ground stop in denver, newark and washington. >> coming up next, a full replay of wednesday night's republican debate in its entirety. a great way to see the gop contenders before super tuesday. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com the presidential race has been won by governor ronald reagan of california. >> 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.

>> from arizona tonight, a grand showdown in a presidential contest that's been all over the map. >> wait a couple of weeks. >> this has been like riding space mountain in disney. >> the republican race could take another turn right now. with the gop candidates return to the debate stage. rick santorum, the late contender, says it's a two-man duel now. 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 threatened him made him stronger. >> my conservatism 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 frontline 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 here in america. >> in the west, they know a thing or two about fights to the finish. this debate could change the landscape 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 recited 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 symphonic 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 phonic

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 there 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 these 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 government. 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. government servants 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 gilbert'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 years, 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 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 -- 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 bridge to nowhere. i think these earmarks, we had it with them. 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. there is money being used inappropriately. 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 speaker's terms, 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. >> 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' fault. they're all messed up and 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.

this combs from cnnpolitics.com. why was george w. bush wrong? 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 pain. 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 uaw and their own 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 u 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 of 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, i agree with governor 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, 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.

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 tried 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 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 limited government, lower tax. we hear this all the time. cut spending, limit the government, everything will be fine. no, everything is not going to be fine. there are bigger problems at stake in america, and someone is going to go out there, i will, and talk about the things, and you know what? here is the difference. the left gets all upset. look at him talking about these things. here is 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 ob doctor i have dealt with birth control pills and contraception for a long time. this is a consequence of the fact that the government has control of medical care and medical insurance and then we fight over how we dictate how this should be contributed. once the government takes over the schools especially at the federal level, there's no right position. 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 and creating the immorality, i don't see it that way. the i think the immoralities creates the problem of wanting to use the pill. guns don't kill, criminals kill. in a way it's the morality of society that we have to deal with. the pill is there and it

contributes maybe, but the pills can't be blamed for the immorality of our society. >> governor, please. i think as rick said, this isn't an argument about contraceptives. this is a discussion about are we going to have a nation which preserves the foundation 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 society in the future. these kids are raised in poverty, they're in abusive settings. the likelihood of them being able to finish college or high school 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 to stop us from doing that. we have to have a president who is willing to say that the best opportunity an individual can

give to their unborn child is an opportunity to be born in the home with a mother and a father. and i think -- >> it's an issue on which all of you have criticism of the oaks. it both senator santorum and speaker gingrich have said you have required catholic hospitals to provide energy contraception to rape victims and mr. speaker you compared the governor to president obama saying he infringed on catholic rights. did you do that? >> absolutely not. of course not. there was no requirement in massachusetts for the catholic church to provide a morning after pill to rape victims. that was entirely voluntary on their part. there was no such requirement. likewise in the massachusetts health care bill. there's a provision that says that people don't have to have coverage for contraceptives or other type of medical devices which are contrary to their religious teachings. churches also don't have to provide that to entities which are the church themselves or

entities they control. that's why when i worked very closely with the leaders of the catholic church, i met with the cardinal a number of times and with 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 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 up 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 this he believed it wasn't possible under massachusetts law to give them the waiver. now, that was the newspaper reports that came out, 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 toward 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, we're now looking at an abyss that forces you to change what you may once have 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 they would have been at any point in the last 25 years. >> you know, we talk about the morning after pill, actually the morning after pill is nothing morning a birth control bill. so the birth control pill on the market, if you're going to legalize birth control pill, you can't separate the two. they're 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 skrot for abortion because planned parenthood gets the money to buy birth control pills but then they have the money left over to do the abortion. so that's why you have to have a

pretty strong resistance to voting for these bunches of bills put together. planned parenthood should get nothing let alone designate how they spend. >> senator santorum? >> as congressman paul knows, i opposed title 10 funding, but it's included in a large appropriation bill that includes a whole host of other things including the funding for the national institutes of hale, the funding for health and human services and a whole bunch of other departments, a multibillion dollar bill. with what i did because title 10 was always pushed through, i did something that no one else did. congressman paul didn't. i said, well, if you're going to have title 10 funding, we're going to create something called title 20 which will provide funding, to provide programs that actually work in keeping children from being sexually active instead of facilitating children from being sexually

active. i pushed title 20 to accomplish that goal. so while, yes, i admit, i voted for large appropriation bills and there were things i didn't like and things i did, but when it came to this issue i proactively stepped foornd and said we have to do something to counter balance it. i would say i have always been very public. that as president of the united states i will defund planned parenthood, i will not sign any appropriation bill that funds planned parenthood. >> this demonstrates the problem i'm talking about. there's always been excuse to do this. title 20, i don't know whether you inferred that i would support title 20 for abstinence. that would cost money as a program. it's not a program of the federal government to get involved in our lives this way. if you want laws like that maybe the state, but 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 anyplace. >> just a brief comment.

senator, i just saw a youtube clip of you being interviewed where you said you personally opposed contraceptives but that you said you voted for title 10. but you used that as an argument saying this is something i did proactively. you didn't say this is something i was opposed to. it was something i would have done. you said this in a positive light. i voted for title 10. >> 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 bill that is included it. and i made it very clear in subsequent interviews that i don't support that, i have never supported it, and on an individual basis have voted against it. that's why i proposed title 20 to counter balance it. so, you know, governor romney, i can just say that you were talking about this issue before of religious conscience and protections, but this is -- 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. >> wait a second, wait a second. >> and 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 is over 50 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. here we have, as newt said, the 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. he would be a very let's say -- it would be a difficult task for someone who had the model for obama care which is the biggest issue in this race of government control of your lives to be the nominee of your party. you would take that issue

completely -- >> governor, take 30 seconds to respond and then i want to move the conversation on. >> 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 said this is the guy who is really conservative and we can trust him. let's not forget you said that. and number two, number two, under the tenth amendment, sats have the rights to do things that they think are in their best interests. i know you agree with that, but let's point this out. our bill was 70 pages. his bail is 2,700 pages. there's a lot in those 2,700 pages i don't agree with and let me tell you, 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. number two, i don't believe the federal government should cut medicare by some $500 billion. number three, i don't think the federal government should raise taxes by $500 billion, and, therefore, i will repeal obama

care. and let me mention one more -- the reason we have obama care, the reason we have obama care is because the senator you supported over 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. >> well -- >> senator, please, quickly. >> so, 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. ask your governor, the $8

billion of tax increases he had to put in place. yes, governor, you balanced the budget for four years. you have a constitutional requirement to balance the budget in four years. no great shakes. >> i'm all for -- i'd like to see it federally, but don't brag about something you have to do. michael dukakis balanced the budget for ten years. does that make him qualified to be president of the united states? i don't think so. you used federal government to fund the government takeover of health care in massachusetts. used it and barack obama -- >> why did you vote for arlen specter? >> i'll get to that. and barack obama used it as a model for taking over this health care system in america. why i supported arlen specter, number one, because arlen specter was a senator who is going to be the chairman of the judiciary committee at a type 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 and maybe two of them 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. he asked me to support him. i said will you support the president's nominees. we had a 51-49 majority in the senate. he said i'll support the president's nominee as chairman. every nominee arlen specter supported from the time he took on judge bourke and saved justice thomas, every nominee he supported passed. why? because it gave democrats cover to report for it. pat toomey wouldn't have been able to give the moderate republicans and conservative democrats the leeway to support that nominee which is exactly what arlen specter did. he defended roberts, defended ali alito. we have a 35-4 majority on the court that struck down that case you talked about. i did the right thing for our country. >> gentlemen, let's -- >> supporting arlen specter over pat toomey, that was a very torturous route to support a guy

who is pro-choice -- >> about as -- >> in 1996 -- >> let's move the conversation along and take a question from a voter in our audience. identify yourself and ask your question please. >> my name is gary lot and i'm from kingman, arizona. it seems that arizona has come under federal attacks just for wanting to secure it's southern border. what will you and your administrations do to fix the situation, to secure our border, and to protect the american people? >> congressman paul, i want to go to you first. you're from a border state. as you answer gary's question, a recent federal analysis says the cost of federal fencing would cost about $3 million per mile. is that a good investment, money well spent? >> probably not, but we can do a better job and the best way to do it is forget about the border between pakistan and afghanistan

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

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 becking. we have jobs going begging in this country 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. so there's a lot we could do and we 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 has 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 0-foot ladder business gets really good. why is governor perry wrong? >> he's not wrong.

they have to have two 30-foot ladder because it's a double fence. i helped duncan hunter pass the first fence law in san diego. san diego and tijuana are the most densely populated border. it turned out it worked. it worked dramatically. duncan hunter will be glad to testify to this how much it worked. however it stopped. it stopped in part because there was a wetlands. it turned out nonillegal 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 the people have broken into california. now, the thing i was fascinated about 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 can 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 is bill that would waive all federal regulations, requirements, and studies. i would ask governor brewer, martinez, brown, and perry to become the co-leaders in their state. we would apply as many resources as needed to be done by january 1 of 2014. including 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 the 8 million or 11 million immigrants is another part. sheriff joe said it's garbage to not arrest illegals already in this country. you talked about self deportation. but what about arresting. should there be aggressive seek

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

check e-verify. if an employer hires someone that's not going through e-verify, they will get sanctioned just like someone who doesn't pay their taxes. it's time we finally stopped illegal immigration. >> we've had the conversation about the border and the fence. governor romney talks about e-verify, making sure businesses are doing their part. what about the individual. does that person if you're going to be consistent have enforcement across the board, should that person be sanctioned? >> i'm not going to require homeowners to do e-verify. that's one step too far. i think what we need to do is give law enforcement the opportunity to do what they're doing here in arizona, what sheriff arpaio was doing here before he ran into some issues with the federal government which is to allow folks to enforce the law in this country. to allow people who are breaking the law or are suspicious of breaking the law to be able to

be detained and deported if they're found here in this country illegally as well as those who are trying to seek employment. this is enforcing not just upon the employer but on those who are here illegally and trying to do things that are against the law like seeking employment here. >> it's a tough policy question, obviously, and this state has been part of the driving force. it also becomes especially for four gentlemen who would like to be the next president of the united states, it's a difficult political question in the sense that the latino population is the fastest growing demographic in our country and some republicans, marco rubio, the senator from florida, he said this recently. he says he worries some of the rhetoric used by republican politicians on this issue has been harsh, intolerable, inhe can cuesable. 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 has done that, sure? was it also intolerable for president obama to go to el paso and make a total ly demagogic

speech? the great file you're -- i voted in 1986 for the bill that was supposed to solve all of this which ronald reckon signed. he said he signed this bill because we have to get control of the border 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, the 2700-page kind of bill. i think you have to go one step at a time. the first step is to control the border. i don't believe anybody who is here legally, and i talked last night for example with folks of hispanic background who are in the import/export business dealing with exco 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 i am lee gllegality. >> we're going to take another quick break. our debates will continue in a moment. one of these men could be president just 11 months from now. how would they deal with threats from iran and north korea? plus, a great question sent to us at cnnpolitics.com. define yourself using one word, gentlemen, and one word only. can the candidates keep it that short? stick around and find out.

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we're back in mesa, arizona, for our arizona republican presidential debate. we have a question from cnnpolitics.com. without caveats or explanation, please define yourself using one order and one word only. congressman paul. >> consistent. >> senator santorum. >> courage. >> governor? >> resolute. >> mr. speaker. >> cheerful. >> that was a good exercise. let's move our conversation now to the important responsibilities one of you gentleman could have in 11 months as the commander in chief of the united states.

governor romney, i want to ask you first. 11 months from now 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 them closerer and closer to 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 the best assessment. we had over 100 women lose their lives. i was in governor bob mcdonald. his daughter has served as a platoon leader in afghanistan. he said that she doesn't get emotional when she faces risk, but he's the one that gets emotional as she races that kind of risk. i believe women have the capacity to serve in our military in positions of significance and responsibility as we do throughout our society. i do think that the key decisions that are being made by this administration by president obama however related to our military are seriously awry. this is a president who is

shrinking our navy, shrinking our air force, wants to shrink our active duty personnel by 50,000 to 100,000. cutting our military budget. 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 the world, you have hezbollah in latin america and in mexico. we face a very dangerous world. the right course is to add ships to the navy, to mad ernize and add aircraft, to add 100,000 troops to our active duty personnel and strengthen america's military. >> i want to get to some of the hotspots governor romney just mentioned. on the question of a more prominent combat role for women, good or bad idea? >> 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 at virtually any minute. the truck driver can get blown up by a bomb as readily as the infantryman. i would say that you ought to ask the combat leaders what they think is an appropriate step as opposed to the social engineers of the obama administration, but everybody needs to understand, and by the way, we live in an average when we have to genuinely worry about nuclear weapons going off in our own cities. everybody who serves in the fire department, in the police department, not just the first responders, but our national guard, whoever is going to respond, all of us are more at risk today, men and women, boys and girls, than at any time in the history of this country, and 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. >> 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, and we still have draft registration. what i fear is the draft coming back because we're getting way overly involved, and the draft -- we keep registering our 18-year-olds. 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 wars, they're offensive wars. we're involved in way too much. they're undeclared, they're not declared by the congress. so we're in wars that we shouldn't be involved, so want even the men to be over there. i don't want women to be killed but i don't want the men being killed in these wars. but because we have accepted in ten years we're allowed to start war, preventative war, that's an aggressive war. i believe in the christian just

war theory that you have to morally justify the war is in defense. if we're defending our country and we need to defend, believe me, men and women will 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. so it's the foreign policy that needs to be examined. >> senator? >> i actually agree with the comments made by the two gentlemen to my left. that there are different roles of women in combat. they are on the front line right now. the combat zone as newt said is everywhere unfortunately in that environment. my concern that i expressed, i didn't say it was wrong, i said i had concerns about certain roles with respect to particularly ininfantry. i still have those concerns, but i would defer to at least hearing the recommendations of those involved, but i think we have civilian control of the military and these are things that should be decided not just

by the generals but we should not have social engineering as i think we have seen from this president. we should have sober minds looking at what is, in fact, the proper roles for everybody in combat. >> let's continue the conversation about the commander in chief question. we have a question from our audience. sir? >> my name is kent taylor and my question to all the candidates is, how do you plan on dealing with the growing nuclear threat in iran? >> it's a pressing question at the moment. mr. speaker, let's go to you first on this one. i want to ask you in the context that general dempsey told cnn 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 then be your chairman of the joint chiefs. if the prime minister of israel called you, said he wanted to go forward and questioned, sir, do you agree, mr. president, do you agree with the chairman of the joint chiefs? would you say yes, mr. prime

minister, please stand down, or would you give israel the green light? >> first of all, this is two different questions. general dempsey went on to say he thought iran was a rational actor. i can't imagine why he would say that. and i just cannot imagine why he would have said it. the fact is, this is a dictator, ame ahmadinejad, who said he doesn't believe the holocaust happened, this is a dak tater who wants to drive the united states out of the middle east. i'm inclined to believe dictators. now, i think 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

that you preempt. if you think a madman is about to have nuclear weapons and you think that mad man is going it 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. >> often the american people often don't pay much attention to what's going on in the world until they have to. but this is an issue, this confrontation with iran that is partly responsible for what we have seen daily at the gas pump, prices going up and up. governor romney, come into the conversation. as we have this showdown, confrontation, call it what you will with iran, should our leadership, including the current president of the united states and the four gentlemen here with me tonight, be prepared to look the american people in the eye and say, and i want to hear everybody's plans over the long run, i think i can brun down the price of gasoline or i can't if that's your plan, but at the moment we need to have a conversation about how as long as this continues, the prices are likely to keep going up. >> look, the price of gasoline pales in comparison to the idea

of ahmadinejad with nuclear weapons. ahmadinejad having material he can give to hezbollah and hamas and they can bring into latin america and potentially bring across the border into the united states to let off dirty bombs here. or more sophisticated bombs here. we simply cannot allow iran to have nuclear weaponry, and this president hation a lot of failures. it's hard to think of -- economically his failures, his policies and a whole host of areas have been troubling, but nothing in my view is as serious a failure as his failure to deal with iran appropriately. this president should have put in place crippling sanctions against iran. he did not. he decided to give russia their number one foreign policy objective, removal of 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 street in iran to protest a stolen election there, instead of standing with them, he bowed to the election. this is a president who has made

it clear in almost every communication we've had so far he does not want israel to take action. this is a president who should have instead communicated to iran that we are prepared, that we are considering military options. 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 some day nuclear weaponry will be used. if i'm president, that will not happen. if we re-elect barack obama, it will happen. >> senator santorum, please. >> 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 to 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 the president of the united states, president bush opposed me for two years and so did joe biden and barack obama. if you want to know what foreign policy position is, find out what joe biden's position is and take the opposite position and you will be right 100% of the time. 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 is 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 rose, we had nothing. we had no connection, no correlation, and we 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 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 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 to 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. there is no evidence -- 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. and 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're 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 and people are going to die and you have to get a declaration of war. just to go and start fighting -- but the sanctions are already backfiring and all we do is literally doing the opposite. when we were attacked, we all came together. when we attack -- when we put them under attack, they get together and it neutralizes that. they rally around their leaders. what we're doing is literally enhancing their power. think of the sanctions we had 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 talk 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. >> we have a question from cnnpolitics.com. you can see it up 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. the american people have watched these videos that started months ago. 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 could do no worse than the leadership in syria today, which is not the case in some of the other countries that we readily got ourselves involved in. so it's sort of remarkable to me that 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 and the president, while he couldn't reach out deliberalieliberately did mech out reedly to syria and established an embassy there. and the only reason he removed

that embassy was because it was in threat of being overtaken. not because he was objecting to what was going on in syria. this president obviously has a very big problem in standing up to the iranians. if this had been any other country given what was going on and the mass murders we're seeing, this president would have quickly joined the international community biis ca -- which calling for his ouster but he's not. he opposed the sanctions in iran until his own party 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 are going to have a cataclysmic situation with a power that is the most patriot livic 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. >> and the question of syria, mr. speaker, then governor romney, if you were president today, what would you do differently from this president tomorrow? >> well, the first thing i'd 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 straits of hormuz, which was one out of every five barrel of oil going through it. we have enough energy in the united states we would be the largest producer of oil in the world by the end of the 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 they aren't going to have any oil, but we would not have to be directly engaged. it's a very different question. but 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 world, we should 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. you know, the only people you got to worry about is if you're an american ally. >> governor? >> i agree with both these gentlemen. it's very interesting you're seeing on the republican platform a very strong commitment to say we're going to say no to the iran. syria is their key ally, it's their only ally in the arab world and it's their route to the sea. syria provides a shadow over lebanon. syria is providing the armament of hezbollah in lebanon that, of course, threatens israel, our friend and ally. we have very bad news that's come from the middle east over the past several months opinion

a lot of it in part because of the feckless leadership of our president, but one little piece of good news, snd that is the key ally of iran, syria, has a leader that's in real trouble, and we ought to grab ahold of that like it's the best thing we've ever seen. there are things we're having a hard time getting our hands around like in egypt, but in syria with assad in trouble, we need to communicate to his friends, his ethnic group to say you have a future if you'll abandon that guy assad. we need to work with saudi arabia and with turkey to say you guys provide the kind of weaponry that's needed to help the rebels inside syria. this is a critical final for us. if we can turn syria and lebanon away from iran, we finally have the capacity to get iran to pull back and we can at that point with crippling sanctions and a clear statement that military action is an action that will be taken if they pursue nushg lar weaponry, that can change the course of history.

>> quickly. >> i have tried the moral argument, i have tried the constitutional argument and they don't go so well but there's an economic argue am as well. al qaeda has had a plan to boggobog us down in the middle east and bankrupt this country. that's what they're doing. we've spent $4 million of debt being bogged down. . they 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. and we don't have the money. so 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 and 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 marcia crossman from scottsdale, arizona. what is your stand on education reform and the no child left behind act? >> this came up a bit earlier in the debate. some of you mentioned it in an earlier way. senator, what do you do specifically about no child left behind? >> 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 improve -- impose some sort of testing regime that would be able to quantify 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. 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 kos tommized 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 the 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 local and into the community. >> governor romney, you were a governor and you had to deal with this law so weigh in. it's designed, like it or not, to help the public school system. senator santorum called the public schools in this country factories. >> i'm not going to comment on

that unless you'd like to. with regards to your question, i came into a state where republicans and democrats had worked before i got there to make some very important changes. they said that tlerp they were going to test our kids every year. they said to graduate from high school you'll 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, no, no, let people graduate even if they can't pass that exam. we enforced it. we added more school choice. with 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 state and my state is number one of all 50 states in all four of those measures, fourth and eighth graders in 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 there -- this president bush stood up and said the teacher's unions don't want school choice. i want school choice to see who is succeeding and failing. he was right to fight for that. we have to stand up to the federal teacher's 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. to the point the governor just raised about teacher's unions, you have complimented president obama to a degree on that issue saying he had some courage to stand up to the teacher's union. you went on tour with al sharpton and this president's education secretary in support of the multibillion dollar race to the top program. which is insen at thises to states to schools that perform and that enact reforms. >> what he did was went around including tucson in this state and we talked about the importance of charter schools. which was the one area where i thought the president did, in fact, show some courage being willing to go into philadelphia

or into baltimore or in a variety of places and advocate -- we were in montgomery, alabama, for example and say charter schools are an important step in the right direction. there are two things wrong with the president's approach and the reason i would, frankly, dramatically shrink the federal department of education down to doing nothing but research, return all the power back to the states, i would urge the states then to return most of that power back to the local communities and i'd urge the local xhupts to return most of the power back to the parents. i think the fact is we have bought -- we bought over the last 50 years three huge mistakes. we bought the mistake that the teachers unions 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 in trapping them into places. if a foreign power did that to

our children we'd declare it an act of war because they're doing so much damage. we bought into the school of education theory that you don't have to learn, you have to learn about how you would learn so when you finish learning about how you learn you would have self-esteem because you are told you have self-esteem even if you can't read the word self-esteem. 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 state standards and you could have a curriculum everybody -- every child is unique. every teacher is unique. teaching is a missionary vocation. we need a fundamental rethinking from the ground up. >> congressman paul? >> newt is going in the right direction, but not far enough. the sktion is very clear. there's no aauthority for the federal government to be involved in education.

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 now he's running to repeal no child left behind once again. but -- and he calls this a team sport. he is to go along and get along and that's the way the team plays but that's the problem with washington. that's what's been going on for so long. so i don't accept that form of government. i understand that's the way it works. you were with the majority. you were the whip and you organized and got these votes all passed, but i think the obligation of all of us should be the oath of office. we should take -- and 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 obey 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. ♪

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welcome back want to mesa art center, our arizona republican presidential debate the four contenders stage tonight. gentlemen, our time is short, so one last question. nine states have voted so far. we talked a bit earlier about the volatility in the praipts people arizona vote tuesday, michigan on tuesday. wyoming and washington state and then super-tuesday beyond that. 14 states over the next ten dates or so. republican voters are clearly having a hard time. i want to close with this question-the voters who still have questions about you. what is the biggest misconception about you in the public debate right now is congressman paul, start with you, sir. >> i would say the perpetuation of the myth by the media that i can't win and -- [ applause ].

-- and the totally ignoring some statistics that showed is to be the opposite, just recently there was a poll in iowa and it matched all of the four of us up against obama, and guess what, i did the very best. [ applause ] so i would say that -- that is the biggest myth. but let me tell you, though, public perception is one thing but when you 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 misconception that 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 that's why it's been going up and down and why you've had all sorts of different folks as front-runners, and all i can say is that my background of having actually worked with president reagan and then having been speaker if there was one

thing i wish the american people could know about me, it would be the amount of work it took to get to welfare reform, a balanced budget, a 4.2% unemployment rate, and that you've got to have somebody who can actually get it done in washington, not just describe it on the campaign trail. >> governor romney? [ applause ] >> we've got restore america's promise in in country, where people know that with hard work and education that they're going to be secure and prosperous and that their kids will have a brighter future than they've had. for that to happen we'll have to have gramatic fundamental change in washington, d.c. we're going to have to create more jobs, less debt and shrink the size of government. the only person -- >> so misconception about your question is misconception. >> you know you get to ask the questions you want, i get to give the answers i want and -- >> fair enough. >> and i believe that there's the whole question about what do we need as the person who should be president? what's the position of this

issue? the toughest going after obama? what we really need in my opinion is who can lead the country through the kind of fundamental change that we have in front of us? we have people here with all different backgrounds. i spent 25 years in the private sector. i worked in business. i worked in helping to turn around the olympics. i worked in helping lead a state. i believe that kind of background and skill is what's essential to restore the american promise. if people think there's something else in my background that's more important they don't want to vote for me, that's their right, but i believe i have the passion, the commitment, and the skill to turn america around and i believe that's what's needed. >> senator santorum? [ applause ] >> i think the thing i hear, i've heard from the very beginning, can you defeat barack obama? and if you want to look at the people on the stage, we're going to be running against a president who will have the national media behind him, he's going to have more money, lot more money because he doesn't have to spend a pen net primary

so he's going to outspend whoever it is, he will have that on that side. maybe a candidate who will not want to win an election by beating the tar out of his opponent spending 4-5 to 4-1 to win a state. an idea, a vision that's positive for america, to be able to be outspent and yet cut through because you have a strong vision, you have principles and convictions that is going to convince the american public that you're on their side and making a big difference in our country and keeping us safe and prosperous. i think if people are looking for someone who can do a lot with little, run a campaign on a shoestring and win a bunch of states and rise in the polls, you are look for someone who can take what's going on in washington and look at what went on in my campaign and see someone who could 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 this election, right across the respite of america. we've got the programs. we've got the plan and we can win and defeat barack obama and govern this country conservatively. >> gentlemen i want to thank you and all of our candidates tonight and also thank our republican tonight the know republican party of arizona and like to thank our hosts here at the mesa arts center. [ male announcer ] say goodbye to "ho-hum," and hello to "whoa, yum." use campbell's cream of chicken soup to make easy enchiladas, cheesy chicken & rice, and other chicken dishes that are oh...so...whoa.

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