Posted on 10/13/2004 6:49:35 PM PDT by TaxRelief
SCHIEFFER: Let me just stay on Social Security with a new question for Senator Kerry, because, Senator Kerry, you have just said you will not cut benefits. Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, says there's no way that Social Security can pay retirees what we have promised them unless we recalibrate. What he's suggesting, we're going to cut benefits or we're going to have to raise the retirement age. We may have to take some other reform.
But if you've just said, you've promised no changes, does that mean you're just going to leave this as a problem, another problem for our children to solve?
KERRY: Not at all. Absolutely not, Bob. This is the same thing we heard -- remember, I appeared on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert in 1990-something. We heard the same thing. We fixed it. In fact, we put together a $5.6 trillion surplus in the '90s that was for the purpose of saving Social Security.
If you take the tax cut that the president of the United States has given, President Bush gave to Americans in the top 1% of America, just that tax cut that went to the top 1% of America would have saved Social Security until the year 2075.
This president decided to give it to the wealthiest Americans in a tax cut. Now, Alan Greenspan, who (sic) I think has done a terrific job in monetary policy, supports the president's tax cut. I don't. I support it for the middle class, not that part of it that goes to people earning more than $200,000 a year, and when I roll it back and we invest in the things that I have talked about to move our economy, we're going to grow sufficiently, it would begin to cut the deficit in half, and we get back to where we were at the end of the 1990's when we balanced the budget and paid down the debt of this country. Now, we can do that.
Now, if later on, after a period of time we find that Social Security is in trouble, we'll pull together the top experts of the country. ['Cause hiring the right guy is the way I solve all problems...] We'll do exactly what we did it he 1990s and we'll make whatever adjustment is necessary, but the first and most important thing is to start creating jobs in America.
The jobs the president is creating pay $9,000 less than the jobs that we're losing, and this is the first president in 72 years to preside over an economy in America that has lost jobs, 1.6 million jobs. Eleven other presidents, six Democrats and five Republicans, had wars; had recessions; had great difficulties; none of them lost jobs the way this president has.
I have a plan to put America back to work. And if we're fiscally responsible and put America back to work, we're going to fix Social Security.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?
BUSH: He forgot to tell you he voted to tax Social Security benefits more than one time. I didn't hear any plan to fix Social Security. I heard more of the same.
He talks about middle-class tax cuts. That's exactly where the tax cuts went. Most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans. And now the tax code is more fair. Twenty percent of the upper-income people pay about 80 percent of the taxes in America today because of how we structured the tax cuts.
People listening out there know the benefits of the tax cuts we passed. If you have a child, you got tax relief. If you're married, you got tax relief. If you pay any tax at all, you got tax relief. All of which was opposed by my opponent, and the tax relief [me!] was important to spur consumption and investment to get us out of this recession.
People need to remember, six months prior to my arrival, the stock market started to go down, and it was one of the largest declines in our history. And then we had a recession and we got attacked, which cost us 1 million jobs, but we acted. I led the Congress: We passed tax relief[me]. Now this economy is growing; We added 1.9 million new jobs over the last 13 months. Sure, there's more work to do. But the way to make sure our economy grows is not to raise taxes on small-business owners; It's not to increase the scope of the federal government; It's to make sure we have fiscal sanity and keep taxes low.
Of course you are. Have you noticed that you are the ONLY one on this thread who is expressing negativity? It's rather depressing and if it is truly "making you sick" I had a suggestion to cheer you up.
I'm going to dinner, if no one else finishes the transcript, I'll finish it when I return.
TTFN.
I got news for you my friend. Bush is winning this debate big time.
Indeed he DID.
And Kerry with that stupid comment about, "marrying up, some of us more than others"? what the heck was that , what a jerk!
At the end, did I mis-hear Bob Schieffer call Kerry "President Kerry" during his wrap up??
What a shock to find out they think Kerry did a better job.
Notice that his rich old witch of a wife looked angry after the debate.
Folks, Bush won tonight & he is going to win the election.
I am so glad.I get so nervous .I think I just want Bush to plainly expose Kerry as the lying SOB that he is!
All he does is site stats factual or not, and refers to what others have said.
People often buy into generic ideals - that is why commercials often work. They are flashy, make bold claims, and so people build a relationship with the brand over time and come to believe the claims. They don't bother researching it, no time and no interest.
Give you an example with a friend of mine, which he figured out and told me about later:
He was at a discount store and was going to buy some batteries. They were packaged in a different package then he had ever seen and the battery covers were like christmas wrapping. He was going to put them back as they seemed 'cheap' and he preferred duracell.
After reading over the back of the package he found out that is what they were. Lower price, holiday coverings, and he figured that because of that they were not as good as his favorite.
We later discussed at length (we are geeks, and can spend hours talking about phone book ads). What if they were not duracell, should he have bought them anyway and see if they lasted as long? Had he only used the one brand out of branding and not investigating, thus creating a biased view of companies that did not have the advertising budget? etc and so on.
People read a lot into things that does not exist. Politics is like a religion in this and other ways. People take things on faith. No one needs to say how they will do something with concrete plans - the product has built in loyalty so folks believe that candidate X will do it.
Kerry tells people what they want to hear, bush usually tells them what they should hear - real information (not always). WE need to do a better job of expecting more from the candidates for the job. Better 'technical' interviews, demand more details, and demand they shelve pretty rhetoric for detailed information.
The problem is more us - we allow them to get away with it for fear our product will lose, which to some invalidates their views and mindset. We need to move beyond parties and demand a more scientific analysis of plans and ideas, then make a decision based on that.
SCHIEFFER: Let's go to a new question, Mr. President.
I got more e-mail this week on this question than any other question. And it is about immigration.
I'm told that at least 8,000 people cross our borders illegally every day. Some people believe this is a security issue, as you know. Some believe it's an economic issue. Some see it as a human-rights issue.
How do you see it? And what we need to do about it?
BUSH: I see it as a serious problem. I see it as a security issue, I see it as an economic issue, and I see it as a human-rights issue.
We're increasing the border security of the United States. We've got 1,000 more Border Patrol agents on the southern border.
We're using new equipment. We're using unmanned vehicles to spot people coming across.
And we'll continue to do so over the next four years. It's a subject I'm very familiar with. After all, I was a border governor for a while.
Many people are coming to this country for economic reasons. They're coming here to work. If you can make 50 cents in the heart of Mexico, for example, or make $5 here in America, $5.15, you're going to come here if you're worth your salt, if you want to put food on the table for your families. And that's what's happening.
And so in order to take pressure off the borders, in order to make the borders more secure, I believe there ought to be a temporary worker card that allows a willing worker and a willing employer to mate up, so long as there's not an American willing to do that job, to join up in order to be able to fulfill the employers' needs.
That has the benefit of making sure our employers aren't breaking the law as they try to fill their workforce needs. It makes sure that the people coming across the border are humanely treated, that they're not kept in the shadows of our society, that they're able to go back and forth to see their families. See, the card, it'll have a period of time attached to it.
It also means it takes pressure off the border. If somebody is coming here to work with a card, it means they're not going to have to sneak across the border. It means our border patrol will be more likely to be able to focus on doing their job.
Now, it's very important for our citizens to also know that I don't believe we ought to have amnesty. I don't think we ought to reward illegal behavior. There are plenty of people standing in line to become a citizen. And we ought not to crowd these people ahead of them in line.
If they want to become a citizen, they can stand in line, too.
And here is where my opponent and I differ. In September 2003, he supported amnesty for illegal aliens.
SCHIEFFER: Time's up.
Senator?
KERRY: Let me just answer one part of the last question quickly, and then I'll come to immigration.
The American middle class family isn't making it right now, Bob. And what the president said about the tax cuts has been wiped out by the increase in health care, the increase in gasoline, the increase in tuitions, the increase in prescription drugs.
The fact is, the take home pay of a typical American family as a share of national income is lower than it's been since 1929. And the take home pay of the richest .1 percent of Americans is the highest it's been since 1928.
Under President Bush, the middle class has seen their tax burden go up and the wealthiest's tax burden has gone down. Now that's wrong.
Now with respect to immigration reform, the president broke his promise on immigration reform. He said he would reform it. Four years later he is now promising another plan.
Here's what I'll do: Number one, the borders are more leaking today than they were before 9/11. The fact is, we haven't done what we need to do to toughen up our borders, and I will.
Secondly, we need a guest-worker program, but if it's all we have, it's not going to solve the problem.
The second thing we need is to crack down on illegal hiring. It's against the law in the United States to hire people illegally, and we ought to be enforcing that law properly.
And thirdly, we need an earned-legalization program for people who have been here for a long time, stayed out of trouble, got a job, paid their taxes, and their kids are American. We got to start moving them toward full citizenship, out of the shadows.
SCHIEFFER: Do you want to respond, Mr. President?
BUSH: Well, to say that the borders are not as protected as they were prior to September the 11th shows he doesn't know the borders. They're much better protected today than they were when I was the governor of Texas.
We have much more manpower and much more equipment there.
He just doesn't understand how the borders work, evidently, to say that. That is an outrageous claim.
And we'll continue to protect our borders. We're continuing to increase manpower and equipment.
SCHIEFFER: Senator?
KERRY: Four thousand people a day are coming across the border.
The fact is that we now have people from the Middle East, allegedly, coming across the border.
And we're not doing what we ought to do in terms of the technology. We have iris-identification technology. We have thumbprint, fingerprint technology today. We can know who the people are, that they're really the people they say they are when the cross the border.
We could speed it up. There are huge delays.
The fact is our borders are not as secure as they ought to be, and I'll make them secure.
SCHIEFFER: Next question to you, Senator Kerry.
The gap between rich and poor is growing wider. More people are dropping into poverty. Yet the minimum wage has been stuck at, what, $5.15 an hour now for about seven years. Is it time to raise it?
KERRY: Well, I'm glad you raised that question.
It's long overdue time to raise the minimum wage.
And, America, this is one of those issues that separates the president and myself.
We have fought to try to raise the minimum wage in the last years. But the Republican leadership of the House and Senate won't even let us have a vote on it. We're not allowed to vote on it. They don't want to raise the minimum wage. The minimum wage is the lowest minimum wage value it has been in our nation in 50 years.
If we raise the minimum wage, which I will do over several years to $7 an hour, 9.2 million women who are trying to raise their families would earn another $3,800 a year.
The president has denied 9.2 million women $3,800 a year, but he doesn't hesitate to fight for $136,000 to a millionaire.
One percent of America got $89 billion last year in a tax cut, but people working hard, playing by the rules, trying to take care of their kids, family values, that we're supposed to value so much in America — I'm tired of politicians who talk about family values and don't value families.
What we need to do is raise the minimum wage. We also need to hold onto equal pay. Women work for 76 cents on the dollar for the same work that men do. That's not right in America.
And we had an initiative that we were working on to raise women's pay. They've cut it off. They've stopped it. They don't enforce these kinds of things.
Now, I think that it a matter of fundamental right that if we raise the minimum wage, 15 million Americans would be positively affected. We'd put money into the hands of people who work hard, who obey the rules, who play for the American Dream.
And if we did that, we'd have more consumption ability in America, which is what we need right in order to kick our economy into gear. I will fight tooth and nail to pass the minimum wage.
BUSH: Actually, Mitch McConnell had a minimum-wage plan that I supported that would have increased the minimum wage.
But let me talk about what's really important for the worker you're referring to. And that's to make sure the education system works. It's to make sure we raise standards.
Listen, the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act when you think about it. The No Child Left Behind Act says, "We'll raise standards. We'll increase federal spending. But in return for extra spending, we now want people to measure — states and local jurisdictions to measure to show us whether or not a child can read or write or add and subtract."
You cannot solve a problem unless you diagnose the problem. And we weren't diagnosing problems. And therefore just kids were being shuffled through the school.
And guess who would get shuffled through? Children whose parents wouldn't speak English as a first language just move through.
Many inner-city kids just move through. We've stopped that practice now by measuring early. And when we find a problem, we spend extra money to correct it.
I remember a lady in Houston, Texas, told me, "Reading is the new civil right," and she's right. In order to make sure people have jobs for the 21st century, we've got to get it right in the education system, and we're beginning to close a minority achievement gap now.
You see, we'll never be able to compete in the 21st century unless we have an education system that doesn't quit on children, an education system that raises standards, an education that makes sure there's excellence in every classroom.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, I want to go back to something Senator Kerry said earlier tonight and ask a follow-up of my own. He said — and this will be a new question to you — he said that you had never said whether you would like to overturn Roe v. Wade. So I'd ask you directly, would you like to?
BUSH: What he's asking me is, will I have a litmus test for my judges? And the answer is, no, I will not have a litmus test. I will pick judges who will interpret the Constitution, but I'll have no litmus test.
SCHIEFFER: Senator Kerry, you'd like to respond?
KERRY: Is that a new question or a 30-second question?
SCHIEFFER: That's a new question for Senator — for President Bush.
KERRY: Which time limit...
SCHIEFFER: You have 90 seconds.
KERRY: Thank you very much.
Well, again, the president didn't answer the question.
I'll answer it straight to America. I'm not going to appoint a judge to the Court who's going to undo a constitutional right, whether it's the First Amendment, or the Fifth Amendment, or some other right that's given under our courts today — under the Constitution. And I believe that the right of choice is a constitutional right.
So I don't intend to see it undone.
Clearly, the president wants to leave in ambivalence or intends to undo it.
But let me go a step further. We have a long distance yet to travel in terms of fairness in America. I don't know how you can govern in this country when you look at New York City and you see that 50 percent of the black males there are unemployed, when you see 40 percent of Hispanic children — of black children in some cities — dropping out of high school.
And yet the president who talks about No Child Left Behind refused to fully fund — by $28 billion — that particular program so you can make a difference in the lives of those young people.
Now right here in Arizona, that difference would have been $131 million to the state of Arizona to help its kids be able to have better education and to lift the property tax burden from its citizens. The president reneged on his promise to fund No Child Left Behind.
He'll tell you he's raised the money, and he has. But he didn't put in what he promised, and that makes a difference in the lives of our children.
SCHIEFFER: Yes, sir?
BUSH: Two things. One, he clearly has a litmus test for his judges, which I disagree with.
And secondly, only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough.
We've increased funds. But more importantly, we've reformed the system to make sure that we solve problems early, before they're too late.
He talked about the unemployed. Absolutely we've got to make sure they get educated.
He talked about children whose parents don't speak English as a first language? Absolutely we've got to make sure they get educated.
And that's what the No Child Left Behind Act does.
SCHIEFFER: Senator?
KERRY: You don't measure it by a percentage increase. Mr. President, you measure it by whether you're getting the job done.
Five hundred thousand kids lost after-school programs because of your budget.
Now, that's not in my gut. That's not in my value system, and certainly not so that the wealthiest people in America can walk away with another tax cut.
$89 billion last year to the top 1 percent of Americans, but kids lost their after-school programs. You be the judge.
SCHIEFFER: All right, let's go to another question. And it is to Senator Kerry.
You have two minutes, sir.
Senator, the last debate, President Bush said he did not favor a draft. You agreed with him. But our National Guard and Reserve forces are being severely strained because many of them are being held beyond their enlistments. Some of them say that it's a back-door draft.
Is there any relief that could be offered to these brave Americans and their families?
If you became president, Senator Kerry, what would you do about this situation of holding National Guard and Reservists for these extended periods of time and these repeated call-ups that they're now facing?
KERRY: Well, I think the fact that they're facing these repeated call-ups, some of them two and three deployments, and there's a stop- loss policy that prevents people from being able to get out when their time was up, is a reflection of the bad judgment this president exercised in how he has engaged in the world and deployed our forces.
Our military is overextended. Nine out of 10 active-duty Army divisions are either in Iraq, going to Iraq or have come back from Iraq. One way or the other, they're wrapped up in it.
Now, I've proposed adding two active-duty divisions to the Armed Forces of the United States — one combat, one support.
In addition, I'm going to double the number of Special Forces so that we can fight a more effective war on terror, with less pressure on the National Guard and Reserve. And what I would like to do is see the National Guard and Reserve be deployed differently here in our own country. There's much we can do with them with respect to homeland security. We ought to be doing that. And that would relieve an enormous amount of pressure.
But the most important thing to relieve the pressure on all of the armed forces is frankly to run a foreign policy that recognizes that America is strongest when we are working with real alliances, when we are sharing the burdens of the world by working through our statesmanship at the highest levels and our diplomacy to bring other nations to our side.
I've said it before, I say it again: I believe the president broke faith to the American people in the way that he took this nation to war. He said he would work through a real alliance. He said in Cincinnati we would plan carefully, we would take every precaution. Well, we didn't. And the result is our forces today are overextended.
The fact is that he did not choose to go to war as a last result. And America now is paying, already $120 billion, up to $200 billion before we're finished and much more probably. And that is the result of this president taking his eye off of Osama bin Laden.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?
BUSH: The best way to take the pressure off our troops is to succeed in Iraq, is to train Iraqis so they can do the hard work of democracy, is to give them a chance to defend their country, which is precisely what we're doing. We'll have 125,000 troops trained by the end of this year.
I remember going on an airplane in Bangor, Maine, to say thanks to the reservists and Guard that were headed overseas from Tennessee and North Carolina, Georgia. Some of them had been there before.
The people I talked to their spirits were high. They didn't view their service as a back-door draft. They viewed their service as an opportunity to serve their country.
My opponent, the senator, talks about foreign policy.
In our first debate he proposed America pass a global test. In order to defend ourselves, we'd have to get international approval. That's one of the major differences we have about defending our country.
I'll work with allies. I'll work with friends. We'll continue to build strong coalitions. But I will never turn over our national- security decisions to leaders of other countries.
We'll be resolute, we'll be strong, and we'll wage a comprehensive war against the terrorists.
SCHIEFFER: Senator?
KERRY: I have never suggested a test where we turn over our security to any nation. In fact, I've said the opposite: I will never turn the security of the United States over to any nation. No nation will ever have a veto over us.
But I think it makes sense, I think most Americans in their guts know, that we ought to pass a sort of truth standard. That's how you gain legitimacy with your own countrypeople, and that's how you gain legitimacy in the world.
But I'll never fail to protect the United States of America.
BUSH: In 1990, there was a vast coalition put together to run Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The international community, the international world said this is the right thing to do, but when it came time to authorize the use of force on the Senate floor, my opponent voted against the use of force.
Apparently you can't pass any test under his vision of the world.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, new question, two minutes.
You said that if Congress would vote to extend the ban on assault weapons, that you'd sign the legislation, but you did nothing to encourage the Congress to extend it. Why not?
BUSH: Actually, I made my intentions -- made my views clear. I did think we ought to extend the assault weapons ban, and was told the fact that the bill was never going to move, because Republicans and Democrats were against the assault weapon ban, people of both parties.
I believe law-abiding citizens ought to be able to own a gun. I believe in background checks at gun shows or anywhere to make sure that guns don't get in the hands of people that shouldn't have them.
But the best way to protect our citizens from guns is to prosecute those who commit crimes with guns. And that's why early in my administration I called the attorney general and the U.S. attorneys and said: Put together a task force all around the country to prosecute those who commit crimes with guns. And the prosecutions are up by about 68 percent -- I believe -- is the number.
Neighborhoods are safer when we crack down on people who commit crimes with guns.
To me, that's the best way to secure America.
SCHIEFFER: Senator?
KERRY: I believe it was a failure of presidential leadership not to reauthorize the assault weapons ban.
I am a hunter. I'm a gun owner. I've been a hunter since I was a kid, 12, 13 years old. And I respect the Second Amendment and I will not tamper with the Second Amendment.
But I'll tell you this. I'm also a former law enforcement officer. I ran one of the largest district attorney's offices in America, one of the ten largest. I put people behind bars for the rest of their life. I've broken up organized crime. I know something about prosecuting.
And most of the law enforcement agencies in America wanted that assault weapons ban. They don't want to go into a drug bust and be facing an AK-47.
I was hunting in Iowa last year with a sheriff from one of the counties there, and he pointed to a house in back of us, and said, "See the house over? We just did a drug bust a week earlier, and the guy we arrested had an AK-47 lying on the bed right beside him."
Because of the president's decision today, law enforcement officers will walk into a place that will be more dangerous. Terrorists can now come into America and go to a gun show and, without even a background check, buy an assault weapon today.
And that's what Osama bin Laden's handbook said, because we captured it in Afghanistan. It encouraged them to do it.
So I believe America's less safe.
If Tom DeLay or someone in the House said to me, "Sorry, we don't have the votes," I'd have said, "Then we're going to have a fight."
And I'd have taken it out to the country and I'd have had every law enforcement officer in the country visit those congressmen. We'd have won what Bill Clinton won.
SCHIEFFER: Let's go to a new question. For you, Senator Kerry, two minutes.
Affirmative action: Do you see a need for affirmative action programs, or have we moved far enough along that we no longer need to use race and gender as a factor in school admissions and federal and state contracts and so on?
KERRY: No, Bob, regrettably, we have not moved far enough along.
And I regret to say that this administration has even blocked steps that could help us move further along. I'll give you an example.
I served on the Small Business Committee for a long time. I was chairman of it once. Now I'm the senior Democrat on it. We used to -- you know, we have a goal there for minority set-aside programs, to try to encourage ownership in the country. They don't reach those goals. They don't even fight to reach those goals. They've tried to undo them.
The fact is that in too many parts of our country, we still have discrimination. And affirmative action is not just something that applies to people of color. Some people have a mistaken view of it in America. It also is with respect to women, it's with respect to other efforts to try to reach out and be inclusive in our country.
I think that we have a long way to go, regrettably. If you look at what's happened -- we've made progress, I want to say that at the same time.
During the Clinton years, as you may recall, there was a fight over affirmative action. And there were many people, like myself, who opposed quotas, who felt there were places where it was overreaching. So we had a policy called "Mend it, don't end it." We fixed it.
And we fixed it for a reason: because there are too many people still in this country who feel the stark resistance of racism, and so we have a distance to travel. As president, I will make certain we travel it.
Now, let me just share something. This president is the first president ever, I think, not to meet with the NAACP. This is a president who hasn't met with the Black Congressional Caucus. This is a president who has not met with the civil rights leadership of our country.
If a president doesn't reach out and bring people in and be inclusive, then how are we going to get over those barriers? I see that as part of my job as president, and I'll make my best effort to do it.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?
BUSH: Well, first of all, it is just not true that I haven't met with the Black Congressional Caucus. I met with the Black Congressional Caucus at the White House.
And secondly, like my opponent, I don't agree we ought to have quotas. I agree, we shouldn't have quotas.
But we ought to have an aggressive effort to make sure people are educated, to make sure when they get out of high school there's Pell Grants available for them, which is what we've done. We've expanded Pell Grants by a million students.
Do you realize today in America, we spend $73 billion to help 10 million low- and middle-income families better afford college?
That's the access I believe is necessary, is to make sure every child learns to read, write, add and subtract early, to be able to build on that education by going to college so they can start their careers with a college diploma.
I believe the best way to help our small businesses is not only through small-business loans, which we have increased since I've been the president of the United States, but to unbundle government contracts so people have a chance to be able to bid and receive a contract to help get their business going.
Minority ownership of businesses are up, because we created an environment for the entrepreneurial spirit to be strong.
I believe part of a hopeful society is one in which somebody owns something. Today in America more minorities own a home than ever before. And that's hopeful, and that's positive.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, let's go to a new question.
You were asked before the invasion, or after the invasion, of Iraq if you'd checked with your dad. And I believe, I don't remember the quote exactly, but I believe you said you had checked with a higher authority.
I would like to ask you, what part does your faith play on your policy decisions?
First, my faith plays a lot -- a big part in my life. And that's, when I answering that question, what I was really saying to the person was that I pray a lot. And I do.
And my faith is a very -- it's very personal. I pray for strength. I pray for wisdom. I pray for our troops in harm's way. I pray for my family. I pray for my little girls.
But I'm mindful in a free society that people can worship if they want to or not. You're equally an American if you choose to worship an almighty and if you choose not to.
If you're a Christian, Jew or Muslim, you're equally an American. That's the great thing about America, is the right to worship the way you see fit.
Prayer and religion sustain me. I receive calmness in the storms of the presidency.
I love the fact that people pray for me and my family all around the country. Somebody asked me one time, "Well, how do you know?" I said, "I just feel it."
Religion is an important part. I never want to impose my religion on anybody else.
But when I make decisions, I stand on principle, and the principles are derived from who I am.
I believe we ought to love our neighbor like we love ourself, as manifested in public policy through the faith-based initiative where we've unleashed the armies of compassion to help heal people who hurt.
I believe that God wants everybody to be free. That's what I believe.
And that's been part of my foreign policy. In Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a gift from the Almighty. And I can't tell you how encouraged I am to see freedom on the march.
And so my principles that I make decisions on are a part of me, and religion is a part of me.
SCHIEFFER: Senator Kerry?
KERRY: Well, I respect everything that the president has said and certainly respect his faith. I think it's important and I share it. I think that he just said that freedom is a gift from the Almighty.
Everything is a gift from the Almighty. And as I measure the words of the Bible -- and we all do; different people measure different things -- the Koran, the Torah, or, you know, Native Americans who gave me a blessing the other day had their own special sense of connectedness to a higher being. And people all find their ways to express it.
I was taught -- I went to a church school and I was taught that the two greatest commandments are: Love the Lord, your God, with all your mind, your body and your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. And frankly, I think we have a lot more loving of our neighbor to do in this country and on this planet.
We have a separate and unequal school system in the United States of America. There's one for the people who have, and there's one for the people who don't have. And we're struggling with that today.
And the president and I have a difference of opinion about how we live out our sense of our faith.
I talked about it earlier when I talked about the works and faith without works being dead.
I think we've got a lot more work to do. And as president, I will always respect everybody's right to practice religion as they choose -- or not to practice -- because that's part of America.
SCHIEFFER: Senator Kerry, after 9/11 -- and this is a new question for you -- it seemed to me that the country came together as I've never seen it come together since World War II. But some of that seems to have melted away. I think it's fair to say we've become pretty polarized, perhaps because of thet would be your attitude on that?
KERRY: Very much so.
Let me pay a compliment to the president, if I may. I think in those days after 9/11, I thought the president did a terrific job. And I really was moved, as well as impressed, by the speech that he gave to the Congress.
And I think the hug Tom Daschle gave him at that moment was about as genuine a sense of there being no Democrats, no Republicans, we were all just Americans. That's where we were.
That's not where we are today. I regret to say that the president who called himself a uniter, not a divider, is now presiding over the most divided America in the recent memory of our country. I've never seen such ideological squabbles in the Congress of the United States. I've never seen members of a party locked out of meetings the way they're locked out today.
We have to change that. And as president, I am committed to changing that. I don't care if the idea comes from the other side or this side. I think we have to come together and work to change it.
And I've done that. Over 20 years in the United States Senate, I've worked with John McCain, who's sitting here, I've worked with other colleagues. I've reached across the aisle. I've tried to find the common ground, because that's what makes us strong as Americans.
And if Americans trust me with the presidency, I can pledge to you, we will have the most significant effort, openly -- not secret meetings in the White House with special interests, not ideologically driven efforts to push people aside -- but a genuine effort to try to restore America's hope and possibilities by bringing people together.
And one of the ways we're going to do it is, I'm going to work with my friend, John McCain, to further campaign finance reform so we get these incredible amounts of money out of the system and open it up to average people, so America is really represented by the people who make up America.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?
BUSH: My biggest disappointment in Washington is how partisan the town is. I had a record of working with Republicans and Democrats as the governor of Texas, and I was hopeful I'd be able to do the same thing.
And we made good progress early on. The No Child Left Behind Act, incredibly enough, was good work between me and my administration and people like Senator Ted Kennedy.
And we worked together with Democrats to relieve the tax burden on the middle class and all who pay taxes in order to make sure this economy continues to grow.
But Washington is a tough town. And the way I view it is there's a lot of entrenched special interests there, people who are, you know, on one side of the issue or another and they spend enormous sums of money and they convince different senators to taut their way or different congressmen to talk about their issue, and they dig in.
I'll continue, in the four years, to continue to try to work to do so.
My opponent said this is a bitterly divided time. Pretty divided in the 2000 election. So in other words, it's pretty divided during the 1990s as well.
We're just in a period -- we've got to work to bring it -- my opponent keeps mentioning John McCain, and I'm glad he did. John McCain is for me for president because he understands I have the right view in winning the war on terror and that my plan will succeed in Iraq. And my opponent has got a plan of retreat and defeat in Iraq.
SCHIEFFER: We've come, gentlemen, to our last question. And it occurred to me as I came to this debate tonight that the three of us share something. All three of us are surrounded by very strong women. We're all married to strong women. Each of us have two daughters that make us very proud.
I'd like to ask each of you, what is the most important thing you've learned from these strong women?
BUSH: To listen to them.
(LAUGHTER)
To stand up straight and not scowl.
(LAUGHTER)
I love the strong women around me. I can't tell you how much I love my wife and our daughters.
I am, you know it's really interesting. I tell the people on the campaign trail, when I asked Laura to marry me, she said, "Fine, just so long as I never have to give a speech." I said, "OK, you've got a deal." Fortunately, she didn't hold me to that deal. And she's out campaigning along with our girls. And she speaks English a lot better than I do. I think people understand what she's saying.
But they see a compassionate, strong, great first lady in Laura Bush. I can't tell you how lucky I am. When I met her in the backyard at Joe and Jan O'Neill's in Midland, Texas, it was the classic backyard barbecue. O'Neill said, "Come on over. I think you'll find somebody who might interest you." So I said all right. I walked over there. There was only four of us there. And not only did she interest me, I guess you would say it was love at first sight.
SCHIEFFER: Senator Kerry?
KERRY: Well, I guess the president and you and I are three examples of lucky people who married up. And some would say maybe me more so than others. But I can take it.
Can I say, if I could just say a word about a woman that you didn't ask about, but my mom passed away a couple years ago, just before I was deciding to run. And she was in the hospital, and I went in to talk to her and tell her what I was thinking of doing.
And she looked at me from her hospital bed and she just looked at me and she said, "Remember: integrity, integrity, integrity." Those are the three words that she left me with.
And my daughters and my wife are people who just are filled with that sense of what's right, what's wrong.
They also kick me around. They keep me honest. They don't let me get away with anything. I can sometimes take myself too seriously. They surely don't let me do that.
And I'm blessed, as I think the president is blessed, as I said last time. I've watched him with the first lady, who I admire a great deal, and his daughters. He's a great father. And I think we're both very lucky.
SCHIEFFER: Well, gentlemen, that brings us to the closing statements.
Senator Kerry, I believe you're first.
KERRY: My fellow Americans, as you heard from Bob Schieffer a moment ago, America is being tested by division. More than ever, we need to be united as a country.
And, like Franklin Roosevelt, I don't care whether an idea is a Republican idea or a Democrat idea. I just care whether it works for America and whether it's going to make us stronger.
These are dangerous times. I believe I offer tested, strong leadership that can calm the waters of the troubled world. And I believe that we can together do things that are within the grasp of Americans.
We can lift our schools up. We can create jobs that pay more than the jobs we're losing overseas. We can have health care for all Americans. We can further the cause of equality in our nation.
Let me just make it clear: I will never allow any country to have a veto over our security. Just as I fought for our country as a young man, with the same passion I will fight to defend this nation that I love.
And, with faith in God and with conviction in the mission of America, I believe that we can reach higher. I believe we can do better.
I think the greatest possibilities of our country, our dreams and our hopes, are out there just waiting for us to grab onto them. And I ask you to embark on that journey with me.
I ask you for your trust. I ask you for your help. I ask you to allow me the privilege of leading this great nation of ours, of helping us to be stronger here at home and to be respected again in the world and, most of all, to be safer forever.
Thank you. Goodnight. And God bless the United States of America.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?
BUSH: In the Oval Office, there's a painting by a friend of Laura and mine named, by Tom Lee. And it's a West Texas painting, a painting of a mountain scene, and he said this about it.
He said, "Sara and I live on the east side of the mountain. It's the sunrise side, not the sunset side. It's the side to see the day that is coming, not to see the day that is gone."
I love the optimism in that painting, because that's how I feel about America. And we've been through a lot together during the last 3 3/4 years. We've come through a recession, a stock market decline, an attack on our country. And yet, because of the hard work of the American people and good policies, this economy is growing. Over the next four years, we'll make sure the economy continues to grow.
We reformed our school system, and now there's an achievement gap in America that's beginning to close. Over the next four years, we'll continue to insist on excellence in every classroom in America so that our children have a chance to realize the great promise of America.
Over the next four years, we'll continue to work to make sure health care is available and affordable. Over the next four years, we'll continue to rally the armies of compassion, to help heal the hurt that exists in some of our country's neighborhoods.
I'm optimistic that we'll win the war on terror, but I understand it requires firm resolve and clear purpose. We must never waver in the face of this enemy that -- these ideologues of hate.
And as we pursue the enemy wherever it exists, we'll also spread freedom and liberty. We got great faith in the ability of liberty to transform societies, to convert a hostile world to a peaceful world.
My hope for America is a prosperous America, a hopeful America and a safer world. I want to thank you for listening tonight. I'm asking for your vote.
God bless you.
SCHIEFFER: Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Senator Kerry.
Well, that brings these debates to a close, but the campaign goes on. I want to wish both of you the very best of luck between now and Election Day.
That's it for us from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. I'm Bob Schieffer at CBS News.
Goodnight, everyone.
I didn't catch that, but I'll check the recording.
Thanks. It was right after he recapped President Bush.
Next Kerry will claim he can raise Christopher Reeve from the dead!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.