Gov. Rick Perry fired back at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, his top GOP opponent, on Romney's home turf on Tuesday night, speaking at a banquet for the conservative think-tank The Pioneer Institute. Without naming names, Perry — clearly speaking about Romney — said other candidates were flip-flopping on Social Security and "sounding like liberals," according to audio of the event provided by WBUR Public Radio in Boston.
“Other candidates in this race have used words like fraud and compared it to a criminal enterprise,” Perry said, referencing Romney's own book, "No Apologies." “Under the media spotlight they change their tune and they start sounding like liberals," Perry continued. "The American people are tired of candidates who offer up the rhetoric of change while producing a record that bows to the status quo.”
The rest of the governor’s speech sounded much like what he's already said on the presidential trail: He talked about states having the autonomy to come up with their own solutions for delivering services.
“Governors will [snatch] those ideas in a heartbeat and bring them back to their states. And if a state implements a bad idea, well, it only impacts that state,” Perry said. “Unfortunately that’s not the way it works in America today. Too often Washington dictates this one-size fits all solution without fully considering the impact on state laws and state economics.”
He ended the evening by listing his own solutions to keeping states strong: Don’t spend all the money, have a tax policy that goes easy on employers while still bringing in money, have a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable, and reform the legal system to prevent frivolous lawsuits.
Perry travels to Lynchburg, Va., next to speak to students at Liberty University, a Christian liberal arts college founded by Jerry Falwell. His speech there on Wednesday is expected to focus more on social conservative priorities than the economics stump speech he delivered in Boston.
