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Jobs and the economy dominate Republican presidential debate in Florida

ORLANDO, Florida — Jobs and the economy dominated the opening questions presented to the nine Republican candidates at Thursday night’s presidential debate in Orlando, Fla. — reflecting the hot topics included in questions submitted by members of the public for the event.

And as at the last debate in Tampa, Fla., frontrunner Texas Gov. Rick Perry and his closest rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, traded barbs — while other candidates also sniped at the Texan.

Perry’s position on social security was once again in the firing line as he attempted to explain his recent comments that seemed to suggest he felt it should be a state issue and not a federal one.

“We never said we were going to move this back to the states, what we said was we ought to have as one of the options the state employees, the state retirees … being able to go off the current system and onto one that the states would operate themselves,” Perry said.

Taking aim at Romney, Perry added, “As a matter of fact in Massachusetts … almost 96 percent of the people who are on that program, retirees and state people, are off of the social security program … it makes sense, it’s an option we should have.”

Romney quickly responded, saying, “Well that’s different than what the governor put in his book just six months ago and what you said in your interviews following the book, so there’s a Rick Perry out there saying … that the federal government shouldn’t be in the pension business, that it’s unconstitutional and it should be returned to the states.

“So you better find that Rick Perry and get him to stop saying that.”

On the issue of immigration, Romney, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum were all critical of Perry’s record of protecting American borders and the Texan’s programs of in-state tuition for some illegal immigrants.

“I would not allow tax benefits for illegal aliens or their children,” Bachmann said, referring to such programs as “magnets.”

She also said she would “build a fence on every inch of our southern border,” and provide funding for it to be properly policed.

Santorum accused Perry of being “soft on illegal immigration” and Romney called Perry’s policy of in-state tuition at colleges a “kind of magnet draws people into this country and it makes no sense” — repeating Bachmann’s assessment.

Perry defended his record on border issues and immigration, saying, “If you say we should not educate children who come into our state by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart. We need to educate these children or they will be a drag on society.”

Perry, Romney, Bachmann and Santorum were joined by Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, businessman Herman Cain and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. It was Johnson’s first debate appearance since May.

To kick off, the main focus of criticism was the Obama administration.

“President Obama has done everything wrong,” Romney said, when asked what he would do to give small business a break. “The people most hurt by the Obama economy have been the middle class and that’s why I would cut taxes for the middle class.

“I don’t try to define who is rich and who is not rich. I want everybody in America to be rich. The way to lift America is to give them opportunity.”

Romney said America needs to become the “most attractive place in the world for business, and that means that our corporate tax rates, our employer tax rates have to be competitive. Small business pays at the highest rate when you get those rates down to globally competitive levels.”

Moderator Bret Baier also asked Perry his jobs plan, to which Perry responded, “You’ll see a more extensive plan but the fact of the matter is if you look at the state of Texas and see what we’ve done there … lowering that tax burden, the regulatory climate … we’ve taken those types of regulations off of the throat of small business operators.”

After more than 18,000 questions were submitted from the public for the debate, hosted by FOX News and Google, Bachmann was re-asked a question from last week’s debate in Tampa, Fla.

The question, posed by a student named Tyler, was, “Out of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?” He asked that the question be raised again because he did not feel Bachmann answered it properly last time — explaining the response should be just one number.

This time Bachmann responded, “You earned every dollar — you should get to keep every dollar. That’s your money and it’s not the government’s.

“Barack Obama seems to think that when we earn money it belongs to him and we’re lucky just to keep a little bit of it. I don’t think that at all,” she continued.

“I think when people make money it’s their money. Obviously we have to give money back to the government so we can run the government, but we have to have a completely different mindset — and that mindset is the American people are the genius of this economy, it certainly isn’t government that’s the genius.”