Check this out
// September 27th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // POLITICAL ARENA
I couldn’t help but notice Obama verbally state at least six times that McCain was right. I should have known that the brilliant people from the McCain campaign noiced also. They produced this ad immediatly after the debate. “McCain Is Right”
// September 27th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // POLITICAL ARENA
McCain and Obama debate from the University of Mississippi. September 26, 2008.
The moderator is Jim Lehrer of the NewsHour from PBS.
LEHRER: Gentlemen, at this very moment tonight, where do you stand on the financial recovery plan?
First response to you, Senator Obama. You have two minutes.
OBAMA: Well, thank you very much, Jim, and thanks to the commission and the University of Mississippi, “Ole Miss,” for hosting us tonight. I can’t think of a more important time for us to talk about the future of the country.
You know, we are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is involved in two wars, and we are going through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
And although we’ve heard a lot about Wall Street, those of you on Main Street I think have been struggling for a while, and you recognize that this could have an impact on all sectors of the economy.
And you’re wondering, how’s it going to affect me? How’s it going to affect my job? How’s it going to affect my house? How’s it going to affect my retirement savings or my ability to send my children to college?
So we have to move swiftly, and we have to move wisely. And I’ve put forward a series of proposals that make sure that we protect taxpayers as we engage in this important rescue effort.
No. 1, we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got oversight over this whole process; $700 billion, potentially, is a lot of money.
No. 2, we’ve got to make sure that taxpayers, when they are putting their money at risk, have the possibility of getting that money back and gains, if the market — and when the market returns.
No. 3, we’ve got to make sure that none of that money is going to pad CEO bank accounts or to promote golden parachutes.
And, No. 4, we’ve got to make sure that we’re helping homeowners, because the root problem here has to do with the foreclosures that are taking place all across the country.
Now, we also have to recognize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain, a theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most, and somehow prosperity will trickle down.
It hasn’t worked. And I think that the fundamentals of the economy have to be measured by whether or not the middle class is getting a fair shake. That’s why I’m running for president, and that’s what I hope we’re going to be talking about tonight.
LEHRER: Senator McCain, two minutes.
MCCAIN: Well, thank you, Jim. And thanks to everybody.
And I do have a sad note tonight. Senator Kennedy is in the hospital. He’s a dear and beloved friend to all of us. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the lion of the Senate.
I also want to thank the University of Mississippi for hosting us tonight.
And, Jim, I — I’ve been not feeling too great about a lot of things lately. So have a lot of Americans who are facing challenges. But I’m feeling a little better tonight, and I’ll tell you why.
Because as we’re here tonight in this debate, we are seeing, for the first time in a long time, Republicans and Democrats together, sitting down, trying to work out a solution to this fiscal crisis that we’re in.
And have no doubt about the magnitude of this crisis. And we’re not talking about failure of institutions on Wall Street. We’re talking about failures on Main Street, and people who will lose their jobs, and their credits, and their homes, if we don’t fix the greatest fiscal crisis, probably in — certainly in our time, and I’ve been around a little while.
But the point is — the point is, we have finally seen Republicans and Democrats sitting down and negotiating together and coming up with a package.
This package has transparency in it. It has to have accountability and oversight. It has to have options for loans to failing businesses, rather than the government taking over those loans. We have to — it has to have a package with a number of other essential elements to it.
And, yes, I went back to Washington, and I met with my Republicans in the House of Representatives. And they weren’t part of the negotiations, and I understand that. And it was the House Republicans that decided that they would be part of the solution to this problem.
But I want to emphasize one point to all Americans tonight. This isn’t the beginning of the end of this crisis. This is the end of the beginning, if we come out with a package that will keep these institutions stable.
And we’ve got a lot of work to do. And we’ve got to create jobs. And one of the areas, of course, is to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil.
LEHRER: All right, let’s go back to my question. How do you all stand on the recovery plan? And talk to each other about it. We’ve got five minutes. We can negotiate a deal right here.
But, I mean, are you — do you favor this plan, Senator Obama, and you, Senator McCain? Do you — are you in favor of this plan?
OBAMA: We haven’t seen the language yet. And I do think that there’s constructive work being done out there. So, for the viewers who are watching, I am optimistic about the capacity of us to come together with a plan.
The question, I think, that we have to ask ourselves is, how did we get into this situation in the first place?
Two years ago, I warned that, because of the subprime lending mess, because of the lax regulation, that we were potentially going to have a problem and tried to stop some of the abuses in mortgages that were taking place at the time.
Last year, I wrote to the secretary of the Treasury to make sure that he understood the magnitude of this problem and to call on him to bring all the stakeholders together to try to deal with it.
So — so the question, I think, that we’ve got to ask ourselves is, yes, we’ve got to solve this problem short term. And we are going to have to intervene; there’s no doubt about that.
But we’re also going to have to look at, how is it that we shredded so many regulations? We did not set up a 21st-century regulatory framework to deal with these problems. And that in part has to do with an economic philosophy that says that regulation is always bad.
LEHRER: Are you going to vote for the plan, Senator McCain?
MCCAIN: I — I hope so. And I…
LEHRER: As a United States senator…
MCCAIN: Sure.
LEHRER: … you’re going to vote for the plan?
MCCAIN: Sure. But — but let me — let me point out, I also warned about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and warned about corporate greed and excess, and CEO pay, and all that. A lot of us saw this train wreck coming.
But there’s also the issue of responsibility. You’ve mentioned President Dwight David Eisenhower. President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion, went into his room, and he wrote out two letters.
One of them was a letter congratulating the great members of the military and allies that had conducted and succeeded in the greatest invasion in history, still to this day, and forever.
And he wrote out another letter, and that was a letter of resignation from the United States Army for the failure of the landings at Normandy.
Somehow we’ve lost that accountability. I’ve been heavily criticized because I called for the resignation of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. We’ve got to start also holding people accountable, and we’ve got to reward people who succeed.
But somehow in Washington today — and I’m afraid on Wall Street — greed is rewarded, excess is rewarded, and corruption — or certainly failure to carry out our responsibility is rewarded.
As president of the United States, people are going to be held accountable in my administration. And I promise you that that will happen.
LEHRER: Do you have something directly to say, Senator Obama, to Senator McCain about what he just said?
OBAMA: Well, I think Senator McCain’s absolutely right that we need more responsibility, but we need it not just when there’s a crisis. I mean, we’ve had years in which the reigning economic ideology has been what’s good for Wall Street, but not what’s good for Main Street.
And there are folks out there who’ve been struggling before this crisis took place. And that’s why it’s so important, as we solve this short-term problem, that we look at some of the underlying issues that have led to wages and incomes for ordinary Americans to go down, the — a health care system that is broken, energy policies that are not working, because, you know, 10 days ago, John said that the fundamentals of the economy are sound.
LEHRER: Say it directly to him.
OBAMA: I do not think that they are.
LEHRER: Say it directly to him.
OBAMA: Well, the — John, 10 days ago, you said that the fundamentals of the economy are sound. And…
MCCAIN: Are you afraid I couldn’t hear him?
LEHRER: I’m just determined to get you all to talk to each other. I’m going to try.
OBAMA: The — and I just fundamentally disagree. And unless we are holding ourselves accountable day in, day out, not just when there’s a crisis for folks who have power and influence and can hire lobbyists, but for the nurse, the teacher, the police officer, who, frankly, at the end of each month, they’ve got a little financial crisis going on.
They’re having to take out extra debt just to make their mortgage payments. We haven’t been paying attention to them. And if you look at our tax policies, it’s a classic example.
LEHRER: So, Senator McCain, do you agree with what Senator Obama just said? And, if you don’t, tell him what you disagree with.
MCCAIN: No, I — look, we’ve got to fix the system. We’ve got fundamental problems in the system. And Main Street is paying a penalty for the excesses and greed in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street.
So there’s no doubt that we have a long way to go. And, obviously, stricter interpretation and consolidation of the various regulatory agencies that weren’t doing their job, that has brought on this crisis.
But I have a fundamental belief in the goodness and strength of the American worker. And the American worker is the most productive, the most innovative. America is still the greatest producer, exporter and importer.
But we’ve got to get through these times, but I have a fundamental belief in the United States of America. And I still believe, under the right leadership, our best days are ahead of us.
LEHRER: All right, let’s go to the next lead question, which is essentially following up on this same subject.
And you get two minutes to begin with, Senator McCain. And using your word “fundamental,” are there fundamental differences between your approach and Senator Obama’s approach to what you would do as president to lead this country out of the financial crisis?
MCCAIN: Well, the first thing we have to do is get spending under control in Washington. It’s completely out of control. It’s gone — we have now presided over the largest increase in the size of government since the Great Society.
We Republicans came to power to change government, and government changed us. And the — the worst symptom on this disease is what my friend, Tom Coburn, calls earmarking as a gateway drug, because it’s a gateway. It’s a gateway to out-of-control spending and corruption.
And we have former members of Congress now residing in federal prison because of the evils of this earmarking and pork-barrel spending.
You know, we spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. I don’t know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue, but the fact is that it was $3 million of our taxpayers’ money. And it has got to be brought under control.
As president of the United States, I want to assure you, I’ve got a pen. This one’s kind of old. I’ve got a pen, and I’m going to veto every single spending bill that comes across my desk. I will make them famous. You will know their names.
Now, Senator Obama, you wanted to know one of the differences. a million dollars for every day that he’s been in the United States Senate.
I suggest that people go up on the Web site of Citizens Against Government Waste, and they’ll look at those projects.
That kind of thing is not the way to rein in runaway spending in Washington, D.C. That’s one of the fundamental differences that Senator Obama and I have.
LEHRER: Senator Obama, two minutes.
OBAMA: Well, Senator McCain is absolutely right that the earmarks process has been abused, which is why I suspended any requests for my home state, whether it was for senior centers or what have you, until we cleaned it up.
And he’s also right that oftentimes lobbyists and special interests are the ones that are introducing these kinds of requests, although that wasn’t the case with me.
But let’s be clear: Earmarks account for $18 billion in last year’s budget. Senator McCain is proposing — and this is a fundamental difference between us — $300 billion in tax cuts to some of the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country, $300 billion.
Now, $18 billion is important; $300 billion is really important.
And in his tax plan, you would have CEOs of Fortune 500 companies getting an average of $700,000 in reduced taxes, while leaving 100 million Americans out.
So my attitude is, we’ve got to grow the economy from the bottom up. What I’ve called for is a tax cut for 95 percent of working families, 95 percent.
And that means that the ordinary American out there who’s collecting a paycheck every day, they’ve got a little extra money to be able to buy a computer for their kid, to fill up on this gas that is killing them.
And over time, that, I think, is going to be a better recipe for economic growth than the — the policies of President Bush that John McCain wants to — wants to follow.
LEHRER: Senator McCain?
MCCAIN: Well, again, I don’t mean to go back and forth, but he…
LEHRER: No, that’s fine.
MCCAIN: Senator Obama suspended those requests for pork-barrel projects after he was running for president of the United States. He didn’t happen to see that light during the first three years as a member of the United States Senate, $932 million in requests.
Maybe to Senator Obama it’s not a lot of money. But the point is that — you see, I hear this all the time. “It’s only $18 billion.” Do you know that it’s tripled in the last five years? Do you know that it’s gone completely out of control to the point where it corrupts people? It corrupts people.
That’s why we have, as I said, people under federal indictment and charges. It’s a system that’s got to be cleaned up.
I have fought against it my career. I have fought against it. I was called the sheriff, by the — one of the senior members of the Appropriations Committee. I didn’t win Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate.
Now, Senator Obama didn’t mention that, along with his tax cuts, he is also proposing some $800 billion in new spending on new programs.
Now, that’s a fundamental difference between myself and Senator Obama. I want to cut spending. I want to keep taxes low. The worst thing we could do in this economic climate is to raise people’s taxes.
OBAMA: I — I don’t know where John is getting his figures. Let’s just be clear.
What I do is I close corporate loopholes, stop providing tax cuts to corporations that are shipping jobs overseas so that we’re giving tax breaks to companies that are investing here in the United States. I make sure that we have a health care system that allows for everyone to have basic coverage.
I think those are pretty important priorities. And I pay for every dime of it.
But let’s go back to the original point. John, nobody is denying that $18 billion is important. And, absolutely, we need earmark reform. And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.
But the fact is that eliminating earmarks alone is not a recipe for how we’re going to get the middle class back on track.
OBAMA: And when you look at your tax policies that are directed primarily at those who are doing well, and you are neglecting people who are really struggling right now, I think that is a continuation of the last eight years, and we can’t afford another four.
LEHRER: Respond directly to him about that, to Senator Obama about that, about the — he’s made it twice now, about your tax — your policies about tax cuts.
MCCAIN: Well — well, let me give you an example of what Senator Obama finds objectionable, the business tax.
Right now, the United States of American business pays the second-highest business taxes in the world, 35 percent. Ireland pays 11 percent.
Now, if you’re a business person, and you can locate any place in the world, then, obviously, if you go to the country where it’s 11 percent tax versus 35 percent, you’re going to be able to create jobs, increase your business, make more investment, et cetera.
I want to cut that business tax. I want to cut it so that businesses will remain in — in the United States of America and create jobs.
But, again, I want to return. It’s a lot more than $18 billion in pork-barrel spending. I can tell you, it’s rife. It’s throughout.
The United States Senate will take up a continuing resolution tomorrow or the next day, sometime next week, with 2,000 — 2,000 — look at them, my friends. Look at them. You’ll be appalled.
And Senator Obama is a recent convert, after requesting $932 million worth of pork-barrel spending projects.
So the point is, I want people to have tax cuts. I want every family to have a $5,000 refundable tax credit so they can go out and purchase their own health care. I want to double the dividend from $3,500 to $7,000 for every dependent child in America.
I know that the worst thing we could possibly do is to raise taxes on anybody, and a lot of people might be interested in Senator Obama’s definition of “rich.”
LEHRER: Senator Obama, you have a question for Senator McCain on that?
OBAMA: Well, let me just make a couple of points.
LEHRER: All right.
OBAMA: My definition — here’s what I can tell the American people: 95 percent of you will get a tax cut. And if you make less than $250,000, less than a quarter-million dollars a year, then you will not see one dime’s worth of tax increase.
Now, John mentioned the fact that business taxes on paper are high in this country, and he’s absolutely right. Here’s the problem: There are so many loopholes that have been written into the tax code, oftentimes with support of Senator McCain, that we actually see our businesses pay effectively one of the lowest tax rates in the world.
And what that means, then, is that there are people out there who are working every day, who are not getting a tax cut, and you want to give them more.
It’s not like you want to close the loopholes. You just want to add an additional tax cut over the loopholes. And that’s a problem.
Just one last point I want to make, since Senator McCain talked about providing a $5,000 health credit. Now, what he doesn’t tell you is that he intends to, for the first time in history, tax health benefits.
So you may end up getting a $5,000 tax credit. Here’s the only problem: Your employer now has to pay taxes on the health care that you’re getting from your employer. And if you end up losing your health care from your employer, you’ve got to go out on the open market and try to buy it.
It is not a good deal for the American people. But it’s an example of this notion that the market can always solve everything and that the less regulation we have, the better off we’re going to be.
MCCAIN: Well, you know, let me just…
LEHRER: We’ve got to go to another lead question.
MCCAIN: I know we have to, but this is a classic example of walking the walk and talking the talk.
We had an energy bill before the United States Senate. It was festooned with Christmas tree ornaments. It had all kinds of breaks for the oil companies, I mean, billions of dollars worth. I voted against it; Senator Obama voted for it.
OBAMA: John, you want to give oil companies another $4 billion.
MCCAIN: You’ve got to look at our record. You’ve got to look at our records. That’s the important thing.
Who fought against wasteful and earmark spending? Who has been the person who has tried to keep spending under control?
Who’s the person who has believed that the best thing for America is — is to have a tax system that is fundamentally fair? And I’ve fought to simplify it, and I have proposals to simplify it.
Let’s give every American a choice: two tax brackets, generous dividends, and, two — and let Americans choose whether they want the — the existing tax code or they want a new tax code.
And so, again, look at the record, particularly the energy bill. But, again, Senator Obama has shifted on a number of occasions. He has voted in the United States Senate to increase taxes on people who make as low as $42,000 a year.
OBAMA: That’s not true, John. That’s not true.
MCCAIN: And that’s just a fact. Again, you can look it up.
OBAMA: Look, it’s just not true. And if we want to talk about oil company profits, under your tax plan, John — this is undeniable — oil companies would get an additional $4 billion in tax breaks.
Now, look, we all would love to lower taxes on everybody. But here’s the problem: If we are giving them to oil companies, then that means that there are those who are not going to be getting them. And…
MCCAIN: With all due respect, you already gave them to the oil companies.
OBAMA: No, but, John, the fact of the matter is, is that I was opposed to those tax breaks, tried to strip them out. We’ve got an emergency bill on the Senate floor right now that contains some good stuff, some stuff you want, including drilling off-shore, but you’re opposed to it because it would strip away those tax breaks that have gone to oil companies.
LEHRER: All right. All right, speaking of things that both of you want, another lead question, and it has to do with the rescue — the financial rescue thing that we started — started asking about.
And what — and the first answer is to you, Senator Obama. As president, as a result of whatever financial rescue plan comes about and the billion, $700 billion, whatever it is it’s going to cost, what are you going to have to give up, in terms of the priorities that you would bring as president of the United States, as a result of having to pay for the financial rescue plan?
OBAMA: Well, there are a range of things that are probably going to have to be delayed. We don’t yet know what our tax revenues are going to be. The economy is slowing down, so it’s hard to anticipate right now what the budget is going to look like next year.
But there’s no doubt that we’re not going to be able to do everything that I think needs to be done. There are some things that I think have to be done.
We have to have energy independence, so I’ve put forward a plan to make sure that, in 10 years’ time, we have freed ourselves from dependence on Middle Eastern oil by increasing production at home, but most importantly by starting to invest in alternative energy, solar, wind, biodiesel, making sure that we’re developing the fuel-efficient cars of the future right here in the United States, in Ohio and Michigan, instead of Japan and South Korea.
We have to fix our health care system, which is putting an enormous burden on families. Just — a report just came out that the average deductible went up 30 percent on American families.
They are getting crushed, and many of them are going bankrupt as a consequence of health care. I’m meeting folks all over the country. We have to do that now, because it will actually make our businesses and our families better off.
The third thing we have to do is we’ve got to make sure that we’re competing in education. We’ve got to invest in science and technology. China had a space launch and a space walk. We’ve got to make sure that our children are keeping pace in math and in science.
And one of the things I think we have to do is make sure that college is affordable for every young person in America.
And I also think that we’re going to have to rebuild our infrastructure, which is falling behind, our roads, our bridges, but also broadband lines that reach into rural communities.
Also, making sure that we have a new electricity grid to get the alternative energy to population centers that are using them.
So there are some — some things that we’ve got to do structurally to make sure that we can compete in this global economy. We can’t shortchange those things. We’ve got to eliminate programs that don’t work, and we’ve got to make sure that the programs that we do have are more efficient and cost less.
LEHRER: Are you — what priorities would you adjust, as president, Senator McCain, because of the — because of the financial bailout cost?
MCCAIN: Look, we, no matter what, we’ve got to cut spending. We have — as I said, we’ve let government get completely out of control.
Senator Obama has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate. It’s hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left.
The point — the point is — the point is, we need to examine every agency of government.
First of all, by the way, I’d eliminate ethanol subsidies. I oppose ethanol subsidies.
I think that we have to return — particularly in defense spending, which is the largest part of our appropriations — we have to do away with cost-plus contracts. We now have defense systems that the costs are completely out of control.
We tried to build a little ship called the Littoral Combat Ship that was supposed to cost $140 million, ended up costing $400 million, and we still haven’t done it.
So we need to have fixed-cost contracts. We need very badly to understand that defense spending is very important and vital, particularly in the new challenges we face in the world, but we have to get a lot of the cost overruns under control.
I know how to do that.
MCCAIN: I saved the taxpayers $6.8 billion by fighting a contract that was negotiated between Boeing and DOD that was completely wrong. And we fixed it and we killed it and the people ended up in federal prison so I know how to do this because I’ve been involved these issues for many, many years. But I think that we have to examine every agency of government and find out those that are doing their job and keep them and find out those that aren’t and eliminate them and we’ll have to scrub every agency of government.
LEHRER: But if I hear the two of you correctly neither one of you is suggesting any major changes in what you want to do as president as a result of the financial bailout? Is that what you’re saying?
OBAMA: No. As I said before, Jim, there are going to be things that end up having to be …
LEHRER: Like what?
OBAMA: … deferred and delayed. Well, look, I want to make sure that we are investing in energy in order to free ourselves from the dependence on foreign oil. That is a big project. That is a multi-year project.
LEHRER: Not willing to give that up?
OBAMA: Not willing to give up the need to do it but there may be individual components that we can’t do. But John is right we have to make cuts. We right now give $15 billion every year as subsidies to private insurers under the Medicare system. Doesn’t work any better through the private insurers. They just skim off $15 billion. That was a give away and part of the reason is because lobbyists are able to shape how Medicare works.
They did it on the Medicaid prescription drug bill and we have to change the culture. Tom — or John mentioned me being wildly liberal. Mostly that’s just me opposing George Bush’s wrong headed policies since I’ve been in Congress but I think it is that it is also important to recognize I work with Tom Coburn, the most conservative, one of the most conservative Republicans who John already mentioned to set up what we call a Google for government saying we’ll list every dollar of federal spending to make sure that the taxpayer can take a look and see who, in fact, is promoting some of these spending projects that John’s been railing about.
LEHRER: What I’m trying to get at this is this. Excuse me if I may, senator. Trying to get at that you all — one of you is going to be the president of the United States come January. At the — in the middle of a huge financial crisis that is yet to be resolved. And what I’m trying to get at is how this is going to affect you not in very specific — small ways but in major ways and the approach to take as to the presidency.
MCCAIN: How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs.
LEHRER: Spending freeze?
MCCAIN: I think we ought to seriously consider with the exceptions the caring of veterans national defense and several other vital issues.
LEHRER: Would you go for that?
OBAMA: The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are under funded. I went to increase early childhood education and the notion that we should freeze that when there may be, for example, this Medicare subsidy doesn’t make sense.
Let me tell you another place to look for some savings. We are currently spending $10 billion a month in Iraq when they have a $79 billion surplus. It seems to me that if we’re going to be strong at home as well as strong abroad, that we have to look at bringing that war to a close.
MCCAIN: Look, we are sending $700 billion a year overseas to countries that don’t like us very much. Some of that money ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations. We have to have wind, tide, solar, natural gas, flex fuel cars and all that but we also have to have offshore drilling and we also have to have nuclear power.
Senator Obama opposes both storing and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. You can’t get there from here and the fact is that we can create 700,000 jobs by building constructing 45 new nuclear power plants by the year 2030. Nuclear power is not only important as far as eliminating our dependence on foreign oil but it’s also responsibility as far as climate change is concerned and the issue I have been involved in for many, many years and I’m proud of the work of the work that I’ve done there along with President Clinton.
LEHRER: Before we go to another lead question. Let me figure out a way to ask the same question in a slightly different way here. Are you — are you willing to acknowledge both of you that this financial crisis is going to affect the way you rule the country as president of the United States beyond the kinds of things that you have already — I mean, is it a major move? Is it going to have a major affect?
OBAMA: There’s no doubt it will affect our budgets. There is no doubt about it. Not only — Even if we get all $700 billion back, let’s assume the markets recover, we’ holding assets long enough that eventually taxpayers get it back and that happened during the Great Depression when Roosevelt purchased a whole bunch of homes, over time, home values went back up and in fact government made a profit. If we’re lucky and do it right, that could potentially happen but in the short term there’s an outlay and we may not see that money for a while.
And because of the economy’s slowing down, I think we can also expect less tax revenue so there’s no doubt that as president I’m go doing have to make some tough decision.
The only point I want to make is this, that in order to make the tough decisions we have to know what our values are and who we’re fighting for and our priorities and if we are spending $300 billion on tax cuts for people who don’t need them and weren’t even asking for them, and we are leaving out health care which is crushing on people all across the country, then I think we have made a bad decision and I want to make sure we’re not shortchanging our long term priorities.
MCCAIN: Well, I want to make sure we’re not handing the health care system over to the federal government which is basically what would ultimately happen with Senator Obama’s health care plan. I want the families to make decisions between themselves and their doctors. Not the federal government. Look. We have to obviously cut spending. I have fought to cut spending. Senator Obama has $800 billion in new spending programs. I would suggest he start by canceling some of those new spending program that he has.
We can’t I think adjust spending around to take care of the very much needed programs, including taking care of our veterans but I also want to say again a healthy economy with low taxes would not raising anyone’s taxes is probably the best recipe for eventually having our economy recover.
And spending restraint has got to be a vital part of that. And the reason, one of the major reasons why we’re in the difficulties we are in today is because spending got out of control. We owe China $500 billion. And spending, I know, can be brought under control because I have fought against excessive spending my entire career. And I got plans to reduce and eliminate unnecessary and wasteful spending and if there’s anybody here who thinks there aren’t agencies of government where spending can be cut and their budgets slashed they have not spent a lot of time in Washington.
OBAMA: I just want to make this point, Jim. John, it’s been your president who you said you agreed with 90 percent of the time who presided over this increase in spending. This orgy of spending and enormous deficits you voted for almost all of his budgets. So to stand here and after eight years and say that you’re going to lead on controlling spending and, you know, balancing our tax cuts so that they help middle class families when over the last eight years that hasn’t happened I think just is, you know, kind of hard to swallow.
LEHRER: Quick response to Senator Obama.
MCCAIN: It’s well-known that I have not been elected Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate nor with the administration. I have opposed the president on spending, on climate change, on torture of prisoner, on – on Guantanamo Bay. On a — on the way that the Iraq War was conducted. I have a long record and the American people know me very well and that is independent and a maverick of the Senate and I’m happy to say that I’ve got a partner that’s a good maverick along with me now.
LEHRER: All right. Let’s go another subject. Lead question, two minutes to you, senator McCain. Much has been said about the lessons of Vietnam. What do you see as the lessons of Iraq?
MCCAIN: I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict. Our initial military success, we went in to Baghdad and everybody celebrated. And then the war was very badly mishandled. I went to Iraq in 2003 and came back and said, we’ve got to change this strategy. This strategy requires additional troops, it requires a fundamental change in strategy and I fought for it. And finally, we came up with a great general and a strategy that has succeeded.
This strategy has succeeded. And we are winning in Iraq. And we will come home with victory and with honor. And that withdrawal is the result of every counterinsurgency that succeeds.
MCCAIN: And I want to tell you that now that we will succeed and our troops will come home, and not in defeat, that we will see a stable ally in the region and a fledgling democracy.
The consequences of defeat would have been increased Iranian influence. It would have been increase in sectarian violence. It would have been a wider war, which the United States of America might have had to come back.
So there was a lot at stake there. And thanks to this great general, David Petraeus, and the troops who serve under him, they have succeeded. And we are winning in Iraq, and we will come home. And we will come home as we have when we have won other wars and not in defeat.
LEHRER: Two minutes, how you see the lessons of Iraq, Senator Obama?
OBAMA: Well, this is an area where Senator McCain and I have a fundamental difference because I think the first question is whether we should have gone into the war in the first place.
Now six years ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically risky to do so because I said that not only did we not know how much it was going to cost, what our exit strategy might be, how it would affect our relationships around the world, and whether our intelligence was sound, but also because we hadn’t finished the job in Afghanistan.
We hadn’t caught bin Laden. We hadn’t put al Qaeda to rest, and as a consequence, I thought that it was going to be a distraction. Now Senator McCain and President Bush had a very different judgment.
And I wish I had been wrong for the sake of the country and they had been right, but that’s not the case. We’ve spent over $600 billion so far, soon to be $1 trillion. We have lost over 4,000 lives. We have seen 30,000 wounded, and most importantly, from a strategic national security perspective, al Qaeda is resurgent, stronger now than at any time since 2001.
We took our eye off the ball. And not to mention that we are still spending $10 billion a month, when they have a $79 billion surplus, at a time when we are in great distress here at home, and we just talked about the fact that our budget is way overstretched and we are borrowing money from overseas to try to finance just some of the basic functions of our government.
So I think the lesson to be drawn is that we should never hesitate to use military force, and I will not, as president, in order to keep the American people safe. But we have to use our military wisely. And we did not use our military wisely in Iraq.
LEHRER: Do you agree with that, the lesson of Iraq?
MCCAIN: The next president of the United States is not going to have to address the issue as to whether we went into Iraq or not. The next president of the United States is going to have to decide how we leave, when we leave, and what we leave behind. That’s the decision of the next president of the United States.
Senator Obama said the surge could not work, said it would increase sectarian violence, said it was doomed to failure. Recently on a television program, he said it exceed our wildest expectations.
But yet, after conceding that, he still says that he would oppose the surge if he had to decide that again today. Incredibly, incredibly Senator Obama didn’t go to Iraq for 900 days and never
LEHRER: Well, let’s go at some of these things…
MCCAIN: Senator Obama is the chairperson of a committee that oversights NATO that’s in Afghanistan. To this day, he has never had a hearing.
LEHRER: What about that point?
MCCAIN: I mean, it’s remarkable.
LEHRER: All right. What about that point?
OBAMA: Which point? He raised a whole bunch of them.
LEHRER: I know, OK, let’s go to the latter point and we’ll back up. The point about your not having been…
OBAMA: Look, I’m very proud of my vice presidential selection, Joe Biden, who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and as he explains, and as John well knows, the issues of Afghanistan, the issues of Iraq, critical issues like that, don’t go through my subcommittee because they’re done as a committee as a whole.
But that’s Senate inside baseball. But let’s get back to the core issue here. Senator McCain is absolutely right that the violence has been reduced as a consequence of the extraordinary sacrifice of our troops and our military families.
They have done a brilliant job, and General Petraeus has done a brilliant job. But understand, that was a tactic designed to contain the damage of the previous four years of mismanagement of this war.
And so John likes — John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003, and at the time when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong.
You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong. You said that there was no history of violence between Shiite and Sunni. And you were wrong. And so my question is…
LEHRER: Senator Obama…
OBAMA: … of judgment, of whether or not — of whether or not — if the question is who is best-equipped as the next president to make good decisions about how we use our military, how we make sure that we are prepared and ready for the next conflict, then I think we can take a look at our judgment.
LEHRER: I have got a lot on the plate here…
MCCAIN: I’m afraid Senator Obama doesn’t understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy. But the important — I’d like to tell you, two Fourths of July ago I was in Baghdad. General Petraeus invited Senator Lindsey Graham and me to attend a ceremony where 688 brave young Americans, whose enlistment had expired, were reenlisting to stay and fight for Iraqi freedom and American freedom.
I was honored to be there. I was honored to speak to those troops. And you know, afterwards, we spent a lot of time with them. And you know what they said to us? They said, let us win. They said, let us win. We don’t want our kids coming back here.
And this strategy, and this general, they are winning. Senator Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are winning in Iraq.
OBAMA: That’s not true.
MCCAIN: They just passed an electoral…
OBAMA: That’s not true.
MCCAIN: An election law just in the last few days. There is social, economic progress, and a strategy, a strategy of going into an area, clearing and holding, and the people of the country then become allied with you. They inform on the bad guys. And peace comes to the country, and prosperity.
That’s what’s happening in Iraq, and it wasn’t a tactic.
LEHRER: Let me see…
OBAMA: Jim, Jim, this is a big…
MCCAIN: It was a stratagem. And that same strategy will be employed in Afghanistan by this great general. And Senator Obama, who after promising not to vote to cut off funds for the troops, did the incredible thing of voting to cut off the funds for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
OBAMA: Jim, there are a whole bunch of things we have got to answer. First of all, let’s talk about this troop funding issue because John always brings this up. Senator McCain cut — Senator McCain opposed funding for troops in legislation that had a timetable, because he didn’t believe in a timetable.
I opposed funding a mission that had no timetable, and was open- ended, giving a blank check to George Bush. We had a difference on the timetable. We didn’t have a difference on whether or not we were going to be funding troops.
We had a legitimate difference, and I absolutely understand the difference between tactics and strategy. And the strategic question that the president has to ask is not whether or not we are employing a particular approach in the country once we have made the decision to be there.
The question is, was this wise? We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there. Senator McCain, in the rush to go into Iraq, said, you know what? We’ve been successful in Afghanistan. There is nobody who can pose a threat to us there.
This is a time when bin Laden was still out, and now they’ve reconstituted themselves. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates himself acknowledges the war on terrorism started in Afghanistan and it needs to end there.
But we can’t do it if we are not willing to give Iraq back its country. Now, what I’ve said is we should end this war responsibly. We should do it in phases. But in 16 months we should be able to reduce our combat troops, put — provide some relief to military families and our troops and bolster our efforts in Afghanistan so that we can capture and kill bin Laden and crush al Qaeda.
And right now, the commanders in Afghanistan, as well as Admiral Mullen, have acknowledged that we don’t have enough troops to deal with Afghanistan because we still have more troops in Iraq than we did before the surge.
MCCAIN: Admiral Mullen suggests that Senator Obama’s plan is dangerous for America.
OBAMA: That’s not the case.
MCCAIN: That’s what …
OBAMA: What he said was a precipitous…
MCCAIN: That’s what Admiral Mullen said.
OBAMA: … withdrawal would be dangerous. He did not say that. That’s not true.
MCCAIN: And also General Petraeus said the same thing. Osama bin Laden and General Petraeus have one thing in common that I know of, they both said that Iraq is the central battleground.
Now General Petraeus has praised the successes, but he said those successes are fragile and if we set a specific date for withdrawal — and by the way, Senator Obama’s original plan, they would have been out last spring before the surge ever had a chance to succeed.
And I’m — I’m — understand why Senator Obama was surprised and said that the surge succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.
MCCAIN: It didn’t exceed beyond mine, because I know that that’s a strategy that has worked and can succeed. But if we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and adopt Senator Obama’s plan, then we will have a wider war and it will make things more complicated throughout the region, including in Afghanistan.
LEHRER: Afghanistan, lead — a new — a new lead question. Now, having resolved Iraq, we’ll move to Afghanistan.
And it goes to you, Senator Obama, and it’s a — it picks up on a point that’s already been made. Do you think more troops — more U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan, how many, and when?
OBAMA: Yes, I think we need more troops. I’ve been saying that for over a year now.
And I think that we have to do it as quickly as possible, because it’s been acknowledged by the commanders on the ground the situation is getting worse, not better.
We had the highest fatalities among U.S. troops this past year than at any time since 2002. And we are seeing a major offensive taking place — al Qaeda and Taliban crossing the border and attacking our troops in a brazen fashion. They are feeling emboldened.
And we cannot separate Afghanistan from Iraq, because what our commanders have said is we don’t have the troops right now to deal with Afghanistan.
So I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan. Now, keep in mind that we have four times the number of troops in Iraq, where nobody had anything to do with 9/11 before we went in, where, in fact, there was no al Qaeda before we went in, but we have four times more troops there than we do in Afghanistan.
And that is a strategic mistake, because every intelligence agency will acknowledge that al Qaeda is the greatest threat against the United States and that Secretary of Defense Gates acknowledged the central front — that the place where we have to deal with these folks is going to be in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
So here’s what we have to do comprehensively, though. It’s not just more troops.
We have to press the Afghan government to make certain that they are actually working for their people. And I’ve said this to President Karzai.
No. 2, we’ve got to deal with a growing poppy trade that has exploded over the last several years.
No. 3, we’ve got to deal with Pakistan, because al Qaeda and the Taliban have safe havens in Pakistan, across the border in the northwest regions, and although, you know, under George Bush, with the support of Senator McCain, we’ve been giving them $10 billion over the last seven years, they have not done what needs to be done to get rid of those safe havens.
And until we do, Americans here at home are not going to be safe.
LEHRER: Afghanistan, Senator McCain?
MCCAIN: First of all, I won’t repeat the mistake that I regret enormously, and that is, after we were able to help the Afghan freedom fighters and drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, we basically washed our hands of the region.
And the result over time was the Taliban, al Qaeda, and a lot of the difficulties we are facing today. So we can’t ignore those lessons of history.
Now, on this issue of aiding Pakistan, if you’re going to aim a gun at somebody, George Shultz, our great secretary of state, told me once, you’d better be prepared to pull the trigger.
I’m not prepared at this time to cut off aid to Pakistan. So I’m not prepared to threaten it, as Senator Obama apparently wants to do, as he has said that he would announce military strikes into Pakistan.
We’ve got to get the support of the people of — of Pakistan. He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan.
Now, you don’t do that. You don’t say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.
Now, the new president of Pakistan, Kardari (sic), has got his hands full. And this area on the border has not been governed since the days of Alexander the Great.
I’ve been to Waziristan. I can see how tough that terrain is. It’s ruled by a handful of tribes.
And, yes, Senator Obama calls for more troops, but what he doesn’t understand, it’s got to be a new strategy, the same strategy that he condemned in Iraq. It’s going to have to be employed in Afghanistan.
And we’re going to have to help the Pakistanis go into these areas and obtain the allegiance of the people. And it’s going to be tough. They’ve intermarried with al Qaeda and the Taliban. And it’s going to be tough. But we have to get the cooperation of the people in those areas.
And the Pakistanis are going to have to understand that that bombing in the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was a signal from the terrorists that they don’t want that government to cooperate with us in combating the Taliban and jihadist elements.
So we’ve got a lot of work to do in Afghanistan. But I’m confident, now that General Petraeus is in the new position of command, that we will employ a strategy which not only means additional troops — and, by the way, there have been 20,000 additional troops, from 32,000 to 53,000, and there needs to be more.
So it’s not just the addition of troops that matters. It’s a strategy that will succeed. And Pakistan is a very important element in this. And I know how to work with him. And I guarantee you I would not publicly state that I’m going to attack them.
OBAMA: Nobody talked about attacking Pakistan. Here’s what I said.
And if John wants to disagree with this, he can let me know, that, if the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out.
Now, I think that’s the right strategy; I think that’s the right policy.
And, John, I — you’re absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say. But, you know, coming from you, who, you know, in the past has threatened extinction for North Korea and, you know, sung songs about bombing Iran, I don’t know, you know, how credible that is. I think this is the right strategy.
Now, Senator McCain is also right that it’s difficult. This is not an easy situation. You’ve got cross-border attacks against U.S. troops.
And we’ve got a choice. We could allow our troops to just be on the defensive and absorb those blows again and again and again, if Pakistan is unwilling to cooperate, or we have to start making some decisions.
And the problem, John, with the strategy that’s been pursued was that, for 10 years, we coddled Musharraf, we alienated the Pakistani population, because we were anti-democratic. We had a 20th-century mindset that basically said, “Well, you know, he may be a dictator, but he’s our dictator.”
And as a consequence, we lost legitimacy in Pakistan. We spent $10 billion. And in the meantime, they weren’t going after al Qaeda, and they are more powerful now than at any time since we began the war in Afghanistan.
That’s going to change when I’m president of the United States.
MCCAIN: I — I don’t think that Senator Obama understands that there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power. Everybody who was around then, and had been there, and knew about it knew that it was a failed state.
But let me tell you, you know, this business about bombing Iran and all that, let me tell you my record.
Back in 1983, when I was a brand-new United States congressman, the one — the person I admired the most and still admire the most, Ronald Reagan, wanted to send Marines into Lebanon.
And I saw that, and I saw the situation, and I stood up, and I voted against that, because I was afraid that they couldn’t make peace in a place where 300 or 400 or several hundred Marines would make a difference. Tragically, I was right: Nearly 300 Marines lost their lives in the bombing of the barracks.
And then we had Somalia — then we had the first Gulf War. I supported — I supported that.
I supported us going into Bosnia, when a number of my own party and colleagues was against that operation in Bosnia. That was the right thing to do, to stop genocide and to preserve what was necessary inside of Europe.
I supported what we did in Kosovo. I supported it because ethnic cleansing and genocide was taking place there.
And I have a record — and Somalia, I opposed that we should turn — turn the force in Somalia from a peacekeeping force into a peacemaking force, which they were not capable of.
So I have a record. I have a record of being involved in these national security issues, which involve the highest responsibility and the toughest decisions that any president can make, and that is to send our young men and women into harm’s way.
And I’ll tell you, I had a town hall meeting in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, and a woman stood up and she said, “Senator McCain, I want you to do me the honor of wearing a bracelet with my son’s name on it.”
He was 22 years old and he was killed in combat outside of Baghdad, Matthew Stanley, before Christmas last year. This was last August, a year ago. And I said, “I will — I will wear his bracelet with honor.”
And this was August, a year ago. And then she said, “But, Senator McCain, I want you to do everything — promise me one thing, that you’ll do everything in your power to make sure that my son’s death was not in vain.”
That means that that mission succeeds, just like those young people who re-enlisted in Baghdad, just like the mother I met at the airport the other day whose son was killed. And they all say to me that we don’t want defeat.
MCCAIN: A war that I was in, where we had an Army, that it wasn’t through any fault of their own, but they were defeated. And I know how hard it is for that — for an Army and a military to recover from that. And it did and we will win this one and we won’t come home in defeat and dishonor and probably have to go back if we fail.
OBAMA: Jim, let me just make a point. I’ve got a bracelet, too, from Sergeant – from the mother of Sergeant Ryan David Jopeck, sure another mother is not going through what I’m going through.
No U.S. soldier ever dies in vain because they’re carrying out the missions of their commander in chief. And we honor all the service that they’ve provided. Our troops have performed brilliantly. The question is for the next president, are we making good judgments about how to keep America safe precisely because sending our military into battle is such an enormous step.
And the point that I originally made is that we took our eye off Afghanistan, we took our eye off the folks who perpetrated 9/11, they are still sending out videotapes and Senator McCain, nobody is talking about defeat in Iraq, but I have to say we are having enormous problems in Afghanistan because of that decision.
And it is not true you have consistently been concerned about what happened in Afghanistan. At one point, while you were focused on Iraq, you said well, we can “muddle through” Afghanistan. You don’t muddle through the central front on terror and you don’t muddle through going after bin Laden. You don’t muddle through stamping out the Taliban.
I think that is something we have to take seriously. And when I’m president, I will.
LEHRER: New …
MCCAIN: You might think that with that kind of concern that Senator Obama would have gone to Afghanistan, particularly given his responsibilities as a subcommittee chairman. By the way, when I’m subcommittee chairman, we take up the issues under my subcommittee. But the important thing is — the important thing is I visited Afghanistan and I traveled to Waziristan and I traveled to these places and I know what our security requirements are. I know what our needs are. So the point is that we will prevail in Afghanistan, but we need the new strategy and we need it to succeed.
But the important thing is, if we suffer defeat in Iraq, which General Petraeus predicts we will, if we adopted Senator Obama’s set date for withdrawal, then that will have a calamitous effect in Afghanistan and American national security interests in the region. Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand there is a connected between the two.
LEHRER: I have some good news and bad news for the two of you. You all are even on time, which is remarkable, considering we’ve been going at it …
OBAMA: A testimony to you, Jim.
LEHRER: I don’t know about that. But the bad news is all my little five minute things have run over, so, anyhow, we’ll adjust as we get there. But the amount of time is even.
New lead question. And it goes two minutes to you, Senator McCain, what is your reading on the threat to Iran right now to the security of the United States?
MCCAIN: My reading of the threat from Iran is that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it is an existential threat to the State of Israel and to other countries in the region because the other countries in the region will feel compelling requirement to acquire nuclear weapons as well.
Now we cannot a second Holocaust. Let’s just make that very clear. What I have proposed for a long time, and I’ve had conversation with foreign leaders about forming a league of democracies, let’s be clear and let’s have some straight talk. The Russians are preventing significant action in the United Nations Security Council.
I have proposed a league of democracies, a group of people – a group of countries that share common interests, common values, common ideals, they also control a lot of the world’s economic power. We could impose significant meaningful, painful sanctions on the Iranians that I think could have a beneficial effect.
The Iranians have a lousy government, so therefore their economy is lousy, even though they have significant oil revenues. So I am convinced that together, we can, with the French, with the British, with the Germans and other countries, democracies around the world, we can affect Iranian behavior.
But have no doubt, but have no doubt that the Iranians continue on the path to the acquisition of a nuclear weapon as we speak tonight. And it is a threat not only in this region but around the world.
What I’d also like to point out the Iranians are putting the most lethal IEDs into Iraq which are killing young Americans, there are special groups in Iran coming into Iraq and are being trained in Iran. There is the Republican Guard in Iran, which Senator Kyl had an amendment in order to declare them a sponsor of terror. Senator Obama said that would be provocative.
So this is a serious threat. This is a serious threat to security in the world, and I believe we can act and we can act with our friends and allies and reduce that threat as quickly as possible, but have no doubt about the ultimate result of them acquiring nuclear weapons.
LEHRER: Two minutes on Iran, Senator Obama.
OBAMA: Well, let me just correct something very quickly. I believe the Republican Guard of Iran is a terrorist organization. I’ve consistently said so. What Senator McCain refers to is a measure in the Senate that would try to broaden the mandate inside of Iraq. To deal with Iran.
And ironically, the single thing that has strengthened Iran over the last several years has been the war in Iraq. Iraq was Iran’s mortal enemy. That was cleared away. And what we’ve seen over the last several years is Iran’s influence grow. They have funded Hezbollah, they have funded Hamas, they have gone from zero centrifuges to 4,000 centrifuges to develop a nuclear weapon.
So obviously, our policy over the last eight years has not worked. Senator McCain is absolutely right, we cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran. It would be a game changer. Not only would it threaten Israel, a country that is our stalwart ally, but it would also create an environment in which you could set off an arms race in this Middle East.
Now here’s what we need to do. We do need tougher sanctions. I do not agree with Senator McCain that we’re going to be able to execute the kind of sanctions we need without some cooperation with some countries like Russia and China that are, I think Senator McCain would agree, not democracies, but have extensive trade with Iran but potentially have an interest in making sure Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon.
But we are also going to have to, I believe, engage in tough direct diplomacy with Iran and this is a major difference I have with Senator McCain, this notion by not talking to people we are punishing them has not worked. It has not worked in Iran, it has not worked in North Korea. In each instance, our efforts of isolation have actually accelerated their efforts to get nuclear weapons. That will change when I’m president of the United States.
LEHRER: Senator, what about talking?
MCCAIN: Senator Obama twice said in debates he would sit down with Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Raul Castro without precondition. Without precondition. Here is Ahmadinenene [mispronunciation], Ahmadinejad, who is, Ahmadinejad, who is now in New York, talking about the extermination of the State of Israel, of wiping Israel off the map, and we’re going to sit down, without precondition, across the table, to legitimize and give a propaganda platform to a person that is espousing the extermination of the state of Israel, and therefore then giving them more credence in the world arena and therefore saying, they’ve probably been doing the right thing, because you will sit down across the table from them and that will legitimize their illegal behavior.
The point is that throughout history, whether it be Ronald Reagan, who wouldn’t sit down with Brezhnev, Andropov or Chernenko until Gorbachev was ready with glasnost and perestroika.
Or whether it be Nixon’s trip to China, which was preceded by Henry Kissinger, many times before he went. Look, I’ll sit down with anybody, but there’s got to be pre-conditions. Those pre-conditions would apply that we wouldn’t legitimize with a face to face meeting, a person like Ahmadinejad. Now, Senator Obama said, without preconditions.
OBAMA: So let’s talk about this. First of all, Ahmadinejad is not the most powerful person in Iran. So he may not be the right person to talk to. But I reserve the right, as president of the United States to meet with anybody at a time and place of my choosing if I think it’s going to keep America safe.
And I’m glad that Senator McCain brought up the history, the bipartisan history of us engaging in direct diplomacy.
Senator McCain mentioned Henry Kissinger, who’s one of his advisers, who, along with five recent secretaries of state, just said that we should meet with Iran — guess what — without precondition. This is one of your own advisers.
Now, understand what this means “without preconditions.” It doesn’t mean that you invite them over for tea one day. What it means is that we don’t do what we’ve been doing, which is to say, “Until you agree to do exactly what we say, we won’t have direct contacts with you.”
There’s a difference between preconditions and preparation. Of course we’ve got to do preparations, starting with low-level diplomatic talks, and it may not work, because Iran is a rogue regime.
But I will point out that I was called naive when I suggested that we need to look at exploring contacts with Iran. And you know what? President Bush recently sent a senior ambassador, Bill Burns, to participate in talks with the Europeans around the issue of nuclear weapons.
Again, it may not work, but if it doesn’t work, then we have strengthened our ability to form alliances to impose the tough sanctions that Senator McCain just mentioned.
And when we haven’t done it, as in North Korea — let me just take one more example — in North Korea, we cut off talks. They’re a member of the axis of evil. We can’t deal with them.
And you know what happened? They went — they quadrupled their nuclear capacity. They tested a nuke. They tested missiles. They pulled out of the nonproliferation agreement. And they sent nuclear secrets, potentially, to countries like Syria.
When we re-engaged — because, again, the Bush administration reversed course on this — then we have at least made some progress, although right now, because of the problems in North Korea, we are seeing it on shaky ground.
And — and I just — so I just have to make this general point that the Bush administration, some of Senator McCain’s own advisers all think this is important, and Senator McCain appears resistant.
He even said the other day that he would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain, because he — you know, he wasn’t sure whether they were aligned with us. I mean, Spain? Spain is a NATO ally.
MCCAIN: Of course.
OBAMA: If we can’t meet with our friends, I don’t know how we’re going to lead the world in terms of dealing with critical issues like terrorism.
MCCAIN: I’m not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I’m president of the United States. I don’t even have a seal yet.
Look, Dr. Kissinger did not say that he would approve of face-to- face meetings between the president of the United States and the president — and Ahmadinejad. He did not say that.
OBAMA: Of course not.
MCCAIN: He said that there could be secretary-level and lower level meetings. I’ve always encouraged them. The Iranians have met with Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad.
What Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a “stinking corpse,” and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments.
This is dangerous. It isn’t just naive; it’s dangerous. And so we just have a fundamental difference of opinion.
As far as North Korea is concerned, our secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went to North Korea. By the way, North Korea, most repressive and brutal regime probably on Earth. The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag.
We don’t know what the status of the dear leader’s health is today, but we know this, that the North Koreans have broken every agreement that they’ve entered into.
And we ought to go back to a little bit of Ronald Reagan’s “trust, but verify,” and certainly not sit down across the table from — without precondition, as Senator Obama said he did twice, I mean, it’s just dangerous.
OBAMA: Look, I mean, Senator McCain keeps on using this example that suddenly the president would just meet with somebody without doing any preparation, without having low-level talks. Nobody’s been talking about that, and Senator McCain knows it. This is a mischaracterization of my position.
When we talk about preconditions — and Henry Kissinger did say we should have contacts without preconditions — the idea is that we do not expect to solve every problem before we initiate talks.
And, you know, the Bush administration has come to recognize that it hasn’t worked, this notion that we are simply silent when it comes to our enemies. And the notion that we would sit with Ahmadinejad and not say anything while he’s spewing his nonsense and his vile comments is ridiculous. Nobody is even talking about that.
MCCAIN: So let me get this right. We sit down with Ahmadinejad, and he says, “We’re going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth,” and we say, “No, you’re not”? Oh, please.
OBAMA: No, let me tell…
MCCAIN: By the way, my friend, Dr. Kissinger, who’s been my friend for 35 years, would be interested to hear this conversation and Senator Obama’s depiction of his — of his positions on the issue. I’ve known him for 35 years.
OBAMA: We will take a look.
MCCAIN: And I guarantee you he would not — he would not say that presidential top level.
OBAMA: Nobody’s talking about that.
MCCAIN: Of course he encourages and other people encourage contacts, and negotiations, and all other things. We do that all the time.
LEHRER: We’re going to go to a new…
MCCAIN: And Senator Obama is parsing words when he says precondition means preparation.
OBAMA: I am not parsing words.
MCCAIN: He’s parsing words, my friends.
OBAMA: I’m using the same words that your advisers use.
Please, go ahead.
LEHRER: New lead question.
Russia, goes to you, two minutes, Senator Obama. How do you see the relationship with Russia? Do you see them as a competitor? Do you see them as an enemy? Do you see them as a potential partner?
OBAMA: Well, I think that, given what’s happened over the last several weeks and months, our entire Russian approach has to be evaluated, because a resurgent and very aggressive Russia is a threat to the peace and stability of the region.
Their actions in Georgia were unacceptable. They were unwarranted. And at this point, it is absolutely critical for the next president to make clear that we have to follow through on our six-party — or the six-point cease-fire. They have to remove themselves from South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
It is absolutely important that we have a unified alliance and that we explain to the Russians that you cannot be a 21st-century superpower, or power, and act like a 20th-century dictatorship.
And we also have to affirm all the fledgling democracies in that region, you know, the Estonians, the Lithuanians, the Latvians, the Poles, the Czechs, that we are, in fact, going to be supportive and in solidarity with them in their efforts. They are members of NATO.
And to countries like Georgia and the Ukraine, I think we have to insist that they are free to join NATO if they meet the requirements, and they should have a membership action plan immediately to start bringing them in.
Now, we also can’t return to a Cold War posture with respect to Russia. It’s important that we recognize there are going to be some areas of common interest. One is nuclear proliferation.
They have not only 15,000 nuclear warheads, but they’ve got enough to make another 40,000, and some of those loose nukes could fall into the hands of al Qaeda.
This is an area where I’ve led on in the Senate, working with a Republican ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Dick Lugar, to deal with the proliferation of loose nuclear weapons. That’s an area where we’re going to have to work with Russia.
But we have to have a president who is clear that you don’t deal with Russia based on staring into his eyes and seeing his soul. You deal with Russia based on, what are your — what are the national security interests of the United States of America?
And we have to recognize that the way they’ve been behaving lately demands a sharp response from the international community and our allies.
LEHRER: Two minutes on Russia, Senator McCain.
MCCAIN: Well, I was interested in Senator Obama’s reaction to the Russian aggression against Georgia. His first statement was, “Both sides ought to show restraint.”
Again, a little bit of naivete there. He doesn’t understand that Russia committed serious aggression against Georgia. And Russia has now become a nation fueled by petro-dollars that is basically a KGB apparatchik-run government.
I looked into Mr. Putin’s eyes, and I saw three letters, a “K,” a “G,” and a “B.” And their aggression in Georgia is not acceptable behavior.
I don’t believe we’re going to go back to the Cold War. I am sure that that will not happen. But I do believe that we need to bolster our friends and allies. And that wasn’t just about a problem between Georgia and Russia. It had everything to do with energy.
There’s a pipeline that runs from the Caspian through Georgia through Turkey. And, of course, we know that the Russians control other sources of energy into Europe, which they have used from time to time.
It’s not accidental that the presidents of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine flew to Georgia, flew to Tbilisi, where I have spent significant amount of time with a great young president, Misha Saakashvili.
MCCAIN: And they showed solidarity with them, but, also, they are very concerned about the Russian threats to regain their status of the old Russian to regain their status of the old Russian empire.
Now, I think the Russians ought to understand that we will support — we, the United States — will support the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine in the natural process, inclusion into NATO.
We also ought to make it very clear that the Russians are in violation of their cease-fire agreement. They have stationed additional troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
By the way, I went there once, and we went inside and drove in, and there was a huge poster. And this is — this is Georgian territory. And there was a huge poster of Vladimir Putin, and it said, “Vladimir Putin, our president.”
It was very clear, the Russian intentions towards Georgia. They were just waiting to seize the opportunity.
So, this is a very difficult situation. We want to work with the Russians. But we also have every right to expect the Russians to behave in a fashion and keeping with a — with a — with a country who respects international boundaries and the norms of international behavior.
And watch Ukraine. This whole thing has got a lot to do with Ukraine, Crimea, the base of the Russian fleet in Sevastopol. And the breakdown of the political process in Ukraine between Tymoshenko and Yushchenko is a very serious problem.
So watch Ukraine, and let’s make sure that we — that the Ukrainians understand that we are their friend and ally.
LEHRER: You see any — do you have a major difference with what he just said?
OBAMA: No, actually, I think Senator McCain and I agree for the most part on these issues. Obviously, I disagree with this notion that somehow we did not forcefully object to Russians going into Georgia.
I immediately said that this was illegal and objectionable. And, absolutely, I wanted a cessation of the violence, because it put an enormous strain on Georgia, and that’s why I was the first to say that we have to rebuild the Georgian economy and called for a billion dollars that has now gone in to help them rebuild.
Because part of Russia’s intentions here was to weaken the economy to the point where President Saakashvili was so weakened that he might be replaced by somebody that Putin favored more.
Two points I think are important to think about when it comes to Russia.
No. 1 is we have to have foresight and anticipate some of these problems. So back in April, I warned the administration that you had Russian peacekeepers in Georgian territory. That made no sense whatsoever.
And what we needed to do was replace them with international peacekeepers and a special envoy to resolve the crisis before it boiled over.
That wasn’t done. But had it been done, it’s possible we could have avoided the issue.
The second point I want to make is — is the issue of energy. Russia is in part resurgent and Putin is feeling powerful because of petro-dollars, as Senator McCain mentioned.
That means that we, as one of the biggest consumers of oil — 25 percent of the world’s oil — have to have an energy strategy not just to deal with Russia, but to deal with many of the rogue states we’ve talked about, Iran, Venezuela.
And that means, yes, increasing domestic production and off-shore drilling, but we only have 3 percent of the world’s oil supplies and we use 25 percent of the world’s oil. So we can’t simply drill our way out of the problem.
What we’re going to have to do is to approach it through alternative energy, like solar, and wind, and biodiesel, and, yes, nuclear energy, clean-coal technology. And, you know, I’ve got a plan for us to make a significant investment over the next 10 years to do that.
And I have to say, Senator McCain and I, I think agree on the importance of energy, but Senator McCain mentioned earlier the importance of looking at a record.
Over 26 years, Senator McCain voted 23 times against alternative energy, like solar, and wind, and biodiesel.
And so we — we — we’ve got to walk the walk and not just talk the talk when it comes to energy independence, because this is probably going to be just as vital for our economy and the pain that people are feeling at the pump — and, you know, winter’s coming and home heating oil — as it is our national security and the issue of climate change that’s so important.
LEHRER: We’ve got time for one more lead question segment. We’re way out of…
LEHRER: Quick response and then…
MCCAIN: No one from Arizona is against solar. And Senator Obama says he’s for nuclear, but he’s against reprocessing and he’s against storing. So…
OBAMA: That’s just not true, John. John, I’m sorry, but that’s not true.
MCCAIN: … it’s hard to get there from here. And off-shore drilling is also something that is very important and it is a bridge.
And we know that, if we drill off-shore and exploit a lot of these reserves, it will help, at temporarily, relieve our energy requirements. And it will have, I think, an important effect on the price of a barrel of oil.
OBAMA: I just have to respond very quickly, just to correct — just to correct the record.
MCCAIN: So I want to say that, with the Nunn-Lugar thing…
LEHRER: Excuse me, Senator.
OBAMA: John?
MCCAIN: … I supported Nunn-Lugar back in the early 1990s when a lot of my colleagues didn’t. That was the key legislation at the time and put us on the road to eliminating this issue of nuclear waste and the nuclear fuel that has to be taken care of.
OBAMA: I — I just have to correct the record here. I have never said that I object to nuclear waste. What I’ve said is that we have to store it safely.
And, Senator McCain, he says — he talks about Arizona.
LEHRER: All right.
OBAMA: I’ve got to make this point, Jim.
LEHRER: OK.
OBAMA: He objects…
MCCAIN: I have voted for alternate fuel all of my time…
OBAMA: He — he — he objects…
LEHRER: One at a time, please.
OBAMA: He objected…
LEHRER: One at a time.
MCCAIN: No one can be opposed to alternate energy.
OBAMA: All right, fair enough. Let’s move on. You’ve got one more energy — you’ve got one more question.
LEHRER: This is the last — last lead question. You have two minutes each. And the question is this, beginning with you, Senator McCain.
What do you think the likelihood is that there would be another 9/11-type attack on the continental United States?
MCCAIN: I think it’s much less than it was the day after 9/11. I think it — that we have a safer nation, but we are a long way from safe.
And I want to tell you that one of the things I’m most proud of, among others, because I have worked across the aisle. I have a long record on that, on a long series of reforms.
But after 9/11, Senator Joe Lieberman and I decided that we needed a commission, and that was a commission to investigate 9/11, and find out what happened, and fix it.
And we were — we were opposed by the administration, another area where I differed with this administration. And we were stymied until the families of 9/11 came, and they descended on Washington, and we got that legislation passed.
And there were a series of recommendations, as I recall, more than 40. And I’m happy to say that we’ve gotten written into law most of those reforms recommended by that commission. I’m proud of that work, again, bipartisan, reaching across the aisle, working together, Democrat and Republican alike.
So we have a long way to go in our intelligence services. We have to do a better job in human intelligence. And we’ve got to — to make sure that we have people who are trained interrogators so that we don’t ever torture a prisoner ever again.
We have to make sure that our technological and intelligence capabilities are better. We have to work more closely with our allies. I know our allies, and I can work much more closely with them.
But I can tell you that I think America is safer today than it was on 9/11. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a long way to go.
And I’d like to remind you, also, as a result of those recommendations, we’ve probably had the largest reorganization of government since we established the Defense Department. And I think that those men and women in those agencies are doing a great job.
But we still have a long way to go before we can declare America safe, and that means doing a better job along our borders, as well.
LEHRER: Two minutes, Senator Obama.
OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think that we are safer in some ways. Obviously, we’ve poured billions of dollars into airport security. We have done some work in terms of securing potential targets, but we still have a long way to go.
We’ve got to make sure that we’re hardening our chemical sites. We haven’t done enough in terms of transit; we haven’t done enough in terms of ports.
And the biggest threat that we face right now is not a nuclear missile coming over the skies. It’s in a suitcase.
This is why the issue of nuclear proliferation is so important. It is the — the biggest threat to the United States is a terrorist getting their hands on nuclear weapons.
And we — we are spending billions of dollars on missile defense. And I actually believe that we need missile defense, because of Iran and North Korea and the potential for them to obtain or to launch nuclear weapons, but I also believe that, when we are only spending a few hundred million dollars on nuclear proliferation, then we’re making a mistake.
The other thing that we have to focus on, though, is al Qaeda. They are now operating in 60 countries. We can’t simply be focused on Iraq. We have to go to the root cause, and that is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That’s going to be critical. We are going to need more cooperation with our allies.
And one last point I want to make. It is important for us to understand that the way we are perceived in the world is going to make a difference, in terms of our capacity to get cooperation and root out terrorism.
And one of the things that I intend to do as president is to restore America’s standing in the world. We are less respected now than we were eight years ago or even four years ago.
OBAMA: And this is the greatest country on Earth. But because of some of the mistakes that have been made — and I give Senator McCain great credit on the torture issue, for having identified that as something that undermines our long-term security — because of those things, we, I think, are going to have a lot of work to do in the next administration to restore that sense that America is that shining beacon on a hill.
LEHRER: Do you agree there’s much to be done in a new administration to restore…
MCCAIN: But in the case of missile defense, Senator Obama said it had to be, quote, “proven.” That wasn’t proven when Ronald Reagan said we would do SDI, which is missile defense. And it was major — a major factor in bringing about the end of the Cold War.
We seem to come full circle again. Senator Obama still doesn’t quite understand — or doesn’t get it — that if we fail in Iraq, it encourages al Qaeda. They would establish a base in Iraq.
The consequences of defeat, which would result from his plan of withdrawal and according to date certain, regardless of conditions, according to our military leaders, according to every expert, would lead to defeat — possible defeat, loss of all the fragile sacrifice that we’ve made of American blood and treasure, which grieves us all.
All of that would be lost if we followed Senator Obama’s plan to have specific dates with withdrawal, regardless of conditions on the ground.
And General Petraeus says we have had great success, but it’s very fragile. And we can’t do what Senator Obama wants to do.
That is the central issue of our time. And I think Americans will judge very seriously as to whether that’s the right path or the wrong path and who should be the next president of the United States.
LEHRER: You see the same connections that Senator McCain does?
OBAMA: Oh, there’s no doubt. Look, over the last eight years, this administration, along with Senator McCain, have been solely focused on Iraq. That has been their priority. That has been where all our resources have gone.
In the meantime, bin Laden is still out there. He is not captured. He is not killed. Al Qaeda is resurgent.
In the meantime, we’ve got challenges, for example, with China, where we are borrowing billions of dollars. They now hold a trillion dollars’ worth of our debt. And they are active in countries like — in regions like Latin America, and Asia, and Africa. They are — the conspicuousness of their presence is only matched by our absence, because we’ve been focused on Iraq.
We have weakened our capacity to project power around the world because we have viewed everything through this single lens, not to mention, look at our economy. We are now spending $10 billion or more every month.
And that means we can’t provide health care to people who need it. We can’t invest in science and technology, which will determine whether or not we are going to be competitive in the long term.
There has never been a country on Earth that saw its economy decline and yet maintained its military superiority. So this is a national security issue.
We haven’t adequately funded veterans’ care. I sit on the Veterans Affairs Committee, and we’ve got — I meet veterans all across the country who are trying to figure out, “How can I get disability payments? I’ve got post-traumatic stress disorder, and yet I can’t get treatment.”
So we have put all chips in, right there, and nobody is talking about losing this war. What we are talking about is recognizing that the next president has to have a broader strategic vision about all the challenges that we face.
That’s been missing over the last eight years. That sense is something that I want to restore.
MCCAIN: I’ve been involved, as I mentioned to you before, in virtually every major national security challenge we’ve faced in the last 20-some years. There are some advantages to experience, and knowledge, and judgment.
And I — and I honestly don’t believe that Senator Obama has the knowledge or experience and has made the wrong judgments in a number of areas, including his initial reaction to Russian invasion — aggression in Georgia, to his — you know, we’ve seen this stubbornness before in this administration to cling to a belief that somehow the surge has not succeeded and failing to acknowledge that he was wrong about the surge is — shows to me that we — that — that we need more flexibility in a president of the United States than that.
As far as our other issues that he brought up are concerned, I know the veterans. I know them well. And I know that they know that I’ll take care of them. And I’ve been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans.
And I love them. And I’ll take care of them. And they know that I’ll take care of them. And that’s going to be my job.
But, also, I have the ability, and the knowledge, and the background to make the right judgments, to keep this country safe and secure.
Reform, prosperity, and peace, these are major challenges to the United States of America. I don’t think I need any on-the-job training. I’m ready to go at it right now.
OBAMA: Well, let me just make a closing point. You know, my father came from Kenya. That’s where I get my name.
And in the ’60s, he wrote letter after letter to come to college here in the United States because the notion was that there was no other country on Earth where you could make it if you tried. The ideals and the values of the United States inspired the entire world.
I don’t think any of us can say that our standing in the world now, the way children around the world look at the United States, is the same.
And part of what we need to do, what the next president has to do — and this is part of our judgment, this is part of how we’re going to keep America safe — is to — to send a message to the world that we are going to invest in issues like education, we are going to invest in issues that — that relate to how ordinary people are able to live out their dreams.
And that is something that I’m going to be committed to as president of the United States.
LEHRER: Few seconds. We’re almost finished.
MCCAIN: Jim, when I came home from prison, I saw our veterans being very badly treated, and it made me sad. And I embarked on an effort to resolve the POW-MIA issue, which we did in a bipartisan fashion, and then I worked on normalization of relations between our two countries so that our veterans could come all the way home.
I guarantee you, as president of the United States, I know how to heal the wounds of war, I know how to deal with our adversaries, and I know how to deal with our friends.
LEHRER: And that ends this debate tonight. On October 2, next Thursday, also at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, the two vice presidential candidates will debate at Washington University in St. Louis. My PBS colleague, Gwen Ifill, will be the moderator.For now, from Oxford, Mississippi, thank you, senators, both. I’m Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.
MonkeyCrash is Your Source For Conservative Opinion
// September 25th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // ECONOMY
President Bush addressed the nation today about the on-going financial crisis and warns that if the $700 billion dollar bailout is not passed by Congress the American people will suffer the consequence down the road. Bush also asked that McCain and Obama meet with him along with Congress to discuss the need for the bailout and get it passed. We have posted the video of the speech. Read the Transcript: Bush on the Economic Crisis.
MonkeyCrash is your source For Conservative Opinion
// September 25th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // ECONOMY
President Bush addressed the nation concerning the economic crisis and the need for the $700 billion dollar bailout by congress. Below is the transcript of his speech.
President Bush on the economic crisis.
September 24, 2008
Good evening. This is an extraordinary period for America’s economy.
Over the past few weeks, many Americans have felt anxiety about their finances and their future. I understand their worry and their frustration.
We’ve seen triple-digit swings in the stock market. Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse, and some have failed. As uncertainty has grown, many banks have restricted lending, credit markets have frozen, and families and businesses have found it harder to borrow money.
We’re in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive action.
We boosted confidence in money market mutual funds and acted to prevent major investors from intentionally driving down stocks for their own personal gain.
Most importantly, my administration is working with Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets.
Financial assets related to home mortgages have lost value during the house decline, and the banks holding these assets have restricted credit. As a result, our entire economy is in danger.
So I propose that the federal government reduce the risk posed by these troubled assets and supply urgently needed money so banks and other financial institutions can avoid collapse and resume lending.
This rescue effort is not aimed at preserving any individual company or industry. It is aimed at preserving America’s overall economy.
It will help American consumers and businesses get credit to meet their daily needs and create jobs. And it will help send a signal to markets around the world that America’s financial system is back on track.
I know many Americans have questions tonight: How did we reach this point in our economy? How will the solution I propose work? And what does this mean for your financial future?
These are good questions, and they deserve clear answers.
First, how did our economy reach this point? Well, most economists agree that the problems we’re witnessing today developed over a long period of time. For more than a decade, a massive amount of money flowed into the United States from investors abroad because our country is an attractive and secure place to do business.
This large influx of money to U.S. banks and financial institutions, along with low interest rates, made it easier for Americans to get credit. These developments allowed more families to borrow money for cars, and homes, and college tuition, some for the first time. They allowed more entrepreneurs to get loans to start new businesses and create jobs.
Unfortunately, there were also some serious negative consequences, particularly in the housing market. Easy credit, combined with the faulty assumption that home values would continue to rise, led to excesses and bad decisions.
Many mortgage lenders approved loans for borrowers without carefully examining their ability to pay. Many borrowers took out loans larger than they could afford, assuming that they could sell or refinance their homes at a higher price later on.
Optimism about housing values also led to a boom in home construction. Eventually, the number of new houses exceeded the number of people willing to buy them. And with supply exceeding demand, housing prices fell, and this created a problem.
Borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgages, who had been planning to sell or refinance their homes at a higher price, were stuck with homes worth less than expected, along with mortgage payments they could not afford.
As a result, many mortgage-holders began to default. These widespread defaults had effects far beyond the housing market.
See, in today’s mortgage industry, home loans are often packaged together and converted into financial products called mortgage-backed securities. These securities were sold to investors around the world.
Many investors assumed these securities were trustworthy and asked few questions about their actual value. Two of the leading purchasers of mortgage-backed securities were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk.
The decline in the housing market set off a domino effect across our economy. When home values declined, borrowers defaulted on their mortgages, and investors holding mortgage-backed securities began to incur serious losses.
Before long, these securities became so unreliable that they were not being bought or sold. Investment banks, such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, found themselves saddled with large amounts of assets they could not sell. They ran out of money needed to meet their immediate obligations, and they faced imminent collapse.
Other banks found themselves in severe financial trouble. These banks began holding on to their money, and lending dried up, and the gears of the American financial system began grinding to a halt.
With the situation becoming more precarious by the day, I faced a choice, to step in with dramatic government action or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions of some to undermine the financial security of all.
I’m a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business.
Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence, and major sectors of America’s financial system are at risk of shutting down.
The government’s top economic experts warn that, without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold.
More banks could fail, including some in your community. The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet. Foreclosures would rise dramatically.
And if you own a business or a farm, you would find it harder and more expensive to get credit. More businesses would close their doors, and millions of Americans could lose their jobs.
Even if you have good credit history, it would be more difficult for you to get the loans you need to buy a car or send your children to college. And, ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession.
Fellow citizens, we must not let this happen. I appreciate the work of leaders from both parties in both houses of Congress to address this problem and to make improvements to the proposal my administration sent to them.
There is a spirit of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans and between Congress and this administration. In that spirit, I’ve invited Senators McCain and Obama to join congressional leaders of both parties at the White House tomorrow to help speed our discussions toward a bipartisan bill.
I know that an economic rescue package will present a tough vote for many members of Congress. It is difficult to pass a bill that commits so much of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money.
I also understand the frustration of responsible Americans who pay their mortgages on time, file their tax returns every April 15th, and are reluctant to pay the cost of excesses on Wall Street.
But given the situation we are facing, not passing a bill now would cost these Americans much more later.
Many Americans are asking, how would a rescue plan work? After much discussion, there’s now widespread agreement on the principles such a plan would include.
It would remove the risk posed by the troubled assets, including mortgage-backed securities, now clogging the financial system. This would free banks to resume the flow of credit to American families and businesses.
Any rescue plan should also be designed to ensure that taxpayers are protected. It should welcome the participation of financial institutions, large and small. It should make certain that failed executives do not receive a windfall from your tax dollars.
It should establish a bipartisan board to oversee the plan’s implementation, and it should be enacted as soon as possible.
In close consultation with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and SEC Chairman Chris Cox, I announced a plan on Friday.
First, the plan is big enough to solve a serious problem. Under our proposal, the federal government would put up to $700 billion taxpayer dollars on the line to purchase troubled assets that are clogging the financial system.
In the short term, this will free up banks to resume the flow of credit to American families and businesses, and this will help our economy grow.
Second, as markets have lost confidence in mortgage-backed securities, their prices have dropped sharply, yet the value of many of these assets will likely be higher than their current price, because the vast majority of Americans will ultimately pay off their mortgages.
The government is the one institution with the patience and resources to buy these assets at their current low prices and hold them until markets return to normal.
And when that happens, money will flow back to the Treasury as these assets are sold, and we expect that much, if not all, of the tax dollars we invest will be paid back.
The final question is, what does this mean for your economic future? Well, the primary steps — purpose of the steps I’ve outlined tonight is to safeguard the financial security of American workers, and families, and small businesses. The federal government also continues to enforce laws and regulations protecting your money.
The Treasury Department recently offered government insurance for money market mutual funds. And through the FDIC, every savings account, checking account, and certificate of deposit is insured by the federal government for up to $100,000.
The FDIC has been in existence for 75 years, and no one has ever lost a penny on an insured deposit, and this will not change.
Once this crisis is resolved, there will be time to update our financial regulatory structures. Our 21st-century global economy remains regulated largely by outdated 20th-century laws.
Recently, we’ve seen how one company can grow so large that its failure jeopardizes the entire financial system.
Earlier this year, Secretary Paulson proposed a blueprint that would modernize our financial regulations. For example, the Federal Reserve would be authorized to take a closer look at the operations of companies across the financial spectrum and ensure that their practices do not threaten overall financial stability.
There are other good ideas, and members of Congress should consider them. As they do, they must ensure that efforts to regulate Wall Street do not end up hampering our economy’s ability to grow.
In the long run, Americans have good reason to be confident in our economic strength. Despite corrections in the marketplace and instances of abuse, democratic capitalism is the best system ever devised.
It has unleashed the talents and the productivity and entrepreneurial spirit of our citizens. It has made this country the best place in the world to invest and do business. And it gives our economy the flexibility and resilience to absorb shocks, adjust, and bounce back.
Our economy is facing a moment of great challenge, but we’ve overcome tough challenges before, and we will overcome this one.
I know that Americans sometimes get discouraged by the tone in Washington and the seemingly endless partisan struggles, yet history has shown that, in times of real trial, elected officials rise to the occasion.
And together we will show the world once again what kind of country America is: a nation that tackles problems head on, where leaders come together to meet great tests, and where people of every background can work hard, develop their talents, and realize their dreams.
Thank you for listening. May God bless you.
MonkeyCrash is Your Source For Conservative Opinion
// September 18th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // ECONOMY, POLITICAL ARENA
As the American tax payers are about to be stolen from again thanks to another bail out due to mismanagement of AIG and greedy CEO’s, McCain proves again that he is the man to fix this.
Statement By John McCain On The Financial Markets And AIG
ARLINGTON, VA – Today, U.S. Senator John McCain issued the following statement on the situation in the financial markets and AIG:
“Today, the government was forced to commit $85 billion to stop the collapse of AIG, another in a growing series of events that includes Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These actions stem from failed regulation, reckless management, and a casino culture on Wall Street that has crippled one of the most important companies in America. The focus of any such action should be to protect the millions of Americans who hold insurance policies, retirement plans and other accounts with AIG. We must not bailout the management and speculators who created this mess. They had months of warnings following the Bear Stearns debacle, and they failed to act.
“We should never again allow the United States to be in this position. We need strong and effective regulation, a return to job-creating growth and a restoration of ethics and the social contract between businesses and America. Important questions remain to be answered by Wall Street. Did executives mislead investors and regulators about the severity of the problem? We must investigate whether or not there was misrepresentation on part of the company executives. If there was, there must be penalties. We need to change the way Washington and Wall Street does business, and as President I will.”
// September 13th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // POLITICAL ARENA
ATTENTION ALL LIBERALS: Watch these video’s. The questions and reactions of the ladies from The View is a fine example of why you are out of touch with the American People. With the exception of Hasselbeck, these ladies are far left wacko’s! They represent everything that is wrong with liberals. I couldn’t help but wonder why they discriminated against McCain’s age. On two occasions both Walters and Whoopi asked McCain if Palin was ready lead if he died. If that’s not age discrimination I don’t know what is. Has anyone asked if Biden is ready to lead is something were to happen to Obama? Later Whoopi displayed her ignorance to all about the issue of separation of Church and State. She has no knowledge of the faith of our founding fathers and that their intent was not to keep God out of the public forum, but to keep the state out of the church. Whoopi then said perhaps the stupidest thing I have ever heard anyone say. McCain was explaining his position on electing supreme court justices and their intended purpose which is to strictly interpret the constitution. Whoppie’s response? “Should I be worried about being a slave again.” Are you kidding me? Whoopi, you’re an idiot.
I did enjoy McCain calling out Obama for not accepting his repeated invititations to join McCain in town hall meetings. Obviously Obama knows that townhall meetings with McCain would be the nail in his coffin.
// September 12th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // POLITICAL ARENA
JUDY WOODRUFF, PBS: Good evening, and welcome to the ServiceNation presidential forum at Columbia University in New York City. I’m Judy Woodruff, with PBS’ “Newshour With Jim Lehrer.” ServiceNation is a network of groups reaching 100 million Americans and working to solve our challenges through national service and civic engagement. And we are delighted to have the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees with us tonight for a conversation on service.
We’d like to thank the presenting sponsors of the event — AARP, Target and Time magazine, as well as the Carnegie Corporation of New York for their support.
(APPLAUSE)
Our co-moderator is Rick Stengel, the editor of Time magazine magazine, whose 2007 cover story, “The Case for National Service,” ignited this movement. And Time’s leadership on the issue continues this week, with a new cover story on national service.
Welcome, Rick.
RICHARD STENGEL, TIME MAGAZINE: Thank you so much, Judy.
(APPLAUSE)
Welcome again, everybody. Today is the seventh anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11. And we chose this day for a reason, because we believe it can be a day not only of national mourning and memory, but a day of national service. Whether that’s tutoring kids after school, serving in the military, or volunteering for a faith- based organization, national service can help us solve national challenges.
Service is not red or blue. It’s beyond party and partisanship.
John McCain served in the military for 26 years, nearly making the ultimate sacrifice for his country. After college, Barack Obama chose to work in the streets of Chicago to improve the lives of everyday people. Both of these men that we will hear from tonight are deeply committed to national service. We are honored to have them with us, together for the first time as their party’s nominees.
The order of their appearance tonight was chosen by coin toss.
I am very pleased to welcome Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee for president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
WOODRUFF: Senator, welcome. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
Senator McCain. Senator McCain, thank you again for being with us.
You were at ground zero today with Senator Obama.
WOODRUFF: That day, 9/11, is still very fresh in the minds of people here in New York City and Washington and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. But there’s evidence that it’s receding in the memory of many, many Americans. What are one or two of the most important things that you two you think should be done to keep this an enduring memory for America?
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Well, I think commemoration on days like today are very important. I must say that both in Pennsylvania and I understand in Washington D.C., but I was in Pennsylvania earlier today, and the ceremonies that went on today, I think, serve to remind all Americans. But I think the best way to commemorate and the best way to show our appreciation for — and love and sympathy for their families, for those who have sacrificed, is to serve our country. That’s what this — that’s what this forum is all about, serving our country. That way, we can assure their families it will never happen again. That way, I think we can honor their service and sacrifice to our nation and remarkable acts of courage and compassion and love. And that’s probably the best way to not only prevent a reoccurrence but keep their memory alive by protecting the lives of those fellow citizens who were unable to experience this first hand, but are in danger.
STENGEL: Senator, as recently as this past Sunday, you talked very openly about the fact that Americans should have been asked to do more than go shopping or traveling. What would you have done as president in those circumstances, to make people aware of what they should do as Americans, after 9/11?
MCCAIN: Well, first of all, I would have called them to serve. I would have created organizations ranging from neighborhood block watch to making sure that our nuclear power plants are secure, to immediately proposing to Congress legislation, such as Senator Evan Bayh and I proposed, service to country, to create additional organizations, to expand AmeriCorps, expand the Peace Corps, expand the military.
Obviously, we were facing a new threat. Obviously, we needed to, at that time, take advantage of the unity in the United States of America. We weren’t Republicans on September 11th, we weren’t Democrats, we were Americans. And I think that if we had asked for a concrete plan of action, both on the part of federal, state and local governments as well as by the Congress of the United States as well as, frankly, talking directly to the American people, on the need for us all to serve this nation, I think perhaps we — but, you know, I have to tell you something, Rick. When I travel around this country, that spirit is still there in America. Today, we’ve seen Americans respond in a way that only Americans do. And I don’t say that with any sense of superiority over any other group of people. I do believe we’re a unique nation, and blessed with certain in alienable rights that we want to extend to the rest of the world. But I think that we probably still have that opportunity.
And when I say this, I don’t want you to take it the wrong way. But Americans are so frustrated now with our government — 84 percent of the American people think the country’s headed in the wrong direction. The approval rating of Congress is down to 9 percent, I believe, down to blood relatives and paid staffers.
(LAUGHTER)
MCCAIN: And this is an opportunity, this is an opportunity to lead the nation and talk to the American people and reform our government and ask for more service.
WOODRUFF: Senator, do you — what are there — what are the obligations of citizenship, other than paying taxes? Should there be — do you see service connected to what you’re talking about in Washington and should there be something compulsory?
MCCAIN: I don’t think so, Judy. I don’t think — because I think when you compel someone to do something, then you basically are in contradictions to the fundamental principle of having people wanting to serve and willing and eager to serve.
Americans are still eager to serve. Americans, when we look at all of the programs that we made available, almost all of them, in fact, all of them are oversubscribed by people who are volunteering. What’s the most — probably one of the lead organizations in America today?
MCCAIN: It’s Teach for America. Where vastly — thousands more are seeking to be part of that program, to go in the inner cities of America and teach children.
We’re doing well in our military recruitment, could do better. We’ve got to do better on retention. But we have to expand the military.
So I believe Americans at this point, if you’re digging for the pony, as I clearly am, are ready now to be inspired, they’re ready to go. They understand the challenges that we have in this world. They see the Russian invasion of the little country called Georgia. They see the problems in Afghanistan growing larger.
They see a whole lot of things happening in the world that’s going to require us to serve, and that opportunity has to be provided to them.
STENGEL: I want to touch on something you said in an earlier answer, that Americans have a very low self-regard for Washington right now. How is it though that we can try to inspire people into public service and even go to Washington at the same time candidates are running against Washington and dissing Washington at every opportunity?
MCCAIN: Because we have to reform government. We have to reform the way we’re doing business. Look at Congress’s activities since they came off their five-week vacation. They never miss a pay raise or a vacation or a recess.
And the point is that they see this gridlock, they want it reformed and they want it changed and they’re ready for change. And I think they’re ready to turn a page at the beginning of January. I think they’re ready to say, OK.
And one thing we politicians crave, it’s approval. And I think that if they saw us working together, the way that we did for a period of time after 9/11. Look, we presided over the biggest reorganization of government since the creation of the Defense Department, in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.
We did do a lot of things right after 9/11. But it gradually eroded and now I think the American people are ready. They’re ready to rally behind — frankly, a new page to be turned in America’s history. WOODRUFF: Senator, we have less than a minute in this block. But do you think the length of your service in Washington gives you a unique understanding of the changes that need to be made? Help us understand how that is.
MCCAIN: Well, first of all, I wasn’t elected “Miss Congeniality” again this year.
(LAUGHTER)
And the fact is, I fought them and fought them and fought them. And we have achieved some reforms. With Russ Feingold we achieved a landmark campaign finance reform bill. We did a number of things.
We enacted ethics and lobbying reform that wasn’t nearly enough. I have fought against them. And there are allies there. We’re not all the go-along-to-get-along crowd. And I know how it works and I know how to fix it and I know where the problems are. And so I’m confident we can fix it.
WOODRUFF: Thank you, Senator.
We’ll be right back after this short break.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STENGEL: Senator, even as we sit here tonight, Hurricane Ike is bearing down on the Texas coast. What are the lessons that we learn from Hurricane Katrina, where we had the largest voluntary outpouring in American history? Aren’t emergencies and disasters like this exactly why government needs to exist? What is the role of the private sector and what is the role of government?
MCCAIN: The role of government obviously is the primary role, and to protect our citizens and help them in times of emergency and distress. But also, I think there’s a great role for faith-based organizations, volunteer organizations and the private sector.
I think we’ve got to involve more businesses and industries that routinely provide goods and services rather than rely on the federal government to do it. I don’t think, frankly, if FedEx or Target or one of these organizations had been in charge, we wouldn’t have had a truck full of ice ending up in Maine. They know where everything is. So we need to have — we need to have that partnership.
But I also want to point out that faith-based organizations, as well as other volunteer organizations, did a magnificent job. There’s a place called the Resurrection Baptist Church down in New Orleans. Thousands of volunteers from churches all over the country came and are still working in New Orleans, as we speak.
So the primary role is government, but we also need to have citizen involvement in a way which, as — and to say the least, we all know, you need a better level of cooperation between federal, state and local government.
We saw that. We saw a dramatic improvement in this last threat we had. And our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Texas and the area that’s threatened now. We pray God that it’s minimal and we’re ready to help. That’s the primary responsibility of government.
WOODRUFF: Senator, it’s been pointed out that for many people, to be able to do volunteer work, they are often people of some means, that can take a leave from their job or they may not need to work. Often, volunteer work, service is left to those who are more comfortable, whereas other people, especially young people, who want to do service, may graduate from college with a huge education debt. How do you balance it? MCCAIN: First of all, my experience has not been that the wealthiest people do the most volunteering. In fact, I think it is average citizens that do the most, in all due respect to rich people.
(LAUGHTER)
But the point — it seems to me it’s the average citizen that’s the first to respond.
But I agree with you. We should provide, especially from a business standpoint — if someone graduates from a fine institution or university, then we hope that the people that hire them would give them additional time to maybe go down and volunteer in a Habitat for Humanity or some other worthwhile cause.
But honestly, you know what I found? The busiest people are the busiest, and the busier they get, the busier they get, and the more time they find to help their neighborhood, their community and their fellow citizens.
MCCAIN: So…
WOODRUFF: So there’s no need…
MCCAIN: … I’m very pleased at the volunteer effort in America. I’m very pleased at what we’ve seen around this country, particularly as we’re in difficult times. I think we can be proud of Americans.
And obviously, if we need to take some steps to encourage that or make it easier for them, I’m all for it.
STENGEL: Would you encourage corporations to give paid leave for service, which some companies are doing, like Timberland?
MCCAIN: If they want to, but I wouldn’t force them to. If they want to do that, I would praise them, I would cite them as an example, but I don’t think we can force that kind of thing.
STENGEL: Let’s go to a different subject, a subject that’s close to your heart. In “Faith of my Fathers,” you write about how there has been a McCain who has fought in pretty much every American conflict going back 200 years. That’s a huge legacy that was thrust on you. You talk about it being a little bit intimidating. What I wonder is, if you can talk personally about how that was conveyed to you as a boy and then how you conveyed that to your own children.
MCCAIN: Well, you know, a lot of times I don’t talk too much publicly because I’m not a hero. I had the great honor of serving in the company of heroes. And in Hanoi I observed a thousand acts of courage compassion and love.
But I’d like to tell you that one day as a child, I said, gee, I’m going to be in military service. But it was just sort of something that was part of our tradition. And I rebelled against it.
I chronicled that, perhaps in too much detail. But it sort of was something that evolved. But then it was like a lot of young Americans, a lot of that glory was all about me. And it wasn’t until I had the experience that I had that I realized that I belonged to my country and that my country saved me.
And I owed my country a great deal. And that change made me appreciate the fact that it’s not about the individual, it’s about the cause we serve. WOODRUFF: Senator, still on the subject of military, in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we know that recruiting has gotten harder. The qualifications for joining the Army have been lowered today. Thirty percent of new enlistees don’t have high school diplomas. That’s the highest percentage ever.
The percentage of young people who are either black, Hispanic, or who come from a lower income household is disproportionately high in the military. All this, while the sons and daughters of privilege, for the most part, your sons excluded, don’t have to consider military service.
We have the greatest fighting army in the world, I think everyone would agree. But is there something about this picture that you think needs to change, this social imbalance?
MCCAIN: Well, I would remind you in the days of the draft that it was then most unfair because the lowest income Americans served and the wealthiest found ways of avoiding draft. I think the all- volunteer force is having difficulties recruiting and retaining because we’re too small and we need to expand the size of our military and we need to do it as rapidly as possible.
And there are — we have got to perhaps offer additional incentives. For a long time, years ago, the Navy and Air Force were losing pilots. So we paid them more and we had more of them stay in. Their first reason for serving is patriotism, but also, you have got to offer them incentives in order to do so.
And frankly, we’re here in a wonderful institution. I’m proud that my daughter graduated from this school. But do you know that this school will not allow ROTC on this campus? I don’t think that’s right. Shouldn’t the students here be exposed to the attractiveness of serving in the military, particularly as an officer?
So maybe — maybe the — I would hope that these universities…
(APPLAUSE)
MCCAIN: … would re-examine — I would hope that these universities would re-examine that policy of not even allowing people who come here to represent the military and other Ivy League schools and then maybe they will be able to attract some more.
Now that’s not the heart of the problem. But I believe that we have the best-trained, most professional, best-equipped, bravest military we’ve ever had in our history today.
WOODRUFF: And we’ll come back to this. We’ll be right back after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STENGEL: Let’s stay on the subject of military. You authorized a really interesting military policy, and it was started out as a bill that you mentioned you and Evan Bayh co-sponsored and then you inserted in the Defense Appropriations Act that blends military and civilian service, the 18-24-18 policy, which I won’t explain. But it’s leading me to a larger question. Why wouldn’t we have compulsory military service in America that has a civilian component? That if someone wants to opt out of military service, they can do their civilian service, like in your bill, and that it would become a unifying thing for America?
MCCAIN: Rick, first of all, I think that as much as I treasure our military service, there’s lots of ways to serve our country, too. And I want to emphasize that. I know we’re talking a lot about the military. But there’s so many ways to serve this country and there’s so many ways that are noble and wonderful, both at home and abroad. So I want to make that perfectly clear.
I think that it’s very clear AmeriCorps has been one of the astonishing successes. Peace Corps, we’ve seen the success for a long time, because Jack Kennedy obviously originated it.
But we have seen these volunteer organizations succeed. And if we need to, whether it’s connected to the military or not, provide them with sufficient reward and sufficient recognition.
You know, a lot of these young people are more proud of the fact that we recognize the ones walking around with the red jacket that say “City Year” than they are about the money.
MCCAIN: You know? I mean, that’s what they’re all about.
So I’d be glad to reward them as much as possible. But you want to be careful that the reason is not the reward of financial or other reasons, but the reward is the satisfaction of serving a cause greater than yourself. That would be fine with me. Finding new ways to serve. That’s what this next few years should be all about.
WOODRUFF: Senator McCain, Senator Obama has put forward a national service plan to do some of the things you talked about, the two of you agree. But his has a price tag of around $3.5 billion. Is that an amount of money you’d be willing to spend? More, less? I mean, is that in the ballpark?
MCCAIN: I’d be glad to spend money. I don’t think that should be the first priority in the kinds of benefits that are reaped from the kind of thing we’re trying to seek.
I haven’t agreed with all of what Senator Obama has proposed, but I think they’re very good proposals there. Some of them are new, some of them are obviously not.
But I also want to emphasize there, it doesn’t always have to be run by the government. That’s why we also ought to understand that faith-based organizations, other volunteer organizations that are completely separate from the government, have nothing to do with the government, are amongst the most successful.
So let’s not get entrapped by the idea that the government has to run these voluntary organizations and volunteer kinds of programs, because a lot of times the job can be done better with our encouragement.
WOODRUFF: So you’re not in favor necessarily of a distinct government role?
MCCAIN: Oh, we have a distinct government role — the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, all of these other organizations. But I want to be careful about expanding it when — my philosophy is let’s not have government do things that the private sector can do, or other organizations can do. That’s just my theory of government.
So, look, I applaud Senator Obama’s commitment to national service. And he makes a very strong case. And I look forward to joining him no matter what happens in November. This is a cause a lot bigger than anything to do with partisanship. STENGEL: Actually, speaking of that, I was going to ask an Internet question. We’ll get back to that.
Governor Schwarzenegger in California has made service, the service czar in California a Cabinet-level appointment. If you were president, would you do the same and make service a Cabinet-level appointment, and would you perhaps ask Senator Obama to be a member of your Cabinet for national service?
(LAUGHTER)
MCCAIN: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
Right now, as you know, there’s an office in the White House, Freedom Corps Office. That office coordinates all these different organizations, which, rightly or wrongly, fall many times under different departments. I think if you have that person right down the hall from the Oval Office and you’re working with that person on a daily basis, that’s probably the most effective way to do it.
You know, every time we see a problem, we sort of let’s create another Cabinet post. Now we have got so many members of the Cabinet that the Cabinet never meets, as you well know. So I’d rather see a powerful, influential, outstanding person sitting in that office who I could literally deal with every day.
WOODRUFF: Senator, at the Republican convention, a couple of speakers, most notably your running mate, vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, made somewhat derisive comments about Senator Obama’s experience as a community organizer. I’ve heard you say you haven’t taken that tone. So I guess my question is, are you saying to others in your campaign and your supporters that that’s not the kind of language you want to hear?
MCCAIN: Well …
WOODRUFF: How do you — how are you approaching that?
MCCAIN: First of all, this is a tough business. Second of all, I think the tone of this whole campaign would have been very different if Senator Obama had accepted my request for us to appear in town hall meetings all over America, the same way Jack Kennedy and Barry Goldwater had agreed to do so. I know that, because I’ve been in enough campaigns.
Look, Governor Palin was responding to the criticism of her inexperience and her job as a mayor in a small town. That’s what she was responding to.
Of course I respect community organizers. Of course I respect people who serve their community. And Senator Obama’s record there is outstanding. And so I praise anyone who serves this nation in capacities that, frankly, we all know that could have been far more financially rewarding to individuals, rather than doing what they did.
WOODRUFF: Less significant than the work of a small-town mayor?
MCCAIN: I think a small-town mayor has very great responsibilities. They have a responsibility for the budget. They have hiring and firing of people. They have great responsibilities. They have to stand for election. I admire mayors.
I’m — listen, mayors have the toughest job, I think, in America. It’s easy for me to go to Washington and, frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have.
MCCAIN: So I admire mayors. I admire anyone who is willing to serve their community and their country. And that’s what this is all about. And this is what today’s all about. And we should set aside this partisanship, at least for this day, praise one another for our dedication to this country. That’s what I do to Senator Obama.
(APPLAUSE) STENGEL: We have a less than a minute left in this segment. Here’s a specific question about setting aside partisanship. Senator Kennedy and Senator Hatch, two old friends in the Senate, have sponsored a bipartisan bill on national service that I think among other things would triple the size of AmeriCorps and really put a lot of the strength of the federal government behind national service. As president, would you sign that bill?
MCCAIN: Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
MCCAIN: Of course. Our prayers are always with Ted Kennedy. I understand he’s coming back in January. I greet that with mixed emotions. I love him.
(APPLAUSE)
I’m so happy, seriously, that Senator Kennedy is on the road to recovery. He’s a lion of the Senate.
Look, I would sign that legislation. But I also want to caution again, government can’t do it all. The essence of volunteerism starts at the grassroots level, does not start necessarily at the federal government level. So let’s make sure we maintain the balance between federal involvement and encouragement of volunteerism and service to the nation, but also, let’s not in any way stifle what already is going on and is very, very successful in America. And that’s organizations that have no dependence whatsoever on our federal government and do such a great job for all of our citizens.
WOODRUFF: All right, Senator, we’re going to take another break. We’ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOODRUFF: Senator McCain, there’s so much emphasis, of course, today on the younger generation giving. What about Baby Boomers and older folks? What should we be doing?
MCCAIN: Well, I think there are obviously organizations that we have in place for ability to serve, but we ought to really probably do a more and more effective job of utilizing the talents and experience of people who have had very successful lives and careers, and continue to motivate them to serve.
I think that’s part of the proposals that have been made. And we do have the Senior Corps and other organizations. But the fact is that people are living longer and they’re more active and vigorous. And I’m here to tell you that’s a fact. And…
(LAUGHTER)
And…
(MAKES SNORING NOISE) (LAUGHTER)
And…
(APPLAUSE)
And so I — Judy, I really believe that that is one of the under- utilized aspects of community service in America. And I think that would be one of the areas of emphasis really.
WOODRUFF: If I could just quickly follow-up. I asked partly because we got a number of online questions, and a woman named Giselle (ph) from Brooklyn, New York, she says: “With the staggering economy, how can people commit time to community service and still make ends meet?”
I know you said earlier, people of all income brackets, but what about those people who really do have to work to make…
MCCAIN: Our economy is broken. People are sitting around not worrying about volunteering but staying in their homes, keeping their job, affording to fill up their gas tank, we know that. Americans are hurting very badly. We have got to reform government. We’ve got to fix the economy. We have got to create jobs. But right now, we have to restore trust and confidence in government. If people don’t trust the government, then they’re not going to be as eager and willing to frankly be part of these programs that we are proposing and that we are hoping that people will volunteer and serve in.
So obviously, we have to fix our economy and get it going again and create jobs for Americans. But I think honestly that there are also Americans who are willing to volunteer their services no matter what.
But when people have a reasonable income and a reasonable future, obviously, they’re going to volunteer more.
STENGEL: Let’s talk about some folks who don’t trust us. And that’s a lot of countries overseas. You’ve talked about expanding the Peace Corps. You’ve also said, we shouldn’t be sending money to countries that don’t like us.
But should we be sending people, sending members of the Peace Corps to countries that don’t like us, to help our esteem in the world, which of course has suffered since 9/11?
MCCAIN: Yes. And that’s the best thing we can do…
(APPLAUSE)
… is expose the people in these countries to things we value, the things we stand for, the things we believe in. And there’s no better representative of all that than Americans.
But also, I want to add, let’s also have more people come here and be educated and trained and be exposed to the United States of America. We have found throughout the world, people that come and get educated here and return to the countries they came from as leaders, it’s amazing.
And it establishes a base relationship that I think can also change the policies of a number of these countries that don’t like us very much.
STENGEL: Would you give a green card to everybody, every foreign national who graduates with a Ph.D. in the sciences to stay in America?
MCCAIN: I certainly would do everything I can to keep those people in this country. I don’t know if it would be an automatic green card, but I guarantee you that we’d love to have so many of these highly trained people stay in this country and ask any corporate executive in America, particularly those in the information technology business.
WOODRUFF: Senator, I want to come back to something you said earlier, I think you used the word exceptional and unique about being an American. On this 9/11, this special day, what — help us understand what you think it means to be an American. And I don’t mean that in the obvious way.
I mean, people who live in Canada, who live in Mexico, around the world feel special about their country, so what is it that’s different about being in America? Are Americans better than people in some of these other countries? We hear the term “exceptionalism” about the United States.
MCCAIN: I do believe in American exceptionalism.
MCCAIN: And I think it was best articulated by our founding fathers. But I also think that my hero, Teddy Roosevelt, expressed it very well, and other leaders throughout our history.
We’re the only nation I know in the world that really is deeply concerned about adhering to the principle that all of us are created equal and endowed by our creators with certain rights. And those we have tried to bring to the world. And we have not so much militarily, but through example, through leadership, through economic assistance.
Look at what we did for Europe after World War II, look at the continuous efforts we make throughout the world. Look at the efforts we’re making to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa. There’s a lot more America can do.
And I love these other countries, and I’m not trying to denigrate them. But I know of no other country in the world with the generosity of spirit and the concern for fellow human beings than the United States of America, and I think that goes back to our very beginnings.
WOODRUFF: Does that make America better than these other…?
MCCAIN: I think it makes us exceptional. I think it makes us exceptional in the kind of citizenry we have and the kind of service and sacrifice that we are capable of.
And I mean that in no disrespect to any other nation, our close and unique relationship with the British. I have — I’m not trying to in any way denigrate any other nation, but it doesn’t in any way diminish my pride in the history of this nation, which has literally shed our blood in all four corners of the earth many times in defense of someone else’s freedom and have tried to further the principles of freedom and democracy everywhere in the world. I think we’re dedicated to that proposition. And, frankly, I think we’ve done a pretty good job.
STENGEL: Now, let’s talk about the framers for a second, because one of the things that they distrusted and disliked — they called it faction, which they meant political parties. The framers didn’t want to have political parties. George Washington hated the idea of political parties.
But now, we’re in the midst of a campaign between two parties. And the tone of the campaign has gotten pretty ugly. You’ve talked from the beginning about running a different kind of campaign. So has Senator Obama. You both talked about a high-minded campaign.
What does this do to people who are interested in public service? I mean, there are lots of people who think, man, I can’t run for office when this kind of thing is happening. What does that do? If we’re here for service and what does that campaign tell us about that?
MCCAIN: First of all, I have said repeatedly, I think Senator Obama has inspired millions of Americans who otherwise wouldn’t have been involved in the political process. That’s just a fact.
And I believe that my record of service and my vision for the future has attracted people. I think you are going to see the biggest voter turnout in history in this election.
Has it been rough? Of course. And again, it isn’t the final recipe or the only answer. I think Americans would be helped enormously if we stood on the stage together tonight and talked about national service, all four of us, rather than three and one going on and then the other.
And again, I hope that Senator Obama will accept my request. Let’s go around America. Let’s listen to hopes and dreams and aspirations of the American people and respond to them. I think that’s the best and most effective way of getting everybody involved in this campaign.
WOODRUFF: Do you think it’s naive of people to expect that politics could be a little less rough and tumble and even nasty?
MCCAIN: The people make the final judgment with their votes. They make the final judgment about campaigns and how we present ourselves to the American people. And I think that that will be the ultimate test of what kind of campaigns do we run.
I, again, think that it’s very important that we focus on issues, we focus on challenges that America faces today, both domestically and national security wise. And I intend to do that. And there’s 54 more days left. Who’s counting?
(LAUGHTER)
STENGEL: By 2042, the United States of America will no longer be a majority white nation.
MCCAIN: Yes.
STENGEL: Robert Putnam, the sociologist, has written about how in communities that are diverse, there’s actually less social capital, less trust. What can national service do to knit up America? And I’m sorry, we only have one minute left for such a complicated question.
MCCAIN: National service can do a great deal. National service can unite us, just as the military unite us, as we meet people and interface with people from all over the world.
But also let me say, look, the greatest thing that makes America exceptional is we have had wave after wave of people come to this country for the same reason — they want to build a better life, they wanted freedom and they want to be part of America. So I don’t accept that premise that somehow — some of the most patriotic Americans that I’ve ever seen and the hardest working and most ready to serve this country and go in harm’s way are those who just came here.
WOODRUFF: Senator…
MCCAIN: I’ll never forget being at a ceremony in Baghdad last Fourth of July, where 160 some people who were green card holders got their citizenship, and they had been willing to serve in the military for an accelerated path to citizenship. That’s how much they wanted to be part of this country. That was an exhilarating experience.
WOODRUFF: Senator John McCain, thank you very, very much.
MCCAIN: Thank you.
STENGEL: Thank you.
MCCAIN: Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
WOODRUFF: As we — as we thank — as we thank Senator McCain very much for his participation, we want to welcome now the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, Senator Barack Obama.
MCCAIN: Good being with you today.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), ILLINOIS: Thank you.
WOODRUFF: Senator, thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE) WOODRUFF: We’ll be right back after a short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
STENGEL: Senator Obama, welcome again. You must have some affiliation here.
OBAMA: Yes, I’ve got a slight home-court advantage here. This is my alma mater. And I want to thank…
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you.
I was saying, though, the neighborhood has changed. When I came here in 1980, you know, some of the apartments around here didn’t look quite what they look like now. And I could afford them then. I don’t think I can now.
(LAUGHTER)
STENGEL: Faculty housing is still great.
Today is 9/11. You were down at Ground Zero with Senator McCain. And we’re going to ask a lot of the same similar questions that we asked of Senator McCain. And the first one we asked was, what does 9/11 mean to you? What’s the significance of it? Where were you when it happened, for example?
OBAMA: Well, I was in Chicago. I was in the state legislature at the time. I still remember driving down Lake Shore Drive on my way to a committee hearing, downtown, and hearing the initial report. And there was still confusion whether it was an accident, what had happened.
By the time I got downtown, we started evacuating the buildings and then we all watched in horror on television. And like I think for most people, it is indelible. And it is a reminder not only of the terrible potential for evil in the world, but it’s also a reminder of what America does at the toughest times, which is to come together.
And when I think of 9/11, I think of that spirit after the tragedy had occurred, how the outpouring of patriotism, emotion, volunteerism, the desire for service was in the minds of everyone.
And that was also a moment when the petty bickering and partisanship that comes to characterize our public life was set aside. And so the question is, how do we recreate that spirit, not just during times of tragedy, not just during 9/11, but how do we honor those who died, those who sacrificed, the firefighters, the police officers, how do we honor them everyday?
How does it reflect itself in our government? How does it reflect ourselves in how we conduct our own civic life? And my sense is that the country yearns for that. It’s hungry for it. And what has been missing is a president in the White House that taps into that yearning in a serious way.
WOODRUFF: Well, Senator McCain actually agreed with that a few minutes ago. He said that if he had been president, he would have used that opportunity to ask the country to serve, to ask people to serve.
What’s different about what you’re saying?
OBAMA: Well, I’m not sure there is anything different. What I know is that had I been president at the time, and I have to say that the president did rally the nation in a speech at Ground Zero and subsequently.
We went after those who had attacked us, appropriately. But rather than tell the American people to shop, what I would have done is to say, now is the time for us to meet some great challenges.
We’ve been tested. And yet we have survived it. And we are going to be stronger than we were. And the way we’re going to be stronger than we were is to tap into the feeling that everybody has been caught up in.
We’re going to have a bold energy plan that says that we are going to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 20 or 30 percent over the course of a decade or two.
We are going to ask all citizens to participate in that process, not just government, but each and every one of us are going to have — are going to make commitments in terms of increasing fuel efficiency in our cars and homes, and the government is going to be in partnership with citizens to make that happen.
We are going to tap into this desire when it comes to first responders. One of the striking things, as you travel around the country, is the number of small towns and medium-sized towns that rely exclusively on volunteer firefighters.
OBAMA: And think about what we could have done all across the country as part of a homeland security initiative to organize groups around the country that could serve in those common ways.
And I would have asked very explicitly for young people to engage in community service and military service. I was listening earlier of the discussion about who serves in our military. I think that had the president very clearly said, this is not just going to be a war of a few of us, this is going to be an effort that mobilizes all of us, I think we would have had a different result.
STENGEL: What are, Senator Obama, the obligations of citizenship in a democracy? Basically, in America now, people vote, only about half of them, and they pay their taxes. And that’s about where the bar is. What would you ask of people in what you call, I believe, active citizenship? How is that different than what we see now? OBAMA: America is the greatest country on earth. But it didn’t just happen on its own. It’s not a gift only, although it is a great blessing that we’ve received. It is also a responsibility. Part of what makes America work is the fact that we believe in individual responsibility and self-reliance, but we also believe in mutual responsibility, in neighborliness, in a sense that we are committed to something larger than ourselves.
Now, that can express itself in a whole range of ways, but what has built this country is people sense, through voluntary associations, but also through public service in government, that we have commitments that extend beyond our immediate self-interest, that aren’t always motivated by profit, that aren’t simply short-term, that we’re thinking long-term, to the next generation.
Every bit of progress that we’ve made historically is because of that kind of active citizenship.
And as president, what I want to do is restore that sense of common mutual responsibility. And I think the American people are ready for it.
WOODRUFF: Give us some examples, specific examples of how you would do that. Because people listening will say, oh, it all sounds well and good, but how would you do that?
OBAMA: Well, let’s talk very specifically about…
WOODRUFF: And we just have a minute left. OBAMA: OK. Well, it will carry over. But I put forward a very specific national service plan. And I’m glad to see that my dear friend, Senator Kennedy, as well as a fine senator, Senator Hatch, have come together and taken many of the similar elements — they’re going to be introducing it tomorrow.
One way of making sure that we encourage this kind of citizenship is to start early, to make sure that our young people in high school have community service opportunities. Making sure that our university students, in exchange for making college affordable, are giving something back.
(APPLAUSE)
In underserved communities, that they are teaching, that they are working in hospitals that need help.
I’ve got all kinds of other stuff, Judy, but I’ll wait until after the break.
WOODRUFF: We are going to take a break. Thank you for announcing that. And we’ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STENGEL: Senator Obama, you do indeed have a comprehensive national service plan. It’s mentioned in our magazine this week on national service.
But here’s my question. Bill Clinton also had a very comprehensive national service plan. And he had to tailor a lot of what he had proposed with AmeriCorps and other policies because of the unions, because of teachers unions, because of public unions. Wouldn’t you have to kind of cut back the scale of some of what you have done, or have you done that already to make sure that the unions will go for it?
OBAMA: I don’t think so. Look, the spirit of unions is coming together because we are stronger together than we are individually. That’s the idea behind the union movement.
And I think the times have changed since 1992. I think that people recognize, for example, that we can’t continue an education system that fails so many of our young people. And we need an all hands on deck approach.
And I think not only teachers’ unions, but teachers themselves recognize that if there are volunteers, if we have got retirees who are scientists and mathematicians, who are willing to come in the classrooms and provide additional help to young people and inspire them into different careers, I think that they’re going to welcome it.
So, look, do I expect that my national service plan gets passed exactly as I proposed? Of course not. That’s not the way legislation works. But I believe we’re in one of those special moments, one of those defining moments, where the American people recognize that we are not on the right track. That our government is not working the way it should. That our economy is not working the way it should. And they expect leadership from Washington, but they understand that they have to be a part of the solution as well.
And I think that’s why we have to seize this moment. And the next president is going to have to actively pursue these issues of service.
WOODRUFF: When we asked Senator McCain some of these questions, he said several times — he said there is a government role in all of this, but he said we should be careful about how much we scale up and increase the role of government. I want to come back to something we raised with him. And that is, that those young people who are interested in the Peace Corps, Teach for America, not all of them can afford, frankly, to come out of school and take a very low-paying job, no matter how much they want to serve. What would be the responsibility of the government and others to make it easier?
Well, first of all, I think Senator McCain is right, that income does not determine whether or not people serve. You can go into small rural towns and people are really scraping by, and yet they are helping each other in all sorts of ways.
But what I agree is that the choices that we provide young people right now are too constrained.
OBAMA: You know, when I graduated from Columbia, I had a choice. I could pursue a lucrative career on Wall Street or go immediately to law school, or I could follow through on the inspiration that I had drawn from the civil rights movement and from the Kennedy era, and try to work in the community.
And I chose the latter, but it was tough. I made $12,000 a year plus car expenses in Chicago, working with churches, to set up job training programs for the unemployed and after-school programs for youth, trying to make the community better.
It was the best education I ever had. But ironically, it was harder for me to find that job than it was for me to find a job on Wall Street. And I think there are a lot of young people out there who are interested in making that same choice, and we should be encouraging them. The government’s going to have a role.
Look, young people can’t afford college right now. And one of my central platforms in this campaign is we’re going to provide a $4,000 tuition credit every student, every year, but in exchange for giving something back. And so, young people of modest means, who are interested in going to college, this gives them an opportunity to serve and at the same time, pay for their college education. I think there are a lot of creative ways where we can provide opportunities than exist right now.
STENGEL: Now the role of government is something we talked a little bit about with Senator McCain. Republicans have traditionally said, and I’m thinking for example, of Newt Gingrich, who I know is not one of your advisers…
(LAUGHTER)
… but said that the problem with big government is it gets in this way of private initiative. And as government grew over generations, that in fact, it repressed public service and it repressed national service because there was no room for it anymore. Some Republicans worry, well, he’s going to make such a big government, that won’t even leave room for private initiative.
OBAMA: I think those are old arguments. Let’s look to the future.
The fact is that we have to have government. When a hurricane strikes, as it did with Katrina, we have to have a FEMA that works, which by the way, means that we should be encouraging young people, the best and the brightest, to get involved as civil servants, to pursue careers of public service so we’ve got people who are trained in federal emergency management who are able to take on the job.
Now, that does not crowd out the Red Cross. That doesn’t crowd out the thousands of church groups that went down there. What it means is that each area has a role to play.
The Peace Corps does not crowd out opportunities for service overseas. You’ve got churches and synagogues and mosques all across the country that are deeply involved in efforts to deal with HIV/AIDS and malaria and all sorts of public health issues. Yet, this is an area George Bush appropriately said, we’re going to make a commitment as the wealthiest nation on earth to deal with the devastation of AIDS, and his PEPFAR program has been highly successful, working with not-for-profits, working with governments, working with both public and private in order to solve the problems.
So there are more than enough problems out there to deal with. And what is true is we don’t need to set up bureaucracy. See, I would distinguish between a government assist in providing people avenues for service and a government bureaucracy in which the notion is that the only way you can serve is through some defined government program.
WOODRUFF: And I do want to pick up on that just briefly, because as we said earlier, tonight is not a night to focus on contrast between you and Senator McCain. But help us understand how you see the role of government in all of this differently from the way he does.
OBAMA: Well, you know, listening to his presentation, it sounds like he’s interested in the AmeriCorps program and Peace Corps. I think it is terrific that we can garner some bipartisan support. That was not always the case.
I believe firmly that government should expand avenues of opportunity. I want to create an energy corps, a clean energy corps that can mobilize individual citizens to help create greater energy efficiency in our country. I want to mobilize seniors to get involved with their schools or their local hospital or health clinic.
So there are going to be a whole range of ways that we can do it. Some of that is going to cost money, but mostly it requires government providing these opportunities and these avenues and a president who is willing to inspire people to get involved and get outside of themselves. That’s something we’re doing in this campaign, and that’s something I think I can do as president.
WOODRUFF: Senator Obama, we’ll be right back after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
WOODRUFF: Senator Obama, one of the, of course, enormous consequences of 9/11 were the wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq. In the wake of those wars, today, the United States military is facing enormous challenges. Junior officers are leaving the Army in record numbers. The recent graduates of West Point leaving the Army.
What would you do as president to make serving and staying in the military more attractive to young men and women?
OBAMA: Well, first of all, as commander-in-chief, my job is to keep America safe. And that means insuring that we’ve got the best military on Earth. And that means having the best persons in uniform on Earth. We have that right now, but as a consequence of these wars, they have been strained incredibly. I think it’s important for us to increase the size of our Army and our Marines so we can reduce the pace of tours that our young men and women are on.
I think it’s important to work towards increasing military pay. I think the passage of the G.I. bill was extraordinarily important as a message to our men and women in uniform that when you serve our country, we will stand by you.
I think about my grandfather, who served in Patton’s army in World War II. He joined after Pearl Harbor. And we were talking off- camera about where did I get this sense of service. I think about my grandparents’ generation.
My grandfather, after Pearl Harbor, joined the military. My grandmother, who had just had a baby at Fort Leavenworth, stayed back and worked on a bomber assembly line. There was a total mobilization.
OBAMA: And when my grandfather came back, he came back to a G.I. bill that was going to pay for his college education and FHA loans that would help them purchase a home. There was that sense of sacred obligation that, frankly, we have lost during these last two wars.
I want to restore that.
But it’s also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it’s important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some.
STENGEL: To that end, to get the best and brightest into the military, this university, your alma mater, invited President Ahmadinejad of Iran to be here last year, but they haven’t invited ROTC to be on campus since 1969. Should Columbia and elite universities that have excluded ROTC invite them back on campus?
OBAMA: Yes. I think we’ve made a mistake on that.
(APPLAUSE)
I recognize that there are students here who have differences in terms of military policy. But the notion that young people here at Columbia or anywhere, in any university, aren’t offered the choice, the option of participating in military service, I think is a mistake.
That does not mean we disregard any potential differences in various issues that are raised by the students here, but it does mean that we should have an honest debate while still offering opportunities for everybody to serve, and that’s something that I’m pretty clear about. WOODRUFF: You were saying a moment ago that you think there should be more young people serving in the military; we need a broader demographic cross-section. How do you do that short of a draft?
OBAMA: Again, I think that inspiring young people to serve is something that the president is uniquely positioned to do.
Now, it doesn’t always have to be service in uniform. One of the things, that if you talk to our generals, they are desperate for, is a civilian counterpart to our military forces.
Our military is the best in the world, but they are asked to do so many different things because our civilian operations, our State Department, USAID have been underfunded, have atrophied.
And for us to say, serve in the military, but if that’s not where you want to serve, learn a foreign language and go into the foreign service. And by the way, we will deploy you in some difficult areas, but that’s part of what it means to be an American and to serve and to sacrifice.
We need agricultural specialists in places like Afghanistan. We need civil engineers that can do some of the work that currently our military officers are doing.
And so, I think a president who is consistently asking for young people to reach for something higher, something bigger than themselves, I think, will get enormous response.
STENGEL: We have only a couple minutes left in this segment. You mentioned last week on George Stephanopoulos’ show that you’d actually considered signing up for the military yourself. And you seemed to imply that if there was a war going on, you might have been more inclined. Is there anything more important about serving in the military during wartime than peacetime?
OBAMA: Well, there’s no doubt that if there are wars going on and some are being asked to sacrifice their lives, that I think you have to ask yourself, why them instead of you? And so I think there are special obligations during wartime.
But we need military — we always have potential conflicts around the world, and our military has to remain strong and ready. And so I want to encourage military service, as well as other ways of serving, regardless of whether there’s war or not.
But I do think that over the last several years, the fact that the burden has been shouldered by such a narrow group is a problem. And how we treat those young people, by the way, when they come home, continues to be a problem.
One of my components in terms of national service is having a veterans corps, where we are mobilizing citizens to pair up and provide support to our veterans who are coming home, making sure we have resources, making sure employers are reaching out to them, giving them opportunities to transition into civilian life much more effectively than they’re getting right now.
WOODRUFF: Brief question, because I think we just have a minute.
(APPLAUSE)
WOODRUFF: This is from an online question from Gina (ph) in Bloomfield, Michigan. She says, “How possible would it be to give military-style benefits to non-military citizens who do national service work full-time?”
OBAMA: I think it depends on the kind of service that’s being provided. As I said, if we are building the kind of foreign service and — that is expeditionary, that is going into very difficult, dangerous areas, to carry out the civilian side of the work of helping a country like Afghanistan rebuild, then we should think about what are the benefits of that service? Oftentimes, those people are putting themselves at great harm. They are being deployed and are undergoing — their families are undergoing similar sacrifices to the sacrifices that those serving in the military are.
But I do think that we have a special obligation for those who have put their lives at risk, who are risking life and limb on behalf of the security of America.
That does not mean that we can’t provide other avenues of service. For example, I’ve said we desperately need teachers, math and science teachers in particular.
And so, for us to provide full scholarships for those who are willing to get their teaching certificate, get educated in these fields, and then be placed in some of the most underserved communities in the country, that’s something that we should be willing to pay for, so that people who want to serve anyway at least can afford it.
WOODRUFF: We’ll be right back with our last segment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
WOODRUFF: Senator Obama, this question of whether or not national service would be elevated to cabinet level position, among other things, Senator McCain said that if it were that, he would ask you to be his secretary. Would you ask him, if you were elected president, to run the national service…
OBAMA: Well, I mean, if this is the deal he wants to make right now, I…
(LAUGHTER)
… I am committed to appointing him to my cabinet of national service. Look, Senator…
WOODRUFF: Would you be willing to serve in his cabinet?
OBAMA: We’ve got a little work to do before we get to that point.
(LAUGHTER)
Senator McCain’s service is legendary. And one of the wonderful things about this campaign, I think, is his ability to share that story and himself inspire a whole generation of young people to model what he did for this country.
And so I think that one of the primary objectives of my presidency would be to lift up the opportunities for service in a bipartisan fashion so that we take it out of politics.
Just very briefly, I want to give an example. There’s a young man in Montana that I met named Matt Kuntz, who had been an infantry officer in the Army, was injured, was honorably discharged, got a law degree and was working in corporate law.
His half-brother served in the National Guard in Iraq, came back with post-traumatic stress disorder, was unable to get the counseling he needed and ended up committing suicide.
And Matt, having watched this painful process and trying to intervene, decided to quit his corporate law job, and decided that he was going to take it upon himself to create an advocacy group in Montana just around post-traumatic stress disorder for veterans.
And now Montana has the best post-traumatic stress disorder treatment programs for National Guardsmen. And Matt has continued now in the not-for-profit sector. I make this point because I never asked Matt whether he was Democrat or Republican. I never asked Matt whether he was liberal or conservative.
What I knew was that he had seen a wrong and was inspired to take action. And that kind of message, I think, is what has to be communicated each and every day by our president, by our political culture. And that’s one of the reasons I’m running for president.
(APPLAUSE)
STENGEL: We asked Senator McCain the same question about Governor Palin’s belittling being a community organizer. Did the Democrats in return belittle being a small-town mayor? Was she being unfair or was it hypocritical because Republicans actually say, hey, what people do in their private life is more important than public service?
OBAMA: Well, listen, we had an awful lot of small-town mayors at the Democratic Convention, I assure you. I meet them all the time. And I have — the mayors have some of the toughest jobs in the country, because that’s where the rubber hits the road. We yak in the Senate. They actually have to fill potholes and trim trees and make sure the garbage is taken away.
So, I was surprised by the several remarks around community organizing and belittling it. You know, when I think about the choice I made as a 23-, 24-year-old, to spend three years working with churches, to help people help themselves, no insult to the president of this fine institution, but it was the best education I ever had because it taught me that ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they’re given a chance and when they’re brought together.
And that’s something I want to encourage for every young person. I want every young person around this country to recognize they will not fulfill their full potential until they hitch their wagon to something bigger.
Now that’s not to say that we need talent in the private sector, we want talent in the private sector, but there are so many ways of serving voluntarily. You don’t have to take the same path I did.
But that’s something that — that’s a message I think everyone should want to encourage and I hope the Republicans want to encourage that as well.
WOODRUFF: Senator, picking up on this tone in the political campaigns, so much is said that’s critical about people who are in Washington, the way Washington works, bureaucrats in Washington, how much responsibility do you think you and other presidential candidates this year — though just the two of you major party candidates, have to change the rhetoric so that people who work in government, work in public service are respected?
OBAMA: I think you make an important point. Look, Washington is broken. My whole campaign has been premised from the start on the idea that we have to fundamentally change how Washington works. That the domination of special interests, the domination of lobbyists, the loss of a civic culture in Washington among public service has led to not only well-known disasters, like the mismanagement of the Katrina situation, but quiet disasters, where you’ve got entire agencies that have been hollowed out and you’ve got political appointees who aren’t concerned with the mission of those organizations.
So we’ve got to transform Washington. And we’ve got to do some house cleaning. But what we also want to do is to remind young people that if it weren’t for government, then we wouldn’t have a Civil Rights Act. If it weren’t for government, we would not have the interstate highway system. If it weren’t for government, we would not have some of our parks and natural wilderness areas that are so precious to America.
And so part of my job, I think, as president, is to make government cool again.
(APPLAUSE)
And to say to young people, to say to young people, even as we’re transforming Washington, come on, we want you. We want you to get involved at every level. And by the way, you don’t even have to join government. Part of what we’re going to do is create transparency and accountability in how government works so that you can be an active citizen holding your public servants and elected officials accountable. That’s one other aspect of citizenship is paying attention to what’s taking place. And part of what I’ve been thrilled about during the course of this campaign is how energized people have been, how interested people are. I mean, the viewership, both for the Democratic and Republican convention, broke all records. We have seen the kinds of volunteerism in our own campaign, in which by the way, we’re channeling not just to work on our own campaign, we’ve had 1,000 hours of community service by our volunteers, not organized by us but organized by themselves. And that’s the kind of opportunity that I think we have to tap into.
STENGEL: Now, you mentioned civic participation is at an all- time high. Basically, you mentioned voluntary associations before. Back in the 19th century, the famous French scholar…
OBAMA: De Tocqueville.
STENGEL: … de Tocqueville came here and said, you know, America’s voluntary associations make it unique and special.
OBAMA: Right.
STENGEL: Is volunteerism, is national service part of American exceptionalism? Is it part of what makes America special?
OBAMA: Yes. We have always balanced the tradition of individual responsibility and self-reliance with notions of community and love for country, in part because of voluntary associations. What it’s done is it allowed people to exercise the freedom to determine the direction of their communities, but still recognizing that we are part of a common project, of creating a better life for the next generation. And that’s something that’s been lost.
But what we’re seeing in this campaign is it’s something people want to restore. It requires responsibilities.
Part of what is interesting about our campaign, for example, is that when young people come in, we work them like dogs. I mean, and they are given big responsibilities. One of the striking things, when you visit our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, you’ve got 22-, 23-year- old, platoon leaders who are taking on life-and-death responsibilities and decision-making.
We sell too many of our citizens short. They want to be involved.
But we’ve got to start early. We’ve got — and that’s part of the reason why I want to make sure that we’ve got opportunities in high school, we’ve got opportunities in college, that we help schools create a civic education system that involves community service so that these values are transmitted to the next generation.
I would think parents would be thrilled to have their kids turn off the video game and get out there and do something. And you know what, it turns out the kids would appreciate it as well. WOODRUFF: Is there a president or administration that would be a model for you? Everybody talks about what John Kennedy asked the country to do. But John Kennedy or any other president?
OBAMA: Look, I think what Kennedy did at a time of enormous change was to look out into the horizon and say, this is where America needs to go.
OBAMA: Not just to the moon, but all sorts of new frontiers. And then he created structures like the Peace Corps to channel the idealism that he tapped.
I think Bill Clinton, in setting up AmeriCorps, again, created structures that tapped into idealism that was already there. I think it is right below the surface. And so my…
WOODRUFF: Any Republican president come to mind?
OBAMA: Well, Teddy Roosevelt, I think, was an activist president who understood how we mobilize our citizens. Means that we hold all our institutions accountable, public and private. And that’s why, you know, one of the premises of our campaign from the start has been that change happens from the bottom up. It doesn’t happen from the top down. It happens because the American people look up and they say, we imagine a world not as it is but as it should be, and we are willing to roll up our sleeves and put in the hard work to change this country, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, state by state. And that, I think, is the kind of president I would like to be is one that inspires more of that feeling and provides the avenues to express it.
WOODRUFF: Senator Barack Obama, thank you very much for joining us for this presidential candidate ServiceNation forum.
(APPLAUSE)
We appreciate it. Thank you very much.
OBAMA: Thank you so much
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// September 12th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // POLITICAL ARENA
Here is how McCain responded to questions at the Service Forum.
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// September 12th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // POLITICAL ARENA
This is the ad That Obama can’t stand. The ad slams Obama for his support for a bill which called for sex ed for K-12.
// September 10th, 2008 // 5 Comments » // POLITICAL ARENA
Here is the McCain ad that is a response to Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment. When Obama and Biden along with the media attacked Palin from all sides I supported the responses by the McCain camp. I believe this comment was taken out of context and is being blown out of proportion. It may have been a clever use of words by Obama, but if the liberals don’t outright attack Palin and we respond with these kinds of ads it makes us appear petty and desperate.
Read more about the lipstick on a pig comment.
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