Oct. 9 Republican debate transcript

Thank you.

Brownback: I think real plans, like an optional flat tax -- (inaudible) -- personal Social Security accounts, and being optimistic.

This the most powerful nation in the history of mankind right now. Less than 5 percent of the world's population, yet 20 percent of the world's economy, a third of the world's military spending, 40 percent of our research and development budget around the world is in this country. I mean this place rocks, and I think we need to be optimistic and upward-looking of what this nation is. (Applause.)

Matthews: Congressman.

Tancredo: You want to raise wage rates in the United States. You want to reduce taxes in the United States. You want to encourage people to think about us as doing the right thing as Republicans do this -- stop illegal immigration into this country. We'll do all of these -- those things. And I'll tell you something else we need to do. I have never voted with Republicans more than I have since we've been in the minority. It's incredible. We're fighting Democrats now tooth and nail on every single thing, SCHIP -- great. You know what? Standing on principle is a good idea; too bad we didn't do it when we were in the majority.

Let's think about this now. Stop pandering. Stop pandering to all of these special interest groups. Do what's right regardless of whether or not people all agree with you when you take -- you know, this kind of put your finger in the wind. Do what you believe in. Stop pandering, they'll believe in us. (Applause.)

Matthews: We have a special interest to hear from. Right now, we're taking a commercial break.

(Announcements.)

Bartiromo: Welcome back to the Republican debate.

Let's switch gears, talk about Social Security and benefits. Senator Thompson, you seem to be one of the few that is willing to talk specific -- give specific steps to maintain long-term solvency of Social Security. Describe some of those specific steps.

Thompson: Yeah. Well, you've hit on a major problem that we've got to come to terms with. We're looking at the short-term economic situation now, and I think it's very good news, but if you go out a little bit, you will see that we're not going to have Social Security and Medicare as we know it into the future. Our children and our grandchildren certainly are not. We are eating our seed corn. We are spending their money. We're pitting one generation against the next. We're better than that. We've got to do some things better than that, even though the choices are difficult.

Number one, we've got to make sure we have a growing economy. That means low taxes. That means less regulation. That means sound fiscal policies. That means less spending on the discretionary side. Our bridges and our infrastructure and things of that nature -- our national parks have got to be taken care of. But mainly, we have to let people provide for some of their own savings for their retirement while they're still working.

And then lastly, one of the other things that could be done would be to index benefits to inflation, index benefits to inflation for future retirees. It would not affect current or near-retirement people.

But for future retirees, instead of having nothing, which is what they're headed for under the current situation that's unsustainable, they would have protection, but it would be indexed to inflation instead of wages as it is today. And it would solve the problem for several years. It wouldn't solve it indefinitely, but it would give us a window of opportunity to get our arms around the problem, it would be a major step in the right direction.

Bartiromo: Thank you, Senator.

John?

Harwood: Congressman Tancredo, I want to go back to something that came up earlier, that's the issue of trade. Governor Romney suggested that one reason our trade problems are so bad is that the negotiators for the Bush administration don't understand business well enough. Do you think that's part of the problem?

Tancredo: No, no. The negotiators for the Bush administration -- probably the worst vote I ever passed was the vote to give the president Fast Track. I wish I'd have never done it, and I'll tell you why -- because everything I have seen subsequent to that time has been a package, a trade package that I certainly am concerned about from this standpoint -- not necessarily just the trade issues that we're involved in -- I mean, you know, talking about the tariffs -- CAFTA. Here was a bill over a thousand pages long to what -- to do what, to reduce tariffs between the six Central American countries and the United States? That was about a paragraph, right? But it's over a thousand pages.

What worries me about what we've done in trade, what this administration has done in particular, is that we've included all kinds of things in there that had nothing to do with trade.

In particular, of course, I'm talking about the immigration-related issues. I offered an amendment on the floor of the House during the debate on CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, to say that there will be no immigration issues contained inside of a trade package. It was defeated. The speaker -- I mean, the chairman of the committee came down in the House -- to the House floor and raged that I would ever suggest such a thing. There is the problem.

We are talking about trade issues that actually begin to impact our national sovereignty. There's the problem. We are reducing the importance of borders and increasing the threat to national sovereignty with the kind of trade programs that we put through up to this point in time.