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MS. IFILL: In that case, we'll move on to domestic matters. And this
question, I believe, goes to Senator -- to Vice President Cheney. The
Census Bureau --
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Goes to Senator Edwards --
MS. IFILL: It goes to Senator -- I just -- I just. It's to you. I just
asked him about Israel, even though --
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Yeah.
MS. IFILL: -- we didn't actually talk about it much.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: I, I concede the point.
SENATOR EDWARDS: I did talk about it. Israel. He's the one who didn't
talk about it. (Laughs.)
MS. IFILL: Mr. Vice President, the Census Bureau ranks Cleveland as
the biggest poor city in the country, 31 percent jobless rate. You two
gentlemen are pretty well off. You did well for yourselves in the private
sector. What can you tell the people of Cleveland, or people of cities
like Cleveland that your administration will do to better their lives?
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Well, Gwen, there are several things that I think
need to be done and are being done. We've, of course, been through a
difficult recession and then the aftermath of 9/11 where we lost over
a million jobs after the attack.
But we think the key is to address some basic, fundamental issues
that the president's already working on. I think probably the most successful
thing we can do with respect to ending poverty is to get people jobs.
There's no better antidote to poverty than a -- than a good, well-paying
job that allows somebody to take care of their own family.
To do that, we have to make America the best place in the world to do
business, and that means we've got to deal effectively with tax policy,
we've got to reduce the litigation costs. They're built into our society.
We've got to provide adequate medical care and make certain that we
can in fact create the opportunities that -- that are vital to that
process.
I zero in, in particular, on education. I think the most important thing
we can do is have a fist-class public school system. I'm a product of
public schools.
And the president -- his first legislative priority was the No Child
Left Behind Act. It was the first piece of legislation we introduced.
We got it passed that first summer, on a bipartisan basis. We even had
Ted Kennedy on board for the effort. And it does several things. It
establishes high standards. It at the same time sets up a system of
testing with respect to our school system, so we can establish accountability
to parents and make certain that they understand how well their students
are doing, and they have  the
opportunity to move students out of poorly performing schools to good
schools. It strikes me that that is absolute, the heart of what needs
to be done from the standpoint of education.
It's also important, as we go forward -- in the next term, we want to
be able to take what we've done for elementary education and move it
into the secondary education. It's working. We've seen reports now of
a reduction in the achievement gap between majority students and minority
students. We're making significant progress.
MS. IFILL: Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.
SEN. EDWARDS: Wasn't your -- your question was about jobs?
MS. IFILL: It was about jobs, and it was about poverty.
SEN. EDWARDS: I thought -- I thought it was about jobs and poverty.
I hope we get a chance to talk about education, but that's what the
vice president talked about.
Here's what's happened. In the time that they have been in office, in
the last four years, 1.6 million private-sector jobs have been lost.
Two-point-seven million manufacturing jobs have been lost.
And it's had real consequences in places like Cleveland. Cleveland's
a wonderful, distinguished city that's done a lot of great things, but
it has the highest poverty rate in the country. One out of almost two
children in Cleveland are now living in poverty.
During the time that -- that the vice president and the president have
been in office, 4 million more Americans have fallen into poverty.
And one of the most striking and startling things is that they are
the first presidency in 70 years -- and I'm talking Democrats, Republicans,
presidents who led us through world war, through the Korean War, the
Vietnam War, Cold War, every one of them created jobs -- until this
president. We have to do better.
We have a plan. We're going to get rid of tax -- by the way. They're
for outsourcing jobs. I want to make sure people here that. It's a fundamental
difference with us. The administration says over and over that the outsourcing
of millions of American jobs is good. We're against it. We want to get
rid of tax cuts for companies sending jobs overseas. We want to balance
this budget, get back to fiscal responsibility, and we want to invest
in the creative, innovative jobs of the future.
MS. IFILL: Mr. Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Gwen, we've got 111 million American taxpayers
that have benefited from our income tax cuts We've got 33 million students
who have benefited from No Child Left Behind. We've got 40 million seniors
who benefited from the reform of the Medicare system.
The Democrats promised prescription drug benefits. For years they've
run on that platform. They never got it done; the president got it done.
We also dropped 5 million people totally off the federal income tax
rolls, so they no longer have to pay any federal income tax at all.
So the story, I think, is a good one. And the data he's using is old
data. It's from 2003. It doesn't include any of the gains that we've
made in the last year as we've added 1.7 million jobs to the economy.
MS. IFILL: Thirty seconds.
SEN. EDWARDS: The vice president and president like to talk about their
experience on the campaign trail. Millions of  people
have lost their jobs. Millions have fallen into poverty. Family incomes
are down, while the cost of everything is going up. Medical costs up
the highest they've ever been over the last four years. We have this
mess in Iraq. Mr. Vice President, I don't think the country can take
four more years of this kind of experience.
MS. IFILL: This next question goes to you, Senator Edwards. Senator
Kerry said in a recent interview that he absolutely will not raise taxes
on anyone under -- who earns under $200,000 a year. How can he guarantee
that and also cut the deficit in half, as he's promised?
SEN. EDWARDS: Because we will do what they've not done.
You know, if you look at what's happened over the last -- over the last
four years, we have gone from a $5 trillion projected surplus when George
Bush took office to a $3 trillion projected deficit. They promised they
were going to put $2 trillion of the surplus aside from Social Security;
not done. Not only that, it's the biggest fiscal turnaround in American
history. And there's no end in sight. The Washington Post just reported
they have several trillion dollars of additional tax cuts and spending
-- no suggestion of what they're going to do about it. John Kerry and
I believe we have a moral responsibility not to leave trillion of dollars
of debt to our children and our grandchildren. So here's what we're
going to do, to answer your question.
To pay for the things that we believe need to be done -- and I hope
to get the chance to talk about health care, and also about education,
because we have plans on both those subjects -- what we're going to
do is roll back tax cuts -- and I want everyone to hear this, because
there's been exaggerations made on the campaign trail -- roll back tax
cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year. We will do that. We want
to keep the tax cuts that are in place for people who make less than
$200,000 a year, and give additional tax cuts to those middle class
families: tax cuts for health care, a tax cut to help families pay for
their college tuition, tax cuts for child care. These families are struggling
and hurting, and they need more tax relief, not less tax relief.
But to help get us back on the path to a balanced budget, we also want
to get rid of some of the bureaucratic spending in Washington. One of
the amazing things that's happened is they've actually laid on more
supervisory people, people at the supervisory level, in this government.
We also want to close some corporate loopholes.
Now, I want to be honest with people. We can't eliminate this deficit
-- people have heard that over and over and over -- in four years. We
cannot do it. We're in too deep a hole. But, we can cut the deficit
in half, and when we move, we can move this country back on a path of
fiscal responsibility.
MS. IFILL: You have 90 seconds, Mr. Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Gwen, the Kerry record on taxes is one basically
of -- of voting for a large number of tax increases: 98 times in the
United States Senate. There's a fundamental philosophical difference
here between the president and myself, who believe that we ought to
let the American people keep more of what they earn, and we ought to
empower them to have more control over their own lives.
I think the Kerry-Edwards approach basically is to raise  taxes
and to give government more control over the lives of individual citizens.
We think that's the wrong way to go. There's a fundamental difference
of opinion here.
They talk about the top bracket and going after only those people in
the top bracket. Well, the fact of the matter is a great many of our
small businesses pay taxes under the personal income taxes rather than
the corporate rate, and about 900,000 small businesses will be hit if
you do, in fact, do what they want to do with the top bracket. That's
not smart because seven out 10 new jobs in America are created by small
businesses. You do not want to tax them; bad idea to increase the burden
on those folks.
The senator himself said during the course of the primaries that the
Kerry plan would drive us deeper into deficit. Those were the senator's
words about -- about his running mate. The fact of the matter is the
president and I will go forward and make the tax cuts permanent. That's
good policy. That's what we ought to do. But with fiscal restraint,
we'll also drive the deficit down 50 percent in the course of the course
of the next five years.
MS. IFILL: Thirty seconds, Senator Edwards.
SEN. EDWARDS: Thank you.
We have committed to cutting back anything in our programs that need
to be cut back to get us back on a path to fiscal responsibility. John
Kerry, Mr. Vice President, has voted -- voted or co-sponsored over 600
times tax cuts for the American people, over 600 times. And there is
a philosophical difference between us and them: We are for more tax
cuts for the middle class than they're for, have been for the last four
years, but we are not for more tax cuts for multimillionaires. They
are, and it is a fundamental difference in what we think needs to be
done in this country.
MS. IFILL: You have 30 seconds, Mr. Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Yesterday, the president signed an extension
of the middle-class tax cuts: the 10 percent bracket, the marriage penalty
relief, and the increase in the child tax credit. Senators Kerry and
Edwards weren't even there to vote for it when it came to final passage.
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