should be the oath of office. it shouldn't be the oath to the party. i'm sorry about that. but it isn't the oath to the party. it's the oath to our office to bay the law and the law is the constitution. >> gentlemen, thank you. one more break. when we come back, the final question of what could be the final republican debate. when you have tough pain, do you want fast relief?

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welcome back to the mesa art center, arizona republican presidential candidate. the four contenders on the floor tonight. our time is short. nine states have voted so far. we have talked about the volatility in the race. the people of michigan tuesday, wyoming and washington and then super tuesday. republican voters are having a hard time. i want to close with this question. help the voters who still have questions about you. what is the biggest misconception about you in the public debate right now. >> i would say the perpetuation of the myth by the media that i can't win. and the total ignoring some statistics that show the opposite. just recently, there was a poll in iowa and matched the four of us in a poll against obama. guess what, i did the best. i would say that's been the biggest myth, but let me tell

you, though, public perception is one thing, but when row go around and talk to the american people and we have our rallies, that misconception isn't there. and i think that's the biggest miskungception i have to deal with. >> mr. speaker? >> i think that the fact is that the american public are really desperate to find somebody who can solve real problems. i think it's whiy it's been goig occupy and down and you have all all sorts of people as front runners and my background of actually working with president reagan and being speaker, there was one thing i wish the american people could know about me, the amount of work it took to get to welfare reform, a balanced budget, a 4.2% unemployment rate, and you have to have somebody who is going to get it done in washington, not just describe it on the campaign trail. >> governor romney?

>> we've got to restore america's promise in this country where people know with hard work and education, they're going to be secure and prosperous and their kids will have a brighter future they they had. we need fundamental change in washington, d.c., we have to create more jobs, have less debt, and shrink the size of the government. >> a misconception about you? >> you get to ask the questions uwant, i get to give the answers i want. fair enough? and i believe that there's a whole question about what do we need as the president who should be president, what is their opinion, but what we need is who can lead the country through the fundamental change we have in front of us, and we have people here with all different back grounds. i spent 25 years in the private sector. i worked in business, i worked in turning around the olympics, in leading a state. i believe that kind of

background and skill is what is essential to restoring the american promise. if people think there's something in my background that is more important, they don't want to vote for me, that's their right, but i believe i have the passion, the skill, to turn america around, and that's what is needed. >> senator santorum? >> i think the thing i hear, i have heard from the very beginning, can you defeat barack obama. if you want to look at the people on the stage, we're going to be running against the president who is going to have the national media behind him, more money, a lot more money because he isn't having to spend a penny in the primary. he's going to outspend whoever it is. maybe you want a candidate who is not going to win an election by beating the tar out of the opponent spending four or five to one in an election but can run a campaign based on issues and ideas and a vision that is positive for america, to be able to be outspent and cut through

because you have a strong vision, you have principles and convictions that are going to convince the american public their you're on their side and making a big difference in the country and keeping us safe and prosperou prosperous. people are looking for someone who can do a lot with a little. run a campaign on a shoe string and win a bunch of states and rise in the polls. you're looking for someone who can take what is going on in washington and look at what went on in my campaign and see someone who can do a lot with a little. that's what we need in washington, not just after the election, but we're going to need to have that before the election, and i'm the best person from a state which is a key swing state, from a region of the country which is going to decide the country, right across the rust belt of america, we have the programs, the plans, and we can win and defeat barack obama and govern this country conservatively. >> i want to thank you, thank all of our candidates and thank you our partner, the republican

partner, and the mesa arts center. join us 6:00 for the coverage of the arizona and michigan primaries, our choice continues right now. >> thanks. it's anderson cooper, welcome to special 360 coverage of the debate. let's take you backoon the stage, show you what's going on. there have been many, but perhaps none as important as this one. the four men competeing for the gop nomination. romney coming off four defeats. a lot of pundits saying if romney can't win michigan, he can't win the nomination. santorum has been on a roll, but the polls are tightening. gingrich looking to get momentum back. the stakes were high, and it showed going in. we're going to show you the most important moments and a recap in case you missed them from the

debate. gloria borger, donna brazile, ari fleischer, also david gergen in the hall, john king is there, eric erickson, a lot of people i have talked to, ari fleischer, let's talk to you, who do you think did particularly well tonight? >> well, anderson, i thought it was a good night for both newt gingrich and mitt romney. they had the best debating points. he was like the old newt in the debate. he came out and was affable, thoughtful, deep, and i thought romney was regular, solid, steady. hits doubles, mitt romney. rick santorum missed his chance tonight. he had a real opening and i think he missed it. >> donna brazile, what did you see on the stage tonight? >> you know, the city of mesa is famous for spring training, and i have to say i don't think rick santorum was ready for the big lees. the spotlight was on him because he's one of the front runners. romney had a terrific night, but

gingrich is still the statesman in the party, and who knows what is going to happen next week. but ron paul had his funny thing, and he tried to make the best of a bad situation as well. >> gloria borger standing by with senator rick santorum. gloria, take it. >> hi, anderson. i'm standing here with part of team santorum, who came here to cheer the senator on this evening. let me ask you the first question, senator, which is how did it feel to be the center of attention tonight? >> it was great, i enjoyed it a lot. you know, you fight for that real estate. and now you have the opportunity, and you know, i felt like with ron on one side and mitt on the other, they were smacking back and forth a little bit, but it's part of the process. we laid out the strigz for the country and why we're the best to take on president obama and the best person to make the change that is necessary in washington. >> i have to tell you at a couple points it got quite heated between you and governor

romney, when you're talking about earmarks and essentially, you seemed to be calling governor romney a rhypocrite, ws a reading that right? >> when someone criticizes you for earmarks and at the same time i was earmarking, goes out and says i want those earmarks and goes to washington, d.c. and asks for them, then says, we should have a process on how we spend money and he describes the process about how we did do earmarks, i think the governor is just misinformed, and he's making points that simply fall flat. >> so am i right, hypocrite? >> i don't like to call people names, but the gchker's accusations are wrong, false. >> you seemed to get some negative audience reaction when you suggested that governor romney would be incapable of taking on barack obama on the health care issue because of his past health care reform plans