A: The market is a wonderful thing. The free market is one of our greatest assets. With the free market, the sky’s the limit. The reality is that what we have to do is look at the fundamentals. A president can’t be a economic forecaster. What are the fundamentals? Keep taxes low. Keep regulations moderate. Keep spending under control. That’s an area where we need a lot of help.
ROMNEY: Well, we both agree with the need to cut taxes and have fought to do so. [But] Mayor Giuliani fought to keep the commuter tax, which was a very substantial tax, an almost $400 tax on commuters coming into New York.
GIULIANI: The difference is that under Governor Romney, spending went up in Massachusetts per capita by 8%; under me, spending went down by 7%. I brought taxes down by 17%. Under him, taxes went up 11% per capita. I led, he lagged.
ROMNEY: It’s a nice line, but it’s baloney. Mayor, you got to check your facts. #1, I did not increase taxes in Massachusetts; I lowered taxes. #2, the Club for Growth looked at our respective spending record. They said my spending grew 2.2% a year; yours grew 2.8% a year. But look, we’re both guys that are in favor of keeping spending down and keep taxes down. We’re not far apart on that.
A: No how, no way. It’s not going to happen. Give me a break. Of course, London’s not going to replace New York.
Q: Well, the number of IPOs is higher in London in 2007 than in New York.
A: This is the strongest economy on earth. If this generation can’t keep it that way, shame on us. What country do millions of people want to come to--the United States. China and India are trying to develop themselves to be like us, which is why we’ve got a heck of a lot we can sell to them
Q: So how do you explain the loss of business in New York going to London?
A: I explain it based on some of the mistakes that we make when we overregulate and we overtax. Our corporate tax rate is the second highest in the world. Everybody around the world wants to lower corporate tax rates but the leading Democratic candidates, who want to raise taxes 25% or 30%. That would be a disaster for this country.
A: I think Iran would be a lot more of a paper tiger if we were more energy independent. You could go on into a lot of examples like that. This is a matter of national security. You’ve got to support all the alternatives. There’s no magic bullet here--biofuels, nuclear power. We haven’t licensed a nuclear power plant in 30 years. We haven’t had a new refinery in 30 years. We’re on hold. Hydroelectric power, solar power, wind power, conservation-- we have to support all of these things. The president has to treat this like putting a man on the moon.
Q: But where do you draw the line? Do you support drilling off the coast of Florida, California?
A: You don’t draw the line anywhere. What you do is you work with people to try to advance all of these technologies. Long-term damage to our environment would be a mistake, that would be an overreaction. You have to make sound judgments, and you have to advance these new technologies.
A: I think we’re on a verge of going in one direction or another. I mean, for example, if you want to get specific, the four trade deals with Peru, Colombia, Panama, South Korea that are in front of Congress right now, which the Democrats are trying to block, would be good deals for the US. In 3 of the 4 of them, we would actually get to export more than we’re importing. Why they would want to block this I can’t understand. We’re already importing about 98% from those countries. [Regarding protectionism], I think you got to almost separate them into two different categories. There’s economic protection, and then there’s protection for safety, security and legal rights. And I don’t think we’ve done a particularly good job on the second. We can’t say because these agreements weren’t perfect, because they have problems, because they have issues, we’re going to turn our back on free trade.
A: Actually, the way to balance that is to sell more things overseas. That’s the usual Democratic pessimistic approach. How about we try an optimistic approach? The way to balance the books is sell more overseas. Sell energy independence. Sell health care. Let’s do it in a positive way.
GIULIANI: The line-item veto is unconstitutional. I took Bill Clinton to the Supreme Court and beat him. It’s unconstitutional. What the heck can you do about that if you’re a strict constructionist?
ROMNEY: I’m in favor of the line-item veto. I had it, used it 844 times. I want to see Libby Dole’s line-item veto put in place. I’d have never gone to the Supreme Court and said it’s unconstitutional.
Q: Do you believe it is?
ROMNEY: I believe the line-item veto, if properly structured, passes constitutional muster. I’m in favor of the line-item veto to make sure that the president is able to help cut out pork and waste.
GIULIANI: You have to be honest with people. The line-item veto is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has ruled on it. I am in favor of a line-item veto, except you have to do it legally. If I had let Pres. Clinton take $250 million away from the people of my city illegally and unconstitutionally, I wouldn’t have been much of a mayor.
GIULIANI: Sure, I think unions have made a positive contribution. My grandmother was an early member of the United Ladies Garment Workers Union, and I don’t know that our family would have gotten out of poverty without that. But the reality is that there are good unions, and there are bad unions. Our free economy is like that.
McCAIN: I come from a right-to-work state. If someone wants to join a union in my state, they’re free to do so, but they are not compelled to do so.
GIULIANI: You know, the UAW reached a very responsible pact the other day. I don’t know that you could have gotten a solution like that if you didn’t have a vibrant union. But there are ones that aren’t good unions, and I think the senator is correct -- people should have a right to either belong to a union or not.
A: I think it’s the new serious area of crime that’s emerging. First of all, let’s separate the economics from the safety and security, like we have to do with free trade agreements; that we should not tax the Internet. There are people who are proposing taxing the Internet. That’d be a really, really big mistake. We should police the Internet in that we should make sure that child predators aren’t taking advantage of the Internet. There are a lot of good state and local law enforcement efforts in that regard. I think a task force between the federal government and state and local governments, in order to police it, to share information--those are the kinds of things that we have to do.
Q: Should we have an FCC-style agency for the Internet?
A: If it becomes worse--I’m not big on setting up new agencies. I’m sort of bigger on making the ones that we have work.
A: It really depends on exigency of the circumstances and how legitimate it is that it really is an exigent circumstance. It’s desirable. It’s safer to go to Congress, get approval from Congress. If you’re really dealing with exigent circumstance, then the president has to act in the best interests of the country.
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The above quotations are from State of Michigan Politicians: Archives.
Click here for other excerpts from State of Michigan Politicians: Archives. Click here for other excerpts by Rudy Giuliani. Click here for a profile of Rudy Giuliani.
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