Kerry Healey in MA gubernatorial debate on Fox News

On Abortion: I've always been pro choice, even when Romney disagreed

HEALEY: We’ve always disagreed on choice and I think those differences have only become more stark over time. And I respect that, I respect differences of opinion, but I’ve always been pro choice.

On Budget & Economy: Focus on local aid and mobilizing people to call for it

MIHOS: But you can’t get it done. You’ve been trying. You won’t work with them, you vilify them each and every day.

HEALEY: The people who are watching here tonight can mobilize and get that done. When people are educated they will pick up their phone and call up their legislator and demand what is theirs and they deserve the rollback.

ROSS: Your office had the capacity to veto any piece of the budget that you wanted to veto and I don’t see the billion dollars that you’re talking about.

HEALEY: They had the capacity to override it. It’s 77% Democrats.

On Corporations: Make permitting process easier for businesses

HEALEY: Small businesses are facing an incredible challenge right now. When people are trying to expand, they can’t do it. If we really are serious about job creation, we need to roll back the income tax. And then finally, we need to work on our permitting process. Businesses can’t expand if they don’t know when they can get that shovel in the ground. We’ll continue to work hard to make it easier.

On Crime: Check immigration status when police stop motorists

On Education: Strong supporter of the MCAS and standards

HEALEY: It’s not all about funding, it’s about standards. I’m a strong supporter of the MCAS. Over the last 10 years we’ve brought our schools from being below the national average to way above the national average in terms of the SAT scores We have over 90% of our kids who past that test every year and it tells our employers that they are qualified to do the jobs they’re going to be asked to do. Standards are important.

On Education: Merit pay for best teachers & those at most-needed schools

HEALEY: I have two proposals around merit pay. I’d like to test our kids in the beginning of the year and the end of the year to help identify who really are our best teachers and I’d love to give them merit pay. The other thing I’d like to do is give incentives of additional pay to our best teachers to go and teach in the schools where they’re needed most, in our schools that have been identified as under-performing.

On Energy & Oil: I like wind energy, but Cape Wind is a bad idea

On Environment: Fight new regulations that put fishermen out of business

HEALEY: There’s no one here who has worked as hard as I have to make sure that our fishing industry here in Massachusetts continues to thrive. I’ve been down in Washington fighting against the new regulations that are genuinely putting our fishermen right out of business right now. They are incredibly strict regulations that are going to ruin the fish industry

On Health Care: Save $160M by consolidating city & town insurance purchases

HEALEY: [I would] consolidate all of our health care purchases for our cities and towns and have them bought through the state group insurance commission. That will take literally hundreds of millions of dollars that is wasted right now and put it back onto the plate of our cities and towns and that will relieve the pressure on local taxes.

On Immigration: Opposes in-state tuition for illegal immigrants

HEALEY: A lot of people are struggling to pay for college for their kids. If we have enough money to give the equivalent of a $40,000 scholarship to someone who is not in the country legally than we should use that money to lower tuition for the kids who are citizens who have been paying taxes into this system. I think its wrong to give in- state tuition to illegal immigrants and I will continue to oppose that.

On Immigration: Urges Attorney General to investigate hiring illegals

HEALEY: You know it’s good that you ask that question, we have been urging the Attorney General to do just that. That’s his job as AG, to get in there and do that and we’ve been asking him to do that.

MIHOS: So zero.

On Immigration: Opposes issuing licenses to illegal immigrants

HEALEY: I do oppose issuing licenses to illegal immigrants because that is your most basic form of identification here in America. If you have that card you can get on an airplane, you can go to another state, you can disappear into society. I could not disagree more with Deval Patrick on this topic. I think that that drivers license has real meaning and it’s very dangerous to give it to illegal immigrants.

On Jobs: Deval's pledge to work with AFL-CIO means higher costs

PATRICK: I have lots of labor and other endorsements and I haven’t traded a quid pro quo for one of them.

HEALEY: What did the pledge say?

PATRICK: I have pledged to be open and respectful to all voices. I’m going to do with labor as governor exactly what I’ve done with labor in private business. Which is to negotiate, to do that in an above-board way, to do that within fiscal constraints and to produce an outcome that serves us all. What we need is an active and broadening economic base and to do that in practical ways.

On Local Issues: Called for Big Dig reform in 2003; still investigating now

HEALEY: From the very beginning of the administration, we filed a budget that would merge the Turnpike Authority with Mass Highway. Why was that? Because we knew reforms were needed. We had no idea about the safety concerns at that point. We went to the legislature repeatedly and asked them to merge these two entities so that the governor could have control over it. Finally it took a tragedy to have them allow us to do that. We’re finally getting that stem to stern review done.

PATRICK: My plan is to appoint an independent special inspector general, someone who doesn’t have relationships with any of the interests on Beacon Hill.

HEALEY: That’s precisely what we have done. We’ve gotten experts from around the country.

MIHOS: People are dead, Kerry. It’s intentional indifference on your part.

HEALEY: Your facts are wrong and the fact is that people are very pleased that today Governor Romney is in charge of this process.

On Principles & Values: Republican governor balances 87% Democrat legislature

On Tax Reform: Avoid property tax increases by reducing waste

HEALEY: By rolling back the income tax we’ll put more money into working peoples’ pockets, and I have a plan to take pressure off our local taxes as well by reforming our pension system, and allowing our cities and towns to invest their pensions with our state treasurer’s office. That will take literally hundreds of millions of dollars that is wasted right now and put it back onto the plate of our cities and towns and that will relieve the pressure on local taxes.

PATRICK: We’ve been playing the fiscal shell game with this administration. This is an administration that talks about rolling the income tax back and is responsible at the same time for proposing $985 million in new taxes and increased fees. $1.8 billion in increases in property taxes. That’s all about shifting the burden. Let’s be clear and candid with each other. People are ready for the truth. We can afford a 5% income rate when the economy has expanded to enable it.

On Tax Reform: Failure to roll back taxes cost people $2 billion since 2000

HEALEY: The people of this state voted overwhelmingly back in the year 2000 to cut the tax rate to 5 percent. Since that time they have paid in $2 billion in extra taxes that we didn’t need. The last two years we’ve had billion dollar budget surpluses, each of those years. Now the legislature has spent that money. We need to take it off the table in order to have fiscal discipline and my opponent cannot provide that.