The Washington Post

HANOVER, N.H. — The government is the problem. That was the message Tuesday night as the eight Republican presidential hopefuls clamored to blame Washington for the nation’s economic ills. In turn, they pointed fingers at President Obama, the Federal Reserve and the government generally as the cause of the nation’s economic collapse.

Together, they were strident in their belief that Obama-era regulations are stunting growth. Yet although the White House aspirants largely agreed on their overall visions, the two candidates whose positions at the top of the field were expected to rise or fall in Tuesday’s Washington Post-Bloomberg News debate at Dartmouth College — Texas Gov. Rick Perry and businessman Herman Cain — were short on policy specifics, even when pressed by the moderators.

Asked what his plan would be to jump-start the economy and reverse Washington’s paralysis, Perry said he would focus on domestic energy resources.

“You’ve got an administration that by and large — either by intimidation or overregulation — has put our energy industry and the rest of the economy in jeopardy,” he said. “We’ve got to have a president who’s willing to stand up and clearly pull back those regulations.”

Perry said he will announce a plan over the next three days, but would not discuss it in the debate.

“Mitt’s had six years to be working on a plan. I’ve been in this for about eight weeks,” Perry quipped, referencing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the front-runner in the GOP race who released a 59-point economic plan last month.

Meanwhile, Cain — who for the first time took the stage as a serious contender for the party’s nomination — talked about his “9-9-9” plan to gut the federal tax code and said he would reduce the federal debt.

“The only way we’re going to do that is the first year that I’m president and I oversee the fiscal-year budget, make sure that revenues equal spending,” Cain said. “We must grow this economy with a bold solution, which is why I proposed ‘9-9-9,’ and at the same time get serious about not creating annual deficits so that we could bring down the national debt.”

Romney cast himself as the most authoritative candidate on the economy, citing his business know-how and 25 years of experience in the private sector to say he will make the difficult decisions necessary to revive the economy.

“I’d be prepared to be a leader,” he said. “You can’t get the country to go in the right direction and get Washington to work if you don’t have a president who’s a leader.” Referring to Obama, he added: “He said he’d bring us hope and change. Instead, he’s divided the nation and tried to blame other people.”

The candidates uniformly criticized the role of the Federal Reserve — and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke specifically — in regulating currency, interest rates and other aspects of the economy.

“If you want to understand why we have a problem, you have to understand the Fed,” said Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.). “When there are booms and they’re artificial, whether it’s the CRA [Community Reinvestment Act] or whether it’s the Fed, easy credit, when you have bubbles, whether it’s the Nasdaq or whether it’s the housing bubbles, they burst.”