Oct. 18, 2011, Washington, DC — All eight of the top Republican candidates agreed with President Obama's charge today that they want dirtier air, dirtier water and fewer Americans with health insurance. Surprisingly all the candidates said those goals are at the top of their agenda.

"Some people might think I want to get rid of the EPA because the agency's complicated, ridiculous and extreme rules are driving our manufacturers overseas and making it unreasonably difficult to do business here in the U.S.," Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota said. "That's not true at all. What I really want is dirtier air and dirtier water so that Americans start dying of pollution."

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said EPA rules have made America's waterways much too clean.

"We used to be able to empty sewage directly into the Mississippi and other large rivers," he said. "Those nutrients really helped the fish to grow to large sizes. Now there's not enough food to grow bacteria and protozoa and so there aren't enough little fish for the big fish to eat. It's an ecological disaster."

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, said he has been working for many years to bring back pollution to his home state of Georgia and in America as a whole.

"The skies are way too clear now," he said. "On moonlit nights it is too easy for predators to catch salamanders and newts, and I want to protect every newt I can."

Governor Rick Perry of Texas said he has been working to reduce the number of his citizens who have health insurance and promised to continue the trend nationwide if elected president.

"Medical care is too expensive because there are too many people with health insurance," he said. "They really don't care about the cost because all they pay is a small co-pay. If people had to pay for their own health care, doctors and hospitals would have to compete for their business by cutting their fees. My medical adviser, Dr. Lance Boyle, said medical costs would drop by at least 50 percent if nobody had health insurance."

Congressman Dr. Ron Paul of Texas is the only medical doctor among the Republican candidates; however, he has pledged to make actual cuts in the federal budget, so Skinnyreporter has decided to follow the lead of other major media and prevent Paul's comments from reaching the public.

Businessman Herman Cain of Georgia agreed with Gingrich that his state's air and water are too pure but said he hasn't spent enough time in other states to assess them.

"I will say that as a Republican president, I will veto any bill that threatens to clean our air or water any further," he said. "We must have pollution to have a healthy economy, and it's far cheaper to put it in air and water than to bury it in the ground."

Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania said he has fond memories of his home state during his youth, when steel mills were spewing tons of particulates and chemicals into the atmosphere, leading to acid rain.

"Everybody had a job who wanted one back then," he said. "Now if you want a job you have to work at Walmart selling Chinese goods or at MacDonalds flipping burgers. The Chinese get to pollute their atmosphere all they want to support their thriving economy, while here in America our workers are unemployed because the factories have moved away due to our overly stringent environmental restrictions."

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. said his father never would have been able to create a multi-billion dollar chemical company if he had been required to abide by today's EPA regulations.

"Dad told me he would have had to start up in Mexico," Hunstman said. "All of our employees would have been Mexicans, and I would probably be speaking Spanish instead of Chinese."

Huntsman praised Obama for his "incisive and insightful assessment" of Republican priorities.

"Now if I could only get the president to agree with me that we need dirtier air, dirtier water and fewer people on insurance, we could take back all the business we have lost to China and Mexico."