Rick Santorum in CNN 2015 GOP primary debate
On Civil Rights:
Freedom of conscience includes right to deny service to gays
Q: Should Kim Davis, an elected official in Kentucky, have been jailed for refusing to provide same-sex marriage licenses?SANTORUM: Today, someone who defies a judge's unconstitutional verdict is ridiculed and criticized, chastised because she's
standing up and not denying her God and her faith. People have a fundamental right in the First Amendment: the freedom of conscience.
PATAKI: When you are an elected official and you take an oath of office to uphold the law, all the laws, you cannot
pick and choose or you no longer have a society that depends on the rule of law.
SANTORUM: Martin Luther King wrote in his letter from the Birmingham jail that there are just laws and there are unjust laws. And we have no obligation to condone and
accept unjust laws. An unjust law goes against the moral code or God's law or the natural law. I would argue that what the Supreme Court did is against the natural law, it's against God's law and we have every obligation to stand in opposition to it.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Government Reform:
Oppose Supreme Court when exceeding constitutional authority
We need a president who's going to fight a court that is abusive, that has superseded their authority.
Judicial supremacy is not in the Constitution, and we need a president and a Congress to stand up to a court when it exceeds its constitutional authority.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Government Reform:
I fought for conservative judges & filibustered liberal ones
Justice Roberts had a long, good record. He made a bad decision on ObamaCare but he's made a lot of great decisions, too. I don't regret standing up for John Roberts. I fought when I was in the Senate. We fought, for the first time, to defeat justices
and judges that Bill Clinton nominated and I fought with President Bush to defend his nominees. So I have been there on the front line, fighting for judges and conservative justices and I will do so as president like none other.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Health Care:
I introduced Health Savings Accounts in Congress
I authored the original bill on health savings accounts, pushed that through the Congress for private sector health care reform. I made things happen in a town where things don't happen very much.
Now, after 10 years of seeing the mess, the retreat that we see in the Republican party in Washington, D.C., it's time to get someone who is an outsider.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Homeland Security:
If you're a scientist & work on Iran nukes, you're not safe
Q: You said, "We should send a very clear message that If you are a scientist and you're going to work on a nuclear program to develop a bomb for Iran, you are not safe." SDO you still agree, after the catastrophic deal?SANTORUM: 12 years ago I
authored the Iran Freedom Support Act, which put sanctions on the Iran nuclear program. We came within 4 votes of passing it. The 4 people who opposed: Joe Biden, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And we came four votes short.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Immigration:
35M immigrants over past 20 years hold down American wages
Just about everybody in this field supports some pathway to citizenship. This debate should not be about what we're going to do with someone who's here illegally. This debate should be about what's in the best interest of Americans?
What's in the best interest of America is to look at wages, look at employment. 70 to 90% of people who've come into this country, 35 million over the last 20 years, are wage earners that are holding wages down, taking jobs away from America.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Immigration:
All new American job growth has gone to immigrants
The reason that you're seeing the angst and the anger out there and the reason this issue has taken off is because workers in America know that their wages are being undermined.
From the year 2000 to the year 2014, there're 5.7 million net new jobs created. What % of those jobs are held by people who weren't born here? The answer is all of them.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Immigration:
I had a comprehensive plan in 2006
SANTORUM: I did have a plan in 2006. I introduced a plan called "A Comprehensive Border Security Bill," which did, in fact, put the resources to build the fencing, and deploy the troops, and the technology necessary.
GRAHAM: What do you do with the 11 million?
SANTORUM: 40 to 60% are here on visa overstays. We have a government that doesn't tell them to return home. The point is that I had a bill...
GRAHAM: That went nowhere.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Jobs:
Focus on improving life for average American workers
I will be out there talking about how we have to control immigration. How we have to look after the American worker.
The focus of this debate should be on how we're going to win this election and help improve the quality of life for American workers.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Jobs:
Fewer than 1% of Americans earn minimum wage; let it go up
The GOP is a party that supports special interest tax provisions for a whole bunch of other businesses, but, when it comes to hardworking Americans who are at the bottom of the income scale, we can't provide some level of income support?
What I've proposed is not that would be harmful to the American public, but a $.50 cents an hour increase over three years, which is what I'm proposing. By the way, 90 percent of American workers don't own a business. Most are wage earners.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Principles & Values:
Pass a 1st Amendment Defense Act
16 years ago, this country was inspired by a young woman who faced a gunman in Columbine and was challenged about her faith and refused to deny God. Today, someone who defies a judge's unconstitutional verdict is chastised. That is a huge difference
in 16 years. People have a fundamental right in the First Amendment. I believe we have to pass the First Amendment Defense Act, which provides that room for people who do not want to be complicit in what they believe is against their faith.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Tax Reform:
20/20 tax plan: all income treated the same
Q: Jeb Bush has proposed a tax reform plan, and in it, he limits deductions, including the popular home mortgage deduction. Would you?SANTORUM: Actually, I'm going to be proposing a plan, I call it the 20/20 perfect vision for America as flat tax, a
20% flat tax on income, 20% flat tax on capital gains and on corporations. We eliminate all the deductions and special interest provisions. We deal with the carried interest issue, because everybody pays the same 20%. So, there's no advantage as to
how you take your income. That will create growth. We put a 20% rate on corporations; then we're competitive with almost every country in the world. We allow for expensing; we have a three year phase in. We start at zero for manufacturers,
phase it up to 20. So, the answer is, we're going to lower, and flatten taxes. We're going to put government on a budget: a 10% across the board cut.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On War & Peace:
Iranians believe in bringing about the end of the world
For 12 years, I have been laser-beam focused on the issue of Iran with a nuclear weapon. Why? Because I understand who they are. Yes, they are radical Islamists. But their particular version is an apocalyptic version, which is a death cult, they believe
in bringing about the end of the world. If you poll Iranians and Iraqis, Shi'ites in the region, more than 2/3 of them believe that the end of the world is going to come within their lifetime. Why? Because their regime preaches it. They believe in
bringing about the end of times. That's their theological goal and we are in the process of giving them a nuclear weapon to do just that. That's why, on day one, I would say to the Iranian government, you open up all of these facilities for inspection,
you make them available to the UN & to the US, everything, we can go everywhere or else we will take out those facilities. And when people say, "you're going to start a war," my response is, "no, I'm going to stop a war because a nuclear Iran is the end.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On War & Peace:
ISIL's caliphate changes the game: send US troops
I have proposed 10,000 troops, and more if necessary. Once ISIS established a caliphate, the game changed because once you establish a caliphate, you have an area of control, you have to take ground from that caliphate,
because if you don't, then, in the Islamic world, it's seen as a legitimate caliphate. As long as they have territorial integrity, and even expand it, they have legitimacy, so we must take their ground.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
On Welfare & Poverty:
I led the fight to end welfare as we know it
Some of you may know me because I led the fight to end partial birth abortion. Some of you may know me because the I led the fight to end welfare as we know it, put people back to work, reduce poverty and reduce the federal budget.
Some of you may know me because I successfully put sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program in Congress, over opposition of both parties initially.
But hopefully, most of you know me most because I'm the proud father of seven children with particularly a special little disabled girl, who is the heart and core of my heart and married to a wonderful woman named
Karen for 25 years, who is the love of my life.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary undercard debate on CNN
Sep 16, 2015
Page last updated: Dec 07, 2018