The First 1996 Presidential Debate: Hartford CT
Transcript from the Commission on Presidential Debates
Transcription by: AM Court Reporting, White Plains, NY.
A. Conlin, A. O'Donnell, A. Sikora, K. Jones, D. Hughes, J. Tepper,
K. Ortilano, J. Spinozzi (staff).

Edited by Mark Kuhn

LEHRER:Good evening from the Bushnell Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut. I'm
Jim Lehrer of the News Hour on PBS. Welcome to the first of the 1996
Presidential debates between President Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee,
and Senator Bob Dole, the Republican nominee. This event is sponsored by the
Commission on Presidential Debates. It will last 90 minutes following a
format and rules worked out by the two campaigns.

There will be two-minute opening and closing statements. In between, a
series of questions, each having three parts. A 90-second answer, a
60-second rebuttal, and a 30-second response. I will assist the candidates
in adhering to those time limits with the help of a series of lights visible
to both.

Under their rules, the candidates are not allowed to question each other
directly. I will ask the questions. There are no limitations on the
subjects.

The order for everything tonight was determined by coin toss. Now, to the
opening statements and to President Clinton. Mr. President.

CLINTON: Thank you, Jim. And thank you to the people of Hartford, our hosts.

I want to begin by saying again how much I respect Senator Dole and his
record of public service and how hard I will try to make this campaign and
this debate one of ideas, not insults.

Four years ago I ran for president at a time of high unemployment and rising
frustration. I wanted to turn this country around with a program of
opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and an American community
where everybody has a role to play. Four years ago you took me on faith. Now
there's a record: Ten and a half million more jobs, rising incomes, falling
crime rates and welfare rolls, a strong America at peace.

We are better off than we were four years ago. Let's keep it going. We cut
the deficit by 60 percent. Now, let's balance the budget and protect
Medicare, Medicaid, education and the environment. We cut taxes for 15
million working Americans. Now let's pass the tax cuts for education and
child rearing, help with medical emergencies, and buying a home.

We passed family and medical leave. Now let's expand it so more people can
succeed as parents and in the work force. We passed 100,000 police, the
assault weapons ban, the Brady Bill. Now let's keep going by finishing the
work of putting the police on the street and tackling juvenile gangs.

We passed welfare reform. Now let's move a million people from welfare to
work. And most important, let's make education our highest priority so that
every eight-year-old will be ready to read, every 12-year-old can log onto
the Internet, every 18-year-old can go to college. We can build that bridge
to the 21st Century. And I look forward to discussing exactly how we're
going to do it.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, two minutes.

DOLE: Thanky you. Thank you, Mr. President, for those kind words. Thank the
people of Hartford, the Commission, and all those out here who may be
listening or watching.

It's a great honor for me to be here standing here as the Republican
nominee. I'm very proud to be the Republican nominee reaching out to
Democrats and Independents.

I have three very special people with me tonight: My wife, Elizabeth; my
daughter, Robin, who has never let me down, and a fellow named Frank Carafa
from New York, along with Ollie Manninen who helped me out in the mountains
of Italy a few years back.

I've learned from them that people do have tough times. And sometimes you
can't go it alone. And that's what America is all about.

I remember getting my future back from doctors and nurses and a doctor in
Chicago named Dr. Kalikian . And ever since that time, I've tried to give
something back to my country, to the people who are watching us tonight.

America is the greatest place on the face of the earth. Now, I know millions
of you still have anxieties. You work harder and harder to make ends meet
and put food on the table. You worry about the quality and the safety of
your children, and the quality of education. But even more importantly, you
worry about the future and will they have the same opportunities that you
and I have had.

And Jack Kemp and I want to share with you some ideas tonight. Jack Kemp is
my running mate, doing an outstanding job. Now, I'm a plain-speaking man and
I learned long ago that your word was your bond. And I promise you tonight
that I'll try to address your concerns and not try to exploit them. It's a
tall order, but I've been running against the odds for a long time and,
again, I'm honored to be here this evening.

LEHRER: Mr. President, first question. There is a major difference in your
view of the role of the Federal government and that of Senator Dole. How
would you define the difference?

CLINTON: Well, Jim, I believe that the Federal government should give people
the tools and try to establish the conditions in which they can make the
most of their own lives. That, to me, is the key. And that leads me to some
different conclusions from Senator Dole.

For example, we have reduced the size of the Federal government to its
smallest size in 30 years. We reduced more regulations, eliminated more
programs than my two Republican predecessors. But I have worked hard for
things like the Family and Medical Leave Law, the Brady Bill, the assault
weapons ban, the program to put 100,000 police on the street. All of these
are programs that Senator Dole opposed that I supported, because I felt they
were a legitimate effort to help people make the most of their own lives.
I've worked hard to help families impart values to their own children. I
supported the V-chip so that parents would be able to control what their
kids watch on television when they're young, along with the ratings systems
for television and educational television. I supported strong action against
the tobacco companies to stop the marketing, advertising, and sale of
tobacco to young people. I supported a big increase in the safe and
drug-free schools program. These were areas on which Senator Dole and I
differed, but I believed they were the right areas for America to be acting
together as one country to help individuals and families make the most of
their own lives and raise their kids with good values and a good future.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, one minute.

DOLE: I think the basic difference is, and I have had some experience in
this, I think the basic difference, I trust the people. The President trusts
the government. We go back and look at the healthcare plan that he wanted to
impose on the American people. One seventh the total economy, 17 new taxes,
price controls, 35 to 50 new bureaucracies that cost $1.5 trillion. Don't
forget that, that happened in 1993. A tax increase, a tax everybody in
America. Not just the rich. If you made 25,000 as the original proposal, you
got your Social Security taxes increased. We had a BTU tax we turned into a
$35 million gas tax, a $265 billion tax increase.

I guess I rely more on the individual. I carry a little card in my pocket
called the Tenth Amendment. Where possible, I want to give power back to the
states and back to the people. That's my difference with the President.
We'll have specific differences later. He noted a few, but there are others.

LEHRER: Mr. President, 30 seconds.

CLINTON: I trust the people. We've done a lot to give the people more powers
to make their own decisions over their own lives. But I do think we are
right when we try to, for example, give mothers and newborns 48 hours before
they can be kicked out of the hospital, ending these drive-by deliveries.

I think we were right to pass the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, which says you
can't lose your health insurance just because you change jobs or because
someone in your family's been sick. Our government is smaller and less
bureaucratic and has given more authority to the states than its two
predecessors under Republican presidents. But I do believe we have to help
our people get ready to succeed in the 21st Century.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, the President said in his opening statement we are
better off today than we were four years ago. Do you agree?

DOLE: Well, he's better off than he was four years ago.

CLINTON: I agree with that. That's right.

DOLE: And I may be better off four years from now, but I don't know. I
looked at the slowest growth in the century. He inherited a growth of 4.7
4.8 percent, now it's down to about 2.4 percent. We're going to pass a
million bankruptcies this year for the first time in history. We've got
stagnant wages. In fact, women's wages have dropped 2.2 percent. Men's wages
haven't gone up, gone down. So we have stagnation.

We have the highest foreign debt in history. And it seems to me that if you
take a look, are you better off? Well, I guess some may be better off.
Saddam Hussein is probably better off than he was four years ago. Renee
Proval (ph) is probably better off than he was four years ago. But are the
American people? They're working harder and higher and harder paying more
taxes. For the first time in history, you pay about 40 percent of what you
earn. More than you spend for food, clothing and shelter combined for taxes
under this administration. So some may be better off.

They talk about family income being up. That's not true in Connecticut,
family income is down. And it's up in some cases because both parents are
working. One works for the family, and one works to pay taxes for the
government. We're going to give them tax cuts so they can spend more time
with their children, maybe even take a vacation. That's what America is all
about.

LEHRER: One minute, Mr. President.

CLINTON: Well, let me say, first of all, in February Senator Dole
acknowledged that the American economy was in the best shape it's been in in
30 years. We have ten and a half million more jobs, a faster job growth rate
than under any Republican administration since the 1920s. Wages are goings
up for the first time in a decade. We have record numbers of new small
businesses. We have the biggest drop in the number of people in poverty in
27 years. All groups of people are growing. We had the biggest drop in
income inequality in 27 years in 1995.

The average family's income has gone up over $1600 just since our economic
plan passed. So I think it's clear that we're better off than we were four
years ago. Now we need to focus on what do we need to do to be better off
still. How can we help people as we are to get their retirements when they
work for small businesses, to be able to afford health insurance, to be able
to educate their children. That's what I want to focus on. But we are
clearly better off than we were four years ago, as Senator Dole acknowledged
this year.

LEHRER: Senator Dole.

DOLE: I doubt that I acknowledged that this year. But in any event, I think
we just look at the facts. We ask the people that are viewing tonight, are
you better off than you were in '94. Four years ago. It's not whether we're
better off, it's whether they're better off.

Are you working harder to put food on the table, feed your children. Are
your children getting a better education. Drug use has doubled the past 44
months all across America. Crime has gone down but it's because the mayors
like Rudy Giuliani where one third of the drop happened in one city, New
York City.

So, yes, some may be better off. But of the people listening tonight, the
working families who will benefit from economic packages, they'll be better
off when Bob Dole is president and Jack Kemp is vice president.

LEHRER: Mr. President, Senator Dole has come pretty close in the last few
days to accusing you of lying about his position on Medicare reform. Have
you done so?

CLINTON: Absolutely not. Let's look at the position. First of all, remember
that in this campaign season, since Senator Dole's been a candidate, he has
bragged about the fact that he voted against Medicare in the beginning, in
1965, one of only 12 members. He said he did the right thing then, he knew
it wouldn't work at the time. That's what he said.

Then his budget that he passed along with Speaker Gingrich cut Medicare $270
billion, more than was necessary to repair the Medicare trust fund. It would
have charged seniors more for out-of-pocket costs as well as more in
premiums because doctors could have charged them more. The American Medical,
Hospital Association, the Nurses Association, the Catholic Hospital
Association all said hundreds of hospitals could close and people would be
hurt badly under the Dole-Gingrich Medicare plan that I vetoed.

And now with this risky $550 billion tax scheme of Senator Dole's, even his
own friends, his campaign co-chair, Senator D'Amato, says that they can't
possibly pay for it without cutting Medicare more and cutting Social
Security as well, according to him.

Now, my balanced budget plan adds ten years to the life of the Medicare
trust fund, ten years. And we'll have time to deal with the long-term
problems of the baby boomers. But it was simply wrong to finance their last
scheme to cut Medicare $270 billion to run the risk of it withering on the
vine. We always had to reform it over the years, but we need somebody who
believes it in to reform it.

LEHRER: Senator Dole.

DOLE: Well, I must say, I look back at the vote on Medicare in 1965, we had
a program called Eldercare that also provided drugs and means tests to
people who needed medical attention received it. I thought it was a good
program. But I've supported Medicare ever since.

In fact, I used to go home, my mother would tell me, Bob, all I've got is my
Social Security and my Medicare, don't cut it. I wouldn't violate anything
my mother said. In fact, we had a conversation about our mothers one day, a
very poignant conversation in the White House. I'm concerned about
healthcare. I've had the best healthcare from government hospitals, Army
hospitals and I know its importance, but we've got to fix it. It's his
trustees, the President's trustees, not mine, who says it's going to go
broke. He doesn't fix it for ten years. We ought to appoint a commission,
just as we did in Social Security in 1983, when we rescued Social Security,
and I was proud to be on that commission, along with Claude Pepper, the
champion of senior citizens in Florida. And we can do it again, if we take
politics out of it. Stop scaring the seniors, Mr. President. You've already
spent $45 million scaring seniors and tearing me apart. I think it's time to
have a truce.

LEHRER: Mr. President.

CLINTON: Well, let me say, first of all, I'd be happy to have a commission
deal with this and I appreciate what Senator Dole did on the '83 Social
Security commission. But it won't be possible to do, if his tax scheme
passes because even his own campaign co-chair, Senator D'Amato, says he'll
have to cut Medicare even more than was cut in the bill that I vetoed. I
vetoed that bill because it cut more Medicare and and basically ran the risk
of breaking up the system. My balanced budget plan puts ten years on the
Medicare. We ought to do that, then we can have a commission. But Senator
Dole's plans are not good for the country.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, speaking of your tax plan, do you still think that's a
good idea, the 15 percent across the board tax cut?

DOLE: Oh, yes. And you'll be eligible.

CLINTON: Me too?

DOLE: And so will the former President, yes.

CLINTON: I need it.

DOLE: Well, the people need it, that's the point. This is not a Wall Street
tax cut. This is a family tax cut. This is a Main Street tax cut, 15 percent
across -- let's take a family making $30,000 a year, that's $1261. Now, may
be some in this Bushnell Memorial that it's not a lot of money, but people
watching tonight with a couple of kids, a working family, that's four or
five months of day care, maybe a personal computer; it's may be three or
four months of mortgage payments. This economic package is about families
but it's a six-point package. First of all, it's a balanced budget amendment
to the Constitution which President Clinton defeated. He twisted arms and
got six Democrats to vote the other way, but we lost by one vote. It's
balancing a budget by the year 2002. It's a tax cut, cutting capital gains
50 percent. So you can go out and create more jobs and more opportunities.
It's a state tax relief. It's a $500 per child tax credit. It's about
litigation reforms.

Now that the President gets millions of dollars from the trial lawyers, he
probably doesn't like this provision. In fact, when I fell off the podium in
Chico, before I lit the ground, hit the ground I had call on my cell phone
from a trial lawyer saying I think we've got a case here. And it's also
regulatory reform. It's a good package, Mr. President. We'd like to have
your support.

LEHRER: Mr. President.

CLINTON: Well, here's the problem with it: It sounds very good, but there's
a reason that 500 economists, including seven Nobel prize winners and
business periodicals like Business Week, and even Senator Dole's friends,
Senator Warren; Rudman, former Republican senator from New Hampshire, says
it's not a practical program. It's a $550 billion tax scheme that will cause
a big hole in the deficit which will raise interest rates and slow down the
economy and cause people to pay more for home mortgages, car payments,
credit card payments, college loans, and small business loans. It's not good
to raise the deficit. We worked too hard to lower it. It will actually raise
taxes on nine million people and, in addition to that, it will force bigger
cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education and the environment than the ones that
he and Mr. Gingrich passed that I vetoed last year. So it sounds great, but
our targeted tax cut for education, child rearing, healthcare and home
buying, which is paid for in my balanced budget plan, something that he has
not done, certified by the Congressional budget office, that's the right way
to go.

DOLE: The President wants to increase spending 20 percent over the next six
years. I want to increase spending 14 percent, that's how simple it is. I
want the government to pinch pennies for a change instead of the American
families. We're talking about six percentage points over six years, and with
that money you give it back to the working people. You also provide
opportunity scholarships so low income parents will have the same choice
that others have in sending their children to better schools. It will work,
and when it does work, Mr. President, I know you'll congratulate me.

LEHRER: Mr. President, the Senator mentioned trial lawyers and campaign,
that means campaign financing. How do you personally avoid being unduly
influenced by people who give you money or give you services in your
campaigns?

CLINTON: Well, I try to articulate my positions as clearly as possible, tell
people what I stand for and let them decide whether they're going to support
me or not.

The Senator mentioned the trial lawyers. In the case of the product
liability bill, which they passed and I vetoed, I think that's what he's
talking about, I actually wanted to sign that bill. And I told the people
exactly what the Congress exactly what kind of bill I would sign. Now, a lot
of the trial lawyers didn't want me to sign any bill at all, but I had
thought we ought to do what we could to cut frivolous lawsuits, but they
wouldn't make some of the changes that I thought should be made.

Now, let me just give you an example. I had a person in the Oval Office who
lost a child in a school bus accident where a drunk driver caused the
accident directly, but there were problems with the school bus. The drunk
driver had no money. Under the new bill, if I had signed it, a person like
that could never have had any recovery. I thought that was wrong. So I gave
four or five specific examples to the Congress and said, prove to me that
these people could recover but we're going to eliminate frivolous lawsuits,
I'll sign the bill. But generally I believe that a president has to be
willing to do what he thinks is right. I've done a lot of things that were
controversial. My economic plan, my trade position, Bosnia, Haiti, taking on
the NRA for the first time, taking on tobacco companies for the first time.
Sometimes you just have to do that because you know it's right for the
country over the long run. That's what I've tried to do and that's what I
will continue to do as president.

LEHRER: Senator Dole.

DOLE: How does he avoid conflict? Well, I don't know in the case of the
trial lawyers. I look at the trial lawyers, and when you're a few million
short, you run out to Hollywood and pick up two to four million and
organized labor comes to Washington, D.C. and puts 35 million into the pot.
Now, if these aren't special interests, I've got a lot to learn. I was there
for a while before I left on June the 11th. The trial lawyers and I don't --
you know, my wife's a lawyer. We're the only two lawyers in Washington that
trust each other. But we're lawyers, I like lawyers. I don't dislike trial
lawyers. But it seemed to me there's got to be some end to the frivolous
lawsuits and there's got to be some cap on punitive damage. You're putting a
lot of business people out of business. Small businessmen and businesswomen
who paid 70 percent of your ninteen , your$265 billion tax increase, the
largest tax increase in the history of America. I said that one day and Pat
Moynihan, a Democrat, say, no, he said, in the history of the world. So I
modified it, the largest tax increase in the history of the world. And it
seems to me that there is a problem there, Mr. President. And I will address
you as Mr. President. You didn't do that with Mr. with President Bush in
1992.

LEHRER: Mr. President.

CLINTON: Let me say, first of all, I signed a tort reform bill that dealt
with civilian aviation a couple of years ago. I proved that I will sign
reasonable tort reform. Secondly, Senator Dole had some pretty harsh
comments about special interest money, but it wasn't me who opposed what we
tried to do to save the lives of children who were subject to tobacco and
then went to the tobacco growers and bragged about standing up for the
Federal government when we tried to stop the advertising, marketing, and
sales of tobacco to children. And it wasn't me that let the polluters
actually come into the halls of Congress, into the rooms, and rewrite the
environmental laws. That's what Speaker Gingrich and Senator Dole did, not
me.

DOLE: That's not true.

CLINTON: So I believe that we should take a different approach to this and
talk about how we stand on the issues instead of trying to characterize each
other's motivations. I think Senator Dole and I just honestly disagree.

LEHRER: Well, Senator Dole, let me ask you the same question I asked the
President: How do you avoid being influenced by people who contribute money
and services to your campaigns?

DOLE: I think it's very difficult. Let's be honest about it. That's why we
need campaign finance reform. That's why I reach out to the Perot voters.
We've done about all, we are the reform party, the Republican Party. And the
Perot voters that are looking for a home ought to take a look at the
Republican record. Whatever it is, whatever the checklist was in '92, it's
all done with campaign finance reform. I worked with Senator Mitchell, who
played me, I guess, in the debate warmup. We tried six or eight years ago.
He appointed three people, I appointed three people to get campaign finance
reform. We couldn't get it done, because I wasn't enforceable.

You've suggested a commission, Newt Gingrich did, I suggested that at least
four or five years ago. We have a commission on campaign finance reform.
They send it to Congress, and we have to vote it up or down. That's how it
works. We are never going to fix it by the parties, because Democrats want a
better advantage for themselves, we want a better advantage as Republicans,
and that's not how it's going to work.

But I want to touch on this is tobacco thing. I know the President's been
puffing a lot on that. But I want to go back to 1965. That was my first vote
against tobacco companies when I said we ought to label cigarettes. And I've
had a consistent record ever since 1965. We passed a bill in 1992 that
encouraged the states to adopt programs to stop kids from smoking. All 50
states did it. It took three and a half years. It wasn't until election
year, Mr. President, that you ever thought about stopping smoking.

What about drugs that have increased, doubled in the last 44 months? Cocaine
is up 141 percent -- marijuana, cocaine up 166 percent. It seems to me that
you have a selective memory. You know, mine doesn't work that way. So I just
want to try to correct it as we go along.

CLINTON: Mr. Lehrer, I hope we'll have a chance to discuss drugs later in
the program. But let me respond to what you said. I agree that too many
incumbent politicians in Washington in both parties have consistently
opposed campaign finance reform. That was certainly the case from the minute
I got there. So after Speaker Gingrich and Senator Dole took over the
Congress, I went to New Hampshire and a man suggested -- a gentleman that
unfortunately just passed away a couple of days ago, suggested that we
appoint a commission. And I shook hands with him on it and I appointed my
members, and the commission never met. And then Senator Dole's ardent
supporters, Senator McCain, who's out there today, along with Senator
Feingold, supported, sponsored a campaign finance reform proposal. I
strongly supported it. And members of Senator Dole's own party in the Senate
killed it. And he was not out there urging them to vote for the
McCain-Feingold bill. So I think the American people, including the Perot
supporters, know that I have had a consistent record in favor of campaign
finance reform, and I will continue to have. And I hope we can finally get
it in the next session of Congress, because we need it badly.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, 30 seconds.

DOLE: Well, on campaign reform itself, we're going to get it when we have a
bipartisan commission, take it out of politics. Get people who don't have
any interest in politics but understand the issue and let them make the
recommendation to Congress. Now, we're now kidding anybody, Mr. President.
There's sophisticated people watching tonight. Millions and millions of
Americans. They know the Republican Party hasn't done it. They know the
Democratic party won't do it. We ought to agree that somebody else should do
it. And we have to vote it up or down, Mr. President.

LEHRER: Mr. President, the Senator mentioned drugs. He suggested that you
are -- you bear some responsibility for the rise in drug use of teenagers in
the United States. Is he right?

CLINTON: Well, Jim, I think every American in any position of responsibility
should be concerned about what's happened. I am. But let's look at the
overall record. Overall in America cocaine use has dropped 30 percent in the
last four years, casual drug use down 13 percent. The tragedy is that our
young people are still increasing their use of drugs up to about 11 percent
total with marijuana, and I regret it. Let me tell you what I tried to do
about it. I appointed a four-star general who led our efforts south of the
border to keep drugs from coming into the country as our nation's drug czar.
The most heavily directed, decorated solder in uniform when he retired. We
submitted the biggest drug budget ever. We have dramatically increased
control and enforcement at the border. We supported a a crime bill that had
60 death penalties including, including the death penalty for drug kingpins.
And I supported a big expansion in safe and drug-free schools program to
support things like the DARE program because I thought all those things were
very important. Do I think that I bear some responsibility for the fact that
too many of our children still don't understand drugs are wrong, drugs can
kill you. Even though I have consistently opposed the legalization of drugs
all my public life and worked hard against them. I think we all do. And I
hope we can do better. I don't think this issue should be politicized
because my record is clear and I don't think Senator Dole supports using
using drugs. I think we just have to continue to work on this until those
who think it isn't dangerous and won't kill them and won't destroy their
lives, get the message and change.

LEHRER: Senator.

DOLE: Again, well it's, you are very selective, Mr. President. You don't
want to politicize drugs, but it's already politicized Medicare, go out and
scare senior citizens and other vulnerable groups, veterans and people who
get Pell Grants and things like this. I mean, you say we've done all these
bad things, which isn't the case. But it seems to me the record is clear.
The record is pretty clear in Arkansas, when you were governor. Drug use
doubled. You resisted the appointment of a drug czar there because you
thought it might interfere with treatment. But here you cut the drug czar's
office 83 percent. You cut interdiction substantially. I mean that's what, I
want to stop it from coming across the border. And in my administration,
we're going to train the National Guard to stop it from coming across the
border. This is a invasion of drugs from all over the world. And we have a
responsibility. You had a surgeon -- or before General McCaffrey (ph) you
had a lady who said we ought to consider legalizing drugs. Is that the kind
of leadership we need? And I won't comment on other things that happened in
your administration or your past about drugs. But it seems to me the kids
ought to -- if they've started, they ought to stop and just don't do it.

LEHRER: Mr. President.

CLINTON: Let me say again, we did have a drug czar in Arkansas, but he
answered to the governor, just like this one answers to the President.
That's what I thought we ought to do.

Secondly, Senator Dole, you voted against the crime bill that had the death
penalty for drug kingpins in it. And you voted to cut services to 23 million
school children under the safe and drug-free schools act. I don't think that
means you're soft on drugs. We just have a different approach. But let me
remind you, my family has suffered from drug abuse. I know what it's like to
see somebody you love nearly lose their lives, and I hate drugs, Senator. We
need to do this together and we can.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, on the government, continuing to talk about the
government's role. If elected President, would you seek to repeal the Brady
Bill and the ban on assault weapons?

DOLE: Not if I didn't have a better idea. But I've got a better idea. It's
something I've worked on for 15 years. It's called the automated check or
the instant check. It's being used in 17 states right now. States like
Florida, Colorado, Virginia, and other states. You don't buy any gun. You
don't get any gun. We've got 20 million names on a computer in Washington,
D.C. of people who should not have guns. We ought to keep guns out of the
hands of criminals. And, there are eight other categories that should not
have guns. I've been working on this for a long, long time. You walk in, you
put your little card in there. If it says tilt, you don't get any gun. You
don't get a hand gun, you don't get a rifle, you don't get a shot gun, you
get zippo.

If we're going to protect American children and American families and people
who live as prisoners in their own home, we've got to stop guns from being
dumped on the street.

The administration says they support the instant check. They've appropriated
about $200 million, but only spent about $3 million to get it underway. In
our administration, in my administration, we will expedite. This keeps up
with technology. It keeps guns out of the hands of people who should not
have guns. That is the bottom line. And I believe it's a good idea, has
strong bipartisan support. And perhaps that's another thing we can
depoliticize.

You talk about the Brady Bill. There has only been one prosecution under the
Brady -- only one under the assault weapon ban and only seven under the
Brady Bill that you talk about all the time. And on the assault weapon ban,
out of 17 weapons that were banned, only six banned now because two have
been modified and are back on the street. Let's get together on this instant
check because that will really make a difference.

LEHRER: Mr. President.

CLINTON: Let me say, first of all, Senator Dole has gone back and forth
about whether he'd be for repealing the Brady Bill or repealing the assault
weapons ban. And I think his present position is he would not do so, and if
that's true I'm grateful for it. But let's look at the facts here. The Brady
Bill has kept at least 60,000 felons, fugitives and stalkers from getting
hand guns. Senator Dole led the fight against the Brady Bill. He tried to
keep it from coming to my desk. He didn't succeed and I signed it and I'm
glad I did.

Then when we had the assault weapons ban in the Senate, Senator Dole fought
it bitterly and opposed the entire crime bill and almost brought the entire
crime bill down because the National Rifle Association didn't want the
assault weapons ban, just like they didn't want the Brady Bill. But two
years later nobody's lost their handguns. I mean, their rifles. We've
expanded the Brady Bill to cover people who beat up their spouses and their
kids. And this is a safer country. So I'm glad I took on that fight and I
believe, with all respect, I was right and he was wrong.

DOLE: Well, the President doesn't have it quite right. I mean, it seemed to
me at the time the assault weapon ban was not effective. But that's history.
I told the NRA that's history. You're not going to worry about it anymore.
I'm not going to worry about it anymore. Let's do something better. Let's
stop, you know, playing the political game, Mr. President. Talking about
this and this. You add all the states that've used the instant check and how
many weapons they keep, kept out of the hands of criminals. It would far
surpass the numbers you mentioned. So in my view, if you want to be
protected, you ought to vote for Bob Dole and we'll get the instant check
passed and we'll keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

LEHRER: Mr. President, Senator Dole said the other day that you practiced a
photo-op foreign policy that has lessened the credibility of the United
States throughout the world. Is he wrong about that?

CLINTON: If he, that's what he said, he's not right about that. Look at
where we are today. The United States is still the indispensable nation in
the aftermath of the Cold War and on the brink of the 21st Century. I have
worked to support our country as the world's strongest force for peace and
freedom, prosperity and security.

We have done the following things: Number one, we've managed the aftermath
of the Cold War, supporting a big drop in nuclear weapons in Russia. The
removal of Russian troops from the Baltics. The integration of Central and
Eastern European democracies into a new partnership with NATO. And, I might
add, with the democratic Russia.

There are no nuclear missiles pointed at the children of the United States
tonight and have not been in our administration for the first time since the
dawn of the nuclear age.

We have worked hard for peace and freedom. When I took office, Haiti was
governed by a dictator that had defied the United States. When I took
office, the worst war in Europe was waging in Bosnia. Now there is a the
democratically elected president in Haiti. Peace in Bosnia. We just had the
election there. We've made progress in Northern Ireland, in the Middle East.
We've also stood up to the new threats of terrorism. The proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, organized crime, and we have worked hard to
expand America's economic presence around the world with the biggest
increase in trade with the largest new number of trade agreements in history
And that's one of the reasons America is number one in auto production
again.

LEHRER: Senator.

DOLE: Well, I have a different view. Again, I supported the President on
Bosnia, and I think we were told the troops would be out in a year. Now I
understand it's been extended 'til some time next year. But, let's start
with Somalia, where they dragged Americans through the streets, and where 18
Americans were killed one day, because they didin't have, they were pinned
down for eight hours, the rangers. They didn't have the weapons, they didn't
have the tanks. They asked for tanks. They didn't get the tanks from this
administration because we were nation building. It's called mission creep.
We turn it over to the United Nations. The President didn't have much to do
about it. You look at Haiti, where we spend about three billion dollars and
we got an alarm call there about two weeks ago. You got to send down some
more people, because the president's found out there are death squads on his
on his, in his own property. So we need more protection from America.
Bosnia, Northern Ireland. There's no ceasefire in Bosnia. I think there are
still lot of problems in Bosnia. We agreed to train and arm the Muslims so
they could defend themselves, the policy you had when you ran in 1992. We
haven't done that. We're way behind, which means Americans can't come home.
Americans shouldn't have gone there in the first place, had we let them
defend themselves, as they have a right to do under Article 57 of the United
Nations charter.

LEHRER: Mr. President.

CLINTON: First of all, I take full responsibility for what happened in
Somalia, but the American people must remember that those soldiers were
under an American commander when that happened. I believe they did the best
they could under the circumstances, and let's not forget that hundreds of
thousands of lives were saved there.

Secondly, in Haiti, political violence is much, much smaller than it was.
Thirdly, in Bosnia it's a virtual miracle that there has been no return to
war and at least there has now been an election. And institutions are
beginning to function.

In Northern Ireland, in the Middle East we are better off than we were four
years ago. There will always be problems in this whole world. But if we're
moving in the right direction and America is leading, we're better off.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, if elected president, what criteria would you use to
decide when to send U.S. troops into harm's way.

DOLE: Well it, after World War I, we had, you know, a policy of
disengagement. Then from World War I to World War II we had sort of a
compulsory engagement policy. Now I think we have a selective engagement
policy. We have to determine when our interests are involved, not the United
Nations' interests. And many of the things the President talked about, he
turned over to the United Nations. They decided.

He's deployed more troops than any president in history around the world.
It's cost us billions and billions of dollars for peace-keeping operations.
Look these are facts. And it seems to me that when you make a decision, the
decision is made by the President of the United States, by the
Commander-in-Chief. He makes that decision when he commits young men or
young women who are going to go round and defend our liberty and our
freedom. That would be my position.

Then I'm going to have a top down review at the Pentagon, not a bottom up
review. We all fight over how much money is there. I want a top down review
to determine what our priorities are and what we should do in defense, and
then follow that policy instead of this bottom up review with all the
services fighting for the money. You know, the President said he was going
to cut defense $60 billion, he cut defense $112 billion. Devastated states
like California and others. And I think now we've got a problem. We've got
to go back and look. It's just like you said in Texas one day, you know
raised taxes too much, and you did, and you cut defense too much, Mr.
President, and you did. You may have said that, too.

But the bottom line is, we are the strongest nation in the world. We provide
the leadership and we're going to have to continue to provide the
leadership, but let's do it on our terms when our interests are involved and
not when somebody blows the whistle at the United Nations.

CLINTON: Our military is the strongest military in the world. It is the
strongest, best prepared, best equipped it has ever been. There is very
little difference in the budget that I proposed and the Republican budget
over the next six-year period. We are spending a lot of money to modernize
our weapons system. I have proposed a lot of new investments to improve the
quality of life for our soldiers, for our men and women in uniform, for
their families, for their training. That is my solemn obligation.

You ask when do you decide to deploy them. The interests of the American
people must be at stake. Our values must be at stake. We have to be able to
make a difference. And frankly we have to consider what the risks are to our
young men and women in uniform. But I believe the evidence is that our
deployments have been successful, in Haiti, in Bosnia, when we moved to
Kuwait to repel Saddam Hussein's threatened invasion of Kuwait. When I have
sent the fleet into the Taiwan straits. When we've worked hard to end the
Northern Korean nuclear threat.

I believe the United States is at peace tonight in part because of the
disciplined, careful, effective deployment of our military resources.

LEHRER: Senator Dole.

DOLE: Well I failed to mention North Korea and Cuba, a while ago. You look
at North Korea where they have enough plutonium to build six nuclear bombs.
We've sort of distanced ourselves from our ally, South Korea. They lost
about a million people in the war, the Korean War, the forgotten war. We
lost 53,000 Americans.

We shouldn't be doing any favors for North Korea. It's a closed society. We
don't have any inspection. We don't know whether it's going to work or not,
but we keep giving the incentives. Someone called them something else.
Incentives. We don't know what's going to happen. Here we have Cuba 90 miles
from our shores, and what have we done, we passed the law that gave people a
right to sue and the President postponed it for six months. And it seemed to
me if you want to send a signal, you've got to send a signal, Mr. President.
The sooner the better off we'll be, if you put tougher sanctions on Castro,
not try to make it easier for him.

LEHRER: Mr. President, what is your attitude toward Cuba and how Cuba should
be treated?

CLINTON: Well, first of all, for the last four years we have worked had to
put more and more pressure on the Castro government to bring about more
openness and move toward democracy. In 1992, before I became President, the
Congress passed the Cuba Democracy Act and I enforced it vigorously. We made
the embargo tougher but we increased contacts people to people with the
Cubans, including direct telephone service, which was largely supported by
the Cuban-American community. Then Cuba shot down two of our planes and
murdered four people in international air space. They were completely beyond
the pale of the law, and I signed the Helms-Burton legislation. Senator Dole
is correct. I did give about six months before the effective date of the act
before lawsuits can actually be filed, even though they're effective now,
and can be legally binding, because I want to change Cuba. And the United
States needs help from other countries.

Nobody in the world agrees with our policy on Cuba now. But this law can be
used as leverage to get other countries to help us to move Cuba to
democracy. Every single country in Latin America, Central America and the
Caribbean is a democracy tonight but Cuba. And if we stay firm and strong,
we will be able to bring Cuba around as well.

DOLE: That's the point I made. We have to be firm and strong. And I hope
that will happen. It will happen starting next January and maybe it can
happen the balance of this year. We have not been firm and strong. You look
at the poor people who still live in Cuba. It's a haven for drug smugglers
and we don't have a firm policy when it comes to Fidel Castro. In my view,
the policy has failed.

So Congress passes the law, the President signs it, like he does a lot of
things. But he, like welfare reform, I'm going to sign it but I'm going to
try to change it next year. A lot of these election-year conversions, the
President talks about the drug money, and all the other things, all this
antismoking campaign all happened in 1996.

And I think the people viewing out there ought to go back and take a look at
the record when he fought a balanced budget amendment. When he gave you that
biggest tax increase in history; when he tried to take over your healthcare
system. When he fought regulatory reform that cost the average family 6 to
$7,000 a year. This is a serious business. It's about your family; it's
about your business, and in this case it's about a firmer policy with Cuba.

CLINTON: There were several off-the-subject quaffers in that litany. Let me
just mention, Senator Dole voted for $900 billion in tax increases. His
running mate Jack Kemp once said that Bob Dole never met a tax he didn't
hike. And everybody knows, including the Wall Street Journal, hardly a
friend of the Democratic party of this administration, that the '82 tax
increase he sponsored in inflation-adjusted dollars was the biggest tax
increase in American history. So we ought to at least get the facts out here
on the table so we can know where to go from here.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, you mentioned health reform several times. What do you
think should be done about the healthcare system?

DOLE: Let me first answer that question about the 1982 tax cut. We were
closing loopholes, we were going after big corporations. I know you probably
would oppose it, Mr. President, but I think we should have a fairer system
and a flatter system, and we'll have a fairer and flatter system and we're
going to make the economic package work. Healthcare. Well, we finally passed
the Kassebaum bill. The President was opposed to it in 1993. He wanted to
give us this big system, that took over about one-seventh of the economy,
that put on price controls, created all these state alliances, and would
cost $1.5 trillion and force people into managed care, whether they wanted
it or not. Most people want to see their own doctor. They're going to see
their own doctor when Bob Dole is president. We won't threaten anybody.

So we passed the Kassebaum-Kennedy, the Kennedy Kassebaum bill that will
cover about 20 to 25 million people. We've been for that for four, five, six
years. The President held it up. And even when it finally got near passage,
Senator Kennedy held it up for 100 days, because he wasn't satisfied with
one condition. But it will cover preexisting conditions. If you change your
job, you're going to be covered. So there are a lot of good things in this
bill we should have done instead of trying this massive, massive takeover by
the Federal government. But then of course we had a Democratic Congress and
they didn't want to do that. Until we got a Republican Congress, we finally
got action, I'm proud of my colleagues in the Republican Party for getting
that done. It means a lot to a lot of people watching us tonight.

CLINTON: Well, that sounds very good, but it's very wrong. Senator Dole
remembers well that we actually offered not to even put in a healthcare bill
in 1994, uh '93, but instead to work with the Senate Republicans and write a
joint bill. And they said no because they got a memo from one of their
political advisers saying that instead they should characterize whatever we
did as big government and make sure nothing was done to aid healthcare
before the '94 elections so they could make that claim. Well, maybe we bit
off more than we could chew, but we're pursuing a step-by-step reform now.
The Kennedy-Kassebaum bill that I signed will make it possible for 25
million people to keep their health insurance when they change jobs or when
somebody in their family's been sick. I signed a bill to stop these drive-by
deliveries when insurance companies can force people out of the hospital
after 24 hours and I vetoed Senator Dole's Medicare plan that would have
forced a lot of seniors into managed care and taken a lot more money out of
their pockets and led to Medicare withering on the vine.

DOLE: Well, many of the provisions in the Kassebaum bill were provisions
that -- my provisions, like deductions for long-term care, making certain
that self-employed people that are watching tonight can deduct not 30
percent but 80 percent of you pay for premiums. You can also deduct
long-term care now, so it's a good it's a good start. I think there's enough
-- we're even looking at our tax cut proposal, our economic package. There
may be a way of reaching out to the uninsured, because there are a lot of
uninsured people in the country, particularly children, that should be
covered. Another way you can do is to expand Medicaid. In America no one
will go without healthcare, no one will go without food.

LEHRER: Senator, go ahead and finish your sentence.

DOLE: All right. Food.

LEHRER: Food. Back to foreign affairs for a moment, Mr. President. Are you
satisfied with the way you handled this last Iraq crisis and the end result?

CLINTON

: Well, I believe that we did the appropriate thing under the circumstances.
Saddam Hussein is under a U.N. resolution not to threaten his neighbors or
threaten his own, repress his own citizens. Unfortunately, a lot of people,
have never been as concerned about the Kurds as the United States has tried
to be, and we've been flying an operation to protect them out of Turkey for
many years now. What happened was one of the Turkish, one of the Kurdish
leaders invited him to go up north, but we felt since the whole world
community had told him not to do it, that once he did it we had to do
something. We did not feel that I could commit. I certainly didn't feel I
should commit American troops to throw him out of where he had gone, and
that was the only way to do that. So the appropriate thing strategically to
do was to reduce his ability to threaten his neighbors. We did that by
expanding what's called the no-fly zone by increasing our allies' control of
the air space now from the Kuwait border to the suburbs of Baghdad. Was it
the right thing to do? I believe it was. Is it fully effective? Did it make
him withdraw from the north? Well, he does , he has a little bit, and I hope
he will continue. We have learned that you give him an inch he'll take a
mile. We had to do something, and even though not all of our allies
supported it at first, I think most of them now believe that what we did was
an appropriate thing to do.

LEHRER: Senator Dole.

DOLE: Well, the president's own CIA director says Saddam is stronger now
than he was. I don't understand extending the no-fly zone in the south when
the trouble was in the north. And what we've done during the Bush
administration, the Kurds were at the State Department, negotiating, trying
to work their differences out. Now we've got all thousands and thousands of
refugees. We're even shipping 3,000 Kurds to Guam. It involves Turkey. It's
a real problem. Saddam is probably about as strong as he ever was. We shot,
what, 44 cruise missiles, worth about a million-two a piece, and hit some
radar, that repaired in a couple, three days. Did we inflict any damage? No.
Did we have any allies helping? Well, we have Great Britain. They're always
very loyal to us, and I appreciate that. And of course Kuwait. Even though
they had to find out they had 5,000 troops coming, they didn't even
understand that. We had to get their permission. The bottom line is, we went
in there alone. We are supposed to be operating under a U.N. resolution. We
did it without any of our allies that helped in the Gulf.

CLINTON: Senator Dole has two or three times before tonight criticized me
for working with the U.N. Now I'm being criticized for not working with the
U.N.

DOLE: It's not the U.N.

CLINTON: Sometimes the United States has to act alone or at least has to act
first. Sometimes we cannot let other countries have a veto on our foreign
policy. I could not send soldiers into the north of Iraq, that would have
been wrong. It could reduce Saddam Hussein's abilities to threaten Kuwait
and his other neighbors again. That's what I did. I still believe it was the
right thing to do.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, on your photo-op foreign policy charge against the
President --

DOLE: Not mine.

LEHRER: Oh, No, no. I mean your charge against the President, that he has a
photo-op foreign policy. Does the Middle East summit last week fall into
that category?

DOLE: Well, there were some good pictures, but does it fall into that
category? I don't know. I want to be very serious. I've supported the
President when I thought he was right on Bosnia. I supported him on NAFTA
and GATT. So it's not that we always disagree. Others disagreed with us.

The Mideast is very difficult. But it seemed to me just as an observer that
you know before you'd call somebody to America, you'd have some notion what
the end result might be. Now maybe it's better just to get together and sit
down and talk. Maybe that was the purpose. And I know talks have started
again today. But again it's almost like an ad hoc foreign policy. It's ad
hoc, it's sort of we get up in the morning and read the papers, what
country's in trouble, we'll have a meeting.

Now, to me that's not the strategy that I think people expect from America.
I think we have lost credibility, and I say this very honestly without any
partisanship. We've lost credibility around the world. Our allies know, --
they're not certain what we're going to do, what our reaction, what our
response is going to be. Nobody suggested sending troops to Iraq, if that
was the hint there from the President. But I do think that Saddam Hussein is
stronger than he was. And I do believe that we didn't gain a great deal in
the Mideast by bringing three of the four leaders, one refused to come, to
Washington D.C.

CLINTON: We have a very consistent policy in the Middle East: It is to
support the peace process; to support the security of Israel; and to support
those who are prepared to take risks for peace. It is a very difficult
environment. The feelings are very strong. There are extremists in all parts
of the Middle East who want to kill that peace process. Prime Minister Rabin
gave his life because someone in his own country literally hated him for
trying to bring peace. I would like to have had a big, organized summit, but
those people were killing each other, rapidly, innocent Arab children,
innocent Israeli people, they were dying. And there is ,so much trust has
broken down in the aftermath of the change of government. I felt that if I
could just get the parties together to say let's stop the violence, start
talking, commit to the negotiations, that would be a plus.

Now today the Secretary of State is in the Middle East and they've started
negotiations and all those leaders promised me they would not quit until
they resolved the issues between them and got the peace process going
forward again.

LEHRER: Senator Dole.

DOLE: Well, I was disappointed. The President has not called for an
unconditional end to the violence. It seemed to me the violence stopped when
these leaders came to America. The killing and tragedies had taken place.
And it is unfortunate, it is a difficult area, no doubt about it. It
shouldn't be politicized in any way by the President or by his opponent. And
I don't intend to politicize it. I hope they talked and I hope they've
reached some result and that the killing will end.

CLINTON: Thank you.

LEHRER: Mr. President, in your acceptance speech in Chicago, you said the
real choice in this race is, quote, whether we build a bridge to the future
or a bridge to the past; about whether we believe our best days are still
out there or our best days are behind us; about whether we want a country of
people all working together or one where you're on your own, end quote. Are
you saying that you believe Senator Dole is a man of the past and if elected
president he would lead the country backward?

CLINTON: Well, I'm saying that Senator Dole said in his fine speech in San
Diego that he wanted to build a bridge to the past. And I think I know what
he meant by that. He's troubled, as I am, by some of the things that go on
today. But I believe America is the greatest country in human history
because we have maintained freedom and increasing prosperity by relentlessly
pushing the barriers of knowledge, the barriers of the present, always
moving into the future. That's why when I became President I was determined
to kind of move beyond this whole stale debate that had gone on in
Washington for too long to get this country moving again. And that's why
we've got a country with ten and a half million more jobs, and record
numbers of new businesses, and rising incomes, and falling crime rates, and
welfare roll rates. That's why we're moving in the right direction. And I'm
trying to emphasize that what I want to do is to continue to do that. That's
why my balanced budget plan will still invest and grow this economy. That's
why I want a tax cut for education and child rearing, but it's got to be
paid for. That's why I want to continue the work we have done over partisan
opposition, to work with communities to bring that crime rate down until our
streets are all safe again. These are my commitments. I am very oriented
toward the future. I think this election has to be geared toward the future.
I think America's best days are still ahead, but we've got to build the
right bridge.

LEHRER: Senator Dole.

DOLE: You know, the President reminds me sometimes of my brother Kenny, who
is no longer alive. But Kenny was a great talker. And he used to tell me
things that I knew were not quite accurate. So we always had a rule, we
divided by six. Maybe in your case maybe just two. But 11 million new jobs
and everything, I mean the President can't take credit for everything that
governors are doing, whether that's happening in New York City when it comes
to the murder rate and then not be responsible for the bad things that
happen, whether it's drug use or something else in America. So it seems to
me that we can talk about what we call Kenny, the great exaggerator. He just
liked to make it sound exager, a little better, made him feel better.

When it comes to bridges, I want a bridge to the future. I also want a
bridge to the truth. We have to tell the truth. We've got people watching
tonight and listening tonight trying to find the truth. And the truth is,
there is a lot wrong with America. We need a strong economic package; we
need a tax cut; we need the $500 child credit, and we'll have that soon.

LEHRER: Mr. President.

CLINTON: I do not for a moment think I'm entitled to all the credit for all
the good things that have happened in America. But where I have moved to
work with the American people to help them have the tools to make the most
of their own lives, I think I should get some credit for that.

I also personally took responsibility tonight when Senator Dole asked me
about the drug problem. But, you know, I think my ideas are better for the
future.

Senator Dole voted against student loans, against Headstart, against
creating the Department of Education. If he gets elected president, we'll
start the new century without anyone in the cabinet of the President
representing education in our children. I personally don't think that's the
right kind of future for America, and I think we ought to take a different
tack.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, do you still favor eliminating the Department of
Education.

DOLE: Yes. I didn't favor it when it was in, started. I voted against it. It
was a tribute after President Carter's election to the National Education
Association who send a lot of delegates to the Democratic convention, who
gives 99.5 percent of their money, Democrat Democrats, and the President,
and a lot of the teachers send their kids to private schools or better
public schools. So what we want to do is called opportunity scholarships.
Now, some say, oh, you're a Republican, you can't be reaching out to these
people. I've reached out to people all my life. I've worked on the food
stamp program, proudly. And the WIC program, and the school lunch program
with senators like George McGovern, Hubert Humphrey and others, to name a
few of my Democratic friends.

I'm not some extremist out here. I care about people. I have my own little
foundation that's raised about $10 million for the disabled. I don't
advertise it. Just did, haven't before. And I try to do a lot of things that
I think might be helpful to people.

So it seems to me that we ought to take that money we can save from the
Department of Education, put it into opportunity scholarships and tell
little Landale Shakespeare out in Cleveland, Ohio, and tell your mother and
father, you're going to get to go to school because we're going to match
what the state puts up, and you're going to go to the school of your choice.
I don't fault the President or the vice president for sending their children
to private schools or better schools. I applaud them for it, I don't
criticize them. But why shouldn't everybody have that choice. Why shouldn't
low income Americans and low middle income Americans. I'm excited about it.
It's going to be a big, big opportunity for a lot of people.

CLINTON: Let me say first of all, I'm all for students having more choices.
We've worked hard to expand public school choice in my balanced budget bill.
There's funds for 3,000 new schools created by teachers and parents,
sometimes by business people, called charter schools that have no rules,
they're free of bureaucracy and can only stay in existence if they perform
and teach children. The ones that are out there are doing well.

What I'm against is Senator Dole's plan to take money away from all the
children we now help with limited Federal funds and help far fewer. If we're
going to have a private voucher fund, that ought to be done at the local
level or the state level. But Senator Dole has consistently opposed Federal
help to education. He voted against student loans; he voted against my
improved student loan plan; he voted against the National Service bill,
against the HeadStart bill; he voted against our efforts in safe and
drug-free schools. He voted against these programs, he does not believe it.
That's the issue. 90 percent of our kids are out there in those public
schools and we need to lift their standards and move them forward with the
programs like those I've outlined in this campaign.

DOLE: I'd better correct the President. I don't know what time it is, but
it's probably getting late. I want to correct, the all these things I voted
against, they were probably part of some big package that had a lot of pork
in it or a lot of things that we shouldn't have had and we probably voted
no. I've supported all the education programs. I've supported Headstart, I
think we ought to look at it. So I don't want anybody out there to think
we've just been voting no, no, no. Let's give low income parents the same
right that people of power and prestige have in America and let them go to
better schools. Let's not, let's help, let's turn the schools back to the
teachers and back to the parents and take it away from the National
Education Association.

LEHRER: Mr. President, what is wrong with the school choice proposal?

CLINTON: I support school choice. I support school choice. I have advocated
expansions of public school choice alternatives and I said the creation of
3,000 new schools that we are going to help the states to finance. But if
you're going to have a private voucher plan, that ought to be determined by
states in localities where they're raising and spending most of the money.

I simply think it's wrong to take money away from programs that are helping
build basic skills for kids, 90 percent of them are in the public schools;
to take money away from programs that are helping fund the school lunch
program, that are helping to fund the other programs, that are helping our
schools to improve their standards. Our schools are getting better, and our
schools can be made to be even better still with the right kind of community
leadership and partnership at the school level.

I have been a strong force for reform. And, Senator, I remind you that a few
years ago when I supported teacher testing while in my home state I was
pretty well lambasted by the teachers association. I just don't believe we
ought to be out there running down teachers and attacking them the way you
did at the Republican convention. I think we ought to be lifting them up and
moving our children forward.

And let me just say that budget that you passed that I vetoed would have cut
50,000 kids out of Headstart. It would have eliminated the AmeriCorps plan
and it would have cut back on student loans and scholarships. Now, it would
have. That's a fact. That's one of the big reasons I vetoed it. We need to
be doing more in education, not less.

DOLE: Well, the AmeriCorps program, I must say, if that's one of your
successes, I wouldn't speak about it too loudly. It costs about $27,000 to
pay people to volunteer. We've got four million young people volunteering
every year, the number hasn't gone down. And you pick out 20,000, whether
they need the money or not, and they get paid for volunteering. I like young
people. I like teachers. I'm a product of a public school. You attended a
private school for some time in your life. I like teachers. You're not for
school choice, you can't be for school choice, because this is that special
interest money again. When you get 99.5 percent of the money, we don't know
what happened to the other .5 percent, we're looking for it, somebody got
it, but it all went to Democrats. And this is part of that liberal
establishment, one of those liberal things that you just can't do. You're
for school uniforms and curfews and you're opposed to truancy. Now that's
not reform, Mr. President. Why can't Landale Shakespeare in Cleveland or
Pilar Gonzales in Milwaukee give their children an opportunity to go to a
better school. Some schools aren't safe. Some schools aren't even safe. Your
choice is nothing. Let's give them a real choice, the kind of choice you
had, and the kind of choice a lot of people have in America. If we want to
stop crime and teenage pregnancy, let's start with education.

CLINTON: First of all, Senator Dole, let's set the record straight. I was
able for two years when I was in, a very young boy to go to a Catholic
school, but I basically went to public schools all my life. And I've worked
hard for a long time to make them better, 90 percent of our kids are there.
You, it's amazing to me, you are all for having more responsibility at the
local level for everything except schools. Where we don't have very much
money at the Federal level to spend on education, we ought to spend it
helping the 90 percent of the kids that we can help. If a local school
district in Cleveland or anyplace else wants to have a private choice plan
like Milwaukee did, let them have at it. I might say the results are highly
ambiguous. But I want to get out there and give a better education
opportunity to all of our children and that's why I vetoed the budget you
passed with $30 billion in education cuts. It was wrong, and my plan for the
future is better.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, at the Republican convention you said the following
and I quote, it is demeaning to the nation that within the Clinton
Administration a core of the elite who never grew up, never did anything
real, never sacrificed, never suffered, and never learned should have the
power to fund with your earnings their dubious and self-serving schemes, end
quote. Whom precisely and what precisely did you have in mind?

DOLE: I had precisely in mind a lot of the people that were in the White
House and other agencies who've never been had any experience, who came to
Washington without any experience, they all were very liberal, of course, or
they wouldn't be in the administration. And their idea was that they knew
what was best for the American people.

Now, I feel very strongly about a lot of things. I feel strongly about
education. I want to help young people have an education, just as I had an
education after World War II with the GI bill of Rights. We've had millions
of young men and women in subsequent subsequent wars change the face of the
nation because the government helped with their education.

Now the reason they don't have, The reason the President can't support this
is pretty obvious. It's not taking anything away from schools, it's new
money. It's not being taken away from anybody else, except we'll downsize
the Department of Education. But this is a very liberal administration. This
is an administration that gave you the big tax cut. This administration
tried to take over healthcare and impose a governmental system. This is the
administration that fought regulatory reform that is putting a lot of small
businessmen and small businesswomen out of business. This is the
administration that fought the balanced budget amendment and vetoed a
balanced budget and vetoed welfare reform twice, and the list goes on and on
and on, that's what I had in mind.

I want people in my administration and will have people in my administration
who understand America. There won't be 10 millionaires and 14 lawyers in the
cabinet. There will be people with experience and people who understand
America and people who've made it and know the hard knocks in life.

CLINTON: When Senator Dole made that remark about all the elitists, all the
young elitists in the administration, one of the young men who works for me
who grew up in a house trailer looked at me and said, Mr. President, I know
how you grew up, who is he talking about. And you know this liberal charge,
that's what their party always dragsout when they get in a tight race. It's
sort of their golden oldie, you know. It's a record they think they can play
that everybody loves to hear. And I just don't think that dog will hunt this
time.

The American people should make up their own mind. Here's the record: We cut
deficit four years in a row for the first time before the Civil War -- I
mean, before World War II, and maybe before the Civil War, too. We've got
ten and a half million new jobs; we've got record numbers of those new small
businesses. We've made every one of them eligible for a tax cut. We've got
declining crime rates, two million fewer people on welfare rolls before
welfare reform passed, and a 50 percent increase in child support and a
crime bill with 60 death penalties and 100,000 police and the assault
weapons ban. The American people can make up their mind about whether that's
a liberal record or a record that's good for America. Liberal, conservative,
you put whatever label you want on it.

DOLE: Well, I think it's pretty liberal, I'll put that label on it. You take
a look at all the programs you've advocated, Mr. President. Thank goodness
we had a Republican Congress there. The first thing you did when you came
into office was set up the stimulus package, said we've got a little pork we
want to scatter around America, $16 billion. And even some in your own party
couldn't buy that.

I remember talking about by the telephone. I'm not even certain you were too
excited about that. I won't, I never repeat what I've talked to the
President about. In any event, we saved the taxpayers $16 billion. And then
came some other program, and then came healthcare, and then came the tax
increase and a lot of these things stopped in 1994 because then the Congress
changed, and I think we've done a good job.

LEHRER: Mr. President, if you're not a liberal, describe your political
philosophy.

CLINTON: I believe that the purpose of politics is to give people the tools
to make the most of their own lives; to reinforce the values of opportunity
and responsibility, and to build a sense of community so we're all working
together. I don't believe in discrimination. I believe you can protect the
environment and grow the economy. I believe that we have to do these things
with a government that's smaller and less bureaucratic, but that we have to
do them nonetheless.

It's inconvenient for Senator Dole, but the truth is I've reduced the size
of government more than my Republican predecessors. And I did stop them, I
admit that. I sure stopped their budget. Their budget cut enforcement for
the Environmental Protection Agency by a third. It cut funds to clean up
toxic waste dumps with 10 million of our kids still living within four miles
of a toxic waste dump, by a third. It ended the principle that the polluters
should pay for those toxic waste dumps unless it was very recent. Their
budget weakened our support for education. $30 billion, even cut funds for
scholarships and college loans. Their budget cut $270 billion in Medicare
and, finally, their budget withdrew the national guarantee of healthcare to
poor children, families with children with handicaps, the elderly in nursing
homes, poor pregnant women. It was wrong for the country and calling it
conservative won't make it right. It was a bad decision for America and
would have been bad for our future if I hadn't stopped it.

DOLE: Well, the President can define himself in any way he wants, but I
think we have to look at the record. Go back to the time he was, what, Texas
director for George McGovern. George McGovern is a friend of mine, so I
don't mean, but he was a liberal, proud liberal. I've just finished reading
a book, I think it's called -- what is it called, what is it, The Demise of
the Democratic Party by Ronald Cardash (ph) or something talking about all
the liberal influences in the administration. Whether it's organized labor
or whether it's the Hollywood elite or whether some of the media elite or
whether it's the labor unions or whatever. And so I think you take a look at
it. The bottom line is this: I think the American people, thought he'd
recite all these bills and all these things, they want to know what's going
to happen to them. They've all got a lot of anxieties out there. Did anybody
complain when you raised taxes? Did anybody go out and ask the people, how
are you going to pay the extra money? That's why we want an economic
package. We want the government to pinch their pennies for a change instead
of the people pinching their pennies. That's what our message is to the
people. Not all this back and forth, you voted this way, you voted that way,
we want a better America as we go into the next century.

CLINTON: The way you get a better America is to balance the budget and
protect Medicare, Medicaid, education and the environment; to give a
targeted tax cut -- and let me talk about the education tax cut -- to let
people have a $10,000 deduction for the cost of college tuition in any year,
any kind of college tuition; to give families a tax credit, a dollar for
dollar reduction in their taxes for the cost of a typical community college
so we can open that to everybody. And then to let people save in an IRA and
withdraw from it without a tax penalty for education, home buying or medical
expenses, that's the right way to go into the 21st Century, balance the
budget and cut taxes, not balloon with this $550 billion tax scheme.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, we've talked mostly now about differences between the
two of you that relate to policy issues and that sort of thing. Are there
also significant differences in the more personal area that are relevant to
this election?

DOLE: Let me say first, on the President's promise for another tax cut. I
mean, I've told people as I've traveled around, all of you that got the tax
cut he promised last time, vote for him in '96 and not many hands go up. So
the question is, would you buy a used election promise from my opponent. The
people want economic reform. They're having a hard time making ends meet.
You've got one parent working for the government, the other parent working
for the family. This is about important business. This is about getting the
economy moving again. This is about American jobs and opportunities. It's
about the government, as I said before, pinching its pennies for a change
instead of the poor taxpayer. When they raise your taxes nobody runs around
asking people where are you going to get the extra money. I think the
government can do better. Are there personal differences?

LEHRER: That are relevant to this.

DOLE: Well, my blood pressure is lower, my weight, my cholesterol, but I
will not make health an issue in this campaign. So I think he's a bit taller
than I am. But I think there are personal differences. I mean, I'm not I
don't like to get into personal matters. As far as I'm concerned, this is a
campaign about issues. It's about my vision for America and about his
liberal vision for America. And not about personal things. You know, I think
his liberal vision is a thing of the past. I know he wants to disown it. I
wouldn't want to be a liberal either, Mr. President, but you're stuck with
it because that's your record, that's your record in Arkansas: The biggest
tax increase in history. The biggest crime increase in history, the biggest
drug increase in history in Arkansas.

LEHRER: Mr. President.

CLINTON: Well, just for the record, when I was governor we had the lowest --
second lowest tax burden of any state in the country, the highest job growth
rate when I ran for president and were widely recognized for a lot of other
advances.

But the important thing is, what are we going to do now. I think a targeted
tax cut is better for our future, targeted to education and child rearing,
with the rest of the education plan, hooking up all of our classrooms to the
Internet by the year 2000. Making sure we've got an army of reading
volunteers, trained people to teach with parents and teachers so that our
eight year old can learn to read. Investing in our environment. Cleaning up
two-thirds of the worst toxic waste dumps. Those plans are better than this
$550 billion tax scheme.

Now, remember, folks, even Senator Dole's campaign co-chair here, Senator
D'Amato, says he's got to cut Medicare to pay for this. Everybody who's
looked at it, 500 economists, seven Nobel prize winners, say it's bad for
the economy. It's going to blow a hole in the deficit It's going to raise
taxes on nine million people and require bigger cuts than the one I vetoed.
Our plan is better, it will take us into the future with a growing economy
and healthier families.

DOLE: Well, I'm really encouraged to know of your renewed friendship with Al
D'Amato, and I know he appreciates it. You didn't even have tax cuts in your
budget, Mr. President, the first two years you were president. It wasn't
until we had a Republican Congress you even thought about, you talked about
tax cuts. Getting back to personal differences, I think, Jim, if you are a
little more specific, but I think the President could clarify one thing
tonight and that's the question of pardons. I know you talked about it on
the Jim, with Jim Lehrer on the PBS show. And I've never discussed
Whitewater, as I've told you personally. I'm not discussing Whitewater now.
But I am discussing the power the President has to grant pardons. And
hopefully in the next segment you could lay that to rest.

LEHRER: Mr. President.

CLINTON: Well, first of all, you know, he made that remark about Senator
D'Amato. He's arranged for me to spend a lot more time with Senator D'Amato
in the last couple years so I'm more familiar with his comments than I used
to be. Let's me say what I've said already about this pardon issue. This is
an issue they've brought up. It's under, there's been no consideration of
it, no discussion of it. I will tell you this: I will not give anyone
special treatment and I will strictly adhere to the law. And that is what
every president has done, as far as I know, in the past but what every other
president's has done. This is something I take seriously and that's my
position.

DOLE: But it seems to me the president shouldn't have any comment at all.
Particularly where it's someone where you've had business dealings. I mean,
you may be sending a signal. I don't know, I'm not questioning anybody.

But as a President of the United States, when somebody asks you about
pardons, you say no comment, period. And I think he made a mistake. And I
think when you make a mistake, you say I made a mistake. But apparently his
position hasn't changed. If there are other specific areas, but beyond that
I haven't gotten into any of these things, as the President knows. We've had
that discussion. And again I know Senator D'Amato I think may have had a
hearing or two on Whitewater, I can't remember, but he's not my general
chairman, he's a friend of mine. And so is Senator Kennedy a friend of
yours.

CLINTON: You bet.

DOLE: I remember one day on the floor I said now, gentlemen, let me tax your
memories, and Kennedy jumped up and said, why haven't we thought of that
before. You know, so one of your liberal friends.

CLINTON: Thank you.

LEHRER: Mr. President, 30 seconds.

CLINTON: No comment.

DOLE: What's the subject matter?

LEHRER: Senator Dole, if you could single out one thing that you would like
for the voters to have in their mind about President Clinton on a policy
matter or a personal matter, what would it be? Something to know about him,
understand it and appreciate it.

DOLE: See, if I say anything it's going to be misconstrued. I don't think
there is even a race between the two, it's about our vision for America.

I happen to like President Clinton personally. I'm addressing him all
evening as Mr. President. I said in 1992 he didn't extend that courtesy to
President Bush. But I respect the presidency. I've served under a number of
presidents. They all have their strengths and they all have their
weaknesses. So I'd rather talk about my strengths. And I think I have my
strengths and I think the best thing going for Bob Dole is that Bob Dole
keeps his word. It's a question between trust and fear, and I would say, I
think, Mr. President, about all you've got going in this campaign is fear.

You're spending millions and millions of dollars in negative ads frightening
senior citizens. I know this to be a fact because I had one tell me last
week, Senator don't cut my Medicare. I'm trying to save your Medicare, just
as I rescued Social Security with a bipartisan commission. I have relatives
on Medicare. I used to sign welfare checks for my grandparents. I know all
about poverty and all about need and all about taking care of people, and
that's been my career in the United States Senate.

And I'll keep my word on the economic package. If I couldn't cut taxes and
balance the budget the same time, I wouldn't look at you in the eye in your
living room or wherever you might be and say that this is good for America.
People will tell you who served with Bob Dole, agree or disagree, he kept
his word. That's what this race is all about.

CLINTON: I'd like the American people to know that I have worked very hard
to be on their side. And to move this country forward and we're better off
than we were four years ago. But the most important thing is my plan for the
21st Century is a better plan. A targeted tax cut, a real commitment to
educational reform. A deep commitment to making welfare reform work with
incentives to the private sector to move people from welfare to work. Now we
have to create those jobs, now that we're requiring people to go do work.

A commitment to continuing step-by-step healthcare reform with the next step
helping people who are between jobs to access healthcare and not lose it
just because they are out of work for a while. A commitment to grow the
economy while protecting the environment. That's what I'd like them to know
about me; that I've gotten up every day and worked for the American people
and worked so that their children could have their dreams come true.

And I believe we've got the results to show we're on the right track. The
most important thing is, I believe we've got the right ideas for the future.
And I like, I like Senator Dole, you can probably tell we like each other.
We just see the world in different ways. And you folks out there are going
to have to choose who you think is right.

DOLE: Well, I'd say the first homeless bill in the Senate was the Dole-Byrd
Byrd-Dole bill, I can't remember who was in control then. I remember working
with Senator Ribicoff from Connecticut on the Hospice program. We now have
2500 hospices. As I said, I've worked all my life when I was in the
Congress. I left on June 11th because I wanted the American people to know
that I was willing to give up something.

President Clinton ran for governor in 1990 and said he's going to fill out
his term, but he didn't. He's president so I guess it's a little better
deal. But I wanted the American people to know I was willing to give up
something. I wasn't just getting more power and more power. So I rolled the
dice, I put my career on the line because I really believe the future of
America is on the line.

We can give you all these numbers, they don't mean a thing. If you are out
of work, you have nothing to eat or you can't have medical care, or you're
holding a crack baby in your arms right now, what do you do next? You know,
America's best days are ahead of us. I've seen the tough times, I know they
can be better and I'll lead America to a brighter future.

LEHRER: Mr. President, what do you say to Senator Dole's point that this
election is about keeping one's word?

CLINTON: Let's look at that. When I ran for president, I said we'd cut the
deficit in half in four years; we cut it by 60 percent. I said that our
economic plan would produce eight million jobs, we have ten and a half
million new jobs. We're number one in autos again, record numbers of new
small businesses. I said we'd put, pass a crime bill that would put 100,000
police on the street, ban assault weapons, and deal with the problems that
ought to be dealt with with capital punishment, including capital punishment
for drug kingpins, and we did that.

I said we would change the way welfare works, and even before the bill
passed we'd moved nearly two million people from welfare to work, working
with states and communities. I said we'd get tougher with child support and
child support enforcement's up 50 percent. I said that I would work for tax
relief for middle class Americans. The deficit was bigger than I thought it
was going to be. I think they're better off, all of us are, that we got the
interest rates down and the deficit down.

Republicans talk about it, but we're the first the first administration in
anybody's lifetime looking at this program to bring that deficit down four
years in a row. We still gave tax cuts to 15 million working Americans, and
now I've got a plan that's been out there for two years, it could have been
passed already, but instead the Republicans shut the government down to try
to force their budget and their plan on me, and I couldn't take that. But
we'll get the rest of that tax relief. And so I think when you look at those
results, you know the plan I've laid out for the future has a very good
chance of being enacted if you'll give me a chance to build that bridge to
the 21st Century.

LEHRER: Senator.

DOLE: Well, there he goes again, that line has been used before, I mean,
exaggerating all the things that he did. He didn't do all these things.
Let's take all these four years in a row. He came in with a high growth
rate, the 1990 budget agreement, which some, you know, didn't like, had some
very tough cost controls, put a lot of pressure on Congress. The S & L
crisis was over, they're starting to sell assets, all that money was coming
in. And he cut defense an extra $60 billion, threw a lot of people out of
work.

He talks about a smaller government. There are actually more people in
government except for people in defense related jobs. They're gone. The
government's bigger than it was when President Kennedy was around, even
though he says it's not. In addition, Republican Congress cut $53 billion.
So let's just, let's give credit where credit is due. Governor Engler of
Michigan cut taxes 21 times, created a lot of new jobs. So did Governor
Thompson, so did Governor Rowland. A lot of people ought to deserve credit,
Mr. President. When I'm President of the United States we're going to have a
governors' council and we're going to work directly with the governors to
get power back to the people and back to the states.

CLINTON: I think a lot of people deserve credit and I've tried to give it to
them. But I believe that my plan is better than Senator Dole's ill-advised
$550 billion scheme which I'll say again will blow a hole in the deficit.
Our plan will balance the budget, grow the economy, preserve the
environment, and invest in education. We have the right approach for the
future and looks at the results. It is not midnight in America, Senator. We
are better off than we were four years ago.

LEHRER: All right. That's the last question, the last answer. Let's go now
to the closing statements. Mr. President, you're first. Two minutes.

CLINTON: Well, first, Jim, let me thank you and thank you, Senator Dole, and
thank you, ladies and gentlemen, all of you listening tonight for the chance
you've given us to appear.

I want to say in the beginning that I am profoundly grateful for the chance
that you have given me to serve as president for the last four years. I
never could have dreamed anything like this would come my way in life, and
I've done my best to be faithful to the charge you've given me.

I'm proud of the fact that America is stronger and more prosperous and more
secure than we were four years ago. And I'm glad we're going in the right
direction. And I've done my best tonight to lay out my plans for going
forward to an even better future in the next century. I'd like to leave you
with the thought that the things I do as president are basically driven by
the people whose lives I have seen affected by what does or doesn't happen
in this country. The auto worker in Toledo who was unemployed when I was
elected and now has a great job because we're number one in auto production
again. All the people I've met who used to be on welfare who are now working
and raising their children. And I think what others could do for our country
and themselves if we did the welfare reform thing in the proper way. I think
of the man who grabbed me by the shoulder once with tears in his eyes and
said his daughter was dying of cancer and he thanked me for giving him a
chance to spend some time with her without losing his job because of the
Family and Medical Leave Act. I think of all the people I grew up with and
went to school with and who I stay in touch with and who nerve let me forget
how what we do in Washington affects all of you in America. Folks, we can
build that bridge to the 21st Century, big enough and strong enough for all
of us to walk across, and I hope you will help me build it.

LEHRER: Senator Dole, your closing statement, sir.

DOLE: Thank you, Jim; thank you, Mr. President; thank everyone for watching
and listening.

I want to address my remarks to the young people of America, because they're
the ones that are going to spend most of their life in the 21st Century.
They're the ones who have the challenges and they are people out there
making predictions that it's not going to be the same. You're not going to
have the opportunities; there are going to be more deficits, more drugs,
more crime, and less confidence in the American people. And that's what
you're faced with, the parents are faced with, and the grand parents are
faced with. It's important, it's their future. And I would say to those I
know there are more young people experimenting with drugs today than ever
before; drug use has gone up. And if you care about the future of America,
if you care about your future, just don't do it. And I know that I'm someone
older than you. But I've had my anxious moments in my life. I've learned to
feed myself and to walk and to dress. I'm standing here as proof that in
America the possibilities are unlimited. I know who I am, and I know where
I'm from, and I know where I want to take America. We are the greatest
country on the face of the earth. We do more good things for more people in
our communities, our neighborhoods, than anywhere that I know of. This is
important business. This election is important. I ask for your support, I
ask for your help. And if you really want to get involved, just tap into my
home page, WWW.DoleKemp96.ORG. Thank you. God bless America.