government folks who do the taking and the giving, or do we instead believe america is a land of opportunity where free individuals and free enterprises pursuing their own path create a stronger economy and lift the well-being of all. that's the choice we have in this country. i happen to believe in the vision of the founders. they said in america, in the declaration of independence, that the creator had endowed us with our rights, not the state, the creator. among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. that last phrase referring to the idea that in america we could pursue happiness as we choose. government could not guide our lives. we would guide our lives. government would not tell us where we could live or what we could make or how we'd get paid. no, those were decisions we could make. we were free people. by virtue of that decision which the founders made, america became the place before entrepreneurs and innovators and pioneers from all over the world came. this was the land of

opportunity. that is how we've outcompeted the world. i wish people in washington understood that. it is not their government hand that makes america competitive and prosperous. it is the free capacity of american people to pursue their own happiness in the way they choose, to innovate, to pioneer, to create. that's what has allowed us to lead the world. as i lookd at the challenges we faced, a budget out of balance, threats around the world, i don't want to have government take a larger and larger role in our life and a bigger and bigger share of our economy. i want to do what adam smith and the founders of this country recognized was the right course, give people more freedom. have government as a partner in the enterprise world, to protect more freedoms and make it easier for people to build and grow their enterprises. i love this country. i love the founding principles of this country. i love the people of america. i'm convinced our future is brighter than our past. i say that because of our education, our skill, our

innovative spirit, our passion for america. i happen to believe that -- [ applause ]

that concludes another chamber event and we'll see you at the next event. >> please stay in the room for a few more minutes while the governor prepares to depart.

when you folks leave in the next few minutes, we want to thank you for joining us today. we hope you had a great time. this is a wonderful experience for all of us. have a won deferful afternoon and a great day.

today mitt romney is campaigning in idaho. at this hour hosting a fund-raiser at a boise hotel. rick santorum began the day in michigan and he'll be in ohio this evening. newt gingrich is fund-raising in georgia. tonight he hosts a campaign rally in peach tree city, and ron paul is in washington state and idaho, and he'll host a rally shortly in richland, washington. then he'll go on to idaho for an evening rally in moscow. arizona and michigan hold their primaries in less than two weeks, february 28th, followed by washington state's caucuses in early march. super tuesday where ten states hold primaries or kuxs is march 6th. 11 states and u.s. territories hold primaries or caucuses throughout march. you can follow our coverage of political events as well as results on the c-span networks and online at c-span.org.

president obama is in washington state today to talk about jobs and exports at the boeing plant in everett. the white house says boeing has seen a 45% increase in exports since 2006, and president obama says he has a plan to help other companies do the same. you can watch that live coming up shortly on our companion network c-span. we have a country where millions of innocent people have had to go to prison. they have put bars on their own windows and bars on their own doors because we have abandoned their neighborhoods to crime. now, i can't live with that. our neighborhoods should be safe, the children should be able to play in the streets. and you and i can fix that together. >> as candidates campaigned for president this quleer year, we looked back at 14 men who ran for the office and lost. go to c-span.org/thecontenders

to see video of those who had a lasting impact on mary khan politics. >> i believe the destiny of america is always safer in the hands of the people than in the conference rooms of any elite. so let us give our country the chance to elect a government that will see and speak the truth, for this is a time for the truth in the life of this country. >> c-span.org/thecontenders. republican presidential candidate rick santorum talked about his economic and job creation plan in a speech yesterday at the detroit economic club. he said that president obama was suffocating the economy and criticized him and president george w. bush for bailing out the auto industry. the event took place at a convention center in detroit. this is about 50 minutes.

>> thank you very much, jim. i appreciate it, appreciate the opportunity to be here and discuss obviously the number one issue in this campaign, the number one issue here in the state of michigan which is the health and state of our economy and what we can do in washington, d.c., i would put it, to credit an atmosphere for our economy to grow the, the private sector to grow. here in mash gan you've been through a lot of tough times. you all know that. it's exciting to see the resurgence of the auto industry here. over the last four years michigan has lost over 140,000 jobs, 250,000 people from michigan have left the workforce and the unemployment rate is unfortunately still higher than the national average. so if you were to ask the question, are you better off now than you were four years ago to many people in this state, the answer would still be no. we do need a strong economic platform by which to help the

private sector successfully compete and create the kind of jobs that are going to provide for families and grow this economy so we can create the prosperity that was -- this city was known for really for decades. i'm going to lay out very quickly my economic plan. you're going to hear this and say it's pretty similar to other economic plans that you heard from republicans. let me do that first and let me tell you how, well, we're just a little different than some of the others in this race and how we approach the issue of creating an opportunity where everyone in america can rise and we can create a healthier, not just economy, but a healthier country. first i do believe in pro growth economics. i'm a supply side economics person. i believe in lower rates. i believe in simplification. when it comes to the corporate tax, corporate taxes as of april will be the highest in the world. i cut that corporate tax in our

plan to 17.5%, make it basically a net profits tax. simple, a flat tax with one exception, i still believe we need to encourage innovations in the knowledge-based economy so we have a 20% permanent tax credit for research and development in the corporate tax. secondly, dividends, interests, capital gains, a 20% cut from 15% to 12%. we abolish the amt. abolish the death tax. i take the corporate tax, again, simplification, lower rates. we have a 10% lower rate and we expand that lower rate and take all the other rates, consolidate it to one rate. 28% top rate. a 20% reduction from the 35% rate down to 28% which was ronald reagan's top rate. my feeling is, if it's good enough for ronald reagan, it's good enough for me. so we have a top rate of 28% and we have a simplified tax code, a

simplified tax code which i'll discuss in a minute which is not completely flat, but we have things there for a reason, to help promote strong and healthy society. i also believe in reducing the size of government. that's key. you can't just cut taxes and reduce as a result in large part revenues to the federal government without creating a balance by reducing the size of government. that's important, too, to remove the regulatory burden from the people in this country. i propose $5 trillion in reduction over five years. that can be funny math for a lot of folks in america. well, is that $5 trillion from the baseline or how does that all work as to whether that's real reductions or not? what i pledge is that we will spend less money every year than the year before, all four years, until we reach a balanced budget in five years $5 trillion in

five years, less spending each year every year and we will reach a balanced budget in five years. i know you folks here in michigan have been hearing some things on the television from one of my opponents that i am a big spender. you will find that rather surprising to the folks who are more my colleagues and any objective look at my spending record when i was in congress, and there was one done just yesterday by the weekly standard. the weekly standard looked at the 509 senators in congress at the same time i was there. there were only four senators who had a better spending record according to the national taxpayers -- i guess the national taxpayers union. they rated me for all those years, and my rating was better than just everybody but four. those four folks happen to represent states like oklahoma and wyoming. they weren't representing a state like pennsylvania or michigan who hadn't elected a republican for president since

1988. i was the most conservative -- they put it, i was the most conservative senator by farr based on the state i represented and the spending record i had. any other person in a state with a similar electoral map than pennsylvania i had to run in, the closest person to me was not even half as good in spending as i was. so i stood up in a tough state and stood for limited government and particularly stood for something that was important if we're going to get the budget balanced and, as tim mentioned, entitlement reform. if we're going to solve the problems of this country when it comes to getting deficits under control, we have to look at it -- we've got to look at where the money is. the money is in entitlements,

60% of the budget right now is entitlements. defense used to be 60% of the budget. when i was born it was 60% of the budget. it's now 17% of the budget. those who believe defense is causing the budget problems, simply don't know the math. the math is when i was born entitlements were less than 10% of the budget. ha is the area of growth and entitlements will completely consume all revenues in just a handful of years. because why? because most of the entitlements unfortunately are targeted toward those in the margins of life which happen to be the disabled, but more particularly, the elderly. we see the baby boom generation beginning to retire and all bets are off as to whether we'll be able to afford this explosion of benefits. well, i was out there talking about this problem back when it wasn't popular to talk about it and proposed reforms of social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps.

i led the charge on welfare reform and we need to use the same thing we did on welfare reform which is cap it, cut it, freeze it, block grant it to the states, for medicaid, food stamps, a whole other host of means-tested entitlement programs run by the states and give them flexibility to go out and design programs that meet the demands of their particular constituencies. we did that with welfare and cut the welfare rolls by 50%. we did that when welfare rolls were the highest level ever. guess what happened? poverty rates went down, people went to work. why? because we put time limits and we put work requirements on receiving government benefits. we do those things again. we can help turn this economy around. we hear all the time, i even hear it from manufacturers. we have a hard time finding workers. well, when you have 99 weeks of unemployment benefits and you have a variety of other social

safety net programs, people can make choices that they otherwise wouldn't make if the economy was not one that government dependency was the watch word. this president is not interested in my opinion in providing jobs. he's interested in providing benefits. he's interested in redistributing wealth and created a dependency class which is a reliable voting group for him and those who want to pass out the redistributed wealth. the problem is margaret thatcher with redistributed wealth and socialism, eventually you run out of other people's money. well, we're not going to have a plan that's going to run out of other people's money. we're going to reduce the entitlement burden on this country. i put forward plans unlike paul ryan which i support. but we need to do it now. i'm not going to go into all the details. social security and medicare

reform as i've talked about it even in places like the villages in florida which is a large, huge retirement community. when i've talked about social security and actually changing benefits, i didn't see a single hand raised that opposed what i was proposing. if you have a leader who is willing to go out and educate the american public as to the problems we confront and the possible solutions out there, you'd be amazed, you'd be amazed at how the american people will rally and do their duty and what's necessary to make this country great again. we have a president who doesn't believe in that, believes in hiding the ball, pitting one group against another. i believe in informing americans, lifting them up, making them participants in the problems we have and turning those problems into opportunities for all americans. so that's how in some respects we're the same. let me tell you how we're different. see, i believe that we need to create an atmosphere for everyone to be able to rise in america.

and just cutting taxes, supply side across the board and reducing the size of scale and government in my opinion is not enough. if that's all we do, i'm confident we will not succeed. we won't succeed economically. more importantly, we won't succeed culturally and socially. ultimately we'll be back where we were before with government taking the upper hand again. why? we won't have done the things that are necessary for people to rise in society and for society to be stable. let me talk to you about how i believe we need to have an economic plan that includes everybody. tim mentioned the fact that we have manufacturing sector of the economy when i was growing up that was 21% of the workforce. it's now nine. when i grew up in the steel town of western pennsylvania, butler, pennsylvania, as he mentioned, my grandfather was a coal miner. i knew that was the wealth. it wasn't great wealth, it wasn't opulent wealth, but and e

able to participate in civic and community organizations and not having to work two or three jobs. they could participate in the health of their community. which was vital for the health of our country. and so manufacturing to me is a key to that. president obama is all about equality of results. i'm about equality of opportunity. i'm not about equality of result when it comes to income inequality. there is income inequality in america. there always has been. and hopefully, and i do say that, there always will be. why? because people rise to different levels of success based on what they contribute to society and to the marketplace. and that's as it should be. and we shouldn't have a society who has a president who envies or creates class wearfare or eny between one group and another. we should celebrate as we do here in detroit. you celebrate success. statutes and monuments.

buildings you name after them. why? because in their greatness and innovation, yes, they created wealth, but they created wealth for everybody else. and that's a good thing. not something to be condemned in america. well, we also need to create that opportunity for people to rise. and i believe manufacturing is the key to that. people say, well, why do you have -- why do you create manufacturing differently, and i do. i don't cut the corporate rate for manufacturers to 17.5%. we eliminate the corporate tax for manufacturers. there will be no tax, period. we create the opportunity for us to compete. say, well, why do you treat it differently? because you here in detroit have to compete against countries all around the world. who want your jobs, in many cases took your jobs. and so we need to have a plan in place in america that understands the competitive playing field that you're on. we're not going to move the bank overseas. we're not going to move the retailer overseas. all of those other folks compete internally, by and large. you don't.

no manufacturer really competes internally or just internally. you compete with a world that wants what you have because they know that manufacturing, making things, is the key to wealth creation in any society. and so we have to, just like we do when we've had policies in the past, to make sure that we have a material industrial complex in this country. why? because of our national security. we make sure we have a stable food policy in america. why? because of our national security. we need to have a manufacturing base in this economy. why? because of our national security. ladies and gentlemen, this is a hostile world, and we need to make sure that we are reliant upon ourselves. and that means we need to create a marketplace where we can compete with everybody around the world. no advantages. just level playing field. right now american manufacturers have a 20% cost differential disadvantage. that's excluding labor costs with our nine top trading partners. that, of course, includes canada, mexico, china. we need to level that playing field. why is it higher? well, because of government

taxes and regulations. well, if that's the problem, then government has a responsibility to create an opportunity for you to go out and compete on that level playing field. well, that's why i've zeroed out the corporate tax and have said to those of you who have sent jobs overseas, if you take that money back, instead of paying the tax that you have to pay when you repay treeuate profits, if you invest that money in plant equipment you will pay no corporate, you will pay no tax. if you invest it in plant equipment and create jobs here in america. those are two things that we can do to create the opportunity for profitability as well as the availability of capital. to invest here, to create the jobs of the future. so that's one -- that's one big area. but there's other things we can do. i hear obviously with the -- the future leader of china here in america today, we hear a lot about china. we hear a lot about what we have to do to compete with china. well, what i've just laid out will compete with china. will compete with any country in

the world. i know folks are concerned about currencies. i'm concerned about it, too. government should not set currencies. markets should set currency values. that includes the united states of america, i might add. if we're going to point the finger at other countries, then we need to look at what we do here in america when it comes to currencies and what we're doing with the value of the dollar in this country. let's have the market do it. and if you do, i am confident that the american worker and american companies can compete with anybody around the world. the other thing that -- that is key in making us competitive is energy. energy is key to manufacturing. obviously, you're great users of it. but it's also a key to the entire prosperity of our country. if you look at any map, any -- any graph that shows the cost of energy and the availability of energy, and you look at it relative to the standard of living of that country, the

lower the energy costs, the more available the energy, the higher the standard of living. if you look at the recession that we went into, we went into it in 2008. why? because of a huge spike in emergency pri energy prices. now you read on the front of the paper energy prices going up again now this head wind to a growing economy we've seen repeatedly as this economy as tried to recover. yet we have vast resources of energy in this country. and we have a president who's doing everything he can to see the oil and gas, coal in this country as a liability, not an asset. something that should be kept in the ground to protect you. instead of taken out of the ground to enrich you. yesterday i was in north dakota. for those of you who may not be close, this may look like a lump of coal. it's not a lump of coal. it's oil. this is oil. this is how we get oil in north

dakota. we fracture this piece of rock, and this piece of rock has oil floating around in it, whether you believe it or not. i have a hard time believing it. but they've handed me the oil, so i guess i can believe it. we have something called hydraulic fracturing that is being used dr we have hundreds of thousands of wells that have used it over the course of tile. now we have horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing and we're producing an energy boom. i was just at one of the wells and they told me in tie yoga, north dakota, their light, sweet crude, which is a premium commodity on the market sells at a discount of $32. why? because they can't get it to market. we have a president of the united states with this knowledge that mexico within five years will be an energy importer, not exporter. that's 1.5 million barrels a

day. venezuela, which we get 2.5 million barrels a day from, is going from an energy exporter to -- to the united states to have china build a refinery there and have their product go to china. 2.5 million barrels lost to the united states. alaska. i want to open up alaska for the -- for the alaska wildlife refuge. to create more opportunities for us to extract oil from the north slope of alaska. it used to produce 2 million barrels a day. it's down to a half a million. within a few years it will be down to the point where the pipeline won't work anywhere because there's not enough flow to move the oil. so within less than ten years, we will lose 5 million barrels of oil a day. and the president of the united states said no to a pipeline that would bring that oil down from canada and north dakota, allow our people in our states to get the price for their

crude, to take 500 trucks a day off the roads in these little communities, and create thousands of jobs. and the president of the united states said no. no. send that oil to china, which is what canada will do if we don't build that pipeline. this is a president who is suffocating this economy. this is a president who doesn't care about you and the cost of living that you have to deal with. he'd rather tell the auto companies here to increase their cafe standards and build cars that are -- will essentially be less safe for you to drive instead of building pipelines and creating oil and opportunities in this country so we can drive cars that our families want to and that are safe for us. this is the big difference. we're going to create jobs for everybody in america. energy jobs. i was out there. there are jobs for everybody, all skill levels.

and the average job in western north dakota, $90,000 a year. goes a long way in tiyoka, north dakota. there's the opportunity for you, folks. that's what energy and manufacturing can do. someone who has a message that says to all workers, let's get you to work, let's improve the quality of life here, let's reduce our energy cost, let's make things here in america. and a president says, no, no, no and no. let me increase food stamps. let me provide a health care system where we take money from some and give it to others so we can then tell you you have a right to health care and then tell you how to exercise that right. that's the view of the president of the united states. it's not the view of a country that believes in free people and free markets. you know, even if we do all the things i've just suggested and we don't do some other things to try to improve our economy, father mentioned that we have to