By: Jonny Velasquez
The debate started with a grand slam question asked by, Gilbert, a member of the audience —
“For the first time in 65 years, our National Debt exceeds our Gross National Budget. What are you going to do to bring down the debt?”
Kicking off the debate, Senator Rick Santorum answered, “I put together a specific plan that cuts five trillion dollars over five years. That spends less money each year for the next four years that I’ll be president of the United States. So it’s not inflation-adjusted. It’s not baseline budgeting. We’re actually going to shrink the actual size of the federal budget, and we’re going to do so by dealing with the real problem.
“Obviously, the first thing I’m going to do is repeal Obama-Care. That’s the one entitlement to get rid of. Today over 60 percent of the budget is entitlement spending. The military budget is now 17 percent of the budget.
“We will go after all of the entitlement programs, medicaid, food stamps. All of those programs that do what we did with welfare. We cut spending on welfare. Froze it. And then we block granted to the States, and gave them the flexibility to run that program the way they saw fit with two provisos. Number one, a time limit on welfare. And two, a work requirement.”
Governor Mitt Romney answered second by saying, “Here’s what I’d do at the federal level. I would divide all of the programs into three major places for opportunity to reduce cost.
“Number one, I’m going to go through every single program and ask if we can afford it. And if not, I’m going to say, is this program so critical that it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And if not, I’m going to get rid of it.
“Number two, I’m going to take programs that are important, but could be better run at the State level, and send them back to the States as a block grant. That includes medicaid, housing vouchers, and food stamps. These programs for the poor could be run more efficiently, and could be run with less fraud and abuse at the State level.
“And finally number three, with what’s left with government, I’m going to cut the employment by 10 percent. And I’m going to link the pay of government workers with the pay of the private sectors. Government servants should not get paid more than the people that are paying taxes.”
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich answered, “You go back and look at the founding fathers. They’d have had very clear messages. Hamilton would have said you have to have jobs and economic growth to get back to a balanced budget. You’re never going to balance the budget on the back of a highly unemployed country. And so I would be committed, first of all, to a program of jobs and economic growth.
“Second, the energy issue is enormous. The leading developer of North Dakota oil estimated recently that, if we would open up federal land and open up offshore, you would have $16 trillion to $18 trillion, not billion, trillion dollars in royalties to the federal government in the next generation. An enormous flow which would drive down prices to $2.50 a gallon. It would help us balance the budget and would create millions of jobs.
“Finally, I agree generally with the need to reform government. I think that, if we were prepared to repeal the 130-year-old civil service laws, go to a modern management system, we could save a minimum of $500 billion a year with a better system. And if we then applied the tenth amendment, as Governor Rick Perry has agreed to head up a project on, I think we can return to the States an enormous share of the power that’s currently in Washington, D.C.”
Congressman Ron Paul was never able to comment. John King changed the subject and asked Congressman Paul —
“You’ve questioned the fiscal conservative credentials of all these gentlemen, but particularly this week Senator Santorum. You have a new television ad that labels him a fake. Why?”
Congressman Paul answered, “Because he is a fake! I find it really fascinating that when people are running for office they’re really fiscally conservative. When they’re in office, they do something different. And then when they explain themselves, they say, Oh, I want to repeal that.
“So the senator voted for No Child Left Behind, but now he’s running on the effort to get rid of it. So I think the record is so bad, you know, with the politicians.”
The heated debate continued as the topic shifted to Fiscal Conservatives. Watch the full video here.