The letter, written to Gore and signed by senior members of the Texas House of Representatives, says, “Of the $4.7 billion referenced by the governor, $3.5 billion consists of charitable care provided by hospitals in their emergency rooms, private physicians, charities, local governments and free clinics, none of which is paid for by the state.“
A Bush spokesman said Bush did not mean to imply that all of the $4.7 billion was state money: ”The governor was merely explaining that people in Texas do have access to health care. We have a double safety net to make sure that people who don’t have insurance receive the care they need.“
A Bush spokesman attributed the governor’s inaction on the Byrd bill in 1999 to several factors: It was not part of Bush’s own legislative package, and [strengthening penalties for one group] might weaken penalties under existing laws for [other groups which were not specified in the Byrd bill]. Advocates of the Byrd bill argued that the existing law was too vague.
The IMF has repeatedly denied that aid money was siphoned off, and offered independent audits as evidence. Mr. Chernomyrdin issued a statement in Moscow today denying the accusations and threatening to sue Bush for slander. “I think Mr. Bush Jr. should be getting ready for a court hearing on the issue,” Chernomyrdin said. Bush stood by his statement, but softened his tone today, saying it was “general knowledge” that people in Russia had taken IMF aid, but “it might not have been [IMF money]; it might have been another aid.”
GORE: Racial profiling is a serious problem. Imagine what it is like for someone to be singled out unfairly and feel the unfair force of law simply because of race or ethnicity. That runs counter to what the United States is all about. If I am entrusted with the presidency it will be the first civil rights act of the 21st century.
BUSH: I can’t imagine what it would be like to be singled out because of race and harassed. That’s just flat wrong. So we ought to do everything we can to end racial profiling. One of my concerns, though, is I don’t want to federalize local police. I believe in local control of governments. Most officers are dedicated citizens who are putting their lives at risk, who aren’t bigoted or aren’t prejudiced. I do think we need to find out where racial profiling occurs and say to the local folks, get it done and if you can’t, there’ll be a federal consequence.
BUSH: I’m not for gay marriage. I think marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. I appreciated the way the administration signed the Defense of Marriage Act. I presume the vice president supported it.
GORE: I agree with that, and I did support that law. But I think that we should find a way to allow some kind of civic unions. And I basically agree with Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman, and I think the three of us have one view and the governor has another view.
BUSH: I’m not sure what kind of view he’s ascribing to me. One day he says he agrees with me, then he says he doesn’t. I will be a tolerant person. I’ve been a tolerant person all my life. I just happen to believe strongly that marriage is between a man and a woman. I don’t really think it’s any of my concern how you conduct your sex life. That’s a private matter. I support equal rights but not special rights for people.
Q: And you would support that bill?
GORE: Absolutely.
Q: Would you support a national hate crimes law?
BUSH: I would support the Orrin Hatch version of it, not the Senator Kennedy version. But we’re happy with our laws on our books. There was another bill that did die in committee, but I want to repeat, if you have a state that fully supports the law, like we do in Texas, we’re going to go after all crime, and we’re going to make sure people get punished for the crime.
Q: You have a different view of that.
BUSH: No I don’t, really. We’ve got a hate crime law in Texas and guess what? The three men who murdered James Byrd, they’re going to be put to death. A jury found them guilty. It’s going to be hard to punish them any worse after they get put to death.
GORE: I guess I had misunderstood the governor’s previous position. I had thought that there was a controversy at the end of the legislative session where the Byrd family among others asked you to support a hate crimes law, Governor. Am I wrong about that?
BUSH: What the Vice President must not understand is we’ve got a hate crimes bill in Texas and secondly the people that murdered Mr. Byrd got the ultimate punishment, the death penalty. When you murder somebody, it’s hate. I’m not exactly sure how you enhance the penalty any more than the death penalty.
BUSH: I don’t believe in command and control out of Washington, D.C. I believe Washington ought to set standards, but we ought to be collaborative at the local levels.
Q: Would the federal government still have some new regulations to pass?
BUSH: Sure, absolutely, so long as they’re based upon science and they’re reasonable, so long as people have input.
GORE: I’m not for command and control techniques either. I’m for working with the groups, not just with industry but also with the citizens groups and local communities to control sprawl in ways that the local communities themselves come up with.
BUSH: In Texas we reduced our industrial waste by 11%. We ought to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, with half the money going to states. We need to have clean coal technologies. There’s a national petroleum reserve right next to Prudhoe Bay [that was good to open for its] gas reserves. There are practical things we can do. But it starts with working in collaborative effort with states. People care a lot about their land.
BUSH: It’s an issue that we need to take very seriously. I don’t think we know the solution to global warming yet and I don’t think we’ve got all the facts before we make decisions.
GORE: But I disagree that we don’t know the cause of global warming. I think that we do. It’s pollution, carbon dioxide and other chemicals that are even more potent. Look, the world’s temperatures going up, weather patterns are changing, storms are getting more violent and unpredictable. And what are we going to tell our children?
BUSH: Yeah, I agree. Some of the scientists, I believe, haven’t they been changing their opinion a little bit on global warming? There’s a lot of differing opinions and before we react I think it’s best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what’s taking place.
BUSH: It’s an issue that we need to take very seriously. But I’m not going to let the US carry the burden for cleaning up the world’s air, like the Kyoto treaty would have done. China and India were exempted from that treaty.
Q: The Senate did turn it down.
BUSH: 99 to nothing.
GORE: A lot of supporters of the Kyoto treaty actually ended up voting for that because of the way it was worded, but there’s no doubt there’s a lot of opposition to it in the Senate.
BUSH: I think during the campaign, particularly now during this difficult period, we ought to be speaking with one voice. I appreciate the way the administration has worked hard to calm the tensions. I call on Chairman Arafat to have his people pull back to make the peace. I think credibility is going to be very important in the Middle East. I want everybody to know, Israel’s going to be our friend. I’m going to stand by Israel. Credibility is formed by being strong with your friends and resolute in your determination. It’s one of the reasons why I think it’s important for this nation to develop an anti-ballistic missile system that we can share with our allies in the Middle East, if need be, to keep the peace. To be able to say to the Saddam Husseins of the world or the Iranians, don’t dare threaten our friends. It’s also important to keep strong ties in the Middle East because of the energy crisis we’re in.
A: We ought to have foreign aid. Foreign aid needs to be used to encourage markets and reform. Often we just spend aid and we feel better but it ends up being spent the wrong way. An egregious example is Russia where IMF loans ended up in the pockets of powerful people and didn’t help the the nation. I don’t want to see the IMF as a [means to bail out bad loans]. It needs to be available for emergency situations. I want to make sure the return is good.
BUSH: I’m not sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say this is the way it’s got to be. I want to empower people. I want to help people help themselves, not have government tell people what to do. I just don’t think it’s the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, we do it this way, so should you. We went into Russia, we said here’s some IMF money. It ended up in Chernomyrdin’s pocket. And yet we played like there was reform. The only people who are going to reform Russia are Russians. I’m not sure where the vice president’s coming from, but I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, we do it this way, so should you. I think the United States must be humble and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course.
BUSH: They ought to look at us as a country that understands freedom where it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from that you can succeed. I don’t think they ought to look at us with envy. It really depends upon how [our] nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us. If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us. Our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power. And that’s why we’ve got to be humble and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom. We’re a freedom-loving nation. If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll view us that way, but if we’re humble nation, they’ll respect us.
GORE: I agree with that. One of the problems that we have faced in the world is that we are so much more powerful than any single nation has been in relationship to the rest of the world than at any time in history, that there is some resentment of US power.
BUSH: I think the administration did the right thing in that case. I do. It was a horrible situation. No one liked to see it on our TV screens, but it’s a case where we need to make sure we’ve got an early warning system in places where there could be a ethnic cleansing and genocide the way we saw it there in Rwanda. And that’s a case were we need to use our influence to have countries in Africa come together and help deal with the situation. The administration made the right decision on training Nigerian troops for situations just such as this in Rwanda. And so I thought they made the right decision not to send U.S. troops into Rwanda.
BUSH: Africa’s important. And we’ve got to do a lot of work in Africa to promote democracy and trade. It’s an important continent. But there’s got to be priorities. And the Middle East is a priority for a lot of reasons as is Europe and the Far East, and our own hemisphere. Those are my four top priorities should I be the president. It’s not to say we won’t be engaged [in Africa], and working hard to get other nations to come together to prevent atrocity [like in Rwanda]. I thought the best example of handling a [genocide] situation was East Timor when we provided logistical support to the Australians; support that only we can provide. I thought that was a good model. But we can’t be all things to all people in the world. I am worried about over-committing our military around the world. I want to be judicious in its use. I don’t think nation-building missions are worthwhile.
I mentioned the Balkans. Haiti is another example. I supported the administration in Colombia. It is in our interests to have a peaceful Colombia. We need to have a military presence in the Korean peninsula not only to keep the peace in the peninsula but to keep regional stability. And we need to keep a presence in NATO. But the use of the military needs to be in our vital interest. The mission needs to be clear and the exit strategy obvious.
Secondly, I don’t think we ought to be selling guns to people who shouldn’t have them. That’s why I support instant background checks at gun shows. There’s a lot of talk about trigger locks being on guns sold in the future, I support that, and so we’re distributing them in our state of Texas for free. I think we ought to raise the age at which a juvenile can carry a handgun from 18 to 21.
BUSH: We spent $4.7 billion a year on the uninsured in Texas. The percentage of uninsured in Texas has gone down, while the percentage of uninsured in America has gone up. Our CHIPS program got a late start because our government meets only four months out of every two years. It may come as a shock for somebody who’s been in Washington for so long, but limited government can work. In ‘99, we signed up over 110,000 children to the CHIPS program. For comparable states our size, we’re signing them up fast as any other state.
GORE: I’m no expert on Texas procedures, but friends there tell me that the governor opposed a measure put forward by Democrats in the legislature to expand the number of children that would be covered. And instead directed the money toward a tax cut, a significant part of which went to wealthy interests. He declared the need for a new tax cut for the oil companies in Texas an emergency need.
BUSH: For working folks that want health care, that can’t afford it, a couple of things: I’ve put money in my budget to expand community health centers all around the country. These are places where people can get primary care. Secondly, you get a $2,000 rebate from the government if you’re a family making $30,000 or less - it scales down as it gets higher - that you can use to purchase health care in the private market. Allow business associations to write association plans across jurisdictional lines so that small businesses have got the capacity of national pooling to drive the cost of insurance down.
GORE: I’d like to see some form of universal health care, but I’m not for a government-run system. We should start by greatly expanding the so-called child health insurance, or CHIP program, to give health insurance to every single child in this country.
BUSH: If he’s trying to allege that I’m a hard-hearted person and I don’t care about children, he’s absolutely wrong. We spent $4.7 billion a year in the State of Texas for uninsured people and they get health care. The facts are that we’re reducing the number of uninsured as a percentage of our population. And as a percentage of the population that’s increasing nationally.
BUSH: It’s important for the president to be credible with Congress and foreign nations. It’s something people need to consider. I’m going to defend my record against exaggerations. Exaggerations like only 5% of seniors receive benefits under my Medicare package. That’s what he said the other day. That’s simply not the case.
GORE: I got some of the details wrong last week. I’m sorry about that. One of the reasons I regret it is that getting a detail wrong interfered with my point. However many days that young girl in Florida stood in her classroom doesn’t change the fact that there are a lot of overcrowded classrooms in America and we need to do something about that. I can’t promise that I will never get another detail wrong. But I will promise you that I will work my heart out to get the big things right for the American people.
Q: Does that resolve the issue?
BUSH: That’s going to be up to the people.
BUSH: The first question is what’s in the best interests of the United States. Peace in the Middle East is in our nation’s interests. Having a hemisphere that is free for trade and peaceful is in our nation’s interests. An administration is dedicated citizens who are called by the president to serve the country. One of the things I’ve done in Texas is I’ve been able to put together a good team of people. I’ve been able to set clear goals.
BUSH: The coalition against Saddam has fallen apart or it’s unraveling, let’s put it that way. The sanctions are being violated. We don’t know whether he’s developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be or there’s going to be a consequence, should I be the president.
Q: You could get him out of there?
BUSH: I’d like to, of course. But it’s going to be important to rebuild that coalition to keep the pressure on him.
Q: You feel that as a failure of the Clinton administration?
BUSH: I do.
GORE: We have maintained the sanctions. I want to go further. I want to give robust support to the groups that are trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Some say they’re too weak to do it. But that’s what they said about those opposing Milosevic in Serbia.
BUSH: If I think it’s in our nation’s strategic interests, I’ll commit troops. I thought it was in our strategic interests to keep Milosevic in check because of our relations in NATO, and that’s why I took the position I took. I think it’s important for NATO to be strong and confident. I felt like an unchecked Milosevic would harm NATO. So it depends on the situation, Mr. Vice President.
BUSH: I think it’s a triumph. I thought the president made the right decision in joining NATO in bombing Serbia. I supported him when they did so. I think it worked. I’m pleased I made the decision I made, and I’m pleased the president made the decision he made, because freedom took hold in that part of the world. There’s a lot of work left to be done, however. I don’t think he would have fallen had we not used force. I know there’s some in my party that disagreed with that sentiment. The administration deserves credit for having made it work. I hope our European friends become the peacekeepers in Bosnia and in the Balkans. I hope that they put the troops on the ground so that we can withdraw our troops and focus our military on fighting and winning war.
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The above quotations are from Second Bush-Gore debate, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Oct. 11, 2000.
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