It’s taken me a while to get to this because my personal life has been a bit hectic, but here are my highlights from the last debate. It’s just a shame that the transcripts do not show the smirks, giggles and guffaws from Bush, so I don’t remember how many serious questions were answered with laughter, but some of his answers were laughable!
Bush: I have got a comprehensive strategy to not only chase down the Al Qaida, wherever it exists – and we're making progress; three-quarters of Al Qaida leaders have been brought to justice – but to make sure that countries that harbor terrorists are held to account.
(As noted before, it is not true that three-quarters of Al Qaida are in custody and I don’t know what other country he is talking about since Iraq did not harbor any known terrorists!)
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My opponent just this weekend talked about how terrorism could be reduced to a nuisance, comparing it to prostitution, illegal gambling. I think that attitude and that point of view is dangerous.
(Obviously, he is forgetting that he has said the same thing previously!)
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I signed the homeland security bill to better align our assets and resources.
(After first vetoing it!)
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BUSH: Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.
(As everyone knows, this is a flat out lie!)
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We have a problem with litigation in the United States of America. Vaccine manufacturers are worried about getting sued, and therefore they have backed off from providing this kind of vaccine.
(Has ANYONE except Bush said that this is a reason why we don’t have flu vaccines?!)
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BUSH: He just said he wants everybody to be able to buy in to the same plan that senators and congressmen get. That costs the government $7,700 per family. If every family in America signed up, like the senator suggested, if would cost us $5 trillion over 10 years.
(Completely fictional figures!)
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Kerry: This president has never once vetoed one bill; the first president in a hundred years not to do that.
(THAT is a boggling fact!)
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BUSH: He been a senator for 20 years. He voted to increase taxes 98 times. When they tried to reduce taxes, he voted against that 127 times. He talks about being a fiscal conservative, or fiscally sound, but he voted over – he voted 277 times to waive the budget caps, which would have cost the taxpayers $4.2 trillion.
(More completely fictional figures!)
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He talks about PAYGO. I'll tell you what PAYGO means, when you're a senator from Massachusetts, when you're a colleague of Ted Kennedy, pay go means: You pay, and he goes ahead and spends.
(Where does he get this stuff from? And what’s with the continual references to Kennedy?!)
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He's proposed $2.2 trillion of new spending
(Bush has proposed $3 trillion)
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SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, what do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?
Bush talks about education instead.
KERRY: I want you to notice how the president switched away from jobs and started talking about education principally. This president has taken a $5.6 trillion surplus and turned it into deficits as far as the eye can see. Health-care costs for the average American have gone up 64 percent; tuitions have gone up 35 percent; gasoline prices up 30 percent; Medicare premiums went up 17 percent a few days ago; prescription drugs are up 12 percent a year. But guess what, America? The wages of Americans have gone down. The jobs that are being created in Arizona right now are paying about $13,700 less than the jobs that we're losing. And the president just walks on by this problem. The fact is that he's cut job-training money. $1 billion was cut. They only added a little bit back this year because it's an election year.
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KERRY: I have supported or voted for tax cuts over 600 times. I broke with my party in order to balance the budget, and Ronald Reagan signed into law the tax cut that we voted for. I voted for IRA tax cuts. I voted for small-business tax cuts. But you know why the Pell Grants have gone up in their numbers? Because more people qualify for them because they don't have money. But they're not getting the $5,100 the president promised them. They're getting less money. We have more people who qualify. That's not what we want.
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BUSH: Senator, no one's playing with your votes. You voted to increase taxes 98 times. When they voted – when they proposed reducing taxes, you voted against it 126 times.
(3rd time so far that he’s lied about this)
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You know, there's a main stream in American politics and you sit right on the far left bank. As a matter of fact, your record is such that Ted Kennedy, your colleague, is the conservative senator from Massachusetts.
(second time he’s compared him to Kennedy – at least he’s not CALLING him Kennedy this time! Apparently, this “liberal” label is supposed to be the worst of insults. I wish Kerry was MORE liberal myself!)
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SCHIEFFER: Both of you are opposed to gay marriage. But to understand how you have come to that conclusion, I want to ask you a more basic question. Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?
BUSH: You know, Bob, I don't know. I just don't know. But as we respect someone's rights, and as we profess tolerance, we shouldn't change – or have to change – our basic views on the sanctity of marriage. I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I think it's very important that we protect marriage as an institution, between a man and a woman. I proposed a constitutional amendment. The reason I did so was because I was worried that activist judges are actually defining the definition of marriage, and the surest way to protect marriage between a man and woman is to amend the Constitution. It has also the benefit of allowing citizens to participate in the process. After all, when you amend the Constitution, state legislatures must participate in the ratification of the Constitution. But I'm concerned that that will get overturned. And if it gets overturned, then we'll end up with marriage being defined by courts, and I don't think that's in our nation's interests.
(Wait a minute - by having the government define marriage that will keep the courts from defining marriage?!?!)
KERRY: We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice. The president and I share the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. I believe that. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. But I also believe that because we are the United States of America, we're a country with a great, unbelievable Constitution, with rights that we afford people, that you can't discriminate in the workplace. You can't discriminate in the rights that you afford people. You can't disallow someone the right to visit their partner in a hospital. You have to allow people to transfer property, which is why I'm for partnership rights and so forth. Now, with respect to DOMA and the marriage laws, the states have always been able to manage those laws. And they're proving today, every state, that they can manage them adequately.
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SCHIEFFER: The New York Times reports that some Catholic archbishops are telling their church members that it would be a sin to vote for a candidate like you because you support a woman's right to choose an abortion and unlimited stem-cell research. What is your reaction to that?
KERRY: I respect their views. I completely respect their views. I am a Catholic. And I grew up learning how to respect those views. But I disagree with them, as do many. I believe that I can't legislate or transfer to another American citizen my article of faith. What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn't share that article of faith. I believe that choice is a woman's choice. It's between a woman, God and her doctor. And that's why I support that. Now, I will not allow somebody to come in and change Roe v. Wade.
The president has never said whether or not he would do that. But we know from the people he's tried to appoint to the court he wants to. I will not. I will defend the right of Roe v. Wade. Now, with respect to religion, you know, as I said, I grew up a Catholic. I was an altar boy. I know that throughout my life this has made a difference to me.
And as President Kennedy said when he ran for president, he said, I'm not running to be a Catholic president. I'm running to be a president who happens to be Catholic.
(Again, Kerry shows that he is a strong leader that will not be influenced by outside sources and will vote regardless of his personal bias – obviously, very different from Bush!)
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BUSH: I think it's important, since he talked about the Medicare plan, has he been in the United States Senate for 20 years? He has no record on reforming of health care. No record at all.
KERRY: Once again, the president is misleading America. I've actually passed 56 individual bills that I've personally written and, in addition to that, and not always under my name, there is amendments on certain bills.
But more importantly, with respect to the question of no record, I helped write – I did write, I was one of the original authors of the early childhood health care and the expansion of health care that we did in the middle of the 1990s. And I'm very proud of that. So the president's wrong.
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KERRY: Well, two leading national news networks have both said the president's characterization of my health-care plan is incorrect. One called it fiction. The other called it untrue.
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BUSH: In all due respect, I'm not so sure it's credible to quote leading news organizations about – oh, never mind.
(Almost cuts his own throat seeing as most of the news networks are overwhelmingly conservative!)
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And just look at other countries that have tried to have federally controlled health care. They have poor-quality health care. Our health-care system is the envy of the world because we believe in making sure that the decisions are made by doctors and patients, not by officials in the nation's capital.
(WHAT?! Does he really think that Europe & Canada ENVIES our health care system?! Not any of the Europeans and Canadians I know!!! – and I do know a lot! – they think our system is stupid and primitive)
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SCHIEFFER: 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 $1 trillion 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?
BUSH: 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. I believe that younger workers ought to be allowed to take some of their own money and put it in 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.
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 would be a $2 trillion hole in Social Security, because today's workers pay in to 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 percent 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.
This is the same thing we heard – 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.
But the first and most important thing is to start creating jobs in America. The jobs the president is 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.
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Bush: 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.
(Wow – I read this wrong at first – I thought that he was admitting the truth that the problems happened AFTER he took office – not before! But, of course, he has said that he cannot admit a mistake!)
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KERRY: The American middle class family isn't making it right now, Bob. And what the president said about the tax cuts has been wiped out by the increase in health care, the increase in gasoline, the increase in tuitions, the increase in 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 1 percent of Americans is the highest it's been since 1928.
Under President Bush, the middle class has seen their tax burden go up and the wealthiest's tax burden has gone down. Now that's wrong.
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SCHIEFFER: 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?
KERRY: 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 raise the minimum wage, which I will do over several years to $7 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.
What we need to do is raise the minimum wage. We also need to hold onto 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 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 in order to kick our economy into gear. I will fight tooth and nail to pass the minimum wage.
BUSH: Actually, Mitch McConnell had a minimum-wage plan that I supported that would have increased the minimum wage.
(He mentions a plan that did nothing then he starts talking about education again!)
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SCHIEFFER: You had never said whether you would like to overturn Roe v. Wade. So I'd ask you directly, would you like to?
BUSH: What he's asking me is, will I have a litmus test for my judges? And the answer is, no, I will not have a litmus test. I will pick judges who will interpret the Constitution, but I'll have no litmus test.
KERRY: Well, again, the president didn't answer the question.
I'll answer it straight to America. I'm not going to appoint a judge to the Court who's going to undo a constitutional right, whether it's the First Amendment, or the Fifth Amendment, or some other right that's given under our courts today – under the Constitution. And I believe that the right of choice is a constitutional right.
So I don't intend to see it undone.
Clearly, the president wants to leave in ambivalence or intends to undo it.
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And yet the president who talks about No Child Left Behind refused to fully fund – by $28 billion – that particular program so you can make a difference in the lives of those young people.
Now right here in Arizona, that difference would have been $131 million to the state of Arizona to help its kids be able to have better education and to lift the property tax burden from its citizens. The president reneged on his promise to fund No Child Left Behind.
He'll tell you he's raised the money, and he has. But he didn't put in what he promised, and that makes a difference in the lives of our children.
BUSH: And secondly, only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough.
(How many times now has he called Kerry a liberal?!)
KERRY: You don't measure it by a percentage increase. Mr. President, you measure it by whether you're getting the job done.
Five hundred thousand kids lost after-school programs because of your budget.
Now, that's not in my gut. That's not in my value system, and certainly not so that the wealthiest people in America can walk away with another tax cut.
$89 billion last year to the top 1 percent of Americans, but kids lost their after-school programs. You be the judge.
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BUSH: In our first debate he proposed America pass a global test. In order to defend ourselves, we'd have to get international approval. That's one of the major differences we have about defending our country.
(Still another lie about Kerry’s easy-to-understand global test!)
KERRY: I have never suggested a test where we turn over our security to any nation. In fact, I've said the opposite: I will never turn the security of the United States over to any nation. No nation will ever have a veto over us.
But I think it makes sense, I think most Americans in their guts know, that we ought to pass a sort of truth standard. That's how you gain legitimacy with your own countrypeople, and that's how you gain legitimacy in the world.
But I'll never fail to protect the United States of America
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SCHIEFFER: You said that if Congress would vote to extend the ban on assault weapons, that you'd sign the legislation, but you did nothing to encourage the Congress to extend it. Why not?
BUSH: Actually, I made my intentions – made my views clear. I did think we ought to extend the assault weapons ban, and was told the fact that the bill was never going to move, because Republicans and Democrats were against the assault weapon ban, people of both parties. I believe law-abiding citizens ought to be able to own a gun. I believe in background checks at gun shows or anywhere to make sure that guns don't get in the hands of people that shouldn't have them.
KERRY: I believe it was a failure of presidential leadership not to reauthorize the assault weapons ban.
But I'll tell you this. I'm also a former law enforcement officer. I ran one of the largest district attorney's offices in America, one of the ten largest. I put people behind bars for the rest of their life. I've broken up organized crime. I know something about prosecuting. And most of the law enforcement agencies in America wanted that assault weapons ban. They don't want to go into a drug bust and be facing an AK-47.
Because of the president's decision today, law enforcement officers will walk into a place that will be more dangerous. Terrorists can now come into America and go to a gun show and, without even a background check, buy an assault weapon today.
And that's what Osama bin Laden's handbook said, because we captured it in Afghanistan. It encouraged them to do it.
So I believe America's less safe.
If Tom DeLay or someone in the House said to me, Sorry, we don't have the votes, I'd have said, Then we're going to have a fight.
And I'd have taken it out to the country and I'd have had every law enforcement officer in the country visit those congressmen. We'd have won what Bill Clinton won.
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SCHIEFFER: Senator Kerry, after 9/11 it seemed to me that the country came together as I've never seen it come together since World War II. But some of that seems to have melted away. I think it's fair to say we've become pretty polarized, perhaps because of the political season. But if you were elected president, or whoever is elected president, will you set a priority in trying to bring the nation back together? Or what would be your attitude on that?
KERRY: Very much so.
Let me pay a compliment to the president, if I may. I think in those days after 9/11, I thought the president did a terrific job. And I really was moved, as well as impressed, by the speech that he gave to the Congress.
And I think the hug Tom Daschle gave him at that moment was about as genuine a sense of there being no Democrats, no Republicans, we were all just Americans. That's where we were.
That's not where we are today. I regret to say that the president who called himself a uniter, not a divider, is now presiding over the most divided America in the recent memory of our country. I've never seen such ideological squabbles in the Congress of the United States. I've never seen members of a party locked out of meetings the way they're locked out today.
We have to change that. And as president, I am committed to changing that. I don't care if the idea comes from the other side or this side. I think we have to come together and work to change it.
And I've done that. I've reached across the aisle. I've tried to find the common ground, because that's what makes us strong as Americans.
And if Americans trust me with the presidency, I can pledge to you, we will have the most significant effort, openly – not secret meetings in the White House with special interests, not ideologically driven efforts to push people aside – but a genuine effort to try to restore America's hope and possibilities by bringing people together.
BUSH: My biggest disappointment in Washington is how partisan the town is. I had a record of working with Republicans and Democrats as the governor of Texas, and I was hopeful I'd be able to do the same thing.
My opponent said this is a bitterly divided time. Pretty divided in the 2000 election. So in other words, it's pretty divided during the 1990s as well.
(It is very apparent that this country is FAR more divided now than any time in recent history! And we are divided because of what the president has done, not, as in Clinton’s term, because of Republican lies about what the president has done!)
Again, sorry this is so long, but a lot of good comments were made! Once again, Kerry proved himself the man with real plans and not more of the horrible mistakes that we have suffered through for the last 4 years! Let us hope that people will look around them and realize that this country NEEDS a change!
