Rick Perry Tells South Carolina Republicans He'd Cut Foreign Aid (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Republican presidential candidates met in South Carolina to talk foreign policy. It certainly wasn't the most enlightened of debates, but it did show near unanimous consensus on how to deal with the threat posed by Iran's quest to build a nuclear bomb. Candidates also were divided on Texas Gov. Rick Perry's plan to reallocate all foreign aid.

With the exception of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, all the other candidates said they would support a military solution to deprive Iran of possessing a nuclear bomb. Paul consistently has shown voters that there are times when he supports the traditional Republican platform, and times when he is very much an independent thinker. That was certainly true when he said that the U.S. should remember Iraq when it considers military operations. Paul insisted Congress be consulted before going to war and, according to Associated Press, he said if the Iranian threat was so great, President Barack Obama should go before Congress before any military strike.

I really liked Perry's suggestion that he would stop all foreign aid on the first day of his presidency. Perry told The Ticket that he would re-evaluate how the U.S. dispenses aid and countries like Pakistan would find themselves empty-handed. The U.S. passes out more than $139 billion every year to foreign countries.

That's an insane amount of money to hand out. American priorities should get that money. Perry's position wasn't unanimously received though. Former ambassador Jon Huntsman said the U.S. must continue to work with Pakistan because it is already a nuclear power. That might be true, but whether the U.S. passes out more money to Pakistan or not isn't going to change their nuclear status, and I seriously doubt we can consider Pakistan an "ally" even under the loosest of definitions. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former senator Rick Santorum agreed, calling Perry's plan "naive."

These debates are informative -- usually -- but it's really time to start narrowing the field of candidates. Rick Santorum is stuck in the single digits. Maybe he's running for vice president, but his campaign isn't gathering momentum and he needs to bow out. Bachmann had her 15-minutes of fame in Iowa. Her ideas aren't sitting well with the voters and she seems frozen in the opinion polls. The GOP needs a breakout candidate soon. I wasn't expecting a good performance from businessman Herman Cain in a foreign policy debate, but he didn't crash.

Dan McGinnis is a freelance writer, published author and former newspaper publisher. He has been a candidate, campaign manager and press secretary for state and local political campaigns for more than 30 years.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111115/us_ac/10428449_rick_perry_tells_south_carolina_republicans_hed_cut_foreign_aid

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