CAMPAIGN 2012 / ROMNEY COLLINSVILLE IL FNC
FTG OF REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MITT ROMNEY HOLDING A TOWN HALL EVENT IN COLLINSVILLE, ILLINOIS
PLEASE NOTE: there is a slight hum underneath audio for this event, possible mult box issue.
19:20:29 Ann Romney and Mitt are introduced.
19:21:21 thank you please. Now sit down, how are you? I don't know who it was the gave me this shamrock here, who gave me this shamrock pin? Someone in this room gave me and antique shamrock pin. thank you so much.from Rochester hills Michigan, well thank you very much and you have a little green on. Do you have anything but green on tonight. No don't show us. (crowd laughs) Thank you so much for the pin and we will give it back to you before the evening is over. Well I brought a very special guest as you can see tonight and you know I probably saw here in elementary school, but I would not have known that I saw here because she was in second grade and I was in the fourth grade and you know you don't look down that far. Well when she was a sophomore in high school I noticed.
19:22:04 We were at a party together at a friend's house and I saw her there and I was very taken and so we chatted with her a bit and I said to the guy she came there with. Hey I live closer to Ann than you do, can I give her a ride home for you and he said sure and we have been going steady ever since. So here is my sweetheart Ann Romney.
19:22:23 Ann Romney: Hi, how are you all it's good to see you. Well this is a great audience. I tell you we just came from Puerto Rico and we just couldn't wait to just come up here to Illinois. Mitt was trying to decide whether he was going to leave me there or not and he said Ann get on the plane and come say hi to some folks. You know there are so many contests going on across the country and you have a big one coming up on Tuesday and we are looking forward to getting some support here in Illinois and giving him the boost that he needs to get him one step closer to defeating Barack Obama.
19:23:20 It was a little over a year ago, when I said something to Mitt that was quiet shocking for him to here come out of my mouth because four years ago I said something quite emphatically. I said after bowing out of that last race I said I am never doing that again and he laughed and said you say that after every pregnancy. I mean it after every pregnancy and I have five boys. But what happened and what made me change my mind, because guess what? I know exactly what a campaign trail is all about, I know exactly how tough it is and by the way congratulations to all the families that are on this campaign and it is a tough road. But what changed? I turned to Mitt and said I am fed up and I see this country going in the wrong direction, I see a president that doesn't understand how important it is that we restore America to the proinciples that made it great.
19:24:28 I am so upset about the deficit spending. I don't want to leave my children the legacy of debt. So I said Mitt I hate to tell you this but you're the only one who can fix it, so you better go do that and that's what we are going to hear him talk about. So we are excited to getting this country back on track, to leaving our children the kind of country we inherited. We have got no time left, it is now or never and that is why we need all of you help to get together and defeat Barack Obama. So Thank you
12:25:04 Mitt Romney: thanks sweety. ***Now I have also other news and that is that congressman Shimkus endorsed my campaign today. He is your congressman I thank you very much.*** He is a solid conservative and his conservative credentials mean great deal to me. I know there is another gentleman here who is running for congress, your son is running for congress. Give us his name and give him some credit (audience member says: "Jason Plummer") there we go Jason thank you. Dan Rutherford, this state treasurer you have, well he is a treasure. His enthusiasm, his passion and his loyalty mean a great deal to Ann and me. I know his professionalism is why you hired him, but those other features are what is endearing to me and I appreciate his leadership in my campaign. He has gotten me signed me up to delegates in various communities, get the signatures, he has done the work and I know why he did it?
19:26:19 just like why Ann said I should get in the race and that is why you are here tonight and that is because you are concerned whit this country. I can tell you that I did not expect to be doing this. Going around the country and doing this. The good news is you come away more optimistic about America. 19:26:37 **If all you do is watch the news at night, it can be a little discouraging, because the people that make the news are by in large doing well not nice things. Otherwise it wouldn't be news. So I get to see everyday Americans living our lives the way we do.** It comes away as an encouraging thing to see entrepreneurs of various kinds. I saw a father who left his job with an advertising agency and began making amplifiers for guitars, in his home, with his son, and hired a couple of people and then the Obama economy hit and this guy had to lay off a couple of people but kept making these guitars in his garage and is making a living. I saw another guy working for a city and he decided to leave the work for the city and start a landscaping business and I think that he has over 100 people working at his landscaping business. I see entrepreneurs building the economy and doing their best to make their life brighter and to hire folks and give them jobs.
19:27:39 I also see people who are having trouble. We have got 24 million Americans that are out of work or are under employed. We have got home values that have gone down of course. The same time the median income in America has dropped by ten percent in the last four years. This is not the way that president Obama had promised it. This is very different from what he promised. When he ran for office he said that he was going to get this economy turned around and he said that if he couldn't get it turned around in three years he would be looking at a one term proposition. We are here to collect.
19:28:23 he also said that he would cut taxes for middle income Americans, he didn't do that. He said that he would cut the deficit in half and instead he has more than doubled it and it was just announced that the CBO has just scored the budget the year after this one, another trillion dollar deficit. This can't go on forever. The old expression that something that can't go on forever, won't. There is truth in that, we will ultimately hit the kind of wall that Greece has hit if we continue on this path. He has broken one promised after another and he is out of ideas, he is out of promises, and he is out of excuses and in 2012 we will make sure he is out of office.
19:29:07 But there is one promise that he has kept however and that is that as candidate Obama he said he wanted energy prices to go up a lot. He used the term skyrocketed. He wanted gasoline prices to go up and so he hired a team of people to implement that strategy. Secretary Chu of the energy department, said that he wanted energy prices to get up as high as those in Europe, which is about 8 or 9 dollars a gallon and then secretary Salazar, he is the secretary of the interior, he is the one who gives permits to companies that are drilling in the gulf or the outer continental shelf. He said well I'm not going to give permits, even if gas prices get as high as ten dollars a gallon.
19:30:01 Then there is one more, administrator Jackson of the EPA. She was hoping to put in place a cap and trade program where you raise the cost of gasoline through that kind of program. Congress voted against that and so, as the Wall street journal pointed out she is trying to create that same kind of price increase by regulation. By making it harder and narder to get coal out of the ground and making it harder and harder to use coal, making it less reliable to get our natural gas out of the ground, which at some point could be used as a transportation fuel. Getting oil out of the ground in some places like north Dakota. 19:31:00**** and so this trio, this energy team have been working like crazy to drive the price of gasoline up and the president has now endure what we might call an election year conversion. With people suffering and the numbers collapsing in the polls, he is looking for something to do and know he is for lowering gasoline prices. Well I'm glad, I'm not sure we can count it as a true conversion, but im glad at least he is saying it. But given the fact that he has changed his policy and given the fact that he now wants to lower the prices, I think it is time for him to fire his gas hiking trio.**** It is time for those three to be let go and to return to the policies to get the energy that we need.
19:31:36 in fact the gas hike trio ought to resign, they ought to turn in their resignations. They were hired to raise the price of gasoline and now the president says that he wants to lower it. Given the new direction, their expertise is not in lower the price of gasoline, their expertise was in raising it. So if I were them I would simply turn in their resignation and if they don't he should fire them. This is the time in this country, for the first time in a long time an energy policy that is going to say that we are going to take advantage of the resources that we have in this country. The president says oh we only have 2% of the oil reserves in the world. Well we haven't been looking very hard because there is a lot more out there in places like North Dakota and the outer continental shelf. In the deep waters of the gulf. We have a lot more oil that we can take advantage of and there is a lot more natural gas as well can be used in transportation and our coal. We have got the world's largest reserves of coal. Let's use our coal as well.
19:32:52 It's rare that a president gets to make a no-brainer decision and takes no thought at all and this no-brainer decision I'm talking about is the decision not to have a pipeline from Canada bringing in that oil. I will certainly bring in that pipeline from Canada bringing in that oil. I will certainly bring in the keystone pipeline and take advantage of those energy resources and make this country energy secure. I am going to say just a couple things more. The course that we take in this country is going to be defined by the chose that you make in the next couple of days and the choice that gets made in November. We are going to have as a nominee, I hope that it is me. Look the problem the president has, the reason that he is so misguided on energy policy, the reason that he doesn't understand how much it is hurting people to have gas prices like this is that he never really had a job in the private sector.
19:34:01 he has not been doing what you have done. I think that in order to create jobs it helps to have had one and I have. Go across this country and there are moms that don't know how they are going to afford to take their kids to school and to soccer practice and to the other responsibilities that they have and there are people working a couple of jobs and trying to drive between those jobs and if you look at the price of gasoline, they ask themselves if it is even wroth it going to work, because after they have paid for the oil and the maintenance of their car, it is kind of a break even proposition. I was with one teacher in Missouri last week and she said in fact that when I was laid off and I consider the price of gasoline to get to the temporary teaching jobs that I could accept, there is just nothing left over for me left over and so she stays unemployed because of the high price of gasoline.
19:35:03 ***She has got two kids at home and has a responsibility for them. Look the president doesn't understand that these people are suffering in part because he is an economic lightweight. He has spent his time in the faculty lounge at Harvard where they sit around talking about how things ought to work but they don't work that way. In the real world where you are living, you understand how the economy effects you and what decisions that are made will have what impact. I have lived in the real economy, they economy is my wheelhouse. I don't come to the economy on the virtue of reading it in a book or debating it in a subcommittee of congress, I come form my understanding of the economy because I have lived it.***
19:35:52 I started a business, I took over a business in trouble and helped get it back on track. I was even able to take those experiences and get the Olympics back on track in 2002 and then I was able to guide a sate back to fiscal sanity. So we're going to have to nominate some, if we are going to beat Obama, we are going to have to nominate someone, who is not an economic lightweight. Someone who has experience in the private sector, who has the credibility to go up against president Obama, post up in those debates and point out that what he has done has hurt the American people and how what he are going to do is strengthen the American economy, put people back to work, and get gas prices down.
19:36:44 now there are other big differences. This president is going to amass trillion dollar deficits year after year and if I'm president I'm going to cut federal spend it, cap it as a percentage of the economy and I am going to finally put in place a balanced budget. A dramatic difference between the two. This president wants to raise the marginal tax rate in this country. Taking the tax rate paid by small business from 35% up to 40%, I want to take the tax rate paid by small business down to 28%, I want to cut marginal tax rates across the country by 20%. I want to get rid of the alternative minimum tax and I want to kill the death tax once and for all. This president believes that government bureaucrats know better than you what you should include in your health insurance, what types of coverage's you can have, and ultimately what price you will pay for it. Ultimately they are going to say what kind of treatment you can receive. When I am president, I will repeal Obamacare and I will kill it dead on its first day.
19:38:22 Let me mention one other thing and them let me turn to you and that relates to our military, the president has already proposed 500 billion dollars in cuts in our military and another 500 billion to come. His secretary of defense said that was doomsday with those kind of cuts. We have a navy, that is smaller today than any time since 1919. Isn't that amazing. Our Air force is older and smaller than any time since 1947 when it was formed. You know that our troops and active duty personnel and reservist and national guardsman and women, were on multiple rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan and yet the president wants to slow down the purchases of ships, slow down our production of aircrafts, reduce our active duty personnel.. My view is this, I will increase our purchases of ships. I will increase our purchases of aircrafts and I will add 100,000 Active duty personnel to our armed forces and will make sure our veterans finally get the care that they deserve.
19:39:33 So this is a choice, this is an election where your choice has dramatic implications for the course of this nation and I ask you to get out and vote. We say back in Massachusetts, vote early and vote often and the only way to vote often legally is to get a friend to go with you and to find someone in your neighborhood that hasn't voted and ask them to come along with you and vote and so I ask for your help. Please make some calls and ask for you voting and if we do, we can do something very different from this president. He says he wants to transform America, I love America as it is, I want to restore to America the Principles that made it the greatest nation on earth and I will do it with your help. Thank you.
19:40:32 now let me turn to you. I am going to turn to this audience and questions are welcome. Embracing, awkward questions are, as I always say, are the most interesting. So don't be shy. Yes sir
Question: don't you feel bad for president Obama he lost a good friend yesterday, rod Blagojevich, he is in federal prison. Now people question your conservative ethics. I say just go to mittromney.com and you have laid out your policies that are so clear and so crisp and they are the right policies. Please fix these deficits, the Obama deficits (the question asker takes out a piece of paper and gives it to Romney). So I ask you to please promise to follow the pledges you have at mittromney.com.
19:41:33 Mitt: Yes and Thank you and I'm going to tell you how we are going to do it. By the way I just saw a testimonial as to my conservativism today on our website and it was and ad, very powerful. It was Senator Rick Santorum and you have got to go to youtube or on my website I'm not sure quite were it is. He is speaking and I am not quite sure where it is but he is speaking and he says effectively this. I'm Rick Santorum, nobody puts words in my mouth and if you want to nominate a real conservative, well you have to nominate Mitt Romney. That was four years ago, but still applies. Let me tell you what you have to do to balance our budget because politicians always talk about it but never do it and im not in this as a politician hoping to sta in office year after year but to take the next step in my political career. I don't have a political career. My life was in business, 25 years, and then serving the Olympics. My passion is my family and their future.
19:42:49 we need to get America right and to get it right we have to fix our budget. We can't keep setting trillion dollar debts. Listen you can do that for a while, it really is like buying with a credit card you can borrow a lot more than you earn, you can spend year after year putting up more credit card debt until finally you can't earn enough to pay the interest and the principle payments and you hit the wall and people have to go bankrupt. Well America can't go bankrupt, there is no one that can pull us out. There is no place in the world to save us. So that is what we are doing. Charging and charging and by the way we are charging at very low introductory interest rates. Very low interest rates, because the world is willing to loan u money now, but one day they are going to say that America has so much debt, I'm not sure that they are going to pay it back. In that case they are going to start to raise the interest rates because that are going to worry that they are not going to be able to pay them back.
19:43:58 those numbers get frightening and then we hit what Greece hit and so what do I do? Three things: One, cut programs that we absolutely don't have to have. Get rid of them, eliminate them all together. It's a long list it starts with Obamacare, but it goes on. Some programs we like but I am going to ask for sacrifice and the sacrifice is that something that we like we are going to have to stop doing because it's not worth borrowing money from China to pay for it. The second thing that I am going to do, I am going to take a lot of programs in Washington and see how much money is going to be spend on them and take that money and divide it among the different states let the states run the programs for Medicaid and Medicare and food stamps and some of these programs. Finally I am going to cut the government work force by about 10% by attrition and I am also going to link the pay of benefits of government workers with a pay and benefits that exist in the private sector. Our plan doing those things will save us 500 Billion dollars a year. That is the heavens telling us what we got to do. 500 billion by my first year in office and we are on the track for a balanced budget thank you for the question. Yes miss and your green too happy St. Patrick's day to you.
19:45:45 Question: I was very impressed with your statements about supporting our military and increasing our ships and I know you have five sons and I just hope that you will look out for our men and our boys. I was just really glad that you included that today in your efforts to help us be a better America because those boys protect our America. So thank you for that.
19:46:20 Mitt: Thank you, do you have a loved one that has served in our military? (person responds but the volume is too low tom make out) Mitt: wow a whole family who has served in the military. Thank you for that sacrifice. There is an extraordinary obligation to those who have been willing to walk in harm's way and to risk life. Young men and young women and older men and older women. Particularly through our National guard and reserve are putting their life on the line at the command of the commander and chief and I can tell you that the decision to put troops in harm's way is a decision that will be met with a high hurtle. You don't do that easily. ***19:47:16 But if we do that I assure you that if I were in a position that this president was in and hopefully we won't have to be in other conflicts, but if we were in that circumstance like he is in Afghanistan, I would make sure to speak to the American people regularly about what the mission is about, what progress we are making, what challenges we are facing, what setbacks there are, and let the American people understand that men and women are sacrificing their life and sacrificing their comfort in order that we might pursue the interest and the blessings of America thank you.*** Back there sir.
19:47:52 Question: Thank you for coming my name is Stephen Daglous, I had the privilege of running as a delegate for you and again this time around and I learned earlier this week something that I had never heard before. ***That on two separate occasions you helped save the lives of individuals on the lake near your home as well as spearheading the effort to help find a kidnapped daughter of one of your employees. I have also been told that you don't like discussing it.*** That is what my president to be sir. I want a great man and those are the qualities of a great man. Why don't you like talking about that sir? Is it humility. I don't want you to brag but I've been a supporter of yours for multiple years and it has stunned me that I have never heard of that before.
19:48:47 Thank you I appreciate your question and your kind comment. I am glad you mentioned it so people could hear about it and I if you ask me about it I will talk about it but I don't want to act like I am self aggrandizing. There are plenty of people in the political world that like to talk about how great they are, how smart they are how they know the answers to everything but I would rather like to talk about things I believe and let you take a measure of me in part by the people who are around me and the best measure you can take of me was silly enough to marry me but wise enough to hang around for 42 married years my sweet heart and she is a champion. Elt me take you with her here and answering that question. Let me take the occasion to help me describe her fights.
19:48:47 First of all, five boys, ten and under and 15 grandchildren that's not as hard as the five boys of course. She usually tells this but I will tell it because I was traveling and I think that I was in Chicago and I remember it clearly and I called her and she was a her wits end. The boys where fighting and fighting and she just thought that I can't take it anymore and I commented on something that I felt then and that I feel now and that is that the work she was doing was more important then the work I was doing. I was out making a living, that is temporary, she was raising five boys who are now five husbands and five fathers who are now raising children of their own. That's permanent and she is my hero. I have done some good things and I have also done some silly things and that is the reason that I don't want to get into all that. My wife is telling me to tell this story and I don't call having refused her, it may have happened. I was at the office one day, we had a little business that I began.
****19:51:09 at this point we had about twenty five or thirty employees and one of the senior people that we had in my firm we call them partners and he said that one of his daughters, this was on a Tuesday. He had said that his daughter that was age 15. They lived outside NYC and that she had gone to a party in New York without him knowing about it, without his permission. This was one of these rave parties that they organize like under a bridge or something. She had gone to one of those and apparently she hadn't come back in two days. Now this is a 15 year old in NYC and so I said well lets close the office and lets all,, this was in Boston, we will all go to New York and look for her and so we informed the staff, go home and get your things we are all going to go to New York and we flew down to New York and rented a hotel room area and met with a private detective and the NYPD and they gave us counsel about setting up telephone numbers where people could call with tips, we also happened to at the time be an investor in a drug store chain there called Duane Reade, there a big drug store there. We printed off pictures of her and contact number and we had them stick this in the bag of every person that shopped in the drug store so that everyone could see her picture. We tapped her picture on telephone poles all over NYC. Then we called our law firm in New York, and got them to help out so we had some lawyers and then we called our accounting firm and we need some of your people to come help us and they sent some volunteers and we fanned out and divided the city into a grid, and each of us took an area and we would go around with these flyers and show them to people and we found people who had seen her. That was the interesting thing.****
19:53:10 I remember on one occasion, this didn't happen to me but I remember on one occasion, our firm showed it to one lady and she said that she had seen a girl maybe 16, 17, 18. There was a lot of kids we had found that were on their own in New York, that had left home. You could pick them out and say, have you seen this girl and some would say yes. She would say that several people had shown me that picture. Why are you out here showing us this picture and my colleague said well she has been missing for several days and her parents miss her very much and she said I wish my parents felt that way about me. That just broke our hearts. In any event we looked and looked for her and after one evening at about 3 o clock in the morning I was at a dance hall where all of these kids come dance to techno music. I was showing people these pictures and I got a call that she had been found and it turned out that she had been drugged and someone had given her some kind of drug. She had been on the streets for a while and a telephone call had come into our hot line and the telephone call said that I have been seeing your posters and I have seen the story of this girl being missing on TV.
19:54:28 By the way the newspapers and TV's had been showing all of these men in business suits running around looking for this girl. So they found this interesting and it was a news story and they said I've seen this, is there a reward for finding this young lady and we said yes and then the person hung up. We were able to trace the call and we were able to find her in a basement in New Jersey. So we were able to bring her back and now she is happily married and a wonderful women and that;s a great life experience. So there I did it. Over here big section here. Right there.
19:55:15 Question: do you think that we should get tougher on China for its money manipulation?
Mitt: wow that is a very astute question and the answer is yes and I'll tell you why. Here is the reason why? I like trade. Trade by the way is good for us. You might not think so when you first hear that we are going to be trading things with other people. But if it works well where you are each playing by the same rules and trading goods we end up both being better off and because are a very productive nation, you hear that a lot, that we are a productive nation. What that means is that the output per person here in America, the amount of stuff that we make and services that we create, the output per person here in America is the highest in the world. So if you are going to be a high productive nation, you're going to have an advantage trading with other nations and so we trade with other nations.
19:56:10 So China is one of the nations with which we trade, but they haven't been playing by the rules. First of all they haven't held the value of their currency down. Now we are not all economists but here is the idea. If you hold the value of your currency down the good you sell are cheaper than what they would be otherwise and so there products have been artificially cheap and that has driven American competitors out of business. Now what will happen down the road now that the competition is gone, they raise the prices and we get stuck with higher prices and fewer jobs. So you have to label china what it is, a currency manipulator and then if necessary you apply tariffs where they have taken jobs by stealing out property or our other fair trade practices. We keep on talking about taking china to the map but they walk all over us. It's time for us to recognize that we want free trade, china can ba a partner in trade around the world but they have to play by the rules and I will make sure that they do. Way back there. Now you have a video so I'm kind of nervous about what you are going to be videoing. So go ahead.
***19:57:28 You have up to 50 million dollars invested in Goldman Sachs, my question is who can you be trusted with tax payers money when you are investing in a company that caused the financial collapse?***
Mitt: Well you happen to be wrong I don't have money invested in Goldman Sachs or in anywhere near the nature that you are speaking of one and number two my investments since 2002 when I ran for governor, I took all my investments and I gave them to a trustee, a blind trustee, he is not literally blind of course. It means that I am blind from the investment that this trustee makes. He is the head of a big law firm and he decides to invest in things without my approval or my knowledge and that has kept me from having any conflict of interest when I was the governor of Massachusetts and by the way it continues to keep me from that conflict today. If I'm president of the US I understand that all of my investments and ends will all be sold and bought again without having any idea about what has been purchased. So that's how you would hope you would live without any particular conflict of interest and I assure you that I am not in this race to make money. I have already made enough. I have worked in this race for the last 10 years. I have worked for the last 10 years without taking a salary. I am not embarrassed about being successful but I am embarrassed for people that think something is wrong with that. I want to have people become successful themselves. You guys there is a man all the way in the back there who has been patiently waving a finger back there.
19:58:28 Question: Thank you governor. My question is with all the activity going on within the republican party and the nominees and the campaign and when you get the nomination of the presidency what are you going to do to bring everyone together?
Mitt: thank you. You know president Obama said that he was a community organizer and he has organized the conservative community to get him out of office, that's number one. We're going to get him out and he is doing such a damaging job to our economy, our international interests overseas that republican conservatives, libertarians, tea party members and the whole wide array of republicans will come together. I can tell you this that there are four people running for president in our party right now. I will support whoever our nominee is. I happen to believe with by far the best chance of beating him and you know we got behind John McCain who lost 19 states in the primary process. But when the process was over we got behind him, we worked for him, the party came together, he lost. There are a lot of things that could have come differently and he could have won but we will come together in part because president Obama have been such a failure. Both sides of the aisle will recognize that, the other side of the aisle will try and cover it up and see if they can't divert us from our track record, trying to talk about personal matters and anything else they can come up with. Independents as well, women, Hispanic voters, they are coming to our side on this because they are realizing that if they want good jobs and they want to make sure that they don't want to pass on deficits to our kids. If they want a strong America with a strong military then they are going to have to vote for us. I tell you I love this country, I love its beauty but more important I love the people of America.
20:03:25 I was in Michigan the other week and I met a guy named Norm Burn and went into his hallway and he had some Bronzed patents on his hallway and he has over 100 patents to his name and I said where did you go to engineering school and he said I didn't. I said where did you go to undergraduate college he said I didn't. This guy through the brilliance of innovation has created these patents and by the way employs hundreds of people and his facilities and salespeople and so forth and so forth putting in place electrical systems and so forth around the country and around the world. This is the nature of America. Free people pursuing their dreams.
20:04:27 I have watched this president slowly but surely take away our freedoms and our liberty both personal and economic. What is happening with these gas prices, whit is taking money out of people's pockets and making it harder for them to make their way in life. This is happening point after point here in this nation and I want to restore the principles of America. Thank you guys great to be with you.