was 25. up until 1776. in 230 years, because of america, because of you, free people, life expectancy doubled. we went through a technology revolution. imagine what the world would be like today if we were still having kings and emperors and dictators. man and society for their benefits instead of having a free people from the bottom up governing america. making sure, by their actions, of keeping america free. [applause]

at the end of that declaration, the founders wrote this phrase. all the men of wealth, property, stature, education. they signed this document known they were giving up a lot were they to lose. they were giving up their lives because they were signing a treasonous document. they did so willingly. they believed so much in that concept that has proven to be that transformational concept in human history. here we are, we have taken that flame from previous generations. we are the descendants of reagan and that generation. told those tyrants to tear down walls.

[applause] there were no different. we are no different than the people here today. they did what they had to do. they stood up and they rose to the occasion. ladies and gentlemen, what is necessary now in america to preserve freedom is for each and every one of you to engage in that struggle in the selection. do not be those people that reagan talked about. they had to tell their children and children's children what it was like to live in an america where men were freed. you do not want to ever have

that conversation. unless we do the right thing in this election, we will be the generation that allow that torch to go out. the best way to make that happen is to make this election like the election of 1980. do not make it about who can best manage washington or be the ceo of the economy. we need someone you can talk for big things, like reagan did. for freedom and for america. [applause] let me brutally honest about it. there is one candidate who can never make this race about freedom. he simply abandoned freedom when he was the governor of massachusetts. he abandoned it when he promoted obamacare in 2009.

[applause] you listen to any of the speeches, he never talks about it. he cannot talk about it. that is the most important and pressing issue in our country right now. the big central issue. how can we nominate someone who cannot summon the energy, summoned division, some of the greatness of our country and elevate the debate to something that is lasting. you can do that here in illinois. you can put someone forward to will try to communicate that message that is at the heart of what america is. you help us here in the next 24 hours.

if you go out and are willing to vote for me tomorrow -- [applause] i appreciate that. that is great, but it is not enough. we are up against being outspent its third five, seven, or 10 to 1. no vision. no hope. no promise of what america is to be. we must do better than that. [applause] i am asking you what our founders signed and that declaration to pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. no one is asking for your lives next 24 hours.

no one is asking for your fortune. if you go to ricksantorum.com -- [laughter] pass the hat. your honor is at stake. what will dixon at say? will they stand up and uphold freedom, uphold the legacy of this great man and what he did to this country? will that have been in vain? will you be the generation that reagan talked about in his farewell address? i need your help. i need to not just to vote for me, but i need you to go out and talk to u.s. friends and neighbors.

i needed to rise up and speak loudly from the place of freedom. let the voice of reagan be heard across this land. thank you very much. god bless you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, rick santorum ♪ ♪ 24 hours, people. if everybody here would call 100 people, we could turn around this election. ♪ >> hello, dixon.

there is only one ronald reagan. the only one who came here to see as and that is rick santorum. we are in the 16th congressional district. i want to say the names of our delegates. they are pledged to represent board. you have to go down your ballot to vote for each of these people in order for us to win. one of them is over here to my left. let's give her a round of

applause. ♪ from the great county of ford, jan peterson. her husband phil is serving as an alternate delegate. from the neighboring 17th district -- let's give her a round of applause. the great congressman from the 16th district is here. i am from henry county. i will be on the 17th district ballots. this is an alternate delegates in the 17th district.

from sterling, ill., one of our delegates, let's give her a round of applause. do not forget to vote for delegates. thank you very much. ♪ >> yard signs are available back here at the lemonade stand. god bless you all. it out and vote and get your neighbors to vote. >> great interview. ♪ >> ♪ victory is in sight there is hope for our nation again may be the first time

there will be justice for the unborn the constitution rules the land i believe rick santorum is our man ♪ ♪ game on he's got the plan faithful to his wife and 7 kids there is hope for our nation again may be the first time since we had ronald reagan i believe rick santorum is our man ♪

♪ ♪ when we the people are supposed to rule this land rick understands there is hope for our nation again may be the first time since we had ronald reagan justice for the unborn i believe rick santorum is our man yes, i believe rick santorum is our man we believe rick santorum is our man ♪

♪ >> ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ backs thank you 40 paying guidance -- >> thank you for obeying god. ♪ >> i hope you win.

>> thank you. i will fight for you. >> we are praying for you. >> keep working, playing and working return -- praying and working. our thank you. >> good luck on the campaign. >> thank you very much.

>> are you ready? get ready. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i have been praying for you. >> thank you very much. you got all our support. >> can i get a picture? ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> who is taking the picture? >> thank you, rick. >> and got a -- got it.

♪ >> how many delegates the you have to win? >> i do not know. good >> not worried about that. >> we are praying for you. >> she is old enough to vote. been next mitt romney talks about the u.s. economy at the university of chicago. the event was part of the university's school public policies series of forums and titled presidency 2012, the purposes of government.

this is just under 40 minutes. welcome, everybody. >> the adviser for the program "presidency 2012 -- the purposes of government." president zimmer of the university of chicago, along with the dean -- they cannot be here but they extend their welcome to the governor and thank you for being here. we have students and other faculty members. we would like to welcome you to our program with a republican presidential candidates, the former governor of massachusetts, mitt romney. [applause] and i would be greatly remiss if i did not recognize the governor's wife, who is here, ann romney. [applause] today's event illustrates the school's continued commitment to fostering an in-depth and diverse public discourse. the school has embarked on this yearlong program to explore the purposes of government and presidency in preparation for the 2012 election coming up. the program's serious objective is to bring the candidates, presidential candidates, together, campaign strategists, party leaders both republican and democrat to present their views. to be very clear about the program, the university of chicago is not endorsing a candidate or advocating a particular public policy position.

the university is committed to providing an opportunity, though, for all the buzz and to candidates and party leaders to present their views on the major issues for debate, such as the economy, which the governor will be addressing today, and others including education, health care, energy, urban affairs, and many other issues. the program's bottom line seeks to promote a dialogue and discussion on the purposes of government. that will happen today, but will continue after words. the debate on governor romney's positions will be talked about in courses throughout the campus. the governor has agreed to take questions. you have been handed out cards. please write down your questions and hand them to people at the side of the auditorium. the professor, who i will introduce in a moment, will read the cards and return to the stage to ask the governor some questions. in order to promote a rigorous inquiry, we must respect civil discourse. to that end, we don't encourage disrupting the event or preventing fellow audience members from hearing our speaker, resulting in the disruption of the event. we appreciate you supporting the fundamental principles of the university of chicago. with that having been said, i would like to bring forth to you our professor who will introduce the guest speaker, gov. mitt romney. the professor has written widely on the separation of powers, issues, at american political institutions, especially the presidency. his research has appeared in numerous professional journals and other publications. his honors list is very impressive. he is a professor of american politics at the paris school, co-director of the program on political institutions. currently he is working on a book tentatively titled "wartime president," which will examine

the impact of war on the power the u.s. president wields at home. before he came to the university of chicago, he was at harvard and at the political science department at the university of wisconsin. in 2000, he received his ph.d. in political science from stanford. a well qualified individual academic professional to introduce to you governor mitt romney. >> thank you. [applause] welcome, everybody, to the "presidency 2012." i know you are not here to see me. that was a nice introduction. a few things. governor romney received his b.a. from byu, got jd and mba from a lesser institution in cambridge. [laughter] he was a star football player in the university of chicago in 1943 and went on to play for the bears -- you recovered. [laughter] if you have not checked on-line this morning, keeping track of these things, the delegate count is 516 for mitt romney. santorum is the closest one out, and he does not have quite half of that, at 236. romney has a 15-point edge in illinois leading into the campaign. [applause] an eight-point edge nationwide. he is just coming back from puerto rico, where he got all 20 delegates. you are on a bit of a run -- [applause] but we are not here to talk about a horse race. we are here to talk about issues. that is what this series is about, trying to get clarity on what are the key issues we as a nation thinks and to hear what you have to say about the economy. there is no bigger issue in this election than the economy. it is our pleasure to welcome you, governor mitt romney. [applause] >> thank you, thank you. thank you so much, thank you. thank you. thank you.

i appreciate in particular your mention of my dad's first cousin, who played football here at the university of chicago and also for the chicago bears. my name being mitt romney, they assumed i would inherit those athletic talents. i did not. it is good to be back at this family familiar place, and i appreciate your introductions today. it is good to be here at the university of chicago and i appreciate your hosting me here. it is also good to visit the campus that houses the friedman institute. milton friedman played an extraordinary role in our nation and the concepts of the economy that i am going to talk about today. he used to tell a story about having gone to asia in the 1960's and some government official asked him to visit one of their massive work sites, and when he got there, he saw thousands of workers trying to build a canal with hand shovels. milton turned to one of the engineers that was there and said, "why aren't you using machines?" "you don't understand, this is a jobs program." without hesitation, he replied, "i thought you were trying to build a canal. if it is jobs you want, give the workers spoons, not shovels." [laughter] president barack obama has not understood the government does not create prosperity.

for last three years, the president has expanded government instead of empowering the american people. he has put his deeper in debt, and he slowed the recovery, and he has harmed the economy. i believe he has attacked the cornerstone of america's prosperity -- economic freedom. today i will talk to you about economic freedom and why believe it is so critical and how, as president, i would restore it to get our economy going again, not just short-term but long term. as you know, this november, we face an important decision. our choice will be not one of just a party and personality. election will be about principles, our economic freedom will be in the ballot. i intend to offer the american people a choice -- i spent 25 years in business, by the way. business is to take me to

different parts of the world and i was often struck by enormous differences between different nations that in many cases were living right next door to each other. i was interested in the difference in their prosperity and how was that nations so close to each other could be so different in terms of prosperity. look at mexico and the united states, israel and egypt, chile and ecuador. i read a number of books that purported to explain the differences, one of them by jarod diamond argued that the difference was due to the minerals in the ground and natural resources. that did not explain it all. i happened to read a book by professor david landis. in that book he traces the history of all the great civilizations on the earth, those that have come and gone. after about 500 pages of analysis, he concludes with this observation -- he says if

we learn anything from the history of economic development, it is this -- culture makes all the difference. culture makes all the difference. culture. what is it about america's culture that has made us the greatest economic power in the history of the earth. the willingness of americans to take risk, our commitment to honor, contract, our family devotion, our commitment in ourselves and our patriotism. i believe one feature of our culture that propels the american economy stands out -- freedom. the american economy is fueled by freedom. the american people and their free enterprises drive our

economic vitality. the founders wrote that we are endowed by our career with the freedom to pursue happiness. in america, would be free to pursue our own course in life and we would have economic freedom just as we have political and religious freedom. we would not be limited by the circumstances bowerbirds or directed by the supposedly informed hand of government. we would be free to pursue happiness as we wish. the founders were convinced that millions of people all freely choosing their occupations as they wished and their own enterprises, all pursuing their individual dreams, would produce great prosperity and of course they were right. economic freedom, as you know, is the only force in the history -- history of the earth that is consistently succeeded in lifting people out of poverty. it is the only principle that has created sustained prosperity. it is why our economy rose to rival those of the world's

leading powers and has long since -- and has long since surpassed them. today, our status and standing in the world are in peril because the source of our economic strength is threatened. over last several decades and frankly, over the last three years, washington has consistently encroached upon our freedom. the obama administration is the principal reason why the recovery has been so tepid. if we don't change course now, the assault on freedom could damage our economy and the well-being of american families for decades to come. we see this attack on freedom in every corner of the economy. let me start with taxes. by their very nature, taxes reduce their freedom. their only real role in the

free economy is to fund services that are essential like our national security and education and providing for people who cannot care for themselves. yet the president has proposed raising the marginal tax rate from 35% to 40%. he has also proposed special breaks for his favorite industries and further increases in taxes for businesses he does not like. there are endless subsidies and credits intended to shape behavior in our economic society. think about what that does to the freedom to pursue one's demand started business or to grow a business. i happen to be in st. louis last week and spoke with dr. bernard and he and his son make amplifiers for electric guitars. they recently had to lay off two very pleased. -- employeesthis owner said that by his own calculation the government takes 65% of what his

business makes. president obama, would take that up to 70%. theou're one of the few, very few of these entrepreneurs who seek success and generous profit in your business, the president wants to take 40% of that for federal income tax and then you have to add the payroll tax, the gas tax, the state tax, the city taxes, property taxes, excise taxes and so forth. on top of that, you have to factor in the regulatory burdens. the cost exceeds the total cost of all income tax payments in this country. pretty soon, those kind of taxes and costs add up to produce substantial burdens. businesses shut down. jobs are eliminated and dr. bernard decided is too risky and too costly to started -- an entrepreneur is decide it is too risky and to cause it to start a business. another example is dodd-frank.

it is an 848-page behemoth that will be followed by thousands and thousands of pages of new regulations. regulations of course are essential to the functioning of a free economy. burdensome outdated regulations serve only to restrict freedom and therefore imperil enterprise. the victims of the regulations are not the nameless, faceless banks. they are the employees, the business owners, the customers who rely on those financial institutions. this administration's regulations are even invading the freedom of everyday americans, not just the banks and corporations but citizens. mike and chantal sackett run a small business in idaho and wanted to build a home on their property but a few days after they broke ground, an epa regulator told them to stop digging.

they said they were building on a wet land. their property is not on a wetland register. it's in a residential area. nonetheless, the epa would not repeal the decision for there were told it could not go to court. in this case, an unelected government bureaucrat robbed them of their freedom. no recourse, no remedy, they could do what the epa wanted or they could face millions of dollars in fines. under president obama, those same bureaucrats are insinuating them selves into every corner of the economy. they prevented drilling rigs from going to work in the gulf, they keep coal from being mined, they impede the reliable supply of national gas, they are even telling farmers what their 15-year-old sons and daughters are allowed to do on the family farms. you remember that famous quote from will rogers -- he said this country has come to feel the same when congress is in session as we do when a baby

gets a hold of a hammer. it is a question of how much damage he could do before you can take it away. will rogers was concerned about the damage congress could do. today, our freedom is never safe because unelected, unaccountable regulators are always on the prowl. under president obama, they are multiplying like proverbial rabbits. the number of federal employees has grown by 140,000 people under this president. those regulators do a lot of damage. with regulation, there are unintended consequences, unestimatable costs, and unwanted influence of special interests who care very deeply about how those regulations are written for their benefit. the bureaucratic impulse is to make more rules, never to get rid of old rules, and each of those regulations tends to erode our freedom and stifle our prosperity.

by the way, the obama administration's assault on economic freedom is not just limited to actions against individuals and free enterprise. it extends to intrusion in the workings of the free marketplace itself. when government rather than the market routinely selects winners or losers or puts its hands on the scales of justice, then enterprises and entrepreneurs cannot predict their prospects and free enterprise becomes or is replaced with chronic capitalism, solyndra and others. when government put $500 million into solyndra, you can imagine the scores of other solar energy entrepreneurs who either lost their investors when that happened or failed to find any. when the nlrb tried to keep boeing from opening a plant in

south carolina, it sent a signal across businesses of all types that they should be dissuaded from making investments in right to work states, limiting their freedom. when general motors shares were directed to the uaw, political payback replaced the rule of law under bankruptcy. rule of law is absolutely fundamental to the functioning of a free economy. when the free market is imperative in this nature, it is devastating to opportunity and when the heavy hand of government replaces the invisible hand of the market, economic freedom is the inevitable victim. for centuries, the american dream has met the opportunity to build something new. some of america's greatest success stories are the people who started out with nothing, just a good idea, perhaps, in a corner of their garage. too often today, americans look

at what it takes to start a business and don't see promise and opportunity. they see government spending in the way. the real cost is not just the taxes paid and the money spent complying with the regulations. it is the businesses that never get started. the ideas that are never pursued, the dreams that are permanently deferred. we have built an interstate highway system and the hoover dam. today we cannot even build a pipeline. we once led the world in manufacturing and exports and infrastructure investment. today we lead the world in lawsuits. labor unions once served as a symbol of worker rights and fair treatment and a growing middle class. today the two of them represent the worst of special interests and crony capitalism. after spending three years attacking business, president obama hopes to erase his record with a speech. in a recent address, he said

we're all inventors, we are builders, we are makers of things, we are thomas edison, we are the wright brothers, we are bill gates, we are steve jobs. the reality is that under president obama's administration, these pioneers would have found it much more difficult if not impossible to innovate and invent. under dodd-frank, they would struggle to get a loan from their community bank. the regulator would have shut down the wright brothers for their debt solution and the government would have banned thomas edison's light bulb. oh yeah, they just did. [applause] every great innovation, every world changing business breakthrough begins with a dream. nothing is more fragile than a dream.

it is essential to the genius of america that we have developed a culture that nurtures the dreams and dreamers that honors them and, yes, that rewards them. there has always been something uniquely brilliant about america. i don't believe the president understands this fundamental secret of america and day-by- day, juggling regulation by regulation, bureaucrat by bureaucrat, he is crushing the dream and the dreamers. if we continue along this path, we will be ruled by bureaucrats and boards and commissions and czars. that erodes freedom and deadens their entrepreneurial spirit that is so unique. freedom is becoming the victim of an unbounded government's appetite and so is economic growth, job growth and wage growth as government takes more and more. there is less and less of an incentive to take risks and invest and innovate, to hire and the proof is in the weakness

of this recovery. this administration thinks our economy is struggling because the stimulus was too small. the truth is this economy is struggling because our government is too big, too intrusive, too invasive of our economic freedoms. i am now running for president in part because i have the experience and the vision to get us out of this mess. i'm offering a real choice and a very different beginning. i have a conservative economic plan that will deliver more jobs, less debt, and smaller government. my agenda takes america in the right direction. it preserves freedom and encourages risk and innovation. foster competition. it allows americans to pursue happiness as they choose and will lead to greater opportunity and instead of expanding government, i will shrink it. instead of raising taxes, i will cut them. instead of adding more

regulations, i will reduce them with an overriding concern. do they help or hurt jobs? that is just the beginning. they're still more we've got to do. before we can create enduring prosperity, we have to restore our economic freedom. to build a strong america, we have to empower americans to pursue happiness as they choose, not as government directs. we have to restore the world's most competitive economy, not relinquish it to cronies or bureaucrats. we've got to elect a president who puts his faith in free people and free enterprises and in the founding principles that made this country the greatest nation in history. together, we must restore america's promise by renewing our economic freedom. let's affirm our conviction that america is a land of opportunity and freedom and usher in a new era of prosperity and leadership.

thank you so much and god bless this great land. thank you. [applause] i think we will invite professor howell to come back and start some questions. i look forward to what you have to offer. thank you. you can use this one if you want. >> hello? [laughter] >> it's magic. >> i've got three questions here and i will read them verbatim. the growing deficit and escalating debt are the top risk factors of the u.s. economy. as a student at university, i would like to know the key steps that you would take as president to address these concerns especially considering you have proposed recently a package of tax cuts that will only make these matters worse.

>> first, i want to correct that last parenthetical which is the tax cuts. my tax plan actually cuts the marginal rates across the economy by 20%. instead of the president raising taxes, i take taxes from 35% to 28% to create jobs. that generates revenue for government. that is the best way to make that happen. i also point out that i will reduce and restrict deductions and exemptions at the same time so the combination of reducing some of those tax expenditures and creating more growth will mean the policy is revenue neutral. i will not add to the deficit with my tax plan. by getting growth into our economy again, i will reduce it. i've also got to cut spending and i recognize that.

i have a three-fold approach to how you cut federal spending. we have to eliminate programs. some programs we like and some we're happy to get rid of but we have to eliminate some programs. there are too many and it is a majority of washington elected officials who go there and come up with a program so they can go home and say look what i created. you know how many work force training programs are in washington? 47, 47 different work force training programs reporting to eight different agencies. think of the overhead. no one in business would allow such a thing. i will take all those programs and collapse them down to one and send the money back to the states and say you create the programs. we will eliminate programs. i will get rid of obama care. that is $95 billion we cannot afford. [applause] that is easy. subsidies to amtrak and pbs and the national endowment for the arts and the national endowment for the amenities, planned

parenthood, i will eliminate those subsidies and those organizations will have to stand on their own. then we need to send programs back to states. medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers -- i would take these anti-poverty programs and give them back to the state to run in the way they think is best and limit how they grow to the rate of inflation. finally, i would shrink the size of the federal work force that remains by 10% to attrition and links the pay of government workers with the pay that exists in the private sector. [applause] that is good enough. >> second question -- many young people have been affected by the recession more than most. given that you have delivered this talk at a university, what might you say specifically to young people about your economic policy? how can you address crippling student loans in a lagging economy that would speak to the struggling young adults

particularly in america? >> i don't mean to be flip with this because i actually believe it. i don't see how young american can vote for a democrat. i apologize for being so offensive but in the humor there is some truth there. that party is focused on providing more and more benefits to my generation and mounting trillions of dollars in annual deficits that my generation will never pay for. the interest on that debt is going to young people in america. some have called this the greatest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history of humankind. my party is consumed with the idea of getting federal spending down and creating economic growth and opportunity so we can balance our budget and stop putting these debts on you. these debts are not frightening

to people my age because we will be gone. they should be frightening to people your age who are concerned about your future and wonder what your tax rates will be and wonder whether social security and medicare will be there for you. adding insult to injury is the fact that we have an administration that when they were running for office said that social security and medicare were in deep financial trouble and yet 3.5 years later, have offered no proposals to balance those programs and make them sustainable. i have. you may not like my ideas but at least i put ideas out there to save those programs for your generation and i have laid out, with my economic plan, proposals that preserve economic freedom, creates growth, will provide jobs for you as you come out of college, and will make sure we don't pass our burdens of debt onto you. that is at the heart of what my

party is about, making sure we preserve this extraordinary unique nation in the history of the earth, this exceptional place which is imperiled by debt, lack of willingness to deal with the challenges we have, by stagnating growth and by an attack on economic freedom among our other freedoms that are being attacked. that is what it is about. i shake my head that we're not doing as good a job as we should be doing to connect with young people across the country. you should be working like crazy for me and people like me, conservatives who want to keep the cost of government down and give you a brighter future, thank you. [applause] >> i believe we have time for one last question. as president, what would you do to target poverty in areas like the south side chicago? >> one of the best things i can do is take money associated with poverty programs in washington -- i mention this before -- take money that is in

poverty programs like food stamps and housing vouchers and welfare programs and take those monies and bring them to the state and to the localities and say you know better than we how to help your own people. what kind of work force training is needed? what kind of housing opportunities are there in your region or your state? as opposed to the federal government telling every state and every locality how to put in place anti-poverty programs, give states and localities the power to do that themselves. i happen to believe in the concept of federalism. associated with that -- as one piece -- the money goes closer to the problem. a second piece is changing our education system to put the education of our young people first and the interests of organized union labor and the teachers units behind. [applause]

the cost of crony education is not born in a wealthy community. among wealthy people are people of higher income and above. they are able to choose neighborhoods to live in, communities where they think are good schools. they can decide to go someplace where there are good public schools or go to parochial schools or private school and pay the extra tuition and may have opportunities for charter schools. if you are poor, your opportunities to move to some place with a great school is limited. i want to fix our schools in the urban centers of our nation and we know how to do that. this is not a mystery to us. there have been great institutions like the mackenzie institute, which is a great consulting firm, they have an institute that does studies

around the world and they looked at education in some of the most effective places in the world like finland and south korea and singapore and chicago and boston and other places. they found that classroom size was irrelevant to the quality of education which was not apparent. that is not what people anticipated. spending did not seem related. overwhelmingly, the characteristic that had the most impact on the quality of education was the educational attainment and scholarship of the teachers. in places like finland, they choose teachers from the top five or 10% of college graduates and in our country, in many places, we are choosing from the bottom 1/3. why don't young people want to go into teaching? because it does not pay well and the teachers' unions are focused on people with long tenure about to retire and

retirement benefits, pensions, health care benefits. we need to be more concentrated on the starting conversations of people coming out of college so we can attract the best and brightest and give them a career path not based on tenure but based on accomplishment. we have some examples for this. we have higher education. we do pretty well in higher education. these principles we have to bring to our schools to help people in the most troubled areas of the country and give the resources to the people closest to the challenges and provide education which lifts people out of poverty and communicate that the principles of america -- hard work, education, family formation - these principles will help provide people with a future that is more prosperous and promising. i appreciate the chance to be with you today. our questions are over but i

have enjoyed the chance to speak with such an esteemed group. i appreciate the number of faculty and students and others who have made it here today and look forward to seeing you on the trail. i need you to vote tomorrow. i would appreciate your support. [applause] it is an exciting time for the country. this is a choice. freedom is on the ballot this year as to whether we will continue to have a government encroaching further and further into freedoms or whether we will restore the principles that made the nation what it is. i represent a restoration and a reclaiming of america's founding principles. the declaration of independence is my inspiration and the constitution is my blueprint for this path forward. i would appreciate your help, your votes, and let's get the job done and take back america.

thank you so much, thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] ♪ ♪ ♪ gal in kalamazoo] ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> republican primary voters go to the polls in illinois today and we will have live coverage of the results including candidates' speeches from mitt romney and rick santorum.

for more information, go to c- span.org/campaign 2012. >> now look at this morning's schedule on this cspan networks for the house of representatives is in at 10:00 eastern. the chamber will work on legislation that attempts to speed the elimination of excess federal property. in the senate, work continues on legislation that tries to make it easier for small businesses to raise capital. live senate coverage starts at 10:00 eastern and on c-span 3, the house armed services committee hears about u.s. military operations in afghanistan which is live at 10:00 eastern. coming up in 45 events, we will talk to a representative from the independent women's forum. then the national association of latino