Rick Santorum appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press this weekend. Below is a transcript of his remarks on manufacturing:

MR. GREGORY:  But the question, the question is about who's politically pliable.  I mean, I've interviewed you before, we talk about the fact that you endorsed Romney in 2008, said that he was the one who'd stand up for conservative principles.  And then you've admitted basically you were just playing politics.  You didn't like John McCain, so, you know, you made the political calculation that you would endorse Romney.  Or voting for a steel bailout even though you say you're principally opposed to voting for bailouts.

FMR. SEN. SANTORUM:  Whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't vote for a--whoa, whoa, I didn't vote for a steel bailout.

MR. GREGORY:  You didn't support that.

FMR. SEN. SANTORUM:  What, what I voted for was to--what, what, what I voted for was to enforce the law, the, the--enforce the tariffs when, when, when China was illegally dumping steel in this country.  That's not a steel bailout.  That's--there are laws in place in this country that protect domestic manufacturers from illegal dumping into this country.  They went through the process, they did the evaluation.  The evaluation was that China was, was, was breaking the law, and I supported imposing tariffs.  There was a process here.  That wasn't a bailout.  In fact, the steel industry has never been bailed out.  That's, that's the, that's the example that I talk about all the time.  I went through the 1970s and '80s and saw the destruction of the steel industry in southwestern Pennsylvania.  And the steel industry didn't get a bailout.  You know what, it turned out just fine for western Pennsylvania.  We have a much more diversified economy.  And I didn't stand for bailouts then, I didn't stand for bailouts of Wall Street nor Detroit. Governor Romney supported his friends on Wall Street and bailed them out.  And they're, and they're doing just fine.  And then...

MR. GREGORY:  But you're, but you're not opposed, Senator, to using...

FMR. SEN. SANTORUM:  ...violated his--hold on, let me finish, David.  He violated his principles, I guess, because he's for bailouts, and, and denied a bailout for, for Detroit.  That's the hypocrisy here, not what I've done on the issue of bailouts.
MR. GREGORY:  But you're interested in using government for different means, right?  In your economic plan you would like to incentivize manufacturers to try to affect the playing field to help manufacturers in this country because of the economy.  But you're opposed to extending unemployment benefits because you think that that's creating too much dependency on the part of government. But isn't that hypocritical when in fact you're using government in the way that you see fit to help corporations but not to help people who are out of work for so long.

FMR. SEN. SANTORUM:  I'm really glad you asked me that because I get that question from conservatives a lot, "Why are you picking manufacturing?  Isn't that picking winners and losers?" No, it's not.  What, what, what we have to realize is that manufacturers have to compete not against just other manufacturers in this country, they have to compete internationally, directly, internationally, for the jobs to stay in America.  And so the, the problem is the government and our tax and regulatory policy, the government's policy is making manufacturers in this country uncompetitive, and as a result, manufacturing jobs are moving offshore.  So if the government is causing the problem, then government has a responsibility to fix the problem.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

FMR. SEN. SANTORUM:  In other words, to, to change the regulatory environment, which I do on our plan, and to change the tax climate, which I do on our plan.  It's about creating a level playing field.  I'm for equality of opportunity, and, and, and to compare that to providing unemployment insurance, I'm for providing unemployment insurance, my concern is the length of that unemployment insurance leads--and there's all sorts of studies that the longer you're on, particularly if you're on, you know, a year or more, leads to long-term chronic problems of getting back in the workforce.  You lose skills, you lose all sorts of things.  And it's not beneficial for people.

MR. GREGORY:  OK.

FMR. SEN. SANTORUM:  While it may sound beneficial to help people, but it's not beneficial over the long term to be on long-term unemployment.

MR. GREGORY:  I...

FMR. SEN. SANTORUM:  That's the argument that I've made.