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MR. SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, the next question is to you. We all know
that Social Security is running out of money and it has to be fixed.
You have proposed to fix it by letting people put some of the money
collected to pay benefits into private savings accounts, but the critics
are saying that's going to mean finding a trillion dollars over the
next 10 years to continue paying benefits as those accounts are being
set up. So where do you get the money? Are you going to have to increase
the deficit by that much over 10 years?
 PRESIDENT
BUSH: Bob, first let me make sure that every senior listening today
understands that when we're talking about reforming Social Security
that they'll still get their checks. I remember the 2000 campaign and
people saying if George W. gets elected your check will be taken away.
Well, people got their checks and they will continue to get their checks.
There is a problem for our youngsters, a real problem, and if we don't
act today the problem will be valued in the trillions. And so I think
we need to think differently. We'll honor our commitment to our seniors,
but for young -- for our children and our grandchildren, we need to
have a different strategy. And recognizing that, I called together a
group of our fellow citizens to study the issue. It was a committee
chaired by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a Democrat,
and they came up with a variety of ideas for people to look at.
I believe that younger workers ought to be allowed to take some of their
own money and put it into a personal savings account because I understand
that they need to get better rates of return than the rates of return
being given in the current Social Security Trust. And the compounding
rate of interest effect will make it more likely that the Social Security
system is solvent for our children and our grandchildren.
I will work with Republicans and Democrats. This will be a vital issue
in my second term. It is an issue that I'm willing to take on. And so
I'll bring Republicans and Democrats together.
And we're, of course, going to have to consider the cost. But I want
to warn my fellow citizens, the cost of doing nothing, the cost of saying
the current system is okay far exceeds the cost of trying to make sure
we save the system for our children.
MR. SCHIEFFER: Senator Kerry.
 SEN.
KERRY: You just heard the president say that young people ought to be
able to take money out of Social Security and put it in their own accounts.
Now my fellow Americans, that's an invitation to disaster. The CBO said
very clearly that if you were to adopt the president's plan, there will
be a $2 trillion hole in Social Security because today's workers pay
into the system for today's retirees. And the CBO said -- that's the
Congressional Budget Office; it's bipartisan. They said that there would
have to be a cut in benefits of 25 to 40 percent.
Now, the president has never explained to America, ever, hasn't done
it tonight, where does the transitional money, that $2 trillion, come
from? He's already got $3 trillion, according to The Washington Post,
of expenses that he's put on the line from his convention and the promises
of this campaign, none of which are paid for. Not one of them are paid
for. The fact is that the president is driving the largest deficits
in American history. He's broken the pay-as-you-go rules.
I have a record of fighting for fiscal responsibility. In 1985 I was
one of the first Democrats, broke with my party, we balanced the budget
in the '90s, we paid down the debt for two years. And that's what we're
going to do.
We're going to protect Social Security. I will not privatize it. I will
not cut the benefits. And we're going to be fiscally responsible, and
we will take care of Social Security.
 MR.
SCHIEFFER: Let me just stay on Social Security, with a new question
for Senator Kerry, because, Senator Kerry, you have just said you will
not cut benefits.
Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, says there's no
way that Social Security can pay retirees what we have promised them
unless we recalibrate. What he's suggesting: We're going to have cut
benefits or we're going to have to raise retirement age. We may have
to take some other reform.
But if you've just said you've promised no changes, does that mean you're
just going to leave this as a problem, another problem for our children
to solve?
SEN. KERRY: Not at all. Absolutely not, Bob. This is the same thing
we heard -- I remember I appeared on "Meet the Press" with
Tim Russert in 1990-something. We heard the same thing.
We fixed it. In fact, we put together a $5.6 trillion surplus in the
'90s that was for the purpose of saving Social Security.
If you take the tax cut that the president of the United States
has given -- President Bush gave to Americans in the top 1 percent of
America, just that tax cut that went to the top 1 percent of America
would have saved Social Security until the year 2075. The president
decided to give it to the wealthiest Americans in a tax cut.
Now Alan Greenspan, who I think has done a terrific job in monetary
policy, supports the president's tax cut. I don't. I support it for
the middle class, not that part of it that goes to people earning more
than $200,00 a year.
And when I roll it back, and we invest in the things that I've talked
about to move our economy, we're going to grow sufficiently that we
begin to cut the deficit in half, and we get back to where we were at
the end of the 1990s, when we balanced the budget and paid down the
debt of this country. Now we can do that.
Now if later on, after a period of time, we find that Social Security
is in trouble, we'll pull together the top experts of the country, we'll
do exactly what we did in the 1990s, and we'll make whatever adjustment
is necessary.
But the first and most important thing is to start creating jobs in
America. The jobs the president -- creating pay $9,000 less than the
jobs that we're losing. And this is the first president in 72 years
to preside over an economy in America that has lost jobs -- 1.6 million
jobs. Eleven other presidents, six Democrats and five Republicans, had
wars, had recessions, had great difficulties. None of them lost jobs
the way this president has.
I have a plan to put America back to work. And if we're fiscally responsible
and put America back to work, we're going to fix Social Security.
MR. SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?
 PRESIDENT
BUSH: He forgot to tell you he voted to tax Social Security benefits
more than one time. I didn't hear any plan to fix Social Security. I
heard more of the same.
He talks about middle-class tax cuts. That's exactly where the tax cuts
went. Most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans.
And now the tax code is more fair. Twenty percent of the upper-income
people pay about 80 percent of the taxes in America today because of
how we structured the tax cuts.
People listening out there know the benefits of the tax cuts we passed.
If you have a child, you got tax relief. If you're married, you got
tax relief. If you pay any tax at all you got tax relief. All of which
was opposed by my opponent. And the tax relief was important to spur
consumption and investment to get us out of this recession.
People need to remember, six months prior to my arrival the stock market
started to go down, and it was one of the largest declines in our history.
And then we had a recession, and we got attacked, which cost us 1 million
jobs. But we acted. I led the Congress. We passed tax relief. And now
this economy is growing. We had 1.9 million new jobs over the last 13
months. Sure there's more work to do, but the way to make sure our economy
grows is not to raise taxes on small business owners, is not to increase
the scope of the federal government; is to make sure we have fiscal
sanity and keep taxes low.
MR. SCHIEFFER: Let's go to a new question, Mr. President. I got more
e-mail this week on this question than any other question, and it is
about immigration. I'm told that at least 8,000 people cross our borders
illegally every day. Some people believe this is a security issue, as
you know. Some believe it's an economic issue. Some see it as a human
rights issue.
How do you see it, and what do we need to do about it?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I see it as a serious problem. I see it as a security
issue. I see it as an economic issue. And I see it as a human rights
issue.
We are increasing the border security of the United States. We've got
1,000 more border patrol agents on the southern border. We're using
new equipment. We're using unmanned vehicles to spot people coming across.
And we'll continue to do so over the next four years. It's a subject
I'm very familiar with. After all, I was a border governor for a while.
Many people are coming to this country for economic reasons. They're
coming here to work. If you can make 50 cents in the heart of Mexico,
for example, or make $5 here in America, $5.15, you're going to come
here if you're worth your salt, if you want to put food on the table
for your families. And that's what's happening.
And so in order to take pressure off the border, in order to make the
borders more secure, I believe there ought to be a temporary worker
card that allows a willing worker and a willing employer to -- so long
as there's not an American willing to do the job -- to join up in order
to be able to fulfill the employer's needs.
That has the benefit of making sure our employers aren't breaking the
law as they try to fill their workforce needs. It makes sure that the
people coming across the border are humanely treated, that they're not
kept in the shadows of our society, that they're able to go back and
forth to see their families. See, the card will have a period of time
attached to it.
It also means it takes pressure off the border. If somebody is coming
here to work with a card, it means they're not going to have to sneak
across the border. It means our border patrol will be more likely to
be able to focus on doing their job.
Now, it's very important for our citizens to also know that I don't
believe we ought to have amnesty. I don't think we ought to reward illegal
behavior. There are plenty of people standing in line to become a citizen,
and we ought not to crowd these people ahead of them in line. If they
want to become a citizen, they can stand in line, too.
And here's where my opponent and I differ. In September 2003, he supported
amnesty for illegal aliens.
MR. SCHIEFFER: Time's up. Senator.
 SEN.
KERRY: Let me just answer one part of that last question quickly and
then I'll come to immigration.
The American middle-class family isn't making it right now, Bob, and
what the president said about the tax cuts have been wiped out by the
increase in health care, the increase of gasoline, the increase in tuitions,
the increase of prescription drugs. The fact is the take-home pay of
a typical American family as a share of national income is lower than
it's been since 1929, and the take-home pay of the richest 0.1 percent
of Americans is the highest it's been since 1928. Under President Bush,
the -- the -- the middle class has seen their tax burden go up and the
wealthiest tax burden's gone down. Now that's wrong.
Now with respect to immigration reform, the president broke his promise
on immigration reform. He said he would reform it. Four years later,
he's now promising you another plan.
Here's what I'll do.
Number one, the borders are more leaking today than they were before
9/11. The fact is we haven't done what we need to do to toughen up our
borders, and I will.
Secondly, we need a guest-worker program, but if it's all we have it's
not going to solve the problem. The second thing we need is to crack
down on illegal hiring. It's against the law in the United States to
hire people illegally, and we ought to be enforcing that law properly.
And thirdly, we need an earned legalization program for people who have
been here for a long time, stayed out of trouble, got a job, paid their
taxes, and their kids are American. We got to start moving them towards
full citizenship out of the shadows.
MR. SCHIEFFER: You want to respond, Mr. President?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, to say that the borders are not as protected as
they were prior to September the 11th shows he doesn't know the borders.
They're much better protected today than they were when I was the governor
of Texas.
And we got much more manpower, much more equipment there. It's just
he just doesn't understand how the borders work, evidently, to say that.
That is an outrageous claim. And we'll continue to protect our borders.
We'll continue to increase manpower and equipment.
MR. SCHIEFFER: Senator?
 SEN.
KERRY: Four thousand people a day are coming across the border. The
fact is that we now have people from the Middle East, allegedly, coming
across the border.
And we're not doing what we ought to do in terms of the technology.
We have iris identification technology. We have thumbprint, fingerprint
technology today. We can know who the people are, that they're really
the people they say they are when they cross the border. We could speed
it up. There are huge delays.
The fact is our borders are not as secure as they ought to be, and I'll
make them secure.
MR. SCHIEFFER: Next question to you, Senator Kerry. The gap between
rich and poor is growing wider. More people are dropping into poverty.
Yet the minimum wage has been stuck at what, $5.15 an hour now for about
seven years. Is it time to raise it?
SEN. KERRY: Well, I'm glad you raised that question. It's long overdue
time to raise the minimum wage. And America, this is one of those issues
that separates the president and myself. We have fought to try to raise
the minimum wage in the last years, but the Republican leadership of
the House and Senate won't even let us have a vote on it. We're not
allowed to vote on it. They don't want to raise the minimum wage.
The minimum wage is the lowest minimum wage value it has been in our
nation in 50 years. If we raised the minimum wage, which I will do over
several years, to $7.00 an hour, 9.2 million women who are trying to
raise their families would earn another $3,800 a year.
The president has denied 9.2 million women $3,800 a year, but he doesn't
hesitate to fight for $136,000 to a millionaire. One percent of America
got $89 billion last year in a tax cut. But people working hard, playing
by the rules, trying to take care of their kids, family values that
we're supposed to value so much in America -- I'm tired of politicians
who talk about family values and don't value families.
What we need to do is raise the minimum wage. We also need to hold on
to equal pay. Women work for 76 cents on the dollar for the same work
that men do. That's not right in America. And we had an initiative that
we were working on to raise women's pay. They've cut it off. They've
stopped it. They don't enforce these kinds of things.
Now, I think that it is a matter of fundamental right that if we raise
the minimum wage, 15 million Americans would be positively affected.
We'd put money into the hands of people who work hard, who obey the
rules, who play for the American dream. And if we did that, we'd have
more consumption ability in America, which is what we need right now
in order to kick our economy into gear. I will fight tooth and nail
to pass the minimum wage.
MR. SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?
 PRESIDENT
BUSH: Actually, Mitch McConnell had a minimum wage plan that I supported
that would have increased the minimum wage.
But let me talk about what's really important for the worker you're
referring to, and that's to make sure the education system works; is
to make sure we raise standards. Listen, the No Child Left Behind Act
is really a jobs act, when you think about it. The No Child Left Behind
Act says we'll raise standards, we'll increase federal spending, but
in return for extra spending, we now want people to measure -- states
and local jurisdictions to measure to show us whether or not a child
can read or write or add and subtract.
You cannot solve a problem unless you diagnose the problem, and we
weren't diagnosing problems, and therefore just kids were being shuffled
through the school. And guess who would get shuffled through. Children
whose parents wouldn't speak English as a first language just moved
through. Many inner-city kids just moved through. We've stopped that
practice now by measuring early. And when we find a problem, we spend
extra money to correct it.
I remember a lady in Houston, Texas, tell me, "Reading is the new
civil right." And she's right.
In order to make sure people have jobs for the 21st century, we've got
to get it right in the education system, and we're beginning to close
the minority achievement gap now.
You see, we'd never be able to compete in the 21st century unless we
have an education system that doesn't quit on children, an education
system that raises standards, an education that makes sure there's excellence
in every classroom.
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