2011 GOP primary debate in Manchester NH: on Jobs

Herman Cain: Economy is stalled like a train with no engine & no fuel

A: The thing we need to do is to get this economy boosted. This economy is stalled. It's like a train on the tracks with no engine. And the administration has simply been putting all of this money in th caboose. We need an engine called the private sector. That means lower taxes. Uncertainty is killing this economy. This is the only way we're going to get this economy moving, and that's to put the right fuel in the engine, which is the private sector.

Herman Cain: I believe in right-to-work laws

PAWLENTY: People shouldn't be forced be a member in any organization. And the government has no business telling you what group to be a member of or not.

GINGRICH: I hope that N.H. does adopt right-to-work. I'd keep it at the state level because as each new state becomes right to work, they send a signal to the remaining states.

CAIN: I do believe that the states should have the right. I believe in right-to-work, and I hope that N.H. is able to get it passed. And I agree with the speaker and the others who believe that if the federal government continues to do the kinds of thing that this administration is trying to do through the back door, through the National Labor Relations Board, that's killing our free market system, which made this economy great. And we have to keep the free market system strong.

Michele Bachmann: Omnibus bill to repeal job-killing bills, starting with EPA

A: The federal government and the states have done numerous job training programs over the year with mixed results. Today the US has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. I'm a former federal tax lawyer. I've seen the devastation. We've got to bring that tax rate down substantially so that we're among the lowest in the industrialized world.

Here's the other thing. Every time the liberals get into office, they pass an omnibus bill of big spending projects. What we need to do is pass the mother of all repeal bills, but it's the repeal bill that will get a job killing regulations. And I would begin with the EPA, because there is no other agency like the EPA. It should really be renamed the job-killing organization of America.

Newt Gingrich: Defund National Labor Relations Board; favor right-to-work

A: One of the things the Congress should do immediately is defund the National Labor Relations Board which has gone into South Carolina to punish Boeing, which wants to put 8,000 American jobs in S.C. by fundamentally eliminating right-to-work at the National Labor Relations Board. That's a real, immediate threat from the Obama administration to eliminate right to work. And I think that it is fundamentally the wrong direction. I hope that New Hampshire does adopt right-to-work. I frankly keep it at the state level because as each new state becomes right to work, they send a signal to the remaining states, don't be stupid. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, we ought to let the states learn from each other. And the right-to-work states are creating a lot more jobs today that they heavily unionized states.

Ron Paul: Printing & inflating money ships jobs overseas

PAUL: Pretty important because everything we've done in the last 20 or 30 years we've exported our jobs. And when you have a reserve currency of the world and you abuse it, you export money. That becomes the main export so [jobs] go with the money. The way you get capital into a country, you have to have a strong currency. Today it's a deliberate job of the Federal Reserve to weaken the currency. We should invite capital back.

We have at least a trillion dollars of US money made overseas, but it stays over there because if you bring it home, you get taxed. We need to get the Fed to quit printing the money and if we have to entice those individuals to repatriate their money, deregulate and de-tax to invite people to go back to work again.

As long as we run a program of deliberately weakening our currency, our jobs will go overseas, and that is what's happened for a good many years, especially in the last decade.

Tim Pawlenty: I strongly support right-to-work laws

PAWLENTY: People shouldn't be forced to belong or be a membe in any organization. And the government has no business telling you what group to be a member of or not. I support strongly right-to-work legislation. For much of his life my dad was a teamster truck driver. I was in a union. We grew up in a blue-collar town. I understand these issues. But we don't have a government tell us what organizations or associations we should be in. We tell the government what to do.

GINGRICH: I hope that N.H. does adopt right-to-work. I'd frankly keep it at the state level because as each new state becomes right to work, they send a signal to the remaining states, don't be stupid.

CAIN: I do believe that the states should have the right. I believe in right-to-work, and I hope that N.H. is able to get it passed.