Congresswoman Bachmann, you say you can turn the economy around within one quarter by cutting taxes, reducing spending, and repealing the health care law. In fact, this week you said, quote, “It isn’t that difficult,” and, quote, “Solutions aren’t that tough to figure out.”

Bachmann: Isn’t it unrealistic to suggest that something as massive and complex as the U.S. economy can rebound in just three months?

We can start to seek recovery within three months, not the whole recovery, but we can begin to see it, if we put into place what we know to be true. Number one, we should not have increased the debt ceiling. In the last two months, I was leading on the issue of not increasing the debt ceiling. That turned out to be the right answer.

And this is part of the movement that we’re seeing all across the country. I’ve been leading that movement. I’ve been giving it voice. And it’s not just Republicans. It’s disaffected Democrats. It’s independents. It’s libertarians all coming together, apolitical people, because two days from now, Bret, we get to send a message to Barack Obama. And the message is this: You are finished in 2012, and you will be a one-term president.

Congressman Paul, as you know, when Standard & Poor’s downgraded the country’s credit rating last week, one of the reasons S&P listed was because of partisan gridlock in Washington. Congressman, what specific things would you do as president to increase growth, calm the markets, create jobs that could pass through a divided Congress?

PAUL: Well, they didn’t downgrade it mainly because they couldn’t come to a conclusion. They couldn’t come to a conclusion because they didn’t know what was going on. The country’s bankrupt, and nobody wanted to admit it. And when you’re bankrupt, you can’t keep spending.

And all these proposed cuts weren’t cuts at all. What you have to do is restore sound money. You have to understand why you have a business cycle, why you have booms and busts. If you don’t do that, there’s no way you can solve these problems.

And the booms and busts comes from a failed monetary system that — the interest rates that are way lower than — than they should be encourages malinvestment and debt. And to get out of that, all this other tinkering, you cannot do that unless you liquidate debt. You don’t bail out the people that are bankrupt and dump the debt on the people. That is what’s happened.

So you have to allow liquidation of debt, eliminate the malinvestment. Then you go back and you can get growth again by having a better tax structure, lower taxes, invite capital back into this country, get a lot less regulations. And under those conditions, you can have growth again.

BAIER: OK. Senator Santorum, nothing about your lawn, but Governor Pawlenty says America can quickly grow five percent a year for 10 years, with the right mix of policies. Is he right?

SANTORUM: America has unbounded potential. And I think putting a limit on that potential, we’ve grown at faster rates than that.

For me, it’s been a focus on one thing as I’ve traveled to now 68 counties in….

….the state of Iowa, 50 in the last 14 days, working and meeting with the people of Iowa. And I’ve been talking to them about
what we’re going to do to grow the manufacturing sector of this economy.

When I grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania, a little steel town, 21 percent of the people of this country worked in manufacturing. It is now nine. If you want to know where the middle of America went, it went to China, it went to Malaysia, it went to Indonesia. We need to bring it back.

I put together a four-point plan to do it, including energy — producing more energy, because of course manufacturers use more energy than just about everybody else in the business world. But the big thing I proposed is to take the corporate rate which makes us uncompetitive, particularly in exporting goods, take the corporate rate and cut it to zero for manufacturers.

You want to create opportunity for businesses in manufacturing to grow, cut that tax to zero. Our jobs will come back.

BAIER: Mr. Cain — Mr. Cain, we — we know you have a four-point economic plan. But one specific thing, what one specific thing would President Cain do first to restart the economic engine? And, again, with the caveat: That one thing would have to get through a divided Congress.

CAIN: Make the tax rates permanent. That’s one of — of the four-point plans, because the business sector is the economic engine. You have the group that’s talking about spending. You have the group that’s talking about cutting. I represent growth. And it starts with the business sector putting fuel in the engine.

In addition to that one thing that you asked me to identify, we must have a maximum tax rate for corporations and individuals of 25 percent, take the capital gains tax rate to zero, take the tax on repatriated profits to zero, make them permanent, and — and then certainty back into this economy. And I believe we can turn it around. And one other thing. We don’t have an option to wait longer than 90 days. It is imperative that we get this economy going in 90 days with the next president of the United States of America.

BAIER: Speaker Gingrich, some people on this stage have run big companies, some have turned around companies, some managed payrolls. What makes you more qualified than anyone else on this stage to create jobs and grow the economy?

GINGRICH: You know, you’ve been asking about divided government. This coming Saturday is the 30th anniversary of Ronald Reagan signing the Kemp-Roth tax cut which was done with divided government. I was part of that effort in the House when the Democrats were in control.

He did it by going to the American people with clarity, creating a sense of urgency, bringing pressure to bear on the Democratic congressmen, and building a bipartisan majority. That tax cut lead to seven years of growth, which in our current economy would be the equivalent of adding 25 million jobs, $4.4 trillion a year to the economy and $800 billion in new federal revenue.

A decade later, as Speaker of the House, we had divided government. We negotiated with Bill Clinton. He vetoed welfare reform twice. We passed it three times. He signed it the third time, the largest entitlement reform of your lifetime.

We passed the first tax cut in 16 years, the largest capital gains tax cut in history. Unemployment dropped to 4.2 percent. How would the country feel today at 4.2 percent unemployment?

That’s my credential.

Well, I’m not going to give you an exact timeframe, but I can tell you this, that if you spend your life in the private sector and you understand how jobs come and how they go, you understand that what President Obama has done is the exact opposite of what the economy needed to be done. Almost every action he took made it harder for entrepreneurs to build businesses, for banks to make loans, for businesses to hire, and to build more capital.

What needs to be done — there are really seven things that come to mind. One is to make sure our corporate tax rates are competitive with other nations. Number two is to make sure that our regulations and bureaucracy works not just for the bureaucrats in Washington, but for the businesses that are trying to grow.

Number three is to have trade policies that work for us, not just for our opponents. Number four is to have an energy policy that gets us energy secure. Number five is to have the rule of law. Six, great institutions that build human capital, because capitalism is also about people, not just capital and physical goods. And number seven is to have a government that doesn’t spend more money than it takes in. And I’ll do it.

BAIER: Governor Pawlenty, you say your economic plan with tax cuts and spending caps would grow the economy by an average rate of five percent a year for 10 years, a rate that have never been achieved in 10 years in a row.

With the last two quarters averaging less than one percent growth — and even some Republican budget analysts, very skeptical, openly skeptical of that plan — is your proposal just pie in the sky?

PAWLENTY: Well, the United States of America needs a growth target, and it needs to be an aggressive and bold growth target. I don’t want the United States’ growth target to be anemic or lag like Barack Obama’s.

So, is the bar high? Yes. But do we need that growth to get out of
this hole? You bet. And I hope people will go to our Web site and
read that whole plan, because it’s the most specific, comprehensive plan of any candidate in this race.

But, Bret, there’s another question here. Where is Barack Obama on these issues?

You can’t find his plans on some of the most pressing financial issues of our country. For example, where is Barack Obama’s plan on Social Security reform, Medicare reform, Medicaid reform? In fact, I’ll offer a prize tonight to anybody in this auditorium or anyone watching on television: if you can find Barack Obama’s specific plan on any of those items, I will come to your house and cook you dinner.

BAIER: Governor Huntsman, you told the “New Hampshire Union Leader”
recently you intend to convene a “council of business leaders” to figure without is needed to improve our economy.

Governor, you have essentially been running for president for three months now. We checked your Web site. We were unable to find a detailed plan.

In the middle of an economic crisis, shouldn’t you already have a pretty detailed plan by now?

HUNTSMAN: The plan you will find on our Web site, it is coming. We have been in the race only for a month and a half. But here’s what I intend to do.

I intend to do exactly what I did as governor of the state of Utah. We took a good state and we made it number one in this country in terms of job creation. If you want to know what I’m going to do, I’m going to do exactly what I did as governor.

It’s called leadership. It’s called looking at how the free market system works. It’s creating a competitive environment that speaks to growth.

We cut taxes historically. We didn’t just cut them, we cut them historically.

We created the most business-friendly environment in the entire country. We were the best-managed state in the country. We maintained a AAA bond rating. All of the things this country so desperately needs.

When you look at me and you ask, what is that guy going to do? Look at what I did as governor. That is exactly what I’m going to do, and it’s exactly what this country needs right now.

Copyright: You are free to copy and use these images.