tonight after this bain capitol thing, again. >> he was pushed into that. probably good advice but we're out of time. thanks for being with us. >> thank you. >> that is all of the time we have left this evening. thank you for being with us. the news continues and we'll see you back at our regular time slot tomorrow night. thanks for joining us. in myrtle beach. >> welcome to the myrtle beach convention center and the republican presidential debate. [applause] >> it is being sponsored by fox news, the wall street john natural and the south carolina republican party. now let's meet the five remaining candidates. texas governor rick perry. [applause] former senator rick santorum. [applause] former massachusetts governor mitt romney. [applause]

former speaker of the house, newt gingrich. [applause] and congressman ron paul. [applause] and, of course, our stage is town one podium with governor jon huntsman announcement today that he is leaving the race. you at home can participate through twitter tonight. you can weigh in on how questioning the candidates are answering the questions. tweet the candidate's last name and hashtag answer if you think he is tackling the question or hashtag dodge if you think he is avoiding the question. then you can see the results during the break at foxnews.com. let's meet our panelist tonight. fox news political analyst and my colleague, juan williams. and from the wall street journal, economic correspondent kelly evans. and washington bureau chief,

jerry. the rules are similar except now answers will be one minute and 30 seconds to allow for a fuller discussion of the issues. but followups are still 30 seconds. in past debates we've reminded candidates it's time to wrap up with various sounds. we started with a doorbell that didn't work for dog owners and then we had a digital sound that seemed rarely pretty ineffective. tonight after a long string of debates and with longer answer time we are going to try to not use any sound. you all have done this now 15 times. i'm sure you know the drill. but warning, we do reserve the right to bring back the bell if we have to. today, as you know, is martin luther king, jr. day. as we look live we dr. martin luther king memorial in washington, its first year on the mall, we are reminded of one forecast many notable quotes

from the late dr. king. the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in a moment of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. this campaign has been filled with challenge and controversy. the challenges are large. here in south carolina the unemployment rate is near 10%, well above the national average. on this day unemployment in african-american communities is near 16%. but the controversy on the campaign trail in recent days has been about governor romney's jobs. we are going to talk about world hotspots and social issues, but first let's clear the air. speaker gingrich an debate stage in september, you vowed to, quote, repudiate every effort of news media to get republicans to fight each other to protect barack obama, who deserves to be

defeated, close quote. yet you have cited numerous attacks on governor romney's business record. exact line of attack the obama campaign is using. why? >> well, first of all, i think that the staying positive through iowa, through three and a half million dollars of attack bruce you have to leave the race or bring up your competitors record. second, i think it's important for us to look at job creation. as a young member of congress i worked with president ronald reagan. we passed an economic growth package. we created 16 million jobs. the american people within a framework that reagan had established created 16 million jobs. as enter i came back, working with president bill clinton, we passed a very reagan-like program, less regulation, lower

taxes, unemployment dropped to 4.2% and we created $11 million. those are real numbers people can verify out in the open. governor romney as governor raised taxes and massachusetts was 47th in job creation, fourth from the bottom. that's a public record difference. the second part of his campaign is citing his experience in business which is perfectly legitimate, but if that's a part of your campaign then questioning it has to be equally legitimate. it struck me raising those questions, giving me an opportunity to answer them is exactly what campaigns ought to be about. we need to satisfy the country that whoever we nominate has a record that can stand up to barack obama in a very effective way. [applause] >> governor romney, i will give you time to respond in just a minute. speaker gingrich, the wall street editorial page calls it

crude and character centers of modern business and capitalism and they write you are embarrassing yourself by taking the obama line. how do you respond to that? >> first of all, i don't think raising questions is a prerogative only of barack obama and anything republicans should be intimidated because every time you raise a question somebody yells you are doing something the democrats do. i raise questions that are legitimate questions. some came out of wall street journal articles. the governor has every opportunity to answer those questions and give us facts and data and that's part of his responsibility as a candidate and that's what a cane is about, to raise question and whether or not whether or not your competitor can answer them buff get to a general election where you know those questions are going to be asked. >> one more time. you said last week if somebody comes in and takes all the money out of your company and leaves you bankrupt while they go off with millions, that's not

traditional capitalism. that doesn't sound like a question. >> i think if you look at the record, part of which is published in the wall street journal, remember its limited public record because he was in a private company. but there was a pattern in some companies, a handful of them, with leaving them with enormous debt and then within a year or two or three having them go broke. i think that is something he ought to answer. >> governor romney, your response. >> well, i appreciate the expanse chance to talk about my record and the private sector and also the governmental sector. i appreciate the speaker's work working in the reagan years and the clinton years. we did see good growth in this countryism want to see that come back again. my experience is run, the head of a consulting firm that got me in trouble and work to create jobs there and hold on to jobs in tough times. i got a chance to start a business of my own. four of the companies we invested in, they weren't businesses i ran but we invested in, ended up today having some 120,000 jobs. some of the business wes

schedule in weren't successful and lost jobs. i'm very proud of the fact we learned from the experience. we invested in well over 100 different businesses. the people have looked at the plays of that added jobs and lost jobs and that record is pretty much available for people to take a close look at. but my roar as the governor of massachusetts and as the person that led the olympics flowed from the fact that i had experience turning around tough situations. that i worked in the private sector, demonstrated a record of success. by virtue of that i was asked to come out and organize the olympic games in salt lake city. and i was asked to come back to massachusetts by a number of people there, encouraged me to come back and run for governor. i did. we were fortunate to have an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent by the time i left office. sounds good today. i was proud of the fact we balanced the budget every year i was in office. we reduced taxes 19 times, put in place a rainy day fund of over $2 billion by the time i left. my record is out there, proud of it, and i think if team want to

have someone who understand how the economy works, having worked in the real economy, that i'm the guy that can best post up against barack obama. [applause] >> governor perry, you have gone so far as to call what romney did result tower capitalism. but you also said regulations in america are killing america. in fact, you said we should repeal the most recent financial regulations law, dodd-frank. what specific regulations would you put in place to curb vulture capitalism? >> let me go back and say that having been the governor of the state that created over a million net new jobs, that we are all about capitalism, and i think our record proves that we are all about capitalism. but i visited georgetown, south carolina. there was a steal mill. they swept in and picked the company over and a lot of people

lost jobs there. the fact of the matter is we've got records. we've got records. my record is one of those that's been open to the public for quite a few years. as a matter of fact, my income tax have been out every year. newt, i think you will let your income tax come out thursday. mitt, we need for you to release your income tax so that the people of this country can see how you made your money. and i think that's -- i think that's a fair thing. here's the real issue for us. as republicans, we cannot fire our nominee in september. we need to know now. so i hope you will

country. >> i would get back to many regulators so we can get back to capitalism without washington strangling it. >> governor romney, 30 seconds. >> i need longer than that. >> there will be plenty of time, 30 seconds this time. >> let's take more time than that. first of all, i think -- i think governor perry makes a very good point about georgetown. for those who don't know it was a steal mill and my firm invested in steel mill and invested there for 7, 8 meals. and dumping steal in this country led to some h. different steel mills being closed, 40 steel mills. i understand what others cheat and dump products in this country. that's one of the reasons i'm running to make sure we crackdown on cheaters.

by the way, we started a new steel mill with new technology in indiana. i agree with the governor with regard to regulations. regulations are choking off this economy. i will do everything in my power to put a halt to all the obama era regulations and review those and get the private sector working again. >> governor romney, let's look deeper at the business record you are talking about. in a nutshell your opponents are saying buy companies, load them up with debt, take the products and head for the exits. let's respond to that. american pad and paper was a company bought with $15 billion, took on more debt to expand, couldn't pay back the loans, went bankrupt, several hundred people lost their jobs, but took profits and fees. is that a flaw or is that the

rough and tumble of american capitalism? >> first awful you never want to see an enterprise go bankrupt and you never want to see anyone lose a job. at the time i was there the business was still going and didn't go bankrupt. what the company did, they had one paper company and they bought another one down the road and said we don't need to have in angie that's shrink being two different plants make the same product so let's consolidate the plants together and all the people in the plant that closed were offered jobs in the new plant. they were union working and didn't want the nonunion work setting. but ultimately do i believe free speaker enterprise works? and the private equity and the various features of our economy work to improve our economy to make america stronger with a brighter future? absolutely. this is a major part of our economy. has been for a long time. free enterprise with all of the different dimensions and players makes america the strongest economic nation in the world. the gdp per capita in this

country, income per capita in this country is about 50% higher than average in europe. every time we invested, we tried to grow an enterprise, to add jobs to make it more successful. i know people will come after we me. i know president obama will come after me. but the record is pretty darn g you look at staples, bite morrow risens, the sport authority, they alone added 120,000 jobs as of today. and those kinds of experiences are the kinds of things that allow me to know what it takes to get this economy working and to put people back to work. we've got a president in office three years, and he does not have a jobs plan yet. i've got one out there already and i'm not even president yet. thank you. [applause] >> kelly engines with -- evans h the wall street urinal. >> congressman paul, this morning when he suspend his campaign, governor huntsman said the republican presidential race

has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the american people. you have been particularly scathing in your ads against other candidates on stage tonight. do you agree with governor huntsman that these attacks should be abandoned? >> they should be abandoned if you are not telling the truth but if you are exposing a voting record i think it's quite proper. there was one ad that we used against senator santorum, and i only had one problem, i couldn't get all the things in i wanted to say in one minute. [applause] >> but, you know, we mentioned no child left behind and that he supported deficits times five, raising the national debt, and that he voted for prescription drug programs, as well. he voted against right to work. and i could have added, you know, things like he voted for -- my only regret is i couldn't get enough in in that

one minute that i should have. >> congressman paul? >> senator santorum, you are going to get a question next, but respond, please, to congressman paul. >> congressman paul has been quoting sources like crew, which is a left wing back organization saying that i was corrupt. in fact, throughout his entire ad he quotes a lot of left wing organizations. well, of course, left wing organization say a lot of bad things about me. i would expect them. i wear that as a badge of honor, not something that i'm ashamed of. with respect to some of the votes, i admit, i'm a strong conservative but i'm not perfect. president bush's no child left behind, i voted for it, i shouldn't have. it's something i said, and i will say publicly we should repeal. in fact we should repeal all of federal government's role in prime that marry and secondary education and if you give me the opportunities i'll do that. [applause] >> and with right to work, look,

i represented the state of pennsylvania, which is not a right to work state. if you look at who voted for the right to work bill in the congress, those who came from right to work states voted for it. those who came from nonright to work states represented their states. i wasn't going to vote in washington d.c. to change the law in my state. i support right to work. i actually, as president, will sign and advocate for a right to work bill but when i represented the people of pennsylvania i made the decision that i wasn't going to do in washington change the law in my state when my state cannot want to have that provision in their laws. >> ron -- juan williams. >> senator sunday, you said governor romney is guilty of distorting your record as well as lies and hypocrisy. you said this behavior is classic romney and no one is holding him accountable. so the same question kelly asked, this time to you, should these personal attacks be

abandoned by the candidates. >> i have run a positive campaign. the only ad i put up that contrasts myself with the other candidates and does so in a way of talking about issues. governor romney's super pac has put an add out there i allow felons to vote from prison. and i would ask governor romney, do you believe people who were felons who served their time, who have extended, exhausted their parole and probation, should they be given the right to vote? >> governor romney? >> first of all, as you know, the pacs that run ads on -- >> i'm looking for an answer to the question first. [applause] >> we have plenty of time.

i'll get there. i'll do it in the order i want to do. i believe you realize the super pacs run ad and if they ever run an ad or say something that is not accurate, i hope they take off the ad or make it correct. i guess they said you vote today make felons vote? is that correct. >> that's correct. that's what the ad says. first, i'm asking you to answer the question because that's how you got the time. it's actually my time. if you can answer the question, do you believe, do you believe that felons who have served their time, gone through probation and parole, exhausted their entire sentence, should they be given the right to have a vote? this is martin luther king day. this is a huge deal in the african-american community because we have very high rates of incarceration, disproportionate high rates, particularly with drug crimes in the african-american community. billy voted on was the martin luther king voting bill. this targeted african-american i

voted to allow them to have their voting rigights back once they completed their sentence. do you agree with that? >> 30 seconds to respond. >> i don't think people who have committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again. that's my own view. [applause] >> last thing. senator. >> very interesting you should say that because in the state of massachusetts when you were governor, the law was that not only could violent felons vote after they exhausted their sentences, but he this could vote while they were on probation and parole which was a more liberal position that i took when i voted for the bill in the congress. >> governor. >> if, in fact, you -- if, in fact, you felt so passionately about this that you are now going to have somebody go out and criticize me for restoring voting rights for people who exhausted their sentence and served their time and paid their debt to society, why didn't you change that when you were governor of massachusetts?

>> first of all, as governor of massachusetts i had an 85% democratic legislature. this is something we discussed. my view was people who committed violent crimes should not be able to vote even upon coming out of office. secondly, i did not have a super ppac run an ad against you, that's out of the control of candidates. one of the things i decry in the current financial system that gets behind campaigns we have the voting requirements that put the super pacs in power that say things we disagree with. and some of the attacks on me have just been outrageous and inaccurate and shown to be inaccurate and that's the process -- i hope it ends. i hope it ends. >> we have a long debate. we have a lot of questions. >> i need to respond. the governor said he didn't propose anything to change the law and what he is saying is the ad that he says i said that allowed felons to vote is inaccurate and it is inaccurate.

if i had a super pac supporting me that said something inaccurate, i would go out and say stop it. you are representing me and my campaign, stop it. >> governor perry, go ahead. >> this is a great example of the insiders that are having the conversation up here. and the fact of the matter is this. washington d.c. needs to leave the states alone and let the states decide these issues and don't do it from washington d.c. that's what needs to happen. >> governor romney, any response to any one of those? >> i agree with governor perry, it should be decided at the state level. i also agree with congressman paul that a number of the positions that were described that senator santorum took were position tharpe very different of the conservative views that he would suggest today. i think the decision on voting against right to work was a bad decision and was made, as he indicated, based upon the reflection of the people of the

state he was representing. it's politics, if you will. in my state i had a state that said they did not favor my position. i'm not letting felons who had committed violent crimes vote. i think it's a position that's reasonable, and that's the position i've got. >> we may have to rethink that whole bell thing. but we are going to take a break right here. remember to send your thoughts on how the candidates are answering the questions, via twitter. tweet the candidates last name and hashtag answer or hashtag dodge. and after the break key issues and some more fireworks. we will see. stay with us. [ female announcer ] this is not a prescription.

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>> good evening from myrtle beach, south carolina. home of the world's most beautiful beaches. i'm chairman of the south carolina republican party. in five days south carolina republicans will continue the tradition of pick their party's nominee. since we helped get ronald reagan to the white house in 1980, no candidate has ever won the gop nomination without first winning here in south carolina. simply put, we pick president. be one of the first to get the results of our primary by texting or you can visit us

online. we would love to see you here in myrtle beach or anywhere else in our beautiful state. enjoy the debates. >> welcome back to myrtle beach, south carolina and the presidential gop debate. we are getting questions from twitter. governor romney endorsed, you were endorsed you were called a perfectly lubery indicated weather vein on the important issues of the day and governor huntsman said it's hard to find your core which leads to our first twitter question. quote, i want to support mitt romney, but considering his changing views, convince me you won't change again. ". >> you know, the issue where i change my mind, which obviously draws a lot of attention was when i was running for governor, i said i would leave the law in place as it related to abortion. and i thought i could go in that

narrow path between my personal belief and letting government stay out of the issue. then a piece of legislation came to my desk and it said we would begin to create embryos for the purpose of destroying those embryos, and i said i couldn't support that. i defend my position for as being a pro life governor. they said this is a solid record of a very pro life governor. i'm record of that record. my other social issues, gay marriage, i've always opposed gay marriage. i believe we should provide equal rights to people regardless of sexual orientation but marriage should not -- should be between people of the same gender. i think he is drawing us into becoming more like a european social welfare state. i think he wants us to become an

entitlement society where people think they are all entitled to something from government and government takes from some to give to others. i want to make sure don't transform america into something we don't recognize but instead we restore the principles that made america the hope of the earth. i believe in free enterprise, i believe in liberty, i believe in an opportunistic vote and everybody i will did strengthen the values of the country, strengthen the values of the country and the economy and keep a military that is second to none in the world. [applause] >> juan. >> governor perry, last month the department of justice challenged south carolina's new law requiring registered voters to show state-issued identification before they can vote. governor haley has pledged to fight the federal government all the way to the supreme court. you sided with the governor.

now, governor perry, are you suggesting on this martin luther king jr. day that the federal government has no business scrutinizing the of states where they were denied the right to vote? >> i'm saying the state of texas is under assault by federal government. i'm saying also that south carolina is at war with this federal government and with this administration. [applause] >> when you look at what this justice department has done, not only have they taken them to task on voter i. d., they have also taken them to task on their immigration law and the most egregious thing is the national labor relations board where they come into a right to work state and tell the state of south carolina we aren't going to let a private company come in here. that is irresponsible. i will suggest to you it's

unconstitutional and when i'm the president of the united states, the states are going to have substantially more rights to take care of their business and not be forced by the epa or by the justice department, for that matter, to do things that are against the will of the people. look, i've said this administration is at war against organized religion. and when you look at what they have done, going after churches because churches had that ministerial exception in that and can decide who they were going to hire at their churches, the idea that the catholic charities cannot take money or the federal government, this administration won't give them those dollars for sexually trafficked individuals because this administration doesn't agree with the catholic church on the issue of abortion. if that's not a war on religion, i don't know what it is. and this administration is out of control. [applause] >> governor santorum, we talked

about the high unemployment right here in south carolina, almost 10%, well above the national average. we've talk about the skyrocketing national debt. in december congress authorized an additional 20 weeks of jobless benefits. benefits being paid by the federal government in many cases because states can't afford them. do you support extending these benefits when they expire at the end of the month? why or why not? >> i think we have to look at having a reasonable time for people to be able to come back, get a job and then turn their lives around. but what we've seen in the past under this administration is extending benefits up to 99 weeks. i don't support that. i think if you have people who are out of work that long a period of time, it's without question, makes it harder to find work when you come back. when you are that far long away from a job, then you lose certain skills. you lose, you lose a lot of things had you are out of work. there's a lot of research to

show that to be the case. what i believe, just like i did with welfare reform when we reformed welfare, we sent it back to the states and we gave the states the flexibility to design these programs. just as i would do here with unemployment insurance. it should go back to the states, let the states design it. if south carolina, because of a unique situation, wants to have a longer unemployment period of time because of a unique situation here, fine. but to have a federal program that roughly and crudely tries to assess the problem of unemployment from state to state and area to area is the wrong approach. what we should do is have it just like welfare. give it to the states, put a time limit n the case of welfare it was 40 weeks. give flexibility to the the stao operate those programs. and even unemployment, you can have, as we did on welfare, have some sort of work requirement or job training requirement as a condition. we aren't doing people any favors by keeping them on unemployment insurance for a long period of time. [applause]

>> speaker gingrich, senator santorum just mentioned it, the surge in unemployment has created these so-called 99ers, people who collect benefits for the maximum 99 weeks offered now. what is the maximum length anyone should be able to collect unemployment checks? >> well, you know, i think there's a better way to think about this. all unemployment compensation should be tied to a job training requirement. if somebody can't find a job and they show up and they say, you know, i need help, the help we ought to give them is to get them connected to a business run training program to acquire the skills to be employable. now the fact is, 99 weeks is an associate degree. [applause] >> i think it tells you

everything. i hope my four colleagues would agree here, tells you everything you need to know about the difference between barack obama and the five of us. we actually think work is good. we actually -- we actually think saying to somebody i'll help you if you are willing to help yourself is good. [applause] >> and we think unconsciousal efforts by the best food stamp president in american history to maximize dependency is terrible for the future of this country. [applause] >> ms. evans. >> governor romney. governor romney, some european nationings were downgraded and several were unable to get funds because of help from the banks. and this is not some imaginary event. how far would you be willing to

go to keep the financial system functioning? >> of course you want to keep our financial system functioning but we've learned some lessons from the experience of the last few years. don't want to give the president or anyone else a slush fund to take care of their friends or companies or industries they think they want to save. what we have to do -- what we have to do is to recognize that bankruptcy can be a process, reorganization for banks as well as other institutions to allow them to get rid of their excess costs, to re-establish a sound foundation and to emerge stronger. we are seeing that as a result of the bankruptcy in the auto industry. we can see that in our bankling sector or two it a bank or two gets in trouble. we don't need to run over to europe to save their banking stem or to pump money into the banks in this country. this is time or us to recognize the system of laws we have and the free enterprise system works and we don't need government stepping in with regularrings and higher taxes and telling us

what we can and can do as a society to keep america strong. the best way to get america's economy going is not to think about how much we can push government into the american economy, but instead how much we can get government out of the american economy. [applause] >> our tax rates, our tax rates are too high on individuals, as well as on our employers. our regulars are too burdensome. regulators see themselves as the opponents of free enterprise as opposed to those that encourage it. we have an energy policy that doesn't take advantage of our natural resources. that makes no sense, our coal, oil, gas, nuclear. and finally we need to open up new markets. this president has opened up no new markets over the world as europe and china have opened 44. we have to open markets and put americans to work. that's the answer, not bailouts. >> jerry seib, the next question. >> congressman paul, south

carolina has seven major military bases and thousands of people employed in the defense industry. but you want to make major cuts in defense spending, several hundred billion dollars in the coming years that inevitably would cost south carolina jobs. what do you say to people in this state who worry that your military plans would hurt the national security and cost south carolina jobs? >> i would say your question suggests you are very confused about my position. i want to cut money, overseas money. that's what i want to do. i want to cut military money. i don't want to cut defense money. i want to bring the troops home. i would probably have more bases at home. we were closing them down in the 1990s and building them overseas. that's how we got in trouble. we would save more money and have a stronger national defense and that's what we should do. to say we would be weaker is absolutely wrong. and another important thing you

should consider is the fact that the military is behind me more than the others. i get twice as much money from the active military duty than all the other candidates put together. so they are saying that i'm on the right track. they are sick and tired of the wars, they are sick and tired of the nation building and the policing activity. but to say that we would have less money for defense, we actually have more money. and if i may, i would like to go back to the international financial thing. >> to be clear, your plan calls for freezing defense spending at 2006 levels, which is where -- >> no. you still don't understand. >> what is he missing, congressman? >> you don't understand there's a difference between military spending and defense spending. just because you spend -- spend a billion dollars on an embassy in baghdad, bigger than the vatican, you consider that defense spending. i consider that waste. [applause] >> now, if you want to -- a

little while ago we were talking about funding the unemployed and of course that should be private tied and i don't support it but i don't support cutting it off like that. i would cut some of the military spending like eisenhower advises, watch out for the military complex. defend this country. we have to have a strong national defense but we don't get strength by diluting ourselves in 900 bases in 130 countries. that is where the problem is. but you need to understand that there is a difference between just military spending and defense spending. just to spend money. we understand this domestically. if you spend more money domestically, it's wrong, but we are supposed to spend more money and that's conservative. i never understood that. we are supposed to be conservatives. spend less money. >> i would like to k you a question about keeping money for all of the candidates down the

line. what is the highest federal income tax any person should have to pay? we are looking for a number. >> 7% flat tax. keep it simple. >> senator santorum. >> my plan has two rates, 10 and 28%, which is the highest rate under ronald reagan when he cut taxes. >> governor romney. >> i would like 25% but right now it's at 35 so people have to pay what is legally required but ultimately let's get it down to as low as we can, whether it's 20, 25 but maybe more than 25 is too much out of our pockets. >> the highest is 35? >> that's what the law is right now but 25 is where i would like to see us go. >> speaker gingrich. >> i would like a flat tax at 15% and i would like to see us recuse government to to meet revenue, not raise revenue to meet the government. >> congressman paul. >> well, we should have the lowest tax that we've ever had and up until 1913 it was 0%.

what's so bad about that? now, i would like to follow up on that because i think the question on taxes is generally misleading because anytime you spend money, it's a tax. you might tax, you might borrow, you might inflate. the vicious tax, attacking the american people, the retired people today is the inflation tax. the standard of living is going down, and you need to address that. that's why i want to make the in flakes tax zero, as well. >> so your answer is zero? >> zero. >> about taxes. kelly. >> governor romney, speaker gingrich and now governor perry are calling for you to release your tax records. the obama campaign is asking for the same thing. governor, will you release your income tax records? >> you know, i looked at what has been done in campaigns in the past with senator mccain and president george w. bush and others. they have tended to release tax records in april or tax season.

i hadn't required to release tax records because i have released our as seconds everything we own, it's a complete disclosure but if that's the tradition, i'm not opposed to doing that. time will tell. but i anticipate that most likely i am going to get asked to do that around the april time period and i'll keep that open. >> governor, you will plan then to release your income tax records around april? >> i think i've heard enough from folks saying, look, let's see your tax records. i have nothing in them that suggests there's any problem and i'm happy to do so. i sort of feel like we are showing a lot of exposure at this point. and if i become our nominee, and what's happened in history is people have released them in about april of the coming year and that's probably what i would do. >> okay. next round of questions. juan williams. >> governor romney, your father was born in mexico. you still have family there, yet you have taken the hardest line of anyone on this stage on

immigration reform, including opposition to key parts of the dream act, which is supported by 80% of latinos in this country. are you alienating latino voters that republicans will need to win the general election? >> i think latino voters, like all voters in this country, are interested in america being an opportunity nation. people come here because they believe they want to have a brighter future and that's been the story of america. the president looks out across the country and says it could be worse. i can't believe saying that. the american people recognize it's got to be better. in my view, as long as we communicate to the people of all backgrounds in this country that it can be better, and that america is a land of opportunity, we will get those votes. now with regards to immigration policy, i absolutely believe that those who come here illegally should not be given favoritism or a special route to becoming permanent residents or citizens that's not given to

those people who have stayed in line legally. i just think we have to follow the law, i think that's the right course. [applause] >> and i have indicated i would veto the dream act if provisions included in that act to say that people who are here illegally, if they go to school here long enough, get a degree here that they can become permanent residents. i think that's a mistake. i think we have to follow the law and insist those who come here illegally, ultimately return home, apply, and get in line with everyone else. look, i want people to know i love legal immigration. almost all of us in this room are descendents of immigrants. our country is stronger by a strong legal immigration system. but to protect it we have to protect our borders and stop the flood of illegal immigration and i will not do anything that opens up another wave of i will

will -- illegal immigration. >> senator santorum, the obama administration has not particularly addressed high levels of joblessness and a 25% aboverty rate in black america. they say they want to fix the economy for all. but given the crisis situation among a group of historically disadvantaged americans, do you feel the time has come to take special steps to deal with the extraordinary level of poverty afflicting one race of america? >> it's railroad interesting. if you look at a study done by the brookings institute back in 2009, they determined if americans do three things, they can avoid poverty. three things. work, graduate from high school, and get married before you have children. those three things --

[applause] >> those three things, if you do, according to brookings, result in only 2% of people who do all those things ending up in poverty, and 77% above the national average in income. it's a huge, huge opportunity for us. but what is the obama administration doing? elaine bennett runs a program called best friends, the wife of bill bennett. and she told me through bill that the obama administration now has a policy, and this program is a program targeted at at-risk youth, specifically in many case necessary the african-american community, who are at-risk young girls. the obama administration now has regularrings that tells them that they can no longer promote marriage to these young girls. they can no longer promote marriage as a way of avoiding poverty and bad choices that they make in their life. they can no longer even teach abstainens education. they have to be neutral with

respect to how people behave. the problem is neutrality ends in poverty. neutrality ends in choices that hurt people's lives. this administration is deliberately telling organizations that are there to help young girls make good choices, not to tell them what the good choice is. that is absolutely unconscionable. [applause] >> congressman paul. an analysis by the prison policy initiative finds that blacks who are jailed at four times the rate of whites in south carolina are most often convicted on drug offenses. do you see racial disparities in drug-related arrests and convictions as a problem? and if so, how would you fix it? >> yes. definitely. there is a disparity. it's not that it is my opinion, it is very clear. blacks and minorities who are

involved with drugs, are arrested disproportionately. they are tried and imprisoned disproportionately. they suffer the consequence of the death penalty disproportionately. rich white people don't get the death penalty very often. most of these are victim less crimes. sometimes people can use drugs and arrested three times and never convict a violent compact they can go to prison for life. and times recently we heard actually murders get out of prison in shorter periods of time. i think it's way disproportionate. i don't think we can do a whole lot about it. i think there's discrimination in the system but you have to address the drug war. the drug war is very violent on our borders. we have the i willgation problems and i'm all for having, you know, tight immigration policy also but we can't look at the border without looking at the drug war. 47,500 people died in the drug war down there the last few

years. it's a major thing. it unfairly hits the minorities. this is one thing i'm quite sure martin luther king would be in agreement with me on this. in fact, he would be in agreement with me on the wars as well because he was a strong opponent to the vietnam war. so i would say, yes, the judicial system is probably one of the worst places where prejudice and discrimination still exists in this country. >> speaker gingrich, you client said black americans should demand jobs, not food stamps. you also said poor kids lack a strong work ethic and proposed having them work as janitors in their schools. can't you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all americans, but particularly to black americans? >> no. i don't see that.

no. my daughter, jackie, who is sitting back there, reminded me that her first job was at first baptist church in carrollton, georgia, doing janitorial work at 13. and she liked earning the money. she liked learning that if you work, you got paid. she liked being in charge of her own money, and she thought it was a good start. i had a young man in new hampshire who walked up to me. i have written two newslers about this topic. i have had over 50 people write me about the jobs they got at 11, 12, 13 years of age. ran into a young man who started a doughnut company at 11. he's now 16. he has several restaurants to take his donuts. his father is thrilled he's 16 because he can now deliver his own doughnuts. what i tried to say, and it's fascinating, as joe klein

reminded me, it started with an article he wrote 20 years ago. new york city paying their janitors an absurd amount of money because of the union. you can take one janitor and hire 30 kids to work in a school for the price one janitor and told be a lot less likely to drop out. they would have money in their pocket, they would learn to show up for work, they could do light janitorial duty, they could work in the cafeteria, the front office, the library. they would be getting money, which is a good thing 23 you are told. only the elite despise earning money. >> governor -- [applause] >> the suggestion was about the work ethic. i have to tell you my twitter account has been inundated, all races, who are asking if your comments are not intended to belittle the poor and racial

minorities. you saw some of this reaction dug your visit to a black church in south carolina. we saw some of this during your visit to a church in south carolina where a woman dad's you why you referred to president obama as the food stamp president. it sounds as if you are seeking to be little people. >> well, first of all, juan, the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by barack obama than any president in american history. i know among the politically correct you are not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable. second, you are the one who earlier raised the key point. there's an area on i-73 that was called by barack obama as an area of shame because of

unemployment. has it improved? no. they haven't built a road, they haven't help the people, they haven't done anything. [applause] >> one last thing. >> yes, sir. >> so here's my point. i believe every american of every background has beenen do youd by their creator with the right to pursue happiness, and if that makes liberals unhappy, i'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn to get a better job and learn some day to own the job. >> okay. when we come back -- they can't hear me but i will talk to you. foreign policy. tweet me your questions.

the other office devices? they don't get me. they're all like, "hey, brother, doesn't it bother you that no one notices you?" and i'm like,

"doesn't it bother you you're not reliable?" and they say, "shut up!" and i'm like, "you shut up." in business, it's all about reliability. 'cause these guys aren't just hitting "print." they're hitting "dream." so that's what i do. i print dreams, baby. [whispering] big dreams.

>> welcome back to myrtle beach, south carolina. there was a time-lapse video of a sand sculpture outside of the convention center here. it still has governor huntsman on that sculpture. he's not here tonight. next round of questions is on for yen policy and we will begin with congressman paul. in a recent interview with the des moines radio station you said you were against the operation that killed osama bin laden. you said the operation that took out the twists responsible for killing 3,000 people on american soil showed no respect for the rule of law, international law. so to be clear, you believe international law should have constrained us from tracking down and killing the man responsible for the most brazen attack on the u.s. since pearl

harbor? >> no. i did not say that. as a matter of fact, after 9/11 i voted for the authority to go after him. my frustration was that we didn't go after him. it took us ten years. we had him trapped before and i thought we should have trapped him there. i introduced a proposal to keep the eye on target rather than getting involved in nation building. >> no respect for international law was the question about the quote you used in des moines. >> i can't say -- his colleague was in pakistan, and we communicated, you know, with the government of pakistan and they turned him over. what i suggested there was that if we have no respect for the sovereignty of another nation that it will lead to disruption of that nation. here we have a nation that we are becoming constantly trying to kill people who we consider our enemies. at the same time we are giving the government of pakistan billions of dollars. now there's a civil war going

on, people are mad at us. the government is getting money from us and i think it's a deeply flawed policy. but to not go after him, and if i voted for the authority, obviously i think it was proper. but once they waited ten years, i don't see any reason why they couldn't have done it like they did before and that would have been a more proper way. if somebody in this country, say a chinese dissident come over here, we wouldn't think they can come over here and bomb us. i'm trying to say that respect for other nation's sovereignty. look at the chaos in pakistan. we are at war in pakistan but to say i didn't want him killed -- >> no, i'm just quoting from the radio. >> but if there are processes you should follow. there are proper procedures

rather than digging bigger holes for ourselves. that's what we have been doing in the middle east, digging bigger and bigger holes for ourselves and it's so hard for us to get out of that mess. we have a long ways to go. we are still in iraq and that's getting worse and we aren't leaving afghanistan and the american people are sick and tired of it. 80% of the american people want us out of there. i am suggesting we work within the rule of law. like only going to war when you declare the law. >> i understand. u.s. intelligence officials say they have documents recovered in the come bound that shows that al-qaeda was planning other attacks, perhaps bigger than 9/11. i asked you in our debate in sioux city on the topic of iran on this. but on this topic, gop nominee ron paul would be running far to the left of president obama on the issue of tracking down and killing terrorists who want to attack the u.s.

>> i would say that if you do your best and you can do anything, yes, we had the authority, we voted for it, you got it from the congress, you do it. i just didn't think they had gone through the process enough to actually, you know, capture him in a different way. think about saddam hussein. we did that. we captured him. we tried him. i mean the government tried him and he got hung. what's so terrible about that? the whole idea you can't capture -- just a minute. this whole idea you can't capture people -- >> you voted against the war in iraq. >> he was given a trial. what is wrong with capturing people? why didn't we try to get some information from him? we are accustomed to asking people questions, but all of a sudden gone, that's it. so i will say there are different ways without trying to turn around and say, oh, for some reason this doesn't mean he's supporting america. >> speaker gingrich?

if you received, speaker gingrich, intelligence about a leader inside pakistan would you authorize a unilateral operation, much like the one that killed bin laden in, with or without the pakistani government knowing, even if the consequence was an end to all u.s.-pakistani conversation. >> let me go back and set the stage. bin laden in plotted deliberately, becoming american embassies, bombings usskole and killing 3100 americans and his only regret is he didn't kill more. he's not a chinese dissident. you know, the analogy that congressman paul used was utterly irrational. a chinese dissident who comes here seeking freedom is not the same as a terrorist who goes to pakistan seeking asylum. furthermore, when you give a

country $20 billion, and you learn that they had been hiding -- i mean nobody believes that bin laden in was sitting in a compound in a military city one mile from the national defense university and the pakistanis didn't know it. [applause] >> we are in south carolina. south carolina in the revolutionary war had a young 13-year-old named drawn jackson. he was savored by a british officer and war a scar his whole life. he had a pretty clear-cut idea about america's enemies, kill them. >> congressman paul, 30 seconds, please. 30 seconds to respond sense you were mentioned. >> my point is, if another country does to us what we do to others, we aren't going to like

it very much. so i would say maybe we ought to consider the golden rule in foreign policy. don't do to other nations what we don't want to have them do to us. so we endlessly bomb these countries and then we wonder why they get upset with us? and yet it continues on and on. i mean, i -- this idea -- >> it's time. >> this idea we can't debate foreign policy then all we have to do is start another war? i mean, it's warmongers. they are building up for another war and people can't wait for another war. this country doesn't need another war. we need to quit the ones we are in we need to save the money and bring our troops home. >> governor romney. >> again, the bell may be making a comeback. governor romney, should the united states negotiate with the taliban to end the fighting in afghanistan?

>> of course not. and speaker gingrich is right. of course, you take out our enemies, wherever they are. these people declared war on us. they killed american. we go anywhere where they are and we kill them. and the right thing for -- the right thing for osama bin laden was the bullet in the head that he received. that's the right thing for people who kill americans. the taliban is killing americans. this president announced the date of our withdrawal. he announced the state of withdrawal of our search forces based on a calendar, not the calendar on the ground for the mission. that was wrong. and he anonned we are going to pull out of the country all together and now he wants to negotiate from a position of extraordinary weakness? you don't do that as this president has done. the right course for america is to recognize we are under attack. we are under attack by people, whether they are al-qaeda or other radical violent jihaddists around the world and we will

have to take action around the world to protect ourselves. and hopefully we can do it as we did with osama bin laden as opposed to going to war as we did with iraq. to keep us from going to war is to have a military so strong that no one would ever think of testing it. that's the military we have to have and we have to pursue our interests around the world. >> governor romney, mitchell rice, who i believe is one of your top foreign policy advisors, said that the taliban may well be, quote, our enemy and our negotiating partner. he said that this means that some type of negotiated solution is the best near-term bet to halt the fighting. is he wrong? >> yes. the right course for america is not to neglect negotiate with the taliban while they are killing our forces. it's to recognize they are the enemy of the united states. the vice president is wrong, they are the enemy, they are killing american soldiers. we don't negotiate from a

position of weakness as we are pulling our troops out. the right course is to to strengthen the force so they can reject the taliban. think when a it says to the military in afghan tan and the military there when we ask them to stand up and fight the sovereignty of their people when they see us turning and negotiating with the very people they will have to protect their nation. the vice president is wrong, we should not negotiate with the taliban, we should defeat the taliban. >> senator santorum, you said earlier president obama missed an opportunity to capital lies on rebels. it is estimated 5,000 people were killed, the country appears to be sliding into war and arab league peace monitors seem to be failing. how would senator santorum deal with this international crisis? >> first off, president obama has dealt with it about as badly

as possible. first he emboldensa this him which re-establishing an embassy there, going through the process of trying to rehabilitate with tyrant, all to the consternation to our friend israel who has consistently done the opposite, tried to step away and isolate israel while they are trying to negotiate a difficult situation in their country. with respect to syria, sierra and assad are a threat toition real. i was the author to a bill to put sanction on syria and in fact they worked to get syria out of lebanon which was step number one. that's no long area viable option. we need to rally the international community, work and cooperate with removing assad and work in concert with the arab league, work with others. as far as a military mission on our own, no, i do not support a military mission into syria. but we should be much more

aggressive in following through with policies that effectuate the removal of him for the benefit of the syrian people and for their neighbor, israel. >> governor perry, since the islamists-oriented party took over in turkey, the murder rate of women has increased 1400% there. press freedom has declined to the level of russia. the prime minister of turkey has embraced hamas and turkey has threatened military force against both israel and cyprus. given their term, do you believe turkey still belongs in nato? >> obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by what many would perceive to be islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then, yes. not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they be long to be a nature toe, but it's time for the united states, we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it.

and you go to zero with foreign aid for all of those countries. it doesn't make any difference who they are, you go to zero with the foreign aid and then you go to the question do they have america's best interest in mind. when you have countrying like turkey who are moving far away from the country i lived in back in the 1970s as a pilot in the united states air force that was our ally that worked with us, but today we don't see that. our president has a foreign policy that makes our allies very nervous and it emboldens our enemies. we have to have a president of the united states that clearly sends a message, whether it is to israel, our friend, that there should be no space between the united states and israel period. and we need to send a powerful message to countries like iran and syria and turkey that the united states is serious, and that we are going to have to be

dealt with. >> governor perry, you sound like you wanted to get in when congressman paul was talking at the beginning of this round on foreign policy. >> i was just saying that maybe the noise you were looking for was a gong. >> do you have any reaction to what congressman paul said? >> listen, i volunteered to wear the uniform of our country. what bothers me more than anything is this administration, and this administration's disdain all too often for our men and women in uniform, whether it is what they have said about the marines. now these young minute maid a mistake. they obviously made a mistake. >> you are talking about urinating on the -- >> they made a mistake the military needs to deal with and they need to be punished. but the fact of the matter is this. when the secretary of the

defense calls that a despicable act, when he calls that utterly despicable. what is is cutting a head off and showing the video and hanging contracts from bridges. for our president, for the secretary of state, for the department of defense secretary to make those kind of statements about those young marines, yes, they need to be punished, but when you see this president with that type of disdain for our country, taking a trillion dollars out of our defense budget, 100,000 of our military off of our front lines, and a reduction of forces, i lived through a reduction of force once and i saw the result of it in the sands of iran in 1979. never again. >> kelly. >> yes. >> congressman paul, just a very brief statement. i, too, served in the air force for five years during the height

of the cold war from '62 to '68 so i've had a little bit of experience. i was in the afghanistan, pakistan region. but i would like to point out one thing about the taliban. the taliban used to be our allies when we were fighting the russians. taliban are people who want -- their main goal is to keep foreigners off their land. it's the am died da you can't mix the two. al-qaeda wants to come here to kill us. but we need to understand that. we are going to spend a lot of lives and a lot of money for a long time to come. >> kelly evans. >> governor romney, when president obama signed the national defense authorization act into law he enacted a provision allowing him to indefinitely detain american citizens in custody, many, including congressman paul, has called this unconstitutional. at the same time the bill did provide money to continue funding u.s. troops. governor romney, as president,

would you have signed the national defense act as written? >> yes, i would have, and i do believe it is appropriate to have in our nation the capacity to detain people who are threats to this country, who are members of al-qaeda. look, you have every right in this country to protest and to express your views on a wide range of issues but you don't have a right to join a group that is killed americans, and has declared war against america. that's treason. in this country we have a right to take those people and put them in jail. and i recognize, i recognize that in a setting where they are enemy combatants and on our own soil, that could be abused. there are lots of things i think this president does long but i don't think he will abuse this power and if i were president i would not abuse this power. i can also tell you in my view you have to choose people who you believe has sufficient character not to abuse the power of the presidential and not

violate our constitutional principles. but people who joined al-qaeda are not entitled to rights of due process under the normal legal code. they are entitled instead to be treated as enemy combatants. as long as i still have time i want to go back and agree with what governor perry said. the most extraordinary thing that's happened with this military authorization is the president is planning on cutting $1 million out of military spending. navy is as small as it's been since 1917. our air force is smaller and older since 1947. we are cutting our number of troops. we aren't giving the veterans the care they deserve. we can't continue to cut the department of defense budget if we are going to remain the hope of the earth and i will fight to make sure america retains military superiority. >> governor santorum, same question to you. as president you have signed the act into law as wherein?

>> so he gets two minutes and i get 30 seconds? >> take whatever time you want. >> okay. what the law should be and what the law has been is that if you are a united states citizen, and you are detained as an enemy combatant, then you have the right to go to federal court and file a maybeious corp puts position and be provided a lawyer. that was the law before the national defense organization act and that should be the law today. you should not have -- you should not have -- if you are not an american citizen, that's one thing. but if you are a citizen and you are being held indefinitely, you have the right to go to a federal court. the law prior to the act was that you had the right to go to a court, and for that court to determine by a preponderance of the evidence whether you could continue to be held. that is a standard that should be maintained and i would maintain that standard at president. >> congressman paul, different

question. >> why can't i answer about that one? >> you were included in the question in the first place. do you want 30 seconds to respond? >> i need a minute. no, i think we are going in the wrong direction for the protection of liberties at home. they are under threat. the patriot act has eliminated the fourth amendment. we have a policy of preemptive war, don't have to declare war and you don't have to have an enemy. you can start the war. that's what preemptive war is about. now with the military appropriations defense act, this is major. this is that the military can arrest an american citizen for under suspicion, and he can be held indefinitely without habeus corp us and be denied a lawyer even in a prison here. let me give you one statistic. you worry about all this, where are we going to try people, we have to do it secretly because our rule of law is flawed.

we've arrested 362 people related to al-qaeda type operations. 260 of them are in prison. they have been tried and convicted. so don't give up on our american judicial system so easily. i beg of you. >> all right. >>. thank of topic. question to governor perry. what measures would you needly take to improve the housing market, or do you consider any such intervention to be an overreach of government? >> obviously the first thing we need to do in this country is to cut the tax rate down to where the people feel confident they can risk their capital and have a return on hair investment. that's the reason i laid out a simple and flat tax of 20% with their home mortgage deduction and charitable deductions and get rid of capital gains tax and benefits tax and tax on social security benefits and take 20% of that and mail your check in. even tim -- timothy geithner can

get his tax in on time. and we need to pull back the regulations we talk about since '08 that this administration has pushed into place that have strangled jobs. getting america back to work again. that's what i've gone done 11 years as governor of the 13th largest economy in the world. and our market is solid, it's growing, and it's doing because we have created that climate where job creators know that they can go out and risk their capital and have a return on investment. as the president of the united states, that's what i'm going to do, is to walk into washington d.c., work towards a balanced budget amendment to the united states constitution, and try to pass a constitutional amendment that the people will accept and work with me to make congress a part-time body so they stay less time in washington d.c., they go back home and get a real job

like everybody else has and live under the laws that they passed. [applause] >> governor, beyond moving to a part-time congress and encouraging the rest of the nation to follow texas in terms of job key aation, you would take no pointed measures to help the housing market. >> i think cut the tacks and cut the regulars that will increase the jobs and people will have the income to come in. i don't think it's the government's responsibility. look, we've already seen that with freddie and fanny. we don't need the federal government in the housing market anymore. they need to be out of the housing market. [applause] >> governor romney, in the book you wrote just before the campaign began said you were surprised that the press in the last campaign didn't press for more specifics on how to fix social security and medicare. so let's fix that tonight. let me ask you specifically, would you reduce the cost of these programs by raising the

retirement age for social security, by raising the eligibility age for medicare or by reducing benefits for seniors with higher incomes? >> let me lay it out. first of all, for the people who are already retired or 55 years of age and older, nothing changes. it's very important because i know the democrats are going to be showing videos of, you know, old people being thrown off cliffs and so farther. but don't forget who it was that cut medicare by $500 billion and that was president obama to pay for obamacare. let's not forget that. what i would do with social security is that i would lower -- if you will, the 2.0, the version for the next generations coming up, i would lower the rate of inflation growth and the benefits received by higher-income recipients and keep the rate as it is now pretty high for lower recipients and add a year or two to the retirement age under social security. that balances social security. with regard to medicare, i would lay out the plan i actually did a couple months ago that said

higher recipients, lower benefits. a premium support program which am louse people to buy either current standard medicare or a private plan. and this is the proposal which congressman paul ryan has adopted, it's a proposal which i believe is absolutely right on. where we have a premium support program, give people choice, let competition exist in our medicare program by virtue of the two things i have described. higher benefits for lower income people, lower benefits for higher-income people. and making a premium support program in head care and social security a slightly higher retirement age. you balance those two programs. by the way, the third major entitlement, medicaid you send back to the state. and the fourth new new entitlement of obamacare you repeal that andjélw finally gett right. >> speaker gingrich. speaker gingrich, the plan you endorsed, you suggest younger workers should be allowed to put their tax money into private

accounts rather than into the government program. but that plan also said if those private accounts don't pay out as much as the government program would, washington should cut a check to make up the difference. is that really a free market outcome if the government guarantees the outcome? >> it is, as a historian, a fact-based model that has galveston, texas and the entire country of chile as testing grounds. chile has done this. the guy that created it, they have done it for over 30 years. first of all, it's totally voluntary. if you want to stay in the current system, stay in it. if you are younger and you want to go and take a personal savings account that would be a social security savings account, you can take it. your share of the tax goes into that. the employer's share goes into the regular fund to pay for the regular fund. the historic record in chile is the average young person gets two to three times the retirement income. in 30 years they have never written a single check because

no one has fallen below the minimum rate. and they have 70% of the gdp in their savings fund, so much they allow people to invest outside the country. the principal group in des moines, iowa actually runs part of this program and i interviewed the person who is in charge of it for their group. they estimate if you make it a voluntary program, 95 to 97% of young people will take the program because it is such a big return on your investment, you will be relatively stupid not to do it. okay. now, what does 2 do? it gets the government out of telling you when to retire. it gets the government out of picking winners and loser. it makes every american an investor when they first go to work. they all have a buildup of an estate which you don't get in the system. and one estimate was you actually reduce wealth

inequality in american by 50% over the next generation because everyone becomes a safer and investor and you have a universal saving nation. >> senator santorum, senator santorum, in your jobs program you proposal to reeliminate the corporate income tax for manufacturers but not others. isn't that picking and choosing like the obama administration did when they picked one corporation, solyndra, and they went bankrupt. >> no, it's not. make it basically a net profits tax. you take the area of economy that's under competition from overseas for the jobs. the ref of the economy is not being shipped off like the mills here in south carolina were to other countries around the world because of foreign competition. the foreign competition we are dealing with right now is much cheaper to do business,

excluding labor costs than we are, about 20% more, and the other is forecast. it's government regulation and government taxation. so part of what we are trying to do is to have a government system that can compete with who our competitor is. the competitor at the local drugstore is not china. the competitor is other people. as long as that is level and everyone is paying, the big corporationings and the little ones and that's why we have a flat 17 1/2% so we have the, guys paying the same rate as the big guys. right now you have a lot of people in there reducing rates using the tax code to shrink their tax liability. we level the playing field for the guys in this country and create a competitive environment for the manufacturer. i want to make a point about newt and his plans because they are not bold. and in the case of governor romney. and they are irresponsible. i say that against newt because there's nobody for the last 15 years that's been more in favor of personal savings accounts than i have for social security. we were doing that when we had a

surplus in social security. we are now running a deficit in social security. we are now running a huge deficit in this country. under the proposal,ed 5% of younger workers take it, there will be hundreds of billions of dollars in increased debt. hundreds of billions of more debt put on the books. we will be borrowing money from china to fund the accounts which is wrong. i'm for the accounts but first we have to get our fiscal house in order and balance the budget. but the idea of doing it now is fiscal insanity. and mitt romney's plan is simply not bold. we have a deficit now in social security and medicare. he wants to say we aren't going to touch anybody now. there are 60,000 people in this country who are earning over $1 million a year as a senior and he's saying, no, let's not touch them. i'm saying, yes, we should absolutely do something about people when don't need social security when we are borrowing

money from china to pay those millionaire. >> speaker gingrich, your response? >> you look at the plan, you will see one of the ways we pay for t we take 185 different federal bureaucracies that deal with low income americans. there are 185 separate burr bureaucracies all dealing with low income merges we console dade them and send it back to the states and we take the billions of dollars in federal overhead that saves and puts that into social security in order to make up the difference. so in fact, rick, it is a very sound plan. and i say this to somebody who helped balance the budget four times in a row. >> quickly. quickly. >> newt, i support that idea, but we need that to reduce the deficit we have now, not doing what you are suggesting, which is ballooning the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars more and then using now to

shrink the deficit to add more fiscal responsibility on to the federal government. >> last one. >> okay. martin estimates if you have a personal savings account model, you increase the size of the economy by $7 trillion to $8 trillion over a generation. a massive reinvestment. in addition, i would just suggest having helped balanced the budget for four consecutive year for the only time in your lifetime, i'm reasonably confident i can find ways to balance the budget without hurting young people and blocking them from social security. >> governor romney, do you want your 30 seconds? or are you just enjoying this back and forth? would you like to weigh in? >> rick is right. i know it's popular here to say we can do this and it's not going to cost anything. but, look, it's going to get tough to get our federal spending from the current 25% of the gdp, down to 20, down to 18 which has been our history. we have a huge number of obligations and cutting back is

going to have to happen. i know something about balancing budgets. in the private sector you don't have a choice. you balance your budget or you go out of business. we can't simply say we are going to borrow more money to let people set up new acts that take money away from social security and medicare today. therefore we should allow people to have a voluntary account, a voluntary savings program tax free. that's why i say anybody middle income should be able to save their money tax free. no tax on interest, dividends or capital gains. that will get americansing saving and accomplishes your objective without threatening the future of america's vitality by virtue of fiscal insanity. >> coming up, social issues. [ male announcer ] this black history month,

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said your record for gun owners is weak. signed the first one in massachusetts and increased fees on gun owners in that state in fact by 400%. how can you convince gun owners that you will be an advocate for them as president? >> well, juan, in my state we had a piece of legislation that was crafted both by the pro gun lobby and the anti-gun lobby. massachusetts has some very restrictive rules and the pro gun lobby said this legislation is good for us, it includes provisions we want that allows us, for instance, to crossroads with weapons when hunting that had not been previously allowed. pro gun owners, the gun owners action league and others said we would like you to sign this legislation. when we announced the legislation, we had both the pro gun owners and anti-bun owners together because we found common ground. my view is we have the second amendment right to bear arms and my view is we should not add new

legislation. i know there are people that think we need new law, we need to find now ways to restrict gun ownership. there's an effort in washington and the president to restrict law-abiding citizens from owning a gun. i disagree with that. i believe we have in place all the laws we need. we should enforce those laws. i do not believe in new laws restricting gun ownership and gun use. >> by the way, governor, i remember that you were teased mightily a few years ago to say you hundreded varment. i wonder if you have gone hunting since '07. >> aim not going to describe all of my great exploited. i meant moose hunting -- not moose, excuse me, elk hunting with friends in montana and pheasant hunting. i'm not the great hunting that some on this stage, rick perry, my guess is you are a serious hunter.

i'm not a serious hunter, but i enjoy the sport and when i get invited i'm delighted to be able to go hunting. >> senator santorum, you voted in requiring a trigger locks on handguns and also voted for background checks on purse made at gun shows. these positions have led rivals to question you. what will you do to reassure gun owners you stand with them. >> both of those were supported by the united gun owners association. i voted against the gun ban and voted 100% with the nra. this was a piece of legislation that was crafted that they endorsed, they supported and worked with me to make sure that we could -- would not have something far worse passed. so sometimes you have to pass something that can get enough votes to be able to satisfy folks that they won't pass something that's much worse.

so that's what you have to do to make sure that rights aren't taken away. i've been a strong -- again, lifetime a-plus record with the nra, work with them. they came to me repeatedly when i was in the senate to help them and sponsor legislation and work toward making sure of ensuring gun rights. contrast that with congressman paul. one of the most important things that we did in protecting the second amendment, and i provided a leadership role on it, was the gun manufacturers liability bill. there were a lot of lawyers out there trying to sue gun manufacturers and hold them liable for anyone harmed as the gun improperly functioning. we went forward and passed with the nra's backing a bill that put a ban on those types of lawsuits. if that ban had not been passed, if that gun manufacturer's liability bill, removing them from liability from that, had that not been passed, there would be no gun industry in this country and there would de facto

have been no second amendment right. congressman paul voted against that bill. that's a very big difference between someone who actually works with the gun second amendment groups for legislation that can protect that right, and someone who says they are for second amendment and attacks me on my second amendment issues that you just referred to and here's a man that would wipe out the second amendment if his vote would have carried the day. >> congressman paul. >> hardly would that wipe out the second amendment. but the jurisdiction is obviously with the states. even when tort law is involved with medical malpractice, which is a real problem, our governor worked on and our state has done something on medical liable. that's the way it should be handled. you don't have national tort law. that should be at the state level. so to argue the case that that does away with the second amendment when i'm the one that offers all the legislation to repeal the gun bans of that gone

on, that rivals everything else, i've introduced legislation like that. that's a bit of an overstretch to say that i've done away with the second amendment. >> i need to respond to that. because the fact is if we did not have a national liability bill, then people would have been able to go to states like, say, massachusetts or new york and sue gun manufacturers where they would not pass a gun liability bill. so unless you have a national standard to protect manufacturers of guns, you would create the opportunity for the elimination of gun manufacturing in this country and defactor elimination of the right to bear arms. >> this is the way our constitution disappears. it is nibbled away. i will give up on this and get that and eventually there's nothing left. but tort law should be a state function. >> speaker gingrich, a super pac supporting governor romney is running an ad citing a pro-life's group charge you

supported a law that supported the government funding for abortion but you oppose abortion. what's your response? >> this is typical of what senator santorum and i have complained about with gov romney's super pac. which apparently he has no influence offense which makes you wonder how much influence he would have if he were president. let me take that particular bill. that bill was introduced by a republican from rhode island. it was introduced at a time when ronald reagan's mexico city policy was enforced. that said no u.s. funding will be used to fund any activity that relates to abortion. so it is explicitly a falsehood to suggest that a bill introduced under mexico city policy would have paid for china's one child policy. in fact, i have explicitly opposed it. i have a 98.6% national right to

life voting record and the only thing agreed on was welfare reform which had nothing to did with abortion. it would be nice if gov romney would exercise leadser ship to take falsehoods off the air. >> governor romney. >> speaker gingrich, i already said at our last debate that anything that's false in pac ads, whether supportive of me or supportive of you should be taken often the air and fixed. i already said that. i can't call these people and direct them to do that, as you know, because that would violate federal law; is that correct? >> absolutely. >> so i can't do what you just asked me to do, but i can tell them publicly as i can here if there's anything that's inaccurate in any ads that support me i hope they take it off and don't run it. if we are talking about ads that are inaccurate, mr. speaker, you

have a super pac ad that attacks me. it's probably the biggest hoax since big foot. the people that looked at it said this ad is entirely false, that this documentary that they are running includes businesses i had no involvement with, the events that they described. and yet that's out there on a super pac that is supporting you. you said that you think it's bad. just as i said the super pac that support me is doing bad things. but somehow for you to suggest that you and i have different standards here is just not quite right. >> i said publicly, i said publicly it ought to be edited. i said that and i believe the head of that group has actually submitted your campaign a set of questions to make sure that they edit it accurately and put only the correct facts in. so i think it should be edited, and i would be delighted if you would agree that the ad that was just referred to was false and

people see the romney ad attack being me on that particular issue should know in advance it is false and shouldn't be run. >> me too. >> governor perry. >> we all would like to have super pacs disappear, to tell you the truth. wouldn't it nice to have people give what they would like to to campaigns and campaigns could run their own ads and take responsibility for them. but this campaign is not about ads, it's about issues. >> you would like to see them ended. >> i would like to get mccain-feign gold, it's a disaster, let people make contributions they want to make to campaigns, let campaigns then take responsibility for their own words and not have this strange situation we have people out there who support us, who run ads we don't like, we would like to take off the air, they are outrageous and yet they are out there supporting us and by law we aren't allows to talk to

them. i haven't spoken to any of the people involved in my super pac in months and this is outrageous. candidates should have the responsibility and the right to manage the ads that are being run on their behalf. i think this has to change. >> governor perry, you add vo indicate placing more troops and walls along the southern boarder to stop illegal immigration but border crossings are at a 40 year low and illegal immigration overall is down substantially and the u.s. has other pressing infrastructure and needs. wouldn't we be better off not spending more money on border walls. >> the reason is because the economy of the united states is at a 40 year low and that needs to change. that's the reason. as the governor of the second largest state in the state with the long he have border, i spent 11 years dealing with this issue. the idea that americans don't want us to spend the money to secure that border is just flat

out false. we are going to secure the border with mexico. that means strategic fencing, it means thousands of national guard troops on the boarder until we can train up the border patrol to be there and it means predator drones and other technology so we have the realtime information to get to the officials in law enforcement so they can immediately respond to any activity they see on the boarder that is either weapons-related or drug-related or illegal immigration that's occurring on that border. americans want that border secure. the issue isn't about how much is it going to cost, the issue is when are you going to get it done? when i'm the president of the united states that border will be locked down and it will be secure by one year from the time i take my hand off the bible. last twitter question is from an eighth grade teacher in hobart, indiana. it's for you, speaker gingrich. at mr. white man, has no child

left behind been a successor failure? if the latter, what needs to be done to change it? >> i think it's clearly a file lure. it's led teachers to be forced in a bureaucratic form of teaching to the test. i find no teacher who likes it. it is grossly disproportionate. you end up with first-generation immigrants who don't speak very good english being tested against a national standard and a good school looks bad because it's done a great job because there's no measurement that is reasonable. the correct answer is to radically reduce the department of education, cut out all federal regulations, return the money and the power back home to the states. but i would say to the states, it will be good for them to shrink their departments of education and return the power back to the local county boards, and then let parents and teachers and students get back to learning. [applause] >> thank you all very much. that is the end of our debate.

a fierier debate. we appreciate it. that's it for our debate tonight. our thanks to the candidates, their staffs, the south carolina republican party, the great people here in myrtle beach. a fantastic crowd. of course, the state of south carolina, as well. they could not have been more hospitable. stay with us through the convention and the general election and the inauguration in 2013. post debate analysis is on the way. keep it here.

>> all right. we are back here in myrtle beach. let's go to john roberts with an update on how the twitter audience thought the candidates

fared tonight. hi, john. >> good evening. we've been asking people who have been watching to tweet in to twitter, either hashtag answer or hashtag dodge if they think they dodged it. newt gingrich doing well on the economy. most people thought he was answering the questions. mitt romney below. we go to santorum, ron paul, perry, they gave satisfactory answers on the economy. let's switch to another topic. we are looking at foreign policy. newt gingrich did very well on foreign policy. mitt romney, as you see, below the line. i have to tell you he spent most of the night below the line. rick san giving good answers, as well as rick perry. ron paul, we have to tell you, ron paul spent the entire night in got answer question. on the issue of race, mitt romney way down again while newt gingrich was way up. those are the biggest spikes of the night. santorum, middle of the ground. same with perry.

ron paul again, strong support. romney's record which was a big topic of the night. gingrich below the line. that was his talking about capital off the beginning with the first question. mitt romney spent the entire night below the line. and santorum as tell. ron paul again the only one giving straight answers on some of the topics. let's go to mitt romney himself. on the record, the green people thought he gave a good answer, red they thought he dodged the question. again, the majority below the line. same thing with economy, race. foreign policy, he was even with that. he gets high marks for what he said it was good to put a bullet in the head of osama bin laden. looking at newt gingrich, he was a little more of a dodge than a good answer. the economy getting good points, race getting very good points, foreign policy pretty much the same thing. that's the way it came out tonight. brett. >> john, very interesting from twitter. now let's get final thoughts from tonight's panelists. jerry, your thoughts on the debate? >> i think you saw a very

aggressive rick san and newt gingrich on either side of mitt romney, which is what we expect the. i thought it was interesting the line of i a tack that didn't work for speaker gingrich is the bank capital one he's been writing. he moved beyond that and tried to work up the crowd in other ways and succeeded. i thought rick san was right at mitt romney's grill right away and that probably tells you where he stands in the race right now. i thought that mitt romney made a couple of good responses at the end. particularly when he took on the whole superpac of idea. it's sort of hang over the whole race and he said what i think everyone on the stage wanted to say, could we just get out of the mess? but they have to live with it right now. >> there were heated moments, but there were also some really substantive moments on a lot of different issues. >> you know what, i was struck by we had a real debate tonight. we had a real debate right from the start when you asked them about governor romney's record.

you saw when we got to senator santorum accusing him of lies and hypocrisy and all the rest and you saw romney then respond, and santorum respond, gingrich got involved there. i don't think that governor romney was able to answer jerry seib's question about bank capital specifically. so a lot of the attacks sort of transformed into questions about the tiesments. and later, of course, in the debate we saw that in specific with governor romney saying he does not like this big ad that he called it big foot, i believe, in terms of credibility, has the same amount of credibility as big foot that speaker gingrich is running. if there was news tonight coming out of the debate, jerry and i were talking about the idea that governor romney said he's going to release his tax forms. he suggested by april. he said heard enough, and i think that is very important because, again, given the issue of. >> it wasn't a date certain. >> he said around april.

>> around april. >> not now. >> but not before saturday's primary. >> no, no. >> and actually i believe it was senator santorum who said, you know what, we don't want to have the people of south carolina vote for a president and then in september we find out this candidate is so flawed. that exchange was there. >> i was disappointed we didn't get anything more specific from especially governor romney on the question of bailouts that we posed." i thought there were some interesting points made about jobless benefits, about thish issue whether they would cap it at 40 weeks, which something santorum alluded to on a welfare model. and whether strings should be attacks. most of the headlines were on social policy. and with the economy, lately none of the candidates is aggressive about it and they focus mostly on tacks and i didn't think we got as much substance, as least as i would have liked from them, as to

regard to what they would specifically do different. >> how did you think congressman paul handled the foreign policy section, jerry? >> you know, he's device i have on that subject. you can see it on the stage among the candidates and you can hear it in this hall. the people who agree with ron paul, people that think we are wasting money on the military, we are way too involved overseas and we are too adventurous to the point we are now stumbling into a war with iran, they believe he's right passionately. people who think he's wrong think he's wrong passionately and i don't think there's much common ground there. on this stage it was congressman paul over here and everyone else over there on that subject. one thing that happened tonight that division became a little more clear. and as we've talked about before, where national security and military affairs are so important, it will be interesting to see how that plays out. >> juan, any thoughts there? >> obviously what was distinctive about this setting inside south carolina tonight on

martin luther king, jr. day to ask them to address racial issues. and the audience was absolutely excited and intense in terms of responding to the candidates on this and very much affirm the idea that, yes, in the case of gingrich's comments about having young people work as janitors, yes, we like that, and i think it fed him greatly tonight. i think in general the whole attitude here was one of support for what the candidates had been saying on the issue of race, which i think might be a surprise to people who are democrats and certainly african americans. >> by the way, the booms you may be hearing we think are fireworks outside. we are hoping that's the case. it's been an honor and pleasure. it was number five for me. thank you very much. >> and thank you. that was terrific. >> that's it for us tonight. thanks for watching. good night. now i will throw it to my colleague, sean hannity, and he's in the spin room, which is hopping. sean.