Presidential hopeful holds ?meet and greet? in Fairfield 

Former Minnesota governor and presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty was in Fairfield Tuesday morning for a ?meet and greet? with county residents.

?Our country is off course,? Pawlenty told the crowd. ?I have the experience and the skills to get us going in a different direction.?

Pawlenty spoke about ethanol subsidies and the need to reduce those subsidies, saying he had been told he couldn?t talk about that in Iowa if he wanted to get Iowa votes.

?It?s time to tell the truth,? he said. ?I went to Florida and told those retirees we would have to fix Social Security. I went to Washington, D.C., and told the public employees union that they couldn?t continue to take more than the folks [the taxpayers] who were paying their salaries could get. In New York I told the financial people that they had to get their snouts out of the government trough. If you want to be president you have to tell it like it is.?

Pawlenty said, ?We have to get the country moving economically. The answer to how to do that is to take things out of government and get it back to the businesses. They are the ones who create the jobs.?

His proposal is to take the six tax rates down to two, eliminating loopholes and deductions; reduce spending; regulatory control reform (more pro-job); and more American energy.

?That is, natural gas, drilling offshore, drilling ANWAR, clean coal, nuclear energy and renewable energy that makes sense,? said the former governor of Minnesota.

?We have to get spending under control,? he continued. ?The United States government spends $144 million an hour that they don?t have. It?s a Ponzi scheme.?

Conservative Pawlenty said he is the most pro-life candidate, based not on words but on results. He is for traditional marriage. As for health care, he maintains that market forces will reform health care. It is not the government?s job. If elected he will work to eliminate Obamacare.

In answering Mary La Francis? question asking him to comment on foreign policy, immigration and terrorism, Pawlenty said, ?The number one duty of government is to make the country secure. The United States has a unique role in the world to lead. We cannot go around apologizing and saying we are equal with other nations. We are not. Thugs respect strength and we have to show strength. We should stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel. In the countries in the Middle East, we need to encourage them to turn toward democracy, not the Muslim Brotherhood.?

Lance Yedersberger questioned how Pawlenty could get the government in Washington to work together.

?Nobody can get along in Washington, and it is threatening our financial stability. Isn?t there work to be done there?? Yedersberger asked.

Pawlenty said, ?Some things you can compromise and some there is a fight where someone will win. As far as raising the debt ceiling, that is a symptom of a lot of underlying issues. If they raise it, it should balance with serious reform. President Obama doesn?t have a proposal to fix Medicare, Social Security. How will he fix the structural spending problem? The president hides when we need him to lead. I will do that even if it is unpopular. You?ve gotta be willing to take the hits.?

The last question of the day was from Connie Boyer who asked about his position on foreign aid.

Pawlenty said foreign aid could be reduced, but shouldn?t be eliminated.

?For example,? he said, ?we have an air base in Turkey, which is important to our military. Turkey expects some compensation. We don?t want to eliminate that. In some other countries, a little money goes a long way in the relationship.?