Former Gov. Gary Johnson (R-NM)
CPAC 2011
Washington, DC
February 11, 2011
[DEMOCRACY IN ACTION transcript]

I'd like everyone here to know that first and foremost I'm an entrepreneur.  I started a one-man handyman business in Albuquerque in 1974 and in 1994 I actually had a thousand employees—electrical, mechanical, plumbing, pipe-fitting—really American Dream come true.  Work hard, show up on time, it's just amazing what that will do.  I sold that business in 1999.  Nobody lost their job and go figure they're doing better than ever.

I view my venture into politics as entrepreneurial.  I went and I introduced myself to the Republican Party a couple of weeks before I announced.  And what they said was, wow we like you, we like what you've got to say, we're an inclusive party, we want you to be a part of the debate and the discussion running for governor, but you just need to know that you will never win, that it's not possible to come from completely outside of politics and get elected governor in a state that's two-to-one Democrat.

Well I got elected and I would like to think it was based on what I had to say, which was that I was going to run state government like a business.  Best product, best service, lowest price—that everything was going to be a cost-benefit analysis.  What are we spending, and what are we getting for the money that we're spending?

I got elected.  What I found myself doing right away was vetoing a lot of bills.  I vetoed 750 bills while I was governor of New Mexico.  I had thousands of line-item vetoes.  I took line-item veto to a new art form.  And I have to tell you that just saying no to legislation doesn't fly, but that the discussion, the debate that follows—which is do we really need to be spending this money?  Is it really going to make a difference in people's lives in New Mexico? 

I was willing to say no, and I was willing to take on that debate, and that debate got played out in the newspapers and on television, and I would like to think that the fact that I got re-elected in a state that was two-to-one Democrat by saying no to billions of dollars worth of new spending really just speaks volumes to the fact that people really appreciate good stewardship of tax dollars.  Only two of those vetoes were overridden, so it really did make a huge difference.

Another thing that I was know for nationally was I was more outspoken than any governor in the country regarding school choice.  I really believe—I really believe that the only way that we're going to reform education in this country is to bring competition to public education.  So for six straight years I proposed that every single student in New Mexico get a voucher that would have brought about that competition in education.  The notion of educational entrepreneurs unleashed on the educational system to bring better products, better services at lower prices is something that really excites me.  And it would have a profound, positive impact on education in this country.  Now that didn't go anywhere, but the public opinion in New Mexico went from 35-percent supporting school vouchers when I first started the entire debate to over 50 percent supporting school vouchers when I left office.  So I thought that that was significant.

Another thing that I got known for nationally was—and this was in keeping with a promise to look at everything that we were spending money on.  What are we spending and what are we getting for the money that we're spending?  I really wanted to take, when I started my second term, I really wanted to take a hard look at the war on drugs in this country, and I wanted to include legalization as a potential alternative to what we were doing. 

Now I came at this from the standpoint that I wanted to crack down on drinking and driving.  That's where, that's where this all started.  And guess what?  The police, they don't have the resources.  The courts—they're packed, and the prisons are full.  It turns out that half of what we spend on law enforcement, the courts, and the prisons is drug related—about $70 billion a year.  And what are we getting for that $70 billion a year?  Well we're arresting 1.8 million people a year in this country, which I point out is the population of New Mexico, that gets arrested every single year in this country, and we now have 2.3 million people behind bars in this country.  We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. 

I looked at this issue, and I would ask you all if you haven't looked at this issue to just look at it.  Get online, talk to people, and see if you don't come to the same conclusion that I have, and that is that 90-percent of the drug problem is prohibition related, not use related—and that's not to discount the problems with use and abuse—but that ought to be the focus.  So then and now I propose legalizing marijuana.  When I say legalize marijuana, when I say legalize marijuana—control it, regulate it, tax it.  It's never going to be legal to smoke pot, become impaired, get behind the wheel of a car or do harm to others, and it's never going to be legal for kids to smoke pot or buy pot.  And under which situation is it going to be easier for a young person to buy pot?  The situation that exists today where you can virtually buy it anywhere and by the way the person that sells pot also sells harder drugs, or a situation where you have to produce an ID to be able to do that?

I think you could argue that use would actually go down among young people, and based on Holland and Portugal's experience, it would suggest that that would be the case.

I got out of office January 1 of 2003.  I was term limited.  I'm a firm believer in term limits.  I think as a result of term limits, I think politicians do good things for you and I as opposed to whatever it takes to get re-elected.  But I find myself 18 months ago just outraged over the fact that this country is bankrupt, that 43 cents out of every dollar that we're currently spending is borrowed.  I just think the biggest threat to our national security, I think the biggest threat to our way of life is the fact that we are bankrupt, and that we need to fix this right now.

Well how did we get here?  Well on national television I was asked about a week ago, what about repealing President Obama's health care plan?  Yes.  We should repeal President Obama's health care plan.  But how about if Republicans in the spirit of bipartisanship, how about if Republicans offer a repeal of the prescription drug care benefit that they passed when they controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency, and ran up record deficits.

There's a shared responsibility in this, and it goes back a long way, but there's no kicking the can down the road any more.  We have to slash government spending.  I advocate balancing the federal budget tomorrow, and that means cutting $1.5 trillion from the budget, because that's 43-percent of the federal budget.

And to do that you've got to start out talking about Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security.  I think when it comes to Medicaid and Medicare, the federal government gives that, gives those functions back to the states.  Fifty laboratories of innovation, all out in this notion of best practices, we're all really competitive.  You know what?  We do that it's going to make a huge difference; it's going to make a huge difference and a huge saving.  Social Security, you know by comparison is pale in comparison to Medicare.  Medicare is going to virtually engulf the entire federal budget unless it's brought into check.  Social Security, really, it's a function of a system that takes in more money than it pays out.  So I think that that's a matter of raising the retirement age.  That may be a slight benefit reduction and a slight reduction or a reduction in the escalator for Social Security going forward.  Perhaps it entails means testing. 

When I talk about any of this, raising taxes is absolutely unacceptable.  Raising taxes in this country is not acceptable.  We should eliminate the corporate income tax if we really want to bring about a situation where this country is going to be the place to start up and incubate and grow businesses, in this country. 

I talked about free markets when it came to education.  It's an exciting notion, free markets.  When the whole health care debate started, I had envisaged free markets.  I had envisaged the federal government eliminating impediments for health care entrepreneurs that would want to enter into the space to deliver better products, better services at lower prices.  What we've ended up with, we've ended up with legislation that it's going to drop 30 million more Americans onto a system with no added capacity.  How is it not going to result in rationing and higher costs? 

And right now the immigration issue is really an issue that I think is front and center, and as Republicans, look, we're the party of ideas.  The only party that's going to save this country is the Republican Party.  It's the only party that's capable of doing this.  And the Republican Party needs to stay principled when it comes to looking at everything we're spending money on.  And what are we spending our money on and what are we getting for the money that we spend.  And yes we have hearts; we want to do this as efficiently as possible.  So when it comes to immigration, I happen to think that immigration is really a good thing.  We are a country of immigrants.  I think immigrants end up being responsible for tens of millions of jobs in this country.  I'm glad that Google is a U.S. company and not a Russian company.  And right now because of our convoluted immigration policies we're educating kids from abroad and we're sending them back to their country of origin to ultimately start up businesses that I think will employ tens of millions of Indians as opposed to U.S. citizens, that if allowed to have stayed in the United States would have happened and that that would have happened. 

So we have a problem with illegal immigration.  Immigration should be about work, not welfare.  When it comes to illegal—  And we have an issue in this country with welfare.  Are Mexicans coming across the border and taking entry level jobs from Americans?  No way.  Because we can sit at home and make as much money or a little less money by collecting welfare.  I think we have easy solutions when it comes to the border.  It doesn't involve building a fence, it doesn't involve putting the national guard arm in arm across sixteen hundred miles of the border.

I would really thank you all very much for allowing me here to speak.  I thank you all for your activism and let's grow the Republican Party.  The Republican Party is the only party that's capable of fixing what's wrong in this country today.  Thank you.


Time: a bit less than 12 minutes, and the introducer came on stage and music started in last minute.


Transcript copyright © 2011 Eric M. Appleman/Democracy in Action.