Educating Children
Crowley to Bauer: There was another school shooting today, this time in Oklahoma.  What I'd like to know is, on the first day of a Bauer administration what is the first concrete step you would take to immediately make the nation's schools safer?

King to Bush: Governor Bush, while you echo the overwhelming majority of Republicans in saying that most education decisions should be made at the state and local level, you would mandate federal testing, cut off federal funds to schools that didn't make the grade, and tie other strings to the federal money that goes to the states. Isn't this very similar to the Clinton administration approach that so many Republicans, including many of your colleagues here, say is the wrong way for the federal government to be involved in education?

Woodruff to Hatch: Senator Hatch, in that connection, you support voucher programs which of course would provide government money for parents to send their children to the school of their choice.  But even the most generous voucher program would only provide a fraction of what it costs to go to a private school.  Doesn't this mean parents with limited means still won't have the ability to send their children to the best school?

Crowley to McCain: Senator McCain, welcome.  You've said a number of times that no good teacher should be paid less than a bad Senator.  In January, Senators will be making over $140,000 a year.  Now, without getting into the question of whether there are any bad Senators, how could you pay anything even close to that?  Who would fund anything even close to that for the good teachers?

King to Keyes: Ambassador Keyes, welcome.  Is there not a contradiction in saying on the one hand that Washington should get so far out of the business of educating our children that you would abolish the Department of Education, yet saying on the other hand that you would use the bully pulpit of the presidency and federal legislation if necessary to push for more prayer in schools and for values and morals instruction?

Woodruff to Forbes: Mr. Forbes, while we're discussing children, six years ago Congress passed a measure to give short unpaid leave to parents of newborn children or adopted children.  This has been very popular.  At least 20 million Americans have taken advantage of this.  Now President Clinton proposes to expand this program by allowing states to use unemployment benefits to provide some paid time off for parents who otherwise couldn't afford to stop working.  My question is: Do low-income parents deserve this kind of time off with their families? 

Taxes and Government Spending
King to Forbes: Mr. Forbes, look back at the past seven years.  We have 20 million new jobs, 4.1 percent unemployment, low inflation, more than a tripling of the stock market, yet you have been critical not only as many of your rivals here have been of the incumbent president's economic stewardship, but also of the job performance of the Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.  What in your view has Mr. Greenspan done wrong?  And if you are elected president, who would you nominate to replace him? 

Crowley to Keyes: Mr. Keyes, under your plan to substitute a 23 percent national sales tax for the current Federal income tax, a poor family could save all year to buy a bicycle for their child for Christmas and pay the same tax as a wealthy family does.  So no matter how many items you set aside and make exempt from sales tax, isn't at the heart of it this kind of tax something that disproportionately hits the poor over the wealthy. 

Woodruff to McCain: Now a question for Senator McCain, another question on the working poor.  Both Gov. Bush's tax plan, Senator, which you have criticized as too costly, and your own plan don't mention, don't include the payroll tax.  What do you say to the working poor of this country, for example, the single mother waitress earning $22,000 a year with three children, paying 15.3 percent of her income in a payroll tax?  Shouldn't she share in our economic prosperity the same as those at the upper income level? 

King to Hatch: Senator Hatch, like Mr. Keyes, you have spoken of scrapping the current income tax code and replacing it with a national sales tax and you've said you're working on a plan. With just seven weeks until the people of Iowa cast the first votes in this race, can you tell us tonight what that rate would be and what specific exemptions you would propose to deal with the criticism as we've discussed that such a tax could hurt the very poor people it's intended to help? 

Crowley to Bush: Governor Bush, let's suppose for the purposes of this question that the surpluses, the projected surpluses in your tax plan, fail to materialize in full or in part. What part of your tax package gets dropped first? 

Woodruff to Bauer: This question for Mr. Bauer, and we're still on the subject of fairness here.  You and most of your Republican brethren advocate doing away with the inheritance tax or the estate tax. But doing that would cost the treasury literally tens of billions of dollars a year and would benefit, as you know, only the top 1 or 2 percent income level in this country, the very richest in people who inherit money.  Now it's understandable why you would want to eliminate this for the family farmer, for the small business person.  But for the very wealthiest, how do you explain that to everyone else? 

International Affairs and National Security
King to Bauer: Mr. Bauer, you opposed the U.S. military intervention in Kosovo on grounds in your view, it was not in the vital interests of the United States.  Just this past weekend there have been fresh reports documenting a Serb campaign to cleanse Kosovo of its ethnic Albanian population.  Based on what we've learned since the end of the conflict, do you still stand by the view that the United States should have done nothing? 

Woodruff to Bush: Governor Bush, while we are considering America's place in the world, you volunteered at last week's debate that you were now reading the biography of Dean Acheson.  And my question is, what lessons do you take from the successes and the failures of Acheson and George Marshall during that critical period in U.S. history and how would you apply that to a Bush international policy?

Crowley to Hatch: Senator Hatch, the protests outside the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle basically boiled down to this: that cheaper overseas labor and less stringent labor and environmental laws put U.S. businesses and workers at a trade disadvantage.  In a Hatch administration would you require that environmental and labor provisions be put in trade agreements? 

King to McCain: Senator McCain, tonight there is both an emotional and a diplomatic trauma playing out about a 5-year-old boy from Cuba who lost his mother as they tried to enter the United States by water. The boy's father back in Cuba says he wants his son back. If you were president of the United States, what would you do? 

Woodruff to Keyes: Mr. Keyes, another Kosovo question.  You have said that you thought the scale of Serb atrocities there was grossly overstated and that what the U.S. did through NATO in intervening was more dangerous than what happened inside the province itself.  My question is there's this new report just out that -- by a neutral organization -- than confirms an overwhelming brutal Serb campaign to drive out a million Albanians from Kosovo.  Are you still, do you still stand by your view that the U.S., through NATO, should have stood by and done nothing? 

Crowley to Forbes: Mr. Forbes, you have said that the Clinton administration has made promiscuous use of U.S. troops overseas. In a Forbes administration, what troops would you bring home from what countries? 

Candidates Question One Another (Order Determined by Draw)--Round One
Bauer to Bush: Well, my first question, Judy, is for Governor Bush, not surprisingly. Governor I worked for Ronald Reagan for eight years and he never gave the Soviet Union most favored nation status.  He always insisted on progress on human rights and national security.  Our new challenge is China.  They persecute their people, arrest those who practice their religion, forcible abortions, etc.  And yet you've embraced the policy of Clinton and Gore, you want to give them most favored nation status and membership in the World Trade Organization.  Why not follow a Reagan policy instead of a Clintonian policy? 

Follow-up: Governor we would have never made the argument that you just made if we were talking about Nazi Germany. Is there no atrocity that you can think of, the labor camps doubling in their slave labor, a bigger crackdown, more priests disappearing in the middle of the night, is there anything that would tell you to put trade on the back burner? 

McCain to Bauer: Gary, as you know, I and a number of others have been struggling to give the government of this country back to the people and that is our effort of some years now to enact campaign finance reform, to stop this incredible inundation of big money into American politics. When I was trying on the floor of the Senate last time to get this reform enacted, I asked for you to support this effort. I'm pleased that you responded in the affirmative. Will you continue to do that and join me in making this a big effort in this campaign and a major issue? 

Follow-up: On that point, we'll never know how much money poured in from China and Indonesia into the Gore and Clinton campaign in 1996.  On those lines, then will you commit with me as the nominee of the party to reject any soft money, any uncontrolled contributions to the Republican National Committee, our presidential campaign, or anything to do with this upcoming presidential campaign? 

Forbes to McCain: Senator, we know that the Bush, George Bush's tax plan that he leaves the IRS unscathed; the 67,000 lobbyists in Washington, D.C., their gravy train continues; the marriage penalty for moms at home continues; and also too, the capital gains tax remains untouched.  Cutting that is key to a prosperous future.  In New Hampshire you indicated support for a flat tax and I was wondering if you might put flesh on those bones and tell us what you have in mind for tax reform? 

Follow-up: As a follow-up question, passing laws against lobbyists is sort of like passing laws against mosquitoes.  Washington attracts mosquitoes.  Washington attracts mosquitoes the way swamps attract mosquitoes.  Special interests go there.  Don't we need to drain the swamp first to get the mosquitoes out of the way.  And don't we have to get rid of the tax code first?

Bush to Hatch: Let me start by this way.  Muchos espanos que vivir in ese estado.  There's a lot of Hispanic Americans who live in this state. And a lot who live in my state as well, which is a reminder that our party must broaden our base.  I've tried to use my compassionate conservative message to do just that in the State of Texas and all across the country. How do you intend, how do you intend to reach the growing number of Hispanics?  And how do you intend to attract them to the Republican Party? 

Follow-up: One of the things that I found in my state, particularly when I focus on education is that when I announced we were going to abolish a social promotion in Texas schools, which is a system that's so, has such low hopes and low expectations that minority parents say thank you, governor, thank you. You have any comments on -- 

Keyes to Forbes: I'd like to direct my question to Mr. Forbes, because I know that you often say that you'd like to get rid of the IRS and the tax code and so forth and so on, but I'm slightly confused because it does seem to me that -- that what you propose is not that we strike off the chains of tax slavery, but that we equalize it.  In this case, we will still have to have an agency -- I guess we could call it the happy faced enforcer of equal tax surplus.  But it would still be there, it would still there, it would still be enforcing an invasive tax that would require that people tell the government what the government wants to know. [WOODRUFF: The question please.]  How do you abolish the IRS if you don't get rid of the income tax? 

Follow-up:  But I think part of the problem is that -- that folk -- folks would still be subject, under your plan, to an income tax when they wanted to give themselves -- when they wanted a tax cut, they'd still have to beg their politicians.  When under a sales tax system, they'd give themselves a tax cut by changing their pattern of consumption.  If we really want to give people control of their money, shouldn't we just abolish the income tax? 

Hatch to Keyes: That's -- you're all that's left, Alan.  You're--you're plenty, though, I'll tell you.  You're great. 

Last week in New Hampshire, I proposed that all six of us leave our handlers behind, get on the same bus and campaign from town to town through New Hampshire for a week, through Iowa for a week.  And I'd be willing to amend that to include, of course -- of course, Arizona for a week.  I think this format would prove more valuable to the American people in picking the best Republican nominee for president.  Of course, this will only work if all six of us agree to participate.  Now, don't you think it's time we -- we stopped electing the best campaign and start electing the best candidate? [WOODRUFF: We need a question.]  What do you think about that? 

Follow-up: Amen. What -- what do you think? What do you think the voters of Arizona, Iowa and New Hampshire should do about a candidate who is not willing to forgo the scripted campaign appearances and campaign directly like this to the people? 

Candidates Question One Another (Order Determined by Draw)--Round Two
Forbes to Bush: We know that Texas is the second largest state in the Union; that it is the 11th largest economy in the world.  [BUSH: That's good.]  It's also first in the nation in oil production. OPEC in recent months has been jacking up prices by withholding production.  That means of course that consumers and farmers are hurt because prices go up.  New England's going to have a very expensive winter with heating oil.  What would you do to get the price down again? 

Follow-up: As a follow-up question, that's very good for exploration.  We need to open [inaud.], also good for the future on natural gas.  But right now OPEC is putting the squeeze on.  Oil prices have almost tripled in recent months.  Again, what would you do now to get that price down now, not a few years from now?  And also too, also too, how low would you get the price to go?

Bush to McCain: As the governor of Texas, which is the 11th, if it were an economy as Steve mentioned, it would be the 11th largest nation in the world, I have worked hard to encourage faith-based institutions and organizations to help people in need.  I've laid out a specific program to do so should I become the president.  What are your ideas on faith-based programs and what specifically would you do to encourage their involvement. 

Follow-up: One of the things, John, that I've suggested is we allow non-itemizers to deduct charitable contributions off their income tax returns.  Do you agree with that?  Well, I'd like your comments on that idea.

Bauer to Forbes: Judy, my question is for Steve Forbes, but, Steve, I want to be honest with you, the question's actually from my mother back in Newport, Kentucky.  And I promised that I'd ask you today. She hasn't had a lot of formal schooling, but she's got a lot of good old American common sense and she's got some real problems with your Social Security ideas.  In fact, she used the word scheme when she said something about it.  She hears you say that current retirees will be able to keep all their benefits.  But then you turn around and say that current workers will be able to take half their money out for these accounts on Wall Street.  Since current workers' money is what's paying current retirees -- [WOODRUFF: Mr. Bauer, we need a question.] -- aren't you trying to have it both ways?

Follow-up: Steve -- Steve, I -- I think you might have just said more than you wanted to.  It sounded to me like you were saying that you think Social Security when it was set up was a mistake.  [FORBES: Oh, no. Quite the opposite, Gary.]  Where I grew up -- Well, but you said 30 years ago, we set up a system that had bad returns.  Social Security kept the elderly in my neighborhood from living in poverty. Was it a good program or a bad program? 

Keyes to Bauer: I'd like to address my question to -- to -- to Gary, because, Gary, I know that you and I agree that -- that we should have a linkage policy and the country's like China shouldn't be in the World Trade Organization.  But in light of the fact that the World Trade Organization is an unrepresentative body based on an illegitimate principle of government, it is not a body that contains entities that are based upon consent.  And yet it could make decisions that affect the lives, jobs and livelihood of Americans.  Our Constitution says that our representative bodies are supposed to be composed of states based on republican forms of government -- consent not dictatorship -- for any of them.  How can you support our membership in the World Trade Organization without violating our constitutional liberties? 

Follow-up: Well, in the follow-up, just to clarify the point, because I think this is terribly important, because I, too, I don't agree with all their causes, but I thought what caused them to go into the streets was that the WTO's a violation of our principle of representative government.  We have signed on to something that is destroying our constitutional sovereignty.  Do you believe that we should, in fact, withdraw from such illegitimate arrangements until we have renegotiated them on a more constitutional basis? 

McCain to Hatch: Orrin, you and I have worked on a couple very important pieces of legislation in the past few years.  One of them is the Y2K Product Liability Reform Act, which was very important to keep us from experiencing a flood of litigation as a result of the year 2000.  The other one was the Internet Tax Moratorium Act.  As you know, this was stoutly resisted by governors, Republican governors as well.  Don't you think we ought to make the Internet tax moratorium permanent? 

Follow-up: Well, Orrin, as you know, there are many Republican governors that are seeking Internet taxation on the grounds that they're being deprived of revenues when in fact it will adversely affect the entire e-commerce and according to recent studies as much as 24 percent impact on commerce and the Internet. [Woodruff: We need a question, Senator McCain.]  McCain2000.com. How are we going to stop them, Orrin? 

Hatch to Keyes: Listen, I can't think of a better person I'd like to be stuck with, let me tell you.  Alan, as you know, I've been very concerned about some of these campaign finance approaches.  I have no question in my mind that we need to change the system that we have. But I think that the McCain-Feingold bill is unconstitutional because it bars the parties from participating and leaving CNN, everybody else, every public interest organization to use the same money to participate.  And it seems to me it's just plain wrong.  What do you think about it? 

Follow-up: Well, I believe -- I believe that the best thing we can do is we do need reform.  But it should be disclosure, disclosure, disclosure on the Internet within two weeks of receipts and expenditures.  What do you think of that idea?  Because that's what we're doing at OrrinHatch.com, I'll tell you that.

CLOSING STATEMENTS (one minute)