Fox News Sunday interviews during 2015: on Budget & Economy

Donald Trump: Strong on debt limit; ask for a pound of flesh

TRUMP: OK, I would use the debt limit. I want to be unpredictable, because, you know, we need unpredictability. Everything is so predictable with our country. But I would be very, very strong on the debt limit. And I could see asking for a very big pound of flesh if I were the Republicans.

Carly Fiorina: Simplify tax code and reduce regulation

FIORINA: First we have to remember what the engine of economic growth is in this nation? Small businesses, family-owned businesses, community-based businesses. Two-thirds of new jobs are created by small businesses. Half of Americans are employed by small businesses. We're crushing them. We're now destroying more than we're creating. That's why we have to roll back this regulatory burden and take a 75,000-page tax code and make it three pages, because guess what? When you have a big costly, complicated government, only the big, the powerful, wealthy and well connected can deal with it. It's called crony capitalism. It's why we must reduce the size of government.

Rick Perry: Dodd-Frank should focus on Wall Street, not community banks

Perry: I talked about smart regulations. There's a difference between more regulation and Dodd-Frank, [the banking regulation law]. Dodd-Frank drove community banks out of business. I used to be on a small bank board back in Haskell County in Texas, and I know what these regulations are doing. I think it makes a lot of sense for us to have these big banks. You realize that the six largest banks in the country have 61% of the mortgages now. It's a stunning number. We're seeing Freddie and Fannie Mae back in the business of having small down payments to be able to get a loan.

Rick Perry: Federal Reserve & Wall Street actions have hurt our economy

Bobby Jindal: Reduced size of government in Louisiana

JINDAL: We actually measure prosperity according to how people are doing in the real world, not the government sector. In Louisiana, we have balanced our budget 8 years in a row without raising taxes. Largest income tax cut in our state's history. Secondly, we have cut our state budget by 26%, $9 billion and cut over 30,000 fewer state government bureaucrats. We've had eight credit upgrades. We've got more people working than ever before in Louisiana's history, earning a higher income than ever before. We've reversed 25 years of out-migration. You look at Louisiana's economy and we have $60 billion, 90,000 jobs coming into our state because of economic development wins.

Bernie Sanders: We've transferred trillions from middle class to the top 1%

SANDERS: Well, she's absolutely right. What we're seeing, is that for 40 years, the American middle class has been disappearing. Millions of people are working longer hours for lower wages despite a huge increase in technology and productivity. And what we have seen during that period is a massive transfer of trillions of dollars from the middle class to the top 1/10 of 1% of America--massive wealth and income inequality, where you have 99% of all new income today going to the top 1%.

Q: You said you had serious doubts about whether she was willing to take on the billionaire class?

SANDERS: That is the fight that we have to wage if we're to save the middle class: take on the big money interests who control so much of our economy and, as a result of Citizens United, our political process as well.