ON THE STUMP

	October 27, 2000
	A continuing series of excerpts from campaign speeches by the two major party vice-presidential candidates.

JIM LEHRER: Campaign speeches now from the leading candidates for Vice President. Here first is Republican Dick Cheney speaking earlier this week in Spokane, Washington. DICK CHENEY: This campaign is about serious business, and the decision we're going to make on November 7 is an extraordinarily important one. And it involves in part, I think, a choice between sort of two fundamental different approaches in terms of how we want to go about dealing with the nation's problems. Part of it stems, I think, from the perspect... perspective of... that we have with respect to how the country really works. And if you look at the Al Gore/Joe Lieberman, sort of Bill Clinton approach to life, they really believe that the engine that drives the American economy is to be found inside the beltway there in Washington, D.C. They talk about how they created two... created 22 million jobs. I don't see it in quite those terms. Governor Bush and I believe that the engine that drives the American economy are 270-some million Americans who get up everyday and go to work. (Cheers and applause ) -- that do a day's work for a day's pay, that create businesses and build businesses and build their communities-- that's the genius that drives our system. That's the phenomenal success story of America: 270 million Americans who live in freedom and get to pursue their wishes and their God-given talents to the maximum extent possible. But if you start with that perspective, then you end up with a very different set of circumstances and recommendations from the standpoint, I think, of the Al Gore approach to life, as contrasted with the George W. Bush approach. We've got a prospective surplus out there of some $4.6 trillion that we're talking about with respect to the next 10 years. Al Gore's approach to that is to spend all of that and another $900 billion on top of that. If you look at analysis that's been done by the Senate Budget Committee, they estimate that the total amount of promises that he's already made during the course of the campaign not only uses up that $4.6 trillion, but another $900 billion on top. Bottom line: That approach involves big government, higher taxes, and a bureaucracy that's ever more intrusive and involved in our lives. Very different approach on our side of the ticket, and what Governor Bush and I want to recommend, and if pushed, and will pursue if we're successful in our pursuits, is a very different approach, basically an approach that empowers the American people to make more decisions for themselves and have greater control over their own lives in those important areas that are vital for them and for their families. We want to take that $4.6 trillion that's out there and set aside half of it, roughly, for Social Security; roughly a fourth of it for other urgent government priorities, such as Medicare, the military, et cetera; and roughly one fourth of it we think ought to go back to the American people in the form of tax relief and tax reform. (Cheers and applause) With respect to Medicare, another area that badly needs to be addressed, another area that there's been absolutely no proposal out of the administration worthy of the name over the course of the last several years. We had Mrs. Clinton's proposal back in '93 to nationalize the health care system, which was rejected by everybody, Republican and Democrat alike. And then we had a bipartisan effort that started in '97 under the Breaux Commission, chaired by John Breaux, Democratic Senator from Louisiana. But the administration pulled the plug on that, so bottom line is here we are in 2000, we don't have reform in the Medicare system, but the Medicare system needs to be reformed. It's out of date. It's provided benefits for 80 million Americans, but it doesn't cover prescription drugs or a lot of other procedures that are now an important part of our health care system. It needs to be reformed. Governor Bush and I want to reform it. Al Gore ran in 1992 on the basis of providing prescription drugs for seniors-- hasn't happened. Ran in 1996-- hasn't happened. He's running now in 2000, still hasn't happened, and there's no reason to believe it will happen if he's successful. The fact is that we need to modernize Medicare; we need to give our citizens choices, the same range of options that government employees have, for example, in terms of Medicare, and we need to cover prescription drugs with it as well, and Governor Bush and I will do that. JIM LEHRER: Now, Democrat Joe Lieberman speaking at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, on Tuesday. SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: Our nation is only as strong as our values. And right now despite our material abundance, there is a persistent sense, which I share, of unease about our moral future. As people peer into the national looking glass, they don't like the reflection of our values as they see: The continued breakdown of families, the coarsening of our public life, the pollution of our culture, the erosion of classroom discipline, and the explosion of gunfire in our schoolyards. To most of us, this America, particularly the fearful America of Columbine and Jonesboro and Paducah, is not the America we knew and not the America that we want to be. Al Gore and I know that for America to realize its aspirations and to build the more perfect union the founders envisioned, we as a nation must strengthen our moral foundation because so many of the social problems that I mentioned a moment ago are at their heart, moral problems. We in government can help through leadership and laws that reflect and enforce our values. We are still the most religiously observant people on earth as measured by attendance regularly at houses of worship. And every public opinion survey that is done, still shows a near universal belief in God. God's favorabilities remain much higher than any human on earth today, correctly, unfortunately. The line between church and state is an important one and has always been hard for us to draw. But in recent years, I fear, we have gone far beyond what the framers imagined in separating the two, so much so that we have practically banished religious values and religious institutions from our public life. The public square is now hat might be called a discomfort zone for discussing our faith in those settings, ironically making religion one of the few remaining socially acceptable targets of intolerance. Some friends and foes alike have discouraged me from speaking about religion any more. But I must say that my resolve has been strengthened. The experiences I have had in this campaign convince me that this is a conversation that we as a nation need to have, for I believe that we are still struggling to regain our moral balance in part because we are still struggling to regain our spiritual balance. I'm ever more certain that we as leaders have to do more to help people understand that we can draw this constitutional, political, and spiritual line in a way that includes the best forces of faith in our public life without excluding those who do not share our beliefs, and certainly without establishing, in the words of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, a religion. Devout men and women can and do have disagreements over these very difficult moral questions. But I hope that our faith and the common origins of it will help to remind us of how much we have in common, including, of course, both the goodness and human imperfection that is in each of us that should lead us to go forward with a certain sense of humility and mutual respect and should also help build the necessary goodwill that we need to disagree without being divisive so that we can ultimately reach for and achieve common ground. (Applause)