Oct. 9 Republican debate transcript

Bartiromo: So you're saying -- so you're saying, Senator -- (applause continuing) -- so you're saying the system is fair. My question was, is the system fair?

McCain: Sure it's fair. Should we -- because the bulk of the taxes are paid by wealthy people. Should we reform our tax code, which is completely broken, which no one understands, no living American understands? Absolutely we should fix our tax code, and we should fix it immediately. And we should have Congress either vote up or down on a freer, fairer, simpler tax code, and I believe that Americans deserve that. (Cheers, applause.)

Matthews: Before we transition, Governor Huckabee, tell us about your Fair Tax. You're going to get rid of the IRS. You're going to have a -- basically a consumer tax. Won't that discourage spending? The American economy seems to always be driven by people buying things maybe they can't even afford. If you put a tax on spending as opposed to income, won't that encourage people to hoard their money rather than spend it, and hurt the economy?

Mike Huckabee: Chris, you know Americans better than that. Nothing's going to discourage them from spending money. (Laughter.) Just go to any shopping center on Saturday. You'll find that people aren't having to be begged to go spend money.

No, the Fair Tax does something that is absolutely phenomenal for the economy. It untaxes productivity. It untaxes those things which we export.

It means that for the first time in a long time in this country, instead of exporting our jobs, we'll actually be exporting products that we make in America. And we'll be able to make sure that there's a level playing field. It ends the underground economy that right now makes it so that folks like us end up paying taxes, but drug dealers don't; illegals don't; prostitutes and pimps, they don't. But we do.

You know, a lot of people are going to be watching this debate. They're going to hear Republicans on this stage talk about how great the economy is.

And frankly, when they hear that, they're going to probably reach for the dial. I want to make sure people understand that for many people on this stage the economy's doing terrifically well, but for a lot of Americans it's not doing so well. The people who handle the bags and make the beds at our hotels and serve the food, many of them are having to work two jobs, and that's barely paying the rent. And you know what else? They don't think that they can afford for their kids to go to college; they're pretty sure they're not going to be able to afford health insurance.

And so I hope in the course of this we can talk about a how a fair tax really lifts up everybody, including those at the bottom of the economic spectrum, and untaxes the poor people in our culture.

Matthews: Congressman Hunter, do you agree with that, the idea of replacing the IRS, the income tax, a direct tax, with an indirect sales tax?

Duncan Hunter: Well, actually, I'm a sponsor of the fair tax, but let me tell you, Chris, what is missing from this economy: 1.8 million jobs that have moved to communist China from the United States, including over 54,000 jobs from Michigan.

You know, a couple of years ago when our guys were getting hurt with roadside bombs in Iraq, I tried to find one steel company left in America that could still make high-grade armor steel plate to put on the sides of our humvees to protect against roadside bombs. I found one company left that could still do that, and as you go down through the array of military systems that we need for our security, we find that more and more of those have gone off-shore. So this is also a security issue.

You know, in Willow Run just a couple of miles away, we made a bomber every 60 minutes during World War Two.
We've made tens of thousands of tanks in Michigan. Today we could not do that because we've fractured the great industrial base of this country and we've pushed it off-shore with bad trade deals.

And I would say to my colleagues, Senator Thompson, the other senators, you all voted for most-favored-nation trading status for communist China. That set the groundwork for 1.8 million high-paying manufacturing jobs moving off-shore, going off-shore -- some of them never to return.

And what I would do is pass the Hunter-Ryan bill, which would put countervailing duties on the Chinese when they cheat; they are cheating on trade right now. I'd bring those jobs back home to the United States, and I would connect up the middle class of America with the Republican Party one more time. (Applause.)

Matthews: Senator Thompson, do you want to respond to that question or that comment by the congressman about Chinese trade?

Thompson: Yeah. Free and fair trade has been good for America, responsible for millions of jobs in this country. We cannot turn our back on that.

I was one of the strictest advocates of imposing restrictions on the Chinese for their behavior in terms of exporting dangerous materials to other countries and tying some of our trade policies to what they did in that regard. They have still not done enough. They have devalued their currency, which puts them in a favored position as far as our manufacturers are concerned.

But in terms of turning our back on free trade, that's not the direction to go in. It's meant too much for our country, and every country in the history of the world that's ever turned its back on free trade has suffered for it as a consequence.