Republican Presidential Debate Quick Hits
Last night millions of viewers tuned in to watch the Republican Candidate debate, which was held at the Reagan library in Simi Valley, California. The debate included discussions on immigration, Social Security, taxes, the Tea Party, education, and the death penalty.
If you did not get the chance to tune in to see the candidates debate, here are some quick hits for you to check out:
Mitt Romney and Rick Perry on Social Security:
• Perry called the current state of the program a “Ponzi scheme… Anybody that is for the status quo of social security today is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids and it’s not right.”
• Romney: “Our nominee has to be someone who isn’t committed to abolishing Social Security, but who is committed to saving Social Security… And under no circumstances would I ever say by any measure it’s a failure… And under no circumstances would I ever say by any measure it’s a failure. It is working for millions of Americans, and I’ll keep it working for millions of Americans.”
What happens in the absence of FEMA during natural disasters?
• Ron Paul stated, “We should have never had it…We’re spending — believe it or not, this blew my mind when I read this — $20 billion a year for air conditioning in Afghanistan and Iraq in the tents over there and all the air conditioning. Cut that $20 billion out, bring in — take $10 off the debt, and put $10 into FEMA or whoever else needs it, child health care or whatever. But I’ll tell you what, if we did that and took the air conditioning out of the Green Zone, our troops would come home, and that would make me happy.”
On immigration and border security:
• Perry states, “Boots on the ground…you can secure the border, but it requires a commitment of the federal government of putting those boots on the ground, the aviation assets in the air.”
• Romney: “If we want to secure the border, we have to make sure we have a fence, technologically, determining where people are, enough agents to oversee it, and turn off that magnet. We can’t talk about amnesty, we cannot give amnesty to those who have come here illegally. We’ve got 4.7 million people waiting in line legally. Let those people come in first, and those that are here illegally, they shouldn’t have a special deal.
• Bachmann: ”Our immigration law worked beautifully back in the 1950s, up until the early 1960s, when people had to demonstrate that they had money in their pocket, they had no contagious diseases, they weren’t a felon. They had to agree to learn to speak the English language, they had to learn American history and the Constitution. And the one thing they had to promise is that they would not become a burden on the American taxpayer. That’s what we have to enforce.”
• Herman Cain: ” We’ve got to secure the border…let’s promote the path to citizenship that’s already there…Empower the states to do what the federal government hasn’t done, can’t do, and won’t do. This is how we solve the entire problem.”
• Ron Paul says, “Our drug laws are driving this. So now we’re killing thousands and thousands of people. That makes it much more complicated. But the people who want big fences and guns, sure, we can secure the borders — a barbed-wire fence with machine guns, that would do the trick. I don’t believe that’s what America is all about. I just really don’t… So, every time you think of fence keeping all those bad people out, think about those fences maybe being used against us, keeping us in.”
[...] Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. As we previously posted, here are some of the quick hits of what the candidates said at the debate on [...]