Ted Cruz in Fox Business 2015 GOP primary debate
On Budget & Economy:
Would I bail out the banks again? Absolutely not!
Q: Senator Cruz, would you go after the people on Wall Street that Bernie Sanders says have "gotten away with a financial murder"?CRUZ: Absolutely yes. You know, I have spent much of my adult life enforcing the law and defending the Constitution. And
the problem that underlies all of this is the cronyism and corruption of Washington.
Q: Would you bail out the big banks again?
A: Nobody gave you an answer to that. I'll give you an answer. Absolutely not! The biggest lie in all of politics is that
Republicans are the party of the rich. The truth is, the rich do great with big government. The big banks get bigger and bigger under Dodd-Frank and community banks are going out of business.
KASICH:
When a bank is ready to go under and depositors are getting ready to lose their life savings, you just don't say we believe in philosophical concerns. When there are financial crisis, you got to go there and try to fix it.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ First Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Budget & Economy:
I would not bail out Bank of America
Q: If Bank of America were on the brink, you would let it fail?CRUZ: Yes. One of the reasons we had the financial crash is throughout the 2000s, the Federal Reserve had loose money, and then in 2008, the Fed tightened the money, which caused a
cascading collapse. That's why I support getting back to rules-based monetary system not with a bunch of philosopher-kings deciding.
Q: I understand that. I just want to be clear, that millions of depositors would be on the line with that decision.
If it were to happen again, for whatever the reason, you would let it go, you would let a Bank of America go?
Q: I would not bail them out, but instead of adjusting monetary policy according to whims and getting it wrong causing booms and busts, what
the Fed should be doing is keeping our money tied to a stable level of gold & serving as a lender of last resort. If you have a run on the bank, the Fed can serve as a lender of last resort, but it's not a bailout. It is a loan at higher interest rates.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Budget & Economy:
1.2% annual growth over last 8 years is a disaster
From 2008 to today, our economy has grown 1.2 percent a year on average. The Obama economy is a disaster. If you look at history, there are three levers that government has to facilitate growth. The first is tax reform. I have rolled out a simple flat
tax: 10 percent for every American that would produce growth and 4.9 million new jobs within a decade. The second is regulatory reform. The third element is sound money. Every time we've pursued all three of those, the result has been growth.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Corporations:
End sugar subsidies and corporate welfare
I mention 25 programs that I would eliminate. Among them is corporate welfare, like sugar subsidies. Let's take that as an example. Sugar farmers farm under roughly 0.2% of the farmland in America, and yet they spend 40% of
the lobbying money. That sort of corporate welfare is why we're bankrupting our kids, and grandkids. I would end those subsidies to pay for defending this nation.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Foreign Policy:
Under Hillary's leadership, every region of world is worse
She's got a lot of experience, but her policies have proven disastrous. If you look at foreign policy, every region in the world has gotten worse. Under her leadership, we abandon the nation of Israel. Under her leadership, radical
Islamic terrorism has been on to the rise. Under her leadership, and Obama's leadership, Iran is getting $100 billion dollars, and on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Government Reform:
Obama-era regulations hurt small business
Sabina Loving is an African-American single mom who started a tax preparation business in Chicago. Then the IRS promulgated new regulations targeting tax preparers. This statute and the IRS had exemptions for lawyers and big fancy accountants, but
Sabina had to pay $1,000 an employee. It would have driven her out of business, and Ms. Loving sued the IRS. She took the Obama IRS to court, and she won, and they struck down the rule for picking the big guys over the little guys.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Government Reform:
Eliminate IRS, HUD, and Departments of Commerce & Energy
We rolled out a spending plan: $500 billion in specific cuts--five major agencies that I would eliminate.
The IRS, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, and HUD--and then 25 specific programs.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Health Care:
Don't exempt Congress from ObamaCare, or any law
Q: What is the core problem of ObamaCare?FIORINA: Health insurance has always been a cozy, little game between regulators and health insurance companies.
We need to try the free market.
TRUMP: The ObamaCare bill--nobody ever read it. They passed it; nobody read it. And look at mess we have right now.
And it will be repealed.
CRUZ: The Congressional exemption from ObamaCare, which is fundamentally wrong, and I'll tell you this, if I'm elected president,
I will veto any statute that exempts members of congress. The law should apply evenly to every American.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Immigration:
Illegals are an economic calamity for low-wage Americans
For those who believe people 'ought to come to this country legally, we're tired of being told it's anti-immigrant. I am the son of an immigrant who came legally from Cuba. We can embrace legal immigration while believing in the rule of law.
Try going illegally to another country. Try going to China, or Japan. Try going to Mexico. See what they do. Every sovereign nation secures its borders, and it is not compassionate to say we're not going to enforce the laws.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Principles & Values:
We the people can turn this nation around
58 years ago, my father fled Cuba. As he stood on the deck of that ferryboat with the wind and salt air blowing, he looked back at the oppression and torture he was escaping. And yet he looked forward to the promise of America. His story is our story.
What ties Americans together is we are all the children of those who risked everything for freedom. If we get back to the free market principles and constitutional liberties that built this country, we can turn this country around.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Social Security:
Personal accounts for young; no changes for elderly
Q: You've argued for raising the retirement age and reducing benefits for future retirees, but reducing any sort of benefits for the elderly has always been notoriously hard to do politically. When Speaker Paul Ryan proposed replacing traditional
Medicare with federally funded private plans a few years ago, a liberal group responded with a commercial that featured a granny being pushed off a cliff. CRUZ: Well, my Mom is here, so I don't think we should be pushing any grannies off cliffs.
And, you mis-stated what I've said on entitlement reform. What I've said is for seniors we should make no changes whatsoever, for younger workers we should gradually raise the retirement age, we should have benefits grow more
slowly, and we should allow them to keep a portion of their taxes in a personal account that they control, and can pass on to their kids.
Q: I did say "for future retirees" was your statement...
Source: Fox Business/WSJ First Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Social Security:
Eliminate payroll tax entirely. and IRS entirely
Q: What about the payroll tax for Social Security?Sen. Rand PAUL: My tax plan is it gets rid of the payroll tax. Ours is 14.5 percent for corporations, 14.5 percent for individuals. No payroll tax for the employee.
The business tax pays for social security, and there would be two remaining deductions--home mortgage and charity.
Sen. CRUZ: My plan eliminates the payroll tax, eliminates the death tax, eliminates the corporate income tax, and it abolishes the IRS.
It costs less than every other plan people have put up here, and yet it produces more growth.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
On Tax Reform:
There are more words in the tax code than in the Bible
The current system isn't fair. Washington is fundamentally corrupt. There are more words in the IRS code than there are in the Bible and not a one of them is as good. Every one of them reflects a carve-out or a subsidy, and it's all about
empowering the Washington cartel. My simple Flat Tax says that, for a family of four, for the first $36,000 you earn, you pay no taxes whatsoever. No income taxes, no payroll taxes, no nothing. Above that, every American pays 10 percent across the board.
Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Nov 10, 2015
Page last updated: Dec 07, 2018