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GLENN: The new governor of Texas, who is the last governor of Texas, Rick
Perry, just off his win is in New York. Sorry you have to leave Texas to come
New York.
PERRY: This is a great city and they need less taxes and less litigation and it
would be better place to come to.
GLENN: It would be nice if it were more like Texas. You are somebody that you
have a new book out called
Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington. You're a guy, Rick, and
I told you this before off the air and I will tell you on the air, I believe
Texas can lead the way out of this nightmare because Texans generally still get
it. A lot of America doesn't, but it's going to take it's going to take a man
with big boots to be able to stand against Washington.
PERRY: And that's really why I wrote the book. This book is about freedom. It's
about freedom from overtaxation, overregulation, overlitigation, yes. But it's
about freedom from a centralized government, putting what I consider to be
rather tyrannical pressures about the states. Telling us how to deliver
healthcare, telling us how to build our highways and educate our children and
the list goes on and on and that's not what our founding fathers had in mind for
us at all. They clearly enumerated those powers to the federal government and
said, you know, you states get out there and compete against each other and that
is what you are talking about in terms of Texas leading this country out of this
recession and forward and doing it with freedom, freedom to let the
private sector work.
GLENN: I never had a problem with Massachusetts having their own healthcare
system. They want to have universal healthcare, they can have it all they want,
just don't force it down my throat and Texas should be allowed to buy insurance
across state lines, wherever they want and they should be able to invent what
they want to do in Texas. How do you break the spine of the federal government?
For instance, California, I'm telling you there will be a massive tax revolt. I
don't know when it will happen, but it will happen just like the Tea Party
started, it will happen at some point if California goes down the crapper after
electing Jerry Brown going on the same policies times ten and they start going
down the crapper. At some point, a group of people will stand up and say I am
not paying for my own destruction. You are destroying our wealth. You're
destroying our dollar. You're destroying our freedom. I'm not going to do it.
PERRY: They're already doing that and they're moving out of California to
Texas. 153 businesses since the first of the year, Glenn, have moved out of
California to Texas. That is happening all across the country.
GLENN: What do you do? You take on healthcare, education and education is off
the rails. How do you break the back of that?
PERRY: I think last Tuesday was the first indication that the American people
are ready to stand up and say to Washington we no longer want you messing in our
business. The Republicans elected to the House of Representatives, the work is
now in front of them. They must turn back the clock, if you will, on this Obama
Care. They must realize that we're not going to send more money to Washington,
D.C. and let them distribute it the way they think fit. One of our important
goals over the next two to four years is to really have a good, open, honest
discussion about things like Social Security because it is a Ponzi scheme. My
children are 27 and 24, and they know this thing is totally broken.
GLENN: This isn't how it works.
PERRY: 1981, cities in Texas opted out. Those people are well taken care of.
Let's have that discussion. I'm not afraid. Matter of fact, that's the reason,
you know, people ask me, will you run for the presidency of the United States? I
said no. I don't want that job. Have it best job in America. I wouldn't have
written this book if I were talking about running for the presidency of the
United States because there are some very, very sensitive issues in here, but
the fact is Americans want answers. They want solutions. They're in this book,
"Fed Up."
GLENN: OK give me one, give me the first thing that you think people have to do.
PERRY: Let's have a time out on spending. I mean, Washington, D.C. needs to
stand up and say, you know what, we're going to get this spending under control.
If the Republicans in Congress really want to send a powerful message, a time
out on spending, get it under control. Stop the earmarks.
GLENN: If you did that, if you had a chance of doing that, you wouldn't have a
president who is spending $2 billion to experience the Festival of Lights in
India. There's no chance of them. The president is not going to turn.
PERRY: Right. I don't think so.
GLENN: It's up to you guys.
PERRY: It's the Republicans in the House of Representatives and hopefully in
2012, it will be the Republicans in the U.S. Senate and a new president that
puts this country and Washington, but the governors in the states have to stand
up and say no when they try to blackmail you into taking money and changing the
way that you do business. We've done that in Texas. Unemployment insurance, $550
million they tried to send to us. Our money I might add coming back to the
states and I said no, because they wanted to change the way we put that program
into place. Race to the top, education money, sounds great. Everybody is for
racing to the top. Well, but the strings were attached. National standards,
national tests and I said no. Our legislature and the case of the unemployment,
the small businesses said Governor, you're right, we don't want to change the
way we do those. And that is what this discussion in the book Fed Up is all
about. Let the states get back to being the laboratories of innovation. Let the
states be where if you want to try out a new way to deliver healthcare, let me
tell you, Bobby Jindal in New Orleans, a bright, capable fella, and he will put
healthcare reform into place in Louisiana, and we'll go over and look at it and
go, you know what, that will work right there. This one won't, but that will. We
will take that and put that in our state. Look, I don't agree with issues like
medicinal marijuana. I don't agree with that, but if California wants to vote on
that and that's what they want to do in their state, they ought to be able to do
it.
GLENN: Right.
PERRY: The reason I joined the lawsuit against the federal government on the
Arizona law. It's not perfect by any sense of the imagination. There are things
in it that I don't want our legislature to do like creating a new cause of
action against our police officers, but it should be Arizona's sovereign right
to be able to do that.
GLENN: When it comes to the federal government not doing their primary job, and
that is, protect the borders, protect the people, if they're not doing it, the
constitution is not a suicide pact. By the things that they have done to the
states, they are putting us in a suicidal position. A governor has to decide.
Governor, the day that California defaults and the United States government has
to bail them out and just has to take it over. Basically, you lose the star on
the flag because now the federal government is just paying for everything.
They'll say that it's the eighth largest economy in the world. It can't. It's
too big to fail. You can't let them fail. What do you say on that day?
PERRY: That's one of the reasons that I worked as hard as I could for Meg
Whitman. Unfortunately, the people of California what we say that day is that's
their issue. They've got to deal with that. That's not Texas. I mean, we're
going to continue to be a place where their businesses move and at the end of
the day, California may fail
GLENN: It will.
PERRY: The job creators will be living in Texas or other states like ours
GLENN: Let me ask you this question. I'm just I'm not going to have my company
here in New York forever. Texas is a place that I would move. However, honestly,
Texas, the border is so out of control and you have you have hostiles down in
South America that would love all the communists and all that stuff is coming
over the border. You know it and I know it. You have Al Qaeda and worse coming
over. You and I both know it. And then you have a drug system that is armed and
equipped by the United States government.
PERRY: And in charge of over a thousand miles of the U.S. Mexico border. They
have operational control of over a thousand miles of the border. That's our
department of Homeland Security.
GLENN: How does Texas remain safe?
PERRY: It is a great concern to us, and at the end of the day, it's a federal
responsibility. We spent $230 million of Texas taxpayer money over the last two
legislative sessions. You know,, we only meet every other year for 140 days and
again, in my book, I talk about maybe that is one of the things that the feds
need to look at, too, a meet every other year to deal with these issues rather
all the time. Getting back to the border we have increased our assistance to the
Sheriffs and the local police departments. We have a Texas Ranger recon team
that we constituted and put down there. I have national guard troops and various
insundry roles, and it's not our responsibility to defend that border. You know,
my dad, who is a wise man, said three things the federal government should get
really well. Three things that they have great responsibility for, deliver the
mail, preferably on Saturdays and on time, defend our border and have the
military. The third thing is the only thing we get right out of those three. The
federal government needs to quit doing everything else that they're doing until
they get those two right. Defend our border. Put the troops on the border. I've
asked since 2005, Glenn, I asked the department of defense to put predator
drones. We train our pilots in those drones every day and they're flying
somewhere up and down with all the bells and whistles, infrared, forward
looking, none of that information.
GLENN: But they won't do anything.
PERRY: None of that information is being used for law enforcement purposes. You
can secure that border. It requires a commitment. It requires focus. It requires
boots on the ground, the technologies you can defend. Strategic fencing in
metropolitan areas, it works. You can secure that border and then you know what,
we can have a debate about immigration reform at that time. You can't until
then.
GLENN: The name of the book is
Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington by the Governor of Texas,
Rick Perry. Always good to see you.
PERRY: Thank you.
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