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and busy schedule to be here the but i want to provide everyone with a little bit of background. he's a primm stanford alum graduating with a b.a. in political science as well as mouth and sociology. as a consequence he earned himself a scholarship after stamford which she continued his education at the queens college of oxford university there he acquired his bachelet said history and he also played varsity football while a stamford and made academic team.

following his education, mayor booker created his degree at yale university involving himself in such programs as big brother and the students' association. after completion of the degree booker spend his remaining year as a newark resident taking an active role in the community he became the program coordinator of the newark youth project. it's a pretty man such as mayor bricker speak about the president has done for us and how we can become changemakers and our own community with the obama 2012 campaign. mayor booker can relate to such issues as creating jobs, restoring security where he's currently taken on such tasks himself. mayor booker and his team have appealed to several businesses and convinced them to move their national headquarters to newark. this allowed over 50 businesses to start and expand. also he is credited with a nursing educational reform efforts in public schools. these efforts leading to opportunities for the youth of newark. mayor booker also manages to

make time for people of newark as well as people from all over about concerns that arise through the city over social networks like woodring and facebook. he cares a great deal about change by the way he exemplifies his actions and speech so on behalf of the democrats organizing for america it is a great pleasure to welcome cory booker. [applause] >> i had to retweet. she said she tweeted me. how are we doing? are we in the sestak? are we excited? not for me though. i'm thrilled to be here. i'm looking at my time. i want to manage it appropriately. i have to agendas. one to talk about obama and the issues and i open the question and answer we can get into that as much as possible but really what i am hoping to do is exploit the folks that are here especially the students to get

involved in this campaign. i was interviewed by the campus reporter who's actually on the mitt romney campaign, and i actually encourage that. at the end of the day you have to understand democracy cannot be a spectator sport. we can't sit on the sidelines. i always say we as americans are getting caught up in a educational where we are getting so upset about what is going on in the world we are not getting off of our technical anatomy is tookises and getting it in the game doing something about it. the problem today in america we are going to have to reprint for is not the tree all the words and violent actions of the bad people, the appalling silence and inaction of the good people. when i came out of school before i graduated was a great introduction i appreciate that but i'm hoping next time i get introduced in new hampshire will be from a jury out of shape individual who was not an athlete like i used to be. please close your eyes and imagine me because i used to be

chiseled. now i just jiggle. [laughter] i hear the cameras are back there. tmz. arthu tmz? no, not at all? [laughter] if i started dating kim car - iain, tmz would be here. [laughter] when i came out of law school before i came out of school i really wanted to start getting involved in what my parents talked about as being a conspiracy of love. ultimately the united states of america our history can be summed up as a conspiracy of love, ordinary americans willing to do extraordinary things. more than was asked of them were required of them to come deutsch, continued acts of decency and love to make a difference and i am a product of that. into the town i moved into because of black and white americans who came together in an organization called the fair housing council that allowed my family to be the first black family to move into an all white town, as my dad called us in a

tub of vanilla ice cream. allowed my parents coming out of college to find their first job to order the chicago urban league and many were not hiring african-americans. was a conspiracy of love in the small town of south carolina where my dad's mother, a single mom, couldn't to take care of them and the community came together. the conspiracy of love to in power might add not only to be raised but when it came time to go to college, recently over thanksgiving he broke into tears talking about these people whose names he can't even remember who put dollar bills and envelopes to enable him to afford college, and to me this is the beautiful thing about america. i know i stand here now drinking from the bells of freedom and liberty and opportunity that i did not bid. lavishly like wheeled in from the banquet tables prepared to us by our ancestors and what frustrates me now is that so many of us are sinking into the sciences and, surrendering to it as opposed to realizing we have a choice model how tough times

are we can just consume the blessings we were given or we can metabolize them and put them to work so i landed in the ward new jersey from my state going to the biggest city to try to make a difference. i was still a law student. the first person i met was this amazing woman named virginia jones. we named a street after her this year and she passed away in january but she was a president from a high rise low-income housing that eventually towers. i'm cory booker from yale law school and i'm here to help you. she looked at me you want to help me? she almost looked amused by it and she said okay and closed her door. you need to follow me. she walked me down five flights of stairs, through the courtyard into the middle of martin luther king boulevard, cars going back and forth and said if you want to help me tell me when you see around you? why c? yeah, described the

neighborhood. okay, i see graffiti and i just described the more i talked more she shook her head and she said you can't help me she turned around and walked away. i chased after her and stopped her from behind and i said what are you talking about? she looked at the heart and she said the way you need to understand something and problems, that is all there is ever going to be but if you are one of those people that opens your eyes and sees hope and possibility, sees promise, potential, love

and making changes to ensure that women who are doing the same work get paid the same amount of money. it was things we talked about about understanding that fundamentally in order for this economy to lead into the future we cannot have a first rate economy if we have a second rate education system. if college education for example gets more and more out of their reach of other americans and that is what happened and we all understand this america went from being the number one country in the globe and percentage of the population there were college graduates now we are down to eight or nine and so to see obama now as president obama charge liberal on many of these things, greater e. delusion, greater affordability helping young people achieve their dreams for their lives that i had for mine, the dream of contributing, the dream of country living, giving back, being part of the conspiracy. and so i stand here on a college

campus so proud in my city i see what's happened president obama doubled the funding for things like pell grants to enable more of my citizens and newark to afford to go to college. president obama has helped figure out ways to actually get more funding for kids when it comes to the student loan program. in fact he took little people collecting money and he reinvested into our student loan programs. when i came into yale law school and didn't feel golden handcuffs because they said if you go into public service we will forgive your loans overeaten year period. after ten years of making your payments if you still have money you go to yale forgive it. i thought was the greatest thing in the world. one of the reasons i chose to go to yale law school. i turned around, and president obama that went to a former interior wall school hertford [laughter] has now created a national program that is the exact same

thing. so i stand here pretty proud. i've seen how credit card companies use to set up these things in my campus at stanford, and signed kids up offering them all kinds of things and have the time we were like a free t-shirt, for is be? i can get a frisbee. sign up for credit cards the would be all these hidden things and before you know it you'd be leaving college in your university and in debt to credit cards president obama said that shouldn't be the way and he's reformed those programs. i've seen a tough economy this is what makes -- i did use to have this big afro pull out all of my hair and in a tough economy i have seen ideas that are not republican or democrat in fact they come from many republicans. my first fund-raiser was this incredible guy named jack kemp republican back in those days in the 90's who drew a fund-raiser for a democrat running for the mayor in a place like newark

because we shared the same ideas. they were not republican ideas. jack kemp believe if you give the right tax incentives and urban areas, like empowerment zones which were a jack kemp idea to create that opportunity. malae have a president for dhaka, saying the same kind of thing let's give businesses tax incentives to reinvest in our economy. i love the fact is we of programs to help small businesses i can tell small businesses over the last three plus years in the administration they've cut taxes 17 times he is now proposing things like giving businesses tax incentives to hire people giving businesses tax incentives to hire people coming home from iraq and afghanistan. ideas to increase buy here this ridiculousness coming out of congress people are interested in taking partisan fights the in

doing what i know can help my community today. but yet we've still succeeded. we've succeeded in getting in my city as well as all across america payroll tax cuts and now i can't believe congress is fighting over it because i had a residence in line getting a thousand dollars more on average in their paychecks and people to struggle to provide for their family to make ends meet what do they do? they don't sit on it and hold it to the invest in to our economy. president for dhaka, understood we can stimulate jobs says he's taking tremendous criticism but in my city thanks to the stimulus fact, he built roads and affordable housing and provided jobs and thousands of people in my city got opportunities in the toughest economy of our lifetime because of the actions of our president. and so i stand here pretty psyched right now.

in my generation, every generation will face great crises and it is unavoidable. my parents' generation faced the big battle of creating a more equal nation of civil-rights for all. my grandparents' generation face the great depression and world war. america is not defined by our challenges. every generation is defined by how we beat post-religious. what will we stand up for? and what will we do? so this election again is about i'm not a partisan politician. a large percentage of my supporters and new work new jersey come from republicans who didn't stop at jack kemp because to me i'm not about ideology and about pragmatism will get the job done what will educate more people, what will give businesses moving, what will get banks to invest? what will provide more security for families? i'm a pragmatist and i am proud

of my country right now. i'm proud that in the deep depths of the crisis despite the cameras on to focus on all those rendered in washington there are leaders standing up and getting things done. i'm the first person to tell you health care legislation was not perfect. it wasn't perfect and we have a severe problem. america cannot spend close to over 17% of its gdp on health care costs when our closest competitor nations are spending about 12. we are not going to put one thing right now what he did to me was heroic. you know there are millions of children in america that couldn't get health care? because they had something called pre-existing conditions. do i want to live in a nation where you have a child born with a disease or disability that can't get coverage? that's not the america that i

believe in. i talk to college students all the time and i see kids graduating from college and they are worried because they are being kicked off their health care coverage. to me that is not the america that i want to be the incoming and i see that now we have laws in place kids can stay on their parents coverage until they are 26. so this is a complicated time. there are no easy ways to success. in fact a precondition to triumph is great frustration. it is. i know this from calculus and college. [laughter] the precondition to success is great frustration. but i do believe this nation has a destiny, and i do believe also with the great american leader frederick douglass said you don't get everything you paid for but you have to pay for everything that you get. our nation is not just going to ease out of the crisis. a politician that tells you that they don't want anything from

you but you don't have to sacrifice anything or give anything, do anything, they are selling you something you shouldn't buy. america did not get to where it is on it an easy road. we have to make tough choices. we had to make sacrifice, and that is the only thing possible to get some of the challenge we have now but i have faith. king said change will not relent on the wings of inevitability of must be carried on the backs of people willing to struggle. and frankly when i do stop and college campuses because i see that tradition continues the traditions of my parents to end up in college in the early sixties involved with lots of people who went to the movements and freedom rides and marches the tradition continues from me in my generation when i saw my friends from jail or stanford or the colleges i went to giving up the luxury is wonderful jobs being offered i'm going to go

and served. i'm going to do teach for america in fact my generation like when the cops found the organization. i'm going to go to the united states military come serve my country. as it empowers me to continue in my life. and now it's your generation of college students, and the wonderful thing about this generation is you are in my opinion the millennials generation. you'll be the defining generation the country pays. and so, as i conclude and begin to open for questions i just want to end with where i started with the young lady who witold you. in 2002i ran for mayor and lost that election and there is a documentary dhaka called street fight and if you see somebody pumping your fist in the back -- it's like now one of the current tv documentary is to watch before you die. it won the film festival, the

canadian film festival, and it was nominated for the academy award but it lost to a film called march of the dam penguin's. [laughter] that was the official title. i'm not making it up. that was the official title. they dropped the damn to be marked acceptable. i thought if morgan freeman was married in me shading in the morning and would win an academy award. [laughter] i make exceptions for pain gwen's. i hate those little flightless rodents. i'm not bitter or anything. it was a painfully election. i hope you go to netflix if you have a chance. esquire magazine comes to me and says we one you to be in our issue of the 40 best and brightest in america and like a what are you talking about? i don't feel like the best test or the brightest on anything i just lost and the election. let me write an election about real american heroes that we don't often see in the tv

cameras or newspaper articles. let me write an article for esquire about one of the best and brightest and they said okay, editor and mark warren said absolutely. i went to interview ms. virginia jones, one of my heroes in the nation. people stand in the trenches and front lines of the american dream and do whatever they can to make this country be real, makes a promise real, standing there interviewing her and she tells me this story that shocked me. i've known her a long time at that point. served in the american military and was amazing and she it's a knock on her door and it's not an arrogant guy like me saying he wanted to help it was just a woman crying, couldn't speak to her. a greater by the arms and said follow me and it dragged her down five flights of stairs to the lobby and ms. jones comes to the lobby and sees her son lying

on the ground with bullet holes and she's telling me the story. i wheeled into the lobby, fell upon his chest and immediately he was dead. you hear a story like that and it is the most unnatural thing for a parent to have to bury a child and i remember putting down my reporter's hand looking at her and the first thing that came to mind was a stupid thing to say. no one tells you how to deal with situations like that said the first thing that came to mind -- i know where she works, she makes decent money but she chooses to live in what then became public housing. she and i actually paid market rent to live in these buildings. i said ms. jones, i know where you work. i know the money you must make. i said why do you still live in these buildings and have to walk through the lobby every day your son was murdered and she almost looked at me insulted by the question and she folded her arms and looks at me and says why do

i still live in brick towers? i said yeah. and she goes why do i still live in apartment 58? i said yeah, why? she looked at me harder and said why am i still the tenant president in these buildings and have been since the day they were built in 1969? i'm thinking that's electoral longevity i need to find out what's going on there. laughter career and i said yeah, why? and she stood up st. -- she's a woman that is 5 feet but at that moment i was looking up to her and she said to me because i am in charge of homeland security. and i hugged her. each and everyone of us must understand that we are stronger than we know, more powerful than we believe, more why is the and we will ever understand but especially us that are coming out of school. you really can make a difference. you really can make change.

you can transform this world but it starts with taking action and taking responsibility. this election will determine the destiny of the globe. there will be decisions made in the next four years there will have global impacts. i for one have faith in the president of the united states of america. i believe he will be a good steward of the nation, and most of all i believe he believes in us and our leadership ability the matter your political beliefs i hope this is a campaign that here's more from the american people than ever before because it is that important and i hope that you here today will choose not just to vote but to leave the vehicle we as we go into next november. thank you. [applause] >> q&a. will you run around with a microphone? yes, sir.

you have a shaved head. it's a good look. i trust a shaved head man. [laughter] mr. obama said you have any advice to give me? i said shave the head. didn't do it. i think he would have gotten ten more planes. mitt romney needs to shave his head. that man's here is to perfect it defies gravity. [laughter] all right, in the back. >> were you able to have school choice? >> i will repeat the question because -- anyplace in new jersey but especially in newark. >> the question just in case tmz didn't get it did we have school choice in the work new jersey, do we have abundant options and the answer is no we haven't

gotten there yet because there were a lot of forces the resisted in the past but i have a weird alignment. really i think the most and talked about greatest achievement of the administration are because of a guy named arne duncan that the secretary of education and president teamed up to do transformative things and one of them was to create greater accountability in schools because union accountability that greater access to laws that may in power school choice everything from charter schools to alternative school models and i've talked to the secretary of education a lot. it takes awhile to scale up. yesterday i was at the ribbon cutting for another new school model in the ward new jersey. we've opened up a lot of different types of schools ranging from charter schools to schools you could graduate having to years of college credit by the time you graduate from schools. schools for disaffected youth who wouldn't otherwise drop out,

schools for kids coming out of incarceration. we are trying to create what you said the empowerment so they can get up and look at the world and say i've got five, six, seven schools to choose from all i can figure out what's best for my kid if i can flip a switch and get their overnight but in newark new jersey watch us. we've brought together a combination of local law activists, national philanthropist's some of you might have heard about market zuckerberg. i quit on him and he said you are my millionths fall were you get he said if you invest in philanthropy it can leverage change so this year we opened up five new schools this year in newark we've expanded a large percentage of the schools to longer school days. we just started a literacy program we watched the kids are not only getting books but they

are getting books to yonah, ten books just little kids when the owner books they take pride in reading. we are doing a lot of initiatives to get where you want to go and i encourage your buddy interested to go to the foundation for york's future you can see what we are doing with the philanthropy to get on the competitive guy like we all should be and i want to work to be a national model for reform and amazing in the time of partisanship i've got a republican governor you have probably never heard of him he is very soft-spoken but a republican governor in new jersey who is 100% on board with what we are trying to do. >> president obama could have made the single largest example of freedom of trees and education by declaring washington, d.c. as a starting point for universal rights such

as trice but he did not do that. in fact there was quite a public effort to continue a certain program and he more less denied the continuation of that program and the question goes back who and why is blocking choice in education not only in newark and d.c. and new hampshire here in fact. i submitted the legislation and 92 for choice and education, but i will tell you it was hijacked at the state legislative office services for rewriting legislation and it a rout in such a way that when it came out of the legislative services i could not even recognize the freedom of choice in education. >> let me say two things, that

is a substantive question you obviously know a lot about education in the nation it's very obvious to me so for those of you who don't know washington, d.c. had a program that was a three sector strategy the bus started under meir williams which said we are going to try to expand the charter school base and get more federal funding for public education and stirred a scholarship program for kids in the disadvantaged to go to any school you want to and be as a democrat and other democrats put this was great. senators like dianne feinstein came out and endorsed the program. washington, d.c. is however the only place where the federal government has the control and the sense over the funding of the schools so you're right. right now i've talked to the senators and people in the administration about this that took about one of those prongs' which is a scholarship back and you really can agree on that but i will tell you this when it comes to federal policy to the rest of the united states people say you have a lot in common

with barack obama. a lot in common? he went to a privileged wall school in a nice neighborhood. i went to yale. he started out as a first job as a community organizer. i was a neighborhood coordinator. he was born in the united states of america. i was born in washington, d.c.. d.c. is different. federal policy -- i tell you this again i deal with a lot of people all over the political spectrum when it comes to federal policy of barack obama has done to in power choice is more than any other president and i will give you this example the race to the top fund basically says states have to do better in change in their laws to change after the fund that made it easier of listed caps on charter schools, one of things the guilaume administration was able to do and they would move their caps so when it comes to federal policy it really is a

state-by-state battle but this federal government gave a lot of incentives where there was this barrier to the education reform but provide a lot of state houses to clean up their act and allow for more school choice so i agree with you the program for the 40,000 plus kids in washington, d.c. for a fraction of them really but i disagree when it comes to the obama administration doing better than in getting criticized for arne duncan to get booed by the teachers' union when he went to speak their shows you this is why i love obama is a centrist jogging attack on both sides of the trial because what he was doing to liberalize educational chollet said for the urban communities especially that serve a lot of minorities and to me this is the greatest. i want to think the greatest national security threat is in america? the greatest national security threat. i asked this once of a republican after he talked up the war in iraq and talked about

the nuclear proliferation which concerns me obviously as we know with pakistan's weapons right now it was after he talked about terrorism. i was in an audience smaller than this and i was one of those guys it's annoying they raise their hands and then the defense speech before the question. i asked the question at the end of my speech what is the greatest in the next years and he didn't miss a beat he just said the greatest threat is the fact we are not educating our children in this nation. think about this. there's a wonderful mckinsey study if you have a chance to mckinsey 2,009 disparity study. the look of the impact of in such low graduation rates and if you can close to the disparity between minorities in this country in terms of high school graduation rates you can increase the gdp by over trillion dollars but what is even scarier is the work force is getting more diverse. the majority of the work force in the decades ahead in your lifetime are going to be

minorities and if we continue to fall, failed to heal the gaps of the majority is less and less educated and we continue to fall, not retreating nearly enough people from the science and technology engineering and math, falling on the people they graduate from colleges what's going to happen to the competitive, what's going to happen to the globe so this is what i say when i talk with barack obama i was on the phone yesterday not talking politics talking policy and when i see their conservative agenda to make k-12 education more successful in america and again this is the only area that republicans many who are staunch republicans as opposed to ideological who have the ambition say they've done an incredible job, k-12 education moving the country better in the right direction but more importantly the college students because i school is not enough. the unemployment rate for college graduates is around 5% for people who don't have a

college education are not 25% so what we do to make college more affordable? right now the stark difference between all the republican candidates but i've been watching these debates and the president with a proven record and there is obvious. dewaal -- and this was in the last congressional will come a congressional budget, the pell grants to read the we want to see a nation that makes college less and less affordable or do we want a nation that has call which more and more affordable? this is what i say that i see what's happening right now and i will give you tomorrow examples because it is giving me the chance to pick it to something i'm passionate about and i passionately support the president. you cannot during times of fiscal austerity -- and we need to cut government spending -- what we could repeat that we need to cut government spending to revive a big city mayor. we need to cut federal spending. we cannot continue to spend at

the rate -- you can't balance your budget by saying i'm going to spend more and take less. it won't work. but listen to me right now. when they need to go on a bill yet they could not a pound of flesh and what i mean by that is that in times of fiscal austerity it cuts education, cut taxes to hire your education. i'm the first mayor to tell you with a high-profile expenditure in my city money is not the answer. it's a necessary but not sufficient. investments in high your education are the answer to see a system like one of the greatest public education systems on the globe continue to cut their budget spending more on prisons in california than they are in the university system and the system that was launching more and more engineers, doctors, scientists, the illusions and artists, inventors to see the system and

what is happening to it right now because of budget cuts and budget cuts and more and more out of the reach of regular people that is a crime in this country so we will never be able to fuel our economy unless we have systems to prepare the used to not just compete but lead in the 21st century. the last thing i will see which is something i know obama believes as well and another reason i follow him is another lunacy in the nation we take kids into the country sometimes as early as a few months old we educate them k-12. they get their college education. i was talking to the president of the samford of university just last month in october. educate them, get them graduate degrees and as soon as the fenech will kick them out of the country. you know how many people in the nation graduate from graduate school? their student visas are done and we try to drive them out of the nation? i can point to so many of the industrialist inventors and the nation that for immigrants.

our immigration policy is still forming and that's why obama and others support the gerry. we pay for people's education and support that. if they show they are great citizens of america and want to become job creators as i hear the term all the time while we kicking them out of the country? i use that to answer to questions. now on the immigration? no problem. other questions? yes, sir. >> [inaudible] >> are you a junior or senior? [laughter] >> you talked about the idea of important issues relative to national security. without addressing and global security? and the issue which barack obama seems to have swept under the rug he refuses to even acknowledge the terminology in

speeches relative to global climate change or global warming better called a global warming because it does sound like the catastrophe that is in progress if nothing is done. the important -- i will be like you and give a little speech before i ask the question. >> i can't criticize you, you can criticize me when i get a stick in my eye. >> like policies like equal rights for citizens or equal pay for women were being able to have any sexual identity you have and not be condemned, all of these important social issues that are driven by your conspiracy of love, which i love the term, they don't have a timeframe associated with them.

we are experiencing a ticking time bomb with climate change and the fuse is growing shorter down to now about maybe a decade to 15 years before we have to take dramatic action before tipping point scientifically acknowledge and on refuted tipping plants are realized such as the permafrost releasing vast amounts of methane into the atmosphere. our leaders are feeling us. i would contend that they are feeling us is almost too warm of the term. they almost should be subject to crimes against humanity in my mind. every academy of science from every industrialized nation all agree global climate change is

happening and to a large extent it is almost irrefutably due to -- >> what we take your point and let me -- you're point is a very good one, and you talk like my mother does when i would get bad grades. it's a crime against humanity must develop your mind and serve your country. but look, you are saying that we are a ticking time bomb running out of time. i'm telling you right now the explosions are already starting. i live in a city that has been impacted by our neglect. i've got epidemic asthma rates from air quality that is horrendous. my city is one of the hottest places in the state because of lack of green space and so much paved roads to buy half epidemic obesity rates for my kids and

that is an environmental issue and high unemployment rates. you and i both know that is an environmental issues. why? because as we have taken incredible investments from the federal government, programs the obama administration made to deal with climate issues, what have we done? retired disaffected youth and put them into programs to retrofit city building because i was last night at an awards ceremony where may become a year michael bloomberg got an award and he's given me the best political the vice - forgotten. it's one simple thing and i advise any young people coming into politics to follow, he said if you were going to go into politics if you were going to be a major, first become a billionaire. it's incredible advice. [laughter] so we read the league of conservation voters award ceremony. i gave the keynote speech and mayor bloomberg received the

award because 50% of the world's population lives now in cities and by 2015 it will be 75%. if cities to more like mayor bloomberg has done while my state has pulled down the goals mayor bloomberg has pushed his up. my state got out of the greenhouse grass agreement which includes, mean to jersey my state has pulled out of them and other states like new york have stayed in. but mayor bloomberg and others have done is incredible things with retrofitting buildings. he has a goal by 2017 to reduce the carbon emissions of all of the city buildings by 30% to would already 12% of the way there and he only started in 2005. when we first started doing it and mayors like him and me had conversations with president obama key found ways to make funding available for cities where the majority, 80% live in cities directly in the suburbs to start taking action.

so i agree there is a rhetoric problem in the country. democrats get very shy with rhetoric sometimes because we have the other side always trying to twist our words. you are ever to lead to over regulating business and costing jobs. when i sit down with barack obama he gets it right away. so there will be young people coming yes, retrofitting buildings. we've done programs for senior citizens with federal dollars creating union jobs by the way with benefits and pensions and the like, stockholm folks by retrofitting senior citizens, lobar their energy costs 25%, lowering their carbon emissions, creating jobs. so i am a guy telling the white house as i mentioned have a lot of conversations back-and-forth and the last conversation we talked about tone and rhetoric because it does matter but i know that when it comes to the epa standards the head of the

conservation voters yesterday was going on about what one side says denying science that human beings have -- this is an irrefutable evidence now that these things have an impact and you have another side that says we accept responsibility. we may not be moving as far and fast but we accept responsibility and a lot of things that don't catch the national attention people don't like talking about regulations but the administration passed a lot controlling emissions from factories and cleaning up kohl not to where we want it to be but taking steps to change standards in the united states of america so we can discuss how we can encourage the obama administration as a lot of us do to partner with us to find ways to lower carbon emissions and a deal with this already exploding bomb but right now there is a stark choice i can have obama who has proven to his actions as he was called last night a champion for the environment versus somebody from the other

side and we have a lot of choices the believe the government should get out of the way and drill and do with the have to do. to me it is clear what the choices for americans and those of us who know as you said i love how you phrase it and i will steal the common good speakers borrow from great speakers, the issues don't have times on them that the environment will return to the point unless we move and the people most affected by this are the poor and vulnerable populations. kids right now to respiratory problems for the rest of their lives driving up health care costs for us all because we've allowed the air quality to get so bad. so we have work to do. federal level work i have work to do in new jersey as we continue to retreat from environmental collisions and lawsuits and the like but ultimately right now the choice is so clear if you are a champion given the choices we have i would choose barack obama a thousand times before i would

choose somebody on the other side of the aisle. one more very quick question. >> the last question has to move and inspire the room. if somebody doesn't cry i'm coming after you. [laughter] i put you on the no-fly list so there's a lot of questions. [laughter] >> i'm a freshman here. >> i from chester new hampshire about an hour from here but i have a younger brother who has sarah will palsy. you talked earlier about education and seems to me like more and more lately children like him are sort of falling through the cracks. we don't pay attention to them as much as we should be so my question is what you think this is our obligation is and how should we educate them and treat them and things like that? >> i can try to find out and i'm sure there's obama folks here who can find out. i know arne duncan from my conversations with him as passionately concerned to make

sure every child in america has abundant pathways towards education. and a lot of the hidden learners in our country people with special needs do often fall through the cracks, and so i know from our president of all local level we are doing a lot to make sure that we create a real solid educational pathways for every one of our kids coming and i've heard this have more conferences than i care to remember. the special-education as one of the greatest areas we waste money in america. we make investments that don't get a lot of return but they are becoming the best practice models in the country for special needs education so i know that is what the ad fenestration said. the answers are not going to come from me when it comes to education we will find the best practices and create incentives for people to follow in those best practices. so again, i am so confident arne

duncan as a guide is dealing with these issues and talking about these issues specifically things they are doing but i can't tell you who the city of newark new jersey we try to reinvent our practices to make sure we get returns when we invest taxpayer dollars and prieta environments that are nurturing to the children and at the end of the day as i saw already kids from california to work n.j.-based and up and give a call to the conscience of the country that we may one day be a nation with liberty and justice for all for everyone. i want to thank everybody tonight. it's a privilege this is my first visit to new hampshire. you guys need a and a year in this town? >> yes camano? i have to go back. thank you very much. [applause]

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the editorial staff of "the des moines register" has invited each of the republican presidential candidates to sit for an interview. today the interviewed mitt romney and there's peter plans to endorse one of the candidates on december 18th, 2 weeks before the iowa caucuses on january 3rd. this is just over an hour. >> hello, how are you? chris, nice to meet you. you are just here to listen to other republican so it must be getting tiring. [laughter] hi jennifer, how are you? good to see you. she sits in the back row and hides out. >> water is fine. thank you.

>> [inaudible] >> memory fades. [laughter] >> thank you >> i've weighed about the same since high school, jerry strange thing. it's a perception. maybe the week is just gravitating. [laughter] doing my best to keep the weight off. thank you. >> running around the past five years haven't you? >> there's a chance for something i wanted to do in part because of the last campaign you become frustrated the positions you have are not necessarily fully fleshed out. one minute answers don't yield to your description of the countryside with the chance to

read a book. i hired a ghost writer. we did all these interviews than he to a draft of the first chapter and i said this will never work. i will write it myself and that turned out to be a great experience. >> hi tony, how are you? good, good. >> you might want to introduce us. >> andrea is next to david and is my press secretary typically in our headquarters but on with me this weekend she came on a nice warm day. it's not bad when it's sunni like this with no precipitation. it's a nice day. >> we are ready to go? what's get started to remind the editor here a "the des moines

register" hearing on your luck and we welcome you joining for our editorial board meeting today with mitt romney who obviously is seeking the republican nomination for the 2012 presidential nomination. it's a pleasure to have you with us. what we would like to do and if i remember correctly we have 45 minutes or so. just kind of give you two or three moments or so to talk about what you're seeing on the campaign, issues most important to you and kind of frame why you were seeking the nomination and running for president. >> i would not be running again i thought and i wrote a book early on in the president's term describing what i thought the country needed to do and then in the ensuing months it was my wife that said you are going to have to do it again and i said not so sure and she continued relentlessly to say you've got to run again because the president just -- america doesn't understand what it makes

=to make america our economic engine. the engine to put people at work and keep america strong and provide a future for our kids and grandkids. she and i both believe having spent my life in the private sector and then taking the experience, my career into the olympics and then in the government gave me the kind of leadership experience the country needs and so i got into it again and i thought the issue or the choice that americans face is whether as a nation we are going to continue with the president called a fundamental transformation of america which in my view makes us more and more like here or whether we are going to say you are working in europe it's time for us to restore the principle that made america the economic powerhouse of the world and make america more like america if you will with a minute based society where individuals through their

education, their hard work, the risk-taking are able to build a better future for themselves and their families and at the same time lift the entire nation. .. the president's direction is slowed down the recovery company that downturn deeper. he has not put forward a plan to reinvigorate our economy at the same time not only has that hurt us on a near-term basis, i

believe his program has made it more difficult for america to remain the economic leader of the world over the coming century. as a consequence of america falling behind economically and a global raise as a defense of freedom is itself could be in jeopardy. so unconcerned short-term and long-term because i don't think the president understands how this country works. i mean it individual level and the private level and the governmental site very. i just don't think he has the experience, nor do i think he has the leadership capacity to lead in a time of difficulty. he continues to complain about congress. but, that's congress. government has been their lifetime. he later and get america back on track and put americans to work and the foundations of our economy. so with that introduction -- i guess you have a couple questions. the mac the good news for you to stick as he made the cover of

time. the negative side i'm sure from your campaign can point at the headline, why don't they like me? seat and ran for five years and obviously we know what the numbers look like in iowa. can you answer the question, what you seem to be stuck in this number? what is your take on your perception on republicans? >> actually so far as i can tell over the last year or sword and mentors the top of the polls. i've been close to number one most of the last year, which i consider pretty good news. [inaudible] >> but towards the top. in your last point number two. number one or number 24 -- was i number three by point? two points. so i have watched searches of various people over time. mike's pants with searches as people take a look at someone on

project on him that they are to use an additional of deeper watch the person more carefully and decide they also have some element that i don't agree with her background issues that are not consistent with my own views. the people come down. my guess is overtime speaker gingrich will follow a trajectory that will be unique to him, but will come down by the time were finished out of the nomination. if i didn't think that it wouldn't be battling like i am. i took the nomination although it's not a sure thing and i faced tough competition. but i'm pretty pleased with the fact that i neither accurate near the top of the polls in most states over a long period of time. that is a good thing and there's a lot of competitors. i don't recall. it's been a lifetime since i can recall the race for someone that 50% are 60% and held onto that until races began the night gets to consolidate. last time around we had john

mccain in myself and fred thompson and rudy g on me and mike huckabee and we were all bouncing around 10% and 25%. said to be roughly high teens or low 20s i consider good news. for the final analysis it got to get 35% of the delegates in the first few states and then 45% in the next 155% next one that gets me the nomination. >> you haven't spent as much time in the state of the other candidates. why is that? >> actually retract number of days for other candidates and their sound like rick santorum that are focusing entirely on ioannis and a lot of time here. but as we look person-to-person, were pretty competitive. newt gingrich and rick santorum have had more days in iowa tonight. but i'm also campaigning in new hampshire and south carolina and florida and nevada. i want to do well in the early primary states, but i also want

delegates to win the nomination. and so for me this is not trying to surprise people by doing it are then expected at restates. i want to do well in all the states and get delegates. this is about getting the nomination and for me that men spend time in the various state. and also, whether this is a wise strategy or not i don't know, but we spent a lot of time raising money. and so rephrased by so i can go out with advertised and get my message to people across iowa, new hampshire, south carolina and that's something other candidates haven't done. that frees up a lot more time to go around the state and say we want make sure we have the resources, not just to do well once or twice, but he can to go through the process and get the nomination. >> it's not that you feel iowa if social conservatives who dominate the republican party will support you? >> you know, i realize i have an uphill climb to get the nod, the

number one spot in iowa. i'd like to get a spot. but if i don't get that spot, i'll be happy if i do well. i'd like to do well. again, i had delegates. a lot of the early states are going to award delegates on a proportional basis. i want to get my fair share of that proportion from the very beginning and then take a larger, larger share as time goes on. >> is this campaign different for you in iowa than it was four years ago? had to change now and forever in the way we do this process in this country? >> you know, it seems to change every cycle. i don't know that i can tell you what the next cycle will be like. my guess is that will be different than this. but this cycle for me -- i have met people throughout iowa and therefore had folks who supported me before client to do it again. and so the last time i had no

one. so i decide a lot of time getting to meet all and send them out to be part of the team and hoping they'd be with me and straw poll the caucuses. and this time i start with a bit of a base for change in how must time. it's allowed me to spend time in other states as well and generate support for folks who don't really know who i am. i do think also one of the things that just changes the importance of debates. the audiences were to base a much larger than they were last time around. last time rudy giuliani, movie star fred thompson -- he would've thought there would've been -- [laughter] tv stars, tv personality. i mean, these are famous. and i was out 1% or 2% starting

off last hindsight to just go up issue leather and get no and this time in better known for good or evil as the case may be. but that's allowed me to make sure that i can hopefully be successful here getting support, but also get support in other states on the road. >> you talk about debates and tv personalities and immediately think about donald trump. tell me why he decided not to participate in the defeat. >> in the month of december we had requests for x, 810 debates and we all met inside how we can work her schedule? where will i be campaigning and they said we can do to debates in december and keep up with their fundraising and campaigning. and we picked to debates and well after we announced those, the folks at the trump today said would like to host one, too. we said we are befuddled our calendar.

i respect donald trump and the organizers at newsnight. they're obviously a very important conservative organ and i've nothing against their debater against the other debates that were proposed. but we can only do so many. and i joke that i think the time is coming soon where people are going to call their local station and say please return to the regularly scheduled programming. i don't know how many debates. someone said the other night huckabay said we have 14 or semi-debates and forums. i mean, i think we've heard he had more debates and forums than we had last time through the whole process. so there does come a point where people feel it's okay, i assorted seen it enough. there's also a concern that if you had that many debates that the questioners began to ask more and more arcane questions that are really the questions that are front and center in people's minds. and that may not be the right

process. so for us december made sense. you're be one of them. [inaudible] >> exactly right. and in january, maybe two again. maybe three. time will tell. >> some of the candidates for the republican nomination positive sense that the weight to what this country's problems is going basically with the wrecking ball into washington d.c. and to destroy the federal courts and congress and the presidency as it's been managed under the current president. what is your take on that approach? and what is your philosophy of governing that the federal level? >> well, heated rhetoric generates a lot of support on a temporary basis, but we've got to fix the country. there is no question, that there

are needs for reorganization will eliminate programs. i combined 15 different agencies insider health and human services health and human services department about the mandatory grouping. but that doesn't mean i eliminate all the things they take. i just found a way to work together. congress has been a difficult body to get to act on key measures. but in my view, that is because of lack of leadership in the white house. we've had the same structure of government for a long, long time. a certain various times in the past. right now when a crisis crisis and economically. and with the right leadership they think we can make it work. do we need to change washington and the nature of the discourse in washington? absolutely. and this president, despite the

rhetoric has been missing in action. they came off in the first weeks in office. and they put together a stimulus package which they sign with the ovonic kare health care plan, which is also something that was devised and worked out without as much traction from him that i might expect it. three years then, we know the president has said medicare and social security are fiscally unsustainable. but three years then he has made no proposals to make unsustainable. i find it a very unusual presidency that where the white house that has not reached across the aisle, work towards republican leaders, battled it out in private, refrained from attack and there might've been

able to lead. the country -- i mean, i hope you will recognize. >> what would you do differently? >> i will tell you specifically. but i remember the beginning with a stimulus. he said look i want to work with republicans on a stimulus. i want their input. the republican leader cantor called me among others to come testify before a group of republicans in congress and later views about what we should do for the economy. make what may now headed hp was also there. we testify together. on the day we were there testifying, nancy pelosi introduced the democratic plan. it's like we are here and it's clear that no interest whatsoever. obamacare came along. in every way possible, the american people said we do not want obamacare. they elected scott brown in massachusetts, a republican in the most liberal state -- among the most liberal state in the

nation. they did not want obamacare. they wanted no input from republicans. there were plans for bipartisan plans. whenever senator bennett and senator wyden put together a bipartisan plan pushed aside. from akin tell, this white house has stood aside and let nancy pelosi and harry reid ran the show. how would i do it differently? i was lucky enough to be lucky and quotes where the state is 85% democrat. but time is some lessons. they figured out from day one of going to get nothing done if they attack these guys on a personal basis. the speaker of the house in the senate president have to have respect for me and i for them. he went and met them in their offices. we established a case of needing every monday and one of our offices. we rotated. i didn't say i'd the governor come to my office. beside each other, got to know each other and talked about challenges going on in the state every week, all of the records.

none of it never leaked. they didn't like it, i never leaked it. we let her hair down. i remember on one occasion, one of the leader said to me, look, this bill we are pushing is what i know wild about, but you've got to give your cover so i can stop it. he's got to fight a second push back against my constituency. we had that kind of open discourse upon another. i never attacked them. we talked about differences on issues, but there was no attack. and the results of all of that was we had enough respect for one another that we did a lot of things that were quite successful. we balanced the budget every year for four years. we didn't raise taxes. we built a rainy day fund of over a billion dollars by the time i left despite a $3 billion budget shortfall in my first year. we held the line in education. there were some people who said, do not implement this requirement is you can't graduate from massachusetts high

school unless you pass the graduation exam. i said no, i'm going to hold firm to that. and they stood by me on that. issue after issue were able to work together. >> you think you could at the same influence that the republican leadership in u.s. senate and in the house? >> and the democratic leadership i presume you mean. >> they're pretty independent. >> people are very independent. i can assure the leaders in the massachusetts state senate and house of representatives are quite independent people. there are places we disagreed, places i was unsuccessful. but we had enough respect for each other and i worked hard enough on a personal basis that we were able to make progress on very important measures, including for instance her health care plan. this was done against long odds that we could accomplish something of that nature. no other state in america has been able to do what we did. her education system is now number one in the nation.

this is republicans and democrats working together. i can't guarantee that everything i want to do in washington will get done. but i can guarantee that i will focus on getting that job done rather than getting reelected or pursuing a partisan agenda. i am not a lifelong political figure, as you know. i've run for others of us before. i like winning better. my career was in the air. and i administration takes the country and get on track again because i'm very concerned that if we stay in the track we're on, we will be italy or greece. and 56 years we will face the same trauma that they're facing right now. and the consequence of an america in distress is virtually impossible to calculate. no one can bail us out.

and i'm concerned about the trauma that so many families feel today that are out of work. i'm concerned the catastrophe that would exist if we fell in two the italy, europe, ireland to stress. and i'm concerned about protection of freedom long-term good >> he talked about programs he would eliminate and specifically what those ian howells he would, you know, reduce the federal deficit. >> yeah, yeah, there are two parts of the federal government that i think we have to address. one is the income statement and the other is the balance sheet. as their business terms you're familiar with. but the income statement may come at the annual budget is what we had to cut spending in my view. there are three parts of that. one is to eliminate programs. and the easiest to get rid of are the ones who don't like like obamacare and that takes about $95 billion a year by the fourth

year of the next president's first term. hopefully that's me. and then there's other programs. the national endowment for the arts, humanities, and track, the public broadcasting. as a long list of programs many people like. some of those i like myself. but the test for me is, is this program so critical that it's worth her weight money from china to pay for a? right now a lot of things we are doing we are funding by borrowing money from other people who will demand interest in payback at some point. and so for me this is a very important test. is this program critical? i will eliminate a lot of programs, even those i like because of that test. number two, there are programs we need to keep in place, but they could be read far more efficiently if returned to the states rather than rent for the federal level. one of those is medicaid, the health care program for the

poor, worry take medicaid dollars, for instance iowa received in the past. implant with a cpi plus 1% say iowa come you craft your own program for caring for your own poor. we're not going to mandate you covered how you cover them. new structure that in the way you think i scared you of decay time to organize for granted that nature. and by the way, just that i medicaid -- making the change in medicaid but cpi plus 1% is a hundred billion dollars a year for years now. the other programs, training programs. there's 47 different workforce training programs that have been put in place in the federal government to report to the different agencies. gao did an evaluation of those programs. they did not find any of them to be affect this. these are billions of dollars of training programs. i would take all that money, bundle it and send it to the states and say you craft your

own programs to train your own work for us for the jobs that exist in your state as opposed to having the federal government tell you how to read this programs. i would look at other programs related to helping the poor and candidates but also could be returned to know whether that's housing vouchers, food stands, other programs where we can return these to the states because it's different being poor in ios than massachusetts and michigan and mississippi and let states be the home for this kind of programs. >> with health care reform, how you will you ensure millions of americans? >> item onto which is the way because in my statist list is craft their own programs. but stays cracked a program that works for their own state and return medicaid dollars to iowa. iowa will then have resources to care for the uninsured and poor. that is -- iowa solution look different than what we did in massachusetts and learn from

each other in the laboratories of the u.k. then called will provide models for us to help people become insured. there's also things that can be done at the federal level. so i replaced at the federal level with a couple of things. one, i allow individuals to purchase health insurance on their own on the same tax advantage basis that exist now for corporations. we discriminate against individuals who want their own health insurance. you folks probably get your insurance through this corporation. if you want to buy it on your out en masse by the way the tax advantage. the deduction to the company to be altered by insurance. see you get a tax, if you will come a tax subsidy by getting insurance from your company. if on the other hand are a sole proprietor running a business out of your home, you have to pay for health insurance in after-tax dollars. i want to change that. i want to level the playing

field and make it easier for people to other insurance. people might say i'd rather buy me a chair and then had to register by it for me. and that's a choice you can make. that's one change on the rebels want to make sure we provide for the concerned of preexisting conditions. people shouldn't have to worry they will lose their insurance if they change jobs or if they become ill or they are laid off or whatever. so you have to cover those things. those things i would insist that the federal level. let me go on. i'm mentioned fixing the income statement. the other side of the balance sheet. our balance sheet problems, $62 trillion of unfunded promises as medicare and medicaid -- excuse me, medicare and social security and other entitlements including medicaid. social security is relatively easy analytically to make balanced -- fiscally balanced. medicare is a tougher one.

and with regards to social security, i would for the next generation, not the current generation, for them things stay the same. but for the next generation was slowly increase retirement age and also lowered the growth rate of benefits for higher income social security was the pants. for middle and low-income social security represents, that has to do with the weight index to say the same. higher income people have higher growth rate. that balance is social security. then there's medicare. [inaudible] >> but i do in that regard is this. in my tax plan i eliminate for anyone making $200,000 a year or less. i eliminate any tax on interest dividends or capital gains. so in effect people create their own effect because there'll be no tax on their statements for middle income americans.

over to medicare, we had a program for some tendency no cosmetic. vantage, where people have a choice of traditional fee-for-service medicare or private insurance. and that is the choice that they have. that exists already. which, by the way, when it was being discussed it and people said this is privatization of medicare. no, people have a choice of a private plan, but they also keep traditional medicare. my plan takes that idea and says we are now going to provide that for the next generation. we're going to give people a premium subsidy and they can purchase whichever product they want, either the private plan for the traditional medicare fee-for-service plan. and that takes advantage of a few of the concept of money. vantage, which exists right now and by virtue congress adopting a plan to grow those premium support payments over time that

a controlled rate, were able to make medicare cost effective and not break the bank and make sure to sustain long-term. so you asked a simple question and giving you a long answer. getting america's fiscal house in order is not a quick soundbite answer. it's other things to do to get her income statement in mind when we finally balanced the budget and several things we have to do to get our balance sheet, meeting our long-term obligations in line. and the plan i laid out does that. >> are there any cuts in military spending in your balancing the budget? >> yeah, there are a number of inefficiencies of government itself that will have to be addressed. and i will -- does exist in the military as in other agencies. i will go after those, capture those. there are defense programs that i think are insisted upon by various congresspeople who have

a favorite project of some of those programs that should be eliminated. in some cases various weapons systems. i anticipate that money however will not go to paying down the budget deficit, but the money will be used to update our navy, updater for us, bring in an additional 100,000 active-duty personnel and provide the benefits for veterans they deserve. >> nonet cuts to the defense? >> i anticipate nonet cuts. we are at 3.8% gdp for the military. and i think we have to keep at approximately 4% of the gdp for the near-term. for the military. by the way, let me give you the overall numbers. federal spending as a percentage of gdp is about 20 cypress. and the bass department of defense budget is about 3.8% of that 25. vendors also wartime costs.

and i should clearly communicate that as their conflicts in afghanistan and iraq way down, there will be savings in those areas and that will be reduced. >> are you okay with the timetable we are using to why nosedown? >> the final date in afghanistan as it might view the appropriate day to set as a target. which is 2014. the 2012 pulled out of the surge troops i think has been accelerated by three months for political purposes. and i think that's a mistake. i think the pull out of our surge troops in afghanistan should have been in december as the commanders requested. [inaudible] i was talking about afghanistan there. i hope that got that right. the surge troops in december 2012, not september 2012. they think the september date is

the political date and it puts our troops and a withdrawn though during the fighting season, which i think is dangerous. with regards to iraq on the course we follow the bush timeline with one exception. that is president bush and i believe others anticipated we would have an ongoing force the summer between 10, 20 and 30,000 to help in the transition. president obama secretary of defense suggested that would be the case and they were unable to negotiate a status of forces agreement to out of 10, 20 to 30,000 troops remain which is a failure in the. does the wind down in iraq appropriate? yes. and the money from those things, which is quite substantial, funny from afghanistan and iraq, that nea do not keep in the military. that in fact does disappear. >> opposing same-sex marriage, what is the basis of your opposition about what you do about it as president?

>> the basis of opposition is i.t. that the ideal setting for reason a child is right there is a male evolve. i believe marriage is the relationship between a man and a woman and i support the concept. the action that i take as president depends in part upon the state of play in washington. the people there and what options it is. certainly i defend the defense of marriage act, which the current president has refused to defend. i believe the defense of marriage act was well constructed and should be maintained. i would like to see a national amendment defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. but that was tried maybe three or four years ago. i don't think that likely to receive the necessary support, at least in the near-term. >> how do you feel about serving openly in the military? >> srd occurred. i'm not planning on reversing at this stage.

>> but you're comfortable with? >> i was not comfortable with making the change during conflict by complicating features of a program in the middle of two wars going on. but those were sir brady down and moving in that direction at this stage that the longer presents that problem. >> sensitive to our time together, let me ask you a quick question. but at the differences between you and speaker of the house gingrich? weirded termer numbers are surging and there's an awful lot of undecided voters. primarily differences between the two of you. >> well, let me step back and say, what is that you're looking for when choosing a president? and you have to think about that every four years as you think about someone to endorse. in one part is what are their ideas and views on issues? that's an important part. i like my ideas better. and then issues, he and i disagree and i like my position

better than his position. i'll tell you of some of those sorry. that is one measure. the other measures tell me about the person's capacity to the period has the person ventilator before? what kind of job they do? what do the people around and about that job? what is the enterprise that they let? how did they do under their leadership? i've had four occasions to be a leader. i grew up in a home with a dad who is a leader. i learned by watching him. within a fast run a to run a company that comment to distress. was able to help turn it around. then i started my own company and made it one of the most successful of its kind in the world. then i says to go out and run the olympics in salt lake city when i got in trouble and that became a success. in each of these cases. you don't do these things by yourself as a leader bergson other people to help make it successful. i came to massachusetts at a time of difficulty the state.

were able to turn the seat around to make it more successful. i've had those experiences. i hope it you and others look at the candidates say how did he leave? what do people learn and think about that experience? what are the measures of whether he is successful in that role? pilot back in our presidents and think what made ronald reagan a great president? what made jfk a great president? what made dwight eisenhower, one of my friends favorite presidents, doesn't get enough credit. teddy roosevelt and john adams and went and washed them. what made these people presidents? is not necessarily they have the best answers and issues. although they are pretty good in those things. but they were leaders and they confronted challenges that america faced with sobriety and wisdom and judgment. there were men of her, vision that were trusted by others and had the capacity to lead. that i believe is an area where

you will be able to look at the various candidates and say who has been a leader and who would be the best leader in a time of challenge? there are other differences. i've had the leadership experience. i've also spent my life in the air. speaker gingrich has spent the last 30, 40 years in washington. nothing wrong with that. it's just different. i think that having spent time in the tour in understanding how come and go and buy businesses grew or why they shrink in how you compete globally. i think that experience is essential at a time when the battles -- i put in quotes, the battle we face are not military so much as they are economic as i look over the coming century. our hope our military is so superior no one even thinks of testing again. arbat also be economic. i understand how economy works at the level of job creators. i think that's a factor that's

important. and then of course there's the issues and policy position, with regards to medicare. i agree with "the wall street journal." the romney plan is better than the gingrich plan. that's a pretty big distinction. i disagree with the speaker thinking we should eliminate some parts of child labor laws so kids could clean schools. i don't think that's a great idea. i saw the speaker had a measure that i read about, which was to put a permanent colony on the moon tonight where materials presented. i think we've got some other parodies before we do that. even talked about a series of mirrors we could put in space to later highways at night. i've got some better ideas for resources. so we have differences on issues and ideas and i respect the speaker is a bright and capable guy. who are very different people. and my background is we follow very different paths. i happen to think at a time like

this summit is spent their career in the dirt and who is lead time and time again in the area and also in the governmental sector has by far the best chance at defeating the president and fixing the country at a critical time. and i said this at the outset, but i'm really concerned the president believes there's something wrong with the way america works in the sky to transform and change it and turn it into what i call an entitlement society. i'm afraid that that is the wrong way to go. we have to be a mirror of society. and if their places of unfairness and there surely must be, the mutts fix those. those are the differences. i'll mention one more. i think everybody who has an adopted the idea there should be no tax and interest in digital games. my own calculation isn't that what the case, for anybody, and

i would've paid no taxes for last 10 years. because all my income is from interest dividends and capital gains are neither would locate or warren buffet and so forth. my view is the place we need tax relief is for middle income americans. that is why my capital gains, interest and dividends tax reductions for middle income americans. and that is where i think the hope is needed most. >> excuse me, governor. i've been accused around here being a conservative. and occasionally -- i'm not so sure you're going to say that. some i talk to, my friends don't dislike you, but they look at your record and they don't trust you to be a reliable conservative. how do you convince them? to have a couple weeks to do that. >> they will get a chance to read my book. they should remember is the guy that ran four years ago as a conservative alternative to john

mccain. mike huckabee and i were both really not as conservative folks, but my opponents try and characterize me in ways that are obviously an advantage and i do the same to them. i'm not going to cry about the nature of politics. but four years ago i was seen as the conservative candidate. nothing has changed my position. and just as conservative today as it was four years ago. >> how can you convince them? is not taking. >> is issue four issue. her hats pointing out that newt gingrich said the popeye and plan was a right-wing social engineering and i said is a big step forward and ran the same page. hopefully that will convince them. newt gingrich on global warming and something about climate will change he supported cap-and-trade. i oppose cap-and-trade. on immigration. he and i have previous there. my view is more conservative

than his view. so far we've had a pretty good feel. i would've been ranting and contrasting myself self-determined caner at kerry or michele bachmann. and now it is newt gingrich. so we will finally talk about contrast they are and hopefully people will take a close look and say gosh, mitt romney has been the guy who has been out there fighting for conservative ideals for some time. >> sort of a questioning of your position comes maybe from how your positions have either changed or evolved over time. and the question might be, how do we know that mitt romney we have today is going to be the one that's going to be in the white house? and when i change again? >> the issue abnormally confronted with his abortion. sometimes by the way people at other issues. others that i haven't changed on. for instance, we continuously say you change your position on.

no i didn't. i pat the same position since the beginning of my political career. i am in favor of providing for gay people and discrimination based on orientation. i said from the beginning i oppose same-sex. a civil union if it's virtually identical to same-sex marriage. and they said zero you change your position. no, that's the nature of politics. but i did change my view on abortion and you change the first time that governor the legislation really raise this issue because i thought i could see things the way they were. look up on governor won't change anything related to abortion. and then a piece of legislation came to my desk they were going to redefine when life begins as opposed to be in that conception and number two, we'll allow the creation of embryos for purpose of experimentation and destruction of the embryos. and i could not find a piece of legislation like that.

that was not leaving things the way they were. so i vetoed pieces of legislation and read an article in "the boston globe." how many years ago? four, five years ago. 2005? six, seven years ago. i said look, i am pro-life. i face this issue. and adamantly pro-life and as governor of massachusetts, every issue that came to my desk that related to abortion i can clearly on the side of life. i was awarded by the massachusetts citizens for life. their award. and so, i have a record. it's not something that happened just before the election. i have a record. >> is there any abortion you would accept? >> yes, in the case of, and test a risk to the life of the mother. i believe in the circumstances that abortion should be legal. >> that is the only thing you

changed your mind on click >> i can imagine over 20 years with hundreds or thousands of issues are not something i didn't learn that i was wrong on that i changed my view on. in the business world, you don't admit you're wrong. >> would not be a better response to the accusation you're a flip flopper? as they have changed their mind. >> there's no question. for instance on abortion, i thought i had the right position until it actually confronted me and said now that i see this in the light of creating new life to destroy it, i can't go along with it. and that led me to a change in position. i'm sure there's other places a virtue of experience i concluded i was wrong. >> if you had to do it over again, what you do with the health care plan exactly the way it is in massachusetts? >> it never was exactly the way he wanted it in massachusetts.

i vetoed measures in the health care plan overturned by the legislature and actually the way was implemented. it was different that we had implemented if i was governor. but what i've done in massachusetts plan that got everyone insured without raising taxes? yes. it was the right step forward. not perfect. things i wish i could do differently, things i wish the legislature would do differently they are. but the plan they're his favorite three to one by the people in this state. it cost the state about 1.5% of the state budget, the plan we had there. it was supposed to cause no additional money at all but the plan i oppose. they added features that made it more expensive. i would have done that. if i could go back and be governor i pull it out. elections have consequences and new appeal to choose people who hopefully do the right thing there. >> to your support the concept of an individual mandate and

part of the health reform? >> i support the concept of states being able to calm but first it's rather than the federal government impose a one-size-fits-all it takes away the rights of state to craft programs for their roommates. we didn't massachusetts included to mandate something we thought would work well for state and its out with the 8% of people who were uninsured. for 92% of residents, nothing changed. their health care options and so forth, nothing changed. only the 8%. but obamacare, health care changes for 100% of the people. not only that, the issue of taxes than half a trillion dollars they get added. medicare gets cut by 500 billion. this is something the president is going to hear about because the only person i know of to ever cut medicare as president

to bomb about $500 billion to fund obamacare. and republicans are talking about how to preserve medicare and make sure it is an option for people down the road and make it fiscally sustainable. i don't know any among republicans is talking about cutting it. the only person this has cut medicare for recipients as president obama. and so this is an issue i am looking forward to debating with the president, with them by the way if he doesn't like my plan is saying you're going to have a choice. you can choose a private plan or traditional medicare. it's your choice, whichever which one you want. which execs now for people in medicare advantage. you're going to have that choice. and mr. president under that plan, were able to keep medicare financially sustainable. what is your plan, mr. president? you've been in office for three years so far. what are you planning on doing to make sure that medicare survives and is fiscally

solvent? and i just find it amazing that we have a president with an issue that big, seeing what is happening around the world with nations that can induce fiscal distress not proposing plans that actually solve our needs in medicare, social security, medicaid and the overall economy. >> sorry to push the point, but the medicare advantage plan, the gao and others cost more than traditional medicare. how does that save money to encourage people to get private medicare? >> the premium support payments will be set by congress and there's a number of ways of doing that. you cannot grow by a set percentage. to come you could have competition among various entities and choose a rate base on what you're seeing in competition. as the brookings institution heritage foundation, liberals and conservatives came together and say we need congress to set a budget for how much is spent on medicare.

in the same thing with other entitlement programs. that the last of a premium support amount. again, higher for poor people, laura for wealthy people and they can then choose which plan works best for them. >> should religion or faith or spirituality play a role in all in this whole process? we had governor perry and recently -- a little bit ago exactly, talking about the president waging a war of religion. obviously we've had a lot of conversations about social and spiritual issues. does religion and spirituality play a role in the selection process for you? >> well, i think people want to have a president who they believe it is a conviction that there's a creator and looks to providence for guidance. that may change someday, but i think that is generally a perspective of many people in this country. i certainly feel that myself. i don't think the particular faith that the individual should become an issue in a campaign.

again, it affected the people to decide what they want to do on their own. i think campaigns would be unwise to make a particular faith an issue in a campaign. but i believe that by and large we are a people that believe in a creator who would like to have a president who would be of a similar view. that isn't to say that people who don't believe in a creator to make contributions to the country. but i think -- i think wakely at our next president will be a person of religious grounding. >> anybody else? >> well, in your most recent campaign ad made something of the fact you've been married to the same woman for her -- >> 42 years. >> is that a direct shot at newt gingrich has had three marriages? >> now, those actually question the debate and to visit with

what i've done in prior campaigns. when i began prior campaigns they run an ad that talks about my family, just picture my kids, wife and me so people get to know us on a personal basis. sometimes in a campaign all they see is a person debating. you get the impression that they are just -- i don't know, a technocrat or does she person or debater. i want people to know that i am a dad, husband, that i am in this because i care deeply about my kids in the next generation. >> should people consider the fact that newt gingrich has been married three times? >> i'm not making that an issue in the side of that not found in i've raised in the debates. again, i don't give people a counsel to they consider and races. i hope that they look at in this space as i respect his ideas for the country and our capacity to lead based upon our experiences of leadership and our background

that we would come from the terms of this type jerzy been engaged in. >> in your book come you read a lot about the dangers by islamic jihad. what do you do differently as president if you don't think the current president is doing to protect national security? >> that is a long list. probably the greatest single threat from a radical violent jihad is some as a nuclear iran because i feel it will find its way into the hands of hezbollah, hamas or other surrogates. and in that case, if they were used, it would be catastrophic. and i think the president's management of your ram has been woefully inadequate. he has taken way too long to impose tough sanctions. i would've impose crippling sanctions long ago. one of the areas that i think

was most disappointing was when the president decided to give rush at their number one foreign policy objective, which was removal of our missile defense sites in poland. he did not -- an exchange kiwanis and the part of russia to join into crippling sanctions for marion. had he done so i palooka could've pulled chime in. i don't think the chinese want to be the only nation in the world blocking sanctions against iran. sweet deal to put in place crippling sanctions. secondly when dissidents took to the streets when i put in the shadow stole the election there he had nothing to say. he said i don't want to interfere with iranian politics. it's like really? and then, i think finally that we should end -- we should have gone after the iranian diplomats and some of their senior leaders, including ahmadinejad and turn them into the pariahs they are on the global stage. i think ahmadinejad should have

been a vacation for genocide. we should put pressure on them like we put on south africa. during apartheid. this should have been just front and center, hammering day in and day out. and finally i would've hoped we would have created a perception and reality we have developed military options. i don't think there's anyone who thinks that america has prepared military options at this president would be willing to take to prevent iran from becoming a nuclear powered nation. and i think we should have those options available. i can't describe precisely what they would be because i have not had discussions with the three leadership at this point. i think for a rant to be dissuaded from nuclear folly requires sanctions, pain around the world as there are people trying to travel and a recognition that the united states may well take military

action to stop their nuclear plants. you asked about jihads. i was was the centerpiece, which is a rant. go admire bradley, jihad is, nigeria for instance, will go after a certain part of the country and begin to expand. i would have what i call special partnership forces, were retake very small footprint military advisers and writers with intelligence officers and special forces officers and personnel and provide them to nations like nigeria if they were going to help your own troops and military root out these radical violent jihad is and keep you from being overrun by these folks. that happened in the philippines some years ago. we put just a few hundred of these special intelligence and special forces personnel into the philippines, working with their military and really routed

to jihad its efforts there. the strikeouts in and now i think they're up to one or 200 years so it does have an impact. i would rather be -- let me tell you this. a decision to employ canonic military power is a decision one would take with great trepidation and caution and turn. putting america's men and women in harms way is a very weighty matter. and so taken action to try and prevent a circumstance where we had to act in that feature is my view is very high priority. though helping nations on their own. i look at the record. i spoke with former secretary schultz. he said in the reagan and, we send advisors and helped other nations deal with the ram issues and battle these problems before they became conflicts that

required the world's involvement. and that is something i try to do with the special partnership forces, which is to be will to provide hall. the president, for instance, something i agree with. he said men and women to help battle words resistance army. that's not exactly the same as she hot his son, but it is still a virulent and malevolent force. i support that. i support the idea of a small number of people who have significant impact to present something, which can be very much opposed to the interest of america as was the interest of the civilized world. >> governor, why do you suppose americans have never chosen as president someone whose main qualification was executive experience? what you think is different this time? >> i would -- i would if we have a broader definition of executive experience than

people -- than people like eisenhower would fall in that category, you know, we've chosen people whose primary experience has been in the private sector. that may not have been the feature that was being communicated at the time of their campaign, but ronald reagan's experiences in the private sector far longer than government and the same is true for others. i think right now there is a recognition that what we face is a world which has been changed by a globalization of our economy and that america's economy is have to become competitive to continue to lead the world. after the second world war, we were so far ahead of the rest of the world. germany had been decimated, japan had been decimated. we were the center of the world and had them for a long, long

time. and now we say gosh, we are in a plane filled with other tough competitors. china being among them. its elite in this country to a position where once again we are highly dead and most productive in the most competitive and we are adding jobs as opposed to see a job sleep, that can happen and i think the american people recognize we need someone to understand the economy. what we are going through right now is the most of your economic distress we have seen since the great depression and having someone who understands the economy, both for the short-term stress and for the long-term need to compete in a world where the global integration of our economies is underway as i ain't in the mind of the american voter a more relevant issue for qualification than it has been in the past. i think most people feel -- if they don't come i hope they wake up to it, but a lifetime in washington is not necessarily the right answer to get our economy going forward -- i think

the president is a nice guy. i think he's in over his head. i'll think he understands how the economy works and how it is america's economy has outperformed any other in the world. i think he thinks if he makes us more like europe with the government taking more of our economy it will make us stronger. it will make us weaker. we don't want to become your eye. europe is that working there. so i think someone who has the kind of back when i do is actually what america needs right now are the be doing this. >> gray. sensitive to the time, really kinetic calendar, sir. your three and half more weeks before caucus goers had next january night. we are kind of taking a look to candidates and position. kind of a closing statement. tell us why should you earn our endorsement and why should caucus goers show you their support on january 3rd?

. .. and capacity. i believe that background is essential in our president, and sometimes we don't agree with someone based on our issues. i look at past presidents and i disaggrieve with them on issues but i see them as leaders, and rarely-the issues we talk about in the campaign the issues that

really define the presidency. we're talking about issues -- they end up getting swept aside by something that's completely unexpected, and you want a person who has demonstrated the capacity to deal with difficult circumstances, to lead in those circumstances, and has been able to create success where failure was a realistic option, and i believe i have demonstrated that. had i led and failed, i wouldn't be doing this. i wouldn't be asking for your support. but i've learned the lessons. i haven't succeeded at everything i've done. i've lost twice in campaigns. you learn from failure, too. not every business i invested in -- bank capital, the business i started, there was some businesses we invested in, i worked hard to make them successful and they didn't. i've learned from failure as well as success. but the businesses i've led myself and run myself have

all -- the enterprises i have run myself or helped run, have all been successful, in part because of the experiences i have had. succeeding and failing. so i would appreciate greatly your endorsement, your help. this is -- i can't guarantee i'm going to win in iowa. i'm pretty darn sure i'm going win the entire battle, because there will be enough time for my message to get through, for the distinguishing features my ground -- background and -- to be understand by the american people. i can't promise you can take that to the bank but i sure am. >> thank you very much, governor. >> thank you. >> very excited. [inaudible conversations]

>> backing away from -- >> oh, no, no, i fully support john sununu and everybody says things in their open ways. amount i'm focusing on the distinction between newt gingrich position with regard to medicare. that's what i'm focusing on. i'm very pleased and honored to have john sununu's support and his outspoken effort in my behalf. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. >> the des moines register met with texas governor rick perry tonight. the editorial staff questioned the presidential county about campaign added and the roll of religion in politics. the newspaper plans to endorse

one of the republican candidates two weeks before the iowa caucuses on january 3 inside. this is everover an hour. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> it's a pleasure having you here, sir. >> where did you grow up? >> wisconsin. >> yeah? >> iowa. >> iowa. >> iowa. [inaudible conversations] >> great state of ohio. >> midwest. >> wisconsin. >> kansas. [inaudible] >> spent 30 years in texas -- >> the star telegram. >> covered aviation and energy. >> i tell you. kind of a little off the subject but really not.

medical technology and what's happened in texas in the last decade in particular, has been just really fascinating. when you talk about our state's economy, back in the '80s, '84, right before we dropped off the cliff and went into a rather substantial and relatively lengthy recession, gas in texas was 14.7% of our goes state product, and today it's less than 7%. about 6.5%. the gross state product, and it's grown, but that gives you an idea of the total diversification of the texas economy over the course of the last 25 years. in the last decade in particular. we announced a new applied cancer science institute at md

anderson a week ago last monday. it was basically a pickup and move out of harvard to md anderson. so, -- we're seeing some just great work. it's really early, but one of our intentions is to try to make texas the adult stem cell center of the country, and maybe even of the world. just fascinating things going on. i actually had -- when i had my surgery done the first of july, they used -- harvested my own stem cells, and used them back, and i healed up very quickly. and we're seeing results with the closest -- just fascinating.

that not what we came down here to talk about. whoeveron your staff does science. all of the above. really fascinating things going on. >> why don't we get started. i am rick greene, editor vice president of the news with the des moines register here in iowa. and we thank you for being with us today. we have texas governor rick perry, purr seeing the republican presidential nomination. this is ore board and we're honored to have you here. we want to give you the floor to make opening comments about things that are important to you. >> you may not exactly -- our communications director, silting -- sitting over there, gives good advice, and --

>> how is the campaign going? >> it's a most interesting process, and having run statewide in texas, you think you're ready for a national campaign until you actually -- people say, man, running a statewide in texas, that a big state. that's true. but it's sure not as big as america. so, just managing a national campaign is really an interesting process, but the other side of that is that 11 years of chief executive experience, in particular governing experience, pays great dividends as we talk about why i want to be president, and what i bring to the table from the standpoint of the experience

standpoint of the argument can be made that the current president, his lack of chief executive experience, his on the job training, if you will, has one a drawback to him, which i happen to agree with. running the 13th largest economy in the world, if texas were a stand-alone entity -- has a great number of challenges, and we have to deal with particularly bordering a foreign country, and our number one trading partner, and a country we have had a long and most interesting and generally very positive relationship with, but the challenges of the border, securing the border, et cetera, which a lot of other governors don't have to deal with, with those types of issues.

so the 11 years i've been the governor of texas, i think has prepared me to deal with a host of very complex issues, which it's on the economic side or whether it's on the foreign policy side of dealing with various and sundry countries, and we had a group of -- from -- in the office last monday, and as they are looking to texas to put an office there. obviously they're very oil and gas oriented, and talking about building a pipeline across turkey, into europe, to supply -- give europe another supply of energy rather than having to rely just solely upon the russian gas. so, the whole foreign affair

side of being a texas governor is kind of an interesting aspect of what i deal with, whether it's traveling to other countries and almost exclusively economic development-wise. obviously we're not -- i did through the years sign some memorandums of understandings with other countries and texas. israel is an example of it back in the '90s when i was the agricultural commissioner. so just a little taste of the life experiences of dealing with the foreign affairs, that it's a bit different than what a number of other governors would deal with, and certainly different than most of those that are on the stage with me who are also asking for the people to consider them for the nomination. i want to touch on the three aspects of the policy i've laid out, and then we'll open it up

and you can fire away. the first -- we got in the race the 13th of august, considered to be relatively late to inesque ourselves into -- inject ourselves into the process, and six weeks later we laid out our first policy, and it was on energy and jobs, and i know we'll talk about ethanol. i'm in iowa, so i know we'll touch on that. i'm not going to use this time for that. we'll -- i should say i am a "all of the above" energy individual from the standpoint of, we need to have a very broad portfolio. but what i focused on in the first policy paper was opening up our federal lands and waters for exploration. i think only 8% of our proven

reserves on federal lands and waters are being used today, and so there's a substantial amount of energy -- over 300 years worth of energy in this country that we could use. the saudi arabia of coal, and using that coal and having the innovation to be able to use clean-burning coal -- i'm still a fan of nuclear energy. obviously, sited in the right places, and being able to process the fuel rods after the use of the rods, but our technology in america has allowed us to find resources we had no idea were there. ten years ago the idea that all the shell gas -- so i would suggest to you there are probably still substantial amount of energy that technology and innovation will allow us to

be able to discover, produce, and use as a domestic source of energy. so, that i talked about on the policy -- a million-plus jobs just right off the bat. pulling back the regulations. over the last five year since '08, that have stifled job creation. and then rebuilding epa into an agency that is actually pro-jobs and pushing back a number of these environmental decisionmaking processes, regulations, to the states. i trust the people of iowa, your governor, your legislature, to make decisions. one tax fits all -- the clean air act -- and i -- somebody

saying they're not for the clean air act. it's done it work. but we have now an agency that is creating so many regulations, and the cost of those regulation and, frankly, the benefit we're seeing is very minuscule at best. the second thing i laid out was tax policies and how to deal with the budgets, how to deal with the economy, the 20% flat tax, again, mortgage deduction, charitable deduction, local tax deduction, do away with cap gain. put it on a post guard and send it in. that it. 20% of that, and -- did i knock it off? sorry about that. make your job better. excuse me. so, -- then on the spending side, obviously, i've had 25%

years of dealing with a state budget, either as an appropriator, state agency head, lieutenant governor and now governor of the state of texas. we have a balanced budget amendment in the state of texas, and it's important we worked toward balanced budget amendment for the united states as well. it's the most serious way to deal with long-term budgetary concerns that people have. the reduction of spending, and i laid out some jobs, but i'm the only individual who has laid out a budget that will be balanced by 2020. 18% of the gross domestic product is where we're headed to, and then on the corporate side, just a straight 20% corporate rate, gets us down to -- that's about the -- excuse

me -- the global average in other countries is approximately 20%. so we chose that so that we would be competitive. ours is either the highest or the second highest corporate rate in the world right now. so there's a lot of disincentive for companies to be growing and expanding in the state of texas. and all of that is on the web site. i'm not going to sit here and use that -- i want to end up with the third policy we laid out, and that is to overhaul washington. there is some ideas in there that are -- some would say provocative. when i talk about a parttime congress, and i think it rolled some people back on their heels, what do you mean, a parttime congress? it will work, and it will work because today washington has become so self-centered, so

self-important, from my perspective, and the people basically make a living being united states congressmen. their salaries are at three times the average of the american family. make it parttime. let them go home and have jobs back in their communities and live with their citizens and come and take care of the business that needs to be taken care of, and i will suggest to you, there are a lot of models for it working across the country. it's called state government. 13th largest economy in the world in texas. we meet for 140 days every other year. we balance our budget. we take care of issues, and then those member of the legislature, that are only paid $600 a month -- go home. do their lawyer work or veterinary work or they're physicians or retired teachers or whatever, we have that make

up the microcosm of our state, and it works. we balance our budget. they go home and live under the laws they passed. a parttime congress, i think, would go a lock -- long way towards not only making it less contentious in washington, dc but also give the american people confidence that the members of congress are really more in tune with what is going on. so, substantially reducing the size and the scope of washington and those agencies. even some that i couldn't remember the name of. but that's -- again, i want to open it up and allow y'all to ask questions. but that's the policy side of the most important issues that face this country, is getting

our economy back, getting people to work, getting the confidence back in the entrepreneurs so they feel they can risk their capital and have chance to have a return on investment. that's how you get the 13 plus million people who are out of work, an opportunity to have a job and the dignity to take care of their family. the way that america, again, can be considered a force to deal with. whether at it on foreign policy or militarily. because if we do not first get our economy back on track and growing, then these other issues become even more problematic for us because we lose or role in the world as being the strongest economy, the strongest military, the influence on foreign policy and events around the world. so, with that -- >> well, it's interesting you want to talk about overhauling

washington, or the economy, creating jobs, and protecting the things so many iowans care about. but you just recently did a $1.2 million ad in this state, and we have seen it and there's half of that focuses on showcasing your faith and what you describe as the president's war on religion. i guess we would want a better explanation, what the message or backdrop? does this really zero in on the issues that are most important to americans and iowans? >> i'm introducing myself to iowans. for 20 year as the agriculture commissioner, and then lieutenant governor and governor, i've had 20 years to introduce myself to the people of the state of texas. obviously having five months to introduce yourself to the people in new hampshire and iowa and south carolina and florida, which are the four -- there's

obviously a tactical reason for zeroing in on iowa, and we know what that is. but it's introducing yourself to those people, who is this individual? what makes that individual texas, if you wail? and my faith, and this is nothing new. the idea that i have issues that have resonated with me personally, and my faith, is part of who i am. prior to that, obviously, we laid out our economic side of things as well. so, i think americans do want a president who is not afraid to say, here's what i believe in, here's who i am, i am consistent, whether it's consistency on economic issues or consistencies on issues of my personal faith, and values, and

that's the message that i'm intending to relay to the people of iowa, is, here's what believe in. and by and large my christian faith does characterize me. whether it's making decisions about economics, for instance -- i think the dignity of being able to have a job to take care of your family, from my perspective, is part of my faith, that relying upon government to make decisions that are best made by you and/or your family -- those are values that i hold very dear, and i think serve not just the people of iowa but the people all across this country well. i do disagree with this administration, that it's the private sector individual who

would be better served, whether it's economically, or whether it's issues of social concern, that they make those decisions, and then there are clear issues of what i believe in that are in conflict with the administration. >> do you believe he is waging a war on religion? what we're doing -- explain that more to us. >> i do. when you see his appointment of two -- from my perspective inarguably activist judges, whether it was -- um -- montemayer.

>> sotomayor? >> they're both both activist judges and that's an example of my concern about -- i believe the supreme court should not be making legislative decisions, and telling americans how to live, whether it's about prayer in school, whether it's -- you can celebrate christmas. those are decisions that should be left to the states or to the individuals to be making. the justice department who is defending this ministerial exception, i think that is a direct attack on our people of faith and churches and basically saying that you cannot

discriminate, if you will, someone who doesn't believe what you believe in hiring and firing of ministers and their staff. i wrote a book on boy scouts called, "on my honor" and gets into the issue of whether or not scouting should be able to restrict an openly gay scout master. very private sector organizations. that should be their call. and you have them spending substantial amounts of money defending lawsuits that have said, no, you have to -- and those are my beliefs, and i am consistent about them. i don't try to meander through

and make all sides happy. i do think that this president is conducting what i consider to be an attack on traditional religious organizations under traditional religious values, by >> i'd like to take this one step further. you said in the iowa leader forum -- this is not quite an exact quote, a direct quote, but deep in the soul of every person there's a hole that can only be filled by jesus christ. >> that's correct. >> i am not a christian american but i am an american, and i vote, and i find that to be rather an exclusive notion. i don't have a hole that can only be filled by jesus christ. so you're not speaking for me or to me, and i just wonder if you don't think that you're excluding certain people who are not christian when you say that.

>> i tell you what in my faith i believe. one of the great things our founding fathers did in that first amendment was to say you had freedom of religion, and i defendant -- defend that with my life if required, and i have sworn to uphold the constitution as a veteran of the united states air force and the governor of the state of texas. your faith belief is your business. ...

when that hole is filled by jesus christ. that's my be believed. you choose another route, you choose another religion. we have very diverse religious groups and different individuals in the state of texas. i respect them as citizens and human beings and that is their decision. i can't -- the way about me to judge you or to judge anyone

else, i'm talking about my faith and of those that have chosen the christian pathway. >> as president you have to represent all of americans, and by saying this president has declared war on religion, some people in this country who are of those other divers face might read that as he would declare war on their religion but not you're own. >> they would be wrong is simply how i would say that straight up. >> you talk about state rights in terms of defending the constitution. you don't see a role for the federal courts to you know formally interpret the first amendment to defend religious rights in all 50 states? >> here's what i see happening with the first amendment and this goes back to 1962 in that case where you can't have been

organized prayer to an almighty god. i'm not a lawyer so i don't study these cases in debt, but the idea that the court is telling us whether or not we can have prayer in school is a bit offensive to me. that should be a decision that is made at the local level. it's one of the reasons the life called for the doing away with the department of education. i had no idea why the federal government was engaged in telling the states how to educate their children. i think that is a waste of money and a waste of effort for washington to be one-size-fits-all or worse yet

picking winners and losers in various states when in fact that is a state responsibility to educate the children in their states', and there will be people who come up with very different ways and governors and legislatures who are thoughtful and want to have that competitive work force and be in the place where businesses move because there is a skilled workforce. they will pick and choose which of those programs will work best for their states, but again, i go back to our founding fathers freedom, not freedom from religion -- >> i think about how we get around excluding folks. as governor of texas you have called for a day of prayer during an economic crisis.

for some that don't share your faith or religion that was the governor of texas was calling for a did. would you call for this in the country for example? >> my faith is one that lets look at our history and what george washington or thomas jefferson or abraham lincoln which are three rather powerful members of our either founding fathers or president who had a great impact on this country and they all made statements about how could you do this job without having a strong faith and an almighty creator? so the idea that i wouldn't would be counter to hawaii am. if americans want to elect a president who basically says look, i'm not going to -- i'm

not going to let my feet intervene in anything that i do and from my perspective it would be a bit scary. i want a president who is faithful and believes that there is a greater being who has an impact of free day in this world and is engaged in the activities my faith teaches me this is an all-powerful creator that when a bird falls from the sky, he knows it coming and i believe that and that is part of hawaii and i'm not going to change that. if people decide listen, you know, your religious faith scares me off, my religious

faith hadn't got in the way in texas making us the most economically powerful state in the nation. as a matter of fact, i think it brings comfort to folks who i believe that your economic condition in life is a biblical effort to give people the opportunity to take care of themselves to not have to rely upon government, to give the individuals the dignity to have a job and take care of their family. >> just to clarify on this point the day of prayer or permitting prayer in schools are you talking specifically about christian prayer or nondenominational? >> it's not the government's

business to be telling folks that at the state level. obviously if a school is a jewish school and in dallas texas that school should be able to do that. >> the issue here is with public schools. >> the independent school boards that oversee those decisions are not government. again, the idea that we have to be so politically correct but there's one family that says i don't want my child -- that child ought to have the freedom to sit over there and played tic-tac-toe or what have you, but the issue is that for washington to tell a local school district that you cannot have a prayer and a time of prayer in that school i think is offensive to most americans.

i trust the people of the states to make those decisions and the school districts to make those decisions better than to take an elected frankly unaccountable judges and it's one of the reasons i've called for the end of lifetime appointments to the federal judgeships in that term. >> can you talk about your ideas on health care and white texas ranks number one in the country for the uninsured? >> that is a decision the people in texas have made over the years and there's a difference between -- i know folks like to pitch out the number one and uninsured, but people have access to health care in texas, some of the best health care in the world as a matter of fact when you look at m.d. anderson and what we talked about as we started this process here people

have access to health care. the people of the state of texas have said this is how we want to deliver that health care. there are some restrictions in texas of how we would make more insurance available because we have been not allowed to have wafers that we ask for in the federal government which goes to the real key difference in the current administration when it comes to the program of medicaid cut the states come up with the innovative ways to do health insurance programs, the different selections for the different menus if you will of the insurance. medicare is the -- and i will give you three examples. i do think what paul ryan and some of his colleagues have offered up for medicare

transformation there are some pretty wise move some of the different types of insurance and again people can pick copayments, i think it's important for everyone to have some skin in the game if you will so that everyone -- and it can be a skill that moves up and down and speaking of indexing for medicare we should index the individuals, but there are a number of ways of which we can make health care insurance more available, but in the state of texas no one is -- no one is not

covered -- covered is not the right word, no one has access to some of the best health care in the world and the legislature through the election of the citizens have put into place programs that do not require insurance or make it available in some cases. that is a natural segue over to this whole individual mandate. >> so in texas you don't need health insurance? there's enough infrastructure that 25% of your people don't have health insurance? you don't need health insurance? >> i think that we would have more health insurance if we didn't have the strings attached ipad having health insurance for those that want it is good public policy but health insurance with the strings attached that we have seen from

washington, d.c. is too expensive and the people in the legislature say we are not going to spend those amounts of dollars and whether it is going to federally qualified health clinics or whether it is going to emergency rooms, people have the access to health care. the insurance issue is another issue. we have more people injured in texas if we block granted? i would suggest yes and substantially more so then you've got to have the freedom to implement that program and we don't have that today. >> on your postcard their it clear how fill out that program say 20% of your income is that what you're saying? would >> i'm saying if you did that to your mortgage insurance and torture of a bowl to the culture

-- local taxes, tax goes away, obviously important to audio and any state that has substantial the agricultural interest the tax would go away and i don't know if i said dividends, talks would go away as well, and then you take 20% of that number and that would be your personal income. >> what about family that doesn't own a home and does not have capital gains liability? do they pay 20% of their income? >> yes. >> that somebody like you that owns a home -- ka

>> rebuilding. there is an act of arson and 05 and 07 so we haven't been living for four years. >> i did have a conversation with my daughter so i had homeownership. someone that has the investments and the income level to have all of that gets those deductions by the family that doesn't with 20% on their total income, and i am describing a low-income family. is that the system was put in place? and that does not seem unfair to you? >> what seems unfair to me is the system that we have today where between $40,500,000,000,000 it spent on tax collections that could be

reinvested in this country to create jobs and better paying jobs than with those individuals are having today. i think this is all tied together with creating the confidence in this country where entrepreneurs know they can raise their capital and have a good chance to have a return on the investment, and to keep more of what they work for and that is my goal is to create an environment in this country where more people are at work and get to keep what they work for so no one is going to make the perfect tax structure but i think i have laid out as the simplicity of the tax plan noble gift tax reductions it is all

across almost every sector that i do believe in the fairness of life laid out here because the goal of that tax system is to create an environment in the state where people have the confidence they can create or have a return on the investment more americans will be at work is that particular point in time and that is my goal. i think that from an economic standpoint is how we pay off the debt. it's how we grow economically. on the corporate side one thing i didn't mention i will put out there is money that is offshore today approximately $1.7 trillion. allowing a period of time that can come back in at 5.25%.

let me say from a low-income i believe the old system in place for some period of time. i haven't had the conversation with a columnist the other day what is that period of time, and i admit i don't know. but let's talk about what that period of time is. so if he were a low-income family and you wanted to stay in the old system for the earned income tax credit, you could. you could choose that. that's the choice. most and i would suggest a vast number of people will choose to go to a simple 20% flat tax. >> talk about the difference in where people's income comes from, the people who work, punches a time clock.

they would pay the 20%. the person who has the big nest egg from data or grandpa whose income derives from capital gains or dividend some -- >> with nothing. i'm sure you can find an individual or some small number of individuals that meet the characteristic, but again, i don't think anybody is going to be doubled to create a tax system that does not have somewhere an inequity my goal is to find the simplest most straightforward vacancy of the most money and allow people to keep more of what they work for

and that's the reason i leave that plan out. islamic would be to apply to everybody regardless of the source of the income. >> you could make the argument of would be simpler. i chose this particular -- we look at a lot of different -- i looked at the fair tax at length this is what i found to be the most saleable because the fact is i've been in this business long enough to know i've got to pass it and protection i hope will not get in the way of good. >> we spent an awful lot of time

with this editorial board kind of heckling from what we hear and i was saying in general but washington is broken. we've seen such a huge divide between the left and the right, republicans and democrats, the partisanship is at an all-time high. talk a little bit about if he were elected how could you change that? what have you done to point to success in terms of bipartisan support? >> for 11 years i -- 11 years i was the governor dealing with the bodies that were in some cases almost and equitably divided between democrats and republican and in 2006, i believe 2007, we had substantial numbers of democrats in the texas house, and in 2003 there was a good specific set an

example. we passed the sweeping tort reform in the nation in 2003. that was the first time that there was a republican house, republican senate, republican lieutenant governor, speaker. yet, as we pass that piece of legislation, wanted to put it in a constitutional amendment, the tort reform, so that it wouldn't be litigated for ten years. to clearly say this is what the people in the state of texas want, and it was dealing with capping noneconomic damages in the turn of $50,000 per event come hospital nursing home so that you wouldn't have these huge judgments and i'm going to put that in the constitution. we had to gather between

democrats to do that and i think that's a good example of how i dealt with both democrats and republicans. texas is probably 55, 45% state when you look at the break down. maybe 5644 democrat republicans. i think we are of a democrat. i never met a republican until i was probably 25, but we are really not about the d.c. bar's in texas as we are philosophically conservatives and liberals, and washington is broken, and i don't think

washington is broken because of the r&d, i think it is broken because it has lost touch with what is going on in america and we have allowed the special-interest to the when i opened the newspaper and i read where $7.7 trillion secretly have gone to wall street financiers to bail them out even on known to congress, that gives me greater consternation about what is going on in this country and whether or not democrats and republicans are trying to one up each other on such an issue, and that is the reason i think it takes an outsider to come into that environment who is willing to pull out of the veto pen and feet with a piece of legislation that has earmarks that if there

is a bill that spends money that we don't have to veto it, and i'm not going to washington, d.c. to try to -- i understand historically in my life when we work with both political parties i get that 25, 26 years of my life, but that's not the biggest concern to me. the biggest concern to me is we have a system in washington, d.c. that is broken. i mean, what the republicans did with t.a.r.p. and bailing out wall street was just as corrupt from my standpoint what timothy

geithner and fannie mae and freddie mac -- what is going on in washington over the last 20 years there are some great books out there that have gone back and reconstruction. reckless endangerment i think gingrich and morgan san -- there's another book, jimmy stewart is dead, economist -- incredibly corrupt -- and i would suggest to you fraudulent activities that are going on in washington, d.c. that are a great more concern to me on the economic side them whether or not i can get nancy pelosi and paul ryan to sit down and agree on a particular piece of

legislation. that i think we can do, but the bigger issue for me is someone who will walk into washington, d.c. and the type of person that is part of the list of wissman or who has been in converse or is in converse and basically stand up and declare that we are going to do construction washington, d.c. because they have put this country in great peril economically. >> governor bush said the 11 years ago exactly the same thing when he was running for the caucuses that he was a united non-divider, he didn't use those words, but that he could get both sides to work together, he did get both sides to work together. in texas as you have described he called himself an outsider, and promised very sincerely i'm

sure that he could solve the same kinds of problems that you are talking about solving. how would you do that under these circumstances? the senate would say that it's hopeless. >> i'm not a cynic. i don't think it is hopeless. i think george w. was looking at a substantially different time in the country's history. we were balanced budget will. we were in pretty good times economically. i think the american people were not particularly concerned about -- i don't recall what the unemployment rate was in 2000, but i know it wasn't what it is today. so, the american people i think are substantially more attuned and more supportive of someone who truly will walk into

washington and overhaul, and a ventricle been governor was talking about overhaul in washington, d.c.. talking about getting democrats and republicans to work together, and i will leave that for what it is. i'm not particularly interested in to going into washington, d.c. and getting people to sing together. i'm interested in going in and try leedy constructing what is happened over many years, and it is going to be a difficult fight. i don't try to be pollyanna should at all. it will be a very difficult fight. it will require the president who is willing to spend a lot of time travelling across the country using whatever political capital they can put together to pass a balanced budget amendment to the united states constitution and at the same

time not to pass the balanced budget that calls for the part-time congress. it's that particular point in time if you do change washington forever. schenectady's and ours to make all that happened? you can't do it alone. >> by a understand that he might have some conversations with congressman and women, who have said will you kind of put a cork in it about part-time legislation? [laughter] and i've had others that stand up and say you know what, you're right, but it's not them that i'm particularly concerned about, it's their constituents, and i do know what their constituents are in and the vast majority of the time and when they really think about part-time legislation i don't think that there will be as big a pushback as what initially when a member can -- members of congress i hope are not any different than the rest of the country. they just go to washing