Republicans vying for the White House gathered at the first annual Iowa Agricultural Summit in Des Moines Saturday and discussed issues ranging from renewable fuel standards to immigration.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Gov. of New York George Pataki, former Gov. of Arkansas Mike Huckabee; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie each spoke with AgSummit sponsor and host Bruce Rastetter for 20 minutes each on variety of issues.
When asked about immigration, an issue he is criticized for by the Republican base, Bush remarked, “Immigrants that are here need to have a path to legalized status.”
He added, “No one I know has a plan to deal with illegal immigrants to say they’re going to be rounded up and taken away.”
Bush went further saying that those who are in the country illegally should pay fines, learn English and work as opposed to being on government assistance, adding, “That they earn legalized status over the long haul — that they come out from of the shadows and can be productive with a provisional work permit. This is the only serious, thoughtful way to deal with this and we better start doing it because this is a competitive world.”
Christie, who was heckled during his Q& A by New Jersey protesters over Hurricane Sandy funding, focused his immigration remarks on improving the guest worker program.
“The guest worker program is something that should be given greater clarity, greater certainty and make sure people have labor that’s available to them that’s legal. So let’s enforce the laws that we have now and make them work,” he said.
He explained, “And again this goes back to my point about the president not understanding that the executive branch needs to execute and enforce the laws that are there already. He’s unwilling to do that or unable. It doesn’t matter at this point. We have a track record. We should have a clear legal, reliable guest worker program that folks in agriculture and others can rely on that makes sense.”
Scott Walker said repeatedly he did not support amnesty for illegal immigrants and securing the border had to come first before anything else.
“It’s much bigger than immigration. I think it’s a national security issue. None of us would build a house and put a fence around three sides of it and not have a fourth side out there,” he said. “So you got to deal with it in that regard from a national security standpoint. I also think it helps you deal with the larger issue of immigration if you have a truly secure border. I’m not a supporter of amnesty. I know there are some out there and I respect their views, but I’m not a supporter of amnesty. What I do believe going forward, though, we need to have a legal immigration system in this country that works and a couple of different steps.”
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a federal program mandating transportation fuel sold in the U.S. to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels, was focused on at the AgSummit as well. Cruz threw the dice with his response before attendees who likely favor corn as a cash crop that produces the renewable fuel known as ethanol — which is mostly subsidized by the federal government. Like Bush and Pataki, Cruz supports an end to the RFS and wants a more free-market approach.
“I recognize that this is a gathering of a lot of folks where the answer you’d like me to give is ‘I’m for the RFS, darnit;’ that’d be the easy thing to do,” Cruz said. “But I’ll tell you, people are pretty fed up, I think, with politicians who run around and tell one group one thing, tell another group another thing, and then they go to Washington and they don’t do anything that they said they would do. And I think that’s a big part of the reason we have the problems we have in Washington, is there have been career politicians in both parties that aren’t listening to the American people and aren’t doing what they said they would do.”
Perry, on the other hand, responded, “I don’t think you pull the RFS out and discriminate against the RFS and leave all these other subsidies.”
Christie told attendees he “absolutely” supports the fuel standard.
The Environmental Protection Agency also took hits on Saturday at the AgSummit. Christie called the EPA’s navigable water rule a “power grab from Washington,” while Cruz said he would fight the EPA from expanding the definition of navigable waters.
The lifting of the Cuba embargo was an additional topic brought up at the summit. Huckabee was critical of the administration’s most recent actions with the Castro regime.
“They kick their people in the groin,” the former Arkansas governor said Saturday in Iowa. “You don’t go around and make friends and nice with people who do horrible things.”
He added, “I think we ought to quit pretending that Cuba is some wonderful nation with whom we can sit down and visit with.”
More vents in key primary states are coming up the pipeline. A number of GOPers exploring a 2016 run will be making numerous return visits to the Hawkeye state before the Iowa straw poll this summer and Iowa caucuses next year.