Online NewsHour: Presidential Debate -- October 6, 1996

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

October 6, 1996

Transcript

JIM LEHRER: Senator Dole, at the Republican Convention, you said the following, and I quote: ``It is demeaning to the nation that within the Clinton administration, a corps of the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never suffered, and never learned should have the power to fund with your earnings their dubious and self-serving schemes.'' End quote. Whom precisely and what precisely did you have in mind?
MR. DOLE: I had precisely in mind a lot of the people who are in the White House and other agencies who've never been -- had any experience, who came to Washington without any experience, they're all very liberal, of course, or they wouldn't be in the administration, and their idea was that they knew what was best for the American people.
Now I feel very strongly about a lot of things: I feel strongly about education -- I want to help young people have an education just as I had an education after World War II with the GI Bill of Rights, and we've had millions of young men and women in subsequent wars change the face of the nation because the government helped with their education.
Now, the reason they don't have -- you know, the reason the president can't support this is pretty obvious. It's not taking anything away from schools. It's new money. It's not going to be taken away from anybody else except we'll downsize the Department of Education.
But this is a very liberal administration. This is the administration that gave you the big tax cut. This is the administration that tried to take over health care and impose a governmental system. This is the administration that fought regulatory reform that was putting a lot of small businessmen and small businesswomen out of business. This is the administration that fought the balanced budget amendment and vetoed a balanced budget and vetoed welfare reform twice. And the list goes on and on and on. That's what I had in mind. I want people in my administration and will have people in my administration who understand America. There won't be 10 millionaires and 14 lawyers in the cabinet. There'll be people with experience and people who understand America and people who have made it and know the hard knocks in life.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: When Senator Dole made that remark about all the elitists, young elitists in the administration, one of the young men who works for me who grew up in a house trailer looked at me and said, ``Mr. President, I know how you grew up. Who is he talking about?''
And you know, this ``liberal'' charge, that's what their party always drags out when they get in a tight race.
It's sort of their ``golden oldie,'' you know. It's a record they think they can play -- that everybody loves to hear. And I just don't think that dog will hunt this time.
The American people should make up their own mind. Here's the record. We cut the deficit four years in a row for the first time since before the Civil War -- I mean before World War II, and maybe before the Civil War, too. We've got 10-1/2 million new jobs. We've got record numbers of new small businesses. We made every one of them eligible for a tax cut. We've got declining crime rates. Two million fewer people on welfare rolls, before welfare reform passed. And a 50 percent increase in child support. And a crime bill with 60 death penalties, 100,000 police and the assault weapons ban.
The American people can make up their mind about whether that's a liberal record or a record that's good for America -- liberal, conservative -- you put whatever label you want on it.
MR. DOLE: Well I think it's pretty liberal. I'll put that label on it. I mean, you take a look at all the programs you've advocated, Mr. President -- thank goodness we had a Republican Congress there.
The first thing you did when you came into office was send up a stimulus package. Said ``We've got a little pork we want to scatter around America -- $16 billion.'' And even some in your own party couldn't buy that. I remember talking by telephone. I'm not even certain you were too excited about it. I won't -- I never repeat what I've talked to the president about. But in any event, we saved the taxpayers $16 billion.
And then came some other programs, and then came health care, and then came the tax increase. And a lot of these things just stopped in 1994 because then the Congress changed. And I think we've done a good job.
JIM LEHRER: Mr. President, if you're not a liberal, describe your political philosophy.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I believe that the purpose of politics is to give people the tools to make the most of their own lives, to reinforce the values of opportunity and responsibility and to build a sense of community so we're all working together.
I don't believe in discrimination. I believe you can protect the environment and grow the economy. I believe that we have to do these things with a government that's smaller and less bureaucratic, but that we have to do them nonetheless.
It's inconvenient for Senator Dole, but the truth is I've reduced the size of government more than my Republican predecessors, and I did stop them -- I admit that -- I sure stopped their budget. Their budget cut enforcement for the Environmental Protection Agency by a third. It cut funds to clean up toxic waste dumps with 10 million of our kids still living within four miles of a toxic waste dump by a third. It ended the principle of the polluter should pay for those toxic waste dumps unless it was very recent. Their budget weakened our support for education $30 billion. It even cut funds for scholarships and college loans. Their budget cut $270 billion in Medicare. And finally, their budget withdrew the national guarantee of health care to poor children, families with children with handicaps, the elderly in nursing homes, poor pregnant women.
It was wrong for the country, and calling it conservative won't make it right. It was a bad decision for America, and would have been bad for our future if I hadn't stopped it.
MR. DOLE: Well, the president can define himself in any way he wants, but I think we have to look at the record, go back to the time he was, what, Texas director for George McGovern -- and George McGovern is a friend of mine, so I don't mean -- but he was a liberal, proud liberal.
I've just finished reading a book -- I think it's called -- what is it, ``The Demise of the Democratic Party,'' by Ronald Cardosh or something, talking about all the liberal influences in the administration, whether it's organized labor or whether it's the Hollywood elite, or whether it's some of the media elite, or whether it's the labor unions or whatever. And so I think you take a look at it.
But the bottom line is this: I think the American people -- he thought he'd recite all these bills and all these things -- they want to know what's going to happen to them. They've all got a lot of anxieties out there.
Did anybody complain when you raised taxes? Did anybody go out and ask the people, ``How are you going to pay the extra money?'' That's why we want an economic package. We want the government to pinch their pennies for a change instead of the people pinching their pennies.
That's what our message is to people watching tonight, not all this back and forth you voted this way, you voted that way. We want a better America as we go into the next century.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: The way to get a better America is to balance the budget and protect Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment; to give a targeted tax cut -- and let me talk about the education tax cut -- to let people have a $10,000 deduction for the cost of college tuition in any year, any kind of college tuition; to give families a tax credit, a dollar-for-dollar reduction in their taxes for the cost of a typical community college so we can open that to everybody; and then to let people save in an IRA and withdraw from it without a tax penalty for education, home-buying, or medical expenses. That's the right way to go into the 21st century: balance the budget and cut taxes, not balloon with this $550 billion tax scheme.


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