Jon Huntsman talks oil and gas subsidies in New Hampshire

Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman may be sitting out tonight's WMUR/CNN/Union Leader Republican presidential debate in Manchester, but that didn't stop the 2012 GOP presidential hopeful from making stops in Newmarket and Nashua over the weekend. CNN's Candy Crowley caught up with Huntsman during his latest visit to New Hampshire and asked him to discuss his position on oil and gas subsidies.

Jon Huntsman on oil and gas subsidies 

Candy Crowley: I know you’re opposed to ethanol subsidies, which helped frame your strategy going forward. Are you also against oil and gas subsidies? Would you phase those out as well? 

Jon Huntsman: I think phasing out all subsidies - some will have to be done on a faster track than others – but moving towards a phase out of all subsidies is going to be very important for budgetary reasons in this country.

When you look at the tens of billions of dollars that we’ve built our economy on, that create artificiality in the marketplace, they have to be addressed at some point. And I know they are politically sensitive. But we’re at a point in time where for budget reasons we can’t wait a whole lot longer.