SHAW: Ann Compton for the Vice President.

COMPTON: Mr. Vice President, there are three Justices on the Supreme Court who are in their 80's and it's very likely that the next President will get a chance to put a lasting mark on the Supreme Court. For the record, would your nominees to the Supreme Court have to pass something that has been called a kind of conservative ideological litmus test and would you give us an idea of perhaps who two or three people on your short list are for the Court.

BUSH: One I don't have a list yet. I feel pretty confident tonight, but not that confident. (Laughter) Secondly, I don't have any litmus test. But what I would do is appoint people to the Federal Bench that will not legislate from the Bench, who will interpret the Constitution. I do not want to see us go to again and Fm using this word advisedly a liberal majority that is going to legislate from the Bench. They don't like the use of the word, but may I remind his strong supporters that only last year in the primary, to capture that Democratic nomination, he said, "I am a progressive liberal Democrat." I won't support judges like that. There is no litmus test on any issue. But I will go out there and find men and women to interpret. And I don't have a list, but I think the appointments that the President has made to the Bench have been outstanding, outstanding appointments.

COMPTON: Including Bork?

BUSH: Yeah. I supported him. (Applause)

DUKAKIS: If the Vice President of the United States thinks that Robert Bork was an outstanding appointment -- that is a very good reason for voting for Mike Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen on the 8th of November. (Cheers and Applause)

And I think the Vice President supported the Bork nomination. You know, Mr. Bush has never appointed a judge. I've appointed over 130, so I have a record. (Laughter)

And I'm very proud of it. I don't ask people whether they're Republicans or Democrats. I've appointed prosecutors, I've appointed defenders. I don't appoint people I think are liberal or people who think - who I think are conservative. I appoint people of independence and integrity and intelligence, people who will be a credit to the Bench. And those are the standards that I will use in nominating people to the Supreme Court of the United States. These appointments are for life. These appointments are for life. And when the Vice President talks about liberals on the Bench, I wonder who he's talking about? Is he talking about a former Governor of the State of California, who is a former prosecutor, a Republican named Earl Warren, because I think Chief Justice Earl Warren was an outstanding Chief Justice and I think most Americans do too.

SHAW: Ann Compton has a question for you, Governor Dukakis.

COMPTON: Governor, millions of Americans are entitled to some of the protections and benefits that the Federal Government provides, including Social Security, pensions, Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor. But in fact, there are so many millions of Americans who are eligible the government just can't continue to pay for all of those programs as they're currently constituted. A blue ribbon panel shortly after the election is likely to recommend that you go where the money is when you make budget cuts, and that means entitlements. Before the election would you commit yourself to any of those hard choices, such as which one of those entitlements have to be redrawn?

DUKAKIS: Andrea, why do people who want balanced budgets or to bring the deficit down always go to those programs which tend to benefit people of very modest means? Now, two-thirds of the people in this country who receive Social Security checks live entirely on that check; they have no other income. And yet Mr. Bush tried to cut their cost of living increase in 1985. Medicare is not getting less expensive; medical care for the elderly is getting more expensive, with greater deductibles, with fewer benefits, the kinds of things we've had under this Administration that have cut and chopped and reduced the kind of benefits that one gets under Medicare. Yes, we now have catastrophic health insurance, but it's going to cost, and that's going to be an additional burden on elderly citizens. It had bipartisan support; it should have had bipartisan support. But I suggest that we understand that those are going to be additional costs on senior citizens across this country. So I'm not going to begin, and I'm not going to go to entitlements as a means for cutting that deficit when we're spending billions on something like Star Wars, when we're spending billions on other weapon systems which apparently the Vice President wants to keep in his back pocket or some place, but which, if we continue to spend billions on them, will force us to cut Social Security, to cut Medicare, to cut these basic entitlements to people of very, very modest means. Now there are some things we can do to help people who currently do get entitlements to get off public assistance. I talked in our first debate about the possibilities of helping millions and millions of welfare families to get off of welfare, and I'm proud to say that we finally have a welfare reform bill And the Ruby Samsons and Dan Lawsons, hundreds of thousands of welfare mothers in this country and in my state and across the country who today are working and earning are examples of what can happen when you provide training to those welfare mothers, some daycare for their children so that those mothers can go into a training program and get a decent job.

SHAW: Governor

DUKAKIS: That's the way you bring a deficit down and help to improve the quality of life for people at the same time.

SHAW: One minute for the Vice President.

BUSH: I think I've addressed it. But let me simply say for the record, I did not vote to cut COLAs. And I voted the same way that he did three months before in a national governors' conference. And he said at that time, in a quote, and this is a paraphrase, a freeze, that's easy. So I don't believe that we need to do what you've suggested here. And I've said that I'm going to keep this Social Security entitlement, to keep that trust fund sound. But I do think there are flexible ways to solve some of the pressing problems, particularly that affect our children. And I have made some good sound proposals. But again, we have a big difference on child care, for example. You see, I want the families to have the choice. I don't want to see the Federal Government licensing grandmothers. I don't want to see the Federal Government saying to communities, well, you can't do this any more. We're going to tell you how to do it all. I want flexibility, and I do you know, these people laugh about the thousand points of light. You ought to go out and see around this country what's happening in the volunteer section: Americans helping America. And I want to keep it alive in child care and in other entitlements.

SHAW: Margaret Warner for Gov. Dukakis.

WARNER: Governor, I'm going to pass on the question I originally planned to ask you, to follow up on your rebuttal to a question Andrea asked, and that involves Social Security. Now it is true, as you said, that originally you sought an exemption for Social Security COLAs in this national governors' association vote. But when you lost that vote, you then endorsed the overall freeze proposal. And what's more, you had great criticism of your fellow governors who wouldn't go along as political cowards.

DUKAKIS: That is absolutely not true.

WARNER: You said it takes guts and it takes will.

DUKAKIS: That is absolutely not true. It had nothing to do with the debate on Social Security. It had to do with the discussion we had had the previous day on the overall question of reducing the budget.

WARNER: My question is: Aren't you demagoguing the Social Security issue?

DUKAKIS: No, and I have to (Applause)-- I just have to correct the record. That simply isn't true. Now, we're not a parliamentary body, the National Governors Association. We vote on resolutions. If you don't get a two-thirds, then your resolution doesn't pass. But everybody knew that those of us who voted against the freezing of COLAs did so, we did so emphatically. And I never made that statement; never would. The point is that as we look at this nation's future, and we have two very different visions of this future. I want to move ahead. The Vice President talks about a thousand points of light. I'm interested in 240 million points of light. I'm interested in 240 million citizens in this country who share in the American dream, all of them in every part of this country. But as we look at the decisions that the next president of the United States is going to have to make, I just don't believe the place you go first is those programs, those so-called entitlements, which provide a basic floor of income and a modest amount of medical care for the elderly, the disabled, for people who can't make their way on their own, and in many cases, have given a great deal to this country. The Vice President did call Social Security a few years ago basically or largely a welfare program. It isn't. It's a contract between generations. It's something that we pay into now so that we will have a secure retirement, and our parents and grandparents will have a secure retirement. It's a very sacred contract, and I believe in it. So that's not where we ought to go. There are plenty of places to cut. There's lots we can do in the Pentagon where dishonest contractors have been lining their pockets at the expense of the American taxpayer. There are we certainly ought to be able to

SHAW: Governor

DUKAKIS: Give our farm families a decent income with spending $20to $25 billion a year on farm subsidies, and I'm sure we can do that. That's where we ought to go, and those are the programs we ought to review first.

SHAW: One minute for the Vice President.

BUSH: Well, let me take him up on this question of farm subsidies. We have a fundamental difference, approach on agriculture. He favors this supply maintenance or production controls. He said that. He's been out in the state saying that, in Midwestern states. I don't. I think the farm bill that he criticizes was good legislation, outstanding legislation. And I believe the answer to the agricultural economy is not to get the government further involved, but to do what I'm suggesting. In the first place, never go back to that Democratic grain embargo, that liberal Democrat grain embargo that knocked the markets right out from under us and made Mr. Gorbachev say to me when I was here, how do I know you're reliable suppliers? We never should go back to that. And we ought to expand our markets abroad. We ought to have rural enterprise zones. We ought to move forward swiftly on my ideas of ethanol which would use more corn, and therefore, create a bigger market for our agricultural products. But let's not go back and keep assailing a farm bill that passed with overwhelming Democrat and Republican support.

SHAW: Mr. Vice President.

BUSH: The farm payments are going down because the agricultural economy is coming back.