Republican Debate Transcript, New Hampshire, October 2011
Published October 11, 2011
| Speakers: | Michele Bachmann Herman Cain Newt Gingrich Jon Huntsman Rick Santorum |
This Republican debate was held in Hanover, New Hampshire on October 11, 2011 and was sponsored by the Washington Post and Bloomberg. Participants were Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Hunstman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. It was moderated by Charlie Rose, with questions asked by Karen Tumulty and Julianna Goldman. This transcript was provided by the Washington Post.
CHARLIE ROSE: I am pleased to be here at this table to have an opportunity to talk to them about the issues that all of us are thinking about, and I begin this evening first with Herman Cain.
As you know, when Standard & Poor's downgraded American credit, they noted not only the economic difficulties but the political dysfunction. So we begin this evening with the question: What would you do specifically to end the paralysis in Washington?
HERMAN CAIN: Two things: Present a bold plan to grow this economy, which -- I have put my 9-9-9 plan on the table, and it starts with throwing out the current tax code and putting in the 9-9-9 plan.
Secondly, get serious about bringing down the national debt. The only way we're going to do that is the first year that I'm president and I oversee a fiscal year budget, make sure that revenues equals spending. If we stop adding to the national debt, we can bring it down.
So the answer is, we must grow this economy with a bold solution, which is why I've proposed 9-9-9 and at same time get serious about not creating annual deficits, so we can bring the national debt. That will re-establish confidence in our system, and I believe we could get our credit rating back.
MR. ROSE: Governor Perry, are you prepared, even though you have said you want to make Washington inconsequential, to go to Washington and, as Ronald Reagan did, compromise on spending cuts and taxes in order to produce results?
GOVERNOR RICK PERRY (R-TX): Well, certainly, as the governor of the second-largest state, I've had to deal with folks on both sides of the aisle.
I've signed six balanced budgets as the governor of -- of Texas. So working with folks on both sides of the aisle and -- and bringing ideas, whether it's ways to redo your tax structure or what have you.
One of the things that I laid out today I think is a pretty bold plan to put 1.2 million Americans working in the energy industry. And you don't need Congress to do that; you need a president with a plan, which I'm laying out over the next three days, and clearly the intent to open up this treasure trove that America's sitting on and getting America independent on the domestic energy side. It's time for another American Declaration of Independence. It's time for energy independence.
MR. ROSE: We'll come back to energy and also your economic plan this evening, but I go now to Governor Romney.
The paralysis is there and everybody's concerned about it. What specifically would you be prepared to do to make the country moving again on addressing its problems?
MITT ROMNEY: I'd be prepared to be a leader. You can't get the country to go in the right direction and get Washington to work if you don't have a president that's a leader. And -- and three years ago we selected a person who'd never had any leadership experience, never worked in the private sector, never had the opportunity to actually bring people together, and he hasn't been able to do so. He said he'd bring us hope and change. Instead he's divided the nation and tried to blame other people.
The real course for America is to have someone who's a leader, who can identify people in both parties who care more about the country than they care about getting reelected. There are Democrats like that. There are Republicans like that. I was the governor of a state that had a few Democrats. (Laughs.) People in this room know how many we had in Massachusetts.
MR. ROSE: So it's essential to deal with Democrats --
MR. ROMNEY: Yeah, you have to --
MR. ROSE: -- and to be prepared to compromise on the big issues of our time?
MR. ROMNEY: You have to stand by your principles. At the same time, you know that good Democrats and good Republicans who love the country first will be able to find common ground from time to time and recognize we can't keep on spending like we're spending.
We can't demand more from tax revenue from people, because that kills jobs and hurts working families. We have got to help the middle class in this country.
The only way that'll come together is if you have people on both sides of the aisle who will listen to a leader who has the experience of leading. And that's what America's looking for and desperately longing for.
MR. ROSE: And back to Governor Perry: this plan that you would like to lay out -- because Governor Romney has said you've had two months to produce a plan, an economic plan. He's had a 59-point plan. What's the plan? What will you say specifically?
GOV. PERRY: Well, clearly, opening up a lot of the areas of our domestic energy area; that's the real key. You've got an administration that, by and large, has either by intimidation or over- regulation, put our energy industry and the rest of the economy in jeopardy. And we've got to have a president who is willing to stand up and to clearly pull back those regulations that are strangling the American entrepreneurship that's out there.
And it doesn't make any difference whether it's "Obamacare," whether it's Dodd-Frank, or whether it's the tax burden, a president, particularly with the plan that I'm going to be laying out over the next three days -- and I'm not going to lay it out all for you tonight. You know, Mitt's had six years to be working on a plan; I've been in this for about eight weeks. But clearly, we're going to be focused on initially the energy industry in this country and making America again independent and clearly the place where domestic energy needs to be produced from.
MR. ROSE: Let me introduce my friend Karen. Karen?
KAREN TUMULTY: Congresswoman Bachmann, three years after the financial meltdown, Main Street continues to suffer. People have lost their jobs, they've lost their homes, they've lost their faith in the future.
But Wall Street is thriving. The banks not only got bailed out by the government: They made huge profits; they paid themselves huge bonuses. Do you think it's right that no Wall Street executives have gone to jail for the damage they did to the economy?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN): I think if you look at the problem with the economic meltdown, you can trace it right back to the federal government, because it was the federal government that demanded that banks and mortgage companies lower platinum-level -- level -- lending standards to new lows. It was --
MS. TUMULTY: But the federal government had also deregulated them.
REP. BACHMANN: It was the federal government that pushed the subprime loans. It was the federal government that pushed the Community Reinvestment Act. It was Congressman Barney Frank and also Senator Chris Dodd that continued to push government-directed housing goals. They pushed the banks to meet these rules. And if banks failed to meet those rules, then the federal government said, we won't let you merge; we won't let you grow. There's a real problem: It began with the federal government, and it began with Feddie and -- Freddie and Fannie.
If you look at these secondary mortgage companies, which the federal government is essentially backing 100 percent, they put American mortgages in a very difficult place. We had artificially low interest rates. Freddie and Fannie were the center of the universe on the mortgage meltdown, and we had lending standards lowered for the first time in American history. The fault goes back to the federal government. And that's what's wrong with Dodd-Frank: Dodd-Frank institutionalized all of these problems that were put into effect by the federal government. That's what I introduced the bill to repeal Dodd-Frank. It's the "jobs and housing destruction act."
MS. TUMULTY: So Speaker Gingrich, it sounds like Congresswoman Bachmann does not believe that Wall Street is to blame for the financial mess. You've said that the current protests on Wall Street are, in your words, "the natural product of Obama's class warfare."
Does this mean that these people who are out there protesting on Wall Street, across the country, have no grievance?
MR. GINGRICH: No. I -- let me draw a distinction. I think there are -- virtually every American has a reason to be angry. I think virtually every American has a reason to be worried. I think the people who are protesting on Wall Street break into two groups: one is left-wing agitators who would be happy to show up next week on any other topic, and the other is sincere middle-class people who, frankly, are very close to the tea party people in actually caring. You can tell which group is which.
The people who are decent and responsible citizens pick up after themselves. The people who are just out there as activists trash the place and walk off and are proud of having trashed it. So let's draw that distinction.
If they want to really change things, the first person to fire is Bernanke, who is a disastrous chairman of the Federal Reserve. The second person to fire is Geithner. The fact is, in both the Bush and the Obama administrations, the fix has been in, and I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to be angry. But let's be clear who put the fix in. The fix was put in by the federal government. And if you want to put people in jail, I want to second what Michele said: You ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. And let's look at the politicians who created the environment, the politicians who profited from the environment, and the politicians who put this country in trouble.
MR. ROSE: Clearly, you're not saying they should go to jail.
MR. GINGRICH: Well, in Chris Dodd's case, go back and look at the Countryside deals. In Barney Frank's case, go back and look at the lobbyists he was close to at -- at the -- at Freddie Mac. All I'm saying is, everybody --
MS. TUMULTY: So if you were in the White --
MR. GINGRICH: -- everybody -- everybody in the media who wants to go after the business community ought to start by going after the politicians who have been at the heart of the sickness which is weakening this country, and ought to start with Bernanke, who has still not been exposed for the hundreds of billions of dollars -- (applause) -- MS. TUMULTY: But --
MR. GINGRICH: I'm going to say one other thing. I'm going to repeat this: Bernanke has in secret spent hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out one group and not bailing out another group. I don't see anybody in the news media demanding the kind of transparency at the Fed that you would demand of every other aspect of the federal government.
And I think it is corrupt and it is wrong for one man to have that kind of secret power.
MS. TUMULTY: So, Congressman Paul, where do you come down this?
(Laughter, cross talk.)
REPRESENTATIVE RON PAUL (R-TX): The one thing -- one thing I might -- might say -- that we have made some inroads on the Federal Reserve. We passed a bill last year -- we got a partial, you know, audit of the Fed. We've learned a whole lot. They were dealing in $15 trillion. Five trillion (dollars) went overseas to bail out foreign banks.
But you know what? The Congress did a lot. I've worked on it for a good many years. But Bloomberg helped and Fox helped. They had court cases, Freedom of Information Act, and there are some, even at this table, who didn't think auditing the Fed was such a good idea, that we could call up the Fed and ask him -- and it would tell us what to do. And I've been calling them up for 30 years and they never tell me. (Laughter.)
But we're getting to the bottom of it. But if you want to understand why we have a problem, you have to understand the Fed, because the cause comes from the business cycle. We shouldn't be asking what to do exactly with the recession -- obviously we have to deal with that -- but you can't solve, you can't cure the disease if you don't know the cause of it. And the cause is the booms. When there are booms, and they're artificial, whether it's the CRA or whether it's the Fed, easy credit, when you have bubbles, whether it's the NASDAQ or whether it's the housing bubbles --
MR. ROSE: OK.
REP. PAUL: -- they burst. And when they do, you have to have corrections. And that's what we're dealing with. And we can do this by building coalitions --
MR. ROSE: Thank you.
REP. PAUL: -- and not sacrificing any principles.
MR. ROSE: Julianna. JULIANNA GOLDMAN: Thank you, Charlie.
Senator Santorum, I want to turn to jobs, because you've said that when you were growing up in a steel town in Pennsylvania, 21 percent of the country was involved in manufacturing. Now it's down to 9 percent. Can those jobs ever return? And what would you do to create jobs now?
RICK SANTORUM: Yeah, the jobs can come back if you create a climate for them to be profitable.
I -- I -- we have a lot of businesspeople, manufacturers in Pennsylvania. I don't know a single one who wanted to ship their jobs offshore, who didn't want them in their own community to be able to employ people and see the fruits of their labor being -- benefiting the community that they live in. What happened was we became uncompetitive.
So we need to be competitive. And that's why I proposed taking the corporate tax from manufacturers and processors, taking it from 35 percent and eliminating it, zero percent tax. Allow this to be the -- the -- the manufacturing capital of the world again. Take that money -- $1.2 trillion that over -- that's overseas from manufacturers who did send their jobs overseas -- bring it back, zero percent tax rate if you invest it in plant and equipment in this country.
Repeal every regulation the Obama administration has put in place that's over $100 million. Repeal them all. You may have to replace a few, but let's repeal them all because they are all antagonistic to businesses, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
And do as Governor Perry suggested. We need a bold energy plan -- I've put one out there -- to drill. Pennsylvania -- I don't want to brag, Governor, but Pennsylvania is the gas capital of the world right now, not Texas, because --
MR. ROSE: All right.
MS. GOLDMAN: But --
MR. SANTORUM: -- we are -- we're doing a great job. And energy prices and gas went down by 75 percent --
MS. GOLDMAN: But let me just follow up because we are in a crisis. So what would you do right now to create jobs?
MR. SANTORUM: The -- the cool thing about my plan as opposed to Herman's plans and some of the other plans out here, it'll pass tomorrow. It would pass tomorrow. Why? Because industrial-state Democrats want those jobs and they know if we put a pro-manufacturing- jobs plan on the table it will pass overnight. We'll get votes from Indiana and Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan, all of those states.
So it's not just proposing a plan that will get -- get things started that The Wall Street Journal will smile at -- excuse me, The Washington Post -- or -- but it's a plan that can actually pass and get things done and bring people together. That's why I put it on the table.
MS. GOLDMAN: Thank you.
I want to follow up now to Governor Huntsman. From the Erie Canal to the Internet, it's what -- innovation is what's always fueled economic recovery. So shouldn't the focus now be on trying to create the innovative jobs of tomorrow? And what do you think those are?
JON HUNTSMAN: We need to regain our industrial base. I would, first and foremost, disagree with Rick on one measure. And that is, Pennsylvania is not the gas capital of the country; Washington, D.C., is the gas capital of the country. (Laughter.)
GOV. PERRY: (That's OK -- that's OK ?).
MR. HUNTSMAN: There are two things that critically need to be done for us to stay ahead in this highly competitive world, and when we lose one or both of them, we lose out to the Chinese and the Indians. One is maintaining a strong commitment to innovation, entrepreneurship and freedom in the marketplace. We have the sense of innovation that no country has been able to replicate. Some have tried, and some will continue to try, but nobody does it like we do here. And that gives rise to high technology, to regular manufacturing jobs cross the board. It makes this economy hum when it's working well.
The second part of this: You need a marketplace, like Rick described a moment ago, in which you can translate those innovations into products. We are losing our ability to maintain a competitive marketplace today.
MR. ROSE: All right.
MR. HUNTSMAN: That's taxes, that's regulation. We've lost it to others, so right now we're not able to translate innovation to the -- we've got to regain the magic of a strong marketplace, so that we have the complete package.
MR. ROSE: Karen.
MS. TUMULTY: Congressman Gingrich -- Speaker Gingrich, Medicare --
NEWT GINGRICH: Newt -- (off mic).
MS. TUMULTY: (Laughs.) Medicare is going broke. Consider the fact that half of all Medicare spending is done in the last two years of life. And research that has done -- been done right here at Dartmouth by the Dartmouth Atlas would suggest that much of this money is going to treatments and interventions that do nothing to prolong life, or to improve it. In fact, some of it does the opposite. Do you consider this wasteful spending? And if so, should the government do anything about it? MR. GINGRICH: You know, I'm really glad you asked that, because I was just swapping emails today with Andy von Eschenbach, who was the head of the National Cancer Institute, the head of the Food and Drug Administration. But before that, he was the provost at MD Anderson, the largest cancer treatment center in the world.
And he wrote me to point out that the most recent U.S. government intervention on whether or not to have prostate testing is basically going to kill people. So if you ask me, do I want some Washington bureaucrat to create a class action decision which affects every American's last two years of life, not ever. I think it is a disaster. I think, candidly, Governor Palin got attacked unfairly for describing what would -- would, in fact, be death panels.
And -- and -- what von Eschenbach will tell you if you call him is: The decision to suggest that we not test men for -- with PSA will mean that a number of people who do not have the -- who are susceptible to a very rapid prostate cancer will die unnecessarily. And there was not a single urologist -- not a single specialist on the board that looked at it. So I'm -- I'm opposed to class intervention for these things.
MS. TUMULTY: Well, Congresswoman Bachmann, of course no one wants the government to come between a doctor and a patient, but do you think that Americans are getting the most for their money in Medicare spending? And how can we make sure that the money that is being spent is being spent on the treatments and the -- and the preventive treatments that do the most?
REP. BACHMANN: We have a big problem today when it comes to Medicare, because we know that nine years from now, the Medicare hospital Part B Trust Fund is going to be dead flat broke. So we've got to deal with this issue.
I was in the White House with President Obama this summer. We asked him not once but three times: President Obama, what is your plan to save Medicare? And the president mumbled and he didn't give an answer the first time, the second time. And the third time the president said something very interesting, Karen.
He said "Obamacare." I think that senior citizens across the country have no idea that President Obama plans for Medicare to collapse, and instead everyone will be pushed into "Obamacare."
And just like Newt Gingrich said, the way that "Obamacare" runs, there's a board called IPAB. It's made up of 15 political appointees. These 15 political appointees will make all the major health care decisions for over 300 million Americans. I don't want 15 political appointees to make a health care decision for a beautiful, fragile, 85-year-old woman who should be making her own decision.
MR. ROSE: We'll come back to Medicare as well and medical issues and the cost of medical in the United States.
I want to talk about advisers and appointees. Tell me, Governor Huntsman, whose advice do you seek on economic issues? And who -- what's the profile of the kind of person you'd like to have advising you in your White House?
MR. HUNTSMAN: I'd like the profile of my own father, who was a great entrepreneur. And he started with nothing, and he built a great business, and my brother now runs that business.
People who have been out in the world, who have actually had their hands on products and manufacturing and know something about how to build something from the ground up. That's what this country has always done, is what we need to continue to do.
But in order to have the right policies in place. And some I put forward as governor of the great state of Utah. Tax reform: I created a flat tax in the state of Utah. It took that state to the number-one position in terms of job creation. Regulatory reform and energy independence.
I want the kind of people who understand what makes an economy work.
But let's be real about what it takes to get into federal government service these days. Who on Earth from the private sector is ever going to want to give up their privacy and enter government service with the background checks, the financial disclosures, and everything else that serve as tremendous disincentives for good people to get into government. So what we have today, Charlie, we've got a professional governing class of people on one end, and then you've got private- sector -- (inaudible) -- on the other --
MR. ROSE: And so what would you do about that to change that, to attract those --
MR. HUNTSMAN: We need --
MR. ROSE: -- kind of people so that they would be willing to serve -- a cross section of people from every --
MR. HUNTSMAN: Let's get back to --
MR. ROSE: (Inaudible.)
MR. HUNTSMAN: -- what we did a generation or two ago when we were more open in terms of accommodating people from all backgrounds who wanted to take a little bit of their life and serve in government, and then leave and go back to what it is they did best, whether on the farm or whether insurance or whether business or whether academia.
MR. ROSE: When you mentioned the flat tax, does that mean that you look with some favor upon 9-9-9 that Herman Cain mentioned at the beginning of this conversation?
MR. HUNTSMAN: I think it's a catchy phrase. In fact, I thought it was a price of a pizza when I first heard about it, Herman. (Laughter, applause).
MR. ROSE (?): Price of a pizza.
MR. HUNTSMAN: Here's -- here's -- here's what -- here's what we need: We need something that's doable, doable, doable. And what I have put forward is a tax program that is doable. It actually wipes clean all of the loopholes and the deductions. This is right out of what the Simpson-Bowles commission recommended -- a bipartisan group of people that took a thoughtful approach to tax for corporate and individual -- individual, and on the corporate side, phase out all of the corporate welfare, all of the subsidies because we can't afford it any longer; in a revenue-neutral fashion, buy down the rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, leveling the playing field for businesses big and small, allowing us to be a whole lot more competitive in the second decade of the 21st century. MR. ROSE: Julianna.
MS. GOLDMAN: Thank you. We will be coming back to 9-9-9, but first --
MR. CAIN: (Now ?), wait, wait --
MS. GOLDMAN: Well, but -- but --
MR. CAIN: He mentioned me --
MR. ROSE: Give him 30 seconds.
MR. CAIN: And he -- (inaudible) -- me, and you didn't give me an opportunity to respond.
MR. ROSE: And you have that opportunity (now ?).
MR. CAIN: Thank you very much. (Laughter.) 9-9-9 will pass, and it is not the price of pizza because, it has been well-studied and well-developed. It starts with, unlike your proposals, throwing out the current tax code. Continuing to pivot off the current tax code is not going to boost this economy.
This is why we developed 9-9-9 -- 9 percent corporate business flat tax, 9 percent personal income flat tax, and a 9 percent national sales tax. And it will pass, Senator, because the American people want it to pass.
MR. ROSE: This is beginning to sound more like my table. Julianna -- I mean, Karen.
MS. TUMULTY: Mr. Cain, who do you turn to for political advice and for economic advice?
MR. CAIN: My advisers come from the American people. Now, I will have some experts. One of my experts that helped me to develop this is a gentleman by the name of Rich Lowry out of Cleveland, Ohio. He is an economist, and he has worked in the business of wealth creation most of his career. I also have a number of other well- recognized economists that helped me to develop this 9-9-9 plan. It didn't come off a pizza box, no. It was well studied and well developed because it will replace the corporate income tax, the personal income tax, the capital gains tax, the death tax, and most importantly the payroll tax.
MS. TUMULTY: So who are some of these economists?
MR. CAIN: Rich Lowry out of Cleveland, Texas is one of the economists that I have used. He's been my lead economists on helping to develop this.
MR. ROSE: Julianna.
MS. GOLDMAN: Thank you. Governor Romney, it's 2013 and the European debt crisis has worsened, countries are defaulting, Europe's largest banks are on the verge of bankruptcy, contagion has spread to the U.S., and the global financial system is on the brink. What would you do differently than what President Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke did in 2008?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, you're -- you're talking about a scenario that's obviously very difficult to imagine, and -- and -- and --
MS. GOLDMAN: But it's not a hypothetical because more than half the --
MR. ROMNEY: It -- it is -- I'm -- I'm afraid it is a hypothetical. MS. GOLDMAN: It's not -- Governor, it's not a --
MR. ROMNEY: Do you want to explain why it's not a hypothetical?
MS. GOLDMAN: Yes.
MR. ROMNEY: OK.
MS. GOLDMAN: Because more than half the country believes that a financial meltdown is likely in the next several years, and the U.S. banks have at least $700 billion in exposure to Europe. So it's a very real threat, and voters want to know what you would do differently.
MR. ROMNEY: There -- it's still a hypothetical as to what's going to precisely happen in the future.
I'm not very good at being omniscient, but I can tell you this: that I'm not going to have to call up Timothy Geithner and say how does the economy work, because I've spent my life in the economy. I spent my entire career working in the private sector, starting businesses, helping turn around businesses, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. And I know how to make tough decisions, and to gather the input of people from around the country to help make the important decisions that have to be made.
Clearly if you think the entire financial system is going to collapse, you take action to keep that from happening. In the case of Europe right now, they're looking at what's happening with Greece. Are they going to default on their debt? Are they not? That's a decision which I would like to have input on, if I were president of the United States, and try and prevent the kind of contagion that would affect the U.S. banking system and put us at risk.
But I can tell you this. I'm not interested in bailing out individual institutions that have wealthy people that want to make sure that their shares are worth something. I am interested in making sure that we preserve our financial system, our currency, the banks across the entire country, and I will always put the interest of the American people ahead of the interests of any institution.
MS. GOLDMAN: But -- so would you -- so would you or would you not be open to another Wall Street bailout?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, no one likes the idea of a Wall Street bailout. I certainly don't. Asset -- asset --
MS. GOLDMAN: But you said in 2008 that it prevented the collapse of the financial --
MR. ROMNEY: There's no question but that the action that President Bush and that Secretary Paulson took was designed to keep not just a collapse of individual banking institutions but to keep the entire currency of the country worth something and to keep all the banks from closing and to make sure we didn't all lose our jobs. My -- my experience tells me that we were on the -- on the precipice and we could have had a complete meltdown of our entire financial system, wiping out all the savings of the American people. So action had to be taken.
Was it perfect? No. Was it well-implemented? No, not particularly. Were there some institutions that should not have been bailed out? Absolutely. Should they have used the funds to bail out General Motors and Chrysler? No, that was the wrong source for that funding.
But this -- but this approach of saying, look, we're going to have to preserve our currency and maintain America and our financial system is -- is essential.
MR. ROSE: So you agree -- you agree with Speaker Gingrich about Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed?
MR. ROMNEY: I wouldn't keep Ben Bernanke in office. I'd choose someone of my -- of my own -- (inaudible).
MR. ROSE: And who might that be?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, I haven't chosen that person. I haven't even chosen a vice president. I'm not sure I'm the nominee yet. (Laughter.)
MR. ROSE: Well, we'd like to -- we'd like to have -- we would like to have -- nor has anyone else, but we'd like to have an idea of the kind of people, you know, that you would have confidence in, in playing this very important role -- although, Congressman Paul may differ about how important it is.
MR. ROMNEY: Well, I wish we could find Milton Friedman again. Although what Milton said to us was, he said, you know, if you took all the economists in America, and you laid them end to end, it would be a good thing. And I -- (laughter) -- and I have more respect for economists than that. The people who help guide my economic policy are Greg Mankiw at Harvard --
MR. ROSE: Right.
MR. ROMNEY: -- and Glenn Hutchins at Columbia. They were both former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers. I don't always agree with them. I also talk to a number of business leaders. I talk to people who are currently in the economy, in the financial sector, and in the manufacturing sector. And on the basis of these various viewpoints I make my decisions. And I believe that drawing on the best minds in this country, including economists, is something that's essential to make sure that we preserve our financial system.
Right now America's in crisis. We don't need to think about a hypothetical of what happens if Europe explodes and pulls us under. Although, if that does happen, you want to have someone who's smart, who has experience, who knows how the financial services sector works, who knows how to protect American jobs -- and I do; I've done it.
MR. ROSE: And as far as you're concerned, there's no institution -- no financial institution that's too big to fail. MR. ROMNEY: Well, no, you don't -- you don't -- you don't want to bail out anybody. The idea of trying to bail out an institution to protect its shareholders or to protect a certain interest group: that's a terrible idea, and that shouldn't happen. You do want to make sure we don't lose the country, and we don't lose our financial system, and we don't lose American jobs, and that all the banks don't go under. So you have to take action very carefully to make sure that you preserve our currency and preserve our financial system.
But bailouts of individual institutions? No one has interest in that, I don't think.
MS. GOLDMAN: Mr. Cain, back in 2008, you wrote that the Wall Street bailout was a win-win for the taxpayer. You just heard Governor Romney. Do you agree?
MR. CAIN: Conceptually, I made that statement based upon the concept, but I happen to agree with Governor Romney. The way it was administered is where it got off track. They were discretionary in which institutions they were going to save, rather than apply it equitably, which is what most of us thought was going to be done. The implementation of it is where they got off track. I didn't agree with it. I don't think Governor Romney agreed with it, so did a lot of us. The implementation was at fault.
MR. ROSE: Housing is considered one of the real problems in terms of our economy, and getting housing starts up --
MR. GINGRICH: Can I say one thing before we go to housing?
MR. ROSE: Yes.
MR. GINGRICH: Because I think this is really important. There's a real possibility that you can't have the euro and the Greek economy in the same system. There's a possibility we could have a meltdown in the next year. The thing that is most obvious, looking back, is that Paulson and Bernanke and Geithner didn't have a clue -- not because they're not smart, but because they were operating in a world that has suddenly changed so radically, they didn't know.
MR. ROSE: All right.
MR. GINGRICH: One of the reasons I've said that the Congress should insist that every decision document from 2008, 2009 and 2010 at the Fed be released is we are not any better prepared today for a crisis of that scale, because the people who were in that crisis and were wrong are still in charge. And I think we need to learn what did they do right --
MR. ROSE: All right.
