Mitt Romney: The DREAM Act Is A “Handout”

By Sara Inés Calderón | Posted at 10:30 am on January 5

On Tuesday Mitt Romney told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien that the DREAM Act was a “handout.” the funny thing is he told her this in response to her question as to whether he is driving away Latino voters into President Obama’s camp. Here’s a transcript:

SOLEDAD O’BRIEN: I want to ask you a question. Everybody’s looking at New Hampshire and, of course, they’re looking at South Carolina. But I want to look at Florida. And of course, in Florida, you have a large number of Latino voters. And you’ve been very clear that, given the opportunity, you will veto the Dream Act. You know immigration is a big issue for Latino voters. When you tackle that, when you say something like that very publicly and very strongly, are you essentially handing those voters off to President Obama?

MITT ROMNEY: You know, the Hispanic-American voters that I speak with are overwhelmingly concerned with opportunity. They want good jobs in America and rising incomes. And if they want a president who is going to talk to them about a handout or more benefits for free, they got that guy. If they instead, want a president who understands the economy, who has lived in the economy and understands what it takes to help people get jobs, again, then I’m that person. And I think that’s going to be the issue that is deciding the 2012 election.