Bill Weld in Business Insider GOP primary debate

On Budget & Economy: No such thing as government money; only taxpayer's money

Weld: My motto when I was in office was "there's no such thing as government money; there's only taxpayer's money." Boy, has everyone in Washington forgotten about that. There's nobody looking out for the taxpayers there. The Dems want to raise spending by 5% or 10% on social programs. The Republicans want to raise that on military. So they demonize each other until they've both raised enough money to all get reelected. It's a total disgrace.

Q: Do you keep the Trump tax cut?

Weld: Oh, I would keep them. I never met a tax cut I didn't like.

Q: But then where do you cut?

Weld: You cut across the board. You have to zero base the budget and not assume you start with last year's appropriation. You have to measure outcomes instead of inputs. How much money was spent last year--that should be irrelevant. Was it a good program? Increase it. If it wasn't, zero it out. That's how you cut spending, and I did it.

On Civil Rights: Created Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth

On LGBTQ rights:
• Weld supported an amicus brief that petitioned to overturn California's law that outlawed same-sex marriage.
• Weld created the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.
• He was supportive of allowing transgender individuals access to bathrooms of their choice.
• GLAAD's CEO said: "Gov. Weld represents what is needed & has been missing within the Republican Party: a campaign message about acceptance for all marginalized communities, including LGBTQ people."

On Education: Abolish the federal Department of Education

On education:
• Weld has supported abolishing the Department of Education, as is common with fiscal conservatives looking to reduce government's overall size.
• As governor he signed bills into law to increase school standards.

On Environment: I'm a lifelong environmentalist, like Theodore Roosevelt

Bill Weld: No, it is not. And the regulations that the president has rolled back are regulations dear to my heart to protect clean air & clean water in the United States. I'm a lifelong environmentalist. The Republican Party has a rich tradition in conserving our environment. Theodore Roosevelt started a national park service. It goes all the way back to Abraham Lincoln. The Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act were enacted when Richard Nixon was president. Mr. Trump is tossing that out the window in order to do whatever might be beneficial to the coal companies. But they deserve no credit for their deregulator efforts in the environmental area. The only other regulations they really rolled back are the regs designed to protect little people in the event of another 2008 financial crisis.

On Free Trade: Rejoin TPP in a heartbeat: beachhead against China

Bill Weld: Oh I absolutely would rejoin, would join TPP in a heartbeat. I point out that during the campaign candidate Trump said no we can't join the Trans-Pacific Partnership because it would be dominated by China. He's so incurious and so ignorant about foreign affairs that he didn't know that China is not a member of TPP. The whole idea was that we would have a consortium of 12 Pacific Navy facing nations some in Asia some in the Americas without China at the table. So it would be our beachhead in Asia. I think the relationship with China. Has to be a complex one. We're the two biggest players out there. Xi Jinping I had high hopes for when he came, in but he really has resubsidized all those SOEs, the state owned enterprises, and we're getting our brains beat in around the world and on intellectual property they are complete scofflaws. So you've got to be tough and I think we'll probably return to this.

On Government Reform: Accepts donations from individuals and PACs

On campaign finance:
• Former special counsel and FBI Director Robert Mueller donated to Weld's 1996 Senate campaign.
• During the 2016 presidential race, Weld accepted donations from individuals and PACs.

On Gun Control: 1990s: supported assault weapons bans

On guns:
• Weld broke with Republicans to back assault weapons bans in the 1990s.
• He has also supported waiting periods for firearms purchases and bans on handgun sales to individuals under 21.

On Homeland Security: Lesson of Iraq War: train Saudis, but no US troops there

WELD: One of the things that troubles me about Trump in the foreign area is he claims to be a non-interventionist but he's awful quick on sending those troops. A couple of months ago he said, "I'm sending 5,000 more troops to the Middle East immediately." Well, they never got there because they must have had a second thought. And he never said what it was for. I'm not quite clear why we're sending troops to Saudi Arabia to defend their oil supplies. Don't they have any troops over there? I know they have a lot of weapons--because we sold them all to Saudi Arabia--but maybe we should make sure they know how to fly those planes and fire those missiles. I just I don't get it. Boots on the ground to another country for regime change or to correct something that we see in the other country that we don't like? That's the height of the lessons we learned from the Iraq war --we shouldn't do that.

On Principles & Values: Trump's Ukraine caper is impeachable and treasonous

WELD: I think the Ukraine caper by the president is some combination of treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. The one thing that's absolutely clear is that it's grounds for removal from office. You have a sitting U.S. president essentially selling the results of an American presidential election in which he is a candidate and rigging it in his favor against another candidate corruptly. The end of the Mueller report makes it very plain that any activity this president takes to benefit himself or his family politically or financially is a corrupt action. Suspending the aid and then immediately calling up the president and saying "do this to kill Biden." And meanwhile $400 million is no longer there as of 3 or 4 days before the call. How stupid are we supposed to be? How stupid is the president of Ukraine supposed to be? He knows exactly what Mr. Trump is saying to him. And it's vastly illegal.

On Tax Reform: I never met a tax cut I didn't like

Bill Weld: First of all, as governor, I never met a tax cut I didn't like. I cut taxes 21 times and I never raised them--so I'm not going to criticize a tax cut, although obviously it could have been more equitable. But this this president is not a fiscal conservative. He's gone along with his trillion dollar deficits every year. I was ranked the most fiscally conservative governor in the United States. And I was governor of Massachusetts after three terms of Michael Dukakis. So that took some doing. But no, we simply can't sit still for this guy who's a disgrace to the office almost every day

On War & Peace: Troops out of Afghanistan; should have done it long ago

Rep. Joe Walsh: I would be honest with the Saudis. Iran's the biggest threat in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is no great guy either. With these troops, I worry about us getting further involved in a region that we shouldn't get involved in. Our men and women ought to be home from Afghanistan by now. We support Israel and we've got to do whatever we can to encourage that part of the world to move toward a democracy. But I don't like us placing resources in there, especially placing American troops.

Gov. Weld: I agree with the congressman our troops should have been home from Afghanistan a long time ago. but we've been there 18 years. People say oh we can't bring them home now to which they respond. It begs the question "when?" How about "never?" Is never what you're for? Because that's what they really mean.

On War & Peace: Supported the Obama administration's Iran nuclear deal

On foreign policy:
• Weld opposes countries being allowed to develop nuclear without proper oversight, calling proliferation "the number one threat to the security of the world." He supported the Obama administration's Iran nuclear deal.
• President Bill Clinton tapped Weld to serve as his ambassador to Mexico, but withdrew his nomination after complications in the Senate.
• Weld has since been critical of the Iraq War and other invasions, according to The New York Times.

On Welfare & Poverty: Greatly increase the earned income tax credit

On taxes:
• He supports tax cuts, implementing more than a dozen during his time as governor.
• Weld wants to increase tax credits for lower-income Americans. "One thing I did do as governor in Massachusetts was to greatly increase the earned income tax credit, which helps the working poor. I probably would do more of that because we don't need to have people making $29,000 a year who have a family. If that sounds like attacking income inequality, that's because it is," Weld told Vox.