Dec. 12 Republican debate transcript

John McCain: Of course, any nation that no longer has economic strength sooner or later will lose its military strength. So it's a national security issue.

We have many trillions of dollars of unfunded liability. Obviously, we've been on a spending spree. We cannot increase taxes.

If oil reaches $100 a barrel, which many people think it may, $400 billion of America treasure will go to oil-producing countries. Some of those monies will go to terrorist organizations.

We have go to achieve energy independence, oil independence in this nation. I will make it a Manhattan Project. And we will in five years become oil independent.

Washburn: Ambassador?

Alan Keyes: I think it's obviously a national security problem.

But you have to understand what national security is. The Constitution defines it as securing the blessings of liberty. It has to do with the freedom of our people.

If you want to secure the blessings of liberty for the American people, you cut off the spigot the funds the political ambition of our leaders by abolishing the income tax and restoring control of 100 percent of their income to the American worker.

That means you replace it with a fair tax system that puts the American people in control of their money. By doing that, you will encourage the politicians to stop spending to fund their little political cliques and only limit their spending to what actually produces results for the American people.

Washburn: Thank you.

I want to dig into the budget issue a little bit more. You'll have 30 seconds to answer this next question. And, again, I want to start with Mayor Giuliani.

What sacrifices would you ask Americans to make to lower the country's debt? And I'd like you to be specific.

Giuliani: Well, I think the most important thing is the federal government has to restrain its spending.

That's the area in which we're hurting ourselves and in which we're creating this problem, national security, economic security. However you define it, the problem is not the American people.

What we should be doing is restraining the amount of money that Washington spends, in a concerted way, with major reductions in civilian spending, using attrition, and returning -- actually leaving more money in the pockets of the American people.

The strength of America is not its central government. The strength of America are its people. Restraining the central government gives people more choice, more money to spend; we're going to see our economy booming. That's the kind of future where we can have unlimited dreams.

Washburn: So, Mayor, you've said you would cut nonmilitary spending 10 percent, across the board.

What sort of sacrifices would that require from people who use those government services?

Giuliani: Well, that would require their trying to figure out other ways to do it. I mean, rather than moving in the direction of more people on government medicine, I'd rather see us reduce the income tax burden, create an exemption for health care so people can buy their own health care.

So that's going to require they take a little bit more time, take a little more ownership of their health care.

But rather than relying on government as the nanny government, let's rely on people to make choices about their health care. Let's rely on, instead of 17 million people buying their own health insurance, 50 million, 60 million, 70 million. You'll see the price come all the way down, and you'll see the quality come up.

That's an American solution. It's a bold one, but it's the kind of thing America's done in the past. We rely on our people, not on our government.

Washburn: Thank you.

Congressman Paul, what sacrifices would you ask Americans to make for debt reduction?

Paul: I think it's absolutely unnecessary to sacrifice. We want to give people more freedom, more chance to spend their own money. It's unnecessary.

We can cut by looking at our foreign policy. We maintain an empire which we can't afford. We have 700 bases overseas. We are in 130 countries. We cut there.

And then we have a better defense of this country, and the people get that money, and they get to spend it here at home.

There's no need to sacrifice. We need more liberty, more rights for the people to spend their own money.

And, in that situation, there is no sacrifice and no need for it.

Washburn: So, Governor Huckabee, your colleagues seem to think there is no sacrifice needed to reduce the debt.

Do you agree? What would you do?

Huckabee: Sometimes it's not so much doing things so that people sacrifice; it's doing them differently. Let me give you an example.

A lot of the federal budget goes to health care. We need to do what most American companies are finding works in reducing health care costs. That's moving from the intervention-based health care model to a prevention based.

Our current model is upside-down. We wait until people are catastrophically ill, and then we spend the most expensive ways of trying to cure incurable diseases.

If we would put the focus on prevention, we would find, like American business is finding, that there really is savings if you kill the snake, rather than just treat the snakebites, which is the way our current system is built.