t allow groups to talk about abstinence only. guest: i do not think we have done a fact check on the question about abstinence programs. i can address your question about the majority in congress. yes, you are correct, when president obama took office, democrats had a majority in both houses of congress and did, cut the two independents, have enough -- with the two independents, they had enough margin in the senate to defeat a filibuster under most circumstances. but that all changed in the us special election after senator kennedy died and scott brown was elected in massachusetts. that was the point at which the democrats lost the 60 vote margin in the senate as i recall.

as governors and presidents will tell you, having a numerical majority of control in a state legislature or congress is no guarantee you are going to pass everything you want, even if those people are all from your party. governors and presidents still have to work hard to try to get support for their programs because legislators are very independent and want to come to their own conclusions and create their own programs. host: just a few more minutes with our guest. caller: did you vote for obama? guest: i get that every time i'm on c-span. in journalism, we respect the sanctity and privacy of the voting booth and we don't typically reveal the we voted for.

in keeping with that, my newspaper has a policy that we are free to vote in the privacy of the voting booth and not have to disclose that. host: do you have a follow-up? caller: what i want to get to is the basis of these tax increases obama has been jumping all over, talking about playing this game with taxing the rich and so on. i thought that taxes was basically a revenue stream from the taxpayers of america to help fund the government and it's all about tax revenue. in my recollection, i think the largest tax revenue day for america was back in june of 2007. if i'm not mistaken, that largest single day washington collected taxes was up around

$86 billion in one day. that's the question. is that a fact check -- i don't hear anybody talking about it. guest: i'm not sure the significance of singling out one day. clearly there were points in our past because of the economy or because of tax rates that we had a higher amount of tax revenue than we have today. that's obviously the predicament we are in in trying to balance the federal budget and trying to pay down the national debt. we have done many, many fact checks and i would encourage you to go to our web site and look under are subject tab under taxes and can see the fact checks we have done under that. >> you also have a report card on each of the candidates? guest: this is a valuable

feature. it's a tally of how many true, half true, pants on fire ratings each candidate has gotten. it allows you to see the broad trends of how we have rated the candidates. is not scientific, it is a tally of our journalistic work, but it is a valuable. when michele bachmann dropped out of the race last week, a lot of people noted her record was a lot of false and pants on fire ratings. host: one more call from fort worth, texas. caller: one of the biggest lies republicans tell is this one -- they say the government does not create private sector jobs. i want them to tell that to all the people in the private sector that make the bombs, the bullets, the tanks, planes, cars, the guy that delivers it paper clips and papers and computers to all of the government offices. guest: that is an interesting

point. one of the claims republicans have often made is that the economic stimulus created zero jobs and that is something we have rated pants on fire. the economic stimulus created many jobs and we can have a legitimate debate about whether it's not -- whether or not it's enough. >> you can see "washington journal" every morning on c- span. we are continuing our road to the white house coverage now with mitt romney meeting and greeting supporters at a metal fabricating plant in hudson, new hampshire this afternoon. we also expect some remarks on jobs and the economy. right now he is meeting and greeting reporters. after his appearance on jobs and the economy, we will take your phone calls. the polls continue to show mitt romney leading all the other candidates in new hampshire.

this is live coverage on c-span.

>> pictures from a metal fabricating company in hudson, new hampshire, where we are expecting mitt romney to appear and make remarks on jobs and the economy. this is also the location where republican presidential candidate, it jon huntsman, announced his job plan a short time ago in an event we covered here on this network. jon huntsman is appearing at an event later today and we will be holding coverage of that. he will be at a rally in exeter, new hampshire and we plan to bring that to you live on c- span. looking at a list of some other candidate appearances -- mitt romney will be at an appearance in bedford, new hampshire. that is something we will have live on this network starting at 5:55 this afternoon. ron paul has one other event on

his schedule, speaking to employees at timberland. rick perry's campaign has moved on to south carolina. he has five campaign stops today. rick santorum is speaking with supporters in derry, new hampshire. that is scheduled to get underway at about 12:30 eastern. we will record that and bring it to you later. he will also be in somersworth and manchester, new hampshire. jon huntsman has for a events today. this afternoon he is in dover and later today he will be in exeter, and we're planning live coverage of that at 7:00 eastern. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> mitt romney is speaking at this metalworking plant in hudson, new hampshire this afternoon. right now, he is taking a quick tour of the plant and speaking to employees. this is a town hall meeting on jobs. that's what he's focusing on this afternoon.

he will also talk about the economy and after this, we plan to get your input and open the phone lines. when it gets under way, we'll have live coverage on c-span. our road to the white house coverage continues. we are planning live coverage of a jon huntsman the event at 7:00 eastern. tomorrow is the first in the nation's primary. live coverage gets underway at 8:00 eastern and we will have primary returns as they come in and of victory and concession speeches from candidates from their primary night headquarters in manchester. that's tomorrow night at 8:00 eastern. you can take part on our facebook page. you can follow us at twitter. all of our road to the white house coverage is available online at c-span.org. with the new hampshire primary taking place tomorrow, today

will continue to be a concession speeches from the 2004 and 2008 races. we will star with speeches by john mccain, mitt romney, and mike huckabee. we will read air the same block of speeches tonight. this happens at 2:00 on our companion network, c-span3. back again live it to the battle fabricating plant where mitt romney is expected to address employees there. this is live coverage on the c- span.

>> this town hall meeting is expected to get underway in just a moment. just a while ago, he met with supporters as he prepared to enter the building.

>> you are live on c-span right now. that's what this antenna is. this is going to a couple million people, more than your camera. >> how're you doing? good to see you. thank you. i appreciate that. >> would you sign this? >> you bet. it's hard to sign standing up like that, but i think we got it. >> i've come from new jersey. >> did you see the governor last night? he was great. >> thanks for coming out. >> when you get into office, give them help. >> this kit is going to

graduate in three years from college and that like to have him a job. >> i will do my best to get you a good job. >> time for a couple of more. then we have to go. >> nice to meet you. thank you for being here today. it's cold out here. how are you doing. there's a patriots' fans. how're you guys doing? how are you today? >> we've got to get moving. >> mitt romney leading in many

polls in new hampshire. he will discuss his plan for jobs here at this metal plant. later today, he will be at an event in bedford and we are planning coverage of that at 5:55 this afternoon. after this event, we will take your phone calls. [applause] [applause]

>> it's wonderful to be here. it's a great new hampshire business and tomorrow, we have a very important election, don't we? yes. absolutely. there is nothing less at stake here than the future of our country, the future of the american dream, and it is so important, when you think about $15 trillion in debt, we have added nearly $5 trillion in debt under this president and loss 1.7 million jobs. we need the person with the right experience to turn america around right now, and that is mitt romney, hands down. [applause] i have the privilege of representing you in the united states senate and it is a

privilege to do that. we need the type of leadership in washington that mitt romney will bring. if you think about the people running for president, hands down, he is the person with the private sector experience, the significant experience of knowing how the economy works, understanding how businesses work, and how we can get americans back to work and provide those opportunities for my children and your children in the greatest country on earth. finally, most importantly, when you think about where we are, two things -- $15 trillion in debt. we cannot continue like this. mitt romney in the private sector balanced budgets. as the governor of massachusetts, he came in and tell with the deficit and turned money into the rainy day fund when he left. he will get our fiscal house in order in washington. i have seen how much we need that leadership in washington. we need you to get out on tuesday.

talk to your family and friends. get to the polls and support mitt romney. we need that for our country. today, one of the things we have seen as leaders across the country are coming together to support mitt romney. strong, conservative leaders who want to get our country on track and want to change the course of how things are going in washington. we are privileged to have one of those leaders with us today. the former governor from the great state of minnesota, someone who is a strong fiscal conservative and a wonderful family man. it's wonderful to have tim pawlenty here today. [applause] >> thanks allot. thank you very much. i'm delighted to be here today. thank you for coming out to support governor romney as he continues his bid for the white house. i want to share for you, one of

the most important issues for the president of the united states is how to get the economy moving again. not the government economy, but the private economy. there is only one candidate in this race who has not spent his whole life in washington d.c. but has spent his life as an entrepreneur, starting businesses, growing businesses, providing jobs, and that is mitt romney. i'm delighted to be supporting him, and i'm glad you are too. [applause] new hampshire plays the role of catapulting candidates for. they're going to do that tomorrow. we don't want to take anything for granted, but you've got a great judgment in new hampshire. that's reflected by the fact that you elected one of the great upcoming stars to the united states senate. [applause] this issue of jobs is more than statistics. if you go around and ask the

people in this great state and all across the country, as mitt romney does every day and ask what is it we can do to make it more likely we are going to grow jobs and not reduce them, the people in this country who are running businesses and providing jobs all say basically the same thing. get the government off my back. [applause] some talk about taxes. some talk about regulation. some talk about health insurance costs. all others talk about energy costs. government has done to have become too expensive, and to discouraging. there is about 6 million businesses in the united states of america. at about 5.9 million of those companies have by hundred employees or less. they're just like the company we are at right now. small, medium-sized businesses. that's the backbone of the american economy. when you ask those folks how we

should provide jobs, they don't say give us more stuff from washington d.c., they say get government out of the way. we don't look to washington d.c. politicians to answer the questions in the country for when it comes to jobs. we're going to look to mitt romney is the next president of the united states. [applause] i want to ask you just a few basic questions. have you had enough of barack obama's runaway government spending? have you had enough of barack obama not wanting to cut spending other than the defense budget? and by the way, what a terrible idea has come out with in reducing the defense budget in this country. have you had enough of barack obama appointing judges who want to make a lot of concern of interpreting it as written? have you had enough of barack obama taking his hands on the economic front of our country and small businesses and medium-

size businesses and trying to suffocate them out of existence? are you ready for mitt romney to be the next president? i want to introduce to you the individual who runs this company. he's a great american story. he served his country in the military. he's an entrepreneur, a visionary and a job provider. he understands what it takes to keep a business going and making apparel and provide jobs. he's going to give you his views in just a moment. but we are so pleased and proud you are here and now you are going to hear from somebody who does not have a decline best view of america like barack obama does. mitt romney has a view where the pipe can grow and not shrink. he's going to be a fabulous president. [applause] stategive a huge granite

a welcome to the next president of the united states, mitt romney. [applause] ♪ >> good afternoon. i would like to welcome a couple of people. my mother. [applause]

who is the first generation here. i'm second generation. i have my son stewart, who is third and my grandson, jackson who looks like he might be asleep. he might be the next generation. we don't know. [applause] i'm named after my father. i wouldming jackson -- like to welcome all the other guests and the press as well. i'm going to make this very brief. the past couple of years, it has been hard to sustain any growth with our company. we have had some steady growth over the years. these past couple of years, we got a little momentum and start to fall backwards. i feel like we are in emulation of the obama jobs plan.

everything is short term and temporary. i'm suffering some obama trauma. [applause] to myping that demand right will cure that for us and i think he will make an excellent president of at the united states. i would like to introduce governor mitt romney. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. i like what you've done with the place. this is pretty impressive. i guess it was your husband that began this business? he would be proud, wouldn't he? in good times and bad, your son has done a pretty good job. a number of people depend on him and make their livelihood in part because of his creativity and ingenuity and willingness to take the risk that it requires to start and manage and grow and expand an enterprise. thank you for welcoming here -- welcoming me here today.

was andrew?ame >> stewart. >> that was close. appreciate you being here. i care very deeply about the country and cared deeply about the people who work in america. i'm very concerned that over the last three years, you've seen america experienced a very difficult time. this has not been a continuation of america's greatness of the past. i think it has been more of a detour that a destiny. i think the president has tried, but i think he has failed. i think if you look at what he promised during his campaign and look at what has been delivered over the last three years, you recognize he has not been able to succeed in helping the american people. he said the boat before himself. he said and going to borrow $787 billion and get the economy going and keep unemployment below 8%. we have had 35 months with unemployment above 8%.

he has failed to get americans back to work. the median income in america over the last four years has dropped by 10%. middle-income families having a hard time making ends meet because incomes are down. the cost of health care, food and gasoline are up. the president hasn't done much of a job with government spending. not only has he failed the american worker, he has failed those who are going to pay the bills in the future, our kids, by racking up larger and larger deficits. this marks the day or the total debt of the united states of america now equals the size of our total economy. if you add up every dollar that represents a good or service produced in this country, it now equals the debt we owe. this president has put in place as much public debt as all the prior presidents combined. or he will have done that by the end of his first term, and his only term in my view. [applause]

and he said on the "today show" just after being inaugurated, that if he could not get this economy turned around in three years, he would be looking at one term proposition. we are here to collect. it's time to replace its president and get someone in office who knows how to balance budgets. i will balance the budget because i fundamentally believe it's wrong and not moral for us to keep spending more money than we take in. [applause] how am i going to get jobs back? let me tell you. first of all, i'm going to make america the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs, innovators, business people, for people who are creating jobs, whether in services, manufacturing, high- tech or low-tech, a 1 america to be the place people want to come to build products.

if people are here growing their businesses and expanding good news, it's good news for the places you guys shop and to put americans back to work and we will see rising in come as we find more competition for the workers who need jobs. how my going to balance the budget? that is straightforward. you had to balance a budget every year. you cannot spend more money than you take in. if you do, you go out of business. so you have learned how to balance the budget. that's what most families in america do as well. i had the chance to be governor of the state in -- and each of the four years, we balanced the budget. also put into place a rainy day fund so we could have balanced budgets in the future. i see someone nodding his head over here. stand up. this is a very unusual guy. this guy fights long odds every

day. he's in a legislature that's about 85% democrat. he's the leader of the republicans in massachusetts, bradley jones. thank you. [applause] a number of representatives from massachusetts are here. someday, i would like him to be speaker of the house, but that is a ways off. says it doesn't and well. that's true. [applause] the way we balance our budget, how did we do it? we sat down, went through the entire budget and looked all the programs we had and said which are the programs we have to have and which are the ones they're just nice to have. the things that are nice to have, we cut back on or eliminated altogether. we also look to the functioning of state government. our health and human services department had 15 different agencies. we combined and consolidated those down to 3 so we didn't

need as many lawyers, press secretaries and as many bureaucrats as we had with a larger number of agencies. this has to happen to the federal government. you have heard me say it so many times you can repeat it, but i'm going to take all the programs in the federal government and look at them and say is this so critical that is worth borrowing money from china to pay for it? if it doesn't pass that test, i will get rid of it. [applause] i am in this race because one person got behind me and pushed in a big way. my wife, who is over here. stand up. [applause] have you been introduced yet? i have three of my five sons -- is that right? my oldest son -- don't applaud. i don't want this to go to their head. this is my oldest son, he's the father of four children, one of them is here.

my second oldest son is in massachusetts today but will be here tomorrow. my third son is ben, who has been missing. he's a doctor from utah. he came in last night. special applause. [applause] what did i say? my third son is coming tonight. ben is my fourth. my fifth son is crag and his wife, will you stand? -- my fifth son is craig. it's a family affair. i used to tell a story, partially true about saying sometime we die and we want to make sure we give what we have to our five sons. she said how much do you want to give to your grandkids? this was before we have any grand kids. i said nothing. just give it to our five boys and they can give to their kids

as they feel appropriate. she said he will change your mind. i said i don't think so. now we have 16 grandkids and i saw my lawyer and said i don't want to give everything to my boys, everything to the grand kids. the reality is, i'm not terribly concerned about how my son's future will be compared to my concerns about my grandkids. i'm worried about america. not just right now. we've got a lot of people out of work and want to get them back to work and want to see rising incomes again and the nation that is secure, but i'm worried about what happens down the road as we keep passing down these massive debts to our kids and keep weakening the foundation of our economy. i want to make sure my grand kids and your grandkids have a brighter, prosperous future. that they will look back on us as we look to the greatest generation, as a great generation. as opposed to looking at us as the worst generation who took more and more benefits for

ourselves, had politicians to fall -- to promised free stuff and did not follow through, past burdens on to the next generation. and strong our military. the president that he's going to cut back on the military by $300 billion. i want to keep america strong and secure. i love this country. i'm going to end by telling you, just reminding you of some of our favorite national hymns. "america, the beautiful." one of my favorites. oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. i used to joke in i was that the corn counted as amber waves of grain. that gave me and eight point margin. we have to double that here. oh beautiful, for heroes approved in liberating strife who more than self their country love and mercy more than life. do we have the veterans in this

room? please raise your hand and be recognized. [applause] thank you. thank you very much. we appreciate your service. one more verse -- oh beautiful, for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years. the songwriters idea was the founding principles of america would see the on the years, not just temporary, but what happened during relevance. i believe in the principles of america. i believe in the founding principles of freedom and opportunity. i think this is an election about the soul of america, about whether we're going to hold fast to those principles of opportunity and freedom and whether instead we're going to become a european-style welfare state. i'm not willing to go that way. if you want that, you have a president that will pursue that right now. if you want someone to turn back

to the principles we will -- on which we were founded, that will guarantee a bright and prosperous future for our kids and grandkids, then i will be your next president. thank you very much. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you. i'm going to take a few questions, if you are willing. those who have chairs are willing. those who don't have chairs are not so willing. you can shout it out.

>> i was born around flint michigan and we were proud to manufacture a lot of things, very similar to this company. when i go into this suit -- and i go into these superstores, i see so many things not made in america. i take pride in things manufactured in our country. what can we do to see more things produced here in america that are actually manufactured here? >> i appreciate that. i was born and raised in michigan, detroit, as was my wife. and it breaks your heart to go back to detroit and see what's happening to that city. i hope it comes back and i think it will come back and i will work to bring manufacturing and all good jobs back to america and to grow in america. a couple of things have happened. one, in manufacturing in particular, some of the nations

around the world with very low labor rates have found it's a artificially depress their currency, they can make their prices even lower for their goods around the world. by doing so, they have displaced american manufacturers and a lot of jobs. if i'm president of the united states, i will stand up to china, which is the largest currency manipulator in the world, and which also steals our intellectual property, design, patents, has packed into our computers, and has taken technology from the hard drives of government as well as corporate computers. we're going to have to say you cannot keep doing this. we like trade. i don't know how much your product ends up overseas, but most are manufacturers sell products around the world. we want to keep up trade, but we are not willing to let one country or any country violates the rules of fairness and steal our jobs. the second thing i will do is make sure for all of our

businesses, manufacturing and otherwise, we get our tax rate in line with the rest of the world. we have the highest tax rate for business in the world, about 35%, about the same as japan. i want to get that competitive at about 25%. a lot regulations to be up to date and modern. we need a regulation, just not overwhelmingly burdensome on the private sector. i want to open up new markets for the goods and take advantage of energy resources. finally, i want to make sure we have a government that lives within its means. if not, people won't invest in america because they are fearful we will hit a wall like greece did. i've been down in south carolina, campaigning. i see companies from all over the world building new manufacturing facilities all over the south. they are right to work states there. we have to come to grips with the fact that businesses are going to go where they think the work rules will be productive.

they don't mind paying wage rates at the same. businesses are happy to pay the same wages, union or nonunion, with the work rules have to be structured in such a way that enterprise can thrive. that's going to be up to states. if new hampshire goes right to work, you'll see more jobs come here. if they did not, you will see things keep going down south. thank you for the question. [applause] >> thank you. i would like -- you mentioned reducing the military budget. that is one of your criticisms of obama. i saw a picture of you back in the '70s and you were young man at a protest.

you were pro vietnam war. i'm just wondering now, the prospect of you getting into the white house, how would you address the issue of how many remaining living vietnam veterans there are in the streets of america, because that is where a lot of the veterans are, homeless in the streets of america. how would you address the needs of the young men and women coming back now who are still facing those same issues, homelessness, drug addiction, all of those issues, suicide is one of the biggest key factors. how would you address those issues if you were to be in the white house and what would you do budget carefully -- you are criticizing a $15 trillion debt and -- that is not good either, but you mentioned it -- let me

look at my notes. you were concerned about the seventh generation. that is what touched my heart. it's heartbreaking for me to see my friends to our veterans who are coming back suffering. how do you address the needs of the seventh generation of people that are probably going to be going to iraq -- coming back from iraq and the ones that are going to go to iran. i know the republicans want to invade iran. how are you going to address the needs? >> the question is how we help people who are serving as bets or have served -- serve as veterans or are now veterans and how we care for those who are in need? there are some who think in regards to the military budget -- let me divide our military budget into two parts. what is the part of the military spending being spent now in war which means in iraq and that has ended and now in afghanistan, and that is going on.

as the war is over and it will be completed by december of 2013 -- that's the target the president has described and the commanders say they will be ready to hand things over to the afghan forces. that part will go away. then there is the on going to permit the defense budget and that includes the procurement of weapons systems, the pivot of our soldiers and care for our veterans. that is about 3.8% of our economy. it is about one-fifth of what government spends. i do not intend to cut that. i intend to keep that at about 4% of the total economy over the indefinite future for the next few years in order to rebuild our navy -- we have fewer ships now in our navy than anytime since 1917. also to rebuild our air force. our air force's older and smaller than any time since 1947, when it was founded. i want more active duty personnel, not fewer.

so in the event there called upon, they don't have to go on these rotation's as quick as they did in the last two commitments. finally, i want to support our veterans with the care they deserve. i want to say -- take our savings from waste and inefficiency, care for veterans and make sure our hospitals and clinics, they're getting the care they need. i will not cut our defense budget so we can take care of our veterans. >> i have not heard much lately from any of the candidates about seniors. as you can tell by the color of the hair or lack thereof in this audience, we are a growing number. and you are part of the crew to. there are some health care plans out there that for one reason or another have stopped offering services here in new hampshire.

senior care advantage with blue cross and them and places like that. when you solicit these others, you find that to continue with health care, he will pay 10 times what your previous week -- why your premium used to be. living on my social security income, which i worked hard for an eye and a nine-year veteran of the navy. i paid my dues and don't think i should be short shrift it. i wonder what the government can do to protect senior running into situations like that. >> i want to underscore my appreciation for your service to the country and your work at building a social security estate which is yours and will not be messed with. that's not going to disappear. i will not change social security for people like yourself who retired or four who are near retirement. likewise, medicare is something you paid into and you have a program which you understand and i don't know if you are on medicare advantage or standard medicare, but whichever you have

chosen, it's a good program. so what do you do about your other health-care premium? the doughnut hole policy. your premiums have gone through the roof. the best thing i know how to do -- i cannot promise you a bigger subsidy and say we're going to borrow more money to subsidize private insurance. i'm going to get the private insurance business to be more competitive. one thing i would like to do is let people own their own insurance rather than getting it from their company. if you are employed somewhere, you get insurance from your employer and they get a tax deduction. but if you want to own your policy yourself, you don't get a tax deduction. i want to take away that discrimination. by virtue of that and people buying their own policies rather than companies buying it for them, you will see companies competing like they do for car insurance. if you watch on tv, the little

animal -- little gecko. you see these guys competing hard for your business. if you go on web sites, you can find the lowest rate. i want people to be by health insurance like we can in terms of the competition you see in things like auto insurance and life insurance. i want to get your rates down. there's a lot about the massachusetts health care plan i like and there's a lot i don't like. one of the things i do like is that i understand for individuals who want to buy insurance, the who are not part of a group or corporations, premiums drop by 40% of our plan came into place because there was competition by the various insurance companies and competition to get individuals. i hope to be able to do that and i would love to hear, if i come back next year, if i'm president, that you found a way to get insurance at a more reasonable price.

if you can't, i would like to find out why not. we've got to find a way to get the cost of health care down and it's not -- i have been around the health care world long enough in my life to know it's not going to be by having the government get deeper and deeper into it. p.j. o'rourke said if you think health care is expensive now, wait until the government starts giving it out for free. i will do my best and i think helping individuals buy insurance is one way. thank you, sir. [applause] yes, sir? >> [inaudible] do you fear any kind of impact of the euro crisis on the american economy right now? >> absolutely.

i am cognizant of the fact that -- and i don't want to forecast what going to happen in europe, but if we had a very severe financial crisis in europe where the euro exploded or where nations were not able to meet their obligations here and there were defaults on sovereign debt, would it have an effect here? of course. banks here hold debt instruments from foreign entities and sovereigns and it would impact us here. that is why it is so important for us to continue to support those institutions in our country that are playing by the rules and key to our economy. at the same time, i don't look for us to send checks to europe because your country has done so well that it's able to care for its own. i believe the nations of europe should be able to care for the institutions of europe. what they will find is they were

going to have to pick out some places that are worth saving and holding up and yet, we're all going to be affected by what happens in europe. i'm certainly willing to give my advice and tell the people in europe what i think i would do, but i'm not willing to write checks. we've written enough here for ourselves. thank you. [applause] >> i heard something fall over there. i do not think it had to do with that piece of equipment. >> thank you, folks for being here today. i have one request, and that is that i want you to vote, and i mean really vote. there is a way to vote more than once. let me show you how it is done. [laughter] you find someone who did not vote, and you get them to come

with you. if you know a shot in or someone who needs a ride, come and give them a ride. we look to new hampshire to carry out a very important job for us, to get to know the candidates on a personal basis, to look them in the eye, to hear them, see them face to face. you guys took the time to come here on monday afternoon -- it is monday, right? and by virtue of that, the entire nation looks to see what new hampshire decides. i hope you take that responsibility seriously and that you take the time to go by the polls. that will be tomorrow, of course. get some other folks who have not remembered. whether it be me or somebody else -- i would rather it be me -- but be sure you take the time you vote. thank you for coming today.

[applause] freei [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

[applause]

>> our phone lines are open n. 202-737-0001 for democrats. 202-737-0002 for republicans.

why did you come today? >> i wanted to see hindemith in the ramp. i like to see the candidates -- mitt in the room. i like to see the candidates in person. >> what did you learn today? >> i feel he has a really good grasp of what this country needs to bring it forward. i agree with him that president obama does not think we are a great country, that he is trying to turn us into a european country, and i do not want that. i want it to be the country i grew up in, and i think mitt romney is the best person to bring us back to that. >> what has the activity been like in new hampshire? >> there are people all over the place. i was at a party last night, and

there were people holding newt gingrich signs. come over here. we're going to have a meeting every year. there are town halls all over. it is wonderful. i love it. host: we are in southern new hampshire. there will be a press avail with governor romney in a few minutes. this is a chance to hear from you. democrats line, go ahead. caller: i have been watching all the debates, and this is my problem. askn the moderators questions, don't nobody have nothing substantive to say. they talk about what obama is doing. nobody is talking about what mitt romney is going to do for the country. everybody is haters. they do not like it that he is

doing good for america. all of them is haters. you can just see it. that is why they do not have anything to offer. they is empty. everything may have done is disgusting. all of them are ugly. by. host: thank you for the call. susan, arizona, republican line. go ahead. caller: i thought the lady were talking to live was incredible. i watch "morning joe" before you guys. i live in arizona, and you guys do not come on until 5:00. it is amazing when i watch everything live through you guys, you can see the truth. this morning, chris matthews was sane horrible things about mitt romney. it turned my stomach. they said there is no energy at any of his rallies. i was just watching this.

i would love to have been there. in arizona, we do not get to vote until february. thank heaven for c-span. i mean, chris matthews has got to be real and try to be truthful on stuff. msnbc is president obama's campaign headquarters. thank heaven for year. they say you can tell a man by who his family is. the greatest gift you can give his -- a man can give his children is to love their mother. you can see that with mitt romney. i am a small business owner. i do not know how much more we can go through. it is not just the federal government. in this state, county, it goes on, regulations. i do not know if people know

what small businesses have to go through. guest: thank you. -- host: thank you. we appreciate the call. how does the day before the primary field to you? guest: there is a lot of energy. everybody is making their last minute hitches, running around the state. i do not think today feels that much different than the past. governor romney is in pretty good shape in this state. the real battle is for the order to finish after him and that is somewhat different than we have seen in the past. caller: as a reporter -- host: as a reporter following mess, what is it like to go from event to -- following desk, what is it like to go from event --

following this, what is it like to go from event to event and then hurry up and wait? guest: in new hampshire, you can cover a lot of ground and you try to cover a lot of ground in new hampshire. with a day like this, starting early and going into the evening, a number of my colleagues have been on the ground since early this morning, hitting one event after the other. host: what will be the story coming out of new hampshire if governor romney wins by a large margin? guest: there are a couple of stories. what does the shape of his anticipated victory look like? we should always be cautious about new hampshire, but that is one question. he has been stuck in the 25% range. he is likely to get more than that.

is that a harbinger of things to come or is it just this state? the next question is, what is going to happen in south carolina? host: we go to greg next in atlanta. caller: i listened to mitt romney's speech. for one, he does not look presidential. i do not know how he is getting away with the jobs, talking about he is going to bring. he talked about that for 45 seconds. they let him go on that. i cannot see him beating obama in no real debate because he does not look presidential. he uses a lot of propaganda and not facts. that is my problem with him. host: we go to jeanne next from

texas, our line for republicans. go ahead. caller: have left? i want to thank c-span for showing these wonderful rally ies. i am a reagan conservative. i was a delicate twice. i have done a lot of work in south east texas. of course, we love our present governor, rick perry, and we think the world of newt gingrich. however, after talking to my cousins from michigan, i have followed what mitt romney is faor, and i support him 100%.

it is preposterous for people to say that he is not a strong conservative. i believe people should rally around mitt romney. i loved hearing from the new hampshire people. i feel like new hampshire has a chance to show the world what a real leader and a real family man is all about that has class that all of us would be so proud to have as president. i just hope that he continues with these primaries and then we have an opportunity -- there are a lot of southeast texas supporters for romney, and we are going to be very involved in helping in every way we can to help elect romney as our president. host: thank you for the call from texas.

again, we are here in new hampshire. this is a specialty manufacturing plant. they have about 40 people. they have had as many as 50. jon huntsman was here last fall announcing his economic package. we are covering all the candidates today, including ron paul this morning and then mitt romney. we will have a jon huntsman event tonight. nancy is on the phone from new hampshire. go ahead. caller: i will be at the john huntsman campaign tonight. i just summit ronnie's campaign speech. -- i just saw mitt romney pose a campaign speech. it looks like he is going to do and economic recovery for businesses, but i am not sure that is going to translate to economic recovery for us. he is only an 25% because people are not sure what he stands for.

i'm concerned about medicare. i am in my 50s, so i do not meet the 55 number, but my husband does. how is that not going to affect my husband or my family? that would be one area that i would like to see change. that is one thing that is mainly stopping me from voting for him, is i want to have the same benefits as my husband. that is about all i have to say. host: thank you for the call. we will be in new hampshire with the jon huntsman campaign. the cameras have moved over here for the press availability. you can see what the media crush looks like. governor romney will be taking questions. that is expected to start momentarily. next is margaret from new hampshire. go ahead. caller: i used to live in new hampshire's.

i live in alabama and i have been watching this on tv and i hope mitt romney gets it. host: thank you. nebraska, democrats line, good afternoon. caller: good afternoon and thank you for taking my call. the thing i would like to say is that i live in a state that is next door to iowa and was really disappointed with the caucuses and the intellect of the iowa electorate. when it comes to mitt romney, i cannot see how any conservative republican can say that he represents their beliefs, even though i am a democrat. i long for the days of the reagan conservative who was smart enough to compromise for the country. listening to these candidates, who are all scuffling for the

tea party vote, i cannot see how they could acquiesce to a group of skaters when this nation is so divided. -- haters when this nation is so divided. they just prove to me how obama is going to get handily reelected and the d.o. p brand is forever ruined. -- gop brand is forever ruined. host: press is for the call. in addition to hearing from the -- thank you for the call. in addition to hearing from the candidates, we will also be broadcasting on the radio in new hampshire. we have links on our website, c- span.org. next call, north carolina, republican line. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. how are you doing?

host: fine, thank you. caller: i am a 25-year-old north carolina native. i served in the air force and completed a tour of iraq and afghanistan. that is not important. what is important to me is the democrats calling in being so out of touch with reality, talking about how republicans are haters. i mean, i do not understand what that is all about. this guy we saw recently talking about how all republican candidates are dividing the country. well, i mean, what i see from them is uniting the country. they are trying to get the country excited about something because obama, who i am not going to say a bad thing about him. he is the president of the united states. he is the best -- he is doing

the best job he can do. i will give him the benefit of the doubt. but i do not think he knows what he is doing. the class warfare. he knows he is not going to get elected again and so do his followers. that is why his followers are being so out of touch with reality. they are pathetic, to hear these people. shame on these people. i am not kissing nobody's rear end here, you know? the one thing that i want to get across today is that in my whole 25 years of life, i have never seen an election process like this one. host: thank you. we appreciate it. we are about 25 minutes south of

manchester, the largest city in new hampshire. we are in hudson, new hampshire, about 10 miles from the massachusetts border. a number of state lawmakers, republicans from massachusetts are here with mitt romney to help him campaign, their former governor. next is bryan in new hampshire, republican line. good afternoon. caller: and registered republican, 33 years old, from the air force. i do not see how republicans are backing it romney. he is so similar to obama. there is no way for him to beat president obama, them being so much alike. i just cannot believe that people are backing romney. host: thank you. and now here is governor romney.

>> i was talking about insurance companies. we would like to be able to get rid of insurance companies that do not give us the service that we need. i do not want to live in a world where we have obama care telling us which insurance we have to have, which dr. we have to have, which hospital we can go to. i believe in a setting where people can choose their own doctor, choose their own insurance company. if they do not like their provider, they can get rid of them. that is the way america works. we have a president who does not believe in the rights of people to do that, but i believe in the rights of people to get rid of an insurance company they do not want. [inaudible] >> i thought he apologized for

going after my record. wasn't that a couple of weeks ago? so, he apologized for that and then he decided to make it a centerpiece. i am not going to worry about that. as we will find out, free enterprise will be on trial. i thought it would come from the democrats on the left. instead, it is coming from newt gingrich and others. i am not worried about that. i have broad shoulders and i am happy to describe my experience in the private economy. if you take all the businesses we invested in over our many years, over 100 different businesses, we netted over 100,000 new jobs. [inaudible] >> things can always be taken out of context, and i understand

that is what the obama people will do. i was speaking about insurance companies and the need to be able to make a choice. my comments entirely reflected that discussion. we should be able to choose the insurance company of our choice, we should not have one foisted on us by the president and obama care. [inaudible] >> as you probably know in your profession, you never quite know what is going to happen. i think people imagine that i came in at the top of the consulting firm. i started at the bottom. i came out of school and got an entry-level position like the other people that were freshly minted mba's. like anybody who starts at the bottom of an enterprise, you wonder, when you do not too well, if you're going to be able to hang onto your job and you wonder, if the enterprise gets into trouble, will you be one of the ones laid off?

that is what is happening around the country today, and it breaks your heart to see people lose their jobs. like everybody else, anybody in the private sector knows that there is some prospect that you might lose your job. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> if you think i should spend my entire campaign carefully choosing how everything i say relates to people as opposed to saying my own experience and telling my own experience, that would make me a very different person than i am. i'm going to tell people my own experiences in life, and i realize they're not the same as everybody else's, but i am going to tell you about myself. if people like that, great. if they went president obama and a loss of 2 million jobs, a decline of medium eincome by

10%, they can choose president obama. if they want someone who understands how the economy works at the level of job creation, of business is failing in succeeding, that is what i can bring to the table. [inaudible] >> i just want to get the nomination is what i want to get first, and then i will see if i can win the general election. right now, i am worried about winning in new hampshire and hopefully having a margent larger than iowa. i do not think i could handle another night like that. [inaudible] >> i did not quite hear what he said. do you mean in the debate? i did not see what he said today. >> he said i am a republican that likes to create jobs. mitt romney likes to fire

people. >> we all want to be able to choose our insurance company. and if we do not like them, get rid of them. i understand the people are going to take things out of context and make it something it is not. i will be an adult about it and recognize that goes with the territory. >> finishing up with republican presidential candidate mitt romney here in hudson, new hampshire, in the lead up to the first in the nation primary tomorrow night. mr. romney also will go to a campaign event at a middle school in bedford. we are planning to carry that live as well. coming up later today, more road to the white house coverage.

we will get remarks from candidate jon huntsman at a rally later today in exeter, new hampshire. we will have that live at 7:00 p.m. eastern. a reminder that the first political primary of the year is tomorrow. we begin our coverage from new hampshire and 8:00 p.m. eastern. we will bring you the primary returns as they come in. we will have victory and concession speeches. there are a number of ways you can be involved. we will take your phone calls. you can reach us on facebook, and we will take your tweets. all of our road to the white house coverage is available online at c-span.org. again, our live coverage starts tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. eastern. last week, we began showing you some of the key concession and victory speeches from the 2004 and 2008 campaigns. today, we will continue that with speeches from john mccain, mitt romney and my custody.

that same block of speeches -- mike huckabee. we will we hear that later tonight. ron paul the second in many political polls in new hampshire. his son, senator rand paul, joined us this morning on washington journal to talk about his campaign. host: in the "politico" you say independents could be the key to

your father winning in new hampshire. guest: in iowa we double the independent both from 2008 and ron paul won its three-one. when you pull young people and independents, ron paul does the best in that category. new hampshire is unique in the sense that independent can become republican that day and vote in the primary. so, our best chance for victory would be a large independent turnout. host: of the suffolk university -- the suffolk university has ron paul a 20%, following mitt romney of 33%. guest: it has been as high as a 20-point lead. i think it is narrowing. and i think a lot of times in new hampshire, if you are sawbuck -- solidly in second and the candidates blow you to not seem to have much chance, people will gravitate to the second-place finisher to try to topple the front runner. we could get a surprise. we are also hoping for a big snowstorm. there are a lot of things in order to win. but we do have a solid second place in the polls. host: our guests with us until about 9:45 a.m. or so to take your calls about ron paul's campaign. if you would like to ask questions --

what do you make of the statements about your father's sense of foreign-policy? guest: his foreign-policy views are different but we are electing a commander in chief who will be in charge of the world's largest nuclear arsenal. and i think what you want is somebody who is reluctant to use them, who is a believer in the checks and balances and the separation of power. what i mean by that is that some people now believe the president has an unlimited power to commit troops to war or to send a nation to war. that is not what our founding fathers wanted. our founding fathers gave the power to declare war to congress. ron paul is one of the few candidates, republican or democrat, who talks about these checks and balances and we should not be in a rush to go to war.

that sometimes even when a country does something we did not like and we think it is something that destabilizes a situation, sometimes containment could be a strategy in replace of war or bank instead. host: the first call is from staten island. catherine is on the independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning. good morning, mr. paul. you are the best congressman we have. i am an independent. and i follow your father last time running. he is the best we can get. that is what america needs right now. and people listen. don't be -- just go and vote for ron paul. host: do you have a specific question? caller: he has got to win. host: the next call is wisconsin. wayne on the republican line.

wayne left us. this is from "the new hampshire union leader." this is about your father -- guest: i think they misunderstand my father. his position on national defense is under the constitution, one of the primary responsibilities of the federal government is -- the most responsibility is national defense. the government is doing a lot of things it is not supposed to be doing, as a consequence we are borrowing millions of dollars -- $40,000 per second. we want to have a strong military, but in doing so we would have to say we do not have an unlimited checkbook,

that every dollar spent on the military is not wise or sacred and you can have a strong national defense but not have unlimited expenditures. we have doubled the military budget from 2001 until today. ultimately the compromise, it if we will ever get our fiscal nightmare and fiscal house in order, is really going to be that conservatives will have to acknowledge that some military spending will have to be reduced, and liberals will have to acknowledge that some domestic spending will. when liberals and conservatives come together, then we will finally tackle the debt crisis that we are currently in the midst of. host: to that point, we have a viewer off of twitter who will ask specifically how will your dad get the party and democrats to work together? guest: i think that is alternately how you will get them to work together, is you have to say that what i think is my pet projects, that i am willing to discuss with the other side. i think republicans typically say i am not looking at military spending and will not

cut any. that unwillingness to talk to democrats leads to an impasse. democrats say to the republicans, i am not willing to compromise on any welfare or domestic spending. or i am not willing to compromise and fix entitlements. we can fix entitlements tomorrow. social security is $6 trillion sure, and i have a bill that i -- short, and i have a bill that died introduced to gradually raise -- that's i introduced to gradually raise the age of eligibility to all the younger people, and you means test the benefits, and you can make so security sound for 75 years. but people have to get together and talk. i talk every day to democrats in the senate and i have yet to find one willing to do entitlement reform. they all say, if you increase taxes, we will do entitlement reform. why does there have to be horse trading? why can't we just fix the entitlements because they are broken?

host: glenn, independent line for senator rand paul. caller: this is the land. thank you for your time. i would like to ask you to check how how many iou's have been put and social security since 2006, when the democrats ran the house and senate. one other thing, i would like to ask about how the dream act could be constitutional when these people do not even belong in the united states? they are getting welfare as soon as their baby is born here, and how much money it is that costing the american citizen? thank you for your time, sir. with let's talk -- start immigration. i did not think we should encourage illegal immigration, -- do not think we should encourage illegal immigration so providing benefits or anything for free if you cross the border -- if we say you can get free college education and get citizenship if you come here illegally or join the military, half of mexico would come to the united states and join our military.

i do not think it will work. we are already bankrupt. we cannot afford to have 10 million mexicans come across the border illegally. with regard -- what was the first question again, pedro? host: you know, i missed it, i apologize. if i could, tell us a little bit about your father's plan as far as the rest of the day. what are you specifically looking for in south carolina? guest: i think what we want to do is do the best we can hear it, make sure we separate ourselves from the second tier in the field. in iowa there were clearly three front runners. in new hampshire, clearly two front runners. and i think it becomes more of a two-way race. one way it becomes a big-race and softer line and beyond is there are only two candidates on the ballot in a lot of states. virginia is a big state -- ron paul is the only one with an extensive national network and campaign structure.

many of the others are on such a shoestring budget that they live from day to day. really, after new hampshire, it becomes a two-man race and we will see how we do. some of it depends on how narrow the gap is, whether we become close to mitt romney, or would pull an upset and the whole world changes if we pull an upset. host: your finances to keep it going? guest: pretty good. the last quarter we raised $13 million. i think we have 150,000 donors. a lot of our donors are small dollar donors. we have people who send $13 every two weeks from their paycheck. so, having a large number of small donors is easier than if you have 500 people who can give you the maximum. once the 500 people give you the maximum, they are done. one of the advantages president obama had is large numbers of people giving them money in smaller amounts.

ron paul has some of that similarity. ron paul also excites the youth and the independents, so it is a new pool of money. sometimes independents had not given money in years because they were not happy with either side, and they see something that appeals to them in ron paul so he is able to tap into a brand new group of people who support his campaign. host: arizona. democrats' line. go ahead. caller: hello, mr. paul. i wanted to ask about how your father feels about social security, medicare, and the norm -- and minimum wage. and being unconstitutional. -- and unemployment benefits being unconstitutional. and how you think is health -- health care is a privilege and why you want to get rid of the epa and do you regulate the polluters in this country and just trust them not to pollute? thank you. guest: the social security and entitlement question -- that was the previous caller's

question we did not get to come on sort -- surplus. social security did run a surplus for maybe four years. -- 40 years. last year was the first time it started paying out to recipients more bark -- then it brings in. -- more than it brings in. people need to understand and listen to this. the problems we have and social security is no one in particular spot. -- fault. the republicans' fault, democrats' fault. the problem with social security and medicare is there are not very many young people and there are many old people. when social security started there were 50 workers for one retiree. now there are three workers for one retiree. we are headed toward a time when there is going to be one worker for one retiree. this is because we are all living longer lives, which is good, but it is also become the -- because we have a lot -- had a lot of babies born after world war ii and the next generation had a much smaller population, and the trend

continues. if you do not have as many workers paying for retirement benefits. some would say social security had all of the surplus, $2 trillion surplus. kind of true and kind of not true. social security has $2 trillion in assets. but these assets are called non-negotiable treasury bills. they are something that cannot be redeemed by selling it in the marketplace. it is only redeemed by taxing the next generation. so, we do have problems with social security and with medicare. some people want to simple pop -- simplified this and say republicans don't like old people, republicans don't like poor people. no, we do not like borrowing money and do not like the fact that the debt, when you run up a massive debt, end up hurting the elderly people, people on fixed income, and the working class. because when you run up a massive debt, the way government pays for that is by printing money. when the government prints money, the value of the dollar

shrinks. if you are getting a $600 social security check, if food rises by 20% and gas prices have doubled, you have trouble making it. so, people on fixed income and working class should be gravitating to the side of us who are concerned about the debt. it is not that we do not care about entitlement programs. i have been trying to fix them. i am looking for democrats to work with me to fix the entitlement programs. but what we are having in washington is the president has decided he does not want to work with us. his campaign messages -- -- message is republicans will not work with me, and so i am just going to have to campaign for reelection. that is not true. i have written on air force one with the president, i asked him repeatedly will you help us fix social security and medicare. they will not do it. they will not talk to us. they will not come to capitol hill. and there are two or three simple things we can do to fix social security and medicare. i am announcing today, mr. president, too -- talk to us.

if we could fix these problems and a bipartisan way. host: tennessee. brandon, republican line. caller: hello, mr. paul, good morning. what is happening in the grass roots level in the state primary in new hampshire. -- in new hampshire, but more specifically, i am curious about what will happen to the liberty movement in the post- election? is there a plan to take another notch to grow the number of supporters for the more libertarian wing? i know about the campaign for liberty and i heard from young americans for liberty. i heard some comments from you. support for the liberty movement has well more than doubled since 2008, to say the least.

i would definitely like to see this trend continue, and by 2016, see another doubling of support. if this ideology continues to grow, this could change the entire american politics. so far, in a way, it already has. host: senator paul? guest: i would say that the libertarian conservative movement within the republican party is still a minority. we do not win battles in washington, even within our own caucus yet. but we are a growing minority in a sense that many people realize we are out of money. $1.50 trillion annual deficit, that just cutting domestic spending will not do it but we do need to reassess our military obligations around the world. now, they are not quite get there at either end becoming libertarian conservatives but people are coming around. there are at least 10 or 15 u.s. senators who think we should not go to war without

congress declaring it. that is good news. unfortunately there may still be 30 on the republican side who think the president can go to war without congressional authority. but we are gaining ground. host: nashville, tennessee. independent line. caller: one question on the military. and how your dad would respond. we have a man over in iran threatening the u.s. we all know. he is going to have nuclear power. he is going to use it -- maybe not directly toward the u.s.. how would your dad respond to this if he is elected president? and my question for the american people around the world, watch as much c-span as you can and read commentaries and newspapers.

stay away from the other news agencies. that is all i have. thank you. guest: apologize for the coughing. i have been under the weather. in the issue of iran, ron paul does not want them to have a nuclear weapon. he believes it they had in nuclear-weapons it would to stabilize the middle east. but if they do get a nuclear weapon, there is a question of how we deal with it. one question would be a pre- emptive war, trying to bomb their sites into disabling them. there are some questions of whether or not that could be militarily be done. there is some indication there sites are in over 20 different places. some in the midst of large cities. the second question is, could we possibly contain them.

we contain the soviet union which had 30,000 intercontinental ballistic missiles that could actually reach the united states. we contained pakistan, which has 100-200 nuclear weapons. and there is always a clear danger that pakistan could fall into an islamic fundamentalist governments. that would be a question we need to also be thinking about is, if pakistan falls under an islamic military government, would we attack pakistan that has made 100 nuclear weapons? some things are really impractical. the money we do not care, but maybe it means we need to work on containment -- that does not mean we do not care. some people say that is outside the mainstream. interestingly, if you read about foreign-policy, the three previous heads of the u.s. central command, high ranking u.s. generals -- including general at the staid and admiral fallon saying they have some misgivings about an attack against iran and some unintended consequences might be worse.

and within israel, opinion is not unified within israel. about three or four days ago, the head of the mossad, their intelligence agency, said we need to be careful about the finding the threat from iran as an existential threat to israel. is he saying this because he doesn't care? no. he is obviously someone and everyone in israel obviously cares about iran getting a nuclear weapon. they do not want him to get it. but if you define it as an existential threat, do we not trap ourselves into only one response -- cataclysmic war, all out preemptive war? iran is a large country. one, can we just bomb them into submission? does it mean sending troops into harm's way? what ron paul says is that foreign policy is not always an either-or situation. foreign policy, also, under the

constitution, is not unilaterally done by the president. if we were to declare war in iran -- and i am not suggesting it -- but if a bank it were to occur, it needs to be voted on by congress -- if it were to occur. that is where ron paul separates himself from most of the republicans and democrats, is that the present is not only i, i only do anything. the president shares power with congress and ron paul recognizes we cannot go to war without a formal declaration and that is what the constitution requires. host: the president recently released a strategy for cutting the defense budget. would your father employed a similar tactic in terms of cuts made and where those cuts would like? guest: i cannot go into the details as far as where the president's plan would make the cut. but what i can say is we try to separate out what is military spending from what is defense spending. because what is in favor of national defense, we are all for, but there needs to the

discussion about what money is spent in the military budget is actually required, necessary, or good for our national defense. i think the military budget has been doubled since 2001, and ultimately part of the compromise in order to get our fiscal house in order again, to reduce military spending, but we would do it without compromising national defense, always maintaining a strong, very highly technology -- technologically capable military, but it might mean germany would have to pay a little more for their defense, japan would have to pay more for their defense, south korea would have to pay more for their defense. we also need to quit sending foreign aid around the world. we borrow money from china and then we send money back to china in the form of foreign aid. it is crazy. 10 of the top countries that hold u.s. debt that we owe money to, we send foreign aid to. it is insane what we are doing and ron paul is the only one

really who is changing all of this. host: one quick comment off of twitter -- guest: absolutely. just look at the pipeline. would we rather import oil from canada rather than saudi arabia and the other countries that cannot like us? we need to expand trade for people in this hemisphere. i think probably 75% of our coastline is off limits so we -- we tell england to drill in the north sea and yet we do not drill off of our own coast. i do want to do it in a clean fashion. our previous caller said republicans are not concerned about pollution. we want bp to, if they have an accident, to pay for.

but there are large parts of alaska that can be used for drilling, large parts of our coastline. natural gas, i think over time we will convert more and more to natural gas. we have to keep government out of the way to encourage production here and not trying to encourage production in foreign countries. >> if your father does not nomination is a third-party candidacy in possibility? guest: very unlikely. we are trying to win the republican nomination. he has always been republican and been elected as a republican. and we are right at the top. he keeps getting the question, i think, because he does not always answer it definitively. but i think it is hard to conceive -- we are trying to

win. we are still at the very top of the republican nomination. host: senator rand paul from kentucky, also campaigning for his father. thank you for your time, sir. >> later today, we will have more road to the white house coverage. we will have remarks from a republican candidate john huntsman starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern. the first political primary of the year is tomorrow. we will start our coverage at 8:00 p.m. eastern. we will bring you the returns as they come in. we will bring you victory and concession speeches. there are a number of ways that you can be involved. you can call us. you can reach us on facebook. we also take your tweets. all of our road to the white house coverage is available on- line c-span.org. last week, we started showing

you some of the key concession and victory speeches from the 2000, 2004 and 2008 political races. today we will continue bringing that to your starting at 2:00 p.m. eastern. we will have speeches by republicans john mccain, mitt romney and mike huckabee. again, that starts in just a couple of minutes on our companion network, c-span-3. this morning, republican presidential candidate ron paul held a campaign meeting in new hampshire. this is just over an hour. [applause] >> cross is. crust -- thank you. thank you very much. thank you for putting this little reception together. i understand originally we were starting to have this at your home and the meeting outgrew the

home. i'm glad we were able to come here and still have this little gathering. before we get started, i would like to introduce a few members of my family. my wife is over here, carol. [applause] i have one daughter in law and her daughter. [applause] thank you for coming out. i guess you have noticed that the campaign has picked up a lot of steam and a lot of interest. there are still some that are undecided, and hopefully we can reach them with the program i have been talking about and why i think we are in trouble and what i think we have to do. no matter where i have gone around the country, whether it has been in iowa or different places, and also the talk shows

and tv programs, actually, the big issue has been the economy. the first time i ran for office was in the 1970's. i felt some big changes being made in our monetary system. if one understands how the monetary system works and how financial bubbles are formed, we should have come to the conclusion that we had embarked on a very dangerous. in our history. that is a long time ago, but is still an important time in our history. it is still a serious problem, the fact that we embarked on a financial bubble, the biggest in the history of the world. the marketplace always tries to unwind the mistakes made by politicians and by central bankers to correct mistakes -- that is, if you have a system

that encourages debt, and you equate that with prosperity, it will keep the building until you run out of production. we had too much debt and not enough production. we cannot fight to the books any longer. this is why people have grown very interested in my subject of the federal reserve system and why at the very beginning, at the very least, we have to have a full audit of how the federal reserve system has been operating. [applause] because of the monetary system, it contributes to this distortion, but the worst distortion and why people feel bad about how the economy is going right now, even if it they have a job, people feel frightened about what might come -- the destruction of money, history shows that you

destroy the middle class. destruction of money means devaluation of the money. nobody has wanted to talk about it, even though the founders knew and understood this and warned us against it and say we don't want to go through the destruction of the continental dollar like they went through. that is why they put in the constitution that the only thing to use its gold and silver for legal tender. you cannot print money. when you have free markets, private property rights, and contract rights, like we enjoyed for so long, you have a large middle-class. america was always known for its huge middle class, the wealthiest middle-class ever. it is not true anymore but the middle classes shrinking and the well is shrinking. characteristic of what happening under these conditions, the wealth is taken from the middle class and it

goes to a select few, the insiders. that is what happened, the people know about it. sometimes the anchor is directed at the unfairness of the system -- they get a little bit confused about the economics, but it has a lot to do with the monetary policy and the influence in washington. instead of the government being the protector of liberty, the government has become a distributor of wealth. this is why big money talks. money has more control of our system. that is why lobbyists get paid a lot more than politicians, because lobbyists run the show. this is what we have to overcome. one of the things what is so challenging and in this campaign, people have been supporting me know darn well to undertake it paid we a. we are involved in a foreign policy that makes no sense.

we need a foreign policy that offends america and not pretend we can tell the -- world the to let th -- that defends america and not pretend we can tell the world how to live. [applause] a lot of times in the debate, the moderator's come in and say, "tonight we will talk about economics," which is fine and dandy. i like to talk about economics. but they don't want to talk about foreign policy paid other times to talk about foreign policy but don't talk about economics. but you have to talk about both together, because war is connected to the economic system. war drains wealth. there is no way in-that you can get out of a depression or highsion -- ino way in heaven that you can get out of a depression or recession during the war. doing almost anything overseas is a drain on the economy.

we are not producing like we used to. that is why the economy is being drained. that is why we have to address foreign policy. it is really simple, it is not complex. it simply says that we should never send anybody to washington -- and youpromise believe that they will obey the constitution. [applause] since world war ii, we have had numerous wars, and these last 10 years have been very bad for us because we were fighting countries, we have been involved in nation-building and occupation. countries that were far from perfect, but they never attacked us. what has it done? it has added $4 million worth of debt by being engaged overseas. we are not safer for it. i don't believe for a minute that we are safer. i don't think people want to

come and kill us because we are free and prosperous. that has just gone way astray. what we ought to do is think about a foreign policy that follows the golden rule -- we shouldn't do anything to any other country that we would not have them do to us. [applause] if we were to follow the constitution and require that people give permission to go to war through their members of congress by voting to go war, believe me, we wouldn't have had probably any of these wars in the last 20, 30 years, because the congress would not have done it, because they could not prove there was a threat to our national security. this is important that we follow the rules. we know what our government is supposed to do. it is supposed to protect our liberties. that is the number-one job, protecting the liberties of

every citizen to begin at liberty and natural way. we gain and not from our government, but from our creator, and we should protect those liberties. we should not be telling people how to live,, or telling the rest of the world what they ought to be doing. [applause] but by changing the foreign policy, one of the easiest ways to do this, we can start talking about the necessity of dealing with the debt. debt is the problem. by now it is similar to if you were indebted way over your head, and you get to many credit cards, and what you are learning to take care of your daily needs, you don't have anything left to finance your debt. that is where we are today. ordon't have enough growth people left where we can tax and pay for the debt. what we have to do is eliminate the dead.

when the individual is in debt, they either have to sell stuff or declare bankruptcy did the market insists on the bankruptcy. when our financial system became evident that it was truly bankrupt, in 2008, a lot of people were doing a lot of gambling, people who made a lot of money when the financial bubble was being blown up. when they went broke, the establishment people, the federal reserve and treasury and all of the bankers and the corporations under the gun came screaming and hollering that there is going to be a depression, you have to bail us out. well, they did not deserve to get bailed out. the bank should have been liquidated, not on the american people, and that is what has happened. [applause] so we're still paying for that debt. what about the people who made the money during the financial bubble, they're back in business again. their corporate leaders are

making big bucks, and they're making a lot of money, getting money from the federal reserve for at practically zero and rest. it has changed dramatically from our fending -- founding, because the emphasis is not on liberty anymore. the emphasis is on special interest and controls. right now, the american people have the weekend. they, all of a sudden, realized -- even those with jobs, even those who seem to be doing ok, there is a sad and discontent in this country. i think it is the worst our country has ever experienced we have gone through a lot of rough times. great depression in the 1930's, world war one and world war ii. but i think a lack of confidence in the future is more significant than ever before, because the foundations have been undermined. the foundation of the free market and property rights, we do not really own our property anymore. also, the foundation of the

monetary system and the foreign policy that does not serve our national defense needs. and then the people know this. they're begging and pleading for some answers. this is a story i have talked about and offered solutions and tried to point out the financial bubble, but there was not much attention paid to it. and i never really thought one way or the other whether anybody would pay attention to it. but right now, it just happens they are very interested in it. the world has changed, our country has changed, from four years ago. i was involved in the campaign. there was a lot of support, but there was still, you know, not enough to say it is coming, let's prevent it. no, but it hit. it hit in 2008, and now people are looking and wondering about what we can do about it, and there is a lot we can do about it. we have to cut spending that is the top priority. get spending under control, get debt under control. you cannot keep running the debt at $1.50 trillion a year and is

put in the money for it. it is a road for disaster. my proposal is, and the very first year, we should cut real spending by $1 trillion. [applause] and then immediately, where are you going to cut $1 trillion? well, if you do not start cutting, everything goes to pot. everything is totally destroyed because the money will not work. even the people you're trying to help out, you cannot help them. the more you print the money, the less it has value, and its compounds itself. we have to propose these cuts. i do it with priorities. i do not say -- i think the worst place to start would be child health care or social security or medicare benefits. we can work our way out of it, but you have to be willing to cut some other things. and that is why we, as americans, not only as conservatives, moderates,

liberals, everybody else, we should agree that it makes no sense to spend much over $1 trillion a year overseas. why do we spend that money -- why don't we spend that money here at home? [applause] half of the cuts would come from overseas. i do not believe for one minute it undermines defense. cutting military is a lot different from cutting defense. they say, he wants to cut all the defense -- no, i do not. i want month -- i want more money for defense. i want to defend this country and not be spent getting involved in wars that do not help us at all. the other money spent, we would have to cut back here at home. i have five departments i would cut. the first department i would cut would be the department of education. [cheers and applause] if we look at education, both in a constitutional fashion,

along with a moral responsibility, education in a free society is the responsibility of parents. [applause] certainly, if there are no provisions for the state to be involved in education, there is no authority at the federal level. but what the federal government better make sure they do, as well as state governments, is make sure there is never a law that prohibits homeschooling or private schooling to compete. [applause] other departments, department of energy committee permit of commerce, department of interior, hud -- just think of all the damage hud did. all this with good intentions. we're going to take care of the port. everybody will have free health care, free education, houses, everything can qualify for a loan. sounds like it will work.

we have students graduating from college, education is poor. they're not trained to do the jobs we need. as with that, $1 trillion debt and cannot get a job. so it failed. so the hud program and afford a budget -- a firm of -- affirmative action, everybody can qualify. people ended up with a house and thought they had a money tree. the prices of houses keep going up, keep borrowing. borrowing, borrowing, and borrowing the this is wonderful. yes, and the bubble burst. and the people who were involved in the mortgage derivatives, they were making a lot of money. so what happened to the middle class? they got the debt. they lost their jobs, and lost their houses. so even with the best intentions, you cannot provide the goods and services through the government. this is what we have to come to realize, that if you want goods and services, if you want the maximum distribution, you have to pay attention, and you have

to believe that the free market is a much better distributor of wealth than the u.s. government. [applause] and one of the shortcomings that we come up with, whether we call ourselves libertarians, constitutionalist, or conservatives, is that we have -- we compete with people who are well-motivated, and they believe themselves to be humanitarians. those of us who believe that the market should work and protecting liberty is most important, they call us cold hearted. if there are ideas did not work and ours do, wouldn't it be logical to conclude that we are the humanitarian, not them? [applause] we do need to cut back, and we can do this with protecting certain programs and work our way out of it, but we cannot do it without working at the monetary system and in foreign

policy. we have to look at property rights. but we also have to look at individual liberty. because all these things we have been talking about, it is individual liberty that would protect us all. the right to your life, the right to liberty, and you should have the right to keep the fruits of your labor. [applause] it is individual liberty which is under threat as well today, because once you have a perpetual war atmosphere, personal liberties at home have always been under attack. and today, they are. we have more attacks on our personal liberty -- whether it is the patriot act -- quite frankly, i do not think we need a patriot act to undermine your personal liberty. [applause] and also now, just recently, the government gave the president the authority to use the army to arrest an american citizen without charges and

held indefinitely. that is not protecting the american tradition. those kind of infractions and insults to the american people have to be addressed. we have to get confidence in ourselves once again that a free society and free markets work. we cannot continue to depend that the federal government will always take care of us. what we need is a free society where we are allowed to take care of ourselves. i believe in it that. [applause] i believe in that. we have a wonderful opportunity to express those views. it will be tomorrow night. i am encouraged. the young people that i meet really encourage me because they are enthusiastic about hearing the truth. even if it is negative and that u.s. big debt, you have a mess and talk about the war's going on, all of the sudden i am excited and optimistic that at least if you admit the problem, maybe you can solve that

problem. despite all my concerns, an optimist because the things i am seeing across this country. people are starting to once again look at the great issues and the great ideas and all those principles that made america great. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> we have time for a few questions. we want the questions from the non-media. >> all of this microphone, and we will try to get as many questions as we can. we have a little bit of time. >> go ahead and pick somebody.

>> i believe that many americans think that the value in keeping the bases overseas is because by pulling the bases out of the overseas countries, like germany and japan, it sort of recognizes that our empire is shrinking and maybe they cannot handle that. how can you get them to see the benefits in doing that? >> well, empires always end, not because another military power comes along, but for economic reasons. sometimes they end even though we have to stand up to them and paid them. they had a lot of these weapons, but they have been bankrupt and had to be developed for economic reasons. and then they were foolish and

went into afghanistan. we will come out, but it is the way we come out. you talk about germany and japan, why should we -- we're not on the verge of being attacked. one of the greatest successes in our country has been that we have a strong national defense. nobody is about to invade our country or to attack us. i think people have to be convinced that bringing troops home is one way we will not have a dissolution of our country completely. obviously, i want to discourage people from that -- i do not think that empire serves the interest of the freedoms of individual americans. [applause]

>> i feel strongly that protecting our environment is a very urgent issue, and i was wondering how, through the enforcement of property rights, what exactly is property rights violations? that would be our environment. how would you determine who to prosecute when that a violation happens? >> people get worried when you talk about free markets and property rights, but they will not be good environments -- that they will not be good environmentalist. when you look at a government with the most extreme amount of government, they have been the worst protectors of the environment. if you look to private property, most people who own property, i have an interest in taking good care of it.

but that comes up with the subject of pollution. but if you have a strict understanding of property, nobody has a right to pollute anybody. you cannot dump your garbage in your neighbor's yard. you should not be able to dump your smoke in their yard. you should not be able to dump chemicals, you should not be allowed to pollute the water. you should be immediately held accountable. the big problem occurred in the industrial allusion with collusion between big corporations and also a big government. in the city of pittsburgh, it was probably one of the most filthiest cities in the country, and the rivers where sewers. governments dumping their sewers in there, and the skies were filthy black. that eventually got filled up with the protection of rights by the city a long time before the epa. so the epa is a bureaucratic special interest answer to a problem that should be answered with private property rights. but the basic principle is that

if you really enforce contract rights and property rights, you would probably be much tougher a lot sooner than we have been. and i just do not believe that the bureaucratic approach can ever do the trick. [applause] >> can you address the agenda 21, please? >> you're talking about the u.n.? well, agenda 21 and the u.n. is a little bit more than i can take, especially since my position is that i do not think we should be in the united nations. [applause] so any plan that the u.n. will undermine our national sovereignty, i am absolutely opposed to it and would want to protect it. right now, the biggest threat to the international governments is in the monetary affairs. because they know what we know

about the monetary system, and they know there is a big crisis coming. they are talking about monetary reform, and they're talking about an international paper currency run by the imf, which is a part in the united nations. that is, indeed, a big threat. that is why we should not be in those organizations. [applause] >> two more. >> [inaudible] >> come towards the microphone. >> [unintelligible] south america, a lot of work in the private sector can be compared to slave labor. how you feel that should be addressed? >> are you talking about what

we're going to do about -- >> [unintelligible] >> i do not think it is true slave labor. they work for very little, but i do not have sovereignty over other nations on what they should do and should not do. so i cannot go down and change it. my job is to make sure that we do the best in setting an example in this country so others will do the same thing. >> [inaudible] >> what we want to do is protect civil liberties in this country and make sure we have sound money and a prosperous economy and have a foreign policy were people -- you see, right now, we have a policy where people believe that america is an exceptional nation. i think we are. but what they believe, because we are exceptional, that we have the responsibility to invade the country and force that country to do exactly as we do, and i do not agree with that. i think we are exceptional, but i think we are slipping. so i think we should work much

harder to be an exceptional nation, to practice what we preach, to follow our constitution, protect all civil liberties, to make sure we have a market and have prosperity and have people look down and say, you know, america is a great place. why don't we try to copy what we're doing, and that would be a much better way than as forcing them to do something. [applause] >> what is your stance on legal and illegal immigration? >> i am against illegal immigration. we shall not have that here. my approach to that is not to report something that is illegal. so if states are forced to provide services and benefits to illegal immigrants, they will make benefit of it. illegal immigration is down now, and that tells you something about how weak this economy is, because of the jobs.

even today, welfare both for illegal immigrants as well as our system encourages people not to take jobs they might have to take if they did not get these benefits. so we should not be forcing free schools and free medicare on people who are here illegally. i think we should have a revamping of the whole thing about the workers program. i think the people -- we should, you know, keep the doors as wide open as we can. i have had many to come to me in my congressional office looking for work. even today, they're coming because our people are not as well-drained. that is -- we do not want to ever close that off, but we should not have this big problem with illegal immigration. i think we should have more control and a different system on our borders. i am disgusted that we spend so much time, money, and lives worried about the borders between afghanistan and pakistan. we should worry more about our borders here at home.

[applause] >> one more. >> i serve on a local score -- school board, and i support the many things in the department of education. the system is really broken. how are we going to fix it? how do we get the power out of the unions and the influence? >> well, union power is -- and union power is the right word, it is not workers' rights. it is union power. and they get it legislatively. voluntary contracts is the basic principle of the marketplace. so if a businessman -- and there are no laws prohibiting unions from forming in the private sector. but there should be no power to force unions on a businessman that does not want to voluntarily have them. but you should have a voluntary

union, and the businessmen to make those choices. as long as you understood the principle of voluntary association. but when it comes to government, that is for the bigger problem is today, with the government unions. but it should be our officials who are representing us as to the private marketplace, so they should not be signing these contracts. in state, it would be different. i know you are finding the right to work laws up here. right to work is very, very important, and the federal government has, you know, cause of the problem with the national labor relations board and the act from 1935. that was to give artificial power to a certain group. but the market is the most powerful force to raise wages. we do not want to throw out the whole system of volunteerism, because the problems of the depression had nothing to do with the lack of labor union. yet the labor unions said, if we could just force labor prices at -- matter of fact, to correct some of the problems,

the problem we're facing today, you want prices to go down. prices of houses are still going down, but it should have happened in six or 12 months and then been overwritten. it is indexation of wages that makes us less competitive -- it is the fixation the wages that makes us less competitive. jobs are lost. we have more right to work, but jobs go overseas. there is a lot of other regulation but you cannot avoid that discussion if you really want to change our environment and get our economy growing again. thank you very much for coming. [applause] >> just a quick question for you, dr. paul?

>> later today, more "road to the white house" coverage. jon huntsman will speak at a rally and we will have that live at 7:00 p.m. eastern. the first political primary of the year is tomorrow. we begin our coverage from new hampshire at 8:00 p.m. eastern. we will bring you the primary returns as they come in and have a victory and concession speeches. there are a number of ways that you can be involved. we will take your calls. you can reach us on facebook at

facebook.com/cspan, and we will take your tweets. all of our "road to the white house" coverage is available online at c-span.org. coverage of the new hampshire primary starts tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. eastern. "the chicago tribune" is reporting that william daley is stepping down as white house chief of staff, and budget director jack lew is taking over president obama's team as it heads into a tough election year. mr. daly gave his letter of resignation to the president in a private meeting in the oval office last week. he was on the job for one year. we will have live at coverage of remarks by president obama here on c-span at 3:00 p.m. in the meantime, more and the upcoming new hampshire primary from this morning's "washington journal."

host: gov. gregg, can you tell us what was you decided to put your support for romney? guest: well, my wife and i talked about it for quite a while. there were a lot of people who considered running who are friends and i admired and we admired. we decided to support governor romney last summer, i think would be approximate time frame. host: what specifically is it about mr. romney and what principles and issues that he has proposed set him apart from the other candidates? guest:, itt is the guy who can get this country going again -- well, i think he is the guy who can get this country going again and. we have a nation that is struggling right now, with massive debt that will bring us down if we don't address 8.

government is becoming excessively regulatory in its approach to small business, making it very hard for small business to compete. we are participating in a lot of international activities that need strong leadership, where the world looks to us and expects us to the and we don't have that type of leadership, in my opinion. governor romney carries a strong message in all of those areas. he clearly understand that you have to get fiscal problems under control or you cannot get the country to be economically strong. we will end up passing a nation to our children that is less prosperous. it is inappropriate for one generation to do that to another generation, pass on all this and get. he also understands how to create jobs, that jobs are created in the private sector, not by government. that is very important, from my viewpoint, to have somebody who understands job creation,

because that is what the basic quality of life is tied to, the ability to have a job, in many instances. and he appreciates the fact that this massive expansion in the size of government cannot be continued, that we have to rein in the regulatory excess occurring at the federal level, making it very hard for small businesses to compete and be successful. in addition, he will be strong international voice for us, making it clear that america is willing to lead in the world, which is something we have to do because there's nobody else who subscribes to the values we have that are so important and so many people out and the world look to those values and it is important to have a strong spokesman for them. host: what would you tell those who expressed through calls and the republicans on the stage about mr. romney's, or at bain capital -- career at a capitol and concerns about that? guest: i would say that he went

out and took risks and created jobs, and sometimes they work and sometimes they didn't. that is how the private sector functions. folks who look to the government to create jobs don't appreciate the fact that every job created in the government has to have a private sector job paying taxes to support it or it would not be able to exist. you have to have a vibrant private sector. you have a vibrant private sector i am in competition and having people who go out and our entrepreneurs willing to take risks. if there aris a federal government that suffocates that ability or makes it difficult for people to go out and take that type of action that creates a job, he will not have a vibrant economy. when you have a government that taxes or regulates excessively, or creates an atmosphere where the government is so big that a crowd at small businesses and large businesses' ability to borrow money, that is a problem. mitt romney understands that you

cannot create a stronger economy if you have a government that is excessively large. host: his career at main capital is -- at bain capital is subject of this film by the "winning the future" super pac. guest: first off, i've not seen the film. i understand it is a very negative peace, but that is politics. as he says, if you cannot handle it, you should not be in the business, you should not be running for office. there is no question that this election is going to be, i think, a very pivotal election for our nation. we have two past weekend shoes, the president's, which has -- we have two paths we can choose. the president's has put us on a path to a big government.

it is headed towards a 30% of gross national product. that is a european-stock government. that is a huge percentage of the economy being absorbed by the federal government. i think eight is the wrong course. first off, it is extremely expensive. you either end up with massive debt or a tax burden, which makes it very hard for the private sector to be competitive. secondly, it is just not our culture. our culture is not to have a large welfare state type of government trade we are a center-right nation. we believe in giving people opportunity, not that the government should basically be into everything. the choice will be whether we want to bid to me on this at extending the government along the european model or whether we want to return to the american model of exceptionalism, where you give the individual the ability to expand its economy by giving an atmosphere where they are willing to go at and take a risk and make an investment. obviously, the president is going to, and is already, trying to divide the country, going

from his hope and change message to divide and blame. we as a nation don't believe in envy, we believe in opportunity. i think that's the campaign is going to be which type of culture we want, a culture that is divided, as this class warfare atmosphere and language like you get in here, or whether you want a culture that continues the american approach towards exceptionalism and opportunity and optimism. host: our test until 8:30. -- our guest with us until 8:30. debbie is our first caller this morning for judd gregg. caller: first, you are my governor and senator for some time, and we were pulling for you to run for president

herself. we support mitt romney as well. mitt romney has very high expectations. i was wondering, what lead does he need to avoid disappointment? host: apologies, governor. charlotte, north carolina, democrats line. caller: with respect to mitt romney, i would like to know where is bain capital now, and why his seat still not doing what -- why is he still not doing what he is doing, because i have not seen anyone -- i watch politics will closely -- i have not seen -- thank you -- none of these people who came out that the so-called created jobs for.

he is fattening his pockets, and that is cool. i am not against the private sector or anything like that. but mitt romney? . mean, come on bi just saying that he has. -- as private sector experience, that is nothing. has private sector experience, i can be president -- if anybody has private sector experience, to be president. gues -- i can be president. guest: well, not everybody is running for president. we have a series of candidates running for president people appreciate that if they have a job at staples or any other places that he built these enterprises and has been successful. it is also leadership of the of th sie olympics.

it was in serious trouble, at the winter olympics in salt lake, and he ended up making it successful for utah. then he was governor of massachusetts, a big state with a complex system of government, one which we in new hampshire tend to make fun of often, because it lot of folks move to new hampshire to avoid the massachusetts a burden. but he reduced the burden. when he was governor of massachusetts, i was serving in government in new hampshire. we used to have these exodus of people like michael dukakis, where they built businesses up and they cannot deal with massachusetts government. we benefited from that significantly in the state. but one mitt romney was governor, that sort of stopped, that exodus, and because the state of massachusetts became

much more prospective -- receptive to people in the private sector. he has a good track record, in my opinion, a strong track record, and of the candidates running on our side of the aisle, he will have a good chance of running strongly against president obama. this election -- for president obama to win, i believe, because he has taken the country, i believe, down the wrong path here, he has to make the republicans get the issue. -- he has to make the republican candidate the issue. if he has some and that he can caricature, he will get reelected. but if we nominate someone like mitt romney, who can stand up and say i have this record, a strong record, and this is what i intended to do, and not be caricatured by the obama machine, i think the president is going to have a very challenging reelection effort. when you look at the policies he put in place, they have not worked. especially on the domestic side.

they are taking us down this road of dramatically expanding the size of government and cost of government and the burden of government, none of which most americans want. host: the republicans on stage took on governor romney's rationale for running for president. one of them was newt gingrich. here is a bit of the exchange they had to i want to get your response to it. clip: 10 to drop the pious gilani? you ran in 1994 -- can we drop the pious baloney? you ran in 1994 and lost. you had a bad re-election reading great you are preparing to run for president. you did not have this interlude of the citizenship what you thought about what to do. you are running for president while you were governor. you were out of state consistently. you probably re-enter politics and happened to this to mccain, as you had lost to kennedy.

you have been running consistently for years and years and years, said the idea that suddenly citizenship showed up in your mind -- just level with the american people. you up and running consistently since the 1990's. host: what about gingrich's assertion? guest: well, you know, newt is newt. mitt is running a positive campaign. i think it is good. we should be contrasting president obama's policies with republican policies that is where we should state focus. these types of attacks are not constructive. i don't see it as being a very viable statement. host: fredericksburg, virginia, louise on the republican line. caller: i personally do not want -- i don't really want to see romney wind. i guess i will vote for him,

but i do not want him to win. i would like to see somebody liked perry or huntsman. george bush was a fine man, no matter what they did, he did not use big words. everybody understood what he said, he said what he meant. i like jon huntsman and i like rick perry. those of the two who really should win. newt gingrich and his comment about the palestinians was just out of line. i think we need to support israel less and become a member of the world. i am for rick perry. i think he has very, very, very good ideas, and he is blunt and says what he thinks. social security is a ponzi scheme. everybody can make gaffes, everybody can speak it that does not affect his brain -- everybody can misspeak.

that does not affect his brain. guest: well, i respect the color bang's opinion. those are two quality people, records as governors of their states, utah and texas. but i've chosen mike and it -- my candidate. i think that is the advantage we have in our party, that we have a really talented people running. that is why we have these early primaries and caucuses, so we can figure out with the best person is, or who we agreed to nominate. once we get a nominee, i presume most republicans are going to support that person. and we will come together as a party. we are going through the process of sorting it out, everybody has the right to their opinion, and i respect hers. host: rochester, pennsylvania. caller: hello, pedro.

the burden of the enlargement of the government with obama, as a result of having to take care of the mess that republicans left, just like the mess republicans left in the 1980's -- you talk about a country of envy. i would like to see a country that operates on a little bit of fair play. you are a great example of the opposite of that trait you work in congress for eight years or 12 years or whenever it is. now you are taking a big fat paycheck from goldman sachs. you used your office to get in it to make money to give it to people like romney and just continue this could system that we have a got -- this crooked system that we have got a week of march 31 and april 1, occupiey washington. millions of people are going to show up. guest: well, the gentleman has his rights to his opinions but i

find them to be inappropriate, and will not bother to respond to them. host: what happens to governor romney's campaign or whoever the nominee is if unemployment keeps dropping, since one of the things the governor is running on is the economic record and his ability to improve the economy? guest: first off, let's hope it dies. i think we're moving towards a fairly good recovery here it -- let's hope it does. i think we're moving towards a fairly good recovery here. the reason that is true is not because of anything the obama administration has done a bit we would have a robust economy if we had people who were supportive of people who make investments and create jobs. but because of a national nature of the american culture, which is very resilient. you can only keep americans down so long before they get tired of it and start doing things. that is what is happening in our economy. people are moving forward.

i think they would move forward a lot faster if we had a government that was not growing as fast as it is and was getting debt under control so that we were not looking at a potential train wreck here along the lines of what has happened in greece and spain and italy, and if we had the government was not putting such a tax burden on people who are creating economic activity, the small businessperson and job creators, and wasn't over-regulating them. i tend to think that our recovery is coming. i think is going to be a good recovery. but i think hit would be much more robust and would come and a faster pace if we had a government that was more responsive in supporting it, rather than getting it dow -- rather than damping it down. host: what does mitt romney offer, then? guest: if you had policies like

he is proposing, the recovery would be more robust and more people would be going back to work. yes, we have our recovery, but it is not the energy it should be. it does not have the energy because you have this administration layering on regulations, this burden of debt, and basically promoting and proposing tax policies which suffocate economic activity for entrepreneurship. if you take those things off the table, like mitt romney would were he president, you would see a much faster recovery. in the post-recessionary periods we had before, we get job growth of 8 million jobs a month. we are not seeing that at all. we are seeing 200,000 if reelected. that is good news, but it should be a lot more -- we are seeing 200,000 if we are lucky. that is good news, but it should

be a lot more. host: democratic line. caller: good morning, pedro, and good morning to your guest id y. you sit here on "washington journal" and you refuse to answer questions, get to advocate that people should vote for mitt romney. pedro asked you specifically what mitt romney would it do to change the economy. you started on the answer, you never answered. the other gentlemen brought up goldman sachs did you said you did not think you had to answer the question. you are not an honest man. you sound like rick santorum making a statement about food stamps and how black people are food stamp collectors. do you agree with that? the majority of food stamp collectors in america happen to be of occultation background -- of a caucasian background.

this group of republicans do not have america's interests at heart. guest: i think some of your callers got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. i did answer the question of what mitt romney would do, bring a tax policy that is more conducive to small businesses and entrepreneurs creating jobs. and he would create an atmosphere where people are headed towards getting our fiscal house in order said that our debt does not become the problem of the next generation. those are big things that have to be done. he would also have an energy policy that would be much more american-centered so that we would be producing the energy we need in the united states rather than having to buy it overseas. immigration policy, which i hope would go out in the world and get the best and brightest people who want to come to the united states and create jobs, go to school here, stay here to create jobs.

he has very specific proposals in these areas, and i think i have outlined them and have been very specific about them. the other issues of personal issues and have no relevance at all to this discussion of the presidency. host: what is your role at goldman sachs, just so that we can address that? guest: i'm an international adviser, which means that i am a part time person and they occasionally asked my opinion about things going on. host: republican line. caller: good morning, senator gregg. i always appreciated you on the floor. my first vote for president was for president truman, democrat, but i switched when he tried to nationalize the steel industry. what i would like to say is, as a long-term republican now, and it really not happy with all -- i am really not happy with the whole republican contenders. what i would like to see is

every one of the contenders advocate his position and advocate the drafting of senator tom coburn, who i think would probably have more public support than any presidential nominee since george washington. i would just like to have your opinion on that. i will listen to you on the air. guest: well, if you get a republican president as the next president, i think tom coburn will play a major role in that administration, if he wants to. tom coburn is one of our best to senators. he works hard and he is very thoughtful on issues of that fiscal policy. he has put out a list of places where we could save money in the federal government which is very comprehensive and really an excellent source of menu for the next president to look at, if he is a republican, to reduce the rate of growth of this government. like you, i am a fan of tom

coburn. he's not running for reelection, he has announced that, which is unfortunate. but as a practical matter, if i were president, i would certainly try to get him in my administration. i am not running for president, don't intend to. but i would hope that whoever the next president is, obviously if it would be a republican president, would choose tom coburn to participate in the administration, and hopefully he would do it, because he would be a positive force. host: some of the candidates have directly addressed, what makes mitt romney a conservative -- how would you respond? guest: well, i think his experience. it would be nice to have somebody as a president who actually created a job. think about president obama's experience before he became president. three years earlier he had been a state senator from illinois. before that, he was basically a

community organizer. really, you have to understand how the economy works and how people, when they go out and make that -- take that risk of creating a job, put their whole livelihood at risk. a person who starts a restaurant, a person who starts and on a big dea -- who starts an automobile shop, a software company, those books are going through a lot to basically be successful. if they are successful, they create jobs for people. it would be nice to have a president who understood that. it goes to the core of our philosophy as a party, that the strength and vitality of our nation does not come from the government. the strength and vitality of our nation comes from individuals who are able to go out and take risks and create jobs. host: what does that mean specifically for mitt romney and what he would propose? guest: if you listen to his programs, he would have a tax policy that [unintelligible]

c-span.or encourages -- that encourages entrepreneurship, a regulatory policy that takes the same approach, were government has a responsibility, obviously, in participating in making the workplace safe and at keeping our country help the and doing other things through regulations, but they cannot be excessive and cannot be directed at targeting certain industries and trying to make them un competitive, as, unfortunately, the current regulatory structure is as it expands under this administration. and he would reduce our federal debt, which is very important, because as a practical matter, our debt is going to triple in 10 years and we will be in the same type of situation that some of these european countries are, where they are bankrupt. host: one of the things that came out of the debate were topics of same-sex marriage and the rights. -- gay rights. discriminate.

a member of my cabinet was gay. i appoint people to the bench regardless of sexual orientation, made it clear that we should not discriminate with hiring policies. at the same time, from the very beginning in 1994, i said to the community that i do not favor same-sex marriage. but if people are looking for someone who would discriminate against gays or would suggest that people with a different sexual orientation do not have a full rights in this country, and they will not find that in me. host: how do you see that bearing out in a romney presidency? guest: i think that is a comprehensive statement of his approach. basically, he is saying he's not going to discriminate, that he believes that people should be able to participate and his administration no matter what their sexual orientation is. i think that is a very reasonable and thoughtful approach.

host: has he articulated a thought on a constitutional amendment for marriage? guest: yes, he said he was for that, i think. host: next call. caller: we have a wonderful process of democratic elections. for the first time, we are dealing with candidates talking about the truth. i think ron paul and jon huntsman are hammering home the truth. he was talking about obama leading on a platform of division. i think he is stretching the truth.

we are in deep debt. we have to get the money out to the small businesses. the only way we can do that is by eliminating debt. i would like to know what the senator proposes in terms of doing that. guest: when i was in the senate, and was one of the strongest voices for getting our deficit and debt under control. i am the only person in the last 15 years who has led bills through the senate. i was the author of a budget reconciliation bill. it was the only bill that reduced the size of our entitlement spending by billions of dollars.

the obama health care bill and have language that eliminated a new entitlement. after they looked at the language, they realized what it did. they had to kill the program. i have a strong record. i was on the budget committee with numerous proposals to get our deficit and debt under control. i had some success, as i mentioned. host: florida is next on the republican line. leaving this discussion for a statement from president obama on william daley stepping down. >> last week, my chief of staff informed me that he decided it was time to leave washington and returne to our beloved hometown

of chicago. this was not easy to hear. i did not accept his decision right away. i asked him to take a couple of days to make sure he was sure about it. in the end, the poll of the hometown we both love it was too great. he told me he wanted to spend more time with his family, especially his grandchildren, and he felt it was the right decision. one thing that made it easier is the extraordinary work he has done for me during an extraordinary year. bill has been an outstanding chief of staff during one of the busiest and most consequential years of my administration. just a year ago this weekend, he was in the situation room getting updates on the shooting in tucson. on his first day, he took part

in a meeting where we discussed osama bin laden's compound. this is before he even had time to unpack his office. he has been intimately involved in every decision surrounding the end of the war in iraq and our support of the people in libya as they fought for their freedom. he was instrumental in developing the american jobs act to make sure taxes did not go up on middle-class families. he help us reach an agreement to reduce the deficit. he played a central role in passing trade agreements with south korea, columbia, and panama. he was invaluable in all of these associations. no one in my administration has had to make more important decisions more quickly than bill. that is why this decision was difficult for me. when he told me his plans to go

back to chicago, i asked him who he thought could fill his shoes. he told me there was one clear choice. i believe he is right. i am pleased to announce that jack lew has agreed to serve as my next chief of staff. it is one of the most difficult jobs in washington. for more than a year, jack has served as the director of the office of management and budget. this is not an easy job. during his first tour at omb under president clinton, he was the only director in history to preside over budget surpluses for three consecutive years. over the last year, he has helped strengthen our economy and streamline the government at a time when we need to do everything we can to keep our recovery going.

his economic advice has been invaluable. he has my complete trust because of his mastery of the numbers and because of the values behind the numbers. since he began his career in public service as a top aide to tip o'neill, he has fought for an america where hard work and responsibility pay off, a place where everybody gets a fair shot, everybody does their fair share, and everybody plays by the same rules. that belief is reflected in every decision he makes. he also has my confidence on other matters. he spent the years running the extremely complex and challenging budget and operations process for secretary clinton at the state department. his portfolio included managing civilian operations in iraq and afghanistan. over the last year, he has weighed in on many major foreign policy decisions there's no question i will deeply miss

having built by my side of the white house -- bill by my side at the white house. chicago is only a phone call away. i plan to use the phone allot to seek his device in council on the range of issues. i have every confidence jack will make sure we will not miss a beat and do everything we can to strengthen our economy, the middle class, and keep the american people say. i want to thank bill for his extraordinary service, friendship, and loyalty. it has meant a lot. i want to congratulate jack on his new role. i know he will do and outstanding job. thank you, everybody.

ofpresident obama's chief staff is stepping down to return to his hometown of chicago. he previously served as commerce secretary under president clinton. he will continue in this position until the state of the union address two weeks from now our coverage of the presidential candidates continues later today. we will get remarks from jon huntsman. he is at a rally in exeter, new hampshire. we begin our coverage of the new hampshire primary tomorrow. we will bring you the returns as they come in. we will have victory and concession speeches. there are a number of ways that you can be involved. we will take your phone calls, tweets. all of our coverage is available

online at c-span.org. live coverage starts tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. eastern. former house speaker newt gingrich was at the museum of ww ii history. he was joined by bud mcfarland and bob smith. this is about two hours. >> i am speaker of the house in new hampshire. how are you? i am pleased to be up here. i have a special affinity. my son went to brewster academy. we would come up here all the time. this is a great area of the state that you live in. i am here to talk to you about

the candidates have endorsed -- the candidate i have endorsed. i have not been in politics that long. it is my third term in the house. one reason i was able to move forward quickly is that as i became involved in the legislature, i began to realize the republican party had a problem. we were not presenting to the people a clear alternative. we were not unabashedly saying we were republicans because we believe in limited government. we believe in the government that should be a modest government, a government that should be turned to as a last resort, not the first resort.

a government that should assume that we are adults and that we can care for ourselves and we can make decisions for ourselves. when i came into the legislature, i was confronted with the republican party that, when you talked to people, they had good instincts. but they did not think the people of new hampshire would respond to that kind of message. and we had spent decades being, i think, embarrassed about being republicans. and we decided -- some of us in the legislature decided that the republican message, the conservative message is an attractive message. it is a message that speaks to what is the essence of being an american. and we just had to get out there and talk to people about it. and the failure to do that over time not only lead to increasing numbers of republicans in new it decreasing

numbers of republicans in new hampshire. it led to four years of a democratic legislature. during that time, after we suffered of those defeats, those of us who remained in the legislatures that we are not going to put up with this anymore. we're going to come forward with a strong republican message. we're going to present to the people of new hampshire a clear alternative to what it means to be a republican and a democrat. a clear alternative between what it means to be liberal progressive and a conservative. we think, and we were right, that the people in new hampshire would respond to that. when we did that this last election, we were able to get 75% majorities in the house. [applause] and as i told you, we decided that this message is one that will be successful in the state level. and i submit to you that this

is a message that would have to take to the people of the united states, that we cannot any longer have those who bill themselves as the party establishment saying to us, be embarrassed about being a conservative. the embarrassed about this strong message of liberty and limited government that we say we stand for what we do not nominate candidates who will promote. and that is the reason that i have taken a very, very strong position in supporting newt gingrich. we cannot have a candidate who is a massachusetts moderate, a timid candidate -- [applause] who will go to washington and be the tax collectors for the democrats, go to washington and fix the problems they have caused the not limit the opportunities for those problems to arise again. a republican who will say, i have to tax you, but i feel bad

about doing ed. you know, when we put the budget together in new hampshire, we made a clear choice. we said no more taxes. we're going to shrink government, and we reduced state spending, this budget we just put in place, by almost 18%. i ask you, among the presidential candidates, who has the history and experience of doing that, who has the principles of doing that, and it is not a one-term massachusetts governor who left the office having been elected to no other office with a 34% approval rating. that is the necessity of us turning around from this disastrous presidency, this presidency that has done as one favor. what he has done is chew horn 50 years of creeping socialism into a three-year time span and demonstrated the way this country is going.

he is showing us that transformative changes needed, and it will be one candidate who has the history, the experience, the ability, the track record that will turn around this country, and that candidate is newt gingrich. i am so pleased to be about to come to you and enforce them and ask you to listen to him, and i think you will reach the same conclusion that i have. now, before he comes on, we have a great american here that i want to introduce to you. that is just someone i am throw to have had the opportunity to meet, a true american, an american who has had a history, but in the military and following his military career of defending the country, and that this bud mcfarlane. bud, if you come out here, i would appreciate it. [applause] >> good morning. thank you to each of you for coming out. this is a great, very warm show

of support for newt gingrich. i will be very brief. the two blessings in my life i treasure most are having served for 20 years in the u.s. marine corps, and secondly, working for -- [applause] and secondly, having had the good fortune to work for president reagan for five years. [cheers and applause] i mentioned that because that record of service to our country was service at a time when the conventional wisdom was that we were going to have to endure a soviet threat forever, that there was nothing we could do about that. president reagan came to office, and he said this idea that things always have to be the way they have been is

nonsense. this is an evil empire. we can bring it down. we can reform our own government. we can make it smaller. these were heretical ideas, even in the republican party, at the time. but he did it. and, today, we look back on five years in which we brought down marxism, ended the cold war, reduced nuclear weapons, and short changes feasible with good leadership. in those years, i had the good fortune to meet newt gingrich. here was another man who did not believe that things had to be the way they had always been. you could change them. you could write a contract with america to reform welfare, to balance the budget, and actually do it. this is a leadership of an

extraordinary nature. in the years ahead, we're going to face an uncommon, truly complex, daunting agenda of threats to national security. the family of threats that includes cyber security threats, the ability of the subversives to bring down our banking system, to mess up your bank accounts and credit cards. also, your electric power grid. and every electronic system that truly has begun to control most of what we do every day. there going to face continuing terrorist threats, but now and in the future, threats that include the ability to use biological weapons and bring about mass casualties. you are going to face, also, the threat from iran and others, perforation and nuclear weapons.

why do i mention these? well, because somebody, our president, has to have given a lot of thought to these issues, to understand the nature of cyber threats and what we do about it. how can you harden our systems, improve them? make them resistant to these kinds of threats and overcome them? when i look at the family of people running for office this year, there was only one that stood out for two qualities. first, having studied for years the nature of these threats, where did they come from, what is the nature of the technology, and how do we overcome them? that was newt gingrich. nobody else has given thought to these things running for the presidency. secondly, it is one thing to know the nature of the problem,

another to know the solution and to be able to get it done. newt gingrich has gotten it done. who else balance the budget for four years? moved the entire federal government to a very different way of thinking that we can do this and do it? he also brings to the presidency a knowledge of how to move the u.s. congress, how to have the courage to go against conventional wisdom, how to balance the budget, and at home and abroad, show the kind of leadership that president reagan did only 25 years ago. nobody else in this race has those qualities of knowledge and experience. i am here because i believe in newt gingrich. he can do this. he is the only one who can do this. you have got to get out and support this man. our country is at risk.

he can do it. only he can do it. it is an honor, truly, to be here today with you and introduce the next president of the united states, speaker newt gingrich. [applause] ♪ only in america dream in red, white, and blue ♪ [cheers and applause] ♪ >> well, this may be the best

venue -- you know, i have got to tell you, i have two reactions. first of all, i am an army brat. my dad spent 27 years in the infantry. so i grew up as a kid around places like this, although i think we built this right at the end of world war ii, and this was the first generally modern tank built. from an army brat standpoint, this brings back lots of memories. from a political standpoint, i look at this tank lovingly. [laughter] because i remember michael dukakis -- [laughter] [applause] and it is just a reminder that governors of massachusetts do not always make good presidential candidates. [cheers and applause]

now, before i get started, and want to say briefly some things about the two great people who introduced me. you have a favorite son right here at home. he said it is so important that a reagan conservative one that he wanted to come and volunteer full time helping us. that is senator bob smith. come on up here for a minute. do we have a microphone? take a minute and talk to the hometown folks. >> this is his show. i want to say thank you for coming to see speaker gingrich. in 1984 when i was elected, i

walked into congress and not knowing where the bathroom was. he said before you get involved, are you content to be in the minority in fighting the liberal majority or do you want to take the bull by the horns and take control? about 10 of us met in the closet while the conservative opportunists decided -- in reply to the revolution. it is not finished. the reason why i left the sunshine to come to new hampshire is because i believe in this man. we need him so desperately right now. i cannot tell you and cannot put into words how much i mean that. he and his wife have produced a movie about ronald reagan.

if you saw that movie and realized all of ronald reagan's dreams and of you wanted to do, we helped him in the house and senate. we would probably be a minority still but are not because of him. we need to finish that revolution to honor president reagan. this man can do it. he is a reagan conservative through and through. let's finish the revolution and elect newt gingrich. please elected newt gingrich next tuesday. [applause]

>> before it gets started, how many of you are either veterans or families of veterans? virtually all of you. [applause] i think we owe you a real debt of gratitude. i want to say thank you for coming to this rally. [applause] without your willingness to risk everything -- when you swear the oath to be in the armed services, you are basically signing over your life to the commander in chief. this is the flag that george washington flow of valley forge in front of his command headquarters. this is the flag of the commander in chief of the american army. when they met in philadelphia, he presided over the constitutional convention. when they wrote into the constitution that the president is the commander-in-chief, they knew what they meant. he was not an adviser in chief for a talker in chief. he was not a politician in chief. he bears the ultimate or she bears the ultimate responsibility for the defense of the united states and the defeat of our enemies.

that is how real this this. would you signed up, you gave that commander in chief control over your life. because you did that, we are today still a free nation. without our veterans, we would not today be a free nation. i'm thrilled to be here and i thank you. the two great folks who introduced me, speaker o'brien is the model of what we need [applause] what he and his team -- he is very good reminding you that it is the team -- what he and the team did, when they confronted a budget deficit, i want every state to do this -- they did one of the smartest things i heard. they started by having the ways and means committee report how much money was being spent they then said we can pass any budget up to that amount.

normally what politicians do is figure out how much they want to spend and that leaves them with a shortfall and i figure out how much they have to take away from you. they ended up cutting 18% out of the new hampshire expenditures and 11% if you count federal funding. i don't know of any state that had a more courageous and direct effort to protect the taxpayer. they protected the average taxpayer from $3,000 additional taxes. they did it the old-fashioned way. they had to set priorities, cut out waste, make decisions, everything the u.s. congress and the president cannot do. one of the reasons i'm campaigning is i would like to

make washington more like new hampshire where as the left would like to make new hampshire more like washington. that is an easy way to think of the difference. there is a huge difference between speaker o'brien and his team who represent a tea party conservative small government low tax movement and governor romney who campaigned on no tax increase in 2002 and passed a $730 million tax increase. most of them were in the form of fees which were mandatory. there was actually a tax on people who were blind. that is a little hard to imagine but true. the other was a tax on gun ownership. he double the cost of owning a gun so you had to register a gun in massachusetts and pay $100 for a gun every year. it was a tax increase on the second amendment right, in my judgment. the difference between raising taxes because you don't have the courage to cut government and cutting government because you refuse to raise taxes is a dramatic difference. i am really glad to have bud mcfarlane here. one of the reasons he did a

great job is unlike many of the politicians to end up in washington, he came out of a military background and he actually thought his job was to help the president be effective, not maneuver around the president. because he had, in ronald reagan, a president who knew what he intended to do, president who was methodically determined to defeat the soviet empire, bud played a decisive role in one of the most important administrations we have had. reagan had a clear vision. when i talk about being a reagan conservative, i met him in 1974 and campaigned in 1979-'80 and helped develop supply-side economics. i work for the reagan administration for eight years. it is a simple model. reagan set out to accomplish three things -- he understood something important about leadership. lions cannot afford to support

chipmunks. even if they catch them, they starve to death. lions have to hunt zebra and antelope. reagan got up every morning and he said where are my antelope? there were three. rebuild the american economy and get a clear strategy. renew american civic culture so we were proud to be american and defeat the soviet empire. those are pretty big. he would then go in the oval office and chipmunks would run in. the federal government grows $10 billion per month, those are big chipmunks. [laughter] reagan listened patiently because he was a positive person and he would say, you are a terrific chipmunk. [laughter] have you met jim baker?

the president's chief of staff became the largest chipmunk collector on the planet. i really learned a lot about leadership. it wasn't that reagan was disengage, it was that reagan thattwo boxes in his head. he had a chipmunk box and he had an antelope box. this is the difference. this is a great study in real leadership. reagan wants to send a signal and he got down into the weeds if the weeds involve the big issues. secretary of state george shultz told the story that reagan had gone to berlin as governor in 1967. he said that wall sure is ugly, they ought to tear it down. >> 65-68. >> and the wall was ugly and it

should have torn down. 20 years later, reagan is reelected president and carries 49 states. he will go back to berlin and he has this blind he wants to deliver -- mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. the state department hated the line. they thought would be a gorbachev feel bad. [laughter] it did not sound presidential and it was not going to happen. the speech went from the white house to the state department and what critics department editor takes out the line. it goes back to the white house and reagan personally writes it back again and goes back to the state department. they take out the line. it goes back to the white house. reagan calls the secretary of state. he said george, you need to tell your chipmunks that i am the president and they are not.

the line stays in. they get to berlin and that morning before he goes through the speech, there are still senior advisers saying to him please don't give this line. it is not going to happen. the wall be there for 30 more years and you will look foolish. it is one of the greatest lines of his presidency and the wall fell within two years. that is what real leadership is. real leadership understands the principle that matter, the correct division of the future, and the courage to impose your will when every time a person around you is scared to death of what you are about to do is foolish because as a leader you believe in doing what is right no matter what the staff believes. that is the key. [applause] that is why i think a bold

reagan conservative candidate barack obama decisively. whereas a timid, mass. moderate will have a much harder time because when you're facing a fund of $1 billion and the support of the elite media and the white house, you want to create a big gap. i am for american energy and he is against it. i am for paychecks and he is for food stamps. i am for lower taxes, he is for higher taxes. i for helping every american create jobs and he is for class warfare to did -- to divide the country. most of his $1 billion will fall in the middle if you have a big gap. reagan took on carter and carter was a milder version of obama. he was equally bad performance but not as wobbly. -- wildly radical.

reagan was able to draw such a vivid comparison that made a huge difference. the comparison stock and that is why reagan and carter debated and he came up with "there you go again." carter would make some wild charge and people got it. let me talk to you about two issues that relate to veterans and hampshire. i want to talk about the northern pass. you have my commitment that i will do everything i can to insure that the only way that happens is if it is buried underground along [applause] state right of way. we have the technology today that we do not have to choose between delivering electricity to boston and the tourist industry and the beauty of

northern new hampshire. we can assist and technological solution which the state could make money from by leasing part of the right of way so you don't have to get into eminent domain and you don't have to go into the taking of private property. i would suggest that allows us to have a win-win solution that enables electricity to arrive in the big city without having run over everybody in between. i think there is no reason to assume that in america everyone in between needs to be run over just so that big cities and big businesses can get what they want. second, i think it is profoundly wrong that in midwinter veterans have to go all the way to boston to get health care. i am committed to three things that i want you to know about for veterans in new hampshire. first, i am committed to reopening the manchester hospital as a full-service facility, not just an outpatient clinic.

[applause] second, i am committed to developing a very sophisticated clinic in the north country that uses tele-madison so you can get a high percentage of your diagnostics and treatment done without having to go as far away as manchester. [applause] third, i'm committed to effect a program that allows you, if you prefer, to use your local doctor and local hospitals the don't have to travel. [applause] i say this as the son of a 27- year career soldier and somebody who values military families and veterans families and knows what you have to go through. it seems that all you ever have to do to explain this is get somebody off a congressional committee and get them to come to northern new hampshire and let them try to get to boston.

if you pick the right week with the right blizzard, they will get the idea. [laughter] if they hit three moves on the -- moose on the way, they will thoroughly understand why it is the wrong thing. [applause] let me talk briefly about jobs and the economy and where we are. this is a big deal. let me draw an historical comparison. i don't see much that is the radical. -- theoretical. i'm a history teacher and i try to use facts and use history. last month, we created 200,000 jobs and the obama administration is dancing in the streets and i have to admit, compared to some other months, 200,000 beats nothing. you have to remember that in august of 1983, with reagan, we created 1,300,000 jobs in one month, six times the number.

what does that matter? you have a real crisis in europe that is still sitting there with the euro decaying and european banks decaying. you have the potential for a real crisis in the middle east with the iranians practicing closing the strait of hormuz and the straits of hormuz have one out of every 6 barrels of oil in the world. if either of those happen next spring, this coming spring, you could see the entire world tilt into a deeper recession. the only engine big enough to pull the world economy is the united states. we're still 1/4 of the world economy. when we grow, the sheer momentum of our growth changes things. this is one of the things of why i am running for president. we know how to do this. this is one of those things were the academic left and the political left in the media left is so dense that you wonder what happened to them.

it is as though they had a cookbook that says you take a hard again put in the freezer. -- hard egg put it in the freezer. [laughter] if you want to test this some time, you might want to go home and try this. an egg in a freezer for a couple of days and it will become hard. when you go to a restaurant and say you'd like a hard egg, if they brought you a frozen egg, you would think they were nuts. reagan have five principles for economic growth -- strong money, a sound dollar, lower taxes, less regulation so people could focus on to open orsahip, american energy [applause]

and praising the people who create jobs. what is the obama model? reagan is for sound money. bernanke and obama are for inflation. the amount of money they are printing now in the long run, they are starting up a wave of inflation on an historic scale. under jimmy carter got to be 13% inflation at 22% interest rates. reagan, lower taxes, obama higher taxes. reagan -- less red tape, obama -- more power to epa and osha. reagan -- more american energy, obama, anti-american energy. reagan, i love people a great job and i want to praise small- business owners and praise people go to work. obama -- let's attack ever when it was successful. is it any wonder you have this gap? i have grown from the reagan

model. i helped develop in the '70s and implemented in the '80s. it was a bipartisan model. tip o'neill was speaker of the house. if we were going to pass the reagan program, we had to get one out of every three democrats to vote for it and we did. we reached out to everybody. we tried to develop an american program, not just the republican program. i get to be speaker. there were two tax increases after reagan and the economy slowed down and i pulled out the same cookbook. two out of three people went to work or went to school and we pass the first tax cut in 16 years, the largest capital gains tax cut in history and we traded 11 million new jobs in four years and unemployment droppedto 4.2%. if you take someone off of welfare, unemployment, food stamps and you put them to work

taking care their family and pay their bills and paying taxes, you raise the revenue of the government without raising taxes. you reduce the spend a. -- spending. clinton and i were able to hammer out four consecutive balanced budgets and paid off $405 billion of debt. that is the only time in your lifetime you have had four balanced budgets. [applause] this is part of why speaker o'brien and i identify with each other because we're speakers to believe in balanced budgets. in that context, what would you do today? i am for sound money. i would fire bernanke, shrink the role of the fed -- [applause] i would focus the fed on a stable dollar. taxes -- zero capital gains tax so money pours into the united

states. [applause] 12.5% corporate tax rate which would free up billions of dollars from overseas and would allow american companies to compete on a fair and level playing field. at two 0.5%, general electric would actually pay taxes. [applause] 100% expenses -- no one realized how much precision manufacturing there is in new hampshire. what you want to do was at 100% expensing. if you buy new equipment, you write it off in one year. we want american workers to be the best equipped workers in the world with the greatest productivity. it is the only way to have a high value job competing with china and india. if you do that on the equipment

side, i would also modernize the unemployment compensation program by having a training requirement attached to it so if you need on and on the compensation, you have to sign up for business training course to learn new skills while we are paying you but we'll never again pay anyone 99 weeks for doing nothing. [applause] >> we would abolish the death tax permanently because it is a destructive tax. [applause] at a personal tax level, you could keep the current deductions and red tape or you could have an optional 15% flat tax in the hong kong tradition. the one-page and here's my tax. if you do that, people have a choice. hong kong has done this for four years. we are not taking anybody's

deductions away. we're giving you the choice of simplicity verses complexity and you can choose. [applause] now you come to regulatory. pretty straightforward -- you want to fix this country quickly, i would ask the brand new congress and january 3, 2013 to stay in session. i would ask them before the inaugural to repeal of acare - [applause] -- to appeal obamacare -- repeal obamacare. it is the biggest job killing component of regulatory behavior. i would ask them to repeal the dodd-frank bill which is killing small banks. [applause] dodd-frank kill small banks and cripple small businesses and drive down the price of health. i would ask them to repeal sarbanes oxley which has added paperwork and gained nothing. [applause]

i would like all three of those done before january 20 so when i'm sworn in they can bring them in and i consign the repeal of all three and get to work in a positive way. on the inaugural, i would have a series of executive orders about two hours after the inaugural, the first of which would abolish all the while houseczars as of that moment. [applause] other regulatory reforms -- we should replace the environmental protection agency with a brand new environmental solutions agency. we should not retire any of the -- rehire any of the radicals currently trying to destroy the american economy. [applause] everywhere i go municipalities tell me how they are being dictated to by washington bureaucrats who have never

visited their 10, have no idea about reality, have no concern about the budget and simply issue washington dictates that are destructive. the epa is the largest job killing agency in the federal government. [applause] i would also go to a 21st century food and drug administration on a particular model. we want the fda in the laboratory understanding new science and want them to accelerate getting into the patient and not block it. that will change everything. they will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, dominate the world held market which is the biggest market in the emerging world, and it will enable us to get to patients better ways of saving their lives faster and a lower-cost. the duty of the fda is to turn it upside down -- it is today and obstruction to bringing new science to patients and it is stunningly expensive and it is guaranteeing that the breakthroughs will occur in china and india. our last scientists will go overseas to develop their products. it will not work for the fda.

that is regulatory. let's talk about energy. [applause] i have a very simple model. i am for every form of american energy. i want america and not just to be energy independent, what is to have a surplus of something happens in the straits of hormuz, we can step in and assert our productivity and make sure the world avoids a depression. i want to get to report no american president ever again bows to saudi k, period. [applause] the two-tiered venue -- as was the coolest place as i have done this. [laughter] the two last examples on energy

-- the president goes to. brazil the president has blocked american development of energy offshore and messed up louisiana and people have no idea how the world works. they put a moratorium and louisiana against the advice of their technical experts. they said was the dumbest thing they could do and i think the white house literally did not know these huge ocean drilling rigs move. these are very expensive pieces of capital. they will not sit around for six or a year to be political exhibits for a demagogue politician. the first one that left went to egypt. it took $80,000 per year jobs with them and when they drill oil, the government gets oil reg. -- royalties. it is a major source of revenue. the second one was perfect. the company that moved at a ceo who was tough. he issued the following

statement -- because of political instability in the united states, we're now going to develop all of the congo. -- develop off of the congo. under obama, we are less stable copngo and that is not easy. -- less stable than the congo. not easy. in the middle stop american oil and gas productivity, the president visits and says i really want to be -- i want to thank you and congratulate you for developing offshore oil and gas. i am proud that we were able to guarantee $2 billion of equipment purchases largely from company-owned majorities. -- owned by george soros. he said the most amazing thing -- he said i want america to be your best customer. this guy really doesn't get it. we don't hire president's to be foreign purchasing agents. the obama model is to borrow from the chinese to buy from the brazilians.

it does not work. we hire an american president to be a salesman for american goods and services worldwide to create jobs in the u.s. selling overseas. [applause] [applause] finally, you have the spectacle of the xl keystone pipeline. it is one thing if the white house cannot play chess. it is another thing if a white house cannot play checkers. [laughter] but if a white house cannot play tic tac toe -- [laughter] let me explain why use this analogy. this is one of the dumbest things i have ever seen. the president has this dilemma. he is in total real auction mode. -- re-election mode.

he does not care about being president. he cares about being reelected. so he will not do presidential stuff, because that is so boring. giving speeches is so much fun. so he has this dilemma. the san francisco environmental extremists hate canadian oil. the construction workers union wants to build a pipeline because there is 20,000 to the 2000 american jobs. -- to 50,000 american jobs. he does not want them union mad at him and he does not want the environmentalists mad at him. he thinks, being quite clever, i will postpone the decision to 2013. now, prime minister harper is a conservative who is pro- american. but he is also the canadian prime minister. so he says, you know, if the united states does not want to make a decision, i want to talk to the chinese about paying for a pipeline, which is more expensive, over the rockies to vancouver. the ideal pipeline comes straight down, it is easy to build a it is fly. we have been building pipelines

for well over 100 years. it should go from canada to houston. houston is the biggest petrochemical complex in the world you make money building the pipeline, running the pipeline, and make money processing the oil for the next 30 to 50 years. you make money in the port of galveston shipping oil. but harper says, well, you guys are going to mess around and be totally unreliable, i will go work with the chinese and we will build an off-canada -- all -canada pipeline. if you set three years ago that the u.s. would have a president so incompetent that a canadian- chinese partnership made more sense than a canadian-american partnership, i would thought it would be inconceivable. but i underestimated how self- destructive barack obama is. the last point, of course, as i like people who create jobs. i am willing to be pro people who create jobs, whether they're small business jobs, self-employed jobs, entrepreneurs, inventors.

what has made america great for our whole history has been in the words that are expressed in creativity and entrepreneurship. so the gap between us and obama is that big. [applause] i need your help tuesday. i need your help from now to tuesday, talking to your many friends. i do think there is an enormous gap between somebody who is a bold, brave conservative and somebody who is a timid massachusetts moderate. i think it is big. i think it makes it very different in terms of how you would compete with obama. with your help, if i become the nominee, i will challenge president obama to seven three- hour debates in the lincoln- douglas tradition with a timekeeper and no moderator. i will agree in advance that he can use the teleprompter.

[laughter] [applause] after all, if you had to defend obamacare, wouldn't you want to use a teleprompter? [laughter] and i think, with your help, we can win a decisive victory for america. we can make this one of the most important elections in american history. we can do what i helped reagan due in 1980 at what we did in 1994, which show a clear, cold distinction around which we can rally the vast majority of americans of all backgrounds. and as a result, in january of 2013, we can aggressively put this country back on the right track. and with your help, that is what i will do. [cheers and applause]

so -- questions? i think we have a couple of microphones. how about the gentleman standing back there? >> thank you for coming to wolfeboro. how big are your coattails? nothing personal. >> when we designed the 1980 campaign, i helped cheer the -- chair the first capital event in history. it was written about in september 1980. reagan came and stood on the capitol steps with every house and senate candidate. we pledged five specific things. we won six u.s. senate races by a combined margin of 75,000 votes. we took the senate. we took the 33 house seats, as

well as the presidency. that was a team to victory. in 1994, we ran the team campaign, three under 50 -- 350 candidates signed on to the contract with america. we had the largest one-1 millioe democrats. so i think it is pretty fair to say -- i know i designed sweeps that were team victories. my goal, as the nominee, would be to carry the senate by a big margin, to strengthen the house, and to do on an agenda. you can go to newt.org for the 21st century contract with america. it is not so much about cartels, that is about building a team. the entire team when 17. my goal would be that we have the ability to pass what we are going about by having an elected team committed to it. ok? >> mr. speaker, as chief

executive, until you can get the epa shutdown and the department of education shutdown, would you say the doors are closed? >> i am not sure i have quite that level of authority, but i can probably order them to re- review every single proposed regulation. get them working for a good long while while we solve it. [applause] >> last night, i asked your opponent how he felt about veterans, are there any veterans? there was just a smattering of us there, hardly anything. it surprised me. he said, how do you feel -- i said, how i feel about it when you sit cutting this, cutting that, i worry about my veterans benefits up there where i live. i live further north.

he said, i am all for the military. he dodged the question. and then i said i have not read anything about the second amendment with him. he said, i am for the second amendment. we know his record in massachusetts. back in 1995, i have a picture of you and me. would you sign it? [applause] remember that? just before you got on the helicopter. >> that is great. >> no one has ever called me slim. so i am writing this to you with great admiration. [laughter] [applause] all right, there's a lady right here. >> mr. speaker, thank you for being here. listening to you, it is like a breath of fresh air. you know, i think so many people feel that.

we need a leader. we need leadership. annie le, north korea has the largest military in the world. china, right behind it. now our present administration -- i do not even want to call him mr. president, but he wants to cut our military. what are your feelings about that? >> i think when you elect a radical, you should expect him to be headed that way. he does not believe we had any enemies, worries about what america is not a better country than it could -- you know, just listen to his speeches. he goes on apologizing for the u.s. he thinks we are the problem. my only advice is we have to defeat him. this guy is totally wrong. [applause] >> there is a bunch of us here that are getting checks every month from social security.

you have in your legislative proposal to save social security. what is your plan? >> my plan for saving social security is two parts. my mother depends on it, so i am very sensitive to this issue. she is a great deal of attention and e-mails me regularly to ensure that i not forget this. [laughter] i would say a couple things. one, i think we should take social security off budget. it was off budget until lyndon johnson combined it to a unified budget. he did it to hide the deficit. the reason why i would take off budget is what obama did in july was totally unconscionable. he twice threatened people and said i may pay social security. there is over $2 trillion in a trust fund. there is no excuse for any politician threatening anybody on social security, because the money is there. the money has been paid for. i want to say to politicians,

keep your hands off social security. so i would move to take it off budget, and i would provide that in the case of the debt ceiling problem, it was the second item paid after interest, the second item pay before anything else, just so people can relax. to say to people -- i had a guy walk up to me at a hospital in southern new hampshire months ago who said that his 87-year- old father was really worried that he was going to lose his social security check. now, for politicians to scare people of that age is just, i think, disgusting. so i think, let's take it away from them, make it automatic, put it over here, keep the trust fund safe, and not have attached. that is for your generation, and frankly, for your children. for your grandchildren, we have a proposal to allow them, the young people here, to allow them the right to choose, not force them, allow them the right to choose a personal social security savings account.

this is not a theory. galveston, texas has this model. chile, as a country, has this model. the principal group in iowa actually runs the chilean system. what does it mean? when you first go to work, you're part of the social security tax would go into a savings account that would be yours. no politician could touch it. let's say you started with a part-time job at 16. that means that for 50 years or more, it is building up compound interest. in the chilean and galveston expense, the average retiree gets two to three times as much money as you get from social security. both of them have a provision that says if you ever fall below the actual social security number, the government will make up the difference. so you have a safety net. in 30 years, no one has gotten a check short. all of them have been above the social security line.

what does it do? first of all, it means that you increase your estate. because, instead of transferring money back and forth, you're actually building up your money into an estate so if anything happens to you, your family now has your estate. there is an economist at harvard who was the chair who estimates that you eliminate 50% of the inequality of wealth over a generation, because every single american worker becomes an investor. they all end up having the state. then you change the fabric of american society. this is important for african- american males who have shorter life span on average and actually get back less from social security than any other group. so you really dramatically enhance every part of the community having more resources. the second thing you have is, because you are saving this

money, it gets invested. so the economy gets bigger. folks estimated that at the end of their lifetime, the american economy will be $70 trillion bigger because of the momentum. chile now has such a huge savings will come as a 2% of the economy is in the savings pool. they now allow them to invest part of the savings overseas because the chilean economy cannot absorb all the savings. compare that to our current mess. you would be totally safe. your grandchildren, totally safe. it is a voluntary program, and the ensure for social security estimates that 95% to 97% of all young people would pick it because it is mathematically so much more powerful than the current system. that is how we fix it. that way you can relax, your children can relax, and your grandchildren can relax. ok? [applause]

>> mr. speaker, i am 30 years old. i have a son and one on the way. my concern is the future of our country financially. i cannot vote for ron paul because it is dangerous foreign policy. but at the he is spot on with respect to how much and how aggressive he wants to be with respect to the amount we need to cut in spending. i understand he has a policy. he wants to cut $1 trillion over 10 years, which is just 1/15 of the $15 trillion in debt we are in as a country. it is not just balancing the budget, because that is not enough. what is your proposal for actually try to get on a path to cut our nation's debt? >> that is a very good question. by the way, i agree. i think that ron paul's,

particularly his view on israel and iran are so dangerous, and makes it hard to imagine him as president. i think his critique of the federal reserve has a lot of strength to it. i think his critique of spending has a lot of strength to it. a couple things. i say this from a background of being the only person who has actual balance the federal budget four times in a row in your lifetime. i think i have some credentials to get this done. first, you one very dramatic economic growth, because if you have big enough economic growth, it eats up a lot of the problems by the sheer momentum of scale and how much people start making. second, you want to control domestic discretionary spending. we control it twice in our lifetime. in 1981 as a junior congressman, i participated in the first real cut in domestic discretionary spending since world war ii. in 1995, the second real cut. not slowing down the rate of increase, but actually going down. part of it is just to cut spending. i believe it to apply what strong america describes as -- if you modernize the federal

government so it was as efficient as a modern company, i think we would save about $500 billion a year. that is $5 trillion over 10 years. i have to write a book called "stop paying the crooks," which looked at how bad the federal government is at managing payments, and our estimate was that in medicare and medicaid, somewhere between $70 billion and $120 billion a year being stolen. when i say stolen, i mean a dentist who filed 982 procedures a day. i am talking about stolen. so we went to american express, visa, and mastercard. we believe they could apply their anti-fraud mechanisms, using between $60 billion and $100 billion a year. it does not count food stamps and student loans and other things that it is in medicare and medicaid, we think again saved something on the order of

$1 trillion over 10 years. i would close down some of the departments. frankly, the department of energy has been an anti-energy department. i would close it down. that would -- i do not know why we have a department of housing and urban development. i do not know why local housing authorities cannot be required to run local housing authorities and cut out 90% of the washington regulation. these are the kind of things that just grow and grow. i would fundamentally overhaul the washington houses. i would shrink the department of education dramatically. i would cut out the regulations but is in the power back over to states. i would say you have got to figure out how to solve education. the federal government cannot, and by the way, should not. i do not want that level of power in washington, d.c. [applause] so my goal would be to try to get to -- it took us three years to balance the budget when i was speaker.

this is a much bigger mess. my goal would be to try to get to a balanced budget within five years, to be very aggressive. you are right, you then have to run a surplus for enough years that with a combination of economic growth and control of spending, i think our goal should be to get our debt down to about 40% of gdp. if you did that, you pay off all the chinese debt and you have a very, very stable environment in terms of your fiscal situation. there is a guy right up here. he is coming to your right now. >> good morning, mr. speaker. 20-year air force veteran, and two things i have in mind. one is, would you return us to a bare minimum of don't ask, don't tell policy in the

military? and, two, what about repealing 100% of barack obama's executive orders? [laughter] >> first, yes. i would go back to don't ask, don't tell. they want to go back to that. they have been opposed to what obama has been trying to do. the army and marine corps were deeply opposed to it, i think they are right. i would go back to don't ask, don't tell. while it is a great line and it is tenting, i do not want to say i would repeal all of his executive orders until i knew what all of his executive orders are. i certainly have a bias for repealing those, but i do not want to say yes. i will say, yes, i am for repealing all of this exhibit of orders. one of our dear friends in the press will find executive order number 205 actually makes sense. [laughter]

then they will run out and say that gingrich wants to repeal this, whatever it is that actually makes sense. my bias is in your direction, and i am committed to reducing all those executive orders, and a very substantial number of them will be repealed the first day. my goal is on inaugural day, about two hours after the address, to really shift the government by the end of the very first day. we will take reviewing his executive orders as a step in that direction. ok? [applause] >> thank you, mr. speaker. one of the tragedies of the clinton administration was the ranking of the patent office and the rules for patents. this has cost america daily, because basically we are being ripped off, both in medicines and inventions where we were very successful in the past,

adding to the actual foundation of our economy. do you have some plans for doing something for the patent office? and i had one request. when we close this, will you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? >> ok, i would be honored to. all right, the harvard person here. where is our microphone. >> here you go, harvard. >> in the first debate a while back, you stated that he would not increase taxes, even if they agreed to decrease spending 10 times as much. how do you feel like you will be able to do all these big plans when you are so unwilling to compromise? [laughter] >> well, because i have done it twice before. in 1981, we helped pass the reagan tax-cut program by getting democrats to vote with us. we appealed to the american people, and the american people appealed to the country.

they went to the congress and said, you have got to do this. when i was speaker, we passed welfare reform and got 101 democrats voting yes and 101 voting no. the country went to their members and that we have got to do this. part of it is you have to work with people. i am happy to what rate. i am not going to compromise. to compromise in washington means to sell out, and i am not going to do that. [applause] that may explain why i feel so strongly about this. in 1981, i helped pass the tax cuts. in 1982, president reagan was talked into a tax increase, because his senior staff did not believe in tax cuts. there were all establishment types. i fought him that year. and i stood firm on reaganism, which is no tax increase. he gave a speech, which is the only speech to give this president that failed, and people watched the speech and read and explained why we had

to raise taxes, and they all said, that was really weird. i wonder who wrote that speech. it was clearly not him. he wrote in his diary that this is the single biggest mistake of his administration. the democrats promised if you will raise taxes, we will cut spending. they got all the taxes and none of the spending. he said i will never do it again. when they tried to sell him on another tax increase, a famous story in the "new york times," or jim baker is trying to sell them on another tax increase and reagan takes off his glasses and looked at him and says if you believe what you just said, why are you in this administration? baker walked out and said we're never talking about a tax increase again while he is president. 1990, i campaigned very hard for bush in 1988. and one of the keys to his money -- he was 19 points behind dukakis in may. he won by six. as one of 25 points. in the convention he said no

new taxes. he went on and said read my lips, no new taxes. so he gets there and several people, including the governor, sell them on the idea that it is really ok to break your word and raise taxes. and they came to me and i said, no, i am not going to do this. in one book, it said flatly that i was the one guy who kept saying to them, this is a trap. the democrats are suckering you in to accept a tax increase to break your credibility and to get more money. so i fought him. 1993, bill clinton comes in, he wants to raise taxes because the liberal democrats tell them to. he did not get a single vote. one of the real reasons we want the house. so i start with a simple promise. i do not believe this country is under-taxed. i believe this country is overspent. [applause]

and i am light speaker o'brien. i believe if you push hard enough, you'll get the spending cuts. you have guys over here saying i will only vote for that if you raise taxes, and you almost know for sure they are going to try to not give you spending cuts. i would go in in a very aggressive program of saying, look, we're going to fight this out. but i would cooperate with democrats. i would reach out. i will give you one quick example. senator webb and senator warner have a proposal to allow to develop oil and gas offshore. half the royalties go to the fed. 37.5% to the commonwealth of virginia. 37% to infrastructure. i think the house republicans should pass their bill without amending it, just send it over, and say, here, here is a democratic bill with bipartisan

support, and make senator reid -- is he going to really bottle up two of his democratic senators? that is cooperation, because i happen to share the goal they want to get. that is the way i would approach it. i would cooperate. i would try to get things done. but i would not be willing to compromise core values, because i think then you are on the slippery slope, and then washington takes over. we have had too many competitions who are reasonable. they go to washington and say we have got to be reasonable. that can mean selling at. i have no interest in serving as a reasonable president who sells out the american people to appease the washington establishment. [applause] one more.

somebody over here. this lady right here with the sunflower dress. >> could you speak about your feelings on illegal immigration? i believe you felt sensitivity toward an illegal immigrant who may have worked hard. working hard is not on the dole. >> there is a very important example of cooperating without compromising, in my judgment. there are a series of steps. i do not think you could pass, and to reform. bush tried and failed. obama has tried and failed. when it is all on one bill, it is to be. step one, patrol the border. patrol the border by january 1, 2014. how do you patrol the border? one, you pass a law that says we're waving all federal regulations. control the border. you do not go through epa studies or doing this other stuff. you just do it. two, there are 23,000 common

security employees in the washington area. i am prepared to move up to half of them to texas, mexico, arizona to give you the manpower to go to war. [applause] once you control the border, i would then -- the next step i would take would be to make english the official language of government. [applause] we have 86 languages spoken in the dade community college. i think there are 80 languages in manchester, because it has been a red the city. in cook county, chicago, over 200 languages. we need a single unifying language to bring us together as a people. it is clear english is the only language that could do that. three, i would increase the requirement to be an american citizen in terms of learning american history, people actually learn what it means to

be an american. candidly, a descending for high school students. i it would be good for them to learn american history. [applause] four, i would make legal visas easier to the current estate department process is a nightmare. we want tourists to come here. we want business people to come here. we want professors and students to come here. they're going to come here legally and leave legally, we will make it easy to do, not hard to do. five, i would make it much easier to deport people who shall not be here. if you are a member of an el salvadorean gang, we should be able to get rid of you in two weeks. it should not require two years of lawyering. you're not an american citizen but you do not deserve those protections. goodbye. ok? [applause] next, i would create a legal guest worker program, and what outsource american express, visa, or mastercard, because

they know how to run it without regard. having created a legal guest worker program, it would dramatically increase the economic penalties for businesses who are not obeying the law. remember, you do not get illegal workers without illegal employers. now you get down to the hard part. 11 million people already here illegally. they will have a hard time getting a job, because now you have to have a guest worker permit or you are an american citizen or you cannot get hired. most of them will go home and will apply for a guest worker permit from back home. they have deep ties here. sending the was a shock to some of my colleagues was, what do you do about somebody who has been here 25 years? remember, the community has been working hard, paying bills, married. the head kids and grandkids.

they may belong to your church. do you really think that america will send the police in to take some grandfather or grandmother out? as a friend of mine said, a real case, he said -- he had a constituent who was a marine serving in afghanistan and was faced with his grandmother being reported. you ask yourself, what do we do? here is my answer, you take the world war ii selective service board model, which is a local county board. you create a citizen review board. you can only apply if you have been here a long time, if you have genuine ties to the community, if you have been paying your bills and are clearly a member of the community in good standing, and if you can get an american family to sponsor you. if you meet that standard, you go before the review board. if the review board thinks you are a legitimate member of the community, you can get a certificate of residence, but not citizenship. but you are now here legally. you can get a job. you can continue the rest of your life.

if you then want to apply for citizenship, you have to go home long enough to apply. you get in line back home. behind everybody else. and that way, you do not have anybody getting the advantage. one of my competitors said two things that i think are just plain, pardon the language -- well, i will not say it. [laughter] my mother used to teach me, if it is really dumb, do not say it. so let me try to use a different word. i do not quite understand what their thinking was. two things. one, everybody has to go. i cannot wait for them to campaign in florida. [laughter] ok, and try to go into miami on the battle cry everybody must go. i do not see how they are going to win a general election. that is clearly going to come across in the immigrant

community as you have no sense of humanity for people. the second thing they said was, this is creating a magnet. this will increase illegal immigration. that is what i describe. here is a program where we are controlling the border, creating a guest worker program, having probably 9.5 million of the 11 million leave. you have to have been here 20 or 25 years and have a family and have a record of paying all your bills and have an american family sponsor you. what kind of magnet is this? you're going to say to somebody in mexico, guatemala, or china, you have two choices. you can apply for an american guest worker program or you can sneak in and in 24 years, you can become eligible for residency. this is just stupid. that is the word i was going to use earlier. i cannot help it. [laughter] you know what their reasoning is? desire to hit the other candidate. that is all.

since i said, and must be a bad thing, because otherwise it would be a good thing. you know, i think that is foolish. i have often said, you know, rick perry has good ideas on the 10th amendment. so i say, those are good ideas. he suggested that we start at zero in every foreign-aid program, and have to earn their way back into the budget. that is a good idea. i do not mind saying that somebody has a good idea. that does not mean a thing you should vote for him. he is a good guy. but, i mean, not as good as me. [laughter] [applause] anyway, this gentleman had a great idea. i want you to come up here and bring the flag. >> [inaudible] >> if they have been here that long, they are paying taxes. in order to be eligible, that would have had to be paying taxes. >> [inaudible] >> oh, the sanctuary. that is one of the things i would do in the opening day. i would say no century cities or any federal funds, period.

[applause] now, i want you to help lead us. i want all of you to join in. >> [all] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> thank you. [applause] >> everybody come this way. i would love to see each one of you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] ♪

♪

[inaudible conversations] ♪

[inaudible conversations] ♪ ♪

[inaudible conversations] ♪

[inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

♪

[inaudible conversatins]