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Catching Up With Mitt

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 2, 2007

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney most recently came to Florida to take part in the CNN/YouTube Republican debate in St. Petersburg.

Before the big event, however, the former Massachusetts governor sat down on Tuesday for a 45-minute interview with the Tribune's editorial board, his first in the Sunshine State, although he's made frequent visits in the run-up to the Jan. 29 presidential preference primary.

Romney was not the scrappy presence witnessed during the debate Wednesday night in heated exchanges with his chief rival, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Instead, he was relaxed, sociable and at his persuasive best in seeking our support.

The conversation focused on issues important to Floridians - the economy, immigration, transportation, education and health care - and Romney came across as smart and polished; in fact, a bit too slick to some on the board.

Romney put great emphasis on the fact he's not a career politician, and we certainly respect his business success. But he sounded like a typical pol trying not to alienate a voting bloc when he discussed Cuba. He assumed Florida is as one when it comes to our relations with the communist nation. He learned we are not.

Still, it's hard not to appreciate a man on the campaign trail quick to put those around him at ease, a man who promises to listen and take an analytical, data-driven and business-like approach to solving the nation's challenges. Below is an edited version of our conversation.

- Jeff Stidham

Q: Florida's economy is hurting badly. Homebuilding - down by half in some places. How do you think at a federal level you might be able to help Florida get its economy going again?

A: The economy of the nation is critical to Florida, and therefore you have to say, how can we strengthen the entire U.S. economy? I do not believe that Florida's long-term economic outlook is bleak; I believe the long-term economic outlook is very, very good, and what you're seeing is a short-term disruption by virtue of the subprime mortgage market crisis. That has precipitated a credit crunch, which has hurt, in particular, those parts of the country that rely upon growth and retirement communities.

Florida has had such an extraordinary influx of population over the past several years, and suddenly the brakes go on because people can't sell their homes, and as they think about coming here, they can't get mortgages, and as they look at the cost of living here, it's getting higher and higher. And so one thing is to solve the subprime mortgage crisis.

I think the Federal Reserve Bank has taken needed action by bringing down the discount rate and the federal funds rate to try and put more credit capacity back into the market. I think that's the right course.

I also believe that we're going to have to take more fundamental long-term action to strengthen the dollar. That means everything from finally dealing with our entitlements crisis, which has spooked foreign investors in the dollar, to putting ourselves on track to finally becoming energy independent, which we have not seriously done - and must be done - because we're sending more than $1 billion a day out of our economy to other economies like that of Hugo Chavez and Ahmadinejad and Putin and so forth. That is draining our economy and at the same time is strengthening theirs.

Finally, investments in technology and infrastructure are a big part of our future. So all those elements come to mind, and I might mention one more and that's the infrastructure needs of Florida given a state that is growing. Our formula for calculating the dollars that come from our highway trust fund are not sufficiently connected to the growth of a region or state, and I think the formula needs to be looked at from the standpoint of the most modern application of growth technology.

Q: Property insurance is part of Florida's problem. Since the hurricanes, the cost has exploded and one of the solutions that Florida is advocating is a national catastrophe insurance fund. Would you be a champion for such a fund?

A: First, I need to understand if the private market can meet the need or not. This is the concern I had as the governor of Massachusetts, because we had a lot of homes along the water that just couldn't get insurance, and the private insurance market wasn't providing the kind of home insurance that we had. Therefore, there may well be a need if the private industry can't deal with this issue.

There may be a need for a broader governmental-based market to be developed in home and catastrophic insurance. I do not believe that you're going to see the nation say that we'll have other states subsidize the states that are high risk. Instead, there will be a recognition that places that are high risk around the nation can be actuarially calculated to have specific levels of risk and all of them share in that pool based upon their actuarial risk, and we have a national insurance fund of some kind.

Q: One issue that's quite large here in Tampa as elsewhere is the treatment of illegal immigrants. Suppose an illegal woman standing at a bus stop is robbed. Should she feel comfortable in coming to police and reporting that crime given the potential for deportation?

A: I believe in enforcing the law, so let me tell you my policies with regard to illegal immigration.

First, I would secure the border. Two, I would have an employment verification system that says to all those who come legally into the country that they're going to receive an identification card that shows they're here legally, and it would be a card that could be easily verified by a potential employer.

You tell employers you don't hire those who are here illegally; if you do, you'll be sanctioned just like you are for not paying taxes. Once that happens you're going to have those who are here illegally gradually and humanely returned home or get back in line to become permanent residents or citizens. But in my view there should not be a special pathway afforded to those who come here illegally.

With regard to reporting crime, I certainly would want a person to feel they could come forward and report crime; at the same time, I believe we're a nation of laws and we should expect people to abide by the laws of this country.

Q: Is it true you favor drilling closer to Florida's coast?

A: No, I favor allowing states to work with the federal government to develop programs that are of mutual consent for drilling. I do not favor drilling in the Everglades, for instance, and I believe that the agreement that's been worked out with Florida so far, I think it's a 125-mile limit, is an appropriate decision. If there are opportunities that the people of Florida engage in with the federal government, that's the right of the people of this state and the nation.

Q: We have a special issue in Florida with regard to Cuban immigration. We're very close to a foreign country, 3,000 have been stopped from coming in - a record this year - and for every one stopped, 10 make it in. Do you think that's a good policy and would you continue that?

A: I would take guidance on issues like that from folks who are very close to the Cuban-American setting and the setting in Cuba. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Dias-Balart brothers and people like Al Cardenas, who is my chairman here in Florida.

At this stage, none of them has said we should abandon that policy and develop a new one. I am convinced by their arguments in that regard.

My own inclination would be to say as many Cubans as want to come here, come on in because Cuban-Americans have offered a great vitality, education, skill and energy to the American experience and it's almost the more, the merrier, but I do recognize that there's a feeling on the part of many here that if those who are seeking freedom and opportunity and democracy all leave Cuba, it would leave those behind without patriots who would stand up and augur for freedom in Cuba.

Q: It concerns me to hear you say that you would like to see as many refugees come here as possible. Florida must pay the price for the federal policy.

A: I want to be really careful in the choice of words. I love Cubans, but I'm not suggesting that we change our immigration policy. I love the Cubans that have come here and think they add greatly to our economic vitality and make our country a stronger country, but I'm not suggesting a change in our immigration policy.

Q: In your speeches you've emphasized that citizens get good health care but need insurance. In Massachusetts you have great health facilities and medical groups; what have you learned from that experiment and how does it translate to a state like Florida?A: My own plan for health insurance for the nation is based on my experience in Massachusetts where we found a way to get everybody in our state that didn't have insurance, insurance without having to raise taxes and without having the government take over health care.

We expanded private free market insurance to people, and in my view there will be an effort to get everyone in this country insured and there will be two paths. One is the Hillary Clinton path which is a government takeover of health care. It's a single-payer system, and we will pay through the nose if it goes through because she said she anticipates it's going to cost $110 billion, so we'll have a brand new entitlement - government insurance for everybody - and that's a very frightening course in my view. The other alternative is to say we're going to get people insured with private insurance, with free-market insurance, which they buy and which they own. That's the path I laid out in our state. What I did find out is that there's enough difference between states that what worked in Massachusetts may not work in Florida or Texas or Montana. What I propose is to take the money the federal government currently sends to Florida and instead of telling you how to use every single dollar, say here's the money you're getting, you use it as you feel it's most effective to insure your poor and uninsured and develop your own plans. If you want to copy what we did in Massachusetts, terrific. If there are parts that you think you can do differently or better, you do that.

Q: In Florida we have education accountability standards with the FCAT test. Would you allow a state like Florida to opt out of No Child Left Behind if they have their own system in place?

A: I think the federal government should give the states sufficient flexibility to assess how they assess their kids and to determine which schools are failing and which are not. I'd give the states more authority over the evaluation of different schools, but I would want to insist that states have a testing program and they assess which schools are succeeding and failing and that failure is met with either a form of insertion of state authority or ability of kids to go to charter schools or receive vouchers or a number of other choices. I believe in the concept of No Child Left Behind, but I'd like states to have a pretty significant say in how they implement it.

Q: How would your approach be different than the president's? He had a Republican Congress and he was unable to get his Social Security reform plan through. Where did he make his mistake and how would you get it through?

A: It's one thing to come up with the answer on how to solve a problem; it's another thing to get both parties to align behind it. I think the challenge with his plan was more in the process of getting consensus than it was in finding an elegant solution.

In that regard, Sen. Judd Gregg from New Hampshire proposed a solution by saying let's get an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, put them together on a commission and have them put together a Social Security reform plan, bring it to the floor for an up or down vote with a 60 percent majority required. It's a bit like BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure). On that basis and Senator Gregg has done this with a Democratic senator, this is a bipartisan bill saying we've got a problem, let's solve this together. I think in this case you've got to have the AARP fully briefed and on board, you've got to have some of the leaders in the opposition party saying this is something that works, you've got to be able to build a bipartisan effort.

With regards to these entitlements, we need to honor the promises our seniors are counting on. We're not going to change the deal on our seniors, but we have to be honest in the promises we're making to those that are younger.

Q: Make the case for why you're the person who ought to get this nomination and what is it that you want people to know about you.

A: Let me tell you why I'm running. I'm convinced that America is at a critical inflection point in our history where the course of America's future is going to be set in a way which is perhaps indelible thereafter. I believe the challenges we face on a number of fronts are so severe that we will either, if we overcome them, remain the world's power with a nation that is safe and prosperous, or instead will become one of many nations that is not the world's power, and a setting where we are not the superpower is very frightening to me for my kids and my grandkids.

How do we keep America the most powerful nation on Earth? By overcoming radical jihad around the world; making sure that we are as competitive as we need to be to stay ahead of China and India, which are going to be a lot tougher than anything we've faced before; dealing with our domestic problems - our overspending in Washington, our overuse of foreign oil, the failure of our schools, the failure of our health care system, the failure of our immigration system to stop illegal immigration into our country.

I don't think politicians can solve the problems we have and get us on the road back. I have spent my life in the private sector, 25 years in small business that became big business. I have done business in 20 countries around the world or more. I've spent time in the volunteer sector having run the Olympics and helped turn that around. I went into the state of Massachusetts, which was losing jobs and losing money, and helped turn that around. I believe that by virtue of the capacities that I've developed in a lifelong experience in the public sector, the volunteer sector and the private sector that I can get America back on track and I think it's critical.

This is about making a difference for America and I think I can do that. I don't think the other folks in this race can. I think they're so wedded to the political process and careers that they can't put those things behind them to get America on the right course.

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