State of California secondary Archives: on Budget & Economy

Jimmy Panetta: Strengthen local agriculture, tourism, technology & research

Jimmy's goal is to strengthen the economic industries critical to jobs on the Central Coast--agriculture, tourism, technology, research, and education.

Nanette Barragan: Balance business interests and jobs for our communities

A stronger middle class means a stronger economy. We need to create robust job training programs, support small businesses and invest in growing technologies like clean energy to ensure our economy is growing and thriving.

John Chiang: Found $8 billion in government waste, fraud, & abuse

Dianne Feinstein: I'm a prudent voice for deficit reduction

Dianne Feinstein: I will continue to be a prudent voice for deficit reduction. I will continue my work to develop a national nuclear waste strategy, and my efforts to improve California's water infrastructure to provide stable water supplies in wet years and dry.

Elizabeth Emken: Robust growth produces more revenue; reduce spending now

Elizabeth Emken: The immediate answer is to reduce spending and regulatory burdens. There is no agency that cannot be reduced in some form. At the same time, economic growth is imperative. We cannot pay this debt down without robust growth that produces more revenue.

Herman Cain: 9-9-9 economic growth: stop picking winners & losers

CAIN: This is why I proposed my 9-9-9 plan. The government needs to get out of the business of picking winners and losers. The government needs to get out of the business of trying to figure out who gets a tax break here, who gets a tax break there. When you go to 9-9-9, it levels the playing field for all businesses. What a novel idea. And the government won't be in the business of trying to determine who's going to be able to make more money and pay no taxes and vice versa. Secondly, this recession is the worst recession since the Great Depression. If the recovery that this administration claims would just tie for last place, we would have another 6 million jobs. The president simply does not understand that the business sector is the engine for economic growth

Michele Bachmann: Problem is $1 in tax increases for each $3 in spending

PERRY: I join my fellow participants here. What we should have been looking at is a way to get the spending under control and capping it, cutting it, and getting a balanced budget amendment.

Q: Did anyone else who had their hand up at that last debate want to amend your comment since then

BACHMANN: Well, there's someone else who would join us in that agreement, and that would be Ronald Reagan, because Ronald Reagan made a deal where he took $3 in spending cuts for $1 in tax increases. And, in fact, what happened is that there ended up being $3 in tax increases and $1 in tax cuts. That's the problem with Washington, D.C. I've seen it all the time. That's why I've been leading on this issue for the last five years and why we can't trust the status quo in Washington, D.C.

Mitt Romney: I understand how the economy works because I lived in it

A: I'm happy to take a look at the Massachusetts record, because when I came in as governor, we were in a real freefall. We were losing jobs every month. We had a budget that was way out of balance. We were able to turn around the job losses. At the end of four years, we had our unemployment rate down to 4.7%. The policies that will get us working again as a nation are policies I understand having worked in the private sector. Look, if I had spent my whole life in government, I wouldn't be running for president right now. My experience, having started enterprises, having helped other enterprises grow and thrive, is what gives me the experience to put together a plan to help restructure the basis of America's economic foundation so we can create jobs again. Our president doesn't understand how the economy works. I do, because I've lived in it.

Mitt Romney: Let middle-income Americans save money tax-free

The question is not the people that are not paying taxes at the low end. The question is not the people who are very, very rich. The question is, how about middle-income Americans?

Who are the people most hurt by the Obama economy? And the answer is the middle class. The great majority of Americans are having a very, very difficult time. And our effort has to be to find ways to reduce to burden on those people.

And that's why I've proposed that anybody who's earnin $200,000 a year and less ought to be able to save their money tax-free, no tax on interest, dividends, or capital gains. Let people save their money, invest in America, and not have to give more money to the government. The middle class needs our help.

Mitt Romney: QE2 didn't work; focus on jobs & higher growth

ROMNEY: No, I'd be looking for somebody new. I think Ben Bernanke has over-inflated the amount of currency that he's created. QE2 did not work. It did not get Americans back to work. It did not get the economy going again. We're still seeing declining numbers in prior quarter estimates as to what the growth would be. We're growing now at 1% to 1.5%. The plan I put forward will grow our economy at 4% per year for four years and add 11.5 million jobs. That's a very different approach than Ben Bernanke's taken, and it's a demonstrably different approach than Barack Obama has taken, and that's in part because we have very different life experiences.

Newt Gingrich: The Fed's secrecy & power are antithetical to a free society

GINGRICH: I would fire him tomorrow.

Q: Why?

GINGRICH: I think he's been the most inflationary, dangerous, and power-centered chairman of the Fed in the history of the Fed. I think the Fed should be audited. I think the amount of money that he has shifted around in secret, with no responsibility, no accountability, no transparency, is absolutely antithetical to a free society. And I think his policies have deepened the depression, lengthened the problems, increased the cost of gasoline, and been a disaster.

Newt Gingrich: Put people back to work to raise revenues without taxes

There are three good ways. The Ronald Reagan technique put 3,700,000 more people back to work. You reduce government spending. You raise government revenues enormously. The "committee of 12" ought to be looking at, how do you create more revenue, not how do you raise taxes.

Second, you go to energy: You open up American energy, $500 billion a year here at home, enormous increase in federal revenue.

Third, we own 69% of Alaska. Let's set aside [some] for national parks. We could liberate an area the size of Texas for minerals and other development. That would raise even more revenue, not the normal Washington viewpoint.

Rick Perry: Keynesian theory is now done; never again in America

Rick Perry: Balanced Budget Amendment is the only way to sleep at night

PERRY: I join my fellow participants here. What we should have been looking at is a way to get the spending under control and capping it, cutting it, and getting a balanced budget amendment. When you get a balanced budget amendment in Washington, D.C., you will finally start getting the snake's head cut off. I mean, the fact of the matter is, until you get a balanced budget amendment--I don't care whether Democrats or Republicans are going to be in control in Washington, D.C.--balanced budget amendment, and then the American people can go to sleep at night with a little more comfort that they're going to wake up and not be broke in the morning.

Ron Paul: 1980s had huge deficits, despite Reagan's message

PAUL: I strongly supported Ronald Reagan. I was one of four members of Congress from Texas that supported Reagan in '76. And I supported him all along, and I supported all his issues and all his programs. But in the 1980s, we spent too much, we taxed too much, we built up our deficits, and it was a bad scene. Therefore, I support the message of Ronald Reagan. The message was great. But the consequence, we have to be honest with ourselves. It was not all that great. Huge deficits during the 1980s, and that is what my criticism was for, not for Ronald Reagan's message. His message is a great message.

Carly Fiorina: Stimulus package is a failure; more tax cuts instead

She called the February 2009 stimulus package a "failure'' and as proof cited the unemployment rate in San Bernardino County, which has increased from 11.7% when the stimulus legislation was approved to more than 14.2% in August.

To rescue the economy, Fiorina said Congress should extend the Bush-era tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003, which she said gave much-needed tax relief to small and family-owned businesses. Those tax breaks are set to expire at year's end.

Carly Fiorina: Key to recovery is less government, taxation, & regulation

Fiorina said that the key to economic recovery was less government, taxation and regulation. She called for extending the Bush administration's tax cuts, saying that their expiration would further harm the struggling economy, and expressed support for repealing the estate tax and creating additional tax break for small businesses. "To create jobs, we need to make sure in particular our small businesses, our family-owned businesses, our innovators and our entrepreneurs are freed from strangling regulation and freed from taxation," Fiorina said.