Mitt Romney

"I'm not happy exporting jobs but we must move ahead in technology and patents. I don't like losing any jobs but we'll see new opportunities created selling products there. We'll have a net net increase in economic activity, just as we did with free trade. It's tempting to want to protect our markets and stay closed. But at some point it all comes crashing down and you're hopelessly left behind. Then you are Russia."

"The [president] is right to point to an international [jihadist] movement aimed at the collapse of the United States. He has gone after that threat in the right way and with great energy and vigor, and I applaud the fact that he has taken it on very seriously and has not considered it just a criminal action but instead a war action, which requires a military … response."

"I think we ought to have more oil. We ought to develop more sources of oil so that we can increase our supply. But the last thing I want to do is suck it all dry as quickly as we can. I want to use less of it."

"I wouldn't presume to present a plan different from that of the President. But I believe he was right to take on the war on terror on an aggressive front rather than a defensive front. We toppled the government … walking away would mean a humanitarian disaster. We're there and we have a responsibility to finish the job."

"I frankly can't wait, because the idea of Bill Clinton back in the White House with nothing to do is something I just can't imagine, I can't imagine the American people can imagine...."

"We have lost faith in government, not in just one party, not in just one house, but in government. It is time for innovation and transformation in Washington. It is what our country needs. It is what our people deserve...I do not believe Washington can be transformed from within by a lifelong politician. There have been too many deals, too many favors, too many entanglements -- and too little real world experience managing, guiding, leading."

"America cannot continue to lead the family of nations around the world if we suffer the collapse of the family here at home."

"I believe the family is the foundation of America -- and that we must fight to protect and strengthen it. I believe in the sanctity of human life. I believe that people and their elected representatives should make our laws, not unelected judges."

"Hugo Chavez has tried to steal an inspiring phrase — 'Patria o muerte, venceremos.' It does not belong to him. It belongs to a free Cuba."

"I purchased a gun when I was a young man. I've been a hunter pretty much all my life."

"Liquefied coal, gosh. Hitler during the Second World War — I guess because he was concerned about losing his oil — liquefied coal. That technology is still there."

"It's not worth moving heaven and earth, spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person."

"The one by L. Ron Hubbard...I'm not in favor of his religion by any means, but he wrote a book called Battlefield Earth that was a very fun science fiction book."

"In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

"I don't want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil. I don't want them in our prisons, I want them there. Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo."

"And I hear from time to time people say, hey, wait a second, we have civil liberties we have to worry about. But don't forget the most important civil liberty I expect from my government is my right to be kept alive, and that's what we're going to have to do."

"Actually, just look at what Osam- Barack Obama said just yesterday. Barack Obama calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq."

"I don't think you change Washington from the inside. I think you change it from the outside."

"This election, this presidential election, I think has underscored underneath it several times. We want change. And it's not change in the White House so much, as change in Washington."

"I am convinced that unless America changes course, we will become the France of the 21st Century - still a great nation, but no longer the leader of the world."

"The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check."

"First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages "free riders" to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others. This doesn't cost the government a single dollar."

"Like other presidents before him, Barack Obama inherited a recession. But unlike them, he has made it worse, not better."

"Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree."

"The fundamental principle of faith of Judeo Christian (belief) is there is a God, who is our heavenly Father and all the people on this earth and every speck of humanity on this earth is a creation of God … And every creation of humanity is a child of God."

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

"My faith is the faith of my fathers - I will be true to them and to my beliefs. Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people. Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world."

"These American values, this great moral heritage, is shared and lived in my religion as it is in yours. I was taught in my home to honor God and love my neighbor. I saw my father march with Martin Luther King."

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America - the religion of secularism. They are wrong."

"We are a nation under God, and in God we do indeed trust. We should acknowledge the Creator, as did the founders, in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in the Pledge, in the teaching of our history…"

"[A way] one could repair Social Security . . . [would be to] gradually increase the retirement age. This does have a certain logic to it: the average American's life expectancy has risen by more than ten years since Social Security was created. Increasing the retirement age by even one or two years would help get the system closer to sustainability."

"Returning Medicare to solid footing represents our greatest entitlement challenge. . . . Like Social Security, Medicare is currently being rocked by the swelling numbers of baby-boomer retirees. . . . [However] the rising cost of health care adds just as much to the weight of the Medicare burden as does the age wave. . . . So it is healthcare itself that must be brought under control if we are to keep our Medicare bills from overwhelming the next generation."

"Choosing education is a very good decision, not only good for the student, but also for our country. The United States was the first nation in history to recognize that public education for every citizen, regardless of class or station, was vital to its future . . ."

"Welfare without work erodes the spirit and the sense of self-worth of the recipient. And it conditions the children of nonworking parents to an indolent and unproductive life. Hardworking parents raise hardworking kids; we should recognize that the opposite is also true. The influence of the work habits of our parents and other adults around us as we grow up has lasting impact."

"Barack Obama is facing a financial emergency on a grander scale. Yet his approach has been to engage in one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history."

"Barack Obama has failed America. When he took office, the economy was in recession. He made it worse. And he made it last longer. Three years later, over 16 million Americans are out of work or have just quit looking. Millions more are underemployed. Three years later, unemployment is still above 8%, a figure he said his stimulus would keep from happening. Three years later, foreclosures are still at record levels. Three years later the prices of homes continue to fall. Three years later, our national debt has grown nearly as large as our entire economy. Families are buried under higher prices for food and higher prices for gasoline. It breaks my heart to see what's happening in this country. These failing hopes make up President Obama's own misery index. It's never been higher."

"John King: FEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say do it on a case-by-case basis and some people who say, you know, maybe we're learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role. How do you deal with something like that? Mitt Romney: Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut — we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we're doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we're doing that we don’t have to do? And those things we've got to stop doing, because we're borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we're taking in. We cannot — John King: Including disaster relief, though? Mitt Romney: We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all."

"Corporations are people, my friend … course they are!"

"I think it was last weekend, I was watching C-SPAN, and I saw Vice President Dick Cheney, and he was being asked questions about a whole host of issues — following 9/11, the affairs in various countries in the world. And I listened to him speak and said whether you agree or disagree with him, this a man of wisdom and judgment, and he could have been president of the United States. That's the kind of person I'd like to have — a person of wisdom and judgment."

"As to what to do for the housing industry specifically and are there things that you can do to encourage housing: One is, don't try to stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom."

"Rick, I don't think I've ever hired an illegal in my life... We had a lawn company to mow our lawn, and they had illegal immigrants, and when that was pointed out to us, we let them go... So we went to the company and we said, "Look, you can't have any illegals working on our property. I'm running for office, for Pete's sake. I can't have illegals.""

"Mitt Romney: Well, but will the people in Nevada not have to pay Nevada sales tax and in addition pay the 9% tax? Herman Cain: Governor Romney, you're doing the same thing that they're doing. You're mixing apples and oranges. You're going to pay — Mitt Romney: I'm — Herman Cain: No, no, no, no. You're going to pay the state sales tax, no matter what. Mitt Romney: Right. Herman Cain: Whether you throw out the existing code and you put in our plan, you're still going to pay that. That's apples and oranges. Mitt Romney: Fine. And I'm going to be getting a bushel basket that has apples and oranges in it because I've got to pay both taxes, and the people in Nevada don't want to pay both taxes."

"Rick Perry: But, you know, I'm just saying, you were for individual mandates, my friend. Mitt Romney: You know what, you've raised that before, Rick, uh, and you're still wrong. Rick Penny: It was true then. And it's true now. Mitt Romney: Rick, I'll tell you what, 10,000 bucks? $10,000 bet?"

"[M]any Tea Party folks are going to find me, I believe, to be the ideal candidate."

"I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican—that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive."

"I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don't like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn't give me a good service that I need, I want to say I'm going to go get someone else to provide that service to me."

"I'm not a big-game hunter. I've made that very clear. I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will. I began when I was 15 or so and I have hunted those kinds of varmints since then. More than two times."

"Jorge Ramos: You just released your tax returns. In 2010 you only paid 13% of taxes while most Americans paid much more than that. Is that fair? Mitt Romney Well, actually, I released two years of taxes and I think the average is almost 15%. And then also, on top of that, I gave another more 15% to charity. When you add it together with all of the taxes and the charity, particularly in the last year, I think it reaches almost 40% that I gave back to the community. One of the reasons why we have a lower tax rate on capital gains is because capital gains are also being taxed at the corporate level. So as businesses earn profits, that's taxed at 35%, then as they distribute those profits as dividends, that's taxed at 15% more. So, all total, the tax rate is really closer to 45 or 50%. Jorge Ramos: But is it fair what you pay, 13%, while most pay much more than that? Mitt Romney Well, again, I go back to the point that the, that the funds are being taxed twice at two different levels."

"I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love."

"I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich — they're doing just fine."