Iraq
"I view success as the achievement of these goals: 1. The establishment of a country that is a friend, not an enemy, of the United States; 2. Having an Iraq that will not be a state sponsor of terrorism; 3. Having an Iraq that has a modicum of freedom for its people. We achieve those three things and maintain that government, that will be a successful mission in Iraq. Right now, we're basically in the second phase in what has been historically a three-phase process that the U.S. uses in standing up free countries around the world. Number one, we stood up a free government, a freely elected government. Number two, we stand up a security apparatus and a military capable of protecting that free government. That's the phase we are in right now. And number three, the Americans leave -- because we don't covet anything that Iraq has.
Other Foreign Policy Issues
“The forgotten frontline in the war on terror is Afghanistan, where our military effort must be reinforced.”
"I can pledge this to you: If I should be elected president of the United States, I will never, never, never abandon Israel,"
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"Iran is walking down the path to build a nuclear device. And they have installed, by their count, 3,000 centrifuges that are utilized to refine material that could be used in a nuclear weapon. They may have fewer than 3,000, but it's clear and it's agreed on by all intelligence agencies that they are increasing their enrichment capability. The United States cannot allow them to have a nuclear device. As president, I would ensure that they never get to that point. Now, we'd like to do that with sanctions, but if sanctions don't work and preemptive actions are necessary, I would undertake them."
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"China is arming, and they're doing it with American trade dollars.”
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“Right now...when we compete with China, China starts with 74 points on the scoreboard before the opening kick-off. They get a 17% rebate...to their exporters; they're exporting to the US. Basically they're allowed to operate tax-free. Then they put in place a 17% penalty on our importers. That creates a 34% disparity in the world's competition. Then they de-value their currency by 40%, through currency manipulation. So they start with 74 points on the scoreboard before the opening kick-off.”
Climate Change/Energy
Few people in global warming can tell you exactly what's happening. And there is a difference in opinion as to how fast because ice ages have come and gone, how much of the country would be warming, how much the glaciers are receding -- how much of that is attributable to mankind, and how much of it is attributable to the natural cycle? But I don't think you have to answer that question to do what I've recommended. I think we have lots of reasons to be energy independent.”
Healthcare
"The first thing I would do is I would allow people to buy their health insurance, their private health programs across state lines. Right now, the same coverage, the same policy coverage for an individual that costs $70 in Long Beach, Calif., costs over $300 in New Jersey. But the New Jersey citizen can't buy the $70 program, because he's banned by law from doing that.”
Education
“I support taking the actions necessary to strengthen our public educational system and school vouchers are a great opportunity to provide students and their families with additional educational choices.”
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"I think we're going to have to inspire young people at an early age to get into the sciences, to get into math, to get into the disciplines that will tend to support a prosperous America. And that means that we're going to have to push back against the credentialing that the teachers unions have embedded in our system. I'd like to see an educational system where folks who are engineers and physicists and pilots and folks who have had a career, but who aren't necessarily credentialed teachers, can come into schools and inspire young people. … [W]e need to [give] what I would call 'a new generation of teachers' access to the schools who are capable of inspiring this next generation of students."
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Homeland Security
Because as long as you've got a revolving door and you have no border -- and this 2,000-mile porous border, incidentally, is our biggest homeland security problem; it's not just an immigration problem, it's a homeland security problem -- we need to build the border fence. We need to have a Border Patrol which is big enough to get the job done, and we need to be able to ask people when they want to come into America, knock on the front door, because the back door is going to be closed.”
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Family
"I think that the institution of marriage is probably the most important institution in our country. It is a building block that our entire society is based on because it shapes the character of our children. So, I'm very strong for traditional marriage and if it's necessary for a constitutional amendment. I will support that. In fact, I've supported that in the past.
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"Beyond that, I believe in strict constructionist judges. That is, if a judicial candidate feels that somehow people like James Madison and Benjamin Franklin and many other founding fathers didn’t get it right, that he's going to legislate from the bench, that judicial candidate will never receive a nomination from me."
Taxes/Fiscal Policy
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“I’m a co-sponser of the Fair tax.” “Fair tax levels the playing field for Americans in world trade by eliminating the income tax.”
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“I believe in supply-side economics. I supported the Reagan tax cuts, the Bush tax cuts, and would support extensions of those--because all of these tax cuts, a number of them, have sunsets and extensions are required.”
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“I firmly support reform of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and believe it is the most pressing individual income tax issue facing Americans today. This tax regulation was created in 1969 in an effort to close certain loopholes and ensure that a small number of extremely high-income taxpayers paid a fair share of the federal income tax. However, the lack of indexation of the AMT, coupled with the recent reductions in regular income taxes, has greatly expanded the potential impact of this tax. Absent congressional action, the AMT will "take back" most of the tax relief granted through income tax reform.”
Illegal Immigration
“I built the border fence in San Diego, and I wrote the law that would extend it across Arizona, New Mexico and Texas for 854 miles.”
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“Well, I think that we've got to do us a two-step program and the first step is to secure the border and the second step then is to...do internal enforcement. You've got 250,000 hard-core criminals - in federal, state, and local penitentiaries and jails. That means you have a large criminal element that's operating within the US committing serious crimes against Americans and their property and once we secure the border, I would make an emphasized effort to ensure that we are to round up criminal aliens and...force their deportation.”
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"If we had a secure border, you could pay for the entire border fence in one year with the money you save by not having to incarcerate these criminal aliens."
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“(Also), I think the fair thing to have for employers is to have an extension of this pilot program that we have right now ...is a system in which through a phone call...you can receive from the Department of Homeland Security in fairly short order a "yes" or "no" as to whether your employees are legally within the US.”
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"They have to go home. And you know, most of them have homes and maintain homes in their parent countries. That's one reason politicians in Mexico like the idea of an open border. Because people that are up here, for example, send billions of dollars in cash to their real homes each year in Mexico. Same in Central America and the same in Europe. Folks have to know that if they want to come into this nation, they are going to have to wait in line and they are going to have to knock on the front door."
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