Pinal County Sheriff Babeu to run for Congress
Pinal Country Sheriff Paul Babeu announced Wednesday he’d run for Congress in Arizona’s fourth congressional district. From Phoenix, KJZZ’s Weston Phippen reports.
WESTON PHIPPEN: He’s best known for his talk about roving battles with drug cartels in the desert. And in a state that’s home to the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff, it seemed like Babeu would be left to shiver in Sheriff Joe’s shadow. But Babeu is stepping out into the race for U.S. House of Representatives. He says his biggest issues are jobs and immigration.
PAUL BABEU: We are not walking, we are sprinting down the path of economic collapse.
WESTON PHIPPEN: Babeu says he likes presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s idea of reducing the corporate tax to ease the burden on the private sector. And to he wants to give incentives for U.S. companies to bring back jobs from overseas, possibly by creating a tax holiday.
PAUL BABEU: Currently there is $2 trillion estimated by economists off-shores, and what I would like to do is offer a holiday for them to bring that back without penalty to invest it to act as an incentive.
WESTON PHIPPEN: He also said he would never have voted to raise the debt ceiling, and thought the threat of default was like blackmail to force votes. He’s ferociously against cuts to defense.
PAUL BABEU: Some countries that aren’t behaving, or do not follow the rule of law, who are conquerors, would just as soon do whatever they want unless there was the threat of our military power backing up our foreign policy.
WESTON PHIPPEN: But it’s immigration that’s probably his biggest issue. Babeu says he’s not worried about the recent recall of the heavy handed Russell Pearce, or that people are tired of the immigration debate. He has a solution to the border:
PAUL BABEU: What we need is 6 thousand armed soldiers for a period of two years deployed on the border, we need to build and construct a double barrier fence.
WESTON PHIPPEN: Babeu says while he was exploring whether or not he should run, the only fear his supporters had was that he would not be there personally to fight off the cartel. But in the end, he says his supporters told him…
“Run, Paul, run.”
