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In the final portion of the debate, Jim Lehrer asks the leadership how the congressional races across the country are tied to the presidential race.
JIM LEHRER: That is it for the last segment.
A RealAudio version of this Newsmaker interview is available.
Topics addressed on PBS Debate Night:
- Should the Republicans should maintain control of Congress?
- Which party would handle the economy better?
- Would Democrats or Republicans improve America's quality of life?
- Would a Republican or a Democratic majority in Congress ensure America's place in the World?
- Which party would run the government better?
- What is the connection between a vote for President and a vote for a member of Congress?
Browse the Online NewsHour's Congressional coverage.
Now to a final question for each side. That comes in the form of a question, rather than a resolution. We have three minutes left, and we will split that in half, and it starts with the Republicans. And the question is: What is the connection on November 5 between the vote for President and the vote for members--individual members of Congress?
SEN. LOTT: Well, we have, as I said at the beginning, delivered on our commitments to get health insurance reform and welfare reform and reform the Congress and illegal immigration reform. But there were many things that we wanted to do, and we will do next year. The first things we will try to do is to give that tax relief to create jobs and help the families with children at the local level. And we will move to balance the budget as we’ve already tried. We’ve already cut $53 billion in spending that would have been spent otherwise. We will continue to try to help this problem with drugs with children in America.
But, you know what we need? We
need a President who will sign those laws. We have a President now that when he was sent a balanced budget, he vetoed it, when he was sent the law to get rid of the marriage penalty, he vetoed it. When he had a chance to eliminate tax cuts, or sign tax cuts, he vetoed that. We will produce but we need a President that will work with us to get that job done.
And in conclusion, I just want to say this about this past two years. Now we have fought the good fight. We have a lot of things that we feel very strongly about that’s the right thing to do for our country. We haven’t quite finished the race. We want to continue to do battle for our children, for the future of our country, and we will keep the faith with the voters if they will give us that opportunity. We will do these things we have promised in the next two years.
JIM LEHRER: Final word on the connection between the presidential vote and the vote for Congress.
SEN. DASCHLE: Jim, I think there’s a big connection, and I think this President is going to be reelected, and I think as a result, Democrats across the country will be reelected too.
But it isn’t party. You know, I think people like the noise of democracy. I think what they’d like to see, though, is that the decibel level come down.
Tonight was a good illustration of how often times that can happen. I think that in South Dakota what really is at stake is not whether we’re R’s and D’s but whether we’re "c’s" and "d’s" come the 105th Congress, whether we’re constructive or destructive. I think that in some cases over the 104th Congress, there have been some destructive policies that, that the American people have opposed.
But we
need constructive leadership. We don’t need to shut the government down; we don’t need to raise the, the level of volatility in politics. What we need is working together, reaching across the aisle to try to build on the tremendous accomplishments of this administration and what Democrats have attempted to do. Dick and I have both talked a lot tonight about the Families First agenda. We believe that that really is the basis upon which we would seek real bipartisan compromise.
We think there ought to be greater responsibility in government, reducing the deficit. We really want to see more opportunity for education for people of all ages. We think families ought to have more security in their neighborhoods and certainly in the workplace and for health care. And we don’t think that, that corporations ought to raid the pension fund. We think there ought to be greater retirement security. That is the basis, I think, for bipartisan agreement. Next year, working with Republicans, we are going to put families first.
JIM LEHRER: All right. Senator, Congressman, Senator, Mr. Speaker, thank you all four very much for being here tonight. And that does conclude the national part of PBS Debate Night on the future Congress from the House of Burgesses in Colonial Williamsburg. I’m Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.
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