Debating Our Destiny: The 1988 Vice Presidential Debate -- October 5, 1998

MARGOLIS: Senator Quayle, I want to go back to the matter of qualifications, which I think for most people is more than just your -

BENTSEN: John, we can't hear you.

MARGOLIS: Can you hear now?

QUAYLE: I can hear you. [Laughter.]

MARGOLIS: I want to go back to the question of qualifications, which I think for most people is more than just how long you've been in the Senate and how long you've been in public life. There's also a question of candor and of consistency. And several of the things you've said, both here and earlier, I think have raised some reasonable questions. Each of them alone might seem rather trivial, but I think together they create a pattern that needs to be asked. You've talked a few times today about the Job Training Partnership Act, which you authored. In fact, I believe you co-authored it with another Senator, whom you almost never name. Earlier in the campaign when you were asked why you got a very - a desk job in the National Guard after being trained as a welder, you said at the time you had a very strong background in journalism, which at that time was summer jobs at your family-owned newspaper, which you have not been very forthcoming about what they were. As you have not been very forthcoming about your college record. Now, I have to say - at least the males on this panel have earlier agreed that your record was probably comparable to ours, but - [Laughter.]

Nonetheless, these examples of sort of overstatement and exaggeration and not being forthcoming - this what has led a lot of people to question this part of your qualifications, not your experience, but your character. Would you like to set some of these things straight now as to what you did in your summer jobs in college, what your grades were like and would you like to identify your co-sponsor of the Job Training Partnership Act?

QUAYLE: All in two minutes?

MARGOLIS: Sure.

QUAYLE: Let me start with the underlying premise, that somehow I haven't been straightforward. And I have. And let's go to the - right to the very first question - the Job Training Partnership Act. I was the author of that. The co-author in the United States Senate was Senator Kennedy. I was the Chairman of the Employment and Productivity Subcommittee. Chairmen of the committee write that legislation. Chairmen of the committee write the legislation and then they go out and get co-sponsorship. And when you are the chairman of the committee and you sit down and you write the legislation, you are the author of that. And I'm proud to have been the author of that. Because you know what we had, we had a CETA program that spent $50 billion from about 1973 through 1982 and when we concluded that program - when we concluded that program, unemployment was higher than when it began. It was a program that didn't work and the Job Training Partnership Act does work. Now, the issue of releasing all the - my grades - I am - and I stand before you tonight - as the most investigated person ever to seek public office. (Applause)

Thousands of journalists have asked every professor I've had, all my teachers and they know - and I have never professed to be anything but an average student. I have never said I was anything more than that, but it's not whether you're an average study, it's what are you going to do with your life. And what have I - going to do with my life. I have committed it to public service since I was 29 years of age - elected to the House of Representatives. Elected to the United States Senate when I was 33. I now have the opportunity at 41 to seek the office of the Vice Presidency.

WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen?

BENTSEN: I have absolutely no quarrel with Senator Quayle's military record. But I do strongly disagree with him on some of the issues. You make great patriotic speeches and I enjoy them, but I don't understand your vote on veterans issues. Senator Quayle has one of the worst voting records in the United States Senate on veterans issues. And one of them that particularly bothers me, sponsoring legislation to put a tax on combat pay and disability pay for veterans, for fighting men and women of America. Tax on their disability pay when they're lying there in the hospital, people who have sacrificed for our country. I think you ought to explain that to the people of America and you ought to explain it tonight.

WOODRUFF: John, a question for Senator Bentsen.

MARGOLIS: Senator, you're Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and you're generally considered rather an orthodox conservative on fiscal matters, meaning someone who would be very concerned about the budget deficit. With everybody in politics afraid even to mention taxes, more social security cuts or even very much restrain in defense sending, would you now list a few specific programs which would reduce or eliminate - which you would reduce or eliminate, to cut the deficit by about $50 billion, the deficit which is expected to be about $135 billion this Fiscal Year.

BENTSEN: One of them that I'd work on - and I do this as a farmer - I try to turn the situation around where we have seen the subsidy payments go from two and a half billion to ten times that under this administration. And the way I would accomplish that--was with a tough trade policy, opening up those markets, getting those prices back up to market prices. We can do that if we have an aggressive trade policy for our country, if we make trade a number one priority and not trade it off for some foreign policy objective at the moment. That means we have to stand up for the American farmers and that cuts back on the regulation on American farmers. That's a positive way to accomplish that. In addition to that, we do some of the things that I think have to be done insofar as doing a better job of procurement, particularly when we're talking about some of our military things that we should buy. I know that I fought very hard to put in an independent inspector general for the Defense Department, that the Senator from Indiana opposed me on that. But we were finally able to put that into effect and we saved over a quarter of a billion dollars this year, almost enough to buy a squadron of 716s. Those are the kids of things that I'd work on. One of the things I learned in business is that you can expect what you inspect. So, we'd be a - doing a much tougher job of auditing, to try to get rid of some of these kickbacks to consultants on military contracts, to be much more aggressive on that. In addition, those types of things would bring the interest rate down. I'd try to turn this trade deficit around and that too would help us and help us very substantially. And I'd get rid of some things like these planes that - are going to have - that the administration wants that'll fly from New York to Tokyo and take those investment bankers over there in four hours. I don't think we can afford a piece of technological elegance like that. I'd strike that sort of thing from the ticket. I don't know how many people have ridden the Concorde, not many, but I voted against it, said it would be a financial disaster and it's been just that.

WOODRUFF: Senator.

BENTSEN: So, those are the types of things that I would work on.

WOODRUFF: Senator Quayle?

QUAYLE: The way we're going to reduce this budget deficit, and it is a challenge to make sure that it is reduce, is first to stick to the Gramm-Rudman targets. The Gramm-Rudman targets have worked. We've reduced the Federal budget deficit $70 billion. Senator Bentsen voted against Gramm-Rudman, the very tool that has been used to bring the Federal budget deficit down. We're going to need all the tools possible to bring this Federal budget deficit down. We need the tools of a line item veto. A line item veto that 43 governors in this country have, but not the President of the United States. The President of the United States needs to have a line item veto. When Congress goes ahead and puts into appropriations bills unrequested and unnecessary spending, let the President put a line through that, send it back to the Congress and let the Congress vote on it again. Congress has to help out in reducing this budget deficit as much as the Executive Branch.

WOODRUFF: Tom Brokaw, a last question for Senator Bentsen.

BROKAW: Senator Bentsen, I'd like to ask you about your split personality during this election year. You're running on the ticket with Michael Dukakis, a man who is opposed to the death penalty, a man who is in favor of gun control, and at the same time you're running for the United States Senate in the state of Texas, where your position on many of those same issues is well known, and absolutely opposed to him. How do you explain to the people of Texas how you can be a social conservative on those cutting issues and still run with Michael Dukakis on the national ticket?

BENTSEN: Michael Dukakis wasn't looking for a clone. I think it's part of the strength and the character of this land that he reaches out, and that he wants someone that will speak up - and that I'll do. I've seen many chief executives come into my office and say they're going over and tell the president of the United States off, they're going to pound the desk, and go into that office and turn to Jello. Now, I've dealt with many a president, and I don't hesitate for a minute to speak up. But when you're talking about something like the death penalty, where Michael Dukakis and I do disagree, what you really ought to get to is what's being done against crime, and what kind of progress he's been able to make. In the state of Massachusetts he has the homicide rate down to the lowest of any industrial state. It's substantially ahead of the national average. He's been able to do that with an educated program for the people of that state by adding some 1,500 new police officers; he's done it in turn by the leadership that I think he will bring to the ticket when he becomes president of the United States and fighting drugs. He's taken it down some four percent in the high schools of that state, while it's gone up about the rest of the nation. But you would seem him as president of the United States being very aggressive in this fight against crime, and having that kind of a successful result. And that's one of the reasons I'm delighted and proud to be on the ticket with him. Sure, we have some differences, but overall we have so many things we agree on. This situation of a trade policy, of cutting back on the deficit. Those are positive, plus things, and major issues facing our nation.

WOODRUFF: Senator Quayle.

QUAYLE: One of the things that they don't agree on is in the area of national defense. National defense, and how we're going to preserve the freedom in this country. Michael Dukakis is the most liberal national Democrat to seek the office of presidency since George McGovern. He is for - he is against the MX missile, the midgetman, cutting two aircraft carriers. He is opposed to many defense programs that are necessary to defend this country. That's why former Secretary of Defense and former Energy Secretary in the Carter administration, Jim Schlesinger, in an open letter to Time magazine asked Governor Dukakis, "are you viscerally anti-military?" Jim Schlesinger never got an answer. And the reason he did is because the governor of Massachusetts doesn't want to answer former Secretary Jim Schlesinger on that very important question.

WOODRUFF: Tom, a last question for Senator Quayle.

BROKAW: Senator Quayle, all of us in our lifetime encounter an experience that helps shapes our adult philosophy in some form or another. Could you describe for this audience tonight what experience you may have had, and how it shaped our political philosophy?

QUAYLE: There are a lot of experiences that I've had that have shaped my adult philosophy, but the one that I keep coming back to time and time again - and I talk about it at commencement addresses, I talk about it in the high schools. I talk about it when I visit the job training centers. And it's the advice that my maternal grandmother, Martha Pulliam, who's 97 years old. We are a modern day, four generation family. The advice that she gave me when I was growing up is advice that I've given my children, and I've given to a number of children, number of people. And it's very simple. It's very common sense. And she says, "You can do anything you want to if you just set your mind to it, and go to work." Now, the Dukakis supporters sneer at that because it's common sense. (Laughter)

QUAYLE: They sneer at common sense advice. Midwestern advice. Midwestern advice from a grandmother to a grandson. Important advice. Something that we ought to talk about, because if you want to, you can make a difference. You, America can make a difference. You're going to have that choice come this election. Everyone can make a difference if they want to.

WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen?

BENTSEN: I think being born and reared on the Rio Grande, to have spent part of my life seeing some of the struggles that have taken place in one of the lowest per capita incomes in the United States. And that's one of the reasons I worked so hard to try to assist on education. And when I found that the bankers in that area found that they could not handle the loans because of some of the detail and the expense, couldn't make a profit on it, I went down there and helped form a nonprofit organization, to buy out those loans from them, and to manage them, and do it in a way where they'd continue to make those loans. Now they have. And they've educated more than 20,000 of those students, loaned out over a hundred million dollars. And it hasn't cost the taxpayers of this country one cent. That's one of the reasons I've worked so hard to bring better health care to the people, because what I've seen in the way of poverty down there in that area, and the lack of medical attention, and trying to see that that's turned around; why I've worked so hard on the welfare reform bill--to give them a chance to break these cycles of poverty, a chance for a step up in life. Judy, something's happened. My light's still on.

WOODRUFF: Your light's not working.

BENTSEN: All right.

WOODRUFF: We're sorry about that if that's the case. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Bentsen. Thank you, Senator Quayle. We have now come to the end of the questions, and before I ask the candidates to make their closing remarks, on behalf of the Commission on Presidential Debates, I'd like to thank all of you for joining us. Senator Quayle, yours is the first closing statement.

Quayle QUAYLE: Thank you. Tonight has been a very important evening. You have been able to see Dan Quayle as I really am, and how George Bush and I want to lead this country into the future. Thank you, America, for listening, and thank you for your fairness. Now you will have a choice to make on election day. You will have a choice of whether America is going to choose the road of Michael Dukakis or the road of George Bush as we march toward the 21st Century. The road of Michael Dukakis comes down to this: Bigger government, higher taxes. They've always believed in higher taxes; they always have, and they always will. Cuts in national defense. Back to the old economics of high interest rates, high inflation, and the old politics of high unemployment. Now the road of George Bush is the road to the future, and it comes down to this: An America second to none, with visions of greatness, economic expansion, tough laws, tough judges, strong values, respect for the flag and our institutions. George Bush will lead us to the 21st Century, a century that will be of hope and peace. Ronald Reagan and George Bush saved America from decline. We changed America. Michael Dukakis fought us every step of the way. It's not that they're not sympathetic; it's simply that they will take America backwards. George Bush has the experience, and with me, the future, a future committed to our family, a future committed to the freedom. Thank you, good night, and God bless you. (Applause)

WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen, your closing statement.

BENTSEN: In just 34 days, America will elect new leadership for our country. It's a most important decision, because there's no bigger job than governing this great country of ours, and leading it into its future. Mike Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen offer you experience, tempered, capable leadership, to meet those challenges of the future. Our opposition says lower your sights, rest on your laurels. Mike Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen think America can do better, that America can't just coast into the future, clinging to the past. This race is too close. The competition is too tough, the stakes are too high. Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen think America must move into that future united in a commitment to make this country of ours the most powerful, the most prosperous nation in the world. As Americans, we honor our past, and we should. But our children are going to live in the future, and Mike Dukakis says the best of America is yet to come. But that won't happen. Taking care of our economy, just putting it on automatic pilot. It won't happen by accident. It's going to take leadership, and it's going to take courage. And the commitment, and a contribution by all of us to do that. I've worked for the betterment of our country, both in war and peace, as a bomber pilot, as one who has been a businessman, and a United States senator, working to make this nation the fairest and the strongest and the most powerful in the world. Help us bring America to a new era of greatness. The debate has been ours, but the decision is yours. God bless you. (Applause)

WOODRUFF: Thank you both, thank you.




The Vice Presidential Debate: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV The 1988 Campaign & Debates An Interview with President Bush NewsHour Coverage of the 1988 Debates		WOODRUFF: John Margolis, a question for Senator Quayle. MARGOLIS: Senator Quayle, I want to go back to the matter of qualifications, which I think for most people is more than just your - BENTSEN: John, we can't hear you. MARGOLIS: Can you hear now? QUAYLE: I can hear you. [Laughter.] MARGOLIS: I want to go back to the question of qualifications, which I think for most people is more than just how long you've been in the Senate and how long you've been in public life. There's also a question of candor and of consistency. And several of the things you've said, both here and earlier, I think have raised some reasonable questions. Each of them alone might seem rather trivial, but I think together they create a pattern that needs to be asked. You've talked a few times today about the Job Training Partnership Act, which you authored. In fact, I believe you co-authored it with another Senator, whom you almost never name. Earlier in the campaign when you were asked why you got a very - a desk job in the National Guard after being trained as a welder, you said at the time you had a very strong background in journalism, which at that time was summer jobs at your family-owned newspaper, which you have not been very forthcoming about what they were. As you have not been very forthcoming about your college record. Now, I have to say - at least the males on this panel have earlier agreed that your record was probably comparable to ours, but - [Laughter.] Nonetheless, these examples of sort of overstatement and exaggeration and not being forthcoming - this what has led a lot of people to question this part of your qualifications, not your experience, but your character. Would you like to set some of these things straight now as to what you did in your summer jobs in college, what your grades were like and would you like to identify your co-sponsor of the Job Training Partnership Act? QUAYLE: All in two minutes? MARGOLIS: Sure. QUAYLE: Let me start with the underlying premise, that somehow I haven't been straightforward. And I have. And let's go to the - right to the very first question - the Job Training Partnership Act. I was the author of that. The co-author in the United States Senate was Senator Kennedy. I was the Chairman of the Employment and Productivity Subcommittee. Chairmen of the committee write that legislation. Chairmen of the committee write the legislation and then they go out and get co-sponsorship. And when you are the chairman of the committee and you sit down and you write the legislation, you are the author of that. And I'm proud to have been the author of that. Because you know what we had, we had a CETA program that spent $50 billion from about 1973 through 1982 and when we concluded that program - when we concluded that program, unemployment was higher than when it began. It was a program that didn't work and the Job Training Partnership Act does work. Now, the issue of releasing all the - my grades - I am - and I stand before you tonight - as the most investigated person ever to seek public office. (Applause) Thousands of journalists have asked every professor I've had, all my teachers and they know - and I have never professed to be anything but an average student. I have never said I was anything more than that, but it's not whether you're an average study, it's what are you going to do with your life. And what have I - going to do with my life. I have committed it to public service since I was 29 years of age - elected to the House of Representatives. Elected to the United States Senate when I was 33. I now have the opportunity at 41 to seek the office of the Vice Presidency. WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen? BENTSEN: I have absolutely no quarrel with Senator Quayle's military record. But I do strongly disagree with him on some of the issues. You make great patriotic speeches and I enjoy them, but I don't understand your vote on veterans issues. Senator Quayle has one of the worst voting records in the United States Senate on veterans issues. And one of them that particularly bothers me, sponsoring legislation to put a tax on combat pay and disability pay for veterans, for fighting men and women of America. Tax on their disability pay when they're lying there in the hospital, people who have sacrificed for our country. I think you ought to explain that to the people of America and you ought to explain it tonight. WOODRUFF: John, a question for Senator Bentsen. MARGOLIS: Senator, you're Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and you're generally considered rather an orthodox conservative on fiscal matters, meaning someone who would be very concerned about the budget deficit. With everybody in politics afraid even to mention taxes, more social security cuts or even very much restrain in defense sending, would you now list a few specific programs which would reduce or eliminate - which you would reduce or eliminate, to cut the deficit by about $50 billion, the deficit which is expected to be about $135 billion this Fiscal Year. BENTSEN: One of them that I'd work on - and I do this as a farmer - I try to turn the situation around where we have seen the subsidy payments go from two and a half billion to ten times that under this administration. And the way I would accomplish that--was with a tough trade policy, opening up those markets, getting those prices back up to market prices. We can do that if we have an aggressive trade policy for our country, if we make trade a number one priority and not trade it off for some foreign policy objective at the moment. That means we have to stand up for the American farmers and that cuts back on the regulation on American farmers. That's a positive way to accomplish that. In addition to that, we do some of the things that I think have to be done insofar as doing a better job of procurement, particularly when we're talking about some of our military things that we should buy. I know that I fought very hard to put in an independent inspector general for the Defense Department, that the Senator from Indiana opposed me on that. But we were finally able to put that into effect and we saved over a quarter of a billion dollars this year, almost enough to buy a squadron of 716s. Those are the kids of things that I'd work on. One of the things I learned in business is that you can expect what you inspect. So, we'd be a - doing a much tougher job of auditing, to try to get rid of some of these kickbacks to consultants on military contracts, to be much more aggressive on that. In addition, those types of things would bring the interest rate down. I'd try to turn this trade deficit around and that too would help us and help us very substantially. And I'd get rid of some things like these planes that - are going to have - that the administration wants that'll fly from New York to Tokyo and take those investment bankers over there in four hours. I don't think we can afford a piece of technological elegance like that. I'd strike that sort of thing from the ticket. I don't know how many people have ridden the Concorde, not many, but I voted against it, said it would be a financial disaster and it's been just that. WOODRUFF: Senator. BENTSEN: So, those are the types of things that I would work on. WOODRUFF: Senator Quayle? QUAYLE: The way we're going to reduce this budget deficit, and it is a challenge to make sure that it is reduce, is first to stick to the Gramm-Rudman targets. The Gramm-Rudman targets have worked. We've reduced the Federal budget deficit $70 billion. Senator Bentsen voted against Gramm-Rudman, the very tool that has been used to bring the Federal budget deficit down. We're going to need all the tools possible to bring this Federal budget deficit down. We need the tools of a line item veto. A line item veto that 43 governors in this country have, but not the President of the United States. The President of the United States needs to have a line item veto. When Congress goes ahead and puts into appropriations bills unrequested and unnecessary spending, let the President put a line through that, send it back to the Congress and let the Congress vote on it again. Congress has to help out in reducing this budget deficit as much as the Executive Branch. WOODRUFF: Tom Brokaw, a last question for Senator Bentsen. BROKAW: Senator Bentsen, I'd like to ask you about your split personality during this election year. You're running on the ticket with Michael Dukakis, a man who is opposed to the death penalty, a man who is in favor of gun control, and at the same time you're running for the United States Senate in the state of Texas, where your position on many of those same issues is well known, and absolutely opposed to him. How do you explain to the people of Texas how you can be a social conservative on those cutting issues and still run with Michael Dukakis on the national ticket? BENTSEN: Michael Dukakis wasn't looking for a clone. I think it's part of the strength and the character of this land that he reaches out, and that he wants someone that will speak up - and that I'll do. I've seen many chief executives come into my office and say they're going over and tell the president of the United States off, they're going to pound the desk, and go into that office and turn to Jello. Now, I've dealt with many a president, and I don't hesitate for a minute to speak up. But when you're talking about something like the death penalty, where Michael Dukakis and I do disagree, what you really ought to get to is what's being done against crime, and what kind of progress he's been able to make. In the state of Massachusetts he has the homicide rate down to the lowest of any industrial state. It's substantially ahead of the national average. He's been able to do that with an educated program for the people of that state by adding some 1,500 new police officers; he's done it in turn by the leadership that I think he will bring to the ticket when he becomes president of the United States and fighting drugs. He's taken it down some four percent in the high schools of that state, while it's gone up about the rest of the nation. But you would seem him as president of the United States being very aggressive in this fight against crime, and having that kind of a successful result. And that's one of the reasons I'm delighted and proud to be on the ticket with him. Sure, we have some differences, but overall we have so many things we agree on. This situation of a trade policy, of cutting back on the deficit. Those are positive, plus things, and major issues facing our nation. WOODRUFF: Senator Quayle. QUAYLE: One of the things that they don't agree on is in the area of national defense. National defense, and how we're going to preserve the freedom in this country. Michael Dukakis is the most liberal national Democrat to seek the office of presidency since George McGovern. He is for - he is against the MX missile, the midgetman, cutting two aircraft carriers. He is opposed to many defense programs that are necessary to defend this country. That's why former Secretary of Defense and former Energy Secretary in the Carter administration, Jim Schlesinger, in an open letter to Time magazine asked Governor Dukakis, "are you viscerally anti-military?" Jim Schlesinger never got an answer. And the reason he did is because the governor of Massachusetts doesn't want to answer former Secretary Jim Schlesinger on that very important question. WOODRUFF: Tom, a last question for Senator Quayle. BROKAW: Senator Quayle, all of us in our lifetime encounter an experience that helps shapes our adult philosophy in some form or another. Could you describe for this audience tonight what experience you may have had, and how it shaped our political philosophy? QUAYLE: There are a lot of experiences that I've had that have shaped my adult philosophy, but the one that I keep coming back to time and time again - and I talk about it at commencement addresses, I talk about it in the high schools. I talk about it when I visit the job training centers. And it's the advice that my maternal grandmother, Martha Pulliam, who's 97 years old. We are a modern day, four generation family. The advice that she gave me when I was growing up is advice that I've given my children, and I've given to a number of children, number of people. And it's very simple. It's very common sense. And she says, "You can do anything you want to if you just set your mind to it, and go to work." Now, the Dukakis supporters sneer at that because it's common sense. (Laughter) QUAYLE: They sneer at common sense advice. Midwestern advice. Midwestern advice from a grandmother to a grandson. Important advice. Something that we ought to talk about, because if you want to, you can make a difference. You, America can make a difference. You're going to have that choice come this election. Everyone can make a difference if they want to. WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen? BENTSEN: I think being born and reared on the Rio Grande, to have spent part of my life seeing some of the struggles that have taken place in one of the lowest per capita incomes in the United States. And that's one of the reasons I worked so hard to try to assist on education. And when I found that the bankers in that area found that they could not handle the loans because of some of the detail and the expense, couldn't make a profit on it, I went down there and helped form a nonprofit organization, to buy out those loans from them, and to manage them, and do it in a way where they'd continue to make those loans. Now they have. And they've educated more than 20,000 of those students, loaned out over a hundred million dollars. And it hasn't cost the taxpayers of this country one cent. That's one of the reasons I've worked so hard to bring better health care to the people, because what I've seen in the way of poverty down there in that area, and the lack of medical attention, and trying to see that that's turned around; why I've worked so hard on the welfare reform bill--to give them a chance to break these cycles of poverty, a chance for a step up in life. Judy, something's happened. My light's still on. WOODRUFF: Your light's not working. BENTSEN: All right. WOODRUFF: We're sorry about that if that's the case. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Bentsen. Thank you, Senator Quayle. We have now come to the end of the questions, and before I ask the candidates to make their closing remarks, on behalf of the Commission on Presidential Debates, I'd like to thank all of you for joining us. Senator Quayle, yours is the first closing statement. QUAYLE: Thank you. Tonight has been a very important evening. You have been able to see Dan Quayle as I really am, and how George Bush and I want to lead this country into the future. Thank you, America, for listening, and thank you for your fairness. Now you will have a choice to make on election day. You will have a choice of whether America is going to choose the road of Michael Dukakis or the road of George Bush as we march toward the 21st Century. The road of Michael Dukakis comes down to this: Bigger government, higher taxes. They've always believed in higher taxes; they always have, and they always will. Cuts in national defense. Back to the old economics of high interest rates, high inflation, and the old politics of high unemployment. Now the road of George Bush is the road to the future, and it comes down to this: An America second to none, with visions of greatness, economic expansion, tough laws, tough judges, strong values, respect for the flag and our institutions. George Bush will lead us to the 21st Century, a century that will be of hope and peace. Ronald Reagan and George Bush saved America from decline. We changed America. Michael Dukakis fought us every step of the way. It's not that they're not sympathetic; it's simply that they will take America backwards. George Bush has the experience, and with me, the future, a future committed to our family, a future committed to the freedom. Thank you, good night, and God bless you. (Applause) WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen, your closing statement. BENTSEN: In just 34 days, America will elect new leadership for our country. It's a most important decision, because there's no bigger job than governing this great country of ours, and leading it into its future. Mike Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen offer you experience, tempered, capable leadership, to meet those challenges of the future. Our opposition says lower your sights, rest on your laurels. Mike Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen think America can do better, that America can't just coast into the future, clinging to the past. This race is too close. The competition is too tough, the stakes are too high. Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen think America must move into that future united in a commitment to make this country of ours the most powerful, the most prosperous nation in the world. As Americans, we honor our past, and we should. But our children are going to live in the future, and Mike Dukakis says the best of America is yet to come. But that won't happen. Taking care of our economy, just putting it on automatic pilot. It won't happen by accident. It's going to take leadership, and it's going to take courage. And the commitment, and a contribution by all of us to do that. I've worked for the betterment of our country, both in war and peace, as a bomber pilot, as one who has been a businessman, and a United States senator, working to make this nation the fairest and the strongest and the most powerful in the world. Help us bring America to a new era of greatness. The debate has been ours, but the decision is yours. God bless you. (Applause) WOODRUFF: Thank you both, thank you.