One of Tim Pawlenty’s laugh lines last night was a jibe at Mitt Romney’s personal wealth; after declaring that he’d mow the lawn of any American who could identify President Obama’s plan for entitlements reform, Pawlenty said that offer was limited to one acre of lawn for Romney.
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Pawlenty, who talks frequently about his blue-collar upbringing, said at POLITICO’s Playbook Breakfast Friday that he was “just having some fun” with the comment, and didn’t mean it as an attack on Romney.
“I was just having some fun with that, pulling Mitt’s chain a little bit,” Pawlenty said.
But a more serious underlying point, Pawlenty said, is that voters want to know about the backgrounds of the presidential candidates and who they can relate to.
“I think if people are running for president, want to be president, the electorate wants to know who are you, where do you come from,” Pawlenty said. “I don’t suggest that my life story is better or worse than anybody else’s. It’s just different.”
Pawlenty mentioned that his father was a truck driver and his mother died when he was young, and mentioned that he “got lucky, got a job at a grocery store, worked in a union position” and worked his way through college.
“Those are the kinds of things people want to know, because if you’re president, they’re gonna want to know, who is this person and does your life story kind of line up with theirs?” Pawlenty said.
Circling back to Romney, Pawlenty continued: “In Mitt’s case, he’s got an incredibly successful background and I think we should applaud it and celebrate it”
my standard for raising the debt ceiling was yes, "Cut, Cap and Balance," but also we had to have a full repeal of Obamacare. My opinion has been, I would not raise the debt ceiling right now because we're almost up to $17 trillion.
When I came into office, Sean, we were at $8.67 trillion. In a little over four years, we've almost doubled the debt. Standard and Poor's essentially proved me right what I was saying. We are not in a position to be able to repay our debt when we continue to spend this money.
We didn't have to default. We what we had to do is let markets know we won't default. We will get our AAA credit rating back. We're going to pay the military. We're going to pay our senior citizens.
But then, we're not going to kick the can down the road either. We're going to cut spending now and prioritize. That is not an extremist view. That's the reality view that we have to take because right now piper is asking to be paid. It's hit the fan. We've got to deal with the spending now.
It is. Yes, it goes with the territory. I mean, honestly, America had a punch in the gut this week. Let's face it. The president got a $2.4 trillion blank check. We got $21 billion in cuts, not much of a deal.
Two days later the stock market dropped over 500 points, then we lost for the first time in the history of the country the AAA credit rating then we saw a terrible tragedy over the weekend and all told we've lost 1,500 points in the stock market. All the president could do was blame earthquakes and the Tea Party? We've got a problem so who cares about a magazine cover.
but I introduced that because I mean, quite seriously that is symbolic of what is wrong with Washington, isn't it? Because when you're the federal government telling you what light bulb you can use and you can't use? That is why I introduced that bill because when I'm in the White House as president, Sean, you can buy any light bulb you want to buy.
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