Nov. 28 Republican debate transcript

Romney: I get a chance to just respond to that. We are not punishing children for what their parents did. I respect the fact that you worked your way through college. That's the way you are. That's wonderful. A lot of people in this country do tremendous things to get their education. But the question is, are we going to give taxpayer-funded benefits to kids that are here illegally and put them ahead of kids that are here legally?

There is only so much money to go around, and...

Huckabee: No, there is...

Romney: Let me finish, too.

Huckabee: Well, but let's just be factual.

Cooper: You've got 30 seconds. Your time is up.

Romney: There's only so much money. Are we going to say that kids that are here illegally are going to get a special deal? Are they going to get a deal better than other kids? Do they get benefits by virtue of coming here illegally? And the answer is no.

Huckabee: Because they're earning it. That was the difference. They had to earn it by their...

Cooper: We've got another question from a YouTube watcher. Let's watch, please.

YouTube questioner: Good evening, candidates. This is (inaudible) from Arlington, Texas, and this question is for Ron Paul.

I've met a lot of your supporters online, but I've noticed that a good number of them seem to buy into this conspiracy theory regarding the Council of Foreign Relations, and some plan to make a North American union by merging the United States with Canada and Mexico.

These supporters of yours seem to think that you also believe in this theory. So my question to you is: Do you really believe in all this, or are people just putting words in your mouth?

Cooper: Congressman Paul, 90 seconds.

Ron Paul: Well, it all depends on what you mean by "all of this." the CFR exists, the Trilateral Commission exists. And it's a, quote, "conspiracy of ideas." This is an ideological battle. Some people believe in globalism. Others of us believe in national sovereignty.

And there is a move on toward a North American union, just like early on there was a move on for a European Union, and it eventually ended up.

And there is a move on toward a North American Union, just like early on there was a move on for a European Union, and eventually ended up. So we had NAFTA and moving toward a NAFTA highway. These are real things. It's not somebody made these up. It's not a conspiracy. They don't talk about it, and they might not admit about it, but there's been money spent on it. There was legislation passed in the Texas legislature unanimously to put a halt on it. They're planning on millions of acres taken by eminent domain for an international highway from Mexico to Canada, which is going to make the immigration problem that much worse.

So it's not so much a secretive conspiracy, it's a contest between ideologies, whether we believe in our institutions here, our national sovereignty, our Constitution, or are we going to further move into the direction of international government, more U.N.

You know, this country goes to war under U.N. resolutions. I don't like big government in Washington, so I don't like this trend toward international government. We have a WTO that wants to control our drug industry, our nutritional products. So, I'm against all that.

But it's not so much as a sinister conspiracy. It's just knowledge is out there. If we look for it, you'll realize that our national sovereignty is under threat.

Cooper: Congressman Paul, thank you.

(Applause)

Cooper: We've got a question -- moving on to another topic, the economy, money. Next question.

Sarah Lederach: My name is Sarah Lederach. I'm 18 years old. I'm from Scarsdale, Pennsylvania. And I'm a student at Penn State University.

Often, I've heard both politicians and voters express their concern with providing a better future for their children. A concern of my generation is the trillions of dollars of national debt and what kind of responsibility we will have for that in the future.

My question for you all is, if elected, what measures will you take to tackle the national debt and control spending?

Cooper: Senator McCain, have Republicans forgotten how to control spending?

McCain: Absolutely. Absolutely.

When we came to power in 1994, the government...

(Applause)

... changed government and the government changed us.

We let spending lurch completely out of control. We spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana -- I don't know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue.

We presided over a great expansion of government, the latest being the SCHIP, which was going to be paid for, supposedly, with a dollar-a-pack in increase in the tax on a pack of cigarettes.

So, we're going to help children with their health insurance and hope that they continue to smoke.

So, I have the record of fighting against wasteful spending. I have a clear record of winning. I saved the taxpayers $2 billion on a bogus Air Force Boeing tanker deal, where people went to jail.