Americans for Tax Reform

On Taxes – In Their Own Words
Third Republican Debate
June 5, 2007
Saint Anselm College
CNN

KYSA CRUSCO: My question is whether you believe that a conservative platform can also include a conservationist agenda, and if so, how.

MS. VAUGHN: Mayor Giuliani?

MR. GIULIANI: What I would do is change the whole model that we have for health insurance in this country. The problem with our health insurance is it’s government- and employer-dominated. People don’t make individual choices. It’s your health; you should own your health insurance.We should be giving you a major tax deduction — $15,000 for a family — so you can buy your own health insurance. If you buy health insurance for 8,000 (dollars) or 9,000 (dollars), you’ll save five (thousand dollars) or $6,000 in tax-free money. Then we should have a health savings account in which you can put some money aside to pay for your ordinary medical expenses. Health insurance should become like homeowners insurance or like car insurance: You don’t cover everything in your homeowners policy. If you have a slight accident in your house, if you need to refill your oil with your car, you don’t cover that with insurance. But that is covered in many of the insurance policies because they’re government dominated and they’re employer dominated. What the Democrats suggested on this stage two nights ago was socialized medicine. There’s a man in California who said to me, “When we make health insurance free, just wait and see how expensive it will become.” And the reality is that we need a free market. We need 100 million Americans making different decisions that will bring down the cost of health insurance, it will bring down the cost of prescription medicines. Free-market principles are the only things that reduce cost and improve quality. Socialized medicine will ruin medicine in the United States. (Applause.)

MR. GILMORE: Wolf, let me answer the question. Principle is the difference. The Republicans have always been a party of principle, and when we deviate from that, the people of the United States remember. Let me say this. Number one, on the issue of immigration, it violates the principle of the rule of law, and if we pass this bill and support it as Republicans, we will lose again.
Spending — if we continue to earmark and spend and spend —

MR. BLITZER: Thank you.

MR. GILMORE: —we will be violating our principles. And finally on taxes, the president has a pretty good tax program, as a matter of fact, that’s not only helped the economy but helped regular people. And Hillary Clinton is wrong —

MR. BLITZER: Thank you.

MR. GILMORE:— when she says that we should eliminate those tax cuts. (Applause.)

MR. BLITZER: Thank you.

MR. BLITZER: All right. I got to let all three of them respond. Governor Romney, go ahead. Go ahead first. But do it very briefly.

MR. ROMNEY: The model for how the Republican Party wins, and wins moderates, Democrats, Independents, conservatives, is who? Ronald Reagan. He did it. Ronald Reagan won in Massachusetts both times he ran. How did he do that? He had a stool he sat on that had three legs. One was a strong military; and today a strong military needs more troops, more funding to make sure that our troops are cared for in the battlefield with the equipment they need, and our veterans receive the care they need when they get home.

MR. BLITZER: Thanks.

MR. ROMNEY: Strong military, strong economy, keeping our taxes down, and strong families and strong family values.

MR. BLITZER: Thank you. (Applause.) Mayor Giuliani, I want you to respond specifically to what we’ve heard from Congressman Hunter.

MR. GIULIANI: I think, ma’am, the way to accomplish what you want is to nominate me. (Laughter.) That would be the way to do it. And I think the Republican Party can unite around two major principles that are bigger than all of us: being on offense against terrorism, unlike the Democrats, who are on defense against terrorism, and you saw that two nights ago here. They couldn’t even utter the word(s) “Islamic terrorism.” It’s our biggest enemy. They couldn’t utter it. We need somebody who can stand up to that. And second, someone who will be on offense for a growth economy. Fight this impulse to raise taxes, do socialized medicine —