2.  What is your mission statement for America and the three most important goals you intend to achieve as President?

 

Mike Huckabee:

America’s mission is to retain our military, economic, and moral supremacy.  To retain our military supremacy, we must increase the size of our active armed forces and increase our defense budget back up to the 6% of GDP it was under President Reagan.  We must continue with the anti-missile defense system and fight nuclear proliferation and acquisition of any nuclear materials and knowledge by terrorists.

To retain our economic supremacy, we must break free from outdated systems that worked fine in the last century, but won’t see us through the twenty-first.  Rather than dooming us to decline, I know that globalization, done right, can be a Golden Age for America.  Instead of looking over our shoulder at China and India, I want to look in the mirror, face ourselves, and fix ourselves. 

Big ideas don’t mean big government – on the contrary, my ideas will strengthen our free market and make it more vibrant.  We need to reform our tax system by abolishing our existing personal and corporate tax system and moving to the Fair Tax, which will make our businesses more competitive overseas, bring home trillions of dollars that have moved off-shore for tax reasons, and bring foreign investors here.  We need to reform our education system to give our students the knowledge, skills, and creativity they need for the jobs of this century.  We need to reform our health care system to move from an employer-based system to a consumer-based system that will free our businesses from the burden of health care costs, focus on prevention rather than intervention, and allow Americans to own their health care.  I want to lead the technological breakthroughs that will allow us not only to end our dependence on fossil fuels and clean up this planet, but also sell those technologies all over the world. 

To retain our moral supremacy, we must champion our culture of life, which stands in stark juxtaposition to the terrorists’ culture of death, and we must protect and strengthen our families.

The three most important goals I intend to achieve as President are winning the war on terror, securing our borders, and becoming energy independent.

John McCain:

I believe our nation’s best days are ahead and remain committed to an America with a strong national defense; a smaller, more accountable government; a robust economy with abundant opportunity for all who seek it; a judiciary that interprets the law and does not make it; and a nation of traditional values that protects the rights of the unborn and the traditional family.

As president, I will strengthen the security of our nation, restore trust in our government through greater accountability and by limiting its size, and reform our health care system.

As president, I will take all my responsibilities to the American people seriously.  But I will have one responsibility that will outweigh all the others and that is to protect the security of this great nation from all enemies.  In particular, we must understand that we confront a lengthy struggle against Islamic extremism that will not be won quickly or easily. But we will win it. While our ultimate victory is not in doubt, the length and intensity of this struggle remain to be determined. It's up to us.  We must recognize that our enemies are in this fight to win, and I assure you that I would employ all instruments of national power – military, intelligence, law enforcement, economic and political – to defend our nation and defeat them.

At home, Americans have lost trust in their government.  My presidency will restore that trust.  I will fight to ensure a political process worthy of the sacrifices that have been made by so many to keep us free and proud and will see to it that the institutions of self-government are respected pillars of democracy.  Special interests have too much influence in Washington.  That will end.  I will secure the border, period.  I will bring spending under control, veto pork-barrel spending bills and keep taxes low by reforming a tax code that is too complex and too burdensome.  I will work to modernize Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and bring accountability, choice and competition to our schools, so our children are equipped for the best jobs of the 21st century.   I will also nominate strict constructionist judges who understand that their job is to rule on what the law says and not to impose their opinions through judicial fiat and at the expense of the democratic process.

I will address health care in America, an issue that touches every family in this nation and impacts our economy and fiscal outlook.  I believe we can reform our health care system to lower costs without sacrificing quality. But I know the answer is not to increase the amount of bureaucracy through a government-controlled health care or single-payer system.  The answer is to enhance the ability of the market participants to offer affordable and portable insurance options for as many Americans as possible and to help those without insurance to access the health care system with the dignity and quality care that all Americans expect and deserve.

Ron Paul:

My mission statement is that I want America to become the freest nation on earth.

My first goal as president would be to strengthen our national security.  This means changing our foreign policy of nation-building and withdrawing from the entangling alliances the founders warned us against, securing our borders with Mexico and Canada, and focusing our efforts on capturing Osama bin Laden and his fellow 9/11 co-conspirators.  My administration would follow the guidance of the founders to enjoy free trade, travel, and interaction with all nations.

My second goal as president is to address the abuses of civil liberties that Americans have been subjected to for decades.  I will urge Congress to repeal legislation that gives the federal government power to intrude into our private lives and monitor our actions.

My third goal as president would be to return the United States to a sound monetary policy.  The dollar is currently plummeting in competition against other currencies internationally, and we must turn back the policies that have put our economy in danger.  I believe that the federal government should only produce currency that is authorized by the Constitution, which means that we should only produce gold and silver-backed currency.  Our current policy of printing money with no other backing than the promise of the government to pay has devalued the dollar, fueled the boom-and-bust cycles, and caused Americans to pay an “inflation tax.”  We need to cut spending domestically and internationally, balance the budget, and pay down the debt.  I will inform Congress that I will veto any unbalanced budget.

 

Mitt Romney:

The best ally peace has ever known is a strong America. The aim of our foreign and domestic policies must be to keep America strong, to remain the world’s economic and military leader. For our children to live safe and abundant lives, we must strengthen the family, the economy, and the military.

First, we must strengthen the American family. I want our children to learn that before they have babies, they should get married because every child deserves a mother and a father. I want to protect marriage as the union of a man and a woman. I will work to improve our schools. I will help every American obtain health insurance, not through the government, but free-market insurance that is affordable and portable.

Second, I will work to strengthen our economy to provide good jobs. I will keep taxes down by, in part, letting middle income families save tax free. We must finally end our dependence on foreign oil by investing in new energy sources and new levels of energy efficiency. We must open foreign markets to American goods. We must stop illegal immigration – the sanctuary state of mind must be replaced by the rule of law.

Third, we must also strengthen our national security. I will add more troops to our military, with better equipment, armament and care for our veterans. I will invest in intelligence capabilities, which is the most effective way to prevent terror in the homeland. And we must win the war in Iraq and Afghanistan to make sure that neither becomes a safe haven for Al Qaeda or other terror groups.

Our country faces great challenges, but the people of this nation have such heart and passion, love of liberty, education, and willingness to risk all for their family, for their freedom, and for their future, that I am confident that our future will be even brighter than our past.

 

Fred Thompson:

My vision for the country is summed up in the words that guide my campaign: security, unity, prosperity.  A free people must protect their freedom through a strong national security; we can afford to do so only as a prosperous nation; and we can achieve continued greatness for our country by coming together as a people, recognizing our shared values and goals, and acting together in a united fashion.

The most important goal I have for our country reflects my view that the first responsibility of the federal government is to protect the nation.  We must defend our nation against the radical Islamic terrorists who want to destroy us and our way of life.  That goal can be achieved only by rebuilding and strengthening our military, improving our intelligence capabilities, improving our homeland security, and enforcing our nation’s border security.

My second goal flows from the first.  In order to protect our country and advance our interests, we must have the resources available to pay to defend our country.  Today we are facing a crisis caused by unsustainable entitlement costs.  As a nation, we must restrain the cost of these entitlements or our economy will be crippled, leaving us too few resources to address the other challenges our nation faces.  Our personal freedom is at risk from our current fiscal course.  I am committed to addressing the looming entitlements crisis, but doing so in a way that preserves the basic goals of the programs without raising taxes.  I will also seek to reform the federal tax system in ways that will strengthen our economy.  And I will seek to reform the federal government so that it focuses on its basic responsibilities, including returning appropriate programs and authority to the states, reducing federal spending for unnecessary programs, and reforming the delivery of federal services.

Finally, my third goal is to promote the rule of law.  No one in this country is above the law, and no one is beneath it either.  We must secure our borders and enforce existing laws on immigration.  The rule of law depends fundamentally on open and fair courts to resolve disputes impartially.  Our courts must be staffed by judges who understand their appropriate role in a democratic republic with a government of limited powers.  So to promote and protect the rule of law, I will ensure that the judges I appoint to the federal courts know that their role is to interpret and apply the text of the Constitution and the laws made by the branches of government accountable to the people and not to seek to impose on the rest of us law they make up to reflect their own personal policy preferences.

If I can leave office having made our country safer and more secure, having put the federal government on a sustainable and sound fiscal basis, and having strengthened the rule of law by stopping illegal immigration and assuring the courts remain within their appropriate bounds, I will consider my administration to have been a success.

 

Rudy Giuliani

As a matter of policy, Rudy Giuliani does not respond to questionnaires, but his campaign provided a letter summarizing his positions. Click the above link to read the letter.

 

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All responses are listed in alphabetical order. The American Conservative Union provides these responses for public information only. ACU neither endorses these candidates nor their responses.