The senate convene for a period of morning business. They discuss the White House compromise on the the GW Bush tax cuts. 14:00:09 BERNIE SANDERS under president bush alone, we lost some 48,000 factories. we lost -- we we need to from 19,000 manufacturing jobs to is 12 million manufacturing jobs and in many instances those were good jobs. where did they go? well, some shut dpowrn a variety 14:00:26of reasons. bur others shut down because we have trade laws that say you've got to be a moron not to shut down in america because you go to china, go to vietnam, go to mexico, go to a developing country, you pay workers there a fraction of the wages you pay in 14:00:43america. why wouldn't you go? and then you just bring your products right back into this country. a couple of weeks ago my wife and i did some christmas shopping. frankly, we won't went to a couple of stores. very hard to find a product 14:00:58manufactured in the united states of america. and you don't have to be a ph.d. in economics to understand that we're not going to have a strong economy unless we have a strong manufacturing capability, unless companies are 14:01:14reinvesting in colorado or vermont, creating good jobs here. you don't have an economic future when virtually everything you are buying is coming from china or another country. and we're not just talking about 14:01:30low-end products. it is not sneakers or a pair of pants. this is increasingly high-tech stuff. so we are -- we are really forfeiting our future as a great economic nation unless we 14:01:45rebuild our industrial base and unless we create millions and millions of jobs producing the goods and the products that we consume. we cannot continue to just purchase products from the rest of the world. 14:02:03mr. president, when we talk about the collapse of the middle class, it's important to also recognize the fact, as reported in "usa today" last september. 14:02:18"the incomes of the young and middle-aged, especially men, have fallen off a cliff since 2000, leaving many age groups poorer than they were even in the 1970's." end of quote, "usa today." 14:02:34the point being, for young workers, for example, when we had a manufacturing base in america in the 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, you could graduate high school, go out and get a job in a factory. 14:02:49was it a glamourous job? no. was it a hard job? yes. was it a dirty job? in some cases. but if you worked in manufacturing and especially if you had a union behind you you the likelihood is that you 14:03:06earned wages to take your family into the middle class, you had decent health care coverage, and you might even have a strong pension. where are all those jobs now? during the bush years alone, we 14:03:21went from 19 million jobs in manufacturing to 12 million jobs, a horrendous loss of manufacturing jobs. so if you are a kid today in doll coul and -- or in vermont -- so if you are a kid today in colorado and -- or in vermont, 14:03:39and you are not going to college, 30 40r years ago i could go out a get a job in factory. today what are your options? you can get a minimum-wage job at mcdonald's or mabe maybe at walmart. 14:03:53benefits are minimal or nonexistent and that is a significant transition of the american economy. i want to tell you something else, when we talk about 14:04:03manufacturing. didn't get a whole lot of publicity, but it is worth reporting here. the good news is that we have recently seen, after the loss of 14:04:20many, many thousands of jobs in the automobile industry, we have seen the auto companies -- chrysler and others -- starting to rehire. what i think has not been widely 14:04:41reported is that the wages of the new workers who are being hired is 50% of the wages of the old workers in the plant. so you're going to have workers 14:04:56working side by side, where an older worker who has been there for years has been make $25, $28 an hour and right next to them a new hire is making $14 an hour. and if you understand that the 14:05:14automobile industry was perhaps the gold standard for manufacturing in america, what do you think going happen to the wages of blue-collar workers in the future, if all you can get 14:05:27with a union behind you in automobile manufacturing is $14 an hour today, what are you going to make in colorado or in vermont? going to make $10 an hour, $11 an hour? that enough money to raise a family on? 14:05:42are you going to have any benefits? unlikely. so that's what happens -- that's what happens when your manufacturing base disappears, and that, to a significant degree, in my view, is the result of a disastrous trade 14:06:00policy. i got to tell you, and i think in mind sight most -- in hindsight most people will agree when i was over in the house. most of the corporations were telling us how great free trade 14:06:16would be, nafta with mexico, free trade with china. i didn't buy t think of all the american products they're going to buy over there, create all kind of jobs in the united states. 14:06:29i never believed it for a moment. i'll tell you a story. i wasn't in china a number of years ago. and i walked into -- as part of a congressional delegation, we went to visit walmart in china. and the walmart store looked a lot like walmart in america, 14:06:46different products, but it looked kind of the same style. and you walk in there you walk up and down the aisles and you see all of these american products. remember, wilson basketballs and procter and gamble soap product. different products there for the 14:07:01china, but a lot of the products were american products. looked pretty familiar. so i asked the guy who was there with us who was the head, i believe, of walmart asia -- the guy that's in chaj of all of the walmarts in asia -- i asked him, tell me, how many of these 14:07:17products, these american company products, are actually manufactured in the united states? and he was a little bit sheepish and a little bit hesitant and he said, well, about 1%. so, obviously -- but everybody knew -- it is a lot cheaper for 14:07:33the american companies to set up plants in china, hire chinese workers at 50 cents an hour, 75 cents an hour, whatever it and have them build the products for the chinese markets than it is to pay american workers $15 an hour, $20 an hour, deal with the 14:07:50union, deal with the environment. that's not a great ref laismghts i think anybody -- nays not a great revelation. i think anybody could have figured that out. but those around here pushed it. and president clinton and those in congress signed it and we're 14:08:05off and running. so when we look at why the middle class is in the shape that it's in -- and it's important to make sure that everybody understands it because, you know, i think one of the things that happens in this world -- it is human nature, i suppose -- is that people feel very guilty and responsible if they are not 14:08:24taken care -- if they are that the taking care of their families. and right now, with unemployment so high -- these are not just statistics they're throwing out. these are people who not only were earning an income that supported their families, they 14:08:39had a sense of worth. every human being wants to be productive. they want to produce something. they want to be part of something. they want to go to work, earn a paycheck, bring it home. you feel good about that. you know what it does to somebody's sense of human worth 14:08:55when suddenly you are sitting home watching the tv, you can't go out and earn a living? 14:09:02it destroys people. people become alcoholic, people commit suicide, people have mental breakdowns because they're no longer utilizing their skills. they're no longer being a productive member of soavment that's what unemployment is 14:09:17about. and i think that one of the reasons unemployment is so hierks one of the reasons the middle class is collapsing has a lot to do with these disastrous trade policies. and i got to till, as we've been talking about all day long, 14:09:33these policies, these tax breaks, all of this stuff, emanates from corporate leaders whose sense of responsibility is such that they want themselves to become richer, they want mured and more profits for their company, but they could care less about the needs of the 14:09:48american people. i remember there was one c.e.o. of a large -- one of our largest american corporations, and he said, when i look at the future of general electric, i see china, china, china, and china. and, by the way, we understanded 14:10:05up bailing out that particular corporation. he didn't look to china to get bailed out. he looked to the taxpayers of this country. t-but the word has got to get out. to corporate america, they're going to have to start reinvesting in the united states 14:10:21of america. they're going to have to start building the products and the goods that the american people need rather than run all over the country in search of cheap labor. that is an absolute imperative if we're going to turn this economy around. 14:10:39mr. president, according to a "boston globe" article published last year, let me quote what they say. again, i'll trying to document here -- again, i'm trying to 14:10:53document here what is happening to the working class of america because i don't want individual workers, somebody who may be hearing this on the tv or on the radio, you know, it's my fawvment there's something wrong with me because i can't go out and get a job. well, you're not alone. 14:11:08the entire middle complas is collapsing, our economy has shedded millions and millions of jobs, and i know that there are people out there trying so hard to find work but that work is just not there. that's why we've got to rebuild the economy and create jobs. 14:11:25this is what "the boston globe" said last year. "the recession has been more like a depression for blue-collar workers." and this is an important point to be made here. you know, when we talk about the economy, we kind of lump 14:11:41everybody together. that's wrong. the friewj right now in the economy -- the truth is, right knew in the economy, the unemployment rate for upper-income people is very low. they're doing ofnlgt as opposed to, as this "boston globe" 14:11:56article points out, what is is happening to blue-collar workers. "the recession has been more like a depression for blue-collar workers who are losing jobs much more quickly than the nation as a whole." this is the working class of 14:12:11america. "the nation's blue-collar industries have slashed one in six jobs since 2007." let me repeat that. it's just an astronomical fact. "the nation's blue-collar industries" -- manufacturing -- 14:12:28"have slashed one in six jobs since 2007, compared with about one in 20 for all industries, leaving scores of the unemployed competing for the rare job opening in construction or 14:12:45manufacturing, with many unlikely to work in those fields again." again, never. "up to 70% of unemployed blue-collar workers have lost jobs permanently, meaning their 14:13:00old jobs won't be there when the economy recovers." end of quote. that's "the boston globe" last year. so when we talk about the economy, what we have got to do is understand that blue-collar 14:13:17workers, middle class, young workers are really hurting very, very much, and in the context again of the debate we are now having, the discussion about whether we should approve the 14:13:33agreement reached between the president and the republicans on tanches the idea of not -- on taxes, the idea of not slig investing in our economy but, rather, giving tens of billions of dollars to the very rich in more tax breaks makes no sense 14:13:49to many of us. when we talk about why people are angry in america, why people when asked a question by pollsters, "do you think america is moving in the right 14:14:02direction?" and overwhelmingly they think not, let me tell why you they think not. this is just during the presidency of president bush from 2001 to 2008. 14:14:19during that period alone, just in that period -- and, by the washing the pain is certainly continuing right now. i don't mean to suggest otherwise. during those eight years of bush, over 8 million americans 14:14:32slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. today nearly 40 million americans are living in poverty. 7.8 million americans lost their health insurance and that is continuing. i think a recent study came out 14:14:47that suggests that the uninsured now are about 50 million men' s. 50 million americans have no health insurance now. we hope that health care reform going make a dent in that. i think it will. but as of today, without the major conditions of health care 14:15:03reform being implemented, 50 million americans, 50 million americans without any health insurance. mr. president, during that period -- and we haven't talked about this a whole lot -- there's another thing going on with the economy in the working 14:15:18class. years and years ago if you worked in a manufacturing plant, you had a union, you stood a reasonable chance of having a pension, a pension. during the bush years, 3.2 million workers lost their pensions and about half of american workers in the private 14:15:34sector have no pension coverage whatsoever. the idea today of having a defined pension plan significantly paid for by your employer is going the way of the dinosaur. 14:15:51that is just not there anymore. workers are more and more dependent on social security, which has been there for 75 years, which we have got to protect and demand will be there another 75 years, because right now millions of workers are 14:16:09losing their pensions. i mean, i'm throwing these statistics out, and the reason i'm doing that is i want people to appreciate that if you're hurting now, stop being ashamed. it's not, yeah, we could all do 14:16:25better. every one of us could do better. but you're in an economy which is contracting, especially for the middle class and working families. according to an article in "usa today" from the year 2000-2008, middle-class men -- women have 14:16:43done better -- middle-class men experienced an 11.2% drop in their incomes, a reduction of $7,700 after adjusting for inflation. middle-class women in this age group saw a 4.8% decline in 14:17:01their incomes as well. so they did pretty bad but the men did even worse. so what we are seeing is an understanding of why people are angry and why people think that 14:17:16this country is moving in the wrong direction. mr. president, i think most people understand that today our country is experiencing the 14:17:37worst economic crisis since the great depression of the 1930's. and let me -- and it's important to say that because again, it is hard enough when you don't have a job, when you don't have 14:17:53income, when your dignity and self-respect is declining. but i don't want people to be banging their own heads against the wall, blaming themselves for all of the problems. something has gone on in the nation as a whole. you're not in this alone. when we talking about 14:18:09working-class families all across the country seeing a decline in their incomes, it's not because people are lazy, it's not because people are not working hard, it's not because people are not trying to find jobs. what we have is an economy which is rotting in the middle and 14:18:25we've got to change the economy. if there's nothing that we can say about the american people, we work hard. we, in fact, work longer hours than do the people of any other country -- industrialized country on earth. 14:18:39we are not a lazy people. we are a hard-working people. if the jobs are there, people will take them. if people have to work 60 hours a week or 70 hours a week, that is what they will do. but we have got to rebuild this economy. 14:18:55we don't need tax breaks for billionaires. we need to create jobs for the 14:19:00middle class of this country so that we can put people back to work. now, let me just take a few minutes to discuss how we got to where we are today and, in my view, what policies we need to 14:19:17move this country forward to create the kinds of jobs that we desperately need. now, let's just take a quick look back to where we were in january of 2009. it seems like a long time ago, 14:19:32but just a couple of years ago. and that was the last month of the administration of president bush. in that month, we lost over 700,000 jobs. that is a absolutely incredible 14:19:49number. in fact, during the last six months of the bush presidency, we lost over 3.5 million jobs, all of which was caused by the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on wall street. our gross domestic product, 14:20:04which is the total sum of all that our economy produces, had gone down by nearly 7% during the fourth quarter of 2008. that is -- that was the biggest decline in more than a quarter century. some $5 trillion of americans' 14:20:24wealthy evaporated in a 12-week period as people in vermont and all over this country saw the value of their homes, retirement savings and stocks plummet. and i want to say just one word again about wall street greed, 14:20:40because i think for a variety of reasons, we just don't talk about it enough. what you had was a situation in which a small number of folks at the head of huge financial 14:20:56institutions, through their greed, through the development of very reckless policies, through illegal behavior, through pushing out financial instruments which turned out in 14:21:09some cases to be worthless, that as a result of all of that, they plunged this country into the worst recession that we have seen since the great depression. from january -- is, at the end 14:21:32of the bush administration -- that is, at the end of the bush administration, but it's important to understand, very important to understand, that the wall street crisis took us over the wall in terms of precipitating the severe 14:21:47recession that we're in. but we have to remember that during those eight years, as i mentioned earlier, the middle class was also shrinking. so it wasn't oh, my goodness, everything has gone great, then you've got the wall street disaster, now we're in the midst 14:22:03of a terrible recession. this trend of a middle-class collapse went on long before bush. precipitated significantly during the bush years but it went on before as well. but just during the bush years. over the eight-year period of 14:22:19president bush, from 2001-2009, we lost 600,000 private-sector jobs. we lost 600,000 private-sector jobs and only 1 million net new jobs were created, all of them 14:22:36in the government sector. so for my friends, my republican colleagues to tell us that we need more tax breaks for the very rich because that's going to create jobs, that's what trickle-down economics is all 14:22:52about, what i would say to them, you had your chance, it failed. in case you don't know, losing 600,000 private-sector jobs in eight years is not good. that's very, very bad. 14:23:07that's an economic policy that has failed. we don't need to look at that movie again. we saw it. it stunk. it was a bad movie, bad economic policy. more tax breaks for the rich are not what our economy needs. in fact, what every economist 14:23:24will tell you, that is the least effective way to create jobs. during the bush era, median income dropped by nearly $2,200. that means that family in the 14:23:39middle over an eight-year period saw their income drop by $2,200. during the eight years of bush -- and i say all of these things just to tell you that we are not where we are today just 14:23:55because of the wall street crisis. 14:23:59that took us over the cliff. that made a very bad situation much, much worse. but it has been going on for a long time. it's gone on before bush. it's gone on after bush. during the eight years of bush, over 8 million americans slipped 14:24:14out of the milling class and into poverty. we don't talk about -- out of the middle class and into poverty. we don't talk about poverty anymore in america. we don't talk about the homelessness in america very much anymore. trust me, it's there. it's there three blocks away from where i'm speaking right now with a very large homeless 14:24:30shelter. it's in small towns in vermont, where people tell me that for the first time they are seeing families, more and more families with kids needing emergency shelter because they can't afford housing. in vermont, a lot of people 14:24:46don't have low-wage jobs, making 10 bucks an hour, and it is hard to find a decent apartment or pay a mortgage on $10 an hour. and that's true certainly all over this country. homelessness is going up. during the bush years, nearly 14:25:048 million americans lost their health insurance. one of the issues which i will likely talk about in a little while is health care. it's related to everything. we are the only country in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right of 14:25:19citizenship. according to harvard university, 45,000 americans will die this year because they lack health insurance and are not getting to a doctor when they should. during the bush administration, 14:25:385 million manufacturing jobs disappeared as companies shut down plants in the united states and moved to china, mexico, vietnam, and other low-wage countries. as i mentioned earlier, profound -- profoundly important 14:25:53to understand what's going on in america. in 2000, the year 2000, we had over 17,000 manufacturing jobs in this country. by 2008, we had less than 12,000. 17,000 to 12,000 in eight years. that's the loss of 5 million 14:26:10manufacturing jobs, a 29% reduction. and the fewest number of manufacturing jobs since the beginning of world war ii. under president bush, our trade deficit with china more than tripled and our overall trade 14:26:26deficit nearly doubled. again, the point that i am making now within the context of this agreement is we need agreements now that give tax breaks to millionaires or billionaires, that do not lower the tax rate for the estate tax, 14:26:42which is applicable only to the top .3%. we need agreements which rebuild our infrastructure, we build our manufacturing base and create the millions of good-paying jobs the american people desperately 14:26:59want. and, again, i think the point has got to be made -- and i'm going to make it over and over and over again -- is that when you look at the economy, it's one thing to say that everybody is hurting. you know? 14:27:12and sometimes that happens. you know, terrible hurricane comes, it knocks down everybody's home. well, the hurricane that has hit america for the last 10, 20 years has not impacted everybody. it has impacted the working class, it's impacted the middle class, the people on top are 14:27:31doing better than they ever were. our friends on wall street whose greed and illegal behavior caused this recession, they are now making more money than they ever did after being bailed out by the middle class of this 14:27:47country. during the bush years, the wealthiest 400 americans saw their incomes more than double. do you really think that after seeing a doubling under the bush 14:28:02years of their incomes that these people are in desperate need of another million-dollar-a-year tax break? in 2007, the 400 top income earners in this country made an average of $345 million in one 14:28:21year. that is a pretty piece of change. that's the average, $345 million. in terms of wealth as opposed to income, the wealthiest 400 14:28:36americans saw an increase in their wealth of some 400 billion during the bush years. imagine that, in an eight-year period, top 400 wealthiest people, each saw an increase on average of $1 billion apiece. and together these 400 families 14:28:53have a collective net worth of 14:28:59$1.27 trillion. does anybody in america really believe that these guys need another tax break so that our kids and our grandchildren can pay more in taxes because the national debt has gone up? 14:29:12i don't think most americans believe that and that is why, in my view, most americans are not supporting this agreement. and let me also say that when we look at what's going on around 14:29:27the rest of the world, what we have got to appreciate is that in the united states today -- and, again, this is not something that we can be proud of, it's something that we have got to address -- we have the most uny wall distribution of 14:29:43wealth and -- unequal distribution of wealth and income than any other country on earth. i remember talking not so long ago to somebody from scandinavia, it was finland. and he was saying, of course, we have rich people in our country but there's a level in which they would become embarrassed. we now have a situation where 14:29:59the c.e.o.'s of large corporations made 300 times more than their workers. in many other countries, yeah, everybody wants to be rich but there is a limit. you can't become a billionaire stepping over children who are sleeping out on the street. 14:30:17that's not what this scrt counts supposed to be enough. enough should be enough.mr. prey earns 23% of all income. in the 1970's that number was 8% 14:30:34in the 1990's it was approximately 16%, and now it is 23.5%. so the people on top are getting a bigger and bigger chunk of all income. 14:30:48furthermore, it's not just the top 1%. i mean there are economiests who write, yeah, you think the top 1% is doing well. yeah, they are. it's really the top .1% of 1%. i want people to digest this. 14:31:07the top .1% of 1%, you can do the arithmetic. that top .1% of 1% took in total income. 14:31:23.1% of 1% earned 11% of all income in america. in the 1970's, as i just said, the top 1% only made something like 8% of the total income. in the 1980's it rose, in 2005 it passed 21% and in 2007, the 14:31:44top 1% received 23.5% of all of the income earned in this country. the last time that people -- and people should be mindful of this. 14:31:57the last time that that type of income disparity took place was in 1928. and i think we all know what happened in 1929. and that's the point that senator mary landrieu was making a while back. what she understands quite 14:32:15correctly is that if working people, the vast majority of the people don't have the income to spend money to buy products and goods and services, we can't create the jobs. if all of the money or a big chunk of the money ends up with 14:32:31a few people on top there is a limit to how many limousines you can have and how many homes you can have and how many yachts you can have. so when you hit a situation where so few have so much, it is not just a moral issue. but it is also an economic 14:32:48issue. a strong and growing middle class goes out, spends money, and creates jobs. grossly unequal distribution of income and wealth creates more economic shrinking and loss of 14:33:03jobs because people just don't have the disposable income to go out and buy and create jobs for their neighbors. now, also to add insult to injury in terms of this agreement negotiated by the 14:33:18president and the republicans while the very wealthiest people in this country became much wealthier and the deficit soared, and under president bush, the national debt almost doubled, what else happened? well, the tax rates for the very 14:33:36rich went down. the rich got richer, tax rates go down. this is a result of not only the tax breaks for the rich initiated during the bush initiation, but also tax policy 14:33:54that took place before president bush. the result is that from 1992 to 2007 the latest statistics that we have, the effective -- effective federal tax rate, what people really pay for the top 400 income earners was cut 14:34:10almost in half. so these cry babies, these multimillionaires and billionaires, these people who are making out like bandits, they are crying and crying and crying, but their effective tax 14:34:27rates for the top 400 income earners in america was cut almost in half from 1992 to 2007. and i make a point -- i think a 14:34:43point that needs to be made is that when is enough enough? and that really is the essence of what we're talking about. when does greed -- and greed is -- is, in my view, like a sickness. 14:34:56like an addiction. we know people who are on heroin, they can't stop, there are people who can't stop smoking, they have problems with nicotine, get addicted to cigarettes, cost them their 14:35:14health. we all have our share of addictions. i would hope these people worth hundreds of millions of dollars, they will look around them and say there is something more important in life than the richest people becoming richer when we have the highest rate of 14:35:30childhood poverty in the industrialized world. maybe they will understand that they are americans. part of a great nation which is in trouble today. maybe they've got to go back to the bible or whatever they believe in understanding that 14:35:44there is virtue in sharing, in reaching out. that you can't get it all. and i think this is an issue that we've got to stay on and stay on and stay on. there's greed, this reckless under controllable greed is 14:35:59almost like a disease which is hurting this country terribly. how can anybody say that i'm a multimillionaire and i'm getting a huge tax break and one-quarter of the kids in this country is on food stamps. 14:36:14how can you be proud of that? i don't know. mr. president, as mentioned, it's not just income, it's wealth. the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%. during the bush years, the wealthiest 400 americans saw their increase -- their wealth 14:36:30increase by some $400 billion. how much is enough? now, all of these things are related to the agreement that the president and the republicans worked out because we are all concerned about the 14:36:48national debt and our deficit. now, in terms of the federal budget when president bush first took office, he inherited a $236 billion surplus in 2001 and a projected 10-year surplus 14:37:06of $5.6 trillion. that's what senator landrieu was talking about a moment ago. but then some things happened and we all know the 9/11 was not his fault. what happened is we went to war 14:37:21in afganistan. we went to war in iraq. we -- and the war in iraq was the fault, i'm afraid, of president bush. something i certainly did not support nor do i think most 14:37:36americans support. and wart in iraq by the time our last veteran is taken care of will probably end up costing us something like $3 trillion, adding enormously to our national debt. so when we talk about iraq, it's not only the terrible loss of 14:37:52life that our soldiers and the iraqi people have experienced, let's not forget what it has done to the deficit and the national debt. we did not pay for the war in iraq. we just put it on the credit card. the president gave out -- 14:38:09president bush gave out $700 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of americans. $700 billion. where was the offset? there was none. gave them tax breaks, that's it. adds to the national debt. president and republicans 14:38:28supported a $400 billion medicare part-d prescription drug program. i have always believed, as one of the leaders in believing that needed a strong prescription drug program for seniors, but the program that was passed was 14:38:44written by the pharmaceutical industry, written by the insurance companies, and nowhere near as cost effective as it 14:38:53could be. as the president undoubtedly knows, we are not even negotiating prescription drug prices with the drug companies at great expense and great cost to the american people where 14:39:08drug prices are much more expensive on the -- under medicare part-d than they are with the veterans administration or department of defense purchased. so we passed that unpaid for. great idea. just another $400 billion 14:39:25prescription drug program unpaid for and then we bailed off wall street. the original cost was $700 billion. a lot of that, in fact, has been paid back. but there's a lot of expense there as well. so you add all these things together in normal governmental 14:39:40growth and it turns out that the bush administration turned a $236 billion a year surplus into a $1.3 trillion a year deficit. and more or less that's where we are right now. in fact, the national debt nearly doubled under president 14:39:56bush going from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion in 2009 and now we are at $13.7 trillion borrowing huge sums of money from china and other countries in order to maintain our 14:40:12existence. that's where we are. that's where we are. now, have we been seeing in recentees some improvements in the economy? we sure have. there has been some job growth. nowhere near enough, but we're 14:40:29surely not losing 700,000 jobs a year. we're seeing some growth. but we need to do much better. and that takes me back to an issue i feel very, very strongly about, mr. president, and one 14:40:44that i want to say a few words on. in this agreement that the president negotiated with the republicans, there are a substantial -- there is a substantial sum of money going into tax -- various types of 14:41:04business tax breaks. and the fury which certainly -- the theory which certainly has some validity is that these business tax breaks will create jobs. the problem is that right now the business -- the large 14:41:19corporations, at least, are sitting on a huge bundle of money already that they are not spending. and the reason they're not investing that money is they perceive that working families don't have the money to buy their products and their services. 14:41:35i think that there is -- and in saying this i'm not alone, i think most economists agree with me, that there is a far more effective way that we can create jobs in this country rather than just a number of tax breaks 14:41:51going to businesses. and i touched on this point before and i -- i want to get into a little bit more detail now. and for this i am indebted to a very fine book written by a -- an old friend of mine recalled arianna huffington and the title 14:42:08of her book is called "third world america," "third world america." and the theme of that book, is if we do not get our act together in terms of 14:42:23infrastructure, in terms of education, that's where we are heading. we are heading -- this great country is heading in the direction of being a third world nation. and she has an interesting chapter that deals with one very important part of america and 14:42:39that is the crumbling of our infrastructure. and she writes from 1980 to 2005 the miles traveled by automobiles increased 94%, for trucks mileage increased 105%, 14:42:58yet there was only a 3.5% in highway lane miles. more and more cars, more and more traveling, we're not building roads. but she writes, "you don't need these numbs to -- numbers to 14:43:13know that our roads are badly congested." anybody who lives around d.c. knows that our roads are congested. it takes hours to get to work sometimes. according to the american society of civil engineers infrastructure report card -- 14:43:28quote -- "this is an -- this is an interesting point. this is where we should invest. "americans spend 4.2 billion hours a year stuck in traffic." think about that. 14:43:45"4.2 billion hours a year stuck in traffic at a cost 14:43:54of $138 billion a year. think of all of the greenhouse emissions, all of the road rage, people are stuck on roads because our transportation system is totally inadequate. now, -- our roads, our public 14:44:05transportation. then she talks about -- she talks about an interesting point as well. in studying automobile accidents -- you know, when we talk about automobile accidents, what do we usually think? 14:44:22somebody is driving recklessly, maybe they're drunk. and those are serious issues. but she writes in studying car crashes across the country, the transportation construction coalition determined that badly maintained or managed roads are 14:44:39responsible for $217 billion a year in car crashes. far more than the headline grabbing alcohol related accidents or speed-related pileups. 14:44:54in other words, if you want to know why we are seeing automobile crashes, the issue of bad roads is even more significant than drunk drivers or people who are reckless drivers. i can remember -- and everybody has the same story -- i was driving down a road in vermont, 14:45:11whoops, huge pothole, went into it. it cost me a few hundred dollars to repair the car. so we're spending as a nation billions of dollars repairing our cars because the roads are not in good shape. when there is a traffic jam, people are emitting all kinds of greenhouse gas emissions. 14:45:27you're wasting gas, you're wasting money. if we invested in our transportation system, we can go a long way to addressing that. when we talk about transportation -- and by the way, again, i bring this issue up because in the bill agreed to 14:45:48by the president and the republican leadership, to the best of my knowledge, not one penny, not one penny is going into infrastructure, which is, to me, just doesn't make any sense at all. and again, arianna huffington 14:46:03writes -- "america's railway system is speeding down the tracks in reverse. it is one of the few technologies that has actually regressed over the past 80 years." 14:46:19regressed. i'm not talking about china where they're building all these high-speed rail lines. our rail situation in terms of the amount of time it goes from location one to location two has actually gotten longer. she writes -- "tom vanderbilt of slate.com came across some 14:46:40preworld war ii train timetables and made a startling discovery. many train rides in the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's took less time than those journeys would take today." 14:46:56can you imagine that? in the 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's, people were able to get on the train and get to their destination in less time than is the case today. for instance, in 1934, the burlington zephyr would get you from chicago to denver, to 14:47:13denver, mr. president, from chicago to denver in around 13 hours. the same trip takes 18 hours today. i don't know if the presiding officer is familiar with the burlington zephyr, which is a 14:47:29train that goes from chicago to denver, but what this rider is pointing out is that in 1934, it took 13 hours to make that trip. do you know how long it takes today? it takes 18 hours. so we're moving in the wrong direction. 14:47:43i know that in vermont -- i don't have any statistics right in front of me, but i can tell you that it -- i believe very strongly that it takes longer to get from the southern part of the state to the northern part of the state than it used to, and the frequency of the trips are less than they used to be. 14:48:01the trip from chicago to minneapolis via the olympian hiawatha in the 1950's took about four and a half hours. today via amtrak's train, the journey is more than eight hours. 14:48:15it used to be four and a half. so in terms of our public transportation, not only are we negligenting it, not only are we not moving forward, we're actually moving backwards. at the moment, the only high-speed train in the united states is amtrak's acela which travels the washington-new 14:48:35york-boston line, and i use the -- and she writes "i use the term high speed very loosely. while in theory the trains have a peak speed of 100 miles her hour, the average speed on that 14:48:49train is just 71 miles per hour." again, i read some statistics before, pointing out that china is building thousands and thousands of miles of high-speed rail. and here in the united states, we are moving backwards, taking us longer time for various train 14:49:06rides than used to be the case. but it's not just trains. it is not just our roads. it is not just our bridges. well, it is also our bridges. let me say a word on bridges. i think we all remember just 14:49:22four years ago, i think it was, the terrible tragedy in the minneapolis area when one of their major bridges collapsed and a number of people lost their lives. that got the front page headlines all over this country. i know in the state of vermont, we have closed down bridges. 14:49:37they are not safe to travel. according to the department of transportation, one in four of america's bridges is either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. the numbers are even worse when 14:49:54it comes to bridges in urban areas where one in three bridges is deficient. no small matter given the high levels of passenger freight traffic in our nation's cities. so a huge amount of traffic in urban reaches when it is 14:50:11sufficient in rural areas like vermont. mr. president, how are these bridges going to be built, rebuilt? it is likely not going to be done by local and state 14:50:25governments who right now are experiencing enormous economic crises. if it is going to be done, it is going to have to be done here at the federal level. i have to say that in vermont, we saw some significant improvements as a result of the stimulus package. in fact, in vermont recently, we have put more money in 14:50:43rebuilding our roads and bridges with very good success. i think the people of vermont see the difference in the last couple of years directly as a result of the stimulus package. we have improved, made significant improvements on a number of bridges, but nowhere 14:50:59near enough. so the point that i want to make is that with our infrastructure collapsing, with the american society of civil engineers suggesting that we need to spend spend $2.2 trillion in the next five years just to maintain where we are, we have an 14:51:13agreement before us which puts zero dollars in infrastructure. according to this book, we need to invest $850 billion over the next 50 years to get all of america's bridges into good 14:51:30shape. trust me, we are not coming anywhere near that right now. but it's not just our roads, it's not just our public transportation, not just our bridges. when we talk about infrastructure, we also have to 14:51:45talk about dams. on march 16, 2006, the kalokal dam in hawaii collapsed and seven people died. when the kalokal dam breached 14:52:01after weeks of heavy rain, sending 1.6 million tons of water downstream. dams are a vital part of america's infrastructure. they help provide for drinking, irrigation and agriculture and generate much-needed power and 14:52:19often offer protection from floods, yet our dams are growing old. there are more than 85,000 dams in america, and the average age is 51 years. at the same time, more and more 14:52:32people are moving into developments located below dams that require significantly greater safety standards, but we have had a hard time keeping up with the increase in these so-called high-hazard dams. indeed, we are falling further 14:52:50and further behind. so the point here is we have a major, major agreement. people are concerned about creating jobs. we are investing zero in our infrastructure, and dams are a very important part of our 14:53:06infrastructure, as are levees, and i suspect that senator landrieu who was here a little while ago would have something to say about levees. all right. so we're talking about an infrastructure which is 14:53:20collapsing, we're talking about china investing far more in terms of g.n.p. into infrastructure improvement than we are. we are talking about being in the midst of a major recession where we desperately want to grow jobs, and yet this proposal 14:53:38does not add one cent into our infrastructure. now, again, i'm going back to the very good book written by 14:53:51arianna huffington called "third world america." she writes -- "as bad as america's sewers, roads, bridges, dams, and water systems are, they pale in comparison to the crisis we are facing in our 14:54:04schools. i'm not talking about the physical state of our dilapidate ed public school buildings, although the national education association estimates that it would take $322 billion to bring america's school buildings into good repair." i have been in schools in 14:54:23vermont and elsewhere which were old and crumbling, and i have been in schools which are new and state of the art, and i think anyone who has seen the contrast in terms of the 14:54:39attitude of the students in those types of schools will understand that it is important to give these kids good places in which to learn and to grow. it means a lot to them when they see a building that is new, that has state-of-the-art equipment 14:54:58as opposed to the one that is crumbling. it suggests to them what we as a society feel about them. and she writes -- arianna huffington writes that "nothing is quickening our descent into third-world status faster than 14:55:14our resounding failure to properly educate our children. this failure has profound consequences for our future both at home and as we look to compete with the rest of the world and the global economy. historically, education has been 14:55:31the great equalizer. "and that -- great equalizer." and that is certainly the case. that has been the great virtue of our public school system. what we have taken is kids who spent -- my father never 14:55:47graduated high school, my mother did, that was it. and giving young people, millions of young people the opportunity to get a good education in school and to be able to go to college and use their potential. the springboard to the middle 14:56:03class and beyond has been education. it was a promise we made to all of our people. what we as a nation said, that regardless of your income, we're going to provide you with the best possible education in order to succeed in life, and that just -- that is something 14:56:20extraordinary. that no matter what your income is, we're going to provide you with a great education. i as a kid went to public schools, and i did have a very good education. but something has gone in recent years terribly wrong, and we have slipped further and further 14:56:37behind many other countries. among 30 developed countries ranked by the organization for economic cooperation and development -- that's the oecd -- the united states ranked 25th in math and 21st in 14:56:53science. 25th in math, 21st in science. even the top 10% of american students, our best and brightest, ranked only 24th in the year in math literacy. 14:57:08there was another study, i think probably just a more updated oecd study that came out just the other day, it was reported in "the new york times," where kids in shanghai were leading the world in these types of 14:57:25tests as compared to our own students. they have studied, they have better schools, better teachers, more investments in their education, and there is a culture there, there is a culture. it's not fair to blame the kids. 14:57:39does anyone seriously believe that in the united states of america, we take intellectual development seriously? i don't remember the guy's name, a basketball player o'a baseball player that was signing a contract for untold tens of millions of dollars, and yet you 14:57:54have teachers starting off at $30,000, $32,000. is anyone going to suggest in a serious way that we reward people who become childcare workers or teachers? we have childcare workers who leave, taking care of little 14:58:09kids, which may be the most important job in our society, because it is the brain development that takes place between 0 and 3 that is a large part of what a human being becomes. people leave early childhood education in order to move up 14:58:25the economic ladder and get a job at mcdonald's because pay is so low, benefits are so low. what are we doing as a nation? what are we doing as a nation? and she writes that a national assess many of educational progress report found that just 3% of -- 33% of fourth graders 14:58:47and 43% of eighth graders were proficient at reading, et cetera, et cetera. so i think her point is that if we are not going to become a third-world nation, we have got 14:58:58to start investing in this country, in our physical infrastructure, in our human infrastructure, and in our educational infrastructure. and let me just give you some examples of what this means in 14:59:14real terms. today, unemployment in our country, the official unemployment, is 9.8%. for those without a high school diploma, it is 15.6%, compared to 5.6% for college graduates. 14:59:3467% of high school graduates don't have enough of the skills required for success in college in the 21st century work force. as many as 170,000 high school graduates each year are prepared 14:59:50to go on to college but can't afford that. let me repeat that. about 170,000 young people in this country who graduate high school who want to go to college are unable to do it because they can't afford it.

1934 America's Cup features yachts Rainbow and Endeavour

SCREEN SOUVENIRS #1

[REPUBLICAN DEBATE / UNIVISION] [MIAMI, FLA USA] FTG OF THE REPUBLICAN DEBATE ON UNIVISION REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR MIKE HUCKABEE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR RUDY GIULIANI PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CALIF) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE REPRESENTATIVE RON PAUL (R-TEX) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FORMER SENATOR FRED THOMPSON (R-TENN) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN (R-ARIZ) INCLUDES SOME SETUP AT THE TOP OF FEED 19:01:05 MODERATOR: Good evening and welcome to the presidential forum. (inaudible) in Spanish at the University of Miami. 19:01:14 Tonight is the Republicans' night. For the first time, seven of the Republican candidates are going to participate tonight in a Spanish forum. This is the opportunity they have to speak directly to 44 million Hispanics, especially to (inaudible) potential Hispanic voters. It's important because, as the presidential election of 2008 is going to be tight, the Hispanic vote could decide who will be the next president of the United States. 19:01:45 Things have changed so much in this country that no candidate (inaudible) can reach the White House without the Hispanic vote. 19:01:56 For you, for the ones of you that don't speak Spanish, Univision is going to be broadcasting this show in (inaudible) for English- speaking audience tonight you will be able to follow the Republican presidential forum (inaudible) in English provided in (inaudible). And before we start, there are certain things that we want to explain tonight. Those are the basic rules. MODERATOR: All the candidates have accepted the rules of this presidential forum and these are the most important ones. The candidates will not make any opening statements nor will the make any closing statements. Instead, they will address all the questions asked by us, the moderators. And we also asked them not to ask questions among themselves, and to only answer the questions that we're (inaudible). And maybe if that doesn't happen, we'll have to interrupt them. Each candidate will have one minute to respond, and 30 seconds to rebuttals, only on a limited discretion of the moderators. A yellow light would advise the candidate that we have 15 seconds left and a red light indicates that their time is up. All questions will be asked in Spanish and will be simultaneously translated into English for the candidates, who will answer in English. And they are limited to that tonight. Seven of the eight Republican presidential candidates are here tonight. And, of course, their positions were determined by a previous drawing (inaudible) by their representatives of choice. MODERATOR: And we'll begin from left to right for the candidates. Let's welcome them. 19:03:23 Please say welcome to Mike Huckabee. He was elected two times as governor of Arkansas. He has a B.A. from Ouachita Baptist University. He attended the Southeast Baptist Theological Seminary from 1976 to 1980. He is married and has three children. (APPLAUSE) 19:03:41 Fred Thompson, the senator for the United States from Tennessee since 1994 to 2003. He was also the assistant attorney general for one term. He obtained a law degree from Vanderbilt University (inaudible). Thank you for coming. Mitt Romney was the governor of Massachusetts between 2003 and 2007. He was also the executive director of the Winter Olympics that were in Salt Lake City. MODERATOR: He also (inaudible) university. He is married and has five children and 10 grandchildren. (APPLAUSE) Rudy Giuliani was Mayor of New York City for eight years. He also was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District. He obtained a law degree from New York University. He is married and has three children. (APPLAUSE) Ron Paul is a Texas Representative. He has been elected six times. He practiced as an OB/GYN for almost 30 years. He obtained his medical degree at Duke University. He is married and has five children and 17 grandchildren. (APPLAUSE) John McCain is a Senator for the United States from Arizona since 1986. He also was a federal representative for four years for that same state. He has a bachelor's (inaudible) from the United States Military Academy. Thank you for coming. He is married and has seven children and four grandchildren. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Well, we want to thank all the candidates that are participating in this forum. Thank you so much for coming. And, of course, on behalf of all the millions of Hispanics and Latin Americans who are watching us tonight, we want to thank you. And let's start with a question. MODERATOR: Precisely, we're going to start with one question for several of the candidates. The first one's for Mayor Giuliani. The first one is, President Bush obtained more than 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004. I'm talking about Hispanic votes. But in the Congressional elections last year, only 30 percent of Hispanics voted Republican. So the question is: To what do you attribute the declining of support among Hispanics to Republicans? 19:06:24 GIULIANI: That's the whole idea of being here, and it's the whole idea of reaching out to the entire country. I think I understand in great depth the importance of the Hispanic vote. I think it helped elect me mayor of New York City on two occasions. 19:06:37 And I realize the complexity and the diversity of the Hispanic community. It's very important. Very important to the present and the future of this country. 19:06:44 I approach the Hispanic community the same way I do all communities. I think if you want to be president of the United States, the purpose of being president of the United States is to create a better future, a brighter future, more safety, more prosperity, more jobs, better education. 19:06:59 These are the things that Hispanics are looking for in the next president of the United States. In short, they're looking for leadership and somebody who can handle, if we have to handle a crisis, and I think that I've demonstrated that. MODERATOR: The next question is for Governor Romney. The same thing: Why has the Hispanic support for Republicans declined? 19:07:19 ROMNEY: You know, I think Republicans went to Washington with the expectations of the whole world that we would change Washington. And in many respects, as has been said by many people, Washington changed Republicans. And when Republicans act like Democrats, America loses. 19:07:33 Republicans spent too much money, and we let down our ethical standards. And so, Hispanics, along with other people in this country, want to see change. 19:07:40 I (inaudible) the Republican Party can connect with Hispanic voters, like other Americans, because there are some peculiar connections between our party and the Hispanic people. One, Hispanic Americans serve in the military and care about our military. We salute them for their service right now. And we'll strengthen the military. If I'm president, I'm going to add at least 100,000 troops to our military. Secondly, Hispanic Americans are entrepreneurs and business people. And I know how to build our economy. I'm going to keep our taxes down and make sure that our economy grows and thrives. 19:08:10 ROMNEY: And, third, Hispanic Americans are family-oriented and people of faith. I'm going to strengthen America's families. And so my platform, this Republican platform, connects with Spanish -- Hispanic Americans from across the country. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Governor Huckabee, how do you explain the decline of support to Republicans by Hispanics? 19:08:34 HUCKABEE: I think Hispanics want the same thing everybody wants. They want jobs. They want education. They want to know that they're going to be able to live with freedom. If the Republicans only got 30 percent of the vote, somehow we didn't do a very good job of communicating that that's what we would provide in terms of opportunity and fairness. It says more about our party and our need to reach out thank it does about than it does about the Hispanic population of this country. If we're really serious about truly saying we want more than 30 percent of the vote, then as we look at issues like education we'll understand that while the dropout rate from high school is 30 percent among all populations, it's 50 percent among Hispanics. 19:09:15 HUCKABEE: We've got to change that by creating personalized education that focuses on perpetuating what's good for students, not just making what's good for the school. There's also issues and disparities between diabetes and other issues of health. So I think, if our policies reflect lifting people up, we'll get the vote. (APPLAUSE) 19:09:38 MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Senator McCain, how do you explain that decrease in support for the Republicans? 19:09:48 MCCAIN: First of all, could I mention that I've been proud to represent a state in the United States Senate that has a very large Hispanic population. It's a border state. I've been honored to have as much as 70 percent of the Hispanic vote when I was re-elected last time. MCCAIN: I've been honored by Hispanic organizations. And I understand these issues and the challenges that they face. And I'm proud to have developed the relationship that I have with the Hispanic community in my state and in this country. I'll give you some straight talk. I think some of the rhetoric that many Hispanics hear about illegal immigration makes some of them believe that we are not in favor nor seek the support of Hispanic citizens in this country. (APPLAUSE) Hispanics are pro-small business, they are pro-life, they are pro-religion, they are pro-less regulation, pro-less spending, pro- military, they're serving in incredible numbers in Iraq as we speak today. I had the opportunity of visiting with many of them... MODERATOR: Thank you, Senator. MCCAIN: ... over Thanksgiving. We can not only regain, but we can get a majority support of Hispanics in America for our party. MODERATOR: Thank you, Senator. (APPLAUSE) 19:11:09 Senator Thompson, in a recent survey from Pew Hispanic Center, published this past week, only 23 percent of Hispanics favor the Republican Party. MODERATOR: What are you going to do -- what can you offer to recover the lost ground among Hispanics? 19:11:21 THOMPSON: Well, I think that we do share a lot in this country, whether we're Hispanic or whether we are not Hispanic. I think we have some of the basic values. I think Republicans got away from those values. You talked about Congress a minute ago. Congress' record rating with the American people is at an all-time low. It's not just in the Hispanic community. It's in the other communities that traditionally supported us. We were too often affiliated with matters of corruption in the United States Congress. We are spending the next generation's money, those yet to be born. We are spending their money, with no restraint. 19:12:01 We need to stand up for the values that we are supposed to believe in. We need to stand up for a strong national defense. We need to stand up for judges who will obey the law and follow the law, instead of making it up as it goes along, and we need to stand strong for issues of pro-life, and support traditional values that are important to our families. This is very important to Hispanics as well as non-Hispanics. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Congressman Hunter, I want to ask you the same question. How are you going to think (inaudible) you're going to recover the lost ground among Hispanics? 19:12:37 HUNTER: Well, you know what? I understand. HUNTER: I talked to Donna Shalala, and she said actually a number of young people are going to register to vote tonight, and I want them to register for our party, for the Republican Party. 19:12:47 And I'll tell you a great reason to be a Republican. And it's a story that's told 90 miles away and 1,500 miles away, because 90 miles away, in 1961, the Cuban freedom fighters fought on the beach in Cuba against Castro's forces. And a Democrat administration let their aircraft carrier sit there, while those freedom fighters were machine-gunned, because they felt there was too much pressure coming from the United Nations -- either machine-gunned or captured. 19:13:16 HUNTER: Many years later, 1,500 miles away, in a little place called El Salvador, a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, provided that little shield around that government, while they stood up and had free elections and brought freedom to El Salvador. 19:13:30 It's a story of two parties. It's a story of the party of freedom. That's the Republican party. That's why I would register Republican and support our party this year. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Senator Paul, the same question: The Republican Party lost some ground. Only 23 percent support their party. What are you going to do to recover the lost ground? 19:13:57 PAUL: You know, if anybody votes for the Republican Party, they're voting for conservative values. They're voting for less government, not more government. In the last seven years, we've gotten a lot more government. You know, in the year 2000, we ran on a pro-peace policy. We were condemning Clinton for warmongering, for nation-building and policing the world. And we did exactly the opposite. PAUL: Now we're mired down in the Middle East. And Hispanics, like all Americans, are tired of it. They're pro- peace. America should be pro-peace, not pro-war. The war has created so much expenditures. We're spending our money overseas instead of here. We're neglecting our needs here. We're bombing and building bridges overseas and we're neglecting our bridges here at home. Hispanics, like everybody else, want change in our foreign policy. They want change with our budget. We're support to be the fiscal conservatives. We're not. So they leave the party, just like everybody else. This is why we lost the election last year, is because we didn't stand by our principles of pro-peace and pro-liberty and pro-America. (APPLAUSE) 19:14:59 MODERATOR: Governor Romney, (inaudible) to be here and (inaudible). Do you think that you're taking a risk to come here to lose support from the more conservative base in your party? 19:15:17 ROMNEY: I don't think so at all. I think Americans across the country of all ethnicities recognize that we are a great, pluralistic society. That statue you have on the screen behind us, that light that shine out for the entire world said, "This is an unusual land. This is a land that welcomes people of all backgrounds, of all ethnicities, of all nations; welcomes them here to this great land." (APPLAUSE) And she said that God gave to the individual certain inalienable rights. And that changed the relationship between the state and the citizen. 19:15:54 It said that the citizen was the sovereign and the state was not. And that changed the entire world. People came here for opportunity. And our party is a party of opportunity. We stand for strength in our home. We stand for strength in our economy. We stand for strength in our military, so we defend our values, and so of course Republicans are going to come and speak to Hispanic Americans in the language they understand best, so we can get their votes and they can understand that we are the party of strength and the party of freedom. ROMNEY: Thank you. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Mayor Giuliani, I heard you laughing when this question was asked. What's your answer? 19:16:31 GIULIANI: Don't see any risk at all in coming before a Hispanic audience. Hispanic Americans are Americans, just as much as all other Americans. They have the same values, the same interests. 19:16:43 I learned that being mayor I think of the largest Hispanic city maybe not in the hemisphere, but in the United States, and a Hispanic city of great diversity and great strength. And what I learned is, we have very common values. Hispanics have a tremendous interest in giving more freedom back to people, giving more people -- giving people more of a chance to decide on the education of their child. That's why I think school choice would be a very good thing to do for Hispanics, for Hispanic parents, for all parents. The decision on where the child goes to school should primarily be made by the parent, and the parent should decide what school the child goes to, not the government bureaucrat. 19:17:20 GIULIANI: That's one of many, many things that really unites what Hispanics want and need and what all parents want and need, which is more control over their child's education. And that's something that I would fight very hard to bring about. MODERATOR: Governor Huckabee, is there a risk standing up here (inaudible)? 19:17:40 HUCKABEE: Well, I think the great risk is not so much that we would come. The far greater risk is if we didn't. And it's not just that we would offend or perhaps insult the Hispanic audience of this country. I think it would insult our own party. It would insult every voter in this country. To act like that somehow we've become so arrogant that there's any segment of our population that we're either afraid to speak to, hear their questions, or somehow that we don't think that they're as important as another group. And it's why I think whether it's an African American audience, a Hispanic audience, a union audience, as Republicans, we ought to be more than willing to sit down, even with people with whom we might know there are disagreements. And I think, frankly, it's important for us to be here. It's important that you gave us this opportunity. And I want to say thanks for letting us have this audience on Univision. (APPLAUSE) 19:18:37 MODERATOR: Tonight, your answers are being translated into Spanish, interpreted (inaudible). Thirty-one million people in the United States speak Spanish here. The census shows that. We're going to start with Senator McCain. Do you think that there would be a value -- a practical value of making English the official language in this country? 19:18:55 MCCAIN: I think the most practical value is to make English used by all Americans and all citizens, and all who come here. The only way... (APPLAUSE) 19:19:11 The only way we move up the economic ladder from the bottom rung is to know English. And I would emphasize the importance of every person who comes to this country to become a citizen and enjoy its liberties and beauty is to learn English. And I will do everything I can to help them do that. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Congressman Paul, what would be the practical value of English as an official language? PAUL: Well, it's practical because we can all understand each other. I sometimes think that those who attack bilingualism sometimes are jealous, and we feel inferior, because we're not capable. But we should have one language. But we, as federal officials, as a congressman or a president, we only have authority over the federal government. So I think all federal things should be in English. But when it comes to bilingualism in schools or the states, under our Constitution, it really is permissible. 19:20:08 PAUL: And the states can decide that. But under the conditions that we have today, I think it is good and proper to have one language, which would be English, for all legal matters at the national level. But this doesn't preclude bilingualism or whatever in private use or in education or in local government. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: The next question comes from our users of the Web page of Univision that come; 85 percent of the questions posted by the users were regarding immigration. Some of you -- that's a question for one user -- some of you oppose reform paving the way to granting undocumented aliens legal status. What do you think should be done with the 12 millions of undocumented aliens that live in the United States? We're going to start with Mayor Giuliani. 19:21:06 GIULIANI: The first thing that has to be done is we have to end illegal immigration. If we don't end illegal immigration, we're really going to risk legal immigration. We should end illegal immigration at the border, because it can't be really dealt with internally. We should do it by having a fence, a technological fence, as well as a physical fence, but the technological fence is more important. It should be used to alert the Border Patrol of the people coming to the border, and we should stop people from coming in. Then we should have a tamper-proof ID card that everybody can get who wants to come into the United States legally. We should accomplish that. 19:21:39 When we accomplish that, when we have control of our borders, when we preserve the legality of immigration, we can then turn to the people that are here. We can have them get the tamper-proof ID card. The people that come forward can sign up. They can pay taxes, and then the people who don't are the people who are really the cause of concern. Those people should be expelled from the United States if they don't already leave. GIULIANI: But the people who want to come forward should be allowed to come forward. But we can't do that until we control legal immigration. Otherwise the illegal problem will increase dramatically. And I think that's something that we've all learned by traveling around the country over the last year, two years, and looking at this. So you have to end illegal immigration, or certainly get substantial control over it, and then you can move forward with sensible resolutions to the people that are here. MODERATOR: Thank you, Mayor. (APPLAUSE) 19:22:29 MODERATOR: Governor Huckabee, what to do with the 12 million of undocumented that already live in the United States? 19:22:35 HUCKABEE: Well, I agree with the mayor that the first step is a secure border, because otherwise nothing really matters. 19:22:40 But I do think the pathway has to include people going to the back, not the front of the line. There can't be an amnesty policy, because that's an insult to all the people who waited, sometimes, ridiculously, for years, just to be able to make the transition here. I think a reasonable window of time in which a person would go back to the native country, start the process, but the real challenge is that our government, which has failed miserably in all of this -- it's got to get its act together. 19:23:09 HUCKABEE: If you can get an American Express card in two weeks, it shouldn't take seven years to get a work permit to come to this country in order to work on a farm. (APPLAUSE) So if our government is incapable of making that process in that length of time, then we should do it in a way to outsource it. And here's why: When people come to this country, they shouldn't fear. They shouldn't live in hiding. They ought to have their heads up, because the one thing about being an American is, we believe every person ought to have his or her head up and proud, and nobody should have to be in hiding because they're illegal when our government ought to make it so that people can reasonably come here in a legal fashion. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you, Governor. Senator Thompson, we were preparing this forum, and we found a survey from Los Angeles Times that said that 60 percent of the voters in the United States think that -- they are in favor of granting legal status to undocumented aliens if they meet certain criteria. Why, if the majority supports that, why not support that idea? 19:24:14 THOMPSON: Because we have to enforce our borders, and we have to uphold the law. There are millions of people who have stood in line in embassies around the world, United States embassies, waiting to become American citizens, waiting to become legal residents of the United States of America. Some places, such as Hong Kong, I read it takes an average of 13 years to go through that process. The legal process needs to be reformed, indeed. But when they finally come here, and when they are joined by those people in Latin America who have often fought tyranny, who have fought against the Castro regime, who have come here and risked their lives to become United States citizens, when all those people come here, they become a part of us; they become a part of our family. THOMPSON: It would disrespect them if we said other people who had not obeyed the law and had not gone through the process, to set them above them and to give them special status above those who have obeyed the law and fought so hard to become good American citizens and legal residents. (APPLAUSE) 19:25:25 MODERATOR: Governor Romney, the question is: Why not legalize some undocumented aliens if they comply with the requirements, if they meet certain requirements? 19:25:33 ROMNEY: You know, I have the occasion to talk to people who have loved ones that are hoping to come to this country, to be reunited with family members. And they're staying in their home countries applying legally. I believe that those people ought to be the first ones to get to come to this country. Those who have come illegally, in my view, should be given the opportunity to get in line with everybody else, but there should be no special pathway for those that have come here illegally to jump ahead of the line or to be come permanent residents or citizens. They should be treated like everybody else who wants to come to this country. 19:26:05 ROMNEY: I think we ought to secure our border, we ought to have an employment verification system to know who's here legally and illegally, and recognize that legal immigration is an extraordinary source of great capability and vitality for our country. We welcome the cultures that come here, the education, the work ethic, the family values. We're going to protect legal immigration. At the same time, we're going to enforce the law, show that we're a nation of laws, and welcome the people who have been standing in line first. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Congressman Hunter, why not support the legalization? HUNTER: Did you ask the same question? MODERATOR: OK, why you're not support that idea? 19:26:47 HUNTER: Listen, when I was -- when I came back from Vietnam, I was a practicing lawyer in the barrio. I was the only lawyer there, and I never turned away a family that came in and needed help. But I told them a couple of things. One thing is, you have to be here legally, because the first thing you've got to learn in this country is the rule of law. And the second thing is, you have to make sure that your kids learn English, because that is the American opportunity. Now, in 1983, we gave an amnesty, and when we gave that amnesty, 3 million people came in who were allowed to stay in who were here illegally. We said at that point, no more, and we're not going to let anybody else come in. 19:27:25 HUNTER: After that, 12 million more people came in. If we give an amnesty to this next batch of 12 million people, you will have a third wave of people coming in expecting to catch the third amnesty. 19:27:37 You know, this lady behind me represents a lot of things. One is welcoming immigrants to America. The other is the rule of law. We have to establish the rule of law, and people who are here illegally have to go home. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Senator McCain, you co-authored a bill that would have opened a pathway for legalization of undocumented aliens. It was not approved. It was not passed in Congress. So do you think that you're going to introduce a new bill including a pathway to gain legal status? 19:28:11 MCCAIN: I would do most anything to try to solve this compelling problem. MCCAIN: I come from a state where illegal immigration has caused enormous problems, whether it be shootouts on the freeway or broken borders or destroyed wildlife refuges. And I thought my job, and I believe my job, as a senator from a state on the border, is to get in the arena, not stand by and complain or say no to everything, but get in the arena. I learned that Americans want the border secured first. That's what we will do. But I'll say to you what I said at the last debate before a non- Hispanic audience. And that is, we have to address this issue with compassion and love, because these are human beings. Of course, no one goes ahead of the line. Of course no one who has broken our laws can be rewarded to do so. Of course there can't be amnesty. But I want to tell you, brave Hispanics have served this country around the world. 19:29:04 MCCAIN: They have served in the Vietnam War. And I'll take you down to the Vietnam War Memorial, and show you the names engraved in black granite. I will take you to Iraq today and, as I was over Thanksgiving, and introduce you to brave young Hispanics who are serving our country. Some of them, their parents came here illegally. We cannot reward illegal behavior. We have to fix the borders. We cannot allow this nation to be inhumane or without love and compassion. MODERATOR: Thank you, Senator. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) 19:29:44 Governor Romney, some days ago you fired a company that used to take care of your landscaping because supposedly they were hiring undocumented workers. The question is this, did you report, officially, that the people or the company to immigration authorities? And do you think that should others report undocumented aliens, the people that you suspect are undocumented? 19:30:08 ROMNEY: You know, we're a very compassionate people. We're also a people who follow the law. And the landscaper at my home is an old friend, and when he made a mistake the first time, I told him in no uncertain terms, you have to make sure that anybody that works on my property and walks on my property is a legal individual. And he did his best, but he made a mistake. And apparently, two people he had there were not legal. And I told him that's it, and we terminated that relationship. And I think everybody in the country understands who those folks are. It became a big news story. But let's underscore something here, which is that employers like this landscape company, and he's Hispanic American, he doesn't have a way to determine whether the people he's hiring are legal or illegal. Isn't it amazing in this country, with the fact that American Express or Visa or Mastercard can tell you that fast whether the card is authorized or not. 19:31:02 We don't know who's here legally or not. That's why we need an employment verification system to identify the fact that legal aliens that come here are legal, are entitled to work. And that's something I'm going to get done so our employers know who's here legally and we welcome people who want to come work in this country. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Senator Thompson, there are still millions of children that were born here in the United States that at least have one undocumented parent. The (inaudible) have separated them from the parents, and they are American citizens. Do these children have the right not to be separated from their parents? (APPLAUSE) 19:31:44 THOMPSON: Well, congratulations. That's the first question that's got applause tonight, so it must be a very good one. (LAUGHTER) The -- our courts have ruled that such children, such babies born here are United States citizens. That's part of the 14th Amendment as has been interpreted by the courts, as I understand it. 19:32:12 THOMPSON: That's for starters. I believe that the concentration should not be on the concern of waiting until that child grows up and serves as an anchor baby, as we hear so much talk about. I believe the concern should be chain migration. Right now, we have a situation where people can bring in spouses, children, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and so forth. I think that people should be able to serve as a basis for the bringing in of their spouses and of their children, but I do not think there should be endless chain migration. So I think that is the issue to focus on, and not innocent children who are born here not of their own accord and who our courts have said our United States citizens. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Senator McCain, the same question. MODERATOR: The American children, do they have the right not to be separated from their parents because of (inaudible)? 19:33:13 MCCAIN: When we failed to pass immigration reform through the Congress of the United States it was a colossal failure. And, as a result of that, we have all kinds of different problems -- the problem you talk about, people who have been here for many years, people who have not been here a very long time. We have cities and towns and others declaring sanctuaries; others the opposite. And because of our failure at the federal level, we have had this incredible problems which are spawned by it, because we failed. The message of our failure is they want the border secured first. And we must secure the borders first, and then we move on to all of these other issues which many of them are heart wrenching and humanitarian. Very tough decisions. 19:34:00 But once we secure the borders, I'm convinced the American people will proceed with issues like this in a humanitarian and compassionate fashion. MCCAIN: But until we get the borders secured, the lesson we learned was that they aren't ready to address almost any other aspect of this issue. And I regret that. But, as president of the United States, I will secure the borders... MODERATOR: Thank you. MCCAIN: ... have the governors certify it, and then we'll move forward with all of these issues. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Governor Romney, we would like to know -- see what your opinion -- what's going to happen to the children who are being separated from their families? 19:34:39 ROMNEY: We're going to finally have a system that welcomes people here legally, and that says that those that have come here illegally are invited to get in line with everybody else. And the Constitution, as Senator Thompson has indicated, indicates that those that are born here do become United States citizens by virtue of being born here. But if they're born here from parents who come across the border illegally and bring them here illegally, in my view, we should not adopt, then, these chain migration policies that say, you've got a child here that's a U.S. citizen, and the whole family can come in. ROMNEY: That, in my opinion, is a mistake. We are a nation of laws. And you're correctly going through each part of immigration policy here. But let's underscore this one more time: We are, in this audience, almost every person here, an individual who came to this country because it's a land of opportunity and liberty. 19:35:25 We also, because we have laws, can have opportunity and liberty. We're going to enforce the laws. Welcoming people here -- we're not going to cut off immigration; we're going to keep immigration alive and thriving. But we're going to end the practice of illegal immigration. It's not inhumane. It's humanitarian. It's compassionate. We're going to end illegal immigration to protect legal immigration. MODERATOR: Thank you. ROMNEY: Thank you. (APPLAUSE) 19:35:55 MODERATOR: The vast majority of Hispanics, four out of five, are either legal residents or American citizens. Many of them feel affected by the negative tone of the immigration debate. How would you -- what would you do to curb this anti-Hispanic sentiment? MODERATOR: First of all, Congressman Hunter... 19:36:14 HUNTER: You know, I represent a district in San Diego, California and Imperial County, California, and that county for many, many years is a majority Hispanic and two-to-one Democrat. And I'm known as the guy who built the double-border fence that lowered the crime rate so dramatically, that stopped all the drug trucks from coming through, that stopped the smuggling of people and narcotics by more than 90 percent. You know what you do? You look people in the eye and you talk to them frankly. I would say this: I got more votes from the Hispanic community -- known as the guy who built the border fence -- from the Hispanic community, than anybody running for office, whether it was President Clinton on a presidential year, or one of the local or the state assemblyman or U.S. Senators. That means that the Hispanic community in the United States does not agree with the idea of having open borders. They do agree with the idea of having order on the border and having a regulated system where this lady of freedom standing behind me, the Statue of Liberty, says: Come in, but follow the rules. (APPLAUSE) 19:37:21 MODERATOR: Mayor Giuliani, how would you stop that anti-Hispanic sentiment that affects legal residents in American (inaudible)? 19:37:27 GIULIANI: Well, I think the entire group of questions and answers indicates the fact that this is a situation in which none of us have been perfect, all of us have been struggling with this for quite some time. And the reason is we really haven't followed the advice of a great man, Father Hesburgh, who said, "We must close the back door of illegal immigration in order to preserve the front door of legal immigration." And the question is not what mistakes were made in the past by any of us. The real question is: Who can fix it? How can we fix this? And the way we fix it by ending illegal immigration, setting up a new rule -- this is not a harsh rule, this isn't a cruel rule, it isn't a difficult one -- if you want to come into the United States, you have to identify yourself. After all, every other country, just about, requires you to identify yourself when you come in. We'll make it impossible through technology, through a BorderStat system, through all the things we have to do, make it impossible to come in illegally, so people don't hurt themselves as well as hurt us. It's no picnic to be living as an illegal immigrant. It's a terrible way to live. 19:38:31 GIULIANI: And even promoting that from the point of view of the illegal immigrant makes no sense. So we've got end illegal immigration at the border, which is the only place you can end it. And then we have to set up a sensible, secure system of coming in with a tamper-proof ID card... MODERATOR: Thank you, Mayor. GIULIANI: ... and allow people to do that. MODERATOR: Thank you, Mayor. (APPLAUSE) Governor Huckabee, how can we curb that anti-Hispanic sentiment? 19:38:56 HUCKABEE: Well, I was governor of the state that is the second- fastest growing state for Hispanics in the country, and we faced that. Quite frankly, when we fix the situation and make the border secure and people are here legally, a lot of the sentiment goes away. HUCKABEE: And I think we forget sometimes that it's not just that it's the people feeling that the illegals are coming in such great numbers that we can't deal with it. But it's a terrible thing when a person who is here legally, but who may speak with an accent, is racially profiled by members of the public, and people assume that they may be illegal. It is in everybody's best interest -- it is in most of all the best interest of the legal immigrants -- that we fix this problem, so nobody questions the legitimacy of their being here, which often happens, unfairly, unnecessarily and, frankly, in a completely un- American manner. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you. Representative Paul? 19:40:02 PAUL: On a negative tone -- well, one thing is, if we want to prevent more negative tone, we won't be working on a tamper-proof ID. PAUL: Because how can you have a tamper... (APPLAUSE) 19:40:15 How can you have a tamper-proof ID for illegals or immigrants, without doing it to everybody else? That's going to lead to a national ID card, which I absolutely oppose. (APPLAUSE) 19:40:30 But we have to realize where the resentment comes from. I believe it's related to our economy. When the economy is weakening and there's resentment because of our welfare system; jobs are going overseas; our good jobs -- pay is going down. 19:40:45 There's a lot of resentments because the welfare system is based on mandates from the federal government to put pressure on states like Florida and Texas to provide services which the local taxpayers resent. Some of our hospitals are closing. So it's an economic issue, too. If we deal with the welfare state and a healthy economy and a sound -- money and all this wasteful spending overseas, we would have a healthy economy; I think this problem would be greatly reduced. (APPLAUSE) 19:41:16 MODERATOR: Thank you, Congressman. Thank you. 19:41:21 We're going to have a break and we'll be right back with other important issues in this Republican forum. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) 19:44:17 MODERATOR: It's the presidential forum, the Republican one. We're going to talk about something else. Now we're going to talk about Latin America. A week ago, exactly a week ago, Venezuela rejected changes to the constitution, but the president, Hugo Chavez... (APPLAUSE) President Hugo Chavez has insisted that he's going to propose them again. Many consider him a threat to democracy in the region. If you were elected president, how would you deal with Chavez? Let's start with Congressman John Paul -- Ron Paul, sorry. 19:44:56 PAUL: Well, he's not the easiest person to deal with, but we should deal with everybody around the world the same way: with friendship and opportunity to talk and try to trade with people. (AUDIENCE BOOING) 19:45:08 PAUL: We talked to -- we talked to Stalin, we talked to Khrushchev, we've talked to Mao, and we've talked to the world, and we get along with people. PAUL: Actually, I believe we're at a time where we even ought to talk to Cuba and trade and travel to Cuba. (AUDIENCE BOOING) (APPLAUSE) 19:45:27 But let me -- let me tell you -- let me tell you why -- let me tell you why we have a problem in South America and Central America: because we've been involved in their internal affairs for so long. We have been meddling in their business. (APPLAUSE) 19:45:40 We create the Chavezes of the world, we create the Castros of the world by interfering and creating chaos in their countries, and they respond by throwing out their leader. (AUDIENCE BOOING) (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you, Congressman. Governor Huckabee, the same thing: How would you deal with President Chavez? He was elected democratically. 19:46:04 HUCKABEE: Well, Hugo Chavez is hardly the friend of the United States. And even though we get 60 percent of their oil, I think it's one of the major reasons we need to become increasingly oil-free and energy-independent so that we don't have to worry about Mr. Chavez. (APPLAUSE) HUCKABEE: But there's a greater issue here, and it's the fact that the people of Venezuela aren't Hugo Chavez and Hugo Chavez is not necessarily the spirit of the people of Venezuela. (APPLAUSE) Even though he was elected, he was not elected to be a dictator as he has become, suspending constitutional law. 19:46:38 My mother used to have a statement: If you give somebody enough rope, they'll hang themselves. I have a feeling that Mr. Chavez, continuing to take power from the people as he has done, will find himself unfortunately out of power, and hopefully for all of us, fortunately a democratically elected government there that will give those people back the freedom that he has robbed from them and hopefully by then we won't need their oil, but they will have their freedom. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you, Governor. Mayor Giuliani, the same question. 19:47:15 GIULIANI: I actually agree with the way King Juan Carlos spoke to Chavez. (APPLAUSE) That would be the way I would do it. (APPLAUSE) Far better than what Congressman Paul wants to do. But the reality is that Chavez is acting... (AUDIENCE BOOING) 19:47:37 GIULIANI: Chavez is acting like a dictator. And he should be treated that way. Luckily, he lost the vote recently. It shows the great hope that Governor Huckabee is talking about, that there's a hope that the people of his country understand the need for free markets, understand the need for freedom, real free elections. 19:47:54 There's a counter-movement going on in Latin America. You can see it in Colombia. You can see it in Panama. You can see it in Mexico. I think President Calderon was elected -- not that I'm an expert on Mexican politics -- but I think Chavez had something to do with that. GIULIANI: I think the people in Mexico were sending a signal, that's not the direction they want to go in. They don't want to go in the direction that Castro wanted to take Latin America. They don't want to go toward socialism and communism. They want to go to free markets, they want to go to freedom. I think it's the essential nature of the people of Latin America, and I think Chavez is going in actually the opposite direction, kind of a repeat of what Castro tried to do, and it's a disgrace, and we should stand against it. MODERATOR: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. (APPLAUSE) 19:48:37 When talking about Cuba, Cuban dictatorship has survived nine U.S. presidents. What would you do differently, that has not been done so far, to bring democracy to Cuba? We're going to start with Senator Thompson. 19:48:51 THOMPSON: I'm going to make sure that he didn't survive 10 U.S. presidents. (LAUGHTER) Castro is unique in many respects. 19:49:07 THOMPSON: He represents the only non-democratic, at least, elected government in the hemisphere. He is uniquely brutal. He is still tyrannizing his own people. 19:49:22 He lures the vulnerable and the naive Americans down there and puts on shows for them and they come back and do his propaganda. There are not many people who can pull that sort of thing off. He's obviously in bad health. That situation, probably, is in God's hands. He will probably be succeeded by someone who's no better than him, and that is Raul. 19:49:45 And we should treat Raul with the same contempt that we show Castro, including keeping the embargo on Cuba. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Governor Romney, what would you do differently that has not been done so far? 19:50:00 ROMNEY: Well, first of all, you've got to think about who Castro is, and who Raul Castro is as well. 19:50:07 ROMNEY: We call them strongmen -- dictators, authorative totalitarian leaders. And yet these are individuals who are not strong. Look at what they have done? Brothers to the rescue. They shoot a small aircraft out of the sky. People wearing a wristband that says "change," are arrested -- 25 of them just for wearing a wristband; a Catholic church is edited and people are terrified because a priest is just speaking his sermon. These people, these Castro brothers are cowards, and we have to recognize they are cowards. (APPLAUSE) 19:50:43 And for that reason, the course for America is to continue our isolation of Cuba. It is not to say, as Barack Obama on the Democratic side said, that he would dignify the Castros with a personal visit to Cuba. That's not the way to go. Instead, it's to bring our friends together to isolate Cuba, to put together a strategy that helps all of Latin America, weakens Hugo Chavez who is propping up Castro. ROMNEY: We need a Latin American policy that frees Cuba and that eliminates a threat of people like Hugo Chavez. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you. Governor? 19:51:19 MODERATOR: Senator McCain, the same question. What would you do differently? 19:51:20 MCCAIN: First of all, could I again congratulate the people of Venezuela for rejecting this dictator's attempt to become a president for life? And I also would like to echo the words of Prince Juan Carlos, "Por que no te callas?" "Why don't you shut up?" 19:51:39 I'm pleased to have the support of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who advise me and know these issues, and Mel Martinez, every day. My friends, tonight our thoughts and prayers go out to Dr. Bucet (ph), who fights for freedom, who is now in prison, because Dr. Bucet (ph) resisted and fought against a state-controlled and state-mandated abortion. MCCAIN: God bless him and those students who wore this bracelet called Cambio, who are now under arrest today. (APPLAUSE) 19:52:11 Of course we need to keep our embargo up. Of course we cannot allow economic aid to flow to Cuba. And if I were president of the United States, I would order an investigation of the shoot-down of those brave Cubans who were killed under the orders of Raul and Fidel Castro, and, if necessary, indict them. (APPLAUSE) Thank you very much. MODERATOR: Thank you. The next question, of course, if regarding Iraq. Congressman Hunter, surveys show that two out of three Hispanics think that the United States should withdraw its troops from Iraq. How would you convince them of the fact that they should stay there -- the troops should stay there? 19:52:54 HUNTER: Well, you know, there's lots of Hispanic Americans serving in Iraq. 19:52:59 HUNTER: And my son came back from his third tour as a U.S. Marine on Thanksgiving, having served in Iraq twice and Afghanistan. (APPLAUSE) 19:53:09 And, you know, if you check with the Hispanics of the 1st Marine Division or the 10th Army Division of the 1st Cavalry, you'll get a lot different poll than the poll that you're telling me right now, because the young men and women who are serving over there know we can win in Iraq. (APPLAUSE) And let me tell you what they've done. With blood, sweat and tears they have brought down the attack rate in Anbar province by 80 percent. They brought it down over the entire nation. 19:53:40 The Iraqi army is now standing up, all 131 battalions. That government's going to hold and the army's going to hold, and we are going to leave Iraq in victory, and we're going to leave an Iraq that will be a friend, not an enemy of the United States. (APPLAUSE) So we're going to be victorious in Iraq, and Hispanic Americans who serve there know that. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Mayor Giuliani, how to convince Hispanics that the troops should stay in Iraq? 19:54:09 GIULIANI: Well, I think Hispanics -- all Americans -- should look at what's the strategic goal that's a victory for America. The strategic goal in Iraq has to be an Iraq that's stable and an Iraq that will act as an ally for us in the Islamic terrorist war against us. 19:54:22 The opposite -- fleeing Iraq, running out of Iraq, giving into the kind of frustrations that the Democrats are portraying, having a declaration of loss in Iraq, will only help the Islamic terrorists and will hurt us. And I think we should give our troops a chance to succeed in Iraq. 19:54:40 How about our goal in Iraq is victory, winning, being successful there, and being successful to the extent of having a stable government and a government that will act as an ally for us? 19:54:49 Every indication that we get from the men and women in the field and from their commanders is that we have a chance to achieve that. It's not guaranteed. 19:54:58 GIULIANI: Things and matters of war and peace are never guaranteed. But why not give them a chance to have this kind of success? After all, it will make us all safer, Republicans, Democrats, Hispanics, non-Hispanics. This is what's good for America. And that's what we should be for. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Senator McCain, why should the troops be kept there? 19:55:20 MCCAIN: Because we are succeeding. And years ago, when the Rumsfeld strategy was failing, I was the only one on this stage that said it has to change. (APPLAUSE) I was the only one on this stage that said we have to pursue a new strategy... (APPLAUSE) ... that Senator Edwards and others used to call the McCain strategy and the McCain surge. They don't do that anymore. And it was tough in those days, when I said that Rumsfeld had to go, and I had no confidence in him. And I was accused of disloyalty. 19:55:49 Republicans went to Iraq and blamed it on the media. It wasn't the media. We had a failed strategy. Now we have a successful strategy. We can succeed. We will succeed. And I often like to tell my friends of the time, last Fourth of July, when I saw 128 brave Americans, most of them Hispanic, who had a green card, who raised their hands to become citizens of the United States. 19:56:11 MCCAIN: Two weren't there because they'd been killed in combat the week before. I was never (sic) proud of our Hispanic citizens who were willing to lay down their live to become citizens of this country. They will succeed and I will honor their memory. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Governor Huckabee, why not withdraw the troops from Iraq? 19:56:34 HUCKABEE: Because we are winning, as Senator McCain just said. Civilians deaths are down 76 percent since the surge. Even the military deaths are down over 60 percent. And that's not the only way we know we're winning. We're winning because we see in the spirit of our own soldiers a sense of duty and honor that they are being able to carry out a mission that they were sent there to do. To take them out of it not only means we lose, but it means we totally destroy their sense of morale, and it may take a generation to get it back. HUCKABEE: But there's more at stake than just their morale. It's the safety and the security of the Middle East and the rest of the world. This isn't an issue that's about Hispanics or anybody else in terms of ethnicity. This is about every one of us being able to be free, to have a future, and to be able to know that we're not going to allow a vacuum there, which happens if we lose -- and we lose when we walk away -- to create an opening so that terrorists can build even greater cells of training and empowerment there. 19:57:37 That's why we have to stay. And it's why we have to win. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Governor Romney, for how long would we need to leave our troops in Iraq? 19:57:49 ROMNEY: Let's talk about our mission there. This is not just about strategy and allies. It's not about oil. It's not about just the economy. It's not just about standing up for the fact that we've been there for a long time. It's about human lives. ROMNEY: What we're doing in Iraq relates to protecting the lives of American citizens, here, around the world. It relates to lives throughout the world. It relates to dignity and freedom. 19:58:15 We're in Iraq because we want to make sure that Iraq does not become what Afghanistan was. What Afghanistan was under the Taliban was a place that they could recruit and train and launch attacks against us on 9/11, and other attacks throughout the world. 19:58:30 The Khobar Towers, our embassies in Africa, the USS Cole -- they were launching attacks. The last thing America could stand for, the last thing we could do with the human lives that are so precious, would be to have Iraq become an Afghanistan. Fortunately, the surge is working. It's going to keep that from happening. We're going to have stability and security there and American lives will be saved by virtue of the extraordinary sacrifice of American servicemen. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you, Governor. Senator Thompson, for how long? 19:59:05 THOMPSON: The central point needs to be made, and all my colleagues are I think implying it, but I think it needs to be set out in a straightforward manner. THOMPSON: We have yet to fully come to terms with the fact that Iraq and Afghanistan are part of a global conflict, a war by Islamic fascism that's been declared upon us, of which Iraq and Afghanistan are current fronts. They are intent on bringing down Western civilization, and we're the number one target. It's just that simple. 19:59:35 If we leave Iraq with our tail between our legs, we are going to enhance their ability to recruit young people who, they too, can help bring down parts of America and maybe America itself. We will leave an opening for Iran, as it, I still believe, continues to pursue a nuclear capability. And it will provide a sanctuary for terrorists that does not exist anywhere in the world today. All of this would make for a much more dangerous United States of America. That's why we must prevail. And I agree with my colleagues. I believe that we are. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you. Congressman Paul, you have a different point of view among all of them, don't you? 20:00:16 PAUL: I do. (APPLAUSE) 20:00:19 I definitely have a different point of view, because we weren't justified in going over there. We did not declare the war. And I would say to the Hispanics that believe we ought to come home, I would say: Let's come home as soon as possible. (APPLAUSE) You might ask the question, why is it that I have a different view point on foreign policy. Because I adhere to the Constitution and the advice of the founders to stay out of the entangling alliances, the internal affairs of other nations. Why is it then that I get the most money as a candidate for the presidency from active military personnel? They're tired of it too. (APPLAUSE) 20:01:01 We already have a de facto draft. These men who have fought valiantly are called up time and time again. Their services are extended from 12 months to 15 months. They've been over there two and three times, and they don't see an end in sight. 20:01:15 PAUL: This whole idea, we're going through the same argument, the light at the end of the tunnel. We did this in the '60s when I was in the service. And we finally left Vietnam, tragically. But we do much better in peace with Vietnam. We trade with them. They have become Westernized. What we achieved in peace we couldn't achieve in war. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you, Congressman. Thank you. Well, we want to talk about other topics. And we're going to talk about health. And we're going to talk with you, Senator McCain. We have a lot of questions. We have hundreds of them. One of them says, "I'm not asking for free health insurance, but I'm looking for an affordable health insurance." That's the question: What would you do to curb the high cost of medical health care and to help those who don't have health insurance? 20:02:03 MCCAIN: Well, first of all, I'm glad you asked that question of the hundreds, because that's the real question. MCCAIN: The real question is: How are we going to keep health care costs down, because we have the highest quality of health care in the world in America today? 20:02:17 And unlike the Democrats, I'm going to preserve that quality of health care, and at the same time stop the inflation and the skyrocketing costs of health care. And there's a couple of principles. One is to make the recipient of the health insurance to be much more responsible in health-care costs and how they allocate and how they choose their insurance policies. To address wellness and fitness, which is a key element of any way we're really going to reduce health-care costs in America. To give every American family a $5,000 refundable tax credit so they can go anyplace in the world -- in America to acquire the health insurance policy that best suits their needs. 20:03:00 MCCAIN: And, if they've got money left over, then invest it in a health savings account. Ronald Reagan said nobody ever washed a rental car. And that's true in health insurance. If they're responsible for it, then they will take more care of it. And we should have wellness and fitness as... MODERATOR: Thank you, Senator. MCCAIN: ... emphasized all over America today, particularly amongst young people. MODERATOR: Thank you. (APPLAUSE) Mayor Giuliani, how can we curb the high cost and also offer insurance to the people who don't have it? 20:03:35 GIULIANI: The very best way to do it -- and Senator McCain is on the right track, but it has to be more -- more of an incentive for people to buy their own health insurance. We only have 17 million Americans who buy their own health insurance. If we had 50 million or 60 million Americans who were, the cost of health insurance would probably be cut in half or more than half, and a lot of people could afford it, the way this person is asking us, how can you do it. 20:03:51 So, you give people a $15,000 for a family tax deduction, tax exemption, to buy their own health insurance. You encourage them to do it. You also give them a health savings account to up to $5,000 or $6,000, so that they can then look for deductibles in insurance. 20:04:06 GIULIANI: And it brings down the cost of insurance. That's one of the primary ways to do it. And then you break down the barriers where people can only buy in one state and you let them buy in any state, so that we can set up a real competition. 20:04:18 The thing that works in America is not socialized medicine that the Democrats want to bring us, not government control, not mandates, but a large consumer market where you empower people to enter that market is the only way to bring down costs and to bring up quality. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Governor Huckabee, you know the numbers: 47 million people don't have health insurance, including 15 million Hispanic. What can be done to provide coverage for those people? 20:04:46 HUCKABEE: Of those 47 million, one-third don't have it because they are self-insured. Another one-third don't have it because they think they're healthy and invincible. There is one-third that don't have it because they can't afford it. And then there are a lot of people who have insurance, but they're underinsured. But let me tell you, the biggest problem we have in this country is not a health care crisis, it is a health crisis. We spend $2 trillion a year on health care, and 80 percent of it goes to chronic disease, which means that what we really have to begin dealing with is turning the system right side up, because it is upside down focused on waiting until people are catastrophically ill, and then we try to rush in with the most expensive modalities possible. 20:05:23 HUCKABEE: What we need to be doing is putting the real focus on preventing the illness in the first place. It's the difference between either putting an ambulance at the bottom of the hill or building a fence at the top. We can afford universal coverage, but not until and not even close until we first have health, rather than just focus on health coverage. Let me say the last thing we need to do is to believe that Michael Moore's idea is good and we can all go to Cuba and get health care. I don't mind shipping him down there, but the rest of us I'd like to get our care here. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Governor Romney, what should we do with all the millions of people who are not insured? 20:06:11 ROMNEY: Well, I think I'm probably the only person on the stage and the only governor that actually stopped talking about getting health care for everybody and actually got the job done. Working with people across the aisle, we said: Enough is enough. (APPLAUSE) You know, we're up here talking about all sort of ideas about tax credits and deductions, and my program has a deduction as well. We talk about prevention and people being health. 20:06:34 But, look, the best kind of prevention you can have in health care is to have a doctor. And if someone doesn't have a doctor, doesn't have a clinic they can go to, doesn't have health insurance to be able to provide the prescription drugs they need, you can't be healthy. And you need to have health insurance for all of our citizens. And I found a way to do that without requiring raising taxes, without a government mandate, without a government takeover. Instead, I didn't want to have a -- when I said government mandate, I meant employer mandate. Instead, we have personal responsibility. We allowed individuals to buy their own policies. ROMNEY: Those that couldn't afford them, we helped them buy their policies. And you know what? It cost us no more money to help people buy insurance policies that they could afford than it was costing us before, handing out free care. We Republicans can get everybody insured. Let's get it done. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Senator Thompson, what to do with the 15 million Hispanics who don't have insurance? 20:07:28 THOMPSON: The lower health care costs are, the more people will be insured. There's really two basic ways to lower health care costs: bigger government or more efficient markets. Government could come in and say what it's going to cost everybody. And then we'd have long lines and waiting, wondering why we can't get radiation for a family member that has cancer and have to wait for months for it, and that sort of thing. We totally, I think, all reject that. I say, let's make our markets more efficient. We made a mistake in our tax code many years ago. We need to reverse that mistake so people are not so tied to their employment for their insurance. They need, through the tax code, need to have the benefit of buying their own insurance through an open market with more sources, more people offering insurance, lifting regulations to make that happen. 20:08:16 THOMPSON: It would be portable so people could take their insurance with them from job to job. 20:08:19 As we know, people through a lifetime nowadays, have more jobs than they used to. I think that the markets have worked so often for us in so many different ways in this society. Free people competing with each other in free and open markets bring down costs. That's the way to get there. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you very much. 20:08:42 We're going to have another break, and we're going to continue with this Republican forum in a minute. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) 20:11:56 MODERATOR: We'll continue live in Univision with this presidential forum. And we're going to talk about something else. We're going to talk about education. A recent survey done for La Raza National Council show that nine out of 10 Hispanic voters think that improved public education should be a priority for the next president of the United States. Let's start with Senator Thompson. What should we do to improve the public schools so our children will be educated in this country from coast to coast? 20:12:28 THOMPSON: First of all, I think we need to recognize where the responsibility lies. It would be easy enough for someone running for president to say: I have a several-point plan to fix our education problem. It's not going to happen. And it shouldn't happen from the Oval Office. We spend about 9 percent of education dollars now at the federal level. The responsibility historically and properly is at the state and local level. I think, however, we can do things that would support choice, do things that would support vouchers, do things that would support homeschooling, and recognize that we need to speak the truth. 20:13:04 THOMPSON: One of the advantages of being in the Oval Office is having a bully pulpit. And the fact of the matter is, if families would stay together, if fathers would raise their children, especially young men when they get into troublesome ages, we would solve a good part of the education problem in this country. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you, Senator. Senator McCain, how can we improve the quality of public schools in this country? 20:13:30 MCCAIN: Choice and competition is the key to success in education in America. That means charter schools, that means home schooling, it means vouchers, it means rewarding good teachers and finding bad teachers another line of work. It means... (APPLAUSE) 20:13:48 It means rewarding good performing schools, and it really means in some cases putting bad performing schools out of business. About three or four weeks ago, I went to a wonderful, wonderful school in the lower-income part of Philadelphia. 20:14:06 MCCAIN: It's run by a Hispanic organization called Esperanza. Esperanza has set up a charter school. The kids wear uniforms. It's 98 percent Hispanic and 8 percent African American. Their grades are phenomenal. Their dropout rate is low. Their parents are responsible and they're engaged. 20:14:24 And guess what's happening? The public schools in Philadelphia in the area are starting to improve as well, because of the choice and competition that is employed by the parents there. I want every American parent to have a choice, a choice as to how they want their child educated, and I guarantee you the competition will dramatically increase the level of education in America. (APPLAUSE) And I applaud our former Governor Bush for the great job he's done on education in Florida and America. MODERATOR: Thank you. Thank you, Senator. Governor Romney, how can we improve education -- public education in this country? 20:15:05 ROMNEY: Well, we've got a pretty good model. If you look at my state, even before I got there, other governors and legislatures worked real hard to improve education. And they did a number of things that made a big difference. One is, they started testing our kids to see who was succeeding, making sure that failing schools were identified and then turning them around. They fought for school choice. When I became governor, I had to protect school choice because the legislature tried to stop it. 20:15:26 And then we also fought for English immersion. We wanted our kids coming to school to learn English from the very beginning. And then we did something that was really extraordinary. We said to every kid that does well on these exams that we put in place before you can graduate from high school, we're going to give you a John and Abigail Adams scholarship, four years tuition-free to our state university or state colleges for all the kids that graduate in the top quarter of their class. 20:15:49 We care about the quality of education. I want to pay better teachers more money. Teachers are underpaid, but I want to evaluate our teachers and see which ones are the best and which ones are not. (APPLAUSE) 20:15:59 ROMNEY: And let me tell how our kids are doing. Every two years, we test the kids across the country, the NAPE exam. Our kids -- my kids came out number one in English in fourth and eighth grade, number one in math. In all four tests, our kids came out number one in the nation. These principles of choice, parental involvement, encouraging high standards, scholarships for our best kids -- these turn our schools into the kind of magnets that they can be for the entire nation. MODERATOR: Thank you, Governor. (APPLAUSE) We're going to continue talking about education. One our of three Hispanic students don't finish high school. Governor Huckabee, what would you do to stop dropouts of school. 20:16:39 HUCKABEE: Well, first of all, the reason a lot of kids don't finish school and they drop out -- and by the way, you're right. The Hispanic dropout rate is significantly higher than the general population. Six thousand kids, every day, drop out of school, 6,000. You know, the only reason any of us are standing on this stage today is because we have an education. Without it, we wouldn't be here. 20:16:58 HUCKABEE: An education is empowerment. The lack of it leads us to incredible, just all kinds of obstacles in our path. And we always talk about we need more math and science, and we, and we're doing a better job. But one of the reasons we have kids failing is not because they're dumb, it's they're bored. They're bored with a curriculum that doesn't touch them. We have schools that are about perpetuating the schools, not helping the students. 20:17:23 I propose launching weapons of mass instruction, making sure that we are launching not only the math and science... (APPLAUSE) ... but music and art programs that touch the right side of the brain, and not only educate the left side of the student's brain. (APPLAUSE) Because without a creative economy and a creative student, you have a bored student, and that's one of the reasons we see so many of them dropping out. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Mayor Giuliani, dropout among Hispanics, how would you solve that? 20:17:53 GIULIANI: Well, you know, Governor Huckabee reminds me of the fact that I'm the product of a Catholic from the day I started in kindergarten until the day I got out of college. GIULIANI: And it was my parents... (APPLAUSE) It was my parents' choice. They made that choice for me. I wouldn't have known. They made that choice. It was hard for them to afford it. I was fortunate enough to get scholarships along the way to help. But the reality is, that's really the answer. And we're all saying it in a different way. We can revolutionize public education in this country by allowing for choice. Has it ever occurred to you that we have the best higher education system in the world, and we have a weakening K-12, including for Hispanic students? 20:18:30 Now, why do we have the best higher education in the world and this K-12 that's under great stress? Because higher education is based on choice. It's based on you pick a college because you want to go there. The government doesn't force you to go there. 20:18:44 We should allow parents, like my parents were able to do; we should empower them by giving them the money, giving them scholarships, giving them vouchers, let them choose a public school, a private school, a parochial school, a charter school, homeschooling. Let's give the power to the parents, rather than to the government bureaucrats. And we will turn around education within three years. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Congressman Hunter, you know that problem of dropping out of Hispanics... 20:19:13 HUNTER: You know, in California there was a great teacher named Jaime Escalante, who taught calculus. And he taught calculus in the barrio so effectively that his kids when they took the test were accused of cheating by the school district because they scored so high. Jaime Escalante brought to the school system the one thing that we need throughout America, and that is inspiration, because young people are deciding what they want to do when they're in third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade. 20:19:41 And what we're going to have to do -- and incidentally, Jaime Escalante ultimately left that school district and the calculus program went down because he had a run-in with the teachers union. What we have to do in this country is to take away all this old credentialing. We've got to bring in aerospace engineers and pilots and mathematicians and scientists and business-people, and we have to bring in people who can inspire kids at a young age to reach for the stars, and then convince them to work hard enough to get there. 20:20:10 HUNTER: Inspiration, that's how we increase our capability in education. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you. Well, we have the last question for all of you. Hispanics are the biggest minority in the United States, and by 2050, we're going to be 25 percent of the population. Three months ago, I asked the same thing to the Democratic candidates. What would you think would be the biggest contribution from Hispanics, but we want to ask you what is the role -- what role do you think Hispanics will play in the development of our nation and our society? We're going to start with Governor Huckabee. 20:20:51 HUCKABEE: On our coins, it says, "E pluribus unum." It means out of many, one. Ronald Reagan said it best. He said that if we go to Germany, we're not Germans, and if we go to Italy, we're not Italians. But anyone who comes to America is an American. 20:21:06 HUCKABEE: One of the great aspects of this nation is that when people come here and unite with us, they share not just our borders and our boundaries. They share our hopes and our dreams and our aspirations. 20:21:18 And if there's any one reason that this country is a magnet for people, and clearly a magnet for many Hispanics who have found hope and opportunity here, it's because they see in this country what we ourselves who live here see. And that is that here, we can dream great dreams and actually can see them. 20:21:36 Our equality is not based on our ancestry, our last name, it's not based on how much money we make. It's based on the intrinsic worth and value that every one of us have. It's why we share something else, and I think that this nation is basically pro-life because we recognize that intrinsic worth. And I think what we offer is an opportunity to raise families and to live dreams and to be free. MODERATOR: Thank you. (APPLAUSE) Congressman Hunter, what would be -- what role would Hispanics play in the future of our society? 20:22:11 HUNTER: Well, first, I want them to play a role as Republicans. And I want to invite, again, all the young people who are -- registering to vote -- tonight -- to just remember a couple of things. One thing is that that lady in El Salvador who stood there in the line for the elections after a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, had protected El Salvador and provided for free elections, and she had a bullet hole in her arm and she was asked, do you want to go to the aid station, and she said, yes, but first, I vote. So, remember, Republicans stand for freedom. 20:22:45 Secondly, I want you to remember the Republicans stand for life, that the man who founded our party, Abraham Lincoln, did so on the basis of the value of human beings. And lastly, I'd like you to remember that, you know, Democrats think this is a great country because of what government does for people, while Republicans think this is a great country because of what free people do for themselves. 20:23:09 HUNTER: I think Hispanics have a great role with this great nation. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you. Senator Thompson, you -- how far can Hispanics get in this country? 20:23:31 THOMPSON: I think to help us be as strong as we can be and as good as we can be as Americans, I think the most important thing for Americans to be thinking about tonight is our national security, our future prosperity, for the children coming up behind us and our values. The Hispanic community is traditionally strong in defending liberty and defending our nation's honor. They have had to fight their way, in many cases, just to come here and become a part of our society. The Hispanic community is well-known as having a work ethic that is second to none. THOMPSON: They ask for very little and contribute very much. The Hispanic community is known for their values. They know that marriage is between a man and a woman, for example. They know that the family... (APPLAUSE) They know that the family is at the center of societies, and strong families build better societies. Those are things that they share with all other citizens of the United States... MODERATOR: Thank you, Senator. THOMPSON: ... and will make for a stronger country. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Senator McCain, your vision of Hispanics in the future. 20:24:39 MCCAIN: My vision of America in the future when Hispanics are a very large percentage of our population is that we will be enriched. We will be enriched by their music, their culture, their food, their language, and most of all, their love of America. Most of these people came from places where they were deprived of human rights, whether it be a terrible place like Cuba, or a country like Venezuela, where you have a two-bit dictator, depriving them of their opportunities to move forward. MCCAIN: I know what it's like to be deprived of one's human rights, and I know that one of the things that Hispanics will do is love this country and defend it, and defend the great beauty and wonder of this nation, and keep it a shining city on a hill. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Congressman Paul? 20:25:34 PAUL: The most important thing Hispanics can do is what all Americans do: Join us in our effort to restore our Constitution and our great country. We have lost our way. We have lost our way. We have deserted our traditions on our foreign policy, on our economic policy, our education policy, our monetary policy, and this country is looking for help. And people are joining us now to restore this. PAUL: And this is not a Hispanic issue, it's an American issue. What we want is the rule of law so we all have opportunity once again. But we have to not only restore the Constitution, we have to first read it and understand it and what it means to be free in this country once again. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Mayor Giuliani? 20:26:20 GIULIANI: Hispanic Americans have already reached great heights in America. They've contributed so much. I saw that in my city. They pushed us to be better. They have the basic values that make us better, values of family, values of hard work, getting a good job, education as the way to success. Even when you asked that question, "What are Hispanics concerned about?," they're concerned about a good education for their child, they're concerned about having an opportunity to work. These are basic American values. It's what the Cuban-Americans have done, coming to this country. It was wonderful for us that we had Cuban-Americans come here, it made us better, it made us better Americans. I see that with all the different Hispanic populations in New York that are very, very diverse. This is one country, but it's a country that's informed by all these great traditions. And when you say Hispanic, we also should recognize this is a diverse tradition. It's from many different countries. They share these common values, but they're coming here to be Americans, and they're making us better by being here in America. GIULIANI: And I think -- I think we do the right things; we have the right approach; we have the right leadership, the sky's the limit for Hispanic Americans. But, you know something, the sky's the limit for all Americans if we have the right kind of leadership. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you. Governor Romney? 20:27:43 ROMNEY: America needs all Americans. We're in a time of real need. We're the strongest nation on Earth; we're the hope of the Earth. But we face some extraordinary challenges -- global jihadists, violent jihadists, who want to bring down our nations and other nations. We face, as well, tough new competition coming from places like China and India, unlike anything we've known before. We spend way too much money in Washington, particularly on entitlements that are growing more and more weighty on us. ROMNEY: We have extraordinary challenges culturally as people are deciding to have kids without being married. There are all sorts of challenges in our country. And right now, we need to do what Ronald Reagan did, which is call on America's strength. As he faced the difficulties of the last century, he said, let's have a strong military and a strong economy that can outcompete the Russians. And let's make sure we have strong values and confidence in ourselves. 20:28:32 The Hispanic community, like all other communities in this great nation, need to come together and strengthen America. Because this is the land of the brave and the home of the free. And Hispanics are brave and they are free, as are all of the people of this great nation. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) MODERATOR: Thank you. 20:28:57 Thank you very much to all the candidates for being here with us tonight -- and Univision. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks a lot. 20:29:05 END OF TAPE

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