results. keep it right here as cnn's southern republican debate starts right now.

from the north charleston coliseum this is the southern republican presidential debate. tonight, four remaining republican candidates are with us with their ultimate goal now in sight. welcome, i'm john king. this is the final debate before the south carolina presidential primary. that's on saturday. republican leaders from here in south carolina, 13 other southern states in this audience tonight along with members of

the tea party patriots. some of our audience members will get a chance to directly question the candidates. you can take part sending us your questions online. twitter include the hash tag cnn debate. facebook/cnnpolitics and cnn politics.com. it's time to meet the 2012 republican presidential contenders. the texan congressman ron paul. the former speaker of the house newt gingrich. the former massachusetts governor mitt romney.

and the former senator from pennsylvania rick santorum. ladies and gentlemen, the republican presidential candidates. just before we came on the air tonight we recited the pledge of allegiance. please rise for our national anthem. we are blessed to have it performed by the military cadets from the citadel here in south carolina.

♪ o say, can you see by the dawn's early light ♪ ♪ what 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 ♪ ♪ oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ ♪ o'er the land of the free ♪

♪ and the home of the brave? ♪ that was fabulous. want to ask the candidates to get comfortable with their proed yums while i tell but how tonight's debate will work. i'll ask questions as some of our members. i'll follow up and guide the discussion. candidates, we promise each of you get your fair share of time and the questions. you'll have one minute to answer and 30 seconds for follow-ups and rebuttals. let's have the candidates introduce themselves. we'll ask them to keep it short. i'm john king from cnn. i'm rooting for the patriots this weekend and honored to be

your moderator this weekend. senator santorum, let's begin with you. >> i'm rick santorum and want to thank the people from the low country for our hospitality. i want to thank the people of iowa for a delayed but most welcomed victory there. thank you to the people of iowa. >> i'm mitt romney. it's good to be back in south carolina. see many good friends here. it's great to be here with my wife and my kids. i'm married now 42 years. i have five sons, five daughters in law, 16 grandkids and they are the joy of my life. thank you. >> mr. speaker. >> i'm newt gingrich. i want to thank the people of south carolina for being so hospitable. as a georgian, it feels good to being home in the south and look forward to this evening. >> congressman paul. >> thank you very much. it's great to be here tonight. i'm a congressman from texas.

i've been elected for 12 times and also i practiced ob/gyn for a 30-year period. i served five years in the military and i'm the only u.s. veteran on this stage tonight. >> you met the candidates. it's time to begin the debate, an event that has a dramatically different feel than just a few hours ago. this morning as senator santorum noted, we learned he, not governor romney won the iowa cauc caucuses. four podiums now because of governor perry's decision to start out. and there was a direct character attack on the speaker. your ex-wife gave an interview with abc news and this story has gone viral on the internet. she says you came to her in

1999, at a time when you were having an affair. she says you askedler, sir to enter into an open marriage. would you lookic to take time to respond to that? >> no. but i will. [ applause ] i think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office, and i am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that. >> every person in here knows

personal pain. every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. to take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything i can imagine. my two daughters wrote the head of abc and made the point that it was wrong, that they should pull it, and i am frankly astounded that cnn would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate. >> as you noted, mr. speaker, this story did not come from our network. it is the subject of

conversation on the campaign. i take your point. >> john, it was repeated by your network. you chose to start the debate with it. don't try to blame somebody else. you and your staff chose to start this debate with it. let me be quite clear. the story is false. every personal friend i have who knew us in that period says the story was false. we offered several of them to abc to prove it was false. they weren't interested because they would like to attack any republican. they're attacking the governor, they're attacking me. i'm sure they'll get around to senator santorum and congressman paul. i'm tired of the elite media protecting barack obama by attacking republicans. >> as i noted at the beginning, we have four podiums on this

stage tonight, not five. when he exited the race this morning, governor perry quickly and forcefully endorsed speaker gingrich. in that remark he said that, no, mr. gingrich is not a perfect man. he said none of us are. he said he believes in his christian faith that guides him to the value of redemption. speaker gingrich doesn't believe this is an issue. governor perry says this is not an issue. i want to start with you, sir. do you believe it is? >> i answered this question repeatedly throughout the course of this campaign. i am a christian, too. i thank god for forgiveness, but these are issues of our lives and are issue of character for people to consider. the bottom line is, those are things for everyone in this audience to look at. they are going to look at me, look at what i've done in my private life and personal life, unfortunately. what i say is that this country is a very forgiving country. this country understands that we

are all fallen. i'm very hopeful that we will be judged by that standard and not by a higher one on the ultimate day. >> governor romney? >> john, let's get down to the real issues is all i've got to say. >> i think too often all of us are on the receiving ends of attacks from the media. it's very disturbing because sometimes they are not based on facts and we suffer the consequences. sometimes it reminds me of this idea of getting corporations out of running campaigns. what about the corporations that run the immediamedia? they're always doing this. our responsibility of sorting facts and fiction, people have to sort this out. setting standards are very important. i'm proud my wife of 54 years is with me tonight.

>> as i said at the top of the debate, we'll take some questions from the audience. we reached out to people online and reached out to a number of voters, some who wish they could be here tonight but can't be here. one voter is jane gallagher from here in south carolina. as everyone knows we are in a state with 9.9% unemployment. jane asks this question. list three or more specific programs that will put american people back to work. congressman paul, i want to begin with you. do you believe we need specific federal programs to put the american people back to work? >> most of the things the federal government could do to get us back to work is get out of the way. i'd like to see the federal government have a sound currency. that creates a healthy economy. i would like to see massive reduction of regulations. i would like to see income tax reduced to near zero as

possible. that is what we have to do. we have to get the government out of the way. we have to recognize why we have unemployment. it comes because we have a deeply flawed financial system that comes from financial bubbles and you have unemployment. the most important thing to get over that hump created artificially by bad economic policies is to allows correction to occur. get rid of the excessive debt and mal investment. you don't buy the debt off the people who were benefitting it from. we, the people, shouldn't be stuck with these debts on these mortgage derivatives. we need to get that behind us, which means the government shouldn't be doing any bailout. most of the things to improve the environment is getting the government out of the way and enforce contract laws and enforce bankruptcy laws. >> mr. speaker, come in on that point. as you address what you would like to do and the specific

question do we need federal programs? >> the three things that can be done, specifically south carolina level, there is one easy thing to do at a national level. that is to repeal the dodds-frank bill. three specifics, there is $29 billion plus of natural gas offshore. in louisiana, jobs for that production are $80,000 a year. that would help us become energy independent from the middle east. part of the royalties of natural gas could be used to modernize the port of charleston and georgetown. charleston has to be modernized to meet the larger ships that come through the panama canal in 2014. one out of every five jobs is dependent on the port of charleston. third thing is fundamentally radically overhaul the corps of engineers. they take eight years to study, not to complete, to study doing the port. we won the entire world war ii in three years and eight months.

a subset of the jobs combination has been from you and the now-departed governor perry. sharp criticism of governor romney's tenure as ceo of bain capital. what do you think he did wrong that makes you question his ability as president to create jobs? >> there are specific cases, georgetown steel would be a case here. the specific cases where bain capital's model which was to take over a company and dramatically leverage it, leave it with a great deal of debt made it less likely to survive. the governor ought to explain because he cited his experience as a key part of his preparation for being president. the underlying model of that investment, which is very different from venture capital, ought to be explained. those cases ought to be looked at. >> governor romney, let me give you a chance to explain. >> i hope i get a chance to talk

about the topic you began with. we'll come back to the direct attack from speaker gingrich in a moment. let's talk about first what you do to get the economy going. we've spoken time and again about our tax code out of alignment with other nations. we spoke about the fact regulation is overwhelming us. we need to become energy secure. we have to open up markets and crack down on china when they cheat. i would like to talk about something else president obama has been doing. he's been practicing croney capitalism. if you want to get america going again, you've got to stop the spread of croney capitalism. he gives general motors to the uaw. he takes $500 million and sticks it into sol ichb ndra. go across the company in regard to energy. he turns down the keystone

pipeline which brings jobs and energy to america. this president is the biggest impediment to job growth in this country. we have to replace barack obama to get america working again. >> questions about bain, many have been about the number. take your time and do the math. do the math and how you get to 100,000, 120,000 jobs. >> i'll do the math. i know we are going to get attacked from the left from barack obama on capitalism. i know people are going to say you should only practice it this way or that way and think they know better than the private market. my view is capitalism works. free enterprise works. i find it strange on a stage of republicans how capitalism works. we started a number of

businesses. four in particular, created 120,000 jobs, as of today. we started them years ago. they've grown well beyond the time i was there to 120,000 people that have been employed by those enterprises. others which have lost jobs. people have evaluated that since i ran four years ago, when i ran for governor. those documented to have lost jobs lost about 10,000 jobs. 120,000 less 10 means we created something over 100,000 jobs. some of them that were businesses we acquired that grew and became more successful like domino's pizza and duane reade and others. i'm proud of the fact throughout my career i have worked to try to build enterprises. hopefully to return money to investors. there is nothing wrong with profit, by the way.

that profit went to pension funds, charities. a lot of people benefited from that. as enterprises become more profitable they can hire more people. i believe in free enterprise. i think adam smith was right. i'm going to stand and defend capitalism accredits this country throughout this campaign. i know we are going to hit it hard from president obama. we'll stuff it down his point and point out it is capitalism and freedom that makes america strong. >> do you share the speaker's concern about governor romney's tenure at bain? >> i believe in capitalism for everybody, not necessarily high finance but capitalism that works for the working men and women of this country, who are out there paddling alone in america right now. we have unemployment rate 2 1/2 times those that are college educated and feel no party cares about them.

you have the democratic party and barack obama all he wants to do is make them more dependent, more food stamps, more medicaid. i was talking with a state official the other take in iowa that told me that the state of iowa is being fined because they are not signing up enough people on to the medicaid program. it is creating more government programs. we need a party that just doesn't talk about high finance and cutting corporate taxes or cutting the top tax rate. we need to talk about how we are going to put men and women back to work in this country. there is one candidate who has done that. i have done that.

i was at boeing today. we need to give south carolina the opportunity to compete. we need to give manufacturers a leg up so they can compete for the jobs have of which went from 21% of this country in manufacturing down to 9%. we need to show the working democrats we need to win to win the election, sign up with us and we'll put them back to work. >> let's stay on the economy and on the south carolina experience all you gentlemen had.

right now, unemployment rate for post 9/11 veterans aged 18 to 24 is at 22%. congressman paul to you first. should the federal government be specifically targeting that part? should take take other steps to help them incentivize the economy to create jobs? >> you don't want to designate special places. help the economy to come back is probably necessary on some occasions now. we face something much greater than world war ii. we had millions come home. there were some liberals back

then who said we have to have more work programs. they thought they would have to do everything conceivable for those 10 million. they never got around to it because they came home so quickly. you know what the government did, they cut the budget by 60%. they cut taxes by 30%. by that time, the debt had been liquidated. and everybody went back to work again, that you didn't need any special programs. the one thing, talking about concern about the military and the veterans, i'm very proud that, you know, i get twice as many donations from the military, active military people, then all the rest put together. so i am very concerned about them. i think where the real problem is, is we can create a healthy economic environment if we did the right things. where the veterans really deserve help, both as a physician and as a congressman, is the people who come back and aren't doing well healthwise. they need a lot more help. we have an epidemic now of suicide of our military coming back.

so they need a lot of medical help. and i think they come up short changed. they come up short changed after vietnam war, persian gulf war, and even now. they don't get care from the veterans administration. >> i think we all agree there's a generational challenge for the country with the brain injuries and other injuries. i want to stay on the economy for a minute. you started to shake your head. again, specifically, the role of government question. should the government be stepping in and saying we need to help these sub group and the economy that's hurting, the veterans? >> obviously, we have and should continue to have veteran preferences. people who went out and served this country should have preference for job positions when they come back and work in this economy. my dad and mom worked for the veterans administration. i grew up on a va grounds. lived in an apartment on those va grounds for the first 18 years of my life. i saw the impact of the vietnam war on those veterans who came back.

they came back very damaged. they -- not just with physical wounds but a lot of psychological ones. and that's i'm sure a very big part of the high unemployment rate we're dealing with. we need to be much more aggressive. we have the president of the united states who said he is going to cut veterans benefits, cut our military, at a time when these folks are four, five, six, seven tours, coming back, in and out of jobs. sacrificing everything for this country. and the president of the united states can't cut one penny out of the social welfare system. and he wants to cut $1 trillion out of our military and hit our veterans and that's disgusting. >> governor, then mr. speaker. senator santorum passionately makes the case. also the time as you know of very tough budget decisions. how do you do it? what specifically do you do to help veterans? >> let's distinguish between what gets done at the federal level and what gets done at the state level. in our state we found a way to

help our veterans by saying, if you're going to come back, we'll pay for your education. we give you a full ride. we also had a plan that said if you come back and you've been out of work for a year or more, we're going to put like a bonus on your back which if anyone hires you, that bonus goes to them to pay for your training. so we can encourage that. let's do it at the state level. let's not have the federal government continue to extend its tentacles into everything that goes on in this country. let's take the money that we use to help people that have real needs and instead of having it all administered by the federal government who thinks they know how to do everything, let's take that money, bundle it, south carolina's fair share, send it to them and say, you care for your people in the way you feel best. let's do that at the state level. i agree, with what senator santorum said with regards to our military budget. right now for the president to be cutting $350,000 from our

military budget, planning to cut another $650,000 -- $650 billion, excuse me, $350 billion. another $650 billion. $1 trillion. his secretary of defense says that represents a doomsday scenario. we've got an aging navy. we've got an aging air force. they're planning on cutting our number of active duty personnel. it is absolutely wrong to balance our budget on the backs of our military. we need a strong military, so strong no one in the world would ever think of testing it. >> mr. speaker, please come in. we'll have some conversations about commander in chief. specifically veterans who need jobs. >> i want to say two things about congressman paul's history. the u.s. government did two dramatic things after world war ii. they created a g.i. bill which enabled literally millions of returning veterans to go to college for the very first time. my father, who was in the second world war, went to college on a

g.i. bill. so there was an enormous extension of opportunity that enabled him to integrate into a new emerging society. the second thing they did is they dramatically cut taxes. and the economy took off and grew dramatically and it absorbed the workforce. so i would say we ought to both have a transition process for veterans to enable them to have a real advantage in getting a job when they come home. and we ought to have a very aggressive economic program of regulatory cuts and tax cuts in american energy so the entire population is absorbed by getting back to about 4% unemployment in which case virtually every veteran would have a very good job at the end of the transition period. >> let's turn now and take a question from down in our audience tonight. go ahead, sir. >> my name is sonny, i'm from severe county, tennessee. do any of you sincerely believe obama care can either be repealed or reversed in its entirety?

>> let me go first to governor romney. you had said you would do it on day one with an executive order. that would free the states to opt out. i know your friend, the south carolina governor, might like to have that option. help me understand, as you do that, how would it play out? and what happens to those, someone with a pre-existing condition, for example, who now has coverage under the president's health care plan, or a young american, 22, 23, 24, who because of the changes in the law can now stay a few extra years on their parent's health care. what happens to them when you sign that executive order? >> first of all, the executive order is a beginning process. it's one thing. but it doesn't completely eliminate obama care. it's one thing i want to get done to make sure states can take action to pull out of obama care. but number two, we have to go after a complete repeal. and that's going to have to happen -- [ applause ] that's going to have to happen with a house and a senate, hopefully, that are republican. if we don't have a republican majority, i think we'll be able

to convince some democrats when the american people stand up loud and clear and say we do not want obama care, we do not want the higher taxes, we do not want a $500 billion cut in medicare, to pay for obama care, i think you're going to see the american people stand with our president and say, let's get rid of obama care. but we'll replace it. and i've laid out what i'll replace it with. first, it's a bill that does care for people that have pre-existing conditions. if they've got a pre-existing condition and they've been previously insured, they won't be denied insurance going forward secondly, i'll allow people to own their own insurance rather than getting it from their employer. i want people to take their insurance with them if they go from job to job. so we'll make it work in the way it's designed to have health care act like a market. a consumer market. as opposed to have it run like amtrak and the post office. that's what's at risk. at stake here. we go back to this. ours is the party of free enterprise, freedom. markets, consumer choice. theirs is the party of

government knowledge, government domination, where barack obama believes he knows better for the american people what's best for them. he's wrong, we're right, that's why we're going to win. >> mr. speaker, you heard the skepticism. this is a southern republican voter. es he's skeptical. he knows how washington works. he's asked, can it be reversed in its entirety. you were the speaker of the house. you understand how this works. how can it be repealed in this current political environment? >> first of all, if you've watched washington and you're not skeptical, you haven't learned anything. i mean, this system is a total mess right now. second, can you get it repealed in total? sure. you have to elect a house, a senate, a president committed to that. it has to be a major part of the fall campaign. i think frankly on our side with any of us it's going to be a major part of the fall campaign. the american people are frightened of bureaucratic centralized medicine. they deeply distrust washington. the pressure will be to repeal it. a lot of what governor romney

said is sound stuff for the replacement. i would always repeal all of it because i so deeply distrust the congressional staffs that i would not want them to be able to pick and choose which things they kept. let me make one observation. you raise a good example. why is president obama for young people to be staying on their parent's insurance until they're 26? because they can't get any jobs for them to go out and buy their own insurance. i have an offer to the parents of america. elect us and your kids will be able to move out because they'll have work. >> one second. senator santorum, you heard governor romney and speaker gingrich. do you trust them, if one of them is the republican party's nominee and potentially the next president of the united states to repeal this law? >> the biggest thing we have to do is elect the president. i think newt's right. the problem is two of the people up here would be very difficult

to elect. i think the most important issue that this country is dealing with right now. which is the robbing of our freedom because of obama care. governor romney tells a very nice story about what his plan is now. it wasn't his plan when he was in a position to do a plan. when he was governor of massachusetts, he put forth romney care. which was not a bottom up free market system. it was a governor run health care system that was the basis of obama care and it has been an abject failure and he has stood by it. by the fact that it's $8 billion more expensive than under the current law. he stood by the fact that massachusetts has the highest health insurance premiums of any state in the country. it is 27% more expensive than the average state in the country. doctors, if you're in the massachusetts health care system, over 50% of the doctors now are not seeing new patients, primary care doctors are not seeing new patients. those who do get to see a patient are waiting 44 days on average for the care.

it is an abject disaster. he's standing by it. and he's going to have to run against a president who's going to say, well, look, look at what you did for massachusetts and you're the one criticizing me for what i've done? i used your model for it. and then -- [ cheers and applause ] then we have speaker gingrich who has been for an individual mandate, not back when the time -- when heritage was floated around in the '90s but as late as 2008, just a few years ago. stood up and said, an individual mandate or post $150,000 bond. how many $150,000 bond holders do we have here who can post a bond for their health insurance? these are two folks who don't present the clear contrast that i do. who was the author of health savings accounts. which is the primary basis of every single conservative reform of health care. i was the author of it back in

1991 and '92, 20 years ago. i've been fighting for health reform, private sector, bottom up, the way america works best, for 20 years. while these two guys were playing footsies with the left. >> santorum directly challenged the governor and then the speaker. governor, you first. >> so much of what the senator said was wrong. first of all, the system and my state is not a government run system. 92% of the people had their own insurance before the system was put in place and nothing changed for them. they still have the same private insurance. the 8% of the uninsured, they brought private insurance, not government insurance. the people in the state still favor the plan 3-1. and it certainly doesn't work perfectly. massachusetts, by the way, had the highest insurance costs before the plan was put in place and after. but fortunately the rate of growth has slowed down a little less than the overall nation. one of the things i was proud of

is individuals who wanted to buy their own insurance saw their rates -- when they were not part of a big group, saw their rates drop by some 40% with our plan. is it perfect? absolutely not. but i do believe that having been there, having been in the front lines, having shown i have compassion for people who don't have insurance but that the obama plan is a 2,007-page massive tax increase, medicare-cutting monster. i know how to cut it. i'll eliminate it. i'll repeal it. i'll return the power to states, where the power for caring for the uninsured ought to reside constitutionally. thank you. >> he says your facts are wrong. >> they are simply not wrong. the fact is 92% of people did have health insurance in massachusetts. but that wasn't private sector insurance. a lot of those people were as you know on medicare and medicaid. they are already on government insurance. you just expanded, in fact, over half the people that came on the rolls since you put romney care into effect. fully subsidized by the state of massachusetts. a lot of those are on the medicaid program.

the idea you've created this marketplace in -- with this government-run health care system, where you have very prescriptive programs about reimbursements rates. just like what president obama's trying to put in place here. you're arguing for a plan, you're defending a plan, that is top down. it is not a free market health care system. it is not bottom up. it is prescriptive in government. it was the basis for obama care. and you do not draw a distinction that's going to be effective for us just because it's the state level, not the federal level. >> quickly. >> absolutely. as you probably know, medicaid is not a state program. >> of course it is, state and federal program. >> medicaid is as demanded by the federal government. it's a mandate by the federal government and it's shared 50/50, state and federal. the people of massachusetts who are on medicaid i would like to end that program at the federal level, take the medicaid dollars and return them to the states and allow states to craft their own plans. that would make the plan we had in massachusetts a heck of a lot better.

my view is get the federal government out of medicaid, get it out of health care. return it to the states. if you want to be governor of massachusetts, fine. but i want to be president and let states take responsibility for their own plans. >> it may seem like a while ago, mr. speak, but santorum made the state in his view you don't have credibility. >> what he said, i found mildly amazing, he thought i would have a hard time debating barack obama over health care. in fact, i, as republican whip, i led the charge against hillary care in the house. as speaker of the house, i helped preside over the conference which wrote into law his idea on health savings accounts. i was delighted to help him get it to be a law. and the fact is, i helped found the center for health transformation. i wrote a book called "saving lives and saving money" in 2002. you can go to healthtransformation.net and you'll see hundreds of ideas. none of which resemble barack obama's programs.

so i'd be quite happy to have a three-hour lincoln/douglass style debate with barack obama. i'll let him use a teleprompter. i'll just rely on knowledge. we'll do fine. >> senator, i want to bring congressman paul in. you're shaking your head. quickly. >> obama care is an individual mandate. it is what is being litigated in the supreme court right now. it is government top down. telling every business, every american what kind of health care you will have. that is the problem with obama care at the core of it. and the speaker supported it repeatedly for a ten-year period. so when he goes and says, i can, you know, run rings around president obama in a debate, you can't run rings around the fact, newt, you supported the primary, core basis of what president obama's put in place. >> quickly, mr. speaker. congressman's getting lonely down here. let's go. >> just one brief comment.

of course you can. i can say, you know, i was wrong and i figured it out. you were wrong and you didn't. [ applause ] >> newt, you held that position for over ten years. you know, it's not going to be the most attractive thing to go out there and say it took me 10 or 12 years to figure out i was wrong when guys like rick santorum knew it was wrong from the beginning. >> congressman paul, you have the floor. do you trust these men to repeal obama care? >> thank you. [ cheers and applause ] i thought you were -- i thought maybe you were prejudiced against doctors and a doctor that practiced medicine in the military or something. no, i want to address the question. the gentleman asked whether he thinks we can repeal obama care. theoretically, we can. the likelihood isn't all that good. we can diminish some of the effect. but i'm more concerned about a bigger picture of what's happening. and that is, government involvement in medicine.

i had the privilege of practicing medicine in the early '60s before we had any government. it worked really well. there was nobody out in the street suffering with no medical care. but medicare and medicaid came in and it just expanded. but even when we had the chance to cut back on it, when we had a republican congress, and a republican president, we gave him prescription drug programs. senator santorum supported it. you know, that's expanding the government. most of them are bankrupt. prescription drugs. they're not going to be financed. medicare's not financed. medicaid's in trouble. but nobody talks about where the money's going to come from. now, even in my budget proposal, which is very tough because i'm going to cut $1 trillion in the first year, but i try to really -- [ applause ] even though these programs should never started. but a lot of people depend on.

i want to try to protect the people who are dependent on medical care. now, where does the money come? my suggestion is look at some of the overseas spending that we don't need to be doing. [ applause ] we have troops in korea since the korean war. in japan since world war ii. in germany. those are subsidies to these countries. we keep fighting these wars that don't need to be fought. they're undeclared. they never end. world war ii was won in less than four years. nobody says where's the money coming from? we could work our way out of here and take care of these people, these medical needs. but we can't do it with the current philosophy of the government taking care of everybody forever on medicare care, cradle to grave, and being the policeman of the world. we will get rid of all this government program. unfortunately, because we're going bankrupt and you're going to have runaway inflation and our checks are going to bounce and that will be a lot worse problem than we're facing tonight. >> we'll ask our candidates to

stand by. we have a couple breaks tonight. we'll take one of them now. one candidate suggested this week two candidates should get out of the race. one of them listened. we'll get the reaction from the other coming up. this is just in, while we've been on the air, speaker gingrich has released his tax returns. he's put them online. we'll ask what's in them when we come back. [ todd ] hello? hello todd. just calling to let you know

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back in charleston, south carolina. our southern republican presidential debate. the four gentlemen who would like to be the republican nominee for president. and the next president of the united states. part of the political conversation during the crackling campaign in this great state this week. senator santorum, speaker gingrich said it would be preferable if one candidate had a direct campaign against governor romney. he suggested perhaps governor perry and senator santorum should get out of the race. in suggesting that, he said this, you don't have, quote, any of the knowledge for how to do something on this scale. what do you say to that? >> grandiosity has never been a problem with newt gingrich. he handles it very, very well. that's one of the issues here, folks. a month ago, he was saying, oh, it's inevitable i'm going to win the election. i'm destined to do it. i don't want a nominee that i

have to worry about going out looking at the paper worrying about what he's going to say next. that's what i think we're seeing here. for him to suggest that someone who was tied for first and eventually won the iowa caucuses, had finished with twice as many votes as he did, finished ahead of him in new hampshire, in spite of the fact he spent an enormous amount of money in both those places, plus had the most important endorsement in the state, the manchester union leader, and i was ten points behind him a week before the election and finished ahead of him. so i was 2-0 coming into south carolina and i should get out of the race? these are not cogent thoughts. let's just be honest. newt's a friend. i love him. at times sort of that, you know, worrisome moment that something's going to pop and we can't afford that in a nominee.

i'm not the most flamboyant. i don't get the biggest applause lines here. but i'm steady. i'm solid. i'm not going to go out and do things that you're going to worry about. i'm going to be out there. i'm going to make barack obama the issue in this campaign. >> mr. speaker, take some time to respond. what exactly did you mean, doesn't have any of the knowledge for how to do something on this scale? >> well, it's a very simple question. how big a scale of change do we want in washington? i started working with governor reagan in 1974. i helped jack kemp and others the development of supply side economics. i participated in the '80s with enormous project of economic growth. created 16 million jobs. with president reagan's leadership, the soviet union disappeared. i spent 16 years on a grandiose project called creating a republican majority in the house. 16 years. most of the republican leaders in the house thought it was a joke. even the night before the election they thought it was a joke. we created the first majority.

we then worked for two solid years. reformed welfare. two out of three people went back to work or went to school. we ultimately became the first re-elected republican majority since 1928. we then went on to cut taxes for the first time in 16 years. the largest capital gains tax cut in american history. in the four years, i was speaker, the american people, created 11 million new jobs. we balanced the budget four consecutive years. i think grandiose thoughts. this is a grandiose country of big people doing big things. we need leadership prepared to take on big projects. [ applause ] >> quickly. >> i will give newt gingrich his due on grandiose ideas and grandiose projects. i will not give him his due on executing those projects, which is exactly what the president of the united states is supposed to do. four years into his speakership, he was thrown out by the conservatives. it was a coup against him in

three. i served with him. i was there. i knew what the problems were going on in the house of representatives when newt gingrich was leading there. it was an idea a minute. no discipline. no ability to be able to pull things together. i understand your taking credit for the 1994 election. you did have a lot of plans. we had meetings. early in the morning. on many a week. so we worked together on that. but you have to admit this freshman congressman who wasn't supposed to win a race came and did something you never did, which is blew the lid off the biggest scandal to hit the congress in 50 years. you knew about it for 10 or 15 years because you told me you knew about it. and you did nothing because you didn't have the courage to stand up to your own leadership. the democratic speaker of the house. take to the floor of the senate. demand the releasing of the checks that were being taken by members of congress. risk your political career. risk your promotion within the ranks. and do what was right for

america. and that had more or as much to do with the 1994 win as any plan that you put together. [ cheers and applause ] >> mr. speaker, respond. >> you know, campaigns are interesting experiences for all of us. each of us rates a selective history that fits our interest. as a freshman in 1979, i moved to expel a member who was a convicted felon for the first time since 1917 against the wishes of our leadership. in the page scandal in the 1980s, i moved and threatened to expel them unless they were punished more severely against the wishes of the leadership. in the late 1980s, i initiated charges against the speaker of the house, jim wright, at rather considerable risk for a back bench member. in 1990, i opposed the president of the united states of my own party when he tried to raise taxes. i said i thought he actually meant read my lips and i led the fight against raising taxes. i think long before rick came to congress, i was busy being a

rebel, creating conservative opportunities, developing a plan to win a majority in the congress. if you talk to anybody who worked with the congressional campaign committee from december of 1978 on, for 16 years, i worked to help create the republican party nationally to become a majority. i worked to create go pac to train a majority. those are historic facts, even if they're inconvenient for rick's campaign. >> governor romney, you're raising your hand. i want to let you in on the conversation. also, you put an ad on the air paid by your campaign. this is not one of the super pac ads calling the speaker an unreliable leader. why? >> let me go back and address first what you just heard. what you listened to in my view and the speaker's rendition of history going back to 1978 is in my view a perfect example of why we need to send to washington someone who has not lived in washington but someone who's lived in the real streets of america, working in the private sector, who's led a business,

who's started a business, who helped lead the olympics, who helped lead a state. we need to have someone outside washington go to washington. if we want people who spent their life and their career, most of their career, in washington, we have three people on the stage -- i take that back, we have a doctor down here who spent most of his time in the surgical suite -- well not surgery, the birthing suite. i think america -- i think america has to make a choice as to whether we are going to send people who spent their life in washington go represent our country, or instead whether we are going to have someone who has been a leader in the private sector and knows how the real economy works at the grassroots level. you asked me an entirely different question. >> beats me. i don't know. where are we at, john? >> let me tell you, one of the things i find amusing is listening to how much credit is

taken in washington for what goes on on main street. i -- i mean, mr. speaker, it was -- you talk about all the things you do with ronald reagan and reagan revolution and the jobs created during the reagan years and so forth. i looked at the reagan diary. you're mentioned once in ronald reagan's diary. in the diary, he says you had an idea in a meeting of young congressmen and it wasn't a very good idea and he dismissed it. that's the entire mention. i mean, he mentions george bush 100 times. he even mentioned my dad once. so there's a sense that washington is pulling the strings in america, but you know what, the free people of america, pursuing their dreams, taking risk, going to school, working hard, those are the people who make america strong, not washington.

>> quickly respond, mr. speaker. >> this is probably a fundamental difference in our background, our experience. under jimmy carter, we had the wrong laws. we killed jobs. we went to 10.8% unemployment. under reagan, we had the right job, the right laws. we created 16 million new be jos. we had two consecutive tax increases. one by a republican, one by a democrat. the economy stagnated. we went back to the reagan playbook. lower taxes. less regulation. more mesh american energy. 11 million jobs showed up. i do think government can kill jobs. i do think government can create the environment where entrepreneurs create jobs. you did very well under the rules we created to make it easier for entrepreneurs to do things. you'd have been much poorer if jimmy carter had remained president. >> let me just -- >> quickly. >> let me just tell you, you're speaker four years. >> right. >> i was in business 25 years. >> right. >> so you're not going to get credit for my 25 years, number one. number two, i don't recall -- i don't recall a single day saying, oh, thanks heavens washington is there for me. thank heavens. i said, please get out of my way, let me start a business and

put americans to work. >> let me get out of the way for a second and go back out to our audience and take a question from an audience member. sir. >> john from the great city of charleston. gentlemen, when will you release your tax returns specifically? >> an hour ago. >> mr. speaker posted his online an hour ago. congressman paul, start with you. we reached out to your campaign. they said you will not release your tax returns. why? >> hadn't thought it through. i don't have an intention of doing it. for a different reason. i'd probably be embarrassed to put my financial statement up against their income. i don't want to be embarrassed because i don't have a greater income. now, i mean, it may come to that. but right now, i have no intention of doing that. i think with our financial statements, congressional financial statements, i think you know more about me than i know about myself.