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Ben Carson to Newsmax: Tear Down the GOP Establishment
Tuesday, May 5, 2015 06:05 PM
By: Todd Beamon
Newly declared Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson told Newsmax TV Tuesday that his goal is to tear down the GOP establishment that has thrown "torpedoes" at him since he began considering a White House bid months ago.
"Probably, the thing that surprised me the most is not so much the left-wing media attempting to stop me, but the torpedoes that come from the right," Carson, the retired head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, told J.D. Hayworth in an exclusive interview on "Newsmax Prime." "That probably has surprised me.
"But the nice thing is all I have to do is tell the truth and stick to the right principles," Carson added. "I’m not a politician, have no desire to be a politician. You don’t have to be a politician to know how to do what’s right.
"You need to be a politician to do what’s politically expedient — and we’ve had that for far too long. It’s time for us to return to the values and principles that made this into a great nation."
Carson, 63, announced his candidacy in his hometown of Detroit on Monday. He now joins five other White House contenders: Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Marco Rubio of Florida; and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee jumped into the ring on Tuesday.
Raised with his older brother by a single mother in the inner city, Carson graduated from the University of Michigan and Yale University, retiring from Johns Hopkins in 2013.
In 1987, he led a 70-member medical team that successfully separated twins who had been joined at the back of the head in a 22-hour operation. The twins survived.
Carson gained more national attention earlier in 2013 when he slammed President Barack Obama's policies at a speech during the National Prayer Breakfast.
He is the author of several books, including last year's best-seller, "One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future." His next book, "A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties" is due out in October.
Carson told Newsmax that he got into the race because of his young granddaughters, Tesora and Juniac. He and his wife, Candy, have been married since 1975. They have three sons and daughters-in-law.
"We're in enormous trouble," he said. "When I retired, I had no intention of going into the public arena — but I couldn’t really relax seeing what was happening to the future of the next generations.
"I can’t do it. In terms of the amount of trouble we’re in."
Those ills include the nation's $18 trillion debt, record-high unemployment, stifling federal regulations and crippling tax policies.
"Our debt is accumulating at a very, very rapid rate and somebody is going to have to pay it," Carson told Hayworth. He said that it would take the nation 50 years to pay off its debt, even at just $1 billion a year.
"Somebody has to pay for that, and ... we [need to] start thinking about it now and start acting responsibly," he said. That includes "balancing our budget, trimming the unnecessary aspects of our government … letting loose the most powerful economic engine the world has ever known by altering our tax system and the amount of regulatory control so that people once again are encouraged and rewarded for entrepreneurial risk-taking and capital investment.
"Those are the things that drove this nation from nowhere to the pinnacle of the world in record time," Carson said.
He cited failed Democratic policies as factors in Detroit's bankruptcy in 2013 — the largest for a municipality in the nation's history — and last week's unrest in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. Six officers have been charged in the case.
Carson has lived in Baltimore for 36 years.
"There’s no question that cities like Baltimore and Detroit that have had long, uninterrupted oversight by progressive policies have not necessarily led to an elevation of the people there," he said. "We need to be looking for ways that we can allow people who are dependent in our society to climb up and to become part of the fabric of the American dream."
A political novice, Carson dismissed attacks on his government inexperience.
"What has happened is that a lot of people have been convinced that in order to have wisdom and in order to know how to do things, you have to be a dyed-in-the-wool political junkie. You have to have spent time in that arena.
"But I say you can gain wisdom and experience in lots of other places. In fact, there are millions of Americans out there who could do a much better job than people who traditionally spend all of their time in the political arena and have no real contact with the real world.
"I’ve had many opportunities to delve into extremely complex problems," Carson added. "Problems that no one else has been able to solve, and to solve those problems by utilizing great talent that exists around me and knowledge and thinking problems through in a logical way."
He said that his service on corporate boards helped him to "understand the ins and outs of complex business transactions, acquisitions, mergers — things that incentivize versus things that disincentivize business."
Carson also referenced the nonprofit Carson Scholars Fund, which he and his wife started in 1994. So far, the fund has awarded more than $5.7 million in scholarships.
"There are a number of things that I have been able to do that have allowed me to require a great deal of knowledge and experience," he told Hayworth. "I totally reject out of hand that you have to be a political person in order to be wise and know how to do things."
On other topics in his wide-ranging Newsmax TV interview, Carson:
Declared that same-sex marriage should be decided by the states, in accordance with the U.S. Constitution. "The reason that our Constitution says those things are remanded to the states is because they knew that the officials of the state, both in the legislative and judicial branch, would have to answer to the people of the state."
Proposed that the nation's tax system should be proportional, based on the Biblical tithing principle, which would eliminate the IRS. "You make $10 billion a year, you pay a billion. You make $10 a year, you pay one, but you get exactly the same rights. How could anything be fairer than that? But you also, in order to make it fair, have to eliminate deductions and loopholes so that everybody is treated the same. I’d like to see something where transactions can be done where ever they occur, taxes automatically removed — and nobody even has to file an income tax."
Called for term limits on federal judges, particularly those serving on the Supreme Court. "We may need a convention of the states to start talking about term limits not only for judges, but for legislators also. "The Founders … never envisioned a situation where people would develop their little fiefdoms with all kinds of perks associated with them. If they had, I’m certain they would’ve put term limits in."
