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.