August 12, 2011 Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty at the Des Moines Register Soapbox

Mary Pawlenty spoke for about 2 1/2 minutes introducing her husband. Pawlenty himself spoke for a bit over 8 minutes (unfortunately toward the end of his remarks an obnoxious heckler started yelling); he then took four questions. The most contentious came from Minnesotan Gabe Aderhold, challenging Pawlenty on gay marriage. All told Pawlenty was on the Soapbox for about 16 1/2 minutes.

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty
Des Moines Register Soapbox
Iowa State Fair
Des Moines, Iowa
August 12, 2011
[DEMOCRACY IN ACTION TRANSCRIPT/DMR video]

TIM PAWLENTY: Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you about the future of our country, but before I do that I want to introduce a special guest, my wife Mary, who is the former first lady of Minnesota; she's a big part of our campaign. I think you'd like to get a chance to know her; I know she'd like a chance to share a few thoughts with you about the great state of Iowa and our great country. Mary Pawlenty. [cheers, applause]

MARY PAWLENTY: Well thanks for being here. I bet you're out here seeing one or two politicians along the way. I hope you're enjoying your afternoon. We love coming to the Iowa State Fair. We love going to the Minnesota State Fair too of course. And I'd just like to tell you thank you. I appreciate Iowans. We have come to understand truly how engaged Iowans are, how people are genuinely asking really good questions of all of the candidates and doing the job that you do so well cycle after cycle. It matters. It matters obviously not only to Iowa, it matters more broadly to our country and ultimately to the world. So thank you for doing what you do best.

I do want to just say a couple of things about my husband, Tim, who obviously you'll hear from in a moment. Hopefully you'll have a chance to ask him some really good and hopefully some tough questions, but I'd just like to tell you a little bit about who he is. Obviously you all kind of see him in his political arena, but he and I have been married almost 24 years; we'll be married 24 years this September. And we have two kids. We have Anna who's going off to college this fall and Mara who's 15 years old.

And when I say that I support my husband, I support him not only because I love him so much, but also I support him with my head. I have watched him through tough times; I have watched him in good times and bad times. I've seen him through it all, as all of you who've been in long term relationships have. I know this is a person whose head and heart is genuinely connected. He is someone who has his compass set. He is someone who if I think you got to know him, he's the kind of person you'd want as your neighbor. If you talk to people who've known him a very long time, long time friends, long time neighbors that you know that this is a person you'd like to not only be your friend, somebody who you'd like to pull alongside, but he's someone who you can genuinely respect as a leader. I am confident that he is the person who has the best judgment and wisdom, character, strength and experience to be the next president of the United States. So ladies and gentleman again my husband, Gov. Tim Pawlenty. [applause]

TIM PAWLENTY ("Thank you" kisses Mary, "I love you, thanks."): Well thanks a lot. Look I know you're out here to enjoy the Fair and the weather and the food and the like and I appreciate your coming by. I'm just going to address one issue today and that's jobs and the economy. If there're some questions I'll be happy to take them so if you want to ask some questions feel free. But I know that one of the main issues facing Iowa and for our country is whether people have access to jobs.

And if we had a chance to go around this gathering and ask each of you what matters to you most, I think we'd hear about your family, I think we'd hear about the importance of having housing and the ability to pay for your mortgage or your rent, I think we'd hear about your concerns about needing to put gas in your car, I think we'd hear concerns about being able to pay your health care, and on down the list. All of those things and more—taking care of your kids; getting them on to college—require money. And for most Iowans and most Americans the way they get money is to have a job.

So I think one of the best questions we can ask and answer in this public debate and policy debate is what are those things that we can do to make it most likely that jobs will grow in this country. Because if you don't have access to a job your life gets pretty tough in a big hurry. So you know that's the issue. We've had three years or so of President Obama's direction in that regard. We've got to step back and ask how's it working? And the answer is not very well. We've got crushing levels of unemployment in the country, we've got nearly $4 a gallon gas, we've got a federal government that seems out of control and incapable to get its spending under control and we've got an economy that continues to point towards instability and maybe decline. That's not acceptable for America, it's not acceptable for Iowa, and it really undermines our ability to provide a pathway to quality of life for our citizens.

So when we ask and answer the question what are those things we can do about jobs we should talk to the people who actually provide them. There are six million companies in the United States of America. Five point nine million of them have 500 employees or fewer.   So most of the juice in the economy is in small and medium size businesses. And if you talk to the folks who want to either start or grow businesses or provide jobs, they pretty much tell you the same thing all over the whole country. They say, Governor it's gotten too heavy. The burden's gotten to heavy. The costs have gotten too high. They talk about taxes being too high. They talk about regulations being too heavy. They talk about energy costs being too expensive.   They talk about health care costs going through the roof and being unable to keep up with it. And if we don't answer those concerns or address those concerns we're not going to be able to provide the quality of life to our citizens that we want.

So what do we do about that? I think what we do about that is turn to our government and say we're going to take it back and get it in a better direction. I've got the most specific, most aggressive, boldest pro-jobs plan of any candidate in this race including the President. It's available at TimPawlenty.com, but here's the Readers' Digest version.

Number one, we've got to get the business tax rates from some of the most expensive in the world to more competitive so our companies can compete. Currently our companies get taxed at 35 percent. We need to bring that down under my proposal to 15 percent, but in exchange for that clean out all of the loopholes, credits, deductions, exemptions, or as many of them as possible so a business' ability to compete depends on your ability to connect to customers not your ability to go get a lobbyist or buy off or influence Congress. Have a flat, simple tax rate. [applause]

Number two, most of our small businesses in this country and job providers pay their taxes on their own individual returns because they're what's called pass-through entities, so they don't pay the business or corporate tax rate, they pay it on their individual returns if you're a small business. And so that's why it's important that we do small or individual tax relief as well. I'm proposing to take the six tax rates down to two and have a simpler, flatter tax system, and then eliminate taxation on interest, dividends, capital gains and the estate tax.

And then we call for a energy policy that is an American energy policy, not a Middle Eastern energy policy. [applause]

And then we need to fix health care reform the right way. Now look if you like the approach that President Obama has taken on health care, vote for him, but in my experience taking a problem and dragging it into Washington, DC and creating a top-down system where you offer citizens one choice or a limited number of choices and then you regulate it and you have government employees staff it and bureaucrats run it and then you tax people more to pay for it is not a good plan. In the long run it's not going to best serve our people. It's going to be financially insolvent within the next 15 years.

We do have an out of control health care system, but it's got to be fixed the right way. Like I did in Minnesota.
We've got to get individuals to have some skin in the game in terms of being responsible for making health care decisions with better information about quality and price. We've got to pay providers not just for how many volumes—procedures they perform, but we've got to make sure that they are actually getting paid for better health.

And then we've got to lighten up on the regulations more broadly. You know a lot of businesses say tell me yes, tell me no if I've got to get a permit, but tell me quickly and don't make it so expensive that you're discouraging me. So there's a whole proposal in there about regulatory reform.

I want to get to your questions, but I want to close with just one overarching thought that I think sums up this whole debate. And that is this. If you think about what separates the United States of America from the rest of the world, it's not that we're the biggest country in the world—population-wise we're not. We've only got 300-plus million people. We're not the cheapest country in the world, although we do need to be more competitive. So if we're not the biggest and we're not the cheapest, then what is it that has made us the most successful, exceptional nation the world has ever known? And the answer is we're the freest country in the world.

And when people are free they can do a number of things. They can dream as they see fit. They can invent, they can create, they can design, they can associate as they see fit, they can [man in crowd shouts] worship as they see fit, they can speak as they see fit, like this gentleman does. And that freedom unleashes in the human potential the ability to say I can do this. And that's fundamentally different than most cultures across the globe throughout most of time. And when government comes into our life and says you know what? We're going to take that over, or they say you know we're going to make it more difficult or they're going to tax it or they're going to regulate it or they're going to make it slower or they're going to discourage it, they not only run up their budgets, but they do something else that I think is equally or even more corrosive to our country. And that is they weigh down the American spirit. They weigh down and discourage the American spirit.

And that's what's happening now. You've got people all over this country who are discouraged and worried, not because of themselves, not because they've lost faith in their family or their church or their neighborhood or their community, but they've lost faith in their government [man shouts "no we haven't"]. They've lost faith in their government. [man shouts "we love our government"] And what's going on with that is you've got people saying Barack Obama has had his chance. He came through Iowa and other places and said vote for me, and he had these great speeches and great rhetoric. [man shouts again] but great speeches doesn't put gas in my car, great speeches doesn't pay your mortgage, great speeches doesn't pay your health care, great speeches doesn't buy your groceries. [applause]

So what we need to do is this. Tell Barack Obama he had his chance. It ain't working. And if you like the way the country's going and the direction it's headed, vote for him. But if you want to get this thing moving and grow more jobs, get gas prices down, and get the federal government under control and get results, not based on flapping your jaw or giving fancy speeches, the answer is to get it done like I did as the governor [man yells again] of Minnesota. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it. [applause] I'll be happy to take your questions. Thanks a lot. Alright, who's got a question?

Question, sir?

MAN: Yeah. We've been hearing a lot of candidates talk about jobs overseas and keeping them here at home. I read a report that a lot of the candidates have all of their campaign material contracted overseas, not in this country.

PAWLENTY: Question from this gentleman here with the "Superdad" tee-shirt on; I appreciate that. The question was a lot of the candidates who are talking about trying to keep jobs here, growing jobs here, but they're making or ordering their materials from places overseas. You know that's their prerogative. The direction I've given my campaign is "buy American" and buy it from here. [applause]

Yes?

MAN: Hello, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, my name is Gabe and I'm from the great state of Minnesota. I want to thank you for coming out to speak to us, but I want to address one concern of mine and that is you have not had the courage to stand for me and my friends. As a member of the GLBT community, you have not stood for us, and that is really hard for me, as [you are] someone that supports the National Organization for Marriage, someone that stands with the definition of marriage between one man and one woman. I thought our country was about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everyone—no exceptions. [one loud applause/yell] So Tim Pawlenty, I want to know when will you stand up for me? And that is what I want to know from you today because you are discriminating against me and it hurts. It really does.

PAWLENTY: The gentleman in the front here is asking a question about gay marriage or traditional marriage and my support for traditional marriage, his support for gay marriage. I understand we have a difference of opinion on this issue. I'll just give you my perspective on it and I'm sure you will give me yours or have given me yours. Look from my perspective I'm not at the point nor will I ever be at the point where I'll say that every domestic relationship is the same as traditional marriage. The relationship between a man and a woman in a traditional marriage is important to our country, our society, our culture. I think it should be remain elevated, not just in our words but under our laws. That's why I've supported laws, in fact I've authored laws to maintain marriage as between a man and a woman. [applause]

MAN: I just wanted to say that I support that you have your moral values, but that is something that is hurting my future and how I get to live my life. And that is something that's odd. Someone that talks about government that gets out of your lives. Why does government get involved in our marriages? [inaud. ...nothing to do with that]

PALWENTY: Okay so the question, the gentleman wants to know why is government getting involved in the marriage issue.
MAN: Get it out...
PAWLENTY: Every, I think every state has and has had for the history of our country laws defining marriage or addressing marriage so this is not a new thing, but it's an important thing. So we're just going to have a respectful disagreement.
MAN: Do you think I"m a second class citizen?
PAWLENTY: We're just going to have a respectful disagreement, sir.

Yes? Yeah, go ahead with the Nebraska shirt on.

MAN: [inaud.]

PAWLENTY: Yeah, I think the gentleman was asking where's the cut line on the statistics for large versus small. The statistic that I mentioned to you earlier, six million or so businesses in the United States, 5.9 million of them or so have 500 employees or fewer and most of those have a hundred employees or fewer.

Let's go. Is there anybody towards the back? I'll come to you sir in a second. Anybody else?   Okay we'll do that. This'll be the last one. Turkey Ranch; Turkey Hill Ranch.

MAN: I want to ask a question, not make a speech. The Arab world, 99.9 percent of the land mass is owned by the Arabs. Can you tell me why they can't find room for a Palestinian state [inaud.]

PAWLENTY: The question from the gentleman up front related to why can't we get a Palestinian state. Was that your question, sir?

MAN: Why does it have to take [inaud].

PAWLENTY: The question was isn't there land available other than from Israel for a Palestinian state? Obviously that's a long and involved issue with a lot of complexity to it but I want to make my view on this clear. We should stand by our friends in the world. We should stand by our friends strongly.   One of our best friends, the United States' best friends in the world is the nation of Israel. [applause] We should stand by them shoulder to shoulder. There should be no daylight between us and Israel. [applause continues] Unfortunately the current president has repeatedly stuck his thumb in the eye of Israel in a way that undermines the friendship and undermines their security interests and ours. That's not helpful to them; it's not helpful to us.

And now you have the United Nations or at least people within the United Nations thinking about just declaring through this really anemic and misguided organization in many respects, the United Nations, thinking about declaring a unilateral Palestinian state without Israel's concurrence or agreement, without America's concurrence or agreement. All you need to do—and this by the way would reflect a coalition potentially between Hamas and Fattah—pick up the Hamas charter and read it sometime. You'll see the words and the tones stand for the destruction of Israel, direct hostilities towards the United States and other places around the world. We should not have the United Nations or anyone else unilaterally imposing anything on Israel. [applause]

Thank you for coming out. I know the sun is hot. I appreciate your being here. I appreciate the chance to share a few thoughts with you. I hope you'll come to the straw ballot tomorrow in Ames and vote for my campaign. Have a great rest of the day. [applause]

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