PART I, GOP Candidates on Economy, Environment, And
Taxes
If you want
to skip to:
Today vs.
8 Yrs. Ago,
On
Environment/Emissions, On
Taxes/Economy
TODAY VS. 8 YEARS
AGO Back to Top
Mitt Romney was asked first, and at the
beginning of the debate refused to answer this question, nor admit that
we are in an economic recession. He said that he turned his state
around as Governor, and avoided answering the "8 years" question, though
later in the debate he came back to it and said that we are not better
off.
John McCain said, "I think you could argue
that Americans overall are better off, because we have had a pretty good
prosperous time, with low unemployment and low inflation and a lot of
good things happened...But I think what we're trying to do to fix this
economy is important." Even after some prompting by Cooper ("it
sounds like you're saying we're not better off"), McCain maintained that
we are better off "over all." What country is he living in?
Mike Huckabee said, "I don't think we are
[better off]. And the real issue, though, let's not blame
President Bush for all of this." Then more about how things are
looking up, and it's not Bush's fault. Good idea, let's go find
some unicorns to blame it on.
Ron Paul
said, "No, no, we're not better
off. We're worse off, but it's partially this administration's
fault and it's the Congress...we're bogged down in another war, we're
bankrupting our country and we have an empire that we're trying to
defend which costs us $1 trillion a year...When you destroy a currency,
the middle class gets wiped out. Poor countries don't even have
middle classes. We used to have one, and they're on the ropes
right now...The people in this country have been begging for a change in
direction, and they haven't had it."
A period of time
ensues where Romney and McCain attack each other's records and talk
about who's supporting whom.
None of it
seems relevant; neither Huckabee nor Paul is allowed to speak when this
happens. Janet Hook attempts to move on to the Environment topic,
(candidates' responses are below under Environment/Emissions), and
Cooper breezes over to Paul, "Congressman Paul to you agree with
Governor Schwarzenegger on this one?"
"I would like to take one minute, since I didn't
get a chance to answer this discussion on Conservative vs. Liberal," Paul
says, referring to the Romney/McCain neverending dialogue on who is
what, who said this, who did that.
"We're going to have - I
promise you we're going to have - you're going to have another
opportunity to do that. I promise you, coming up in like two
minutes or two questions," Anderson Cooper says, and cuts Paul
off. "I' just want to go right now to Janet Hook."
Anderson
lies. Paul was never given the question.
But this is only the
beginning of a Twilight Zone-esque debate in
which Mitt Romney and John McCain ruled the world.
ON ENVIRONMENT/EMISSIONS
Back to Top
Janet Hook asks what the candidates think of
Governor Schwarzenegger's "tough environmental regulations on emission
requirements."
McCain answers first, "Look, I'm a
federalist. And I believe the states should decide to enormous
degrees what happens within those states, including off their
coasts. The people of California have decided they don't want oil
drilling off their coasts. The people of Louisiana have decided
that they do." He then says we have an "obligation to try to stem
these greenhouse gas emissions; and one of the ways is through use of
nuclear power."
Nuclear power?!
Romney completely skated this question,
too. He said, "Well, I side with states to be able to make their
own regulations with regards to emissions within their own states...even
if I don't always agree with the decisions they make." He did not
advise a good plan for the environment, nor emissions, simply made a
joke that "they don't call it 'America warming,' they call it 'global
warming.'"
Huckabee said "Gov. Schwarzenegger ought
to be able to carry out the plan, because, if he's right, every other
state is going to copy him. And if he's wrong, every other state
is going to recruit the jobs that he lost in California to their own
states." We agree with many of the points Huck makes in this
debate - this was not one of them.
He offered no solution, just basically well,
Arnold's neck is on the line, but that's his right.
This is when Paul says, "Yes, I think California should
do what they want, and we all recognize that. But one thing that
hasn't been emphasized here that should be emphasized when we're dealing
with environment...property rights...we neglected during the Industrial
Revolution property rights, and governments and big corporations get
together and colluded." He attempts to speak further, but as
mentioned above, got cut off.
ON TAXES/ECONOMY
Back to Top
Huckabee is
given the first shot. "Well, if we end up with the rebates, we're
going to borrow the $150 billion from China. And when we turn it
into rebates, most people are going to go out and buy some consumables
like a pair of shoes that they probably don't even need, but they're
going to buy them, and they're most likely an import from China. My
point is, whose economy are we stimulating when we do that?"
He then talks about what
he did at the Florida debate, on how everyone is stuck on traffic on
I-95, and how money spent on highway construction turns into
jobs. "My point is that infrastructure in this country has been
neglected, whether it's our airports, our bridges, our roads, and I
don't think there's a governor in this state that wouldn't tell you that
you'll create more jobs and you'll build it with American workers,
American concrete and American steel."
Romney is next and responds to Huckabee,
"Unfortunately, a road project isn't going to stimulate the economy to
the timeframe we have right now at the tipping point." He suggests
"an economic stimulus plan" to return money to consumers, business, and
homeowners for Congress to move on "within 30 days...so the economy
doesn't tip down." Details are not divulged. Later, he says
that he believes "in getting rates down; I think that builds our
economy."
Paul says, "Well, you know, the governor
says that you have to borrow for a handout of a check from the
Chinese. Where are you going to get the money to build the
highway? Same old thing. We have a foreign policy where we
blow up bridges overseas and then we tax the people to go over and
rebuild the bridges overseas and our bridges are falling down and our
infrastructure is falling down. So, yes, this money should be
spent back here at home."
"We have a $1 trillion foreign
operation to operate our empire. That's where the money is.
You can't keep borrowing from China. You can't keep printing the
money. We have to cut some spending. That's what nobody here
talks about. Where do you cut spending if you want to spend some
money? We need lower taxes."
McCain says,
"I think the efforts that have been made so far are laudable. We
may have to go further, but the fact that the FHA and other
organizations...[are] doing a good job of sitting down and fixing at
least a significant number of these problems."
He mentions
that mortgage rates could be adjusted; people should be given "a
depreciation in one year for their business and investment." He
concurs with Paul "And we've got to stop spending. We've got to
stop - one place where Ron Paul and I are in total agreement, spending
is out of control. And I'm tired of borrowing money from
China."
If you're
wondering why we're summarizing some answers and not others, we are
attempting to adjust the inanely unequal speaking times the candidates
got. McCain and Romney were literally allowed to ramble on and on,
without pause, while Huckabee and Paul were hardly allowed a
peep.
We do not have the exact time slots
that each got, although we're waiting on a full video of the
debate. We watched this live and got the transcript, but do not
have the complete video yet to time each candidate's segments.
However, if you saw the debate live, you would know exactly how unjust it was. If anyone has
the official times, please
send them to us.
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