An amendment that bears reminding that was one of the great contributions of the Republican Party to american life, second only to the abolition of slavery. For too long, we republicans have been content to lose the black vote. We found we did not need it to win. But when we gave up trying to win the support of african americans, we lost our moral legitimacy as part as the party of linkncoln. As the party of equal opportunity for all. It is time for us once again to reclaim our heritage as the only party in our country founded on the print for freedom for africanamerican. We know what democrats will propose in 2016. The same thing, the same thing the democrats have proposed for decades. More Government Spending on more government programs. And there is a proper and Important Role for government assistance and keeping people on their feet, but few president s have done more to expand government assistance than president obama. Today was and nearly 1 trillion per years on means tested antipoverty program. Yes, black poverty remains stagnant. Here is what i have seen in my time in public office. The best Welfare Program in america is his job. Is a job. [applause] there is a fundamental reason why democratic policies have failed to cure property, because the only true cure is a job and democratic policies have made it too hard for the poor to find jobs. Just a this week, the president announced new regulations for overtime pay that will make it costlier for companies to hire fulltime employees. Companies are going to respond to this i hiring fewer people, respond to this by hiring fewer people simply because money does not grow on trees. My First Priority as president of this country will be to reignite the engine of Economic Growth by performing the tax code requiring federal agencies , to adhere to strict regulatory budgets. A growing economy will give those at the bottom of the latter more opportunities to climb, just like we did in texas. Many more americans went to leave welfare, rejoin the workforce, but because of taxes and regulations it often makes more economic sense to stay on welfare then to take the fulltime job. Furthermore, federal programs and posts of one size its all impose a one size fits all approach to fighting property. Think about it. In california you may be substantially more in need for money to pay for the cost of housing. That is because of the high cost of housing in that data. In massachusetts, it may be the cost of vocational schools you are interested in. Instead, we forced the poor to enroll in the separate programs for Housing Assistance and and for cal grants. If i am elected, i will send congress a welfare reform bill that will take the money we are ready to spend on nonhealthcare related antipoverty programs and split them into two parts. The first part will be expanded and reformed on income tax credit. Thats way, anyone with a job can live above the poverty level. The second part will consist of a block grant so that states can put into place the safety net for their population in a manner that best serves their citizens. As i mentioned earlier, one of the most important things we did in texas, while i was governor was to reform our drug related sense and sentencing laws so that nonviolent offenders will stay out of prison. As texans got smarter about policing and crime prevention, we came to appreciate the importance of keeping promising young will out of prison. Promising young people out of resin. Prison. Just imagine how hard it is to get a job if you have a criminal record. We are working at to stop the intergenerational cycle of incarceration where grandchildren meet their grandparents behind prison bars. We can reform the federal sentencing laws. We can do this just as we have done at the state level to ensure more young people have a real shot at life. We can do that while keeping our low income communities safe from crime as well. We all know, we all know we have to improve. This is an area where president obama has some substantial potential, but he caved in to the demands of the labor unions. It is a fallacy to assume that the vastly different student populations across this country can be adequately educated with a one size fits all mentality and policy. We need to empower state lawmakers, School Boards parents to implement policies that address the specific needs of their students, and to keep those schools accountable and efficient. You know, enterprising Charter School teachers, like moscow its an new york, should be able to replicate their astounding success all over the country without the interference of the federal government. We also have to attack the challenge we have with the exorbitant price of a College Education today. One of the Biggest Barriers today into entering the middle class, whether you are black or otherwise, is the high cost of the college degree. A four year degree at the tip of at as the Typical University in this country costs 170,000. Compare that to the median home price at his country at 250,000. We are literally asking for students to mortgage their future in order to gain a college degree, and that has to end, it must end. I challenge our universities to offer a four Year College Degree for less than 10,000. Many thought that would be impossible. You just could not drive tuition and fees that low. Today there are 13 Texas Universities that have reached that target. [applause] we are on the cusp of an online revolution in Higher Education but only if the federal government rolls back the rules that makes it almost impossible for students to gain accreditation for a bachelors degree achieved from online instruction. Furthermore, just as with college tuition, we have to reduce the cost of living for those who need every dollar to be stretched as far as it can go. Federal regulations like like obamacares employer mandate, are driving up the cost of hiring new workers. That Means Companies are hiring fewer people. It also mean price of a sick price of the basic consumer goods are going up. Earlier this year, the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimated the federal regulations cost american businesses as much as one point as much as 1. 88 trillion per year. Nearly 15,000 per household. When you add state regulations the problem gets even worse. I will suggest we will do five things. If we create jobs, incentivize work, keep nonviolent drug offenders out of prison, reform our schools and reduce the cost of having, we will have done cost of living, we will have done more for africanamericans that the last three democrat administrations combined. At the American Cemetery in normandy above omaha beach there are 9387 american soldiers very. They are buried in row, after orderly row. If ever proved were needed that we fought for a cause and not a conquest, an American General once said it could be found in these cemeteries. Here was our only conquest, all we asked was enough soil in which to bury our dead. Some of those gallant dead in that cemetery are sons of the United States president , but most were ordinary americans. They were simply doing what their country had asked them to do. Some of the graves do not even have names. They are simply marked, here rests in honor and glory, a comrade in arms, known to god. Some of the most compelling graves in normandy are for africanamericans who served in segregated regimens like lily like Willie Collins of the fourth battalion. He made the ultimate sacrifice for america, despite the fact that america did not always treat him the way he deserved. Brigadier general Theodore Roosevelt junior and sergeant Willie Collins grew up in very different circumstances. Theodore roosevelts ancestors had a coat of arms. Willie collinss ancestors came here in chains. But the two of them joined themselves together. They did this with a commitment that every generation of americans have embraced. The promise of leaving america and the world a better place then they found it. Of ensuring a Better Future for the children in grandchildren of those to come. I am a beneficiary of the sacrifices of Sergeant Colin and general roosevelt and so many others known only to god. I grew up in this place called paint creek. When i was young we had an outhouse. Mama bade best on the front mama bade us on the front porch in the number two washtub. We attended paint creek cool. Some of the teachers literally lived on the campus. Their profession was literally their lives and they inspired me. I can assure you none of them knew, had any idea they would be educating future and the captain of the United States air force and certainly not a future of the governor of texas. They have a motto at the paint creek school the Endless Possibilities for students. It says, no dream and too tall for a school so small. [applause] many people today do not feel that their lives are filled with that endless possibility anymore. Americans entering adulthood today have good reason to fear it will be harder for them to earn a living, to buy a home, to pay off their debt is the parents did. But if there is one thing we can learn from Willie Collins, and the millions like cam, from the tragedy of jesse washington, and the triumph of jefferson, it is that america has overcome far greater obstacles than what we face today. Willie collins died in the belief that that america could become a greater country than the one he left home to serve, and he was right. It is up to us to be worthy of the country Willie Collinss generation gave to us. It is up to us to lead our country better off than we found it. America has never been perfect. But there is no country that has achieved more than the United States of america. With new leadership in durable performance, america can be stronger, more prosperous than that it has ever been before. America can be an incredibly exceptional place where nothing in life is guaranteed, but where we all have equal opportunity to build a better life for ourselves, for our children, and for our childrens children. Thank you, and god bless you. [applause] thank you, governor perry. The Congressional Budget Office has forecast for medicare and medicaid Social Security spending to grow precipitously in the coming years. These are programs that have had a role in helping the people that you describe in your speech, as well as all americans that have been in poverty. If you were to become president , how would you tackle the growth in entitlement spending, while at the same time, protecting those in poverty you want to help . John i think i just that in , my remarks to some degree, but i will expand. I do think that onesizefitsall is not the solution. I think as you will go back and recall in my remarks i talked about splitting the pots of money into two things. One of them to be to create the earned income tax credit where we actually get people incentives to work. And obviously, the other side of it is to make sure we have as many novel ideas and approaches. Louis brandeis said that. He is not known as a hardcore conservative Supreme Court member, but he said the stays were the laboratories of democracy. The are supposed to experiment and put novel ideas into place. That is where you will find the truly innovative concepts. He says, from time to time, the state will make a mistake, and will pay a price. When i read this, i think about colorado today. But i will defend colorados writes to be wrong. Rights to be wrong. But, that is where we will find the innovation in the country not in washington dc. But in the programs and letting those states in particular with programs and medicaid to come up with the various and different ideas about how to deliver to their citizens. How about the overall growth in the size of the program . Do they need to be means tested so people like myself that are a little bit better off retire . How do you handle the growth that i do not have a problem at all means testing. I am pretty sure donald trump can do about medicare. Can do without medicare. And the seriousness of it, that is a, means testing does make sense to me. I think people who have enjoyed the extraordinary benefits of this country and have become wealthy in that the idea they have to be in line for all of the programs does not make sense to me. With all of the other entitlement programs, during the course of this campaign, i will lay out a very broad approach to this and layout a thought of different ideas for how to address Social Security. How to address medicare, medicaid and all of the government programs. Today is not that day. On the issue of tax reform, can you give us any more detail on how you would read on the tax code and how you would use it to reduce income in the polity in equality . Again, i will lay out a very lengthy policy over the campaign. But we got the highest corporate , tax rate in the western world. Lowering the Corporate Tax rate. Two things attached together make a lot of sense. North American Energy policy canada, United States, and mexico have more Energy Reserves than saudi arabia and russia. Using those resources partly by lowering the Regulatory Burden that is there with a commitment from the white house that we are going to use north American Energy, opening up the xl pipeline is an obvious way to do that. Mexico has changed their constitution to allow for the private Sector Development of Energy Resources in that country. I think there is extraordinary potential and mexico. Obviously, domestic and shell gas with canadians. You couple that energy development. It will drive down the cost of electricity. You couple that with Corporate Tax policy and will send the incentive to the manufacturers who have left the country go offshore. We can have a manufacturing renaissance in this country like we have never seen before. [applause] governor, what would be your approach for getting tax reform done . It has been stalled on capitol hill. How would you go to washington and an act the tax reform . Well, this would not be my first rodeo, a term we use in texas. The 30 years i have been engaged in public service, whether it was a state representative through a statewide elected official and 14 years of the governor of the state of texas we work with democrats and republicans. We sold some pretty big programs in the state of texas. None of those programs were done with just republican support. Not of one of them. Not the most sweeping tort reform in the nation. That is not an easy sell anywhere to pass reforms to the legal system that really made a big impact. A decade later we had 35,000 more physicians licensed to Practice Medicine in the state of texas. It expanded by an extraordinary amount the number of physicians that were licensed to Practice Medicine. That meant ask to health care that that meant that access to health care exploded in that state. That was not just passed with republican votes. As i have said, there are a lot of things we agree on to gather. Whether it is living in safe communities, having good jobs, having good schools that are improving and giving children the opportunity to succeed in life. Find the things we agree on and bring democrats and republicans together, and i will suggest having a job for constituents is important and a good thing. If we can lower the Corporate Tax rate, and that being at the result of having jobs for young people in the country, i think democrats and republicans can come together. This is about americas future. That is where i think we reach out and talk to. Regardless of whether you are a democrat or republican, you are an american and we are going to get this done. [applause] as you reach out to africanamerican voters, what about the Confederate Flag that has been in the news recently. Should all of the flags come down, or not . Another questioner asks how can the Republican Party appeal to africanamerican voters as it favors the state law that limits of voting . We have come out clearly to say the issue of the Confederate Flag in charleston is up to the people in South Carolina, but we addressed this issue in texas while i was governor in a number of different ways. One was with a plaque that had the battle flag on it. It was removed from the capital over to another place more of a museum setting. We dealt with the issue of the license plates and forbade those lessons plates license plates to be sold. We dealt with it straightaway. I think it makes sense to come up with ways to bring the country together, not divide us. All to often i have seen this president divide us by race, divide us by gender, divide us by economic means. We need a president who will bring this country together, with a record of bringing this country together. Our bringing in my case our Stay Together on a host of different issues. I do not think there is more powerful way i can say to an africanamerican that i gave her child the opportunity to graduate from high school. What a powerful message that you