Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in his first appearance in Georgia as a presidential candidate, said Friday that the country needs to end the Obama administration's "onslaught of regulation," but he warned that his main opponent for the GOP nomination would be no better.
Perry spoke during a conference sponsored by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation at the Cobb Energy Centre. In a room full of Republican lawmakers and conservative activists, Perry never mentioned fellow White House hopeful Mitt Romney by name, but he made clear he disagreed with the former Massachusetts governor's policies.
"As Republican voters decide who is going to be best suited for this country and take it in a new direction by stopping the spending spree and the scrapping of ‘Obamacare,' I’m confident we’re going to choose a nominee that governed with conservative principles," Perry said. "Not one whose health care policies paved the way for ‘Obamacare.' "
As governor, Romney implemented a universal health care mandate for Massachusetts, which required residents to have health insurance, a policy that was a major part of the federal health care overhaul championed by President Barack Obama.
Perry promised that on his first day as president he would sign an executive order that would "wipe out as much of ‘Obamacare' as I can."
Perry and Romney are currently considered the front-runners for the GOP nomination. Perry is still getting his Georgia campaign organized, but Romney's team was ready for his appearance.
Romney had several supporters at Perry's speech. State Rep. Lynne Riley, R-Johns Creek, said Perry's stand on illegal immigration is a problem for many Republican voters.
Perry has supported allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition to attend college in Texas, something Riley said "does not line up with the values of Georgia voters."
"Georgians support enforcing immigration laws, securing our border and stopping the practices that draw illegal immigrants to our country," Riley said. "Providing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants [encourages] illegal immigration and makes it harder for our country to stop a growing problem.”
Perry did not take questions after his speech Friday, and his campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Romney's campaign also accused Perry of telling a "flat-out lie" when Perry said that Massachusetts "was one of the first to create its own ‘cap and trade' program, which included limits on carbon emissions for power plants." While Perry again never mentioned Romney by name, the implication seemed clear.
But Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said Romney actually blocked the program while governor. His Democratic successor, Deval Patrick, entered Massachusetts into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
Perry, who was greeted with polite applause, did not mention immigration during his speech. Instead, he continued to hammer Obama on regulatory policies Perry said are preventing the country's economy from expanding.
As governor, he said he worked to cut spending and regulation to help businesses grow. By contrast, he said, in 2010 the Obama administration implemented 43 new regulations "that cost businesses more than $26 billion."
Perry noted that the chief executive officer of a "major American company ... said he finds it easier to do work in China than in the United States."
He did not mention that the company in question was Coca-Cola, the Atlanta-based soft-drink giant.
"Now think about that for a moment," Perry said. "When a Communist country has less red tape than the United States of America, we just might be on the wrong track."
But when Coke CEO Muhtar Kent made that comment to The Financial Times, he was complaining more about America's political environment and its tax structure than government regulation.
"You have a one-stop shop in terms of the Chinese foreign investment agency," Kent told the paper, "and local governments are fighting for investment with each other."
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