Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum’s climb in the polls made him the bull’s-eye at the Arizona Republican Debate, held by CNN on Wednesday evening. Mitt Romney, the off and on front-runner of the Republican presidential candidates, went after Santorum for his record in Congress as a big spender. Romney said, “Voting for the debt ceiling five different times without voting for compensating cuts. Voting to fund Planned Parenthood, voting to expand the Department of Education. During his term in the Senate spending grew by some 80% of the federal government.”
To counter Romney’s argument, Santorum said, “When you look at my record of never having raised taxes — Gov. Romney raised several hundred million dollars in taxes and fees in Massachusetts. I never voted to raise taxes. Gov. Romney even today suggested raising taxes on the top 1%, adopting the Occupy Wall Street rhetoric. I’m not going to adopt that rhetoric.” Though Santorum fired back at Romney, he couldn’t shy away from attacks of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, who claims that Santorum says one thing and does the other. Santorum asserts that he is against abortions, but once voted for Planned Parenthood. “If you voted for Planned Parenthood, like the senator has, you voted for birth control pills, and you literally, because funds are fungible, you literally vote for abortions because Planned Parenthood gets the money … they have the money left over to do abortion,” Paul charged. Paul also made it clear that Santorum, who declares he is against the No Child Left Behind Act, agreed with the act under President George W. Bush’s administration. Santorum said that it was a mistake of his past. The Arizona and Michigan primaries will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 28.
