Copyright 1992 Prodigy Services Company. All Rights Reserved.
PRODIGY(R) interactive personal service         10/12/92        12:28 PM

              First Presidential Debate (Part 1)
    The following is the text of the presidential debate
 between President Bush, Democrat Bill Clinton and Texas
 businessman Ross Perot in St Louis Sunday, Oct 11.
   JIM LEHRER: Good evening, and welcome to the first of 3
 debates among the major candidates for president of the US,
 sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The
 candidates are: independent candidate Ross Perot, Governor
 Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee, and President George
 Bush, the Republican nominee. I am Jim Lehrer of the 
 MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour on PBS, and I will be the moderator
 for this 90-minute event, which is taking place before an
 audience in the athletic complex on the campus of Washington
 University in St. Louis, Missouri.
    3 journalists will be asking questions tonight. They are
 John Mashek of The Boston Globe, Ann Compton of ABC News,
 and Sander Vanocur, a freelance journalist.
    We will follow a format agreed to by representatives of
 the Clinton and Bush campaigns. That agreement contains no
 restrictions on the content or subject matter of the 
 questions. Each candidate will have up to 2 minutes for a
 closing statement. The order of those, as well as the
 questioning, was determined by a drawing.
    The first question goes to Mr. Perot. He will have 2
 minutes to answer, to be followed by rebuttals of one minute
 each from Governor Clinton and then President Bush.
    Gentlemen, good evening.
    The first topic tonight is what separates each of you
 from the other. Mr. Perot, what do you believe tonight is
 the singlemost important separating issue of this campaign? 
    PEROT: I think the principal that separates me is that 5
 and a half million people came together on their own and put
 me on the ballot. I was not put on the ballot by either of
 the 2 parties; I was not put on the ballot by any PAC money,
 by any foreign lobbyist money, by any special interest
 money. This is a movement that came from the people. This is
 the way the framers of the Constitution intended our
 government to be, a government that comes from the people.
    Over time we have developed a government that comes at 
 the people, that comes from the top down, where the people
 are more or less treated as objects to be programmed during
 the campaign with commercials and media events and fear
 messages and personal attacks and things of that nature.
    The thing that separates my candidacy and makes it unique
 is that this came from millions of people in 50 states all
 over this country who wanted a candidate that worked and
 belonged to nobody but them. I go into this race as their
 servant, and I belong to them. So this comes from the
 people. 
    ANN COMPTON: Governor Clinton, can you lock in a level
 here tonight on where middle-income families can be
 guaranteed a tax cut or, at the very least, at what income
 level they can be guaranteed no tax increase?
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: The tax increase I have proposed
 triggers in at family incomes of $200,000 and above. Those
 are the people who in the 1980s had their incomes go up
 while their taxes went down.
    Middle-class people, defined as people with incomes of 
 $52,000 and down, had their incomes go down while their
 taxes went up in the Reagan-Bush years because of 6
 increases in the payroll taxes. So that is where my income
 limit would trigger.
    COMPTON: There will be no tax increases--
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: Right. My plan--
    COMPTON: --below 200,000--
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: --notwithstanding my opponent's ad, my
 plan triggers in at gross incomes, family incomes of
 $200,000 and above. Then we want to give modest middle-class 
 tax relief to restore some fairness, especially to middle-
 class people with families with incomes of under $60,000.
    In addition to that, the money that I raise from upper-
 income people and from asking foreign corporations just to
 pay the same income on their income earned in America that
 American corporations do will be used to give incentives
 back to upper-income people. I want to give people permanent
 incentives on investment tax credit, like President Kennedy
 and the Congress inaugurated in the early '60s to get
 industry moving again; a research and development tax 
 credit; a low-income housing tax credit; a long-term capital
 gains proposal for new business and business expansions.
    We've got to have no more trickle down. We don't need
 across-the-board tax cuts for the wealthy for nothing. We
 need to say here's your tax incentive: f you create American
 jobs, the old-fashioned way. I'd like to create more
 millionaires than were created under Mr. Bush and Mr.
 Reagan, but I don't want to have 4 years where we have no
 growth in the private sector, and that's what's happened in
 the last 4 years. We're down 35,000 jobs in the private
 sector. We need to invest and grow, and that's what I want
 to do.
    LEHRER: President Bush, one minute, sir.
    PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, let me--I have to correct one
 thing. I didn't question the man's patriotism. I questioned
 his judgment and his character. What he did in Moscow,
 that's fine. Let him explain it. He did. I accept that. What
 I don't accept is demonstrating and organizing
 demonstrations in a foreign country when your country's at 
 war. I'm sorry. I cannot accept it.
    In terms of this one on taxes spells out the biggest
 different between us. I do not believe we need to go back to
 the Mondale proposals or the Dukakis proposals of tax and
 spend. Governor Clinton says $200,000 but he also says he
 wants to raise $150 billion. Taxing people over $200,000
 will not get you $150 billion. And then when you add in his
 other spending proposals, regrettably you end up socking it
 to the working man.
    That old adage they use--we're going to soak the rich- 
 -we're going to soak the rich--it always ends up being the
 poor cab driver or the working man that ends up paying the
 bill. And so I just have a different approach. I believe the
 way to get the deficit down is to control the growth of
 mandatory spending programs, and not raise taxes on the
 American people. We've got a big difference there.
    LEHRER: Mr. Perot, one minute.
    (Applause)
    PEROT: We've got to have a growing, expanding job base to
 give us a growing, expanding tax base. Right now we have a 
 flat to deteriorating job base and where it appears to be
 growing, it's minimum-wage jobs. So we've got to really
 rebuild our job base. That's going to take money for
 infrastructure and investment to do that. Our foreign
 competitors are doing it; we're not.
    We cannot pay off the $4 trillion debt, balance the
 budget and have the industries of the future and the high-
 paying jobs in this country without having the revenue.
 We're going to go through a period of shared sacrifice.
 There's one challenge. It's got to be fair. 
    We've created a mess, don't have much to show for it and
 we have got to fix it. And that's about all I can say in a
 minute.
    LEHRER: Okay.
    (Applause)
    Next question goes to President Bush for a 2-minute
 answer, and it will be asked by Sandy Vanocur.
    SANDER VANOCUR: Mr. President, this past week your
 secretary of the Army, Michael Stone, said he had no plans 
 to abide by a congressional mandate to cut US forces in
 Europe from 150 to 100 thousand by the end of September
 1996. Now, why, almost 50 years after the end of World War
 II, and with the total collapse of the Soviet Union, should
 American taxpayers be taxed to support armies in Europe when
 the Europeans have plenty of money to do it for themselves?
    PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, Sander, that's a good question, and
 the answer is: for 40-some years we kept the peace. If you
 look at the cost of not keeping the peace in Europe, it
 would be exorbitant. We have reduced the number of troops 
 that are deployed and going to be deployed. I have cut
 defense spending. And the reason we could do that is because
 of our fantastic success in winning the Cold War. We never
 would have got there if we had gone for the nuclear freeze
 crowd; we never would have got there if we had listened to
 those that wanted to cut defense spending.
    I think it is important that the US stay in Europe and
 continue to guarantee the peace. We simply cannot pull back.
    Now, when anybody has a spending program they want to
 spend money on at home, they say, well, let's cut money out 
 of the Defense Dept. I will accept and have accepted the
 recommendations of 2 proven leaders, General Colin Powell
 and Secretary Dick Cheney. They feel that the levels we're
 operating at and the reductions that I have proposed are
 proper.
    And so I simply do not think we should go back to the
 isolation days and starting blaming foreigners. We are the
 sole remaining superpower, and we should be that. And we
 have a certain disproportionate responsibility. But I would
 ask the American people to understand that if we make 
 imprudent cuts, if we go too far, we risk the peace. And I
 don't want to do that. I've seen what it is like to see a
 war, to see the burdens of a war, and I don't want to see us
 make reckless cuts.
    Because of our programs we have been able to
 significantly cut defense spending. But let's not cut into
 the muscle, and let's not cut down our insurance policy,
 which is participation of American forces in NATO, the
 greatest peace- keeping organization ever made. Today you've
 got problems in Europe, still bubbling along even though 
 Europe's gone democracy's route. But we are there, and I
 think this insurance policy is necessary. I think it goes
 with world leadership, and I think the levels we've come up
 with are just about right.
    LEHRER: Mr. Perot, one minute, sir.
    PEROT: If I'm poor and you're rich, and I can get you to
 defend me, that's good. But when the tables get turned, I
 ought to do my share. Right now we spend about $300 billion
 a year on defense, the Japanese spend around 30 billion in
 Asia, the Germans spend around 30 billion in Europe. For 
 example, Germany will spend a trillion dollars building
 infrastructure over the next 10 years. It's kind of easy to
 do if you only have to pick up a $30-billion tab to defend
 your country.
    The European Community is in a position to pay a lot more
 than they have in the past. I agree with the president: when
 they couldn't, we should have; now that they can, they
 should. We sort of seem to have a desire to try to stay over
 there and control it. They don't want us to control it, very
 candidly. So it I think is very important for us to let them 
 assume more and more of the burden and for us to bring that
 money back here and rebuild our infrastructure, because we
 can only be a superpower if we are an economic superpower;
 and we can only be an economic superpower if we have a
 growing, expanding job base.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: Governor Clinton, one minute, sir.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: I agree with the general statement Mr.
 Bush made. I disagree that we need 150,000 troops to fulfill
 our role in Europe. We certainly must maintain an engagement 
 there. There are certainly dangers there, there are
 certainly other trouble spots in the world which are closer
 to Europe than to the US.
    But 2 former defense secretaries recently issued a report
 saying that 100,000 or slightly fewer troops would be
 enough, including President Reagan's former defense
 secretary, Mr. Carlucci.
    Many of the military experts whom I consulted on this
 agreed. We're going to have to spend more money in the
 future on military technology and on greater mobility, 
 greater airlift, greater sealift, the B-22 airplane. We're
 going to have to do some things that are quite costly. And I
 simply don't believe we can afford nor do we need to keep
 150,000 troops in Europe given how much the Red Army, now
 under the control of Russia, has been cut, the arms control
 agreement concluded between Mr. Bush and Mr. Yeltsin,
 something I have applauded. I don't think we need 150,000
 troops.
    Let me make one other point. Mr. Bush talked about taxes.
 He didn't tell you that he vetoed a middle class tax cut 
 because it would be paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy
 and vetoed an investment tax credit paid for by raising
 taxes on the wealthy.
 LEHRER: All right. We go now to Mr Perot for a 2-minute
 question, and it will be asked by John Mashek.
    MASHEK: Mr Perot, you talked about fairness just a minute
 ago and sharing the pain. As part of your plan to reduce the
 ballooning federal deficit, you've suggested that we raise
 gasoline taxes 50 cents a gallon over 5 years. Why punish 
 the middle class consumer to such a degree?
    PEROT: It's 10 cents a year cumulative. It finally gets
 to 50 cents at the end of the 5th year. I think "punish" is
 the wrong word. Again, see, I didn't create this problem.
 We're trying to solve it.
    Now, if you study our international competitors, some of
 our international competitors collect up to $3.50 a gallon
 in taxes, and they use that money to build infrastructure
 and to create jobs. We collect 35 cents, and we don't have
 it to spend. 
    I know it's not popular, and I understand the nature of
 your question. But the people who will be helped the most by
 it are the working people who will get the jobs created
 because of this tax.
    Why do we have to do it? Because we have so mismanaged
 our country over the years, and it is now time to pay the
 fiddler. And if we don't, we will be spending our children's
 money. We have spent $4 trillion worth. An incredible number
 of young people are active in supporting my effort because 
 they are deeply concerned that we have taken the American
 dream from them. I think it's fitting that we're on the
 campus of a university tonight. These young people, when
 they get out of this wonderful university, will have
 difficulty finding a job.
    We've got to clean this mess up, leave this country in
 good shape, and pass on the American dream to them. We've
 got to collect the taxes to do it. If there's a fair way,
 I'm all ears--aah.
    (Laughter and applause) 
    But--but--see, let me make it very clear. If people don't
 have the stomach to fix these problems, I think it's a good
 time to face it, November. If they do, then they will have
 heard the harsh reality of what we have to do. I'm not
 playing Lawrence Welk music tonight.
    LEHRER: All right, Governor Clinton, you have a minute,
 sir.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: I think Mr. Perot has confronted this
 deficit issue, but I think it's important to point out that 
 we really have 2 deficits in America, not one. We have a
 budget deficit in the federal government, but we also have
 an investment, a jobs, an income deficit. People are working
 harder for less money than they were making 10 years ago, 2-
  3ds of our people--a $1600 drop in average income in just
 the last 2 years.
    The problem I have with the Perot prescription is that
 almost all economists who've looked at it say that if you
 cut the deficit this much this quick it will increase
 unemployment, it will slow down the economy. That's why I 
 think we shouldn't do it that quickly. We have a disciplined
 reduction in the deficit of 50 % over the next 4 years, but
 first get incentives to invest in this economy, put the
 American people back to work. We've got to invest and grow.
    9 Nobel Prize-winning economists and 500 others,
 including numerous Republican and Democratic business
 executives, have endorsed this approach because it offers
 the best hope to put America back to work and get our
 incomes rising instead of falling.
    LEHRER: President Bush, one minute, sir.
    PRESIDENT BUSH: Your question was on fairness. I just
 disagree with Mr. Perot. I don't believe it is fair to slap
 a 50-cent-a-gallon tax over whatever many years on the
 people that have to drive for a living, people that go long
 distances. I don't think we need to do it.
    You see, I have a fundamental difference. I agree with
 what he's talking about in trying to get this spending down
 and the discipline, although I think we ought to totally 
 exempt Social Security. But he's talking tough medicine, and
 I think that's good.
    I disagree with the tax-and-spend philosophy. You see, I
 don't think we need to tax more and spend more, and then say
 that's going to make the problem better. And I'm afraid
 that's what I think I'm hearing from Governor Clinton.
    I believe what you need to do is some of what Ross is
 talking about: control the growth of mandatory spending and
 get taxes down. He's mentioned some ways to do it--and I
 agree with those. I've been talking about getting a capital 
 gains cut forever, and his friends in Congress have been
 telling me that's a tax break for the rich. It would
 stimulate investment. I'm for an investment tax allowance;
 I'm for a tax break for first- time homebuyers. And with
 this new Congress coming in, gridlock will be gone, and I'll
 sit down with them and say let's get this done.
    But I do not want to go the tax-and-spend route.
    LEHRER: All right, let's move on now to the subject of
 jobs. The first question goes to President Bush for 2
 minutes, and John will ask that question. 
    MASHEK: Mr. President, last month you came to St. Louis
 to announce a very lucrative contract for McDonnell Douglas
 to build F-15s for Saudi Arabia. In today's Post- Dispatch,
 a retired saleswoman, a 75-year-old woman named Marjorie
 Roberts, asked if she could ask a question of the
 candidates. She said she wanted to register her concern
 about the lack of a plan to convert our defense-oriented
 industries into other purposes.
    How would you answer her. 
    PRESIDENT BUSH: I assume she was supportive of the
 decision on McDonnell Douglas, I assume she was supporting
 me on the decision to sell those airplanes. I think it's a
 good decision--took a little heat for it, but I think it was
 the correct decision to do. And we worked it out, and indeed
 we're moving forward all around the world in a much more
 peaceful way. So that one we came away with in creating jobs
 for the American people.
    I would simply say to her, look, take a look at what the 
 president has proposed on job retraining. When you cut back
 on defense spending, some people are going to be thrown out
 of work. If you throw another 50,000 kids on the street
 because of cutting recklessly in troop levels, you're going
 to put a lot more out of work. I would say to them, look at
 the job retraining programs that we're proposing. Therein is
 the best answer to her.
    And another one is: stimulate investment and savings. I
 mean, we've got big economic problems, but we are not coming
 apart at the seams; we're ready for a recovery. With 
 interest rates down and inflation down, the cruelest tax of
 all, caught up in a global slowdown right now, that that
 will change if you go with the programs I've talked about
 and if you help with job retraining and education.
    I am a firm believe that our America 2000 education
 problem is the answer--a little longer run; it's going to
 take awhile to educate. But it is a good program.
    So her best help for short term is job retraining, if she
 was thrown out of work at a defense plant. But tell her it's
 not all that gloomy; we're the US, we faced tough problems 
 before. Look at the misery index when the Democrats had both
 the White House and the Congress. It was just right through
 the roof.
    Now, we can do better. And the way to do better is not to
 tax and spend but to retrain, get that control of the
 mandatory spending programs. I'm much more optimistic about
 this country than some.
    (Applause)
 LEHRER: Mr. Perot? Mr. Perot, you have one minute, sir.
    PEROT: Defense industries are going to have to convert to
 civilian industries. Many of them are. And the sooner they
 start, the sooner they'll finish. And there will be a
 significant transition. And it's very important that we not
 continue to let our industrial base deteriorate.
    We had someone who I'm sure regrets said it in the
 president's staff said he didn't care whether we made potato 
 chips or computer chips. Well, anybody that thinks about it
 cares a great deal. Number one, you make more making
 computer chips than potato chips; and, number 2, 19 out of
 20 computer chips that we have in this country now come from
 Japan. We've given away whole industries.
    So as we phase these industries over, there's a whole of
 intellectual talent in these industries. A lot of these
 people in industries can be converted to the industries of
 tomorrow, and that's where the high-paying jobs are. We need
 to have a very carefully thought through phase-over. 
    Now, see, we practice 19th century capitalism. The rest
 of the world practices 21st century capitalism. I can't
 handle that in a minute, but I hope we can get back into it
 later. In the rest of the world, the countries and the
 businesses would be working together to make this transition
 in an intelligent way.
    LEHRER: Governor Clinton, you have one minute, sir.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: We must have a transition plan to plan
 to convert from a defense to a domestic economy. No other 
 nation would have cut defense as much as we already have
 without that. There are 200,000 people unemployed in
 California alone because we have cut defense without
 planning to retrain them and to reinvest in the technologies
 of the future here at home. That is what I want to do.
    This administration may say they have a plan, but the
 truth is they have not even released all the money, the
 paltry sum of money, that Congress appropriated. I want to
 take very dollar by which we reduce defense and reinvest it
 in technologies for the 21st century--in new transportation, 
 in communication, in environmental clean-up technologies.
 Let's put the American people to work, and let's build the
 kind of high-tech, high-wage, high-growth economy that the
 American people deserve.
    LEHRER: All right. The next question goes to Mr. Perot
 for a 2-minute answer. It will be asked by Ann. Ann?
    COMPTON: Mr. Perot, you talked a minute ago about
 rebuilding the job base. But is it true what Governor
 Clinton just said, that that means that unemployment will
 increase, that it will slow the economy? And how would you 
 specifically use the powers of the presidency to get more
 people back into good jobs immediately?
    PEROT: Step one, the American people send me up there,
 the day after election, I'll get with congressional--we
 won't even wait till inauguration, and I'll ask the
 president to help and I'll ask his staff to help me. And we
 will start putting together teams to put together--to take
 all the plans that exist and do something with them.
    Please understand. There are great plans lying all over
 Washington nobody ever executes. It's like having a 
 blueprint for a house you never built. You don't have
 anywhere to sleep.
    Now our challenge is to take these things, do something
 with them. Step one, we want to put America back to work,
 clean up the small business problem, have one task force at
 work on that. The second, you've got your big companies that
 are in trouble, including the defense industries--have
 another one on that. Have a 3d task force on new industries
 of the future to make sure we nail those for our country and
 they don't wind up in Europe and Asia. Convert from 19th to 
 21st century capitalism.
    See, we have an adversarial relationship between
 government and business. Our international competitors that
 are cleaning our plate have an intelligent relationship
 between government and business, and a supportive
 relationship.
    Then have another task force on crime because, next to
 jobs, our people are concerned about their safety. Health
 care, schools--one on the debt and deficit. And finally in
 that 90- day period before the inauguration, put together 
 the framework for the town hall and give the American people
 a Christmas present. Show them by Christmas the first cut at
 these plans. By the time Congress comes into session to go
 to work, have those plans ready to go in front of Congress.
 Then get off to a flying start in '93 to execute these
 plans.
    Now, there are people in this room and people on this
 stage who've been in meetings when I would sit there and
 say, "Is this the one we're going to talk about or do
 something about?" Well, obviously, my orientation is let's 
 go do it. Now, put together your plans by Christmas, be
 ready to go when Congress goes, nail these things. Small
 business--you've got to have capital, you've got to credit,
 and many of them need mentors or coaches. And we can create
 more jobs there in a hurry than any other place.
    LEHRER: Governor Clinton, one minute.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: This country desperately needs a jobs
 program, and my first priority would be to pass a jobs
 program, to introduce it on the first day I was inaugurated.
 I would meet with the leaders of the Congress, with all the 
 newly elected members of the Congress and as many others
 with whom I could meet between the time of the election and
 the inauguration, and we would present a jobs program.
    Then we would present a plan to control health care costs
 and phase in health care coverage for all Americans. Until
 we control health care costs, we're not going to control the
 deficit. It is the number one culprit. But first we must
 have an aggressive jobs program.
    I live in a state where manufacturing job growth has far
 outpaced the nation in the last few years, where we have 
 created more private sector jobs since Mr. Bush has been
 president than have been created in the entire rest of the
 country, where Mr. Bush's labor secretary the job growth has
 been enormous.
    We've done it in Arkansas. Give me a chance to create
 these kind of jobs in America. We can do it. I know we can.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: President Bush, one minute.
    PRESIDENT BUSH: We've got the plan announced for what we
 can do for small business. I've already put forward things 
 that'll get this country working fast, some of which have
 been echoed here tonight--investment tax allowance, capital
 gains reduction, more on research and development, tax
 credit for first-time home buyers.
    What I'm going to do is say to Jim Baker when this
 campaign is over, all right, let's sit down now, you do in
 domestic affairs what you've done in foreign affairs, be
 kind of the economic coordinator of all the domestic side of
 the House, and that includes all the economic side, all the
 training side, and bring this program together. 
    We're going to have a new Congress, and we're going to
 say to them, you've listened to the voters the way we have.
 Nobody wants gridlock anymore, and so let's get the program
 through.
    And I believe it'll work because, as Ross said, we got
 the plans. The plans are all over Washington. And I've put
 ours together in something called the agenda for American
 renewal, and it makes sense, it's sensible, it creates jobs,
 it gets to the base of the kind of jobs we need. And so I'll 
 just be asking for support to get that put into effect.
    LEHRER: All right. The next question goes to Governor
 Clinton for 2 minutes. It will be asked by Sandy.
    VANOCUR: Governor Clinton, when a president running for
 the first time gets into the office and wants to do
 something about the economy, he finds in Washington there's
 a person who has much more power over the economy than he
 does: the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, accountable
 to no one.
    That being the case, would you go along with proposals 
 made by Treasury Secretary James Brady and Congressman Lee
 Hamilton to make the Federal Reserve Board chairman somehow
 more accountable to elected officials?
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: Well, let me say that I think that we
 might ought to review the terms, the way it works. But
 frankly, I don't think that's the problem today. We have low
 interest rates today. At least we have low interest rates
 that the Fed can control. Our long-term interest rates are
 still pretty high because of our deficit and because of our
 economic performance. And there was a terrible reaction 
 internationally to Mr. Bush saying he was going to give us 4
 more years of trickle-down economics--another across-the-
 board tax cut and most of it going to the wealthy, with no
 real guarantee of investment.
    But I think the important thing--the important thing-- is
 to use the powers the president does have on the assumption
 that, given the condition of this economy, we're going to
 keep interest rates down if we have the discipline to
 increase investment and reduce the debt at the same time.
 That is my commitment. 
    LEHRER: One minute, Mr. Perot.
    PEROT: All right, so here's China, so here's your
 country, broken into many provinces. It has some very
 elderly leaders that will not be around too much longer.
 Capitalism is growing and thriving across big portions of
 China. Asia will be our largest trading partner in the
 future. It will be a growing and a closer relationship. We
 have a delicate, tight-wire walk that we must go through at 
 the present time to make sure that we do not cozy up to
 tyrants, to make sure that they don't get the impression
 that they can suppress their people.
    But time is our friend there, because their leaders will
 change in not too many years, worst case, and their country
 is making great progress.
    One last point on the missiles. I don't want the American
 people to be confused. We have written agreements and we
 have some missiles that have been destroyed, but we have a
 huge number of intercontinental ballistic missiles that are 
 still in place in Russia. The fact that you have an
 agreement is one thing. Till they're destroyed, some crazy
 person can either sell them or use them.
    LEHRER: All right. The next question goes to President
 Bush for a 2-minute answer, and Ann will ask it.
    MS. COMPTON: Mr. President, how can you watch the killing
 in Bosnia and the ethnic cleansing, or the starvation and
 anarchy in Somalia, and not want to use America's might, if
 not America's military, to try to end that kind of
 suffering? 
    PRESIDENT BUSH: Ann, both of them are very complicated
 situations. And I vowed something because I learned
 something from Vietnam. I am not going to commit US forces
 until I know what the mission is, till the military tell me
 that it can be completed, and till I know how they can come
 out.
    We are helping. American airplanes are helping today on
 humanitarian relief for Sarajevo. It is America that's in
 the lead in helping with humanitarian relief for Somalia. 
    But when you go to put somebody else's son or daughter
 into war, I think you got to be a little bit careful and you
 have to be sure that there's a military plan that can do
 this. You have ancient ethnic rivalries that have cropped up
 as Yugoslavia's dissolved or getting dissolved, and it isn't
 going to be solved by sending in the 82nd Airborne, and I'm
 not going to do that as commander-in-chief.
    I am going to stand by and use the moral persuasion of
 the US to get satisfaction in terms of prison camps, and 
 we're making some progress there, and in terms of getting
 humanitarian relief in there. And right now, as you know,
 the US took the lead in a no-fly operation up there in-- no-
 fly order up in the United Nations. We're working through
 the international organizations.
    That's one thing I learned by forging that tremendous and
 greatly--highly successful coalition against Saddam Hussein,
 the dictator. Use--work internationally to do it.
    I am very concerned about it. I am concerned about ethnic
 cleansing. I am concerned about a tax on Muslims, for 
 example, over there. But I must stop short of using American
 force until I know how those young men and women are going
 to get out of there as well as get in, know what the mission
 is, and define it. And I think I'm on the right track.
    COMPTON: Are you designing a mission--
    LEHRER: Ms.--Ann, sorry, sorry. Time is up. We have to go
 to Mr. Perot for a one-minute response.
    PEROT: I think if we learned anything in Vietnam is you
 first commit this nation before you commit the troops to the
 battlefield. We cannot send our people all over the world to
 solve every problem that comes up.
    This is basically a problem that is a primary concern to
 the European Community. Certainly we care about the people,
 we care about the children, we care about the tragedy. But
 it is inappropriate for us, just because there's a problem
 somewhere around the world, to take the sons and daughters
 of working people--and make no mistake about it, our all-
 volunteer armed force is not made up of the sons and
 daughters of the beautiful people; it's the working folks 
 who send their sons and daughters to war, with a few
 exceptions. It's very unlike World War II, when FDR's sons
 flew missions. Everybody went. It's a different world now.
    It's very important that we not just, without thinking it
 through, just rush to every problem in the world and have
 our people torn to pieces.
    LEHRER: Governor Clinton, one minute.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: I agree that we cannot commit ground
 forces to become involved in the quagmire of Bosnia or in
 the tribal wars of Somalia. But I think that it's important
 to recognize that there are things that can be done short of
 that, and that we do have interests there. There are, after
 all, 2 million refugees now because of the problems in what
 was Yugoslavia, the largest number since World War II, and
 there may be hundreds of thousands of people who will starve 
 or freeze to death in this winter. The US should try to work
 with its allies and stop it. I urged the president to
 support this air cover, and he did--and I applaud that. I
 applaud the no-fly zone, and I know that he's going back to
 the United Nations to try to get authority to enforce it. I
 think we should stiffen the embargo on the Belgrade
 government, and I think we have to consider whether or not
 we should lift the arms embargo now on the Bosnians, since
 they are in no way in a fair fight with a heavily armed
 opponent bent on "ethnic cleansing." 
    We can't involved in the quagmire, but we must do what we
 can.
    LEHRER: All right, moving on now to divisions in our
 country, the first question goes to Governor Clinton for 2
 minutes, and Ann will ask it.
    COMPTON: Governor Clinton, can you tell us what your
 definition of the word "family" is?
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: A family involves at least one parent,
 whether natural or adoptive or foster, and children. A good 
 family is a place where love and discipline and good values
 are transmuted (sic) from the elders to the children, a
 place where people turn for refuge, and where they know
 they're the most important people in the world. America has
 a lot of families that are in trouble today. There's been a
 lot of talk about family values in this campaign. I know a
 lot about that. I was born to a widowed mother who gave me
 family values, and grandparents. I've seen the family values
 of my people in Arkansas. I've seen the family values of all
 these people in America who are out there killing themselves 
 working harder for less in a country that's had the worst
 economic years in 50 years and the first decline in
 industrial production ever.
    I think the president owes it to family values to show
 that he values America's families, whether they're people on
 welfare you're trying to move from welfare to work, the
 working poor whom I think deserve a tax break to lift them
 above poverty if they've got a child in the house and
 working 40 hours a week, working families who deserve a fair
 tax system and the opportunity for constant retraining; they 
 deserve a strong economy. And I think they deserve a family
 and medical leave act. 7ty-two other nations have been able
 to do it. Mr. Bush vetoed it twice because he says we can't
 do something 72 other countries do, even though there was a
 small business exemption.
    So with all the talk about family values, I know about
 family values--I wouldn't be here without them. The best
 expression of my family values is that tonight's my 17th
 wedding anniversary, and I'd like to close my question by
 just wishing my wife a happy anniversary, and thank you, my 
 daughter, for being there.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: President Bush, one minute.
    PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I would say that one meeting that
 made a profound impression on me was when the mayors of the
 big cities, including the mayor of Los Angeles, a Democrat,
 came to see me, and they unanimously said the decline in
 urban America stems from the decline in the American family.
 So I do think we need to strengthen family. When Barbara
 holds an AIDS baby, she's showing a certain compassion for 
 family; when she reads to children, the same thing.
    I believe that discipline and respect for the law--all of
 these things should be taught to children, not in our
 schools, but families have to do that. I'm appalled at the
 highest outrageous numbers of divorces--it happens in
 families, it's happened in ours. But it's gotten too much.
 And I just think that we ought to do everything we can to
 respect the American family. It can be a single-parent
 family. Those mothers need help. And one way to do it is to
 get these deadbeat fathers to pay their obligations to these 
 mothers--that will help strengthen the American family. And
 there's a whole bunch of other things that I can't click off
 in this short period of time.
    LEHRER: All right, Mr. Perot, you have one minute.
    PEROT: If I had to solve all the problems that face this
 country and I could be granted one wish as we started down
 the trail to rebuild the job base, the schools and so on and
 so forth, I would say a strong family unit in every home,
 where every child is loved, nurtured, and encouraged.  A
 little child before they're 18 months learns to think well 
 of himself or herself or poorly. They develop a positive or
 negative self- image. At a very early age they learn how to
 learn. If we have children who are not surrounded with love
 and affection--you see, I look at my grandchildren and
 wonder if they'll ever learn to walk because they're always
 in someone's arms. And I think, my gosh, wouldn't it be
 wonderful if every child had that love and support. But they
 don't.
    We will not be a great country unless we have a strong
 family unit in every home. And I think you can use the White 
 House as a bully pulpit to stress the importance of these
 little children, particularly in their young and formative
 years, to mold these little precious pieces of clay so that
 they, too, can live rich full lives when they're grown.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: New question, 2-minute answer, goes to President
 Bush. Sandy will ask it.
    VANOCUR: Mr. President, there's been a lot of talk about
 Harry Truman in this campaign, so much so that I think
 tomorrow I'll wake up and see him named as the next 
 commissioner of baseball.
    (Laughter)
    The thing that Mr. Truman didn't have to deal with is
 drugs. Americans are increasingly alarmed about drug-related
 crimes in cities and suburbs. And your administration is not
 the first to have grappled with this.
    And are you at all of a mind that maybe it ought to go to
 another level, if not to what's advocated by William F.
 Buckley, Jr. and Milton Friedman, legalization, somewhere
 between there and where we are now? 
    PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I don't think that's the right
 answer. I don't believe legalizing narcotics is the answer.
 I just don't believe that's the answer. I do believe that
 there's some fairly good news out there. The use of cocaine,
 for example, by teenagers is dramatically down. But we've
 got to keep fighting on this war against drugs. We're doing
 a little better in interdiction. Many of the countries below
 that used to say, well, this is the US' problem--if you'd
 get the demand down, then we wouldn't have the problem--are 
 working cooperatively with the DEA and the military. We're
 using the military more now in terms of interdiction. Our
 funding for recovery is up, recovering the addicts.
    Where we're not making the progress, Sander, is in--
  we're making it in teenagers, and thank God, because I
 thought what Ross said was most appropriate about these
 families and these children. But where we're not making it
 is with the confirmed addicts. And I'll tell you one place
 that's working well, and that is the private sector--Jim
 Burke and this task force that he has, you may know about 
 it. I'll tell the American people, but this man said I'll
 get you a million dollars a day in pro bono advertising,
 something that's very hard for the government to do. And he
 went out and he did it. And people are beginning to educate
 through this program, teaching these kids you shouldn't use
 drugs.
    So we're still in the fight. But I must tell you, I think
 legalization of narcotics, or something of that nature, in
 the face of the medical evidence, would be totally
 counterproductive. And I oppose it, and I'm going to stand 
 up and continue to oppose it.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: Mr. Perot, one minute.
    PEROT: Anytime you think you want to legalize drugs, go
 to a neonatal unit--if you can get in. They're between 100
 and 200 % capacity up and down the East Coast. And the
 reason is crack babies being born, babies in the hospital 42
 days. Typical cost to you and me is $125,000. Again and
 again and again, the mother disappears in 3 days, and the
 child becomes a ward of the state because he's permanently 
 and genetically damaged.
    Just look at those little children, and if anybody can
 even think about legalizing drugs, they've lost me.
    Now, let's look at priorities. You know, we went on the
 Libyan raid--do you remember that one?--because we were
 worried to death that Gaddafi might be building up chemical
 weapons. We've got chemical warfare being conducted against
 our children on the streets in this country all day every
 day, and we don't have the will to stamp it out.
    Now, again, if I get up there, if you send me, we're 
 going to have some blunt talks about this, and we're really
 going to get down in the trenches and say, is this one you
 want to talk about or fix, because talk won't do it, folks.
 There are guys that couldn't get a job 3d shift in a Dairy
 Queen driving BMWs and Mercedes selling drugs. And these old
 boys are not going to quit easy.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: Governor Clinton, one minute.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: Like Mr. Perot, I have held crack
 babies in my arms. But I know more about this, I think, than 
 anybody else up here because I have a brother who's a
 recovering drug addict. I'm very proud of him.
    But I can tell you this. If drugs were legal, I don't
 think he'd be alive today. I am adamantly opposed to
 legalizing drugs. He is alive today because of the criminal
 justice system.
    That's a mistake. What should we do? First, we ought to
 prevent more of this on the street. Thirty years ago, there
 were 3 policemen for every crime. Now there are 3 crimes for
 every policeman. We need a hundred thousand more police on 
 the street. I have a plan for that.
    Secondly, we ought to have treatment on demand.
    3dly, we ought to have boot camps for first-time
 nonviolent offenders so they can get discipline and
 treatment and education and get reconnected to the community
 before they're severed and sent to prison, where they can
 learn how to be first class criminals.
    There is a crime bill that, lamentably, was blocked from
 passage once again, mostly by Republicans in the US Senate,
 which would have addressed some of these problems. That 
 crime bill is going to be one of my highest priorities next
 January if I become president.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: Next question is to you, Mr. Perot. You have 2
 minutes to answer it and John will ask it.
    MASHEK: Mr. Perot, racial division continues to tear
 apart our great cities, the last episode being this spring
 in Los Angeles. Why is this still happening in America, and
 what would you do to end it?
    PEROT: This is a relevant question here tonight. The
 first thing I'd do is, during political campaigns, I would
 urge everybody to stop trying to split this country into
 fragments and appeal to the differences between us and then
 wonder why the melting pot is all broken to pieces after
 November the 3rd.
    (Applause)
    We are all in this together. We ought to love one another
 because united teams win and divided teams lose. And if we 
 can't love one another, we ought to get along with one
 another. And if you can't get there, just recognize we're
 all stuck with one another because nobody's going anywhere,
 right?
    (Laughter)
    Now, that ought to get everybody back up to let's get
 along together and make it work. Our diversity is a
 strength. We've turned it into a weakness.
    Now again, the White House is a bully pulpit. I think 
 whoever is in the White House should just make it absolutely
 unconscionable and inexcusable, and if anybody's in the
 middle of a speech at, you know, one of these conventions, I
 would expect the candidate to go out and lift him off the
 stage if he starts preaching hate--because we don't have
 time for it.
    See, our differences are our strengths. We have got to
 pull together. In athletics, we know it. See, divided teams
 lose; united teams win.
    We have got to unite and pull together, and there's
 nothing we can't do. But if we sit around blowing all this
 energy out the window on racial strife and hatred, we are
 stuck with a sure loser because we have been a melting pot.
 We're becoming more and more of a melting pot. Let's make it
 a strength, not a weakness.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: Governor Clinton, one minute.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: I grew up in the segregated South, 
 thankfully raised by a grandfather with almost no formal
 education but with a heart of gold who taught me early that
 all people were equal in the eyes of God.
    I saw the winds of hatred divide people and keep the
 people of my state poorer than they would have been,
 spiritually and economically. And I've done everything I
 could in my public life to overcome racial divisions.
    We don't have a person to waste in this country. We are
 being murdered economically because we have too many drop-
  outs, we have too many low birthweight babies, we have too 
 many drug addicts as kids, we have too much violence, we are
 too divided by race, by income, by region. And I have
 devoted a major portion of this campaign to going across
 this country and looking for opportunities to go to white
 groups and African American groups and Latino groups and
 Asian American groups and say the same thing.
    If the American people cannot be brought together, we
 can't turn this country around. If we can come together,
 nothing can stop us.
    (Applause) 
    LEHRER: Mr. President, one minute.
    PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I think Governor Clinton is
 committed. I do think it's fair to note--he can rebut it--
 but Arkansas is one of the few states that doesn't have any
 civil rights legislation.
    I've tried to use the White House as a bully pulpit,
 speaking out against discrimination. We passed 2 very
 forward-looking civil rights bills. It's not going to be all
 done by legislation. But I do think that you need to make an 
 appeal every time you can to eliminate racial divisions and
 discrimination, and I'll keep on doing that and pointing to
 some legislative accomplishment to back it up.
    I have to take ten seconds here at the end--the red light
 isn't on yet--to say to Ross Perot, please don't say to the
 DEA agents on the street that we don't have the will to
 fight drugs. Please. I have watched these people--the same
 for our local law enforcement people. We're backing up at
 every way we possibly can. But maybe you meant that some in 
 the country don't have the will to fight it, but those that
 are out there on the front line, as you know--you've been a
 strong backer of law enforcement--really--I just want to
 clear that up--have the will to fight it, and, frankly, some
 of them are giving their lives.
    LEHRER: Time, Mr. President. All right. Let's go now to
 another subject, the subject of health. The first question
 for 2 minutes is to President Bush, and John will ask it.
    MASHEK: Mr. President, yesterday tens of thousands of
 people paraded past the White House to demonstrate their 
 concern about the disease AIDS. A celebrated member of your
 commission, Magic Johnson, quit saying that there was too
 much inaction.
    Where is this widespread feeling coming from that your
 administration is not doing enough about AIDS?
    PRESIDENT BUSH: Coming from the political process. We
 have increased funding for AIDS. We've doubled it on
 research and on every other aspect of it. My request for
 this year was $4.9 billion for AIDS--ten times as much per
 AIDS victim as per cancer victim. 
    I think that we're showing the proper compassion and
 concern. So I can't tell you where it's coming from, but I
 am very much concerned about AIDS and I believe that we've
 got the best researchers in the world out there at NIH
 working the problem. We're funding them--I wish there was
 more money--but we're funding them far more than any time in
 the past, and we're going to keep on doing that.
    I don't know. I was a little disappointed in Magic
 because he came to me and I said, "Now if you see something 
 we're not doing, get ahold of me. Call me, let me know." He
 went to one meeting, and then we heard that he was stepping
 down. So he's replaced by Mary Fisher who electrified the
 Republican Convention by talking about the compassion and
 the concern that we feel. It was a beautiful moment and I
 think she'll do a first-class job on that commission.
    So I think the appeal is yes, we care. And the other
 thing is part of AIDS--it's one of the few diseases where
 behavior matters. And I once called on somebody, "Well,
 change your behavior. Is the behavior you're using prone to 
 cause AIDS? Change the behavior." Next thing I know, one of
 these ACT UP groups is out saying, "Bush ought to change his
 behavior."
    You can't talk about it rationally. The extremes are
 hurting the AIDS cause. To go into a Catholic mass in a
 beautiful cathedral in New York under the cause of helping
 in AIDS and start throwing condoms around in the mass, I'm
 sorry, I think it sets back the cause.
    We cannot move to the extreme. We've got to care. We've
 got to continue everything we can at the federal and the 
 local level. Barbara I think is doing a superb job in
 destroying the myth about AIDS. And all of us are in this
 fight together, all of us care. Do not go to the extreme.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: One minute, Mr. Perot.
    PEROT: First, I think Mary Fisher was a great choice.
 We're lucky to have her heading the commission. Secondly, I
 think one thing that if I were sent to do the job, I would
 sit down with FDA, look at exactly where we are. Then I
 would really focus on let's get these things out. If you're 
 going to die, you don't have to go through this ten-year
 cycle that FDA goes through on new drugs.
    Believe me, people with AIDS are more than willing to
 take that risk. And we could be moving out to the human
 population a whole lot faster than we are on some of these
 new drugs. So I would think we can expedite the problem
 there.
    Let me go back a minute to racial divisiveness. The all-
 time low in our country was the Judge Thomas-Anita Hill 
 hearings, and those senators ought to be hanging their heads
 in shame for what they did there.
    (Applause)
    2d thing, there are not many times in your life when you
 get to talk to a whole country. But let me just say to all
 of America: if you hate people, I don't want your vote.
 That's how strongly I feel about it.
 (Applause)
    LEHRER: Governor Clinton, one minute.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: Over 150,000 Americans have died of 
 AIDS. Well over a million and a quarter Americans are HIV-
  positive. We need to put one person in charge of the battle
 against AIDS to cut across all the agencies that deal with
 it. We need to accelerate the drug approval process. We need
 to fully fund the act named for that wonderful boy Ryan
 White to make sure we're doing everything we can on research
 and treatment.
    And the president should lead a national effort to change
 behavior, to keep our children alive in the schools,
 responsible behavior to keep people alive. This is a matter 
 of life and death. I have worked in my state to reduce teen
 pregnancy and illness among children. I know it's tough.
    The reason Magic Johnson resigned from the AIDS
 Commission is because the statement you heard tonight from
 Mr. Bush is the longest and best statement he's made about
 it in public.
    I am proud of what we did at the Democratic Convention,
 putting 2 HIV-positive people on the platform, and I am
 proud of the leadership that I'm going to bring to this
 country in dealing with the AIDS crisis. 
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: New question for Mr. Perot. You have 2 minutes to
 answer, and Ann will ask it.
    COMPTON: Mr. Perot, even if you've got what people say
 are the guts to take on changes in the most popular, the
 most sacred of the entitlements, Medicare, people say you
 haven't a prayer of actually getting anything passed in
 Washington.
    Since a president isn't a lone ranger, how in the world 
 can you make some of those unpopular changes?
    PEROT: 2 ways. Number one, if I get there, it will be a
 very unusual and historical event--
    (Laughter)
    --because the people, not the special interests, put me
 there. I will have a unique mandate. I have said again and
 again, and this really upsets the establishment in
 Washington, that we're going to inform the people in detail
 on the issues through an electronic town hall so that they
 really know what's going on. 
    They will want to do what's good for our country.
    Now, all these fellows with thousand-dollar suits and
 alligator shoes running up and down the halls of Congress
 that make policy now--the lobbyists, the PAC guys, the
 foreign lobbyists, and what-have-you, they'll be over there
 in the Smithsonian, you know--
    (Laughter)
    --because we're going to get rid of them, and the
 Congress will be listening to the people. And the American 
 people are willing to have fair, shared sacrifice. They're
 not as stupid as Washington thinks they are. The American
 people are bright, intelligent, caring, loving people who
 want a great country for their children and grandchildren.
 And they will make those sacrifices.
    So I welcome that challenge, and just watch--
    (Applause)
    --because if the American people send me there, we'll get
 it done.
    Now, everybody will faint in Washington. They've never
 seen anything happen in that town.
    (Laughter)
    This is a town where the White House says, Congress did
 it; Congress says, the White House did it. And I'm sitting
 there and saying, well, who else could be around, you know?
 Then when they get off by themselves, they say nobody did
 it.
    (Laughter)
    And yet the cash register's empty and it used to have our 
 money, the taxpayers' money, in it, and we didn't get the
 results.
    No, we'll get it done.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: Governor, one minute.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: Ross, that's a great speech, but it's
 not quite that simple.
    (Laughter)
    I mean, look at the facts. Both parties in Washington,
 the president and the Congress, have cut Medicare. The 
 average senior citizen is spending a higher percentage of
 income on health care today than they were in 1965, before
 Medicare came in.
    The president's got another proposal to require them to
 pay $400 a year more for the next 5 years.
    But if you don't have the guts to control costs by
 changing the insurance system and taking on the
 bureaucracies and the regulation of health care in the
 private and public sector, you can't fix this problem. Costs
 will continue to spiral. 
 
    And just remember this, folks. A lot of folks on Medicare
 are out there every day making the choice between food and
 medicine; not poor enough for Medicare--Medicaid, not
 wealthy enough to buy their medicine. I've met them, people
 like Mary Annie and Edward Davis in Nashua, New Hampshire.
 All over this country, they cannot even buy medicine.
    So let's be careful. When we talk about cutting health
 care costs, let's start with the insurance companies and the
 people that are making a killing instead of making our 
 people healthy.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: One minute, President Bush.
    PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, first place, I'd like to clear up
 something because every 4 years, the Democrats go around and
 say, Republicans are going to cut Social Security and
 Medicare. They started it again.
    I'm the president that stood up and said, don't mess with
 Social Security, and I'm not going to and we haven't and we
 are not going to go after the Social Security recipient. 
 
    I have one difference with Mr. Perot on that because I
 don't think we need to touch Social Security.
    What we do need to do, though, is control the growth of
 these mandatory programs. And Ross properly says, okay,
 there's some pain in that. But Governor Clinton refuses to
 touch that, simply refuses. So what we've got to do is
 control it, let it grow for inflation, let it grow for the
 amount of new people added, population, and then hold the
 line. 
    And I believe that is the way you get the deficit down,
 not by the tax-and-spend program that we hear every 4 years,
 whether it's Mondale, Dukakis, whoever else it is. I just
 don't believe we ought to do that. So hold the line on
 Social Security and put a cap on the growth of the mandatory
 program.
    LEHRER: New question, it is for Governor Clinton, 2
 -minute answer. Sandy will ask it.
    VANOCUR: Governor Clinton, Ann Compton has brought up 
 Medicare. I remember in 1965, when Wilbur Mills of Arkansas,
 the chairman of Ways and Means, was pushing it through the
 Congress. The charge against it was it's socialized
 medicine.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: Mr. Bush made that charge.
    VANOCUR: Well, he served with him 2 years later, in 1967,
 where I first met him. The 2d point, though, is that it is
 now skyrocketing out of control. People want it. We say it's
 going bonkers.
    Is not the Oregon plan applied to Medicaid rationing the 
 proper way to go even though the federal government last
 August ruled that it violated the Americans with
 Disabilities Act of 1990?
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: I thought the Oregon plan should at
 least have been allowed to be tried because at least the
 people in Oregon were trying to do something. Let me go back
 to the main point, Sandy.
    Mr. Bush is trying to run against Lyndon Johnson and
 Jimmy Carter and everybody in the world but me in this race.
 I have proposed a managed competition plan for health care. 
 I will say again: you cannot control health care costs
 simply by cutting Medicare. Look what's happened. The
 federal government has cut Medicare and Medicaid in the last
 few years, states have cut Medicaid--we've done it in
 Arkansas under budget pressures. But what happens? More and
 more people get on the rolls as poverty increases. If you
 don't control the health care costs of the entire system,
 you cannot get control of it.
    Look at our program. We set up a national ceiling on
 health care costs tied to inflation and population growth 
 set by health care providers, not by the government. We
 provide for managed competition, not government models, in
 every states. And we control private and public health care
 costs.
    Now, just a few days ago a bipartisan commission of
 Republicans and Democrats--more Republicans than Democrats--
 said my plan will save the average family $1200 a year more
 than the Bush plan will by the year 2000, $2.2 trillion in
 the next 12 years, $400 billion a year by the end of this
 decade. I've got a plan to control health care costs. But 
 you can't just do it by cutting Medicare; you have to take
 on the insurance companies, the bureaucracies. And you have
 to have cost controls, yes.
    But keep in mind we are spending 30 % more on health care
 than any country in the world, any country, and yet we have
 35 million people uninsured, we have no preventing and
 primary care. The Oregon plan is a good start if the federal
 government is going to continue to abandon its
 responsibilities. I say if Germany can cover everybody and
 keep costs under inflation, if Hawaii can cover 98 % of 
 their people at lower health care costs than the rest of us,
 if Rochester, New York, can do it with 2-3ds of the cost of
 the rest of it, America can do it, too. I'm tired of being
 told we can't. I say we can. We can do better, and we must.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: President Bush, one minute.
    PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I don't have time in 30 seconds, or
 whatever--a minute--to talk about our health care reform
 plan. The Oregon plan made some good sense, but it's easy to
 dismiss the concerns of the disabled. As president I have to
 be sure that those waivers, which we're approving all over
 the place, are covered under the law. Maybe we can work it
 out. But the Americans with Disabilities Act, speaking about
 sound and sensible civil rights legislation, was the most
 foremost piece of legislation passed in modern times, and so
 we do have something more than a technical problem.
    Governor Clinton clicked off the things--he's going to
 take on insurance companies and bureaucracies. He failed to
 take on somebody else--the malpractice suit people, those 
 that bring these lawsuits against--these frivolous trial
 lawyers' lawsuits that are running the costs of medical care
 up 25 to 50 billion. And he refuses to put anything,
 controls, on these crazy lawsuits.
    If you want to help somebody, don't run the costs up by
 making doctors have to have 5 or 6 tests where one would do
 for fear of being sued, or have somebody along the highway
 not stop to pick up a guy and help him because he's afraid a
 trial lawyer will come along and sue him. We're suing each
 other too much and caring for each other too little. 
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: Mr. Perot, one minute.
    PEROT: We got the most expensive health care system in
 the world; it ranks behind 15 other nations when we come to
 life expectancy, and 22 other nations when we come to infant
 mortality. So we don't have the best.
    Pretty simple, folks--if you're paying more and you don't
 have the best, if all else fails go copy the people who have
 the best who spend less, right? 
    Well, we can do better than that. Again, we've got plans
 lying all over the place in Washington. Nobody ever
 implements them. Now I'm back to square one. If you want to
 stop talking about it and do it, then I'll be glad to go up
 there and we'll get it done. But if you just want to keep
 the music going, just stay traditional this next time
 around, and 4 years from now you'll have everybody blaming
 everybody else for a bad health care system.
    Talk is cheap; words are plentiful, deeds are precious. 
 Let's get on with it.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: And that's exactly what we're going to do. That
 was, in fact, the final question and answer. We're now going
 to move to closing statements. Each candidate will have up
 to 2 minutes. The order, remember, was determined by
 drawing, and Mr. Perot, you are first.
    PEROT: Well, it's been a privilege to be able to talk to
 the American people tonight. I make no bones about it. I 
 love this country. I love the principle it's founded on. I
 love the people here. I don't like to see the country's
 principles violated. I don't like to see the people in a
 deteriorating economy in a deteriorating country because our
 government has lost touch with the people.
    The people in Washington are good people. We just have a
 bad system. We've got to change the system. It's time to do
 it because we have run up so much debt that time is no
 longer our friend. We've got to put our house in order.
    When you go to bed tonight, look at your children. Think 
 of their dreams. Think of your dreams as a child and ask
 yourself, isn't it time to stop talking about it? Isn't it
 time to stop creating images? Isn't it time to do it? Aren't
 you sick of being treated like an unprogrammed robot? Every
 4 years, they send you all kinds of messages to tell you how
 to vote and then go back to business as usual.
    They told you at the tax and budget summit that if you
 agreed to a tax increase, we could balance the budget. They
 didn't tell you that that same year they increased spending
 $1.83 for every dollar we increased taxes. That's Washington 
 in a nutshell right there.
    In the final analysis, I'm doing this for your children
 when you look at them tonight.
    There's another group that I feel very close to, and
 these at the men and women who fought on the battlefield,
 the children--the families--of the ones who died and the
 people who left parts of their bodies over there. I'd never
 ask you to do anything for me, but I owe you this, and I'm
 doing it for you. And I can't tell you what it means to me
 at these rallies when I see you and you come up and the look 
 in your eyes--and I know how you feel and you know how I
 feel. And then I think of the older people who are retired.
 They grew up in the Depression. They fought and won World
 War II. We owe you a debt we can never repay you. And the
 greatest repayment I can ever give is to recreate the
 American dream for your children and grandchildren. I'll
 give you everything I have, if you want me to do it.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: Governor Clinton, your closing statement.
    GOVERNOR CLINTON: I'd like to thank the people of St. 
 Louis and Washington University, the Presidential Debate
 Commission and all those who made this night possible. And
 I'd like to thank those of you who are watching.
    Most of all, I'd like to thank all of you who have
 touched me in some way over this last year, all the
 thousands of you whom I've seen. I'd like to thank the
 computer executives and the electronics executives in
 Silicon Valley, 2-3ds of whom are Republicans who said they
 wanted to sign on to a change in America. I'd like to thank
 the hundreds of executives who came to Chicago, a 3d of them 
 Republicans, who said they wanted to change. I'd like to
 thank the people who've started with Mr. Perot who've come
 on to help our campaign.
    I'd like to thank all the folks around America that no
 one ever knows about--the woman that was holding the AIDS
 baby she adopted in Cedar Rapids, Iowa who asked me to do
 something more for adoption; the woman who stopped along the
 road in Wisconsin and wept because her husband had lost his
 job after 27 years; all the people who are having a tough
 time and the people who are winning but who know how 
 desperately we need to change.
    This debate tonight has made crystal clear a challenge
 that is old as America--the choice between hope and fear,
 change or more of the same, the courage to move into a new
 tomorrow or to listen to the crowd who says things could be
 worse.
    Mr. Bush has said some very compelling things tonight
 that don't quite square with the record. He was president
 for 3 years before he proposed a health care plan that still
 hasn't been sent to Congress in total; 3 years before an 
 economic plan, and he still didn't say tonight that that tax
 bill he vetoed raised taxes only on the rich and gave the
 rest of you a break--but he vetoed it anyway.
    I offer a new direction. Invest in American jobs,
 American education, control health care costs, bring this
 country together again. I want the future of this country to
 be as bright and brilliant as its past, and it can be if we
 have the courage to change.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: President Bush, your opposing statement. 
    PRESIDENT BUSH: Let me tell you a little what it's like
 to be president. In the Oval Office, you can't predict what
 kind of crisis is going to come up. You have to make tough
 calls. You can't be on one hand this way and one hand
 another. You can't take different positions on these
 difficult issues. And then you need a philosophical--I'd
 call it a philosophical underpinning. Mine for foreign
 affairs is democracy and freedom, and look at the dramatic
 changes around the world. The Cold War is over. The Soviet 
 Union is no more and we're working with a democratic
 country. Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltics are
 free.
    Take a look at the Middle East. We had to stand up
 against a tyrant. The US came together as we haven't in
 many, many years. And we kicked this man out of Kuwait. And
 in the process, as a result of that will and that decision
 and that toughness, we now have ancient enemies talking
 peace in the Middle East. Nobody would have dreamed it
 possible. 
    And I think the biggest dividend of making these tough
 calls is the fact that we are less afraid of nuclear war.
 Every parent out there has much less worry that their kids
 are going to be faced with nuclear holocaust. All this is
 good.
    On the domestic side, what we must do is have change that
 empowers people--not change for the sake of change, tax and
 spend. We don't need to do that any more. What we need to do
 is empower people. We need to invest and save. We need to do 
 better in education. We need to do better in job retraining.
 We need to expand our exports, and they're going very, very
 well, indeed. And we need to strengthen the American family.
    I hope as president that I've earned your trust. I've
 admitted it when I make a mistake, but then I go on and
 help, try to solve the problems. I hope I've earned your
 trust because a lot of being president is about trust and
 character. And I ask for your support for 4 more years to
 finish this job.
    Thank you very, very much.
    (Applause)
    LEHRER: Don't go away yet. I just want to thank the 3
 panelists and thank the 3 candidates for participating--
 President Bush, Governor Clinton and Mr. Perot. They will
 appear again together on October the 15th and again on
 October 19th, and next Tuesday there will be a debate among
 the 3 candidates for vice president.
    And for now, from Washington University in St. Louis, 
 Missouri, I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.
    (Applause)
