Rick Santorum - TARP
Summary
Senator Santorum was not in office during the TARP vote. After the vote, he spoke out against the TARP program and bailouts in general. He stated that the program was not in the best long term interests of the country.
2010 CPAC
At the 2010 Conservative Political Action Committee, Senator Santorum spoke about his opposition to TARP. He stated that TARP was the wrong thing to do for the country.
Whether TARP was the right thing to do for the economy at the time, it was the wrong thing to do for America, because it set a precedent of crony capitalism and government involvement in the private sector that will ultimately destroy this country.
NW Iowa interview
On March 8, 2011 Senator Santorum was asked about bailouts at the Woodbury County Republican Party. The question was 'With the free market in mind, what are your thoughts on bailouts and subsidies?' Senator Santorum responds by discussing the dangers of having an economic system that prevents failures by taking funds from "winners".
New Hampshire Debate
In June of 2011, Senator Santorum participated in the Republican debate in New Hampshire. He was asked about the GM bailout and states that there should not have been a TARP or a TARP and GM.
KING: Anyone -- is there anyone here who, given that prospect, and President Bush started the program, given that prospect, anyone here who would have stepped in and said, "I don't want to do this, but this is the backbone of American manufacturing, I'll do something"?
SANTORUM: No, absolutely not. We should -- we should not have had a TARP. We should not have had the auto bailout. Governor Romney's right. They could have gone through a structured bankruptcy without the federal government.
All the federal government did was basically tip to the cronies, tip to the unions, gave the unions the company. If they'd have gone through the orderly bankruptcy process, gone through a structured bankruptcy, they'd have come out in the same place, only we would have kept the integrity of the bankruptcy process without the government putting its fingers into it.
Dartmouth Economic Debate
On October 11, 2011 Senator Santorum participated in a debate at Dartmouth University. Senator Santorum asked Herman Cain a question and in doing so claimed that while he opposed TARP, most of the other people on the stage supported it.
SANTORUM: We are in the “live free or die!” state, and I oppose the single biggest government intrusion into the private sector, the Wall Street bailout, the TARP program. I opposed it because it violated the principles of our Constitution, the spirit of our Constitution, and because the experience I had that if you open up the door of government involvement in the private sector, some president will and in fact did drive a truck through it and explode the size of the federal government and constrict our freedom.
The interesting thing here is, is the four people on this panel that actually supported TARP at the time of its passage are the people who say that they are the anti-Washington candidates, that they are the business candidates.
And they are the four on this program that supported the Washington bailout, giving Washington, naively, I would say, tools to constrict our freedom. And since...
TUMULTY: So do you have a question for one of them?
SANTORUM: My question is - you prompted it perfectly, because here is my question. My question is, since I think Herman Cain is giving naively a tool in his 999 plan of giving Washington a huge new tax burden - tax opportunity to get money through a sales tax, can we trust you that with your lack of experience that you won’t continually give Washington the ability to take freedom away from freedom-loving people here in the “live free or die!” state?
CAIN: There are three deterrents to the -
SANTORUM: And, by the way, the four people were Governor Huntsman, Governor Perry, Herman Cain, and Governor Romney, all supported TARP.
Sponsored and Cosponsored Legislation
This representative has not been identified as sponsoring or cosponsoring significant legislation related to this title.
References
[1] Website: The Hill Article: Santorum's Take on TARP Author: Christian Heinze Accessed on: 08/23/2011