Rick Perry
Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Saturday criticized Ohio's decision to accept federal money to expand Medicaid, taking a jab at fellow GOP presidential candidate Gov. John Kasich.
(Paul Vernon/Associated Press)
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Three Republican presidential candidates made the case to conservative voters gathered here Saturday that each was the best choice to lead the country, but only one took aim specifically at a fellow GOP contender.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry criticized Republican governors who expanded Medicaid, the state- and federally-funded health insurance program for poor and disabled Americans, targeting Ohio's decision to accept federal funding to allow more people to qualify for the program.
In explaining his decision to expand Medicaid, Gov. John Kasich has said the more than $13 billion federal dollars Ohio receives for the program belong to Ohioans and would be spent in other states if Ohio did not accept them.
Perry, without mentioning Kasich's name, said that argument was "just nonsense."
"That money doesn't come from an endless vault of money in Washington. It is borrowed from bankers in China and children in Cleveland and Columbus," Perry told a crowd of 3,600 would-be Republican voters attending the Defending the American Dream Summit here.
"Justifying Medicaid expansion on the grounds of returning federal money to your home state can only be done if you turn a blind eye to the fact that we are $18 trillion in debt," Perry said.
Kasich campaign spokesman Rob Nichols noted that Perry used the same argument in 2011 to defend accepting federal stimulus dollars, which his spokesman at the time called "their fair share" that would have otherwise been distributed to other states.
"Rick Perry defended taking billions in Obama stimulus money to fill the Texas state budget holes caused by his own faulty projections, but now says using federal dollars to improve people's health is bad?" Nichols said. "That kind of thinking is a reminder that not one person on that stage, nor likely in the entire room, has ever helped balance the federal budget. Only John Kasich has done that."
Perry was one of five GOP presidential hopefuls who took the stage Friday and Saturday at the event sponsored by Americans for Prosperity. Americans for Prosperity, backed by Republican mega-donors Charles and David Koch, funds and organizes events targeting government spending and Obamacare across the country.
David Koch welcomed former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to the summit on Friday. Perry, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz spoke Saturday. Kasich was not invited.
The summit had the feel of a political convention meshed with a baseball game, with speakers walking on stage to hyped-up music and cheering fans and cameras capturing the scene from every angle to be displayed on large screens at the front of the room.
Democrats called the event the "dark money summit," a nod to the millions of dollars the Koch brothers give to Americans for Prosperity and other groups that do not have to publicly disclose donors. More than 3,000 Democrats and labor union supporters protested the summit Friday morning.
"This group pushes an incredibly hurtful agenda that will make our economy less stable and put workers in danger with policies like a so called 'right to work' law, a repeal of the prevailing wage and other policies that impede working people's ability to pursue the real American dream," AFL-CIO President Tim Burga said before the event.
Cruz received the rock star treatment from the crowd -- people flooded the aisles to take his picture when he walked out and followed him as he walked off the stage.
Cruz walked the crowd through his hypothetical presidency, starting with rescinding every "illegal and unconstitutional" executive order signed by President Obama and then checking off the gamut of conservative issues. Investigating Planned Parenthood, abolishing the federal Department of Education and Internal Revenue Service, repealing Obamacare and Common Core, establishing a flat tax and ripping to shreds Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.
The crowd roared when Cruz proposed sending the 90,000 IRS employees to guard the U.S.-Mexico border.
"We are here today because America is in crisis," Cruz said. "We are here today because we are bankrupting our kids and grandkids, because our constitutional rights are under assault from Washington each and every day, and because America has receded from leadership in the world."
Rubio spent much of his 20-minute time slot talking about the economy. Rubio said the American economy is undergoing a shift like the Industrial Revolution, and Republicans can't stick to ideas and candidates of the past.
He positioned himself as the answer to the problems Cruz and fellow Republican presidential candidates have outlined.
"There is not a single challenge we can't solve," Rubio said. "We are one election away from solving these challenges."