michigan last night to discuss his economic plan that calls for cuts in the federal budget and fewer regulations. michigan and arizona all their presidential primaries tuesday. thank you so much. >> i hesitate to say i am a fellow knight. -- >> i appreciate all the wonderful service work that the knights of columbus does. congratulations to all of you. i do not think i've ever seen a knights of columbus hall this big. this is pretty impressive, i have to tell you. thank you for coming out on a friday night. thank you for coming out on a friday night.

on a beautiful winter friday night here in southeast michigan. it is a pleasure for me to be here. be in a place that is very similar to where i grew up. i grew up in western pennsylvania. in a manufacturing town. it is very much like the towns here in southeast michigan, where we had the kind of neighborhoods and values and opportunities for everyone. to be able to go off and go to work and work hard and have an incentive to work hard because there were great jobs. there were strong neighborhoods, strong families. we had an opportunity to really build a great and strong community. and building a great and strong country. that is how america is unique and the world. america is a great country from

the bottom up. all the different community organizations, they all sprung up because we believe in the idea of a free people and our ability to provide for ourselves and our families. that is the secret. that is the difference of america when it comes to what makes us successful. it is the secret sauce, if you will. it is the secret sauce to what makes america a unique country. it is so hard to replicate because america was built that way. we are a discovered country. people forget how young we are. this young country was born in a very different fashion than all the other countries that go back to antiquity.

when i go around and i talk to people all around the country, i talk about how important it is that we've remember who we are. what makes us great, what makes us different. our difference is what makes us exceptional in the world. what i have tried to do in this campaign, in spite of what always happens, people get worried about whether they will win and lose and they decide to try to throw mud and dirt and run a negative campaign. we have been going around this country from the days of the town hall meetings to appear in michigan. we have been talking about ideas. we're talking about things that can reinvigorate and create that sparked again. the greatness of america, it is still here, it is still alive. [applause]

ultimately, we have a government right now who does not believe in the things that made this country great. he has a very different model for how we will build a great society going forward. i want to share with you some ideas of what i would do. this campaign, as we have seen, can get off the ideas, off the vision, off of what the people in michigan are going to have to vote about on tuesday. i have done a few television and radio shows today. the last one i did, he said, i am glen to talk to you about issues. not these -- i am going to talk to you about issues. things that people care about.

what are you going to do as the next leader of this country? what are you going to do to make a difference in our lives? i thought i would share with you the time things -- the ten things i would do and focus on in the first 100 days i was in office. if we elect rick santorum, these are the things he will do to get this country turned around. that is the focus. that is what people are concerned about. we have not just 8.3% unemployment. we also know we have a record number of people not looking for work. people are not participating in the market. that is at an all-time high. a lot of folks who are in the

marketplace are not in the kinds of jobs that allow for advancement and allow for people to have those wages and benefits that can support a family can create that sense of optimism and hope. those are the things that people are concerned about. those are the things that are eating away at our optimism here in america. i want to talk about what we can do together to make things happen. obviously, the first and foremost, we have to do something to get this economy going. the first order of business, as a look at what is happening right now, we have to do something about energy prices. the price of gasoline in this country is going up and it will not be going down any time soon. [applause] this is not just an economic issue. this is a national security

issue. look at our involvement in the middle east right now. oil prices are going up and gasoline prices are going up because of the instability of the region from which we get so much of our energy. things are only going to get worse in the next few years, unfortunately. the last half a million barrels a day it will go offline within the next five or 10 years. we will not have enough production to keep the alaska pipeline flowing. if it gets under 350 million barrels a day, the pipeline stops. it slows down to the point where it does not flow. as a result of that, they have to shut down production. half a million barrels a day that we will not have. mexico, but then the next five or 10 years, will be an energy

importer. 2.5 million barrels from venezuela, all from areas of the country -- of the continent that can provide crude for our refineries for them to be able to produce a domestic supply to keep prices stable in the world. we will not have the production anymore. it is coming here to america. what is the alternative? bailout and did the opposite of what we did go out and do the opposite of what president obama is doing. i do not know how stupid he thinks america is. [applause] blaming everybody but himself for policies that were intentional to drive up the cost of energy. remember when he was campaigning? they were talking about how we

did higher prices for energy because they were concerned about man-made global warming. they had to do something about a man-made global warming. folks, look at any chart. when energy costs and energy availability is compromised, the standard of living goes down. the economy struggles. one of the great reasons we have been a great country is because we have that energy. look at detroit. imagine if we did not have the price of gasoline. what with this industry have been like if we did not have the availability of cheap gasoline for some years? we produce it here. we were not afraid to produce it here because we know that after awhile, we would have the best environmental laws. we need to open up offshore, we need to open up alaska, we need to take the permiting and allow

per metmits. i was just up the north dakota. north dakota has an area -- i brought it to the economic club. it is a piece of iraq. -- rock. they are getting oil out of a rock. it is called sweet crude. the highest quality crude you can get. they gave me a little bottle of it. it almost looks like water. it is great crude oil. guess what? bad kids a premium on the

market. -- that gets a premium on the market. but they have to give a $32 a barrel discount. they cannot get it to market. this president refuses to do anything to bring more oil into this country. ladies and gentlemen, we need a president who understands that energy drives america. it drives mich., a dress manufacturing, it dries quality of life in america. -- it dries mich., it drives manufacturing, it drives quality of life in america. when the president to will lean

-- legal gets gasoline prices down. we will create jobs. that is promise number 1. [applause] the next thing we need to do is look at the regulatory burden in this country. i talk a lot about how our economy is struggling under the burden of the president who has put in place more regulations on businesses in this country than any president in history and one year. he did 150 regulations lester that cost over $100 million on the economy. -- last year that cost over $100 million on the economy. what i will do is take every single one of those obama regulations, hundreds of them,

some will we will repeal and replace them with regulations that are lower cost and believe in the red story power of the states and the goodness of the american people to abide by the laws and not have government have to micromanage every process they do in their workplace and home. [applause] that will stimulate this economy. americans do not like to be regulated. they do not like people being there and micromanaging everything they do. they believe in freedom. that will be a huge impetus. one of the things i hear all the time from businesses, uncertainty -- what are they going to do next? what is this administration go on to do to make my business work?

if it is a large business, you can hire somebody in your compliance department. if you are a small business, it is to you. instead of selling products and improving your products or other things that make your business go, you are worried about government paper work. you are consumed with complying with the federal government. this is one of the great opportunities to stimulate small business in america. that is doing something about this regulatory burden. next, the importance of getting the manufacturing sector of this economy going again. we know we can compete with anybody in the world. [applause]

we can compete with anybody in the world in manufacturing. the american worker, the american engineer, the american innovator, we prove it over and over again. --re still proving how we how we can compete, we can be profitable, we can out-innovate to make sure we produce the best quality products and we do so at a competitive price as long as we have a level playing field. ladies and gentlemen, we do not have a level playing field. our government puts us at an economic disadvantage. our tax rate and regulatory burden, our cost of capital has made us uncompetitive.

we are 20% more costly in america to do manufacturing here, and excluding labor costs, and this is really important. if you take labor costs out, american regulation and taxation make our country 20% more costly to do business in them are nine top trading partners. we do not have a level trait -- we do not have a level playing field. i put forward a plan that says, let's look to what the government does to make our businesses on competitive. there is one unique sector of the economy that is at a disadvantage. the rest of the economy is not competing head-to-head with china and mexico and indonesia and india for those jobs. in manufacturing, we are.

they want those jobs. they know that manufacturing is a wealth generator for the economy. they know making things creates wealth. they also know that it gives opportunities for folks at all skill levels in the economy to be able to participate. we still have a lot of great innovation going on. that innovation, sometimes, it is made in this country, but more often it is not. the opportunities are more and more limited to those who have succeeded in the knowledge based economy. we want them to succeed. we also want the products that are creating to be manufactured here. so everybody else can participate. it is one thing if we do not have the horses and we cannot be competitive because someone else has been as to the punch. but it is -- but if it is government causing the problem,

the government has the responsibility to change the playing field. that is why the corporate tax on manufacturers in america -- eliminated. [applause] that is important for blue- collar america and it is important for small town america. small-town america, i know there is a big manufacturing mecca here. but you all know, almost every small town in america is there for a handful of reasons. there was a railroad crossing or an intersection of roads or a mine or agriculture that was processed there or there was a manufacturing center that created something.

almost every little town is built and run some sort of manufacturing and processing. that is small town america. guess what is happening to small town america. it is dying on the vine. manufacturing is dying on the vine. processing is dying on the vine. we went from 21% in the work force down to 9% involved in manufacturing and processing. a lot of those small towns -- the jobs are not around anymore. the kids have to go off to the bigger cities to get the employment opportunities. guess where manufacturers want to locate? they want to locate in small- town america. that is where manufacturers find the land to be affordable.

they are not gone to locate in the suburbs. this is an opportunity for a revitalization for a very key part of america. that is why manufacturing is so important. it is also a important for national security. it's critical components for our economy are not made here in america, with this hostile environment that is getting more hostile every day because of the ineptitude of this president, we are in a situation where critical infrastructure parts of things that we need to be able to survive in america it is important to america. manufacturing is great for detroit and is great for the entire country. it is great for the national security for our country.

[applause] it is not just manufacturers that we give a tax break to. i will take the corporate tax rate and cut in half to 17.5%, a flat tax. he would be able to the expense of everything, no depreciation. a simple tax code. leveling the playing field. how? the little guy and the big guy -- the little guy will play the same -- pay the same rights as the big guy. they have the opportunity to have a level playing field.

simplifying the tax code, one tax credit for research and development so we can keep this knowledge based economy going in america. we will have a dynamic market growth with lower energy prices, energy production, lower regulatory -- maybe that is not the best word. working with business to help them produce with a better tax rate and the zero tax rate for manufacturers. this will get america growing on the tax side. that is only part of the problem. we have to do some other things on the government side. government is hampering our economy and living our potential. it is creating that uncertainty as to what is going to have been because every dollar we spend is a tax. it may not be a tax today, but

it will be a tax at some point. pay it back or suffer the consequences. the other parts of the plan is to do something to get this budget deficit under control. first and foremost, day one, i will propose a bill to repeal obamacare right out of the box. [applause] the biggest issue in this election is freedom. i've just talked about creating economic freedom. the opportunity for everybody to get a job. the other issue in this country is the reach of the federal government. president obama went out and

promised everybody that he would give people the right to health care. careful. careful. when government says they can give you the right to something, we need to remember this. where do our rights come from? they come in the declaration of independence. that is what makes us unique. the bill of rights, if you think of the things that shine brightly in america, it was defend national freedoms in the bill of rights. it is not as the trampling of obamacare on our economic rights, the ability to choose a health care plan, choose

providers and hospitals, to is the kind of health service you want to purchase, you'll have five plans. you have to comply with the government. if you don't, you will be fined. your employer is going to be fined. it is prescriptive, it tells you exactly what to do and how to do it. they say it is not a government run health care system, but i do not know what is. it tells the insurance companies how much money they have to pay out in claims. imagine. if the government tells your business or tells your family how much money you have to spend on food dish year, this is what they're doing with the insurance companies. you have to pay 85% of the money received in claims. 15% to run their business and make a profit.

we would be telling business is how much money they can spend and keep and how to do it? why is it surprising that they think they can tell you -- look at what is by not in massachusetts. the same thing. -- look at what is going on in massachusetts. the same thing. it is not just economic freedom. it is also first amendment freedoms at stake. they can tell you what benefits you will have and what businesses have to provide and churches have to provide. this is one of the most outrageous affront to the first amendment in the history of our country. [applause]

i can tell you, on day one, and if that regulation is still around, it will be gone on day one under my administration. [applause] obamacare has to be repealed, but there is a lot of other things out there that need to be repealed, too. one of the other things is in the housing market. if you look at the housing market, it is a struggle. i am in a situation in our own house where we happen to buy at a very bad year.

the housing value of my house is a fraction of what it was when i bought it. i am not alone. a lot of folks here in michigan, if you bought at the wrong time, you'll be in that same situation. the market collapsed underneath you. what are we going to do about it? when things got bad and 2008, we made a mistake, in my opinion. we bailed out the wall street banks. we said we would make sure that you do not lose money. and then we will regulate you to the point where you will not take the normal course of flushing through these loans and getting through those books and trying to get the housing market to reach its equilibrium. they held on. it is not going to work. what we need to do is completely restructure the housing system

in this country. the first thing we can do to help folks who are under water, who were going to lose money, if you sell your house, we allow you to deduct the losses from the cell of europe -- sale of your house. you cannot deduct the losses on the sale of your house. i think this is the way to soften the blow for folks who will have to sell their house. without affecting the marketplace, without the government picking winners and losers. it is a fair way of doing it. it is a market-based way of dealing with the problems we have in the housing market today. we have to do something about freddie mae and fannie mac.

those are the organizations that -- they are not a horrible way of providing housing support. but what they are and what they became was a politicized wade. they became a way for a group of people -- barney frank and chris dodd -- all the people pressuring the organizations. what happened was it created a bubble. and the bubble burst. a lot of folks bought at the wrong time ended up holding the wrong -- holding the bag. we need to get the politics out of the housing industry. let the private sector deal with it without the politicians.

[applause] dodd-frank, and another when, -- another one, i do not believe in bailout. when i was in high school, we'll look back on the glory days in pittsburgh of the pittsburgh steelers in the 1970's. that is all we had to hang onto. the steel industry was collapsing. we were very proud of our pittsburgh steelers, but we will not -- were not producing a lot of steel. we lost huge icons. all the more gone, no longer around. we struggled and we suffered,

but we bounced back. there are still a few steel companies around. not anything like what it was before. i used to represent the district in congress. there are a lot of shopping malls and other high-technology businesses where they were in the past. but pittsburgh came back. it took a while, but we have a diversified economy. it is a great place to live again. the market worked. that is what i believed in. that is what i stood for. that -- i will build one group of folks and not bailout and other industry. you are either for them or against them, but don't start picking winners and losers. he may not like my position on bail out, but i have been

consistent, unlike other people in this race. [applause] as part of fixing the housing market, we have to do something about the successor to the bailouts. dodd-frank is a successor to the too big to fail philosophy that encourage you to do the bailout and the first place. on obamacare, con dodd-frank, i have been for private sector health care. i believe in capital markets. that has been my philosophy. i have stood for those things, on like other people in this race. these are the huge issues of the day. these are the issues that will

decide this election. it is about to your trust in what kind of america we will have. we have a strong track record that police and you, believes in it for the markets and free people -- that believes in you, believes in free markets and free people. we have an opportunity here with the right candidate and the right message to go out and tell the story to the american public. how we can build a strong prosperous america. we have the plans to do it. if we can put those plans in place and did that last piece, cut the government, i propose a balanced budget. i was fighting for a balanced budget before it was cool to fight for a balanced budget. back in 1995 -- [applause]

1995, we had an opportunity to pass a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. we came within one vote. most people do not remember that. we came within one vote. i have no doubt it would have passed. it passed the house and we had 15 or 16 democratic senators willing to vote for it. on the last day, the chairman of the appropriations committee, who had been in the senate for 29 years, decided to flip his vote. i had been in the senate for three months, 36 years old, here is this young guy from

pennsylvania, was seen as a troublemaker. i just sent to the chairman of the ways and means committee to jail. we were a bad dude coming into the united states senate. i had a reputation for that. i'd better keep my head down because i have this reputation of being a troublemaker. the center -- the senator lauded by the media. i called for his resignation of chairman of the appropriations committee. why? he betrayed the very essence of what the republican party believes in, which is limited government and responsible fiscal policy. we should not elect him to chair

a committee that spent the money in congress. of course, they beat me upside the head. but i said, this is something we need to take a stand down. we need to fight for the things the american public wants for their government. limited government. we did not pass it and we never got close again. even though we have surpluses, and never could get the votes again. we lost seats in the next election and it was never able to happen. ladies and gentlemen, we have an opportunity again. we are looking at trillions of dollars in debt. we have an opportunity because the american public is recognizing the great threats that this huge government is going to face. i will go out and i will go

across this country and i will argue and i will do everything i can to get the american public to support and rally around passing a balanced budget amendment to the constitution that lennon's the size of the federal government to make import -- that limits the size of the federal government to 18%. if we keep the government limited to 18 cents of every dollar that is spent in america, we will have freedom in america for your children and grandchildren. guaranteed. [applause] that is a long-term plan. the short-term plan is we have to deal with the problems in our budget. i proposed $5 trillion in reductions over five years. no one else has come close to that number. not even ron paul. i will spend less money every

year for the four years as president. we will see the money -- you hear this in washington. the rate of growth will go down and we will consider that a cut in spending. we will see less money spent each year for four years in washington, d.c. we will limit the government. that is what our objective is. when i was born, the defense department was 60% of the budget. it is now 17%. if anybody thinks that is what the problem is, the answer is no. look at what this president is doing. he talks a good game about what he wants to do to prepare for the next war. he is not investing in the technology to do it. he is creating a serious defense

gap in this country. he is doing it because he wants to withdraw america from its influence and prominent around the world. if we do not have the tools to have the influence and to do -- and to have the type of equipment and manpower around the world to have that presence that is necessary that our allies trust us to be a reliable ally, we do not have the capability, we will not do it. we will pull back. what is what's the president going to do? he's going to keep buying votes. what we have to do is again go back to the basic principles. we've got to limit government in the best way to do that, limit dependency on government. that's the problem right now. [applause]

so i put forth a detailed plan of how we're going to limit government, we're going to take the appropriated accounts, that's about another 20% of the budget, everything other than entitlement programs and defense we're going to cut it 10%, we're going to go back to 2008, excuse me, cut it 10% and then freeze it. and make government more efficient, we'll put all sorts of -- there's a program called lean six signal which i signed onto to bring business programitieses into government, start getting rid of all of these agencies and personnel that simply don't do anything except push paper and roar about process. [applause] and then we're going to take on the entitlement programs. means-tested entitlement programs, there's 72 of them. i'm a catholic and i'm told that one of the responsibilities of the church is to care for those who are the least among us. and i believe that. and that's a real responsibility for all of us.

[applause] but i can tell that you doesn't mean it's government's role to take care of the least among us. it's our responsibility to take care of the least among us. and what we find is that when government is doing so, then people who believe and are taught that it is our responsibility, say, you know what? i pay a lot in taxes, there's all these government programs, maybe i just don't need to fill in the blank. we become detached from our neighbors, we become detached from the challenges in our community and the struggles of people within our community. that's not a healthy thing for our country. it's not a healthy thing for our neighborhoods and communities. we need to get government back in the position of being that ultimate safety net, but being

that position is a handup, not a handout. i was the author of welfare reform 15 years ago and we transfer transformed the welfare sthm in this country from a permanent dependency system to one that was transitional. why? because we do the the federal government out of it, we block granted it to the state. we cut it, we capped it. we froze it. and we said so the state, can you do -- to the states, you can do, we can redesign this program, working with local community, working with the nonprofit sector and can you redesign this program into a transitional program. why? becauseers there going to be two requirements. a work requirement and a time limit. that's compassionate. why? because poverty isn't the ultimate -- it's not a disability. it's a temporary condition that if you believe in the dignity of every human life and their ability to be able to pick themselves up and rise through a struggle, that is the essence of america. that's what makes us great.

we need to do that, we need to do that with all of the means-tested entitlement programs. get them back to the state. put a time limit, put a work requirement. and tell people, yes, we want to help. but the best way we can help you is to get you back on your feet so you can help yourself. that's the key to america. we can take these programs and not only can we save a bunch of money, we can save lives. we can transform communities. finally, and you know i always have to mention this, we're not going to turn this economy around unless we do more to help the american family. [applause] we have seen over the past 50 years the breakdown of the

american family. and as a result more and more people on the margins of society, why? because it's just a lot harder to economically succeed in a family where there's one person doing the job that's designed for two. it's no rap against those who are doing their best to try. but it's harder and what we're see something more and more children having children. i was at a -- down in texas yesterday and i ran into an eighth grade teacher in dallas who teaches in a school and her job is to deal with eighth graders, she has a classroom of eighth graders who are moms. a classroom of eighth graders who are moms. and she was talking about meeting the great-grandparents, great-grandmother of this -- these girls and all of the other mothers and grandmothers

up the line. it's generational. and it's not something that we can turn our eyes against, say, well, it's just a problem in a community and we can sort of just worry about everything else, not really worry about what's going on. with 40% of this children being born out of wed lock, 40%. daniel patrick important hand sounded the alarm in the minority communities in america back in the 1960's when it hit 20%. it's now 40% and in certain minority communities and in certain urban areas it's 75% and 80%. families are not forming. and government is there to provide but it's not, it's not the road to success. oh, there will be some that succeed. but far, far, far too many fail. and as a result of that our society is hurting. we need to have first

government programs that don't create that dependency, so there are some things that government does do to create that kind of dependency. secondly, we need to have a national discussion about this. there's a difference between me and the left. when i talk about the importance of building strong families, i don't necessarily mean that we have to have a government program to do it. but we do need to have a discussion about how we can do it. [applause] i talk about what went on in chattanooga, tennessee, which i'll be at this weekend. in chattanooga this they had this problem of out of wed lock birth rates, one of the highest rates of divorce, highest rates of single parenthood. and they decided they didn't -- they weren't aware of it, they were shocked to find out. so the community got together, churches, business leaders, educators and philanthropists and they came together and they formed a nonprofit organization

to promote marriage, to promote fatherhood. promote marriage in schools, talk about how important the institution of marriage is, what it means to be a mother and a father, what the responsibilities are. why it's good for them economically and socially, why it's good for the community. why it's healthy for a variety of different perspectives. same thing with trying to get fathers back engaged. there are things that we can and should do as a nation. we can rally together and start focusing on how we can build healthier families and health evercommunities as a result. you want limited government, you better have healthy families. because you can't have it without it. so -- [applause] yes, i've talked about the problems that confront america. but there are solutions to all those problems and guess who they involve? you. ultimately every solution i put forward tonight talks about how

the great -- greatness of the american people, your industry, your compassion, your willing tons step up when your country needs you, can transform this country back into a country that is growing, is vie is hopeful -- vibrant, is hopeful, believes in itself, not government to take on its problem, believes in informing and building strong communities as the way to address the problems most uniquely that we all have. we all have problems. but the best way to solve them is first at the family. next in your -- with your friends, your church, your community, your civic organizations. that's how america works best. but when you're out there all alone with no family, no church , a neighborhood that you're afraid to go out at night, you feel alone out there and all you have is government, that is a very lonely place to be. we need to do better than that

in america. and we can do better than that. [applause] that's what this campaign should be about. it should be about a vision for america. it should be about high-minded things. things that are high-minded yet very doable and practical. that's what americans are looking for in this race. they're looking for someone who can paint a vision, who can draw a contrast, who can show how we can get from here to there and how each american can be a part of that journey. everybody. this is an inclusive plan. it includes everybody in america. yeah, because i care about the very poor. i care about the guy who's not doing as wls as he could or as a gal. i care about everybody. i'm a 100%er when it comes to a

president not a 99% versus 1%. i appreciate you coming out here tonight and being with me. so i can lay out this vision here on the eve of this election in michigan. because we've seen too much just nasty politics. on issues that, well, frankly, i haven't even talked about tonight, have i? why? because they're not the key issues in this campaign. they are issues that are off and they're irrelevant in most cases. we have someone who has a vision, has a track record to back up that vision, has a contrast to a president who has a fundamentally different vision, has the energy and the drive to go out. i'm not going to be taking any golf vacations between now and the general election. [applause]

my dad and my grandfather, they always said, there's three keys to success in america. i heard it almost every day of my life. work, work, work. [laughter] i heard it every day. it drove me crazy. [laughter] but i heard it. because that's what my grandfather believed in and my dad always threw in a fourth, get a good education. but it was always about work. that's what -- i can tell you, i've been back to visit my relatives in the old country. just the work ethic isn't there. it's just different. it's just different. we are different. we're different because we understand what we're placed here today. we're placed here to provide for ourselves, that's our mission. provide for ourselves and our families. to take care of those in need in our society and help out our neighbor. to build those strong communities and participate as active members of those

communities. you know what? one of the great things about america is we believe if we just do that, everything is going to be fine in america. you know what? it usually is. but not now. why? because we have a group of people in washington who are structuring a government and a system that's going to rob you of the opportunity to do that. they're going to start managing how you do those things and those institutions that you were going to be a part of, they're going away. and unfortunately if governor romney, who proposes a tax bill just this week, who says to folks who are the biggest givers to charity in america, that we're going to limit your ability to deduct gifts to charitable organizations, you want to talk about torpedoing the very civic institutions that make america work at the grassroots level, you just take their money away. you take the incentives for people to be generous to them

and like it or not that is -- that plays a role in the amount of the donations that are given. ladies and gentlemen, i'm not going to do that. i understand how america works. it's not about making sure that my plan is revenue-neutral. it's understanding in your plan how it affects each and every american and the institutions that make this country great. i shared my vision with you tonight because it's probably the only time you're going to hear it. because most of the folks who are going to be romping -- reporting here aren't going to write about it, they're going to write about some controversial comment. [applause] but in one part or another, this is it's vision i've been talking about since i was driving around in a pickup truck in iowa. and you know what? americans are responding to it. they're not responding to all the garbage, they're responding

to a vision about what affects them. that's what this campaign's going to be about. we're starting it again here tonight. and we will finish this campaign on a high note and a positive vision and a winning one for america. thank you all very much. and god bless. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> the arizona and michigan primaries are coming up on tuesday followed by washington

state caucuses. there will be super tuesday followed by four caucus states and march 10. watch full coverage on the cspan networks and their campaign web site, c-span.org/campaign 2012. today's "washington journal" next in our daylong coverage of the national governors' association winter meeting begins with the opening news conference with the governors of nebraska and delaware. in about 45 months, a political reporter discusses super-pac money and we will talk to pamela banks from consumers union about bank overdraft fees and a former louisiana governor and presidential candidate buddy roemer. "washington journal" is next. ♪ good morning, today is saturday,