Herman Cain visits Oskaloosa
A resident speaks with Herman Cain about education
Oskaloosa, Iowa- Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain was in Oskaloosa today for a campaign event. Cain stopped at Smokey Row around 3:00 PM this afternoon. After getting a coffee, Cain headed over to the Sweet Corn Serenade where he greeted residents and spoke with Sweet Corn Serenade Vendors. After speaking with vendors, Cain went over to Smokey Row to speak.
Cain began his remarks by talking about a question he is asked quite often, that being why he is choosing to go for the Presidency rather than running for the US Senate or House First. “The country can’t wait,” Cain said of how he responds to that question. Cain also spoke about the recent debt ceiling compromise. He was quick to criticize the recently passed compromise. “The solution that they ended up with reduces the rate of growth. The problem is spending! They [Congress] didn’t even touch how we begin to break down the debt,” Cain said.
Cain brought up energy dependence in America too. Cain said that the United States needs to take a look at restructuring the EPA. “I believe that we should get serious about energy independence rather than energy dependence, and in order to do that, that means we’re going to have to do some major restructuring of the Environment Protection Agency,” Cain said. Cain continued, “The EPA has gone wild. They are affecting farmers, they are affecting people who are in the oil and gas business, they are impacting our households with over regulatory reach.”
Cain also criticized President Obama. “He believes in big government, more taxes, big government, more taxes,” Cain said of President Obama. Cain continued, “I believe in less government, less taxes, less government, less taxes, and more individual responsibility.”
Bryan Latchaw presents Herman Cain with two 'Get Better Not Bitter', GBNB shirts
After he spoke, Cain took a few questions from the public. Cain was asked what he believes Washington needs to do to put confidence back into the market. “This market is
reacting to the jitters over our credit rating being downgraded. I used to serve on the board of directors of several major corporations. I know how these rating agencies think. Those people on Wall Street know how these rating agencies think. The mere fact that they [Congress] came up with this deal, that didn’t really address the problem of
spending, it only reduced the growth in spending, They know that eventually, we’re going to have to pay the [inaudible].”
After Cain was finished taking questions from the public, we had the opportunity to catch up with him. Our first question to Cain was over infrastructure and how he would fix our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Cain responded to our question by saying, “The first thing is if you get this economy growing, if the national economy is growing, by doing some of the things that I suggested, we’re also going to have the state economies growing, and the more the state economy grows, it’s gonna have more state revenue and I happen to believe that the state’s want to put more money into their infrastructure. Now the way the system is set up now, with the Department of Transportation and the gasoline tax, I’m not saying that we end that, but as this economy grows, we’ll have more revenue. People will drive more, they’re going to pay more in gasoline taxes, so we’ll have more money to divvy up to help get back in the infrastructure. It all gets back to, if we don’t grow this economy the way we can grow it, we won’t be able to do a lot of these things.”
Our next question was that of Education. We asked him if he would recommend the repeal of No Child Left Behind when he was in office or if he would rather modify it. Cain responded by saying, “I would take a look at it. I don’t have a repeal or replace answer at this point, but I know that there are certain elements of it that I do not like, for example, the requirements that they’re trying to impose on all schools, all over the spectrum, I don’t that that’s necessarily the right way to go.”
Herman Cain speaks in Smokey Row
Our final question to him was over who he may work with should he get the Presidential nomination. He asked him if he has thought who he may want to work with, as a Vice Presidential Candidate. Cain responded by saying, “The answer is I have thought of who would be some like minded people, that I could work well enthusiastically. Let me just define like minded because I can’t give out anything. Like minded is someone who challenges the establishment, the status quo. You gotta not be afraid to challenge the status quo. Secondly, someone who understands solving a problem, and not just kicking a problem down the road. You gotta be a very very very good communicator, because a key to passing a lot of these common sense ideas, is making sure the public understands them. So I need somebody out there, to help explain these programs, accurately and effectively, so the American people get behind it. There’s about, I guess we have a list of probably about five or six folk that we’re kind of thinking about, but it’s way too early right now to throw out some names.”
