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| AL GORE | |
 March 14, 2000  | ||
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| Vice President Al Gore discusses economic policy and Texas Gov. George W. Bush's readiness for the presidency. |
| JIM LEHRER: You have questioned Governor Bush's experience to be president of the United States. What exactly do you mean? | |||||||||||||||||||
| Questioning Bush's economic plan | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Then, President Clinton and I came in seven years ago and got rid of that approach, took a new approach -- fiscal responsibility -- balanced the budget and better -- we turned the biggest deficits into the biggest surpluses. We've invested in our people; we've turned the worst recession since the 1930s, which the Bush/Quayle years gave us, and instead turned it into 21 million new jobs, and the
AL GORE: Of course not. No. Then-Governor Clinton had emerged as a preeminent leader among the governors -- chairman of the conference -- and he negotiated the Goals 2000, and he demonstrated during his service over a long period of time as governor a capacity to come up with innovative new approaches. And, of course, the Texas governor's office is different from the Arkansas governor's office in any case. JIM LEHRER: But are you saying -- I'm just trying to understand what you -- are you saying that George W. Bush is just not up to the job? AL GORE: I'm not saying that. I'm saying that -- that will be a conclusion that the American people will either draw or not draw. What I am saying is that anyone who proposes an economic plan that would spend a trillion dollars more than the combined surplus invites the question does he have the experience to be president?
Now, those who believe that it makes sense for us to go back into debt and start increasing the debt again the way we did during the Bush/Quayle years, if that's what they want, then they won't find the question that I have raised very relevant. But if they believe that our economic future is important and that we can learn from the experience of the last few years, then I think they will look at that question. |  | |||||||||||||||||||
| Working within current campaign finance laws | ||||||||||||||||||||
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AL GORE: Right. JIM LEHRER: It belongs to the taxpayers. Why not give some of the money back and let them decide how to spend it, rather than to keep it and use it in Washington? AL GORE: Well, it is your money, but the debt is your debt also, and it's your Social Security. It's your Medicare. It's your environment. It's your health care system. Now, do you want to borrow more money and go back into debt in order to give a risky tax scheme to the few? I personally think that it is -- see, I think there's a connection, Jim, between the two issues that we have discussed so far on your program: campaign finance reform, on the one hand; and Governor Bush's economic proposal on the other hand. The American people do not want this risky tax scheme; they do not. Trust me on this. I've asked them. Others have asked them. What Governor Bush has proposed is a far larger tax scheme than anything that Newt Gingrich and the congressional Republican leadership proposed, and their proposal was soundly rejected by the American people. Now, why is he proposing that? It would give $50,000 to those -- to the richest Americans and virtually nothing to the rest. Why is he proposing that? Well, he says that it's evidence of a courageous decision to do something that the American people don't want. Well, maybe, but maybe it's also relevant that while it's the lowest priority for the American people, it just happens to be the highest priority for the group that represents the donors of all the soft money that floods into campaigns from special interests. And that's a fact.
We have an opportunity right now at this mountaintop moment -- with the largest surpluses in history -- the strongest economy in history -- to really -- to save Social Security and Medicare, to make the revolutionary advances in our public schools that are necessary to prepare for this information age, to expand access to health care, to clean up the environment in ways that produce millions of new jobs, to bring the crime rate down further, and to get control of this drug problem in the country. We can use this extraordinary mountaintop moment to secure a very bright future -- or we can squander it.
AL GORE: No, no, no, no. No. I don't -- that's not -- I'm not saying it in a crass way like that -- and I don't think that's the way it operates. I do think that if you spend so much time with the people that finance campaigns under the current laws and the current system, you are naturally going to hear more from them than you do from -- JIM LEHRER: But that doesn't -- AL GORE: -- the average citizen. JIM LEHRER: Doesn't that apply to you as well? People contribute to your campaign.
JIM LEHRER: The soft money of the Democratic Party. AL GORE: Absolutely. JIM LEHRER: Same rules apply? AL GORE: Absolutely. I have taken - I've rejected PAC (political action committee) funding, even though it's legal under the law. I have the smallest average contribution of any candidate in the race, and I spend my time out in open meetings with the people and partly to make sure that I spend my time with the people who are - who are representing the viewpoints of the American people, but make no mistake about it, Jim, and this is not just a problem in presidential campaigning; it's a problem in Senate and House campaigns, and governor's campaigns and state legislature across the board -- if you have candidates who in order to buy all of these TV and radio ads are spending so much time with the donors of special interest -- so-called "soft money" -- you know that they're going to be vulnerable to having their opinions shaped by all of the communication they get from -- JIM LEHRER: And you're not immune from that, any more than George W. Bush, are you?
JIM LEHRER: But you're going to continue to take money, are you not? AL GORE: I'm going to take steps to -- I'm going to take steps to limit what my campaign does within the -- within the laws as they exist.
AL GORE: I think that -- I think that it's all in how you approach it. If you make it plain that here's my approach, here's what I'm talking about here, and this is what I'm going to propose, take it or leave it -- if you want to support this agenda, then I'll welcome your support -- then I think that's the way to do it. JIM LEHRER: That's the new world, though, isn't it? That isn't the world we're sitting in right now. AL GORE: Well, you've got to make the best of the rules as they exist, but I want to change the rules, and I think we can change the rules right now without waiting for Congress to pass a law. We can take unilateral steps to do it.
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AL GORE: I've raised one simple question, and that is: When you look at the choice we face for our economic plans, where we go in the future, we're at a fork in the road. We can continue going along the road of progress, paying down the debt, fixing Social Security and Medicare, investing more in our people -- keeping our prosperity going -- or we can take the other fork in the road that Governor Bush has recommended, which is embodied by a $2.1 trillion risky tax scheme that would eliminate -- not only eliminate the surplus -- and I'm talking about the non-Social Security surplus -- not only eliminate the surplus but spend a trillion dollars in excess of the surplus, which would put us right back in the deficits again, cause deep cuts in the funding for education and health care and the environment and crime control and put pressure on the Social Security system to raise the retirement age, as he has refused to rule out, to privatize the Social Security in part, as he has recommended. And I think that -- I think that the -- putting forward a plan like that does raise the question of whether he has the experience to be president -- because look at the experience the country has had over the last two decades. 
We tried that approach and what happened? It quadrupled our national debt; it gave us deficits annually of $300 billion plus; it put pressure on interest rates and put the business community in a straitjacket because whenever the economy felt some strength and they went out to borrow for expansion or new hiring, the combination of private borrowing and massive government deficit financing automatically put such pressure on the credit markets that it made every potential economic recovery an ambush. We hit the trip wire of high interest rates and fell back into recession -- a triple-dip recession. 
strongest economic recovery in the entire history of the United States of America, with low inflation and low unemployment -- both at the same time -- the lowest African American and Latino unemployment rates in the history of the United States, more new small businesses, highest private home ownership. Now, if you come before the American people -- let's say it's you -- and you said, hey, look, I've reviewed this record and I want to get rid of what's working and go back to what produced a catastrophic failure, I would say, well, you making a proposal like that raises a question -- do you have the experience to be president?
JIM LEHRER: But you mentioned President Clinton. President Clinton was governor of Arkansas before he became president. Governor Bush is governor of Texas now. You're not saying -- are you -- that if you're a governor, that is - that doesn't give you the experience to be president?
Anyone who proposes an approach to Social Security that would do grave damage to the most successful program ever enacted in the United States invites that question. Anyone who puts forward a Medicare proposal that would privatize part of Medicare and lead to a two-track system and threaten the future of Medicare invites that question. Now, don't just take my word for it. Listen to the words of John McCain in the Republican primaries: He said -- and I quote -- "Governor Bush does not put one penny into Social Security; he doesn't put one penny into Medicare; he doesn't put one penny into paying down the debt." 
JIM LEHRER: Governor Bush says there's a philosophical issue involved here, and the issue is this: That there's a surplus, a federal surplus.
Now, the fact that -- the fact that the soft money contributors have as much influence as they do in the current political system means that some people are going to listen to them more attentively than to the American people. I don't think that's necessarily evidence of courage; I think it's evidence of why we need to change the campaign finance system so that we can change the kinds of proposals that are put forth and make them more consistent with what the American people want. 
JIM LEHRER: Are you saying, Mr. Vice President, that Governor Bush has literally said, hey, Billy Bob, you give some money and I'll give you a tax break, that this man is for sale?
AL GORE: Absolutely.
AL GORE: No. But I am -- I am taking steps unilaterally to avoid that. And I'm having these open meetings out there and spending my time with the voters, and I'm inviting him to join me in joint open meetings with voters at debates twice a week in lieu of the TV and radio ads. Look, he's ahead in the polls. Theoretically, it would be to his advantage to just have an agreement where there are no radio and TV commercials -- 30-second -- 60-second ads, and instead just go before the American people in debates and joint open meetings before undecided voters.
JIM LEHRER: But the basic -- the basic thing between all campaign contributions is I give money to Al Gore or George W. Bush or Sammy Sue Smith because that candidate is going to do things that I support. That's not going to change, is it?
