Iraq
“I haven't given up on that goal, and I think people who have and are retreating are making a very big mistake. Because under the conditions that exist right now, with the white flag that Congress wants to wave, you take a very big risk of a civil war in Iraq, which could lead to a regional war."
***
“We've got to make sure that the great efforts that our military made in the Afghan war are completed so that we crush al-Qaeda, the Taliban can't reemerge. I think we should put a tremendous amount of effort on trying to catch [al-Qaeda leader Osama] bin Laden."
***
“So we've got to put Iraq in the context of a much broader picture than just Iraq. And getting Iraq correctly, in other words, getting stability there is real important. And I support what the president asked for support to do and what General Petraeus has asked for support to do, not because there's any guarantee it's going to work. There's never any guarantee at war.
But if we can come out with a correct solution or a better solution in Iraq, it's going to make the whole War on Terror go better. We got to get beyond it. We've got to get beyond Iraq.”
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Other Foreign Policy Issues
"All during the Cold War, it doesn't seem to me the communists were planning to come here and kill us. The people who came to America and attacked us were these terrorists."
***
"Now there is no excuse. Now we know what they have done _ which no one else has done to us, not in modern times _ and we know what they are capable of."
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"And here is the answer to it: In order to keep ourselves safe, no longer, ever again, should we be on defense against terrorism. We must remain on offense."
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“We've got to be thinking about Iran. We have to think about Syria. We have to be thinking about Pakistan and Afghanistan and making sure that the transition in Afghanistan goes correctly. We have to be ready for the fact that, whatever happens in Iraq, success or failure -- success will help us in the War on Terror. Failure will hurt us. But the war is still going to go on. They're still going to want to come here and kill us.”
***
“The better thing to do in Iran is to put pressure on them and to let them know that we will not accept their being a nuclear power. The nightmare of the Cold War was nuclear weapons in the hands of an irrational person. I don't want to live through that nightmare.”
***
“We will see an end to global terrorism. I can see it. I believe it. I know it will happen. Look how quickly the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Iron Curtain ripped open and the Soviet Union disintegrated because of the power of the pent-up demand for freedom. When it catches hold there is nothing more powerful than freedom. Give it some hope, and it will overwhelm dictators, and even defeat terrorists. That is what we have done and must continue to do in Iraq.”
Climate Change/Energy
Energy independence, I think, is the single most important thing that's going to face us in the next four or five years aside from the terrorist war on us."
***
“I think Iran would be a lot more of a paper tiger if we were more energy independent. You could go on into a lot of examples like that. This is a matter of national security. You've got to support all the alternatives. There's no magic bullet here--biofuels, nuclear power. We haven't licensed a nuclear power plant in 30 years. We haven't had a new refinery in 30 years. We're on hold. Hydroelectric power, solar power, wind power, conservation-- we have to support all of these things. The president has to treat this like putting a man on the moon.”
***
“I think we have to accept the view that scientists have that there is global warming and that humans contribute to that.”
***
“Whatever your scientific conclusion about global warming, whether it's manmade or it isn't or whatever, the reality is that if you don't have restrictions on China, if you don't have restrictions on India, our contribution, ultimately, is going to be minor. We could put all these restrictions on ourselves and have just as much arguable global warming if China, India, some of these other countries that are going to be contributing a lot more to this don't become part of some kind of system to create alternatives.”
Healthcare
"Government cannot take care of you. You've got to take care of yourself. As more of us do that, the cheaper it will become and the higher in quality it becomes."
***
"We've got to solve our health care problem with American principles, not the principles of socialism. I know Democrats will say this is unfair, I know they'll squeal... But I'm a realist. I face reality, which is: if you take more people and have government cover it, it's called socialized medicine."
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Education
“If we want to change K through 12 in America, we do school choice, we do vouchers, we offer it as an option. All this discussion about standards in schools getting measured in Washington, and getting measured in the state capital, and getting measured by a school board. Who the heck can measure the standards in schools better than the parents selecting the schools? Isn’t the best answer that a school is a good school that lots of parents think, 'We want our child to get into this school.'"
Homeland Security
“Going on defense on Iraq & going on defense about terrorism is not just about Iraq. It's about the opposition to extending the Patriot Act, the opposition to electronic surveillance, the opposition to interrogation. Both those things, interrogation & electronic surveillance, have to be done legally, but they have to be done aggressively. I detect in the Democrats a kind of attempt to go back to a pre-Sept. 11 mentality in which we're not anticipating.”
***
"It is simply false to claim, as some of its critics do, that this bill does not respond to concerns about civil liberties. The four-year extension of the Patriot Act, as passed by the House, would not only reauthorize the expiring provisions, it would also make a number of common-sense clarifications and add dozens of additional civil liberties safeguards. Given these improvements, there is simply no compelling argument for going backward in the fight against terrorism."
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Family
“Marriage should be between a man and a woman. Here's exactly the position I've always had. And it's the same -- and I feel the same way about it today that I did eight, 10 years ago when I signed the domestic partnership legislation: Marriage should be between a man and a woman. It should remain that way.
We should be tolerant, fair, open, and we should understand the rights that all people have in our society. And I thought the best answer was domestic partnership as a way of dealing with that, so that you're recognizing the rights of people who are gay and lesbian and protect them. But marriage should remain between a man and a woman.”
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“We have to have a society that rewards success. The only way in which we get people out of poverty is you help them help themselves by giving them the opportunity for a good education and the opportunity for a good job. That's how you deal with poverty -- not with government welfare programs.''
Taxes/Fiscal Policy
"I believe in cutting taxes and I believe in fiscal discipline because I saw it work in New York City."
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"There is no one running for president of the United States who understands (cutting taxes) better than I do, and there is no one who has actually done it."
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“And finally, I put controls on every one of the city agencies, which is what I would do in Washington. I'd do Reagan-like across- the-board budget cuts 5 to 20 percent. And there's a great opportunity that we have coming up. About 50 percent, just about 50 percent of the federal employees are going to retire in the next 10 years, during the term of, maybe, one of us. And we have the opportunity of not refilling all those positions. And I would pledge not to refill 50 percent of them.”
***
“I support simplifying the tax code. I think of the flat tax as theoretically a very good solution—and probably what we should have done when we first started the income tax. These days it would be unrealistic to go all the way to a flat tax. But you can use it as a guide to figure out how you're going to simplify taxes.”
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Illegal Immigration
"If you come here, and you work hard, and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. . . The reality is, the focus on immigration should be to know everyone who's in the United States. We should have a tamper-proof ID card; we should have a database in which we can identify the people who are in this country. So we need a fence. We need a technological fence; we need a tamper-proof ID card. And we need a way that people who are working in this country can come forward, sign up for the tamper-proof ID card, get in the database and start paying their way.”
***
“I support security at the borders. I think security is enormously important in the post-September 11th period. I think we have to know who's coming into this country. We have to be able to identify them; we have to be able to figure out who they are.
I do think that, with the fence -- the fence honestly has to be a technological fence…. We need to be able to photograph people, observe them, see them, know who's there, record them. And then I think there has to be regularization for the people that are here. There's got to be a program to regularize the people that are here, as you establish security at the border.
And I would add to many of the proposals, because there are a number of them in the House, the Senate, and that the president has put forward. I would add to that, at the end of the road, if somebody's going to earn citizenship, with whatever other hurdles are put in the way, at the end of the road they should be able to speak English, they should be able to read English, they should have some knowledge of American history, particularly if you're going to regularize somebody who is in an undocumented status.”
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