Democratic Candidates Debate

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES DEBATE
MAY 17, 2003
Iowa
(AFSCME)

SPEAKERS: FORMER SENATOR AND AMBASSADOR CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN (D-IL)

FORMER GOVERNOR HOWARD DEAN (D-VT)

SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC)

REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO)

SENATOR BOB GRAHAM (D-FL)

REPRESENTATIVE DENNIS KUCINICH (D-OH)
REVEREND AL SHARPTON (D-NY)

GERALD MCENTEE, PRESIDENT AFSCME
CHAIR OF AFL-CIO POLITICAL COMMITTEE

MCENTEE: Good job, Bill.

Always does a good job for this union. Let's hear it again for him. Come on.

(LAUGHTER)

We do want to thank not just C-SPAN for covering it live, but all of the TV folks are here, and also a very proud welcome to all of the print media that are with us. We appreciate the fact that they are covering this. We think it's an important step on the way to the nomination and eventual defeat of Bush, and we just think it's very good that they're here. I think we owe them all a round of applause for being with us.

(APPLAUSE)

We're now going to begin I guess what you would call sort of a meat- and-potato part of our program, maybe the most important part.

Let me begin by introducing the candidates in alphabetical order and ask that they take their seats on the stage as they introduced.

Former Senator and Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, Illinois.

(APPLAUSE)

Former Governor Howard Dean, Vermont.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

(APPLAUSE)

All right, John.

Representative Richard Gephardt, Missouri.

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OK, brother. He brought his own signs.

(LAUGHTER)

Senator Bob Graham, Florida.

(APPLAUSE)

Can you find yourself? Are you lost?

Representative Dennis Kucinich, Ohio.

(APPLAUSE)

The Reverend Al Sharpton, New York.

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We want to thank each and everyone of these candidates for coming out here to Iowa and joining us today.

Following lunch, we will meet with Senator John Kerry via satellite. He couldn't be with us today, a previous commitment. We will also watch a pre-recorded interview with Senator Joseph Lieberman. He could not be with us in keeping with the observance of his faith.

We did -- and out there in TV land -- we did invite President Bush, but he declined our invitation.

(APPLAUSE)

But we did invite him.

Today's program has four sections. We will begin with opening remarks from the candidates. Then six of our AFSCME members will ask questions, addressing what we see as the major concerns of our union.

This will then be followed by questions from the floor, sort of a freedom hall, and you've got toe be ready for this, freedom hall.

And then we will have closing remarks from the candidates. We plan as best we can on concluding at about 11:30.

Candidates, as your moderator, do you think I look like George Stephanopoulos?

(LAUGHTER)

(UNKNOWN): Better.

MCENTEE: Better, better, good.

They said, better, better.

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Good, much better. If I just made his money I'd be all right.

Candidates, as your moderator, I will make sure we keep to the time -- you see it directly in front of you -- the time allotted, and interrupt when necessary. We have installed those time clocks, which you can see from your seats.

We will begin with opening statements. They will be limited to two minutes. The order has been determined by a lottery, secret lottery, and we will begin with Governor Dean.

Governor Dean?

(APPLAUSE)

DEAN: Are you sitting down or going up there?

MCENTEE: Down.

DEAN: Well, I'm delighted to be here, and I -- one of the things that I often get introduced at in labor meetings like this is I'm the only doctor in America with a 100 percent COPE (ph) record.

(APPLAUSE)

But I'm particularly proud of the fact that last spring the AFL- CIO gave me their Paul Wellstone Award for helping to organize a hospital, the hospital that I was attending at.

You know, we've lost a lot in the last two-and-a-half years: two million jobs; we have a president who talks tough on homeland security but is strangling the cities and the towns and not giving them the money that's necessary to protect them; we have a president who recommends cutting taxes, which make it impossible to have a decent health-care program in this country.

The president's prescription for everything is take two tax cuts and see me in the morning.

(LAUGHTER)

My prescription is a little different. I want a different kind of America. In our state everybody under 18 has health insurance, and I want an America -- we can go out and explain to people that they can be like everybody else -- the British and the Germans and the French and the Italians and the Israelis and the Canadians and even the Costa Ricans all have health insurance that can't be taken away, and we can have that, too, in this country with a Democratic Party president.

(APPLAUSE)

I want an America where human rights are attached to trade policy so that our jobs can't be taken away.

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I talk to Democrats all over this country, and I find the Democrats are almost as angry at the Democratic Party as they are at the Republican Party. We have got to understand that the only way that we can beat this president is to take him on directly.

Don't vote for any tax cuts of any kind. Let's explain to the American people that tax cuts are killing our jobs and making it impossible for us to have a decent health-care system.

(APPLAUSE)

Don't vote for unfunded mandates like No Child Left Behind, which make is impossible to explain to the American people that those kind of unfunded mandates are wrong. They drive up your property taxes. What we need is full funding of mandates like special education. So stop strangling our cities and towns.

This president -- this president has passed the largest tax cut in American history. He's given $1.7 trillion to his corporate friends like Ken Lay, and added $10,000 worth of debt to every child in America. We can do better than that.

This president has ruled us by making us afraid of each other and making us afraid of others. I want an America where we're going to rule by hope again, where we're going to have a tough country, but a country where we acknowledge our responsibility for each other.

We're going to build an America where we're all together again, no longer divided by fear and tax cuts for people who don't need them.

MCENTEE: Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you very much, Governor Dean.

We'll now hear from Senator Graham. Keep your eye on that clock, all right?

GRAHAM: Good morning, and thank you AFSCME for giving us this opportunity to be with you today. I have worked with many of you over the years. I respect what you do for Americans everyday.

I also want to thank Jerry and Bill for the great leadership that they are providing to AFSCME.

My name is Bob Graham. I'm running for president of the United States because I believe this nation is on the fundamentally wrong track.

MCENTEE: Here, here.

(APPLAUSE)

GRAHAM: I am an optimist. I believe America's best days are still ahead. But to realize those best days, we should start with a hard-headed assessment of what is happening today.

I'm running for president to secure our economic future. In the last two years, we have lost jobs. We've lost our pensions. We've lost confidence in the American economy, and the only solution that the president offers -- more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

As president, I will invest in our people. As president, I will assure that we will not have the corporate greed which is paying bonuses in the suites while the workers are being fired in the basement.

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MCENTEE: Yes.

GRAHAM: As president, I will provide health security. I will assure that Medicare is reformed with the first reform being the provision of a prescription-drug benefit.

(APPLAUSE)

And we won't herd all Americans in an HMO to get it.

I will do everything in my power to move us on a step-by-step basis towards full health coverage for all Americans and with costs that they can afford.

And finally, I'm running for president because of your personal and our national security. We all admire the valor of the troops.

But as the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I can tell you what is really happening. Iraq was a distraction from the war on terror. We are less secure, not more secure. The terrorists have regenerated.

GRAHAM: And the president is now attempting to cover up the facts.

Just as you are being asked to be held accountable in your work, the Oval Office should also be accountable for its.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Can you wrap it up, Senator? Wrap it up?

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GRAHAM: My name is Bob Graham. I'm running for president of the United States. I would appreciate your support.

MCENTEE: Thank you, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you very much. We'll now hear from Senator John Edwards.

EDWARDS: The president -- the president says he wants to have a debate about values. Well, we're going to give him that debate, and we're going to give the American people that debate.

I come from a family where my dad worked in mills all of his life. When I was young I moved from one mill town to another, to another until I finally settled in a little town called Robbins, North Carolina.

My father worked very hard because he believed it was the right thing to do, and he thought it would help build a better future for his family.

That's the basic bargain that we make with the American people. If you work hard, if you act responsibly, you can build a better life for yourself and for your families.

This is the bargain that George Bush is breaking every single day. He comes from a completely different place. He comes from a place where wealth is inherited, not earned. He comes from a place where opportunity is horded, not shared.

Yeah, this is....

(APPLAUSE)

... this is going to be a debate about values, Mr. President. It's going to be a debate about the future of America and the kind of country we want.

They, the Republicans and George Bush, they honor wealth. We honor the work that produces wealth. That's why...

(APPLAUSE)

... that's why we should have tax cuts for working families who have a new baby, not tax cuts to eliminate taxes on dividends. They fight to expand special privileges fore special interests. We fight for opportunity for everybody.

That's why they fight to protect subsidies for big banks. I want to use that money to provide college for every single young person in America who is willing to work for it.

(APPLAUSE)

We believe in taking responsibility. They believe in shifting the buck. They believe in passing that buck to somebody else. That's why Congressman Boswell and I have a bill in the Senate to provide $50 billion to communities and states all over America that desperately need help.

If it seems like they don't believe in public-sector unions, there's a reason for it. The truth is worse than that. They don't believe in the public sector. They are fighting every day...

(APPLAUSE)

... to dismantle it.

MCENTEE: Could you sum it up, Senator? Sum it up.

EDWARDS: We cannot play defense with George Bush. We have to take this fight right at him. We must play offense. It is what I have done every single day of my life. This is a fight for the working people of America. It is a fight for our values, and it is a fight we will win.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you. Thank you, Senator Edwards.

We will now hear from Ambassador Moseley Braun.

MOSELEY BRAUN: Twenty years ago -- thank you -- 20 years ago when I first ran for the state legislature in Illinois, my father got a beat-up old truck that was colored green, about the color of your tee-shirts, and on the side of it he had a big sign that said, "Fight the greedy and help the needy."

And I was of course horrified that he was driving through the streets of Chicago screaming "Fight the greedy, help the needy." But here I am 20 years later and in this world, with this leadership that only George Orwell could have given us, this crowd is into helping the greedy and fighting the needy.

They -- my father had it right. George Bush has got it wrong. They are helping the wrong people and hurting the rest of us.

Tax cuts, no-bid contracts, a war of choice that's going to leave us rebuilding Beirut while cities in Chicago are -- cities in America are falling apart. This is absolutely the wrong direction.

And I submit to you that what they are doing is trying to deliver the last blow of an extreme political agenda that wants to, quote, "star of the beast." You've heard the term before. Republicans have used it before. Star of the beast. What they'd say is star of the public sector, what they mean is star of the American people.

This is economy is not working for working people, because this crowd does not appreciate, understand or have any respect for working people.

Democrats believe that government can play a constructive role to serve the public interests, to serve everybody.

And I want to thank you in AFSCME, because not only do you serve the public interest in what you do every day, but in your political activism, you connect the dots for the American people, between tax cuts for the wealthy and a stalling economy, between health care for the few and everybody else left out, between Enron and the shrinking pensions.

I'm Carol Moseley Braun. I have the credentials to do this job. I have the experience to do this job. I want to rebuild America, not just physically, but also spiritually.

There was an editorial in the New York Times yesterday about crumbling schools. I tried to rebuild crumbling schools as a senator. I want to continue to rebuild our schools and our infrastructure to make the invest in state and local governments to provide the services to the people that they need.

I want to change the way we fund education and provide universal health care coverage for everybody.

I see my time is up.

MCENTEE: Yes.

MOSELEY BRAUN: I should have timed my speech better, but suffice to say that I want to bring us together as a people and restore the rights that our parents fought to give us.

Thank you.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

No pun intended, but we're going to turn to our left here. We thank Ambassador Braun and we'll now hear from Representative Dennis Kucinich.

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KUCINICH: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

As president I'll lead the way to stopping privatization which has been about carving up our government and selling it to the lowest bidder. We'll put an end to that.

As president...

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... as president, I'll lead the way to protecting Social Security and stop the privatization of Social Security and bring the retirement age back to 65. People are working their whole lives. They should be able to retire at 65 years old, not keep moving that retirement age back.

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As president, I'll stop the privatization of Medicare. It is time for a fully funded universal health care system. Medicare for all. Take the profit out of health care. Get the insurance companies out of health care. Return health care to the people.

As president -- as president I'll make sure that workers' rights are enshrined in a workers' White House. Because workers have a right to organize, a right to bargain collectively, a right to strike, a right to be able to be compensated if you're injured on the job. Certainly a right to fair wages and fair benefits.

As president, I'll issue an executive order which will say that anyone who gets a federal contract will have to provide that when 50 percent of the workers sign up for a union, there's an automatic union.

(APPLAUSE)

As president...

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... as president, I'll set aside those provisions of Taft Hartley which attack the right to organize. As president -- with 100 percent AFSCME voting record, I might add -- one of my first...

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... one of my first acts in office, recognizing how trade has devastated so many towns around Iowa and the nation, one of my first acts in office will be to cancel NAFTA and the WTO.

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I ask this administration: "Tell me Mr. Bush, where are those weapons of mass destruction?"

I've seen those weapons and I'll tell you where they are. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction.

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Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction.

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Hopelessness is a weapon of mass destruction.

Let's bring back hope in America. Let's bring back jobs in America. Let's bring back workers' rights in America.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you. Thank you, Representative Kucinich.

We'll -- as soon as we get our breath, we'll hear from the Reverend Al Sharpton.

Reverend?

(APPLAUSE)

REVEREND: Next January, the Iowa caucus will take place on the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed 35 years ago marching for garbage workers, union workers in Memphis, Tennessee.

A year later I became youth director of a division of his organization in New York, appointed by Reverend William Jones and Reverend Jesse Jackson.

For the last 35 years, not only have I stood for workers' rights, I've been there. I've marched on the picket lines. I've gone to jail with labor leaders. I'm sure I'm the candidate on this platform that's been on more picket lines and unquestionably more jail cells with union leaders than anybody in this race.

(APPLAUSE)

Because this is not about what you say. This is about what you do.

(APPLAUSE)

This is not about making sound bites. This is about having a life- style that protects those that make America what it is.

We have just ended the military side of a war in Iraq, where we were told there were weapons of mass destruction. We have the victims of weapons of mass distraction, because while they told us we were going at weapons in Iraq, they put through tax cuts that have given us record state deficits, and they want to balance those deficits on the back of municipal employees all over America. We need a war against that.

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They enjoyed the surplus economy. They deregulated business. Now when the economy goes down, they want us to pay for a party that we weren't invited to, that we weren't guests of, and that we never enjoyed.

(APPLAUSE)

I'm running for president to make health care a constitutional right.

Not only do we need universal health care, we need to give every American the right to health care, the right to education, the right to vote. We don't have those constitutional rights.

And lastly, it is important if this president can argue that we can spend millions if not billions of dollars to take care of Iraq because we must occupy it, what about the 50 states we already occupy?

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Sum it. Sum it up, Reverend. Sum it up.

SHARPTON: Summing it up, I'm running for president against a man who believes in privatizing Social Security, privatizing Medicaid, privatizing education.

Al Sharpton only wants to privatize one thing. I want to privatize George Bush and make him a private citizen in 2004.

MCENTEE: Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you very much, Al.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

We want to thank Reverend Sharpton, and we'll now turn to Representative Dick Gephardt.

(APPLAUSE)

GEPHARDT: Thank you, Jerry.

As many of you know, I come from a labor-union household. My dad was a teamster and a milk-truck driver in St. Louis. Everyday that we were with him he told us that because he was in a labor union, we had food on the table, and we had a roof over our heard.

(APPLAUSE)

My mother was a secretary. Neither she nor my father got through high school. My mother passed away this last week. She was a great woman. She gave me my values, and she made me everything that I am.

And every day in the House of Representatives, I've tried to simply represent people like my parents, the hard-working people like you, who make this country what it is and make it great.

(APPLAUSE)

And when I'm in that Oval Office, you're going to know that unlike this president, you will have a president that cares every day on every issue about the hard-working people of this country, who are in labor unions, who work hard every day to make this country go.

(APPLAUSE)

Now to beat this president, we've got to be bold, and I'm going to be bold. I'm going to put real choices in front of the American people on health care, on the economy, on education, on energy, on foreign policy. And one of the main issues I'm going to bring is health care.

I have a health-care plan that gets everybody guaranteed health care that cannot be taken away. I will bring a plan that says to every employer in the country, "You've got to cover your employees," and I'll give them generous tax credits to get it done.

I will cover part time as well as full time. I'll cover retirees as well as active, and I will give an equal subsidy to every state and local government in this country, so that all public employees are treated the same as private employees with health care in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

If you want health care than can never be taken away from you, if you want to make sure that you have guaranteed care where the price won't go up and it won't be taken away, if you want health care that goes to every public employee in this country, state and local government and the like, if you want to give $1.5 billion from the federal government to state and local government here in Iowa in the next three years, then I am your candidate for president of the United States.

I need your help. We're going to beat George Bush...

MCENTEE: Thank you.

GEPHARDT: ... in November of 2004.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

Sisters and brothers, we're now going to move to the question- and- answer portion of our program -- one of them -- beginning with questions from six of our members, about major issues for all working families.

After each question is asked, I will direct the question to one of you and then direct follow-up questions as well.

I would ask the candidates to limit their answers to one minute. I would also say if one of your colleagues directs some sort of direct criticism at you, we will try to give you a chance to respond.

We'll begin with an issue that has been mentioned many times, beginning to define the battle, an issue -- the battle for the Democratic nomination, and that's health care.

You've heard a number of candidates talk about it.

First, we have a question from Eunice Parrish (ph). Sister?

EUNICE PARRISH (ph): Good morning, America. I am Eunice Parrish (ph). I am now retired.

I worked as an x-ray technician at Ben Taub (ph) Hospital in Houston, Texas for 33 years.

(APPLAUSE)

I think...

(APPLAUSE)

... that we can all agree that this nation's health-care system is in crisis. Millions of Americans are without insurance. Public- health hospitals are buckling under the growing demand. Nurses are being forced to work shift after shift. Medicare is at risk.

For the AFSCME members and other Americans with health insurance, there are also problems of the sky-rocketing costs. Employers are demanding the huge give-back. Why? Because they cannot afford the enormous increase in the cost of insurance.

My question is, what plan do you have to solve the health-care crisis? Thank you.

MCENTEE: Thank you, sister.

(APPLAUSE)

We'll -- we just had the opportunity to hear from Representative Gephardt, so we'll just turn it around and start with him, this portion of the program.

You were the first, Dick Gephardt, you were the first candidate to announce a health-care plan some weeks ago. Since then, other members of this panel have offered their own proposals, and lots of criticism of your plan -- it's too expensive. It goes too far, too fast. Gives money to corporations who don't need it. What makes, in your mind, your plan the best, and how will it cover everyone and yet also control costs?

GEPHARDT: Well, Jerry, first let me say that my thoughts on this plan are my thoughts, and they come from 25 years of working on this issue in the Congress, including trying to lead the fight to pass the Clinton health care plan in 1993 and 1994.

I believe my plan covers the bases and gets down what we need to get done. First of all, it covers everybody with guaranteed health insurance that cannot be taken away.

I do it by requiring every employer to cover all of their employees, and I give them generous tax credits in order to get it done. If you already have health insurance, your employer also gets a credit, but I require that your employer cannot reduce the percentage that they pay in order to get the credit.

So if they are 80 percent, they can't drop to 70 percent and still get the 60 percent credit.

I cover part time as well as full time. One of the games that's going on is companies like WalMart are dropping people to part time so they don't have to give them health insurance.

I solve that problem. I solve that problem.

(APPLAUSE)

I define part time as anybody. I cover retirees, as well as others.

And let me end with this. This issue is the moral issue of our time. You've got to treat everybody fairly. I give an equal subsidy, 60 percent of the costs of health care, of public employees to state and local government. There is not another plan on the table that does that. I think we've got to treat everybody alike.

I think public employees are as important to this country as private employees, and my plan takes care of them.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

Well, that was pretty direct and specific.

Governor Dean, I think it was either this week -- this week, I guess, when you announced your plan. Now some folks say, at least some of the critique of it in terms of experts, say it's piecemeal, that it doesn't go far enough.

In your mind, what makes it the best plan?

DEAN: Well, actually, Jerry, far be it for me to criticize the president of the union I'm trying to get the endorsement from, but...

(LAUGHTER)

... I'd say I had the first health-care plan out there because we put ours out in 1992 before President Clinton was elected, and the result of ours is that every child in our state under 18 has health insurance.

I'm a doctor. I know how the system -- not only do I know how the system needs to work, I also need to -- I also know what we need to do to make it pass.

DEAN: My plan covers every single American, every single American. It's cost is less than half of the Bush tax cut so you all can guess how I plan to pay for it.

The beauty of it, however, is that it uses public programs and private programs, and it does not give big corporations subsidies. It costs about a third of Dick's plan.

Now I commend Dick Gephardt for coming out with his plan, and I -- it's my goal to make sure that every single person sitting up here, and the two that aren't sitting up here, have a comprehensive plan to include every single person.

(APPLAUSE)

So the plan I have will cover every single American. It costs half the Bush tax cuts. We can repeal the tax cuts for the people who still make more than $300,000 a year, and I think if you give people a choice, between the Bush tax cuts, or being able to have health insurance that nobody can ever take away, most Americans are going to vote for health insurance because they never got the Bush tax cuts.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you very much, Governor.

We'll now hear from Representative Kucinich. You've also proposed a health-care plan, and I guess you could say that arguably, the most far reaching one. How would it work, and how would you get it passed?

KUCINICH: This health-care plan Medicare for all, calls for a 7.7 percent tax paid for by the employer. Employers are already paying 8.5 percent. So it actually saves businesses money.

That would raise about $920 billion. In addition to that, there's already over a trillion dollars being spent a year in local, state and federal dollars for health care. The American people are already paying for health care for all, but they're not getting it.

That's why I say it's time to take the profit out of health care. We have the money in the system, but right now the private companies are charging about 18 percent for administration, while the cost of Medicare administration is only 3 percent.

I think it is urgent that we take profit out of health care. How many homes have this discussion every day in America? "Well, I don't feel well. Ah, we don't have the money to go to the doctor." Or, "Well, we can't afford that surgery."

You know, we need to stop those kind of discussions in America. We have the money in this country. We can have universal, single- payer health care for all, and I'm the only candidate for president who has submitted such a plan. It's time America.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

We would now ask Senator Edwards. Senator, is there an Edwards' health care plan, and how would you cover everyone -- universality -- and reduce the cost of health care, which are escalating out of sight?

EDWARDS: Well, thank you, Jerry.

First of all, let me say how important the work you do and everyone in this room does everyday is. My brother, who is an electrical worker, a member of the IBEW, only has health coverage because of organized labor, and his wife recently had very serious health problems. And the only reason he could pay for it is because of the work you do.

What you do is so important.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you for what you do.

To answer your question specifically, I have a whole set of ideas to make sure that we deal with the health-care crisis in America, making sure all children are covered, making sure that all Americans have greater choice in the coverage that's available to them, making sure small businesses are helped with tax credits.

But what you haven't heard yet from anyone on this stage is what I think is the single most critical component, we have to do something about the cost of health care in America, and in order to do it, we're going to have to overcome this culture in Washington that pushes against taking on big insurance companies, big HMOs, big pharmaceutical companies.

I have done it. I have fought them all of my life. It is what I have done since I've been in the United States Senate. I have offered legislation to bring down the cost of prescription drugs for every single American.

The only reason that the efforts we have made in the Congress to bring down the cost of health care in America are not the law of the land. It's because the president works for those people, and we have got to put somebody in the White House who will stand up for you, will stand up against them, and will fight that culture in Washington, that prevents taking them on.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

Ambassador Braun, you're going to have the last word on this issue. Do you have your plan, or do you have a favorite plan from one of the other candidates?

MOSELEY BRAUN: Thank you, Jerry. I have an approach to health care reform.

You know the lady who asked the question -- my mother was a medical technician, and so I grew up talking about these issues, and the first case that I ever tried was trying to defend Jimmy Carter's health-care reform effort.

I don't think the American people believe that there is a plan right now that is actually going to get this job done, but we absolutely have to get it done because we have to provide universal coverage and universal health care for the American people.

I think that the answer lies in moving away from an employment- based system. One of the reasons we have 41 million Americans with no coverage is because those people either work for themselves, or are in businesses that don't provide them with coverage.

We try to patchwork this system with Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIPS, all of these different acronyms. The fact is, the only way we're going to address the payment issues is to have a universal system modeled on the way that we -- that Medicare is handled but a universal coverage so that all Americans are covered.

We have to restore the relationship between providers and patients so that the insurance companies don't become gatekeepers to the system and get in the middle of care decisions. We have to make certain that we maintain the quality of care that American people -- that the American people expect.

I believe we have the capacity to pay for such a system. We right now spend more as a percentage of our...

MCENTEE: Could you sum it up...

MOSELEY BRAUN: ... GDP -- yes, I will be very brief -- spend more as a percentage of our GDP than any other nation in the world. With the money that is already in the system, we can pay for universal coverage that preserves quality, and patient and provider relationships.

Thank you.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

The time police are over here on my left, and they're holding up signs, and it says, "Speed it up."

(LAUGHTER)

OK. Can you hear that candidates? Speed it up.

The rising cost of health care is indeed a big cause of the fiscal crisis facing our states and indeed, the federal government.

So let's move to that issue with a question from one of our Minnesota members.

PATRICK GUERNSEY (ph): Good morning.

MCENTEE: Good morning.

GUERNSEY (ph): My name is Patrick Guernsey. I'm a probation officer from Minnesota. I'm also a member of AFSCME Council 14, Local 4552. State and local governments are suffering their worst financial crisis since World War II, thanks in part to a declining economy and sagging revenues.

Lately, Congress has pushed even more program responsibilities and their costs to the states.

As a result, states are making their own tough choices. In Minnesota, the lack of money means we can't supervise juvenile delinquents who commit acts of domestic violence, and hold them accountable with incarceration. We don't have the money. Our states are laying off workers, shortening school days and closing health-care facilities.

I'd like to know what policies or program support to give state and local governments fiscal relief.

MCENTEE: Thank you very much.

Let's turn, and I'm sure he's got some salient remarks on this, to Reverend Sharpton.

Reverend in the South Carolina debate a few weeks ago, you said you had a $250 billion infrastructure rebuilding plan. That was just for the Bronx, right?

(LAUGHTER)

No, I'm kidding, kidding.

SHARPTON: We could use it.

MCENTEE: I'm kidding, but how would that help solve the fiscal crisis? How would it work, and who would you get it paid for?

SHARPTON: Well, first of all, I think since President Bush didn't show up, I'd like in the name of affirmation action, to have his two minutes.

(LAUGHTER)

But anyway, I think...

(LAUGHTER)

... I think that the $250 billion infrastructure-redevelopment plan would be to put $50 billion a year to the federal deficit that would rebuild highways, tunnels, bridges, roadways, and in the name of homeland security, the ports. How did Roosevelt do it in the depression? Public works programs, increasing jobs, increasing tax payers who the tax payers would pay for the $50 billion a year tab.

We are investing in the wrong people in the country. We are investing in the rich, rather investing in working-class families giving them productive and constructive jobs.

That's A. B, there is a misnomer. We're saying that Bush is cutting taxes. He's shifting taxes, because when you have to pay more money for mass transit, when you have to pay more money for sales tax, that's a tax on working class people.

Taxes have gone up in New York. They increase the subway and the bus fare. Taxes have gone up all over this country, because it costs more money for sales tax. We are forcing the states to tax working class people while we cut the wealthy.

The way to do it is to invest in job creation, invest in rebuilding the infrastructure, and the federal government has as a priority, making sure we don't force a tax shift calling it a tax cut and leave working class people holding the tab.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you, Reverend Sharpton.

Senator Graham, the federal government instituted, oh, many years ago a federal revenue-sharing program, 1974, ironically enough, under President Nixon.

In your opinion, would a new federal revenue-sharing program be appropriate as a means of assisting state and local governments today?

GRAHAM: Jerry, we have a crisis. As a governor who balanced eight budgets of a large and complex state, I can appreciate what these cuts that are now being contemplated in virtually every state in the nation are going to mean to the citizens of every state in the nation.

Now some would say, "Well, this is not a federal responsibility. This is a result of state mismanagement." It is a federal responsibility. The federal government has passed a series of mandates on the states, everything from special education, to No Child Left Behind, to homeland security, and failed to provide the dollars that it was committed to do to make those programs real.

(APPLAUSE)

The federal government has undercut the revenue base of state and local governments, and we did it again Thursday night, with the irresponsible tax cut, which the Congress passed.

MCENTEE: Here, here.

(APPLAUSE)

GRAHAM: What I think we ought to do is this year is to put $40 billion into the states to help them immediately deal with their crisis. That would provide $330 million for Iowa, incidentally, and to see that those funds are expedited to the states by doing it through a change in the Medicaid formula with the federal government picking up a larger proportion of the costs. That's the best remedy. That's the best prescription to the current crisis.

MCENTEE: Thank you, Senator Graham.

(APPLAUSE)

We sure would like to pick up those checks in these states that are out there.

Ambassador Moseley Braun, how would you looking at the status of and the problem of state and local governments, how would you get their budgets back on track? What would you do?

MOSELEY BRAUN: Well, obviously, the first and most important thing is to get the economy going again so that the tax revenues flow into state coffers sufficient to meet their budget obligations.

But I have to agree with my colleagues, the fact is that what we're watching here is a shift of responsibility from the federal government, making rules and not paying the cost -- talking the talk but not being willing to pay for it.

One of the things -- two of the things that I've proposed when I was in the Senate had to do with unfunded mandates to make certain that the federal government sent the dollars behind their dictates to the states and also to invest in infrastructure in ways that the -- would have the federal government picking up its fair share.

Right now we spend -- we pay for -- the federal government pays for about 6 percent of the cost of elementary and secondary education. That means that the property tax has to be looked to to pay for schools. The property-tax base is the worst place to pay for education. It ought to be paid for at the national level. There ought to be more dollars flowing to the state and local governments, to keep these schools open, to rebuild them, to pay for pensions, to make certain that education becomes the kind of universally available right to American children.

In addition to that, the Medicaid costs that the states are having to bear, the health care costs, are blown up largely because of cutbacks at the federal level.

I think we have to transform the way -- the relationship between state and local governments to see that there is some balance and some fairness between who pays for what and that the national politicians don't keep getting away with saying they're cutting taxes and just pushing them down to the lowest possible level.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Now how about Senator Edwards? Do you have a plan to at least begin to solve this fiscal crisis, and as part of the question, what is your view on revenue sharing?

EDWARDS: Well, I -- Jerry, I specifically not only have a plan about how to get the economy going and to help states and municipalities with this terrible budget crisis.

Congressman Boswell and I -- he in the House and me in the Senate -- have actually introduced legislation that would provide $50 billion to states and municipalities so that they don't have to lay off workers, so they are not laying off fire fighters, so they're not cutting education.

You know, I don't know if you all noticed this, but yesterday the city of New York laid off 3,000 people.

The Republicans...

MCENTEE: Half of them were here...

EDWARDS: The Republicans are planning -- the Republicans are planning to have their convention in New York City to showcase the leadership of George Bush. I think it turns out it's a great place to showcase the leadership of George Bush.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you, John.

Since President Bush took office, we've gone from -- and you all know this and live with it -- from indeed what was one of the greatest prosperities over seven, eight, nine years in our country. And with the footsteps of George Bush and the rest of his crowd all over it, we've moved to a recession.

Pat Segress (ph) of California has a question about our nation's economy.

Sister?

PAT SEGRESS: Good morning. My name is Patricia Segress, and I work as a custodian at the Hillcrest Medical Center at the University of California in San Diego.

I am here today because I am really worried about where our economy is going. Too many of us are wondering whether or not we're going to have a job tomorrow, let alone able to save for retirement.

But George Bush's only solution is more tax cuts. Now I don't know too many people who would say that they don't want more money, but the truth is that those tax cuts mainly go to the very rich.

I take home $1,200 a month and I spend $900 a month on rent. I am struggling just to make ends meet. I'd like to know -- I'd really like to know how would you get our economy back on track, and please don't tell me more tax cuts for the wealthy people.

MCENTEE: Thank you, sister.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Well, I hope they don't answer it that way because they have very little chance of getting this endorsement here.

(LAUGHTER)

Ambassador Moseley Braun, George Bush and the Republicans keep saying as Reverend Sharpton talked about -- keep saying "tax cuts create jobs." We've already had a $1.3 million tax cut, but we've lost nearly -- I think it's a billion, isn't it, rather than a million?

I'm looking over here at my police. It's billion. OK. Someone will pay for that.

(LAUGHTER)

So we've lost -- we've had a tax cut of $1.3 billion...

(UNKNOWN): Trillion.

MCENTEE: ... billion dollars.

Trillion dollars? Is there anyone else? Any higher number is there-- is there a number higher than a trillion?

(LAUGHTER)

Some one will pay a large price for this.

(UNKNOWN): Already are.

MCENTEE: OK. And we've lost -- and I hope I get this right, bear with me -- I think we've lost about two million jobs after we had this whatever tax cut it was.

And so I would ask the ambassador, what's your position on tax cuts and job creation?

MOSELEY BRAUN: Well, first off, the tax cuts were absolutely a travesty and they ought to be rolled back. That's just very clear.

(APPLAUSE)

Their economic leadership, I've said it before, gives voodoo economics a bad name. It is not even trickle down. It doesn't even reach most people, and make no mistake about it, not even the wealthy are doing really well with this leadership. Nobody is doing well with this economy.

We are facing deflation, which is something we've not seen in our lifetimes and haven't seen it since the Great Depression. For the first time we are facing a declining dollar. Their trade policy is to let the dollar fall on world markets.

I mean, these people have economics all the way backwards. Again, help the greedy and fight the needy is what seems to be their mantra.

What I would do specifically? Well, in the first instance, roll back the tax cuts. In the second instance, begin to invest what we have in infrastructure developments. Send it to the states and the local governments so we can begin to pay for the kinds of activities to call for technology transfer and new technologies, to rebuild schools, to rebuild roads. We can make the investments that will give the stimulus to this economy.

I was part of the tax --- the Clinton tax bill that got this economy going after the last Bush put us into recession. You recall we had recession and deficits. Clinton turned it around. We went into peace and prosperity in this country. I think we have to turn it around -- take it from these people to turn it around again, get away from war and depression and to go to peace and prosperity in this country again.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you. Thank you, sister.

Representative Gephardt, you've stated that providing health care for the uninsured is one of the best ways to bolster the economy. What other measures do you support that would indeed stimulate this economy?

GEPHARDT: Well, first, Jerry, let me remind us all that back in 1993 we passed -- the Democrats passed a economic plan by one vote in each house. We didn't get a Republican vote in either house. That plan raised taxes and cut spending, and it created with the help and work of the American people, the best economy that we've ever had in 50 years.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Here, here.

GEPHARDT: Remember? We were having arguments about what to do with the surplus. Remember. It was only two short years ago.

When I'm president, we will bring back sound economic policies. This president's economic policy is failing. It has failed. It's made a mess of this economy, and there's going to be a referendum on his leadership in November of 2004.

We're going to bring economic plans that will move this economy back up. Health care for everybody is the best way to stimulate this economy. To do it we've got to get rid of the Bush tax cuts, and that's what I'll do.

(APPLAUSE)

Secondly, a minimum-wage increase for the American people would be a great way to get this economy moving again.

(APPLAUSE)

And finally, I'll go to the WTO and ask for an international minimum wage. We've got a race to the bottom going on folks. Jobs are going from Mexico to China. It's time to bring those jobs back here to the good old United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you, Representative Gephardt.

Governor Dean, as a strong believer in balanced budgets, what's the higher priority for you, balancing the federal budget or stimulating the economy through some type of public-works program and other programs that indeed would create jobs?

DEAN: You can actually do both, and we're going to have to do both. It's not an accident that -- what Dick said was exactly right. The Republicans can't balance budgets. They haven't done it in 34 years, and if you want to trust your hard-earned tax-payer dollars to the federal government, you better elect a Democrat because they can't handle money.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

Now it's not an accident that when Dick led the troops in '93 and the senators all supported balancing the budget, that that kicked off this tremendous time of prosperity, because people had confidence and they began to invest in America again.

In our state, we also supported something called living wage. That means not only do we hike the minimum wage...

(APPLAUSE)

... not only did we hike the minimum wage above federal level, we subsidized child care up to $39,000 a year. Everybody under $55,000 a year had health care for their kids under 18. We had affordable housing programs.

If you want to stop the erosion of the middle class in this country, you are going to have to do something to support the middle class while they are working, because the president of the United States certainly isn't going to do that.

(APPLAUSE)

I do want to invest in infrastructure. I want to build schools. The worst 10 percent of our schools need federal help to be reconstructed. I want to rebuild our infrastructure and transportation. I want to put broadband in rural economies so we can have a rural economy again. We're not going to get those agriculture jobs back.

And I want to invest in things like renewable energy, because if we do that we really can have the kind of economy that we need.

We need jobs and this president with his supply-side economics is going to shift all of our jobs someplace else in this world, and we need them here in America.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you, governor.

Representative Kucinich, you've described yourself as an FDR-type Democrat -- not bad company. What programs do you propose that would create jobs and revitalize the economy?

KUCINICH: Specifically, and I think the American people want specifics, I've proposed a WPA-type program to rebuild our cities, to rebuild our bridges, our water systems, our sewer systems.

A WPA-type project will create millions of jobs in this country and help to rebuild America's infrastructure because we know that cities, counties and states can't afford to do that.

I proposed a manufacturing policy that would rebuild America's manufacturing base, steel, automotive and aerospace. We shouldn't be letting that base fall apart.

I've proposed that we stop privatization of all kinds, because privatization -- one of the motivating factors is we lose jobs. They save costs and cost us jobs.

I've proposed eliminating NAFTA, because NAFTA has resulted in hundreds of thousands of jobs -- manufacturing jobs being lost, and we have trade policies that are costing us millions of jobs. And I'm going to reverse that.

I propose going back to Humphrey Hawkins, which said we can't have anything more than 4 percent unemployed. We need universal health care. That will create jobs. We need a living wage. We need an American president who understands that working people need jobs to keep their -- and keep their health care and their families together.

I'll be a president who understands what people go through, because that's the kind of family I came from, a working person's family. It's time for workers to reclaim the White House so we can get America back to work.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Our fourth general question is on corporate accountability. Corporate scandals and we all know this -- it seems to have slipped some time from the radar screen -- but we all know this that corporate scandals are indeed out of control. The next question is about corporate accountability.

Sister.

SHIRLEY STUTLER (ph): Thank you. I'm Shirley Stutler (ph), president of Local 2595 of Venango County Clericals out of Franklin, Pennsylvania.

Republicans complain about class warfare. Any time Democrats bring up issues of fairness among taxpayers -- however, I don't hear anyone talking about really doing something about outrageous corporate-executive pay or about corporations wiping out the retirement plans and the retirement health benefits of their former employees.

As President McEntee had pointed out earlier, we have corporations like Tyco that put their headquarters in countries like Bermuda in order to avoid paying taxes like the rest of us.

I would like to know how you are going to make CEOs perform their duties responsibly and stop lining their own pockets at the expense of everyday Americans.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

Senator Edwards, countless numbers of Americans lost billions in their retirement savings because of the Enron scandal. Do you support -- and I don't think anybody has gone to jail yet -- do you support stronger criminal penalties for corporate leaders who steal people's retirement savings?

EDWARDS: The answer is yes. We don't just have a crisis in dollars in this economy. We have a crisis in values in corporate America. When American Airlines executives are putting millions of dollars into a trust to protect their own pensions at the same time that they're asking for concessions from their workers, there is something wrong in the corporate culture in America.

This is what we need. We need a worker and shareholder's bill of rights in America. We need to protect people's pensions by ensuring that people at the top aren't protecting their own pensions, while they're monkeying around with working peoples' pensions.

On CEO pay, we should specifically ask about, we need right-to- know laws that require them to tell us what CEOs are being paid -- all of it -- why they're being paid and that their pay actually be tied to the performance of the companies.

And third, we need to make sure that shareholders have representation on boards of directors so that working peoples' voices are actually heard in this process.

We need to democratize the process of corporate board decisions in America so that your voices are heard, your rights are protected.

MCENTEE: Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Reverend Sharpton, we've been urging, as the sister said, corporations like Tyco, to come home to America and get rid of their off-shore tax shelters, the so-called "mailbox."

Would you support preventing any United States company that establishes a non-U.S. tax headquarters from receiving any federal contracts at all?

SHARPTON: Absolutely. If you want to go offshore, then you need to do all of your business offshore. You cannot...

(APPLAUSE)

... you cannot have the right to duck taxes by going offshore and then engage in trying to have federal or state or municipal contracts at the expense of taxpayers that you will not join and you will not be part of.

I think that one of the things that we must do in this election next year will be a real come-to-reality-test in the party, is we've got to stop imitating the Republicans and being soft on big business.

(APPLAUSE)

Too many Democrats agreed with deregulating big business. Too many Democrats allowed big business to have us swayed with these trade agreements. We need to repeal NAFTA. We need to repeal GATT. We need to criminalize those that don't just go off shore for business reason, it is their criminal intent not to have to pay their share in an America that they want to be a part of.

(APPLAUSE)

If you are a corporate executive and you wipe out people's retirement, you need rehabilitation.

SHARPTON: If you are a union leader, you're under investigation. We need to turn that around. We cannot have an attorney general that can arrest labor leaders for marching, but can't arrest people for wiping out people's retirement funds and putting them...

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you, Reverend Sharpton. You just used one minute of George Bush's.

(LAUGHTER)

SHARPTON: Give me a minute.

MCENTEE: Senator Graham, CEOs -- and I think this figure may be low -- but CEOs now make an average of 500 times more than their workers do, even when many CEOs preside over poorly performing companies, and they lay off tens of thousands of workers.

What steps would you take to put a stop to this?

GRAHAM: What is happening in America is that we are becoming two Americas. We are becoming one America for the wealthiest and most powerful, and we are becoming a separate America for those who represent the vast majority of our citizens. I think that we need to start taking those steps to bring us back together again.

What are some of those steps? One, no more tax incentives that encourage bad, abusive corporate behavior. Can you believe it that Enron is now, after having cooked the books to show more profit than they really earned, now asking for rebates from that excessive profit.

(LAUGHTER)

Number two, we need to have proper accounting and accountability for corporate executives. If they're going to give themselves a stock option, that should be disclosed and the federal government -- taxpayers should not pay for it.

Third, we need to restore the Department of Labor to a department that actually feels it should represent labor.

(APPLAUSE)

That department, among others, has the responsibility of overseeing the pensions of American workers. It has seen it more important to berate the leadership of organized labor than to protect the interest of working Americans.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you. Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

Representative Gephardt, some people believe that having federal good- behavior rules for corporations to adhere to, in order to do business in the United States, would help, in some way help, reform corporate America.

What do you think?

GEPHARDT: We need a lot of rules that we don't have, but I want you all to understand that what's happened with Enron and all of these companies is not some mystery.

I want to take you back to the Contract With America that Newt Gingrich brought in 1995.

MCENTEE: Whoa...

GEPHARDT: Let's review the history. He brought bills that changed the legal system in this country so that corporations were no longer responsible for shareholder fraud, and it passed the Congress and became the law.

They also changed the accounting rules so the corporate executives could in effect corrupt the accounting firms in this country, and the largest accounting firm in this country went under because of bad behavior.

You bet we need some new rules. We need a new country. We need new laws going through the Congress that make the public trust of these corporations responsible to the people of this country, which is what the laws used to say.

But to do it, we've got to take this government back. We've got to win the presidency. We've got to win the Congress.

(APPLAUSE)

The corporations have bought the Congress and that's why they're buying the policies that help them steal this money. You've got to get out and vote. We've got to get everybody in this country to vote to take this country back.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

Representative Kucinich, Halliburton and Bechtel corporations, with high connections to current and former Bush-administration officials, are -- we are lead to understand -- making hundreds of millions of dollars already in Iraq. How would you prevent this kind of war profiteering?

KUCINICH: First of all, I'd take this country away from policies which put American on the war path.

(APPLAUSE)

I think it's important...

(APPLAUSE)

... I think it's important to understand that the Halliburton contract was being prepared before the invasion of Iraq occurred.

Now think about what that means. It means that Halliburton obviously continues to profit from war and just as Halliburton profited from some of the so-called members of the "empire of evil" that this administration professes to be opposed to.

Now we need a president who is free of controls of corporations. When I was mayor of Cleveland, I passed that test, because I faced down the most powerful bank in Ohio when they tried to demand that I privatize Cleveland's municipal electric system.

I put my career on the line saying no to privatization. As the mayor of the city of Cleveland, we saved the municipal electric system, which has saved the people of Cleveland hundreds of millions of dollars on their electric bill.

As president, I'll stand up to the corporations just as I stood up to the corporations when I was mayor of Cleveland.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

We're now going to move to question five, and we feel that not too many politicians -- oh, go ahead Carol.

MOSELEY BRAUN: I'm sorry, Jerry, but there was an important thing that kind of got left out. I agree with my colleagues obviously.

MCENTEE: Sure.

MOSELEY BRAUN: But I think a place to start would be equal pay for equal work for women.

(APPLAUSE)

I mean, we are not...

(APPLAUSE)

... you know a bill is a bill and it doesn't have a gender on it. And there are several other things, but if you come back to another economic question, I'd like to...

MCENTEE: Fine.

MOSELEY BRAUN: Thank you.

MCENTEE: OK, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Question five is -- or at least we don't think that politicians and policy makers pay a lot of attention. It's called the right to organize. Let's talk now about justice in the workplace, and one of our Wisconsin members will get us started. Sister?

ANNETTE BERRY (ph): Good morning, my name is Annette Berry (ph). I'm from -- I'm one of 500 school-bus drivers from three different companies who have organized Council 48 in Milwaukee. When workers try to have a voice, management often threatens and intimidate us and runs smear campaigns to discourage us from forming a union.

Yet the workers have no right to equal time or formal opportunity to set the record straight. Workers must be able to exercise their right to organize a union free of management intimidation.

To do that, we must strengthen labor laws and punish employers who interfere with organizing drives, fire or intimidate workers.

My question is, I want to know what the candidates will do to make sure that workers are free to decide whether they want to be represented by a union.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Governor Dean, you've said that we are not going to realize our potential as a country until workers have freedom to form unions. What would you do as president to make sure that that would happen?

DEAN: I think a lot of people, Jerry, in America don't understand because it happens so long ago, what the trade union movement has meant to this country.

This country is the most powerful country on the face of this earth because of the trade-union movement. Because 100 years ago...

(APPLAUSE)

... because 100 years ago when it was really a struggle to make a living, if you worked in a factory or a mine, trade unions began to make it possible for people who worked hard to hope that some day their kids would have a better life than they did.

We need now in terms of trade elsewhere, to make sure that those same rights are available to workers al over the world, because it's in our best interest to develop middle class countries with democratic ideals where women fully participate in those governments so that we stop losing jobs and they start being able to buy our products.

There are low-wage workers organized by your union, by SEIU (ph) and by others, that are immigrants that have to be included in our system, and right now they are not.

(APPLAUSE)

And the only way...

(APPLAUSE)

... the only way that they're going to be included fairly is to have card check so that without election, 50 percent of the folks sign cards. The union is in, and health-care benefits are going to be available to every-single American and living wages are going to be available to every- single American.

We have lost a lot in the labor movement over the last years, and I want Americans to understand -- people in this hall understand, but I'm talking to the people on television -- I want Americans to understand that the trade-union movement in this country has been an incredible plus, and it makes us strong, and it is weak, and that means our country is weak. And we need to make it stronger.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: OK.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

Senator Graham, you come from a state where it is hard for public- and private-sector workers to have a union -- difficult. In fact, very hard. In fact, the Republican governor of your state -- no fault of your own -- Jeb Bush, recently said in a speech...

AUDIENCE: Boo.

MCENTEE: ... well deserved -- recently said in a speech in Tallahassee, and I quote, "There would be no greater tribute to our maturity as a society than if we can make these buildings around us empty of workers." He was referring to the complex, as you know, Governor, of state employees right in Tallahassee and right in that particular square.

So that's the mind set of some of these people, and so how would you support the efforts of workers to organize into unions?

GRAHAM: First, I would do everything in my power to see that we did not have the George Bushs and the Jeb Bushs of the world running our governments.

MCENTEE: Here, here.

(APPLAUSE)

GRAHAM: The United States Constitution lays out what is the purpose of government in this new nation for which they were preparing the basic document, and they said, among other things, that the purpose of government was to protect the national defense and to secure the general welfare. Those continue to be the reasons why we need a strong and effective government at all levels in this nation.

While I was in the state legislature in Florida, I was one of the leaders in passing the legislation which empowered public-employee unions to organize in our state.

(APPLAUSE)

What is happening, friends, is that America continues to fracture along the lines of power and economic status. The trade-union movement in our country has been one of the elements that have allowed America to be a middle-class nation. We need to return to one America.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Ambassador Braun, what would you do as president to create -- so much is -- we well understand comes out of that bully pulpit -- what would you do as president to create an environment where workers can organize free of fear? And ambassador, if you wish to add on anything in terms of that other question, feel free to do so.

MOSELEY BRAUN: Thank you very much.

MCENTEE: We'll give you one of those minutes of George Bush's.

(LAUGHTER)

MOSELEY BRAUN: Thank you very much. You know, again, my mother's expression, "It doesn't matter whether you came here on the Mayflower or a slave ship, across Ellis Island or across the Rio Grande, we're all in the same boat now. "

And the most...

(APPLAUSE)

... and we are all in the same boat, and if workers don't do well, the country doesn't do well. And we have to bring Americans together to make certain that there's balance, that there is harmony, that workers have a chance to organize, they have a chance to work in environments that provide for health care and child care and a living wage, that we deal with the whole question of income inequality that has just riven this country apart and split us apart from each other and shrunk the middle class.

That was the great -- the great victory of the American dream, was that we had a middle class here.

And I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, "From the people that brought you the weekend."

Well, unions not only brought us the weekend, unions brought us Social Security.

One of the things, by the way, in response to the last question, have you heard the Republicans talk about privatizing Social Security since Enron? No, you haven't because if you privatize Social Security, everybody would be in the same position as those poor Enron employees who had all of their money invested in their corporation's pension plan.

So we have to balance, and that means a living wage. That means trade policies that stop the race to the bottom that have our country responsible for exploiting children and exploiting the environment.

I mean, those kinds of policies, that kind of approach that says we are all in this together, and as Americans, as we look out for the working class, we look out for everybody, and we look out for the future of our country. That's what I would do to help promote a labor agenda for America.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Representative Kucinich, and then we'll ask Reverend Sharpton. Representative Kucinich, we just heard you a few minutes ago that one of the ways you would support working families is by getting rid of NAFTA, and other issues.

As president, what else would you do to support the workers' right to organize into unions?

KUCINICH: First of all, I think it's important to establish what one means by workers' rights, and what it would mean to have a president in the White House who is responsive to workers' rights.

By workers' rights, I mean the right to organize, I mean the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike, the right to a safe workplace, the right to be able to sue your employer if you're injured on the job, the right to a secure retirement, the right to participate in the political process.

As president of the United States, I'll make sure that a National Labor Relations Board is appointed which is pro-worker, number one.

(APPLAUSE)

Number two, I'll make sure that a Department of Labor works on behalf of working men and women. It's time.

I'll make sure as president of the United States, that all of the principles I've just enunciated about what workers rights are, are reflected in federal policies such as card check, challenging Taft Hartley, and setting aside, if you will, canceling NAFTA.

We will reclaim workers' rights by having trade agreements which have workers' rights, human rights, and environmental quality principles as the basis of those agreements.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Reverend Sharpton, you have a great distinction as being a veteran community organizer. As sometimes we call it in New York, as a drum major -- and a great community organizer.

How would you use the office of president to be a labor organizer?

SHARPTON: I think that the first thing the president must do is have federal laws that protect workers. How did we get the civil rights? How did we get gender rights?

We stopped relying on states with a states' rights argument to do it state by state. If we had strong enforceable federal laws giving workers the right to organize, then we could go in Florida and other states and say they are in violation of the federal government and the federal law.

(APPLAUSE)

Let's quit...

(APPLAUSE)

... let's bring workers out a states' rights America into a national government that will have an attorney general that will force very state to have one standard for the rights of working-class people all over this country.

(APPLAUSE)

We are...

(APPLAUSE)

... we are still dealing in a pre-Civil War legislative environment when it comes to workers, while we're going state by state. If it's one nation under God, we ought to have one standard under God for the children of God that work every day in the labor market.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you, Reverend.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. Thank you.

Our question number six, the general question is on homeland security and first responders.

One of the states' -- and local governments -- biggest new expenses is homeland security. A question on this issue from Joseph Conzol (ph).

Brother?

JOSEPH CONZOL (ph): Thank you. Good morning.

I'm a New York City fire-department emergency medical technician...

(APPLAUSE)

... thank you. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Wow, thanks. I was one of the many public-service workers at the World Trade Center on September 11th. As I helped those trapped inside, I became trapped myself. Six hundred and thirty-four union members died that day, all in the line of duty. I was one of the lucky ones. I survived.

President Bush promised first responders $3.5 billion for homeland security for training, equipment and personnel, but they haven't given us the money. The Bush administration has let us down.

(UNKNOWN): Yes.

JOSEPH CONZOL (ph): Especially with this bad economy, what would you do to make the state and local governments to have enough money for homeland security?

How would you improve homeland security? Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you, brother.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Graham, you recently accused the Bush administration of a -- and I believe I have this correct -- of a homeland security cover- up. Could you talk about that?

GRAHAM: I'm glad to talk about it, Jerry. What this administration has done, is they have conducted an ideological war in Iraq where they have not found the weapons of mass destruction upon which it was predicated. And at the same time, they have stopped the war against terror.

Al Qaida killed over 3,000 people in the home of the gentleman that just spoke with us. We have let Al Qaida off the hook. We had them on the ropes, close to dismantlement, then as we moved resources out of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight a war in Iraq, we let them regenerate.

And we have not gone to those nations that we know have been providing aid, assistance and sanctuary, such as Syria, to tell them we are no longer going to tolerate that kind of activity. That would be, if the federal government would take a strong offensive attack against terrorists, one of the most important ways that we could assure the security of our homeland.

MCENTEE: Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Representative Gephardt, a recent New York Times editorial -- I guess about a little more than a week ago -- said the way the administration has provided anti-terrorism money to states has more to do with politics than need. I think they compared for example, specifically New York and New York City and Wyoming.

What's your view?

GEPHARDT: Well, Jerry, this administration has let America down in the area of homeland security. They run around acting like they're the greatest proponents of it, but when you get to the bottom line, the money is not there.

They would not think of sending soldiers to Afghanistan or Iraq without proper equipment and training, but if you go out the fire and police departments here in Iowa or in Missouri, my home state, or any state, including New York, as the officer said, you won't find any equipment and training money has come from the federal government.

We are vulnerable to future attacks because this administration has not done its job, and has not increased our ability to have homeland security.

Now I want to add one other thing. This officer stood up here and talked about what he did on 9/11 and his comrades and the lives they saved. I want to remind all of us that the people that walked into that building were union members.

MCENTEE: Yes, you're right about that.

(APPLAUSE)

GEPHARDT: They were union members, and they were heroes, they were patriots, they did everything we asked them to do, but when it came to pass a homeland security bill, this president and this administration insisted on a bill that would take away the rights of workers who work for the federal government in homeland security to organize.

MCENTEE: Right.

AUDIENCE: Boo.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you, Representative Gephardt.

GEPHARDT: I voted against that bill, and I suggest that we defeat that bill the first chance we get when we take back the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

Reverend Sharpton, as a New Yorker, you have kind of a special relationship with this issue. How would you deal with homeland security?

SHARPTON: First of all, we must also know as you stated as a New Yorker, that a year after these men and women showed great bravery, not only did they not get the money, they are closing firehouses in New York.

We recently -- National Action Network, the group that I founded -- joined with others protesting and filing a lawsuit. A local councilman is filing a lawsuit to just keep the engine houses open.

How do you on one hand use our brave firemen and women as a backdrop for a photo-op and then you close the station houses a year later and act like you're protecting people? It's a political fraud that needs to be exposed by this president.

I would...

(APPLAUSE)

... I would clearly put the dollars there. I would secondly make my priority going after those that attacked us.

Mr. Bush, the question that you have not answered is where is bin Laden? You keep going after everything, but who went after us? Mr. Bush will not be in a Sharpton administration the head of missing persons. He can't find bin Laden. We don't know who if Hussein is living or dead, and we can't find the weapons of mass destruction.

(LAUGHTER)

We need to go after those that went after us.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. Thank you, very much. Thank you very much, Reverend Sharpton.

Senator Edwards, I hate to do this to you.

(LAUGHTER)

I hate to do this to you, but you spoke out about the importance of protecting the rights of workers at the newly created Department of Homeland Security. Overall, sort of a vision, how would you handle the issue of homeland security?

EDWARDS: Well, Jerry, we will not win the White House unless we make it clear to the American people that we will keep them safe and how we will keep them safe.

And we should not cede this issue to a party and a president whose idea of homeland security is plastic wrap and duct tape.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

Here's what I'd do. First, get money to the places across the country where it's desperately needed. It's why I proposed $50 billion to states and municipalities. I've also proposed, and have legislation to make sure that we have across America an emergency warning system and a comprehensive response system similar to neighborhood watch, so that people know what to do if in fact a terrorist attack occurs in your neighborhood.

Second, we should to a much more effective job of protecting our most vulnerable targets -- nuclear plants, chemical plants, stadiums. The president is not doing that. There is work to be done.

Third, we should do a better job -- more effective job -- of protecting our borders, and our ports where we have enormous containers coming in. Three to 4 percent of them are inspected by everybody. It's an enormous hazard. We need to do more work there.

And fourth, we need to take the job of fighting terrorism here in this country away from the FBI, create a separate agency. The FBI is a law- enforcement agency. They've had numerous failures in the past.

I was involved in the investigation of September the 11th, why it happened. This responsibility should be taken away from the FBI, given to a separate agency who can do a more effective job of fighting terrorists, doing domestic intelligence here at home and simultaneously create an Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties so that people like John Ashcroft cannot take away our rights, not take away our freedom, and not take away our liberties, not take away...

(APPLAUSE)

... the things that go to the very fabric of what makes America great.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator.

Governor Dean, you've been very outspoken on the war in Iraq. How do you think we can best help the states in their fight to protect our own country?

DEAN: Well, I thank you. I agree with Bob Graham, the war in Iraq -- everybody is glad to see Osama -- Osama right -- everybody is glad to see Saddam gone, but the truth is, it is a diversion. We're not safer today than we were before Saddam Hussein left.

We have plutonium stocks in Russia that aren't being bought by the administration. They're supposed to. We have 98 percent of all of our container ships coming in uninspected. We have an oil conservation policy this country that means basically drill in the national parks.

So the first thing we've got to do is protect us from the outside, and that means we've got to stop funding terror in the Middle East by sending tons of oil money there, which gets diverted to teaching small children to hate Americans, Christians and Jews.

That's what we've got to do first.

As far as home -- having been a governor and knowing something about nuclear plants and water supplies, we need a lot more money than the $3.5 billion that wasn't even promised to us.

We really need to understand that the first line of defense for this country is state troopers, local police, local EMTs, local fire. That is not only being underfunded by the president of the United States, he isn't even -- because he's got these enormous tax cuts -- he isn't even willing to keep us where we are.

He eliminated the money for the 100,000 police officers that Bill Clinton put on the street. We can do better than that.

That money needs to restored. We need to put money into making sure we have EMTs, police, fire, and services and public health in our states, in our towns in our cities, and enormous tax cuts are not only undercutting Medicaid and Social Security, Mr. President, the enormous tax cuts that you have passed in this country, are actually undercutting our ability to defend ourselves.

And we can do better than that.

MCENTEEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

We'll now move to the next part of the program.

MCENTEE: We're now going to take questions from the floor. We kind of call this freedom hall.

We have six microphones, and you should get in line at one of them if you'd like to ask a question. Please keep your questions brief, and if your question has already been asked by somebody else, either sit down, or come up with another question.

Candidates, I'm going to direct the questions to you up here in the front, and follow-ups with them to ensure some equal time.

I'd like to ask that you keep your answers brief.

I'll start over here, microphone three. Hello.

DAVID WARRICK (ph): Hello, my name is David Warrick (ph). I'm from AFSCME Council 62 representing our members in Indiana and Kentucky. I'm also a member of Local 795 from my small home-town city of Richmond, Indiana.

In my home town, I'm seeing many of our manufacturing jobs going away. This is caused both by the economy and also by NAFTA. I see many of them being moved to Mexico. Many of our members in Indiana and Kentucky live in small rural home towns like mine. We're seeing poverty in these rural areas.

So my question is, what are you doing, or what programs are you going to create, to help with rural poverty and rural economic development?

Thank you.

MCENTEE: Ambassador Braun, do you want to take a shot at that?

MOSELEY BRAUN: Certainly. You know, small-business development is an integral part of rural development because that's where the jobs happen and innovation happens.

I propose a technology transfer to help us develop and build new technologies that will give us the ability to create manufacturing jobs, specifically in this country again.

Manufacturing jobs really have a double effect, because they not only allow people to work in good-paying jobs to create something that we can sell abroad, but they also then create spin-off service industries around them.

And so I think that investment in technology transfer will go a long way to helping to create jobs, and then I come back to an old- fashioned idea, frankly, for the hard-core unemployed, which is to have public- service employment.

I mean, it worked in the last depression that we had, I don't see any reason why we don't back to giving people work that's paid for by the federal government. Every American should have the right to work to a job that they can support their family on, and I think that the federal government and the national administration has a major role to play in bolstering job creation in small communities, rural communities.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Senator Edwards, do you have something to say on that?

EDWARDS: Yes, just very briefly, Jerry.

One of the things we as Democrats are going to have to do in order to take back the White House is stop treating rural America as a place you fly over between New York and Los Angeles. We need...

(APPLAUSE)

... to reach out to rural Americans. We need ideas about how to make their lives better. I grew up in rural North Carolina. I have seen what's happened to the economy in rural North Carolina. The same thing is happening with the economy here in rural Iowa.

Among the things we need to do is establish economic revitalization zones not only in urban areas, where they've helped and worked, but also in rural areas in America, in cities and towns, where communities have lost jobs, where plants have closed, where low commodity prices are making -- are putting farmers on the brink of bankruptcy.

We need to provide as a national policy financial incentives to get manufacturers, businesses to come to these communities where jobs are so desperately needed so that we can replace the jobs we've lost.

And second, we need a national trade policy in America that's fair and allows our American workers to compete with those overseas.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

Microphone number four?

BRENDA CARPENTER: Good morning.

MCENTEE: Good morning.

BRENDA CARPENTER: My name is Brenda Carpenter. I am the president of Local 2218 in New Jersey. I am the chair of the Women's Committee for Council I. I am also a staff rep for Council 71.

My question has to do with Medicaid. Despite great accomplishments in expanding Medicaid coverage for low-income children in recent years, the Medicaid program is coming under increasing pressure because states attempt to close large budget gaps.

The Bush administration has prepared -- has proposed converting Medicaid to capped block grants, which also could have a devastating effect on long-term care for seniors.

Now that I'm thinking about retiring, I need to know how would you propose to solve the Medicaid financing crisis?

MCENTEE: Thank you. Thank you, sister.

Senator Graham, you're most certainly familiar and familiar with the FMAP (ph). Do you want to take a shot at that?

GRAHAM: Yes, Jerry, and I'll start by saying what we shouldn't do, which is to convert Medicaid from a program which provides direct entitlements to those Americans who are eligible, into a block grant to the states. That is just a subterfuge.

(APPLAUSE)

And the result of that subterfuge will be to have the federal government shift more and more and more of the responsibility to the states and the benefits to the Americans who are eligible will become less and less and less.

In the plan that I submitted to the Senate earlier this week, I provided that the $40 billion that would go to the states this year, would be distributed based on the Medicaid formula in recognition of the fact that Medicaid was such a critical issue for the American people.

Also, Medicaid will be a central part of the plan that I will submit to provide coverage for health insurance for all Americans, particularly to allow the working poor to be able to participate in Medicaid and therefore, provide health insurance for their families.

MCENTEE: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

Representative Gephardt?

GEPHARDT: I think we all need to stop and reflect on the fact that the Republican Party has fought every initiative that we have passed in the last 50 years, for health care for the American people.

They fought and voted against Medicare. They fought and voted against Medicaid.

Newt Gingrich, the Contract With America, tried to make and did make huge cuts in Medicare that have destroyed about half of the nursing homes in this country, and yes, they want to cap Medicaid because that's just another way to try to get rid of it over time, which is their ultimate goal.

I'm sorry, the Republican Party is never going to do the right things for the American people with regard to health care.

My health-care plan gets everybody covered. It takes care of state and local employees. It guarantees that your costs won't go up, your benefits won't be cut, and it puts money into COBRA for unemployed workers. It puts money in Medicare for people who lose their jobs after age 55, and yes, it puts money in Medicaid for kids and families that still fall through the cracks.

If we're going to fix this health care system, and this is the moral issue of our time, we have to get to take back the White House and take back the Congress, and that's what we're going to do in November 2004.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

A delegate at mike five.

JOYCE KING: Joyce King from Peoria, Illinois. I'm a retiree and a member of Chapter 31, Retirees of AFSCME.

While seniors have the greatest need for prescription drugs, millions lack coverage and can't afford to buy these expensive prescriptions. Even those that are lucky enough to have been covered by their employer are finding their benefits are eroding, and this is a direct result of rising costs.

Could you explain some of the differences among competing proposals for prescription drug coverage for seniors?

Which ones will ensure affordable and comprehensive coverage, contain drug prices and help employers continue providing good health- care benefits to their retirees?

MCENTEE: Thank you. Governor Dean?

DEAN: The best way to do this is -- the best plan we could possibly have to ensure what you just asked for is to change presidents.

(APPLAUSE)

Because -- it's true. We are just not going to get anywhere. This president, I predict, will pass a health-care plan this year for prescription drugs, and it will be just like No child Left Behind. It will be all sizzle and no steak.

There will not be anything in there that works, and it will probably be the same plan they passed in Nevada, which didn't help anybody at all.

Here's what we need to do. There was a bill -- or amendment -- which Bob Graham sponsored with Gordon Smith last time, which every- single member of the Senate who is running for president voted for. That's the bottom line. We could at least do that. That would at least get everybody covered for about $400 billion over a 10-year period.

We can do a little better than that. In fact, we can put together a prescription drug benefit for seniors so that every -- no senior in America will have to choose between paying the rent, paying their food and buying drugs.

And I have seen seniors split their doses in half in my practice, or come in hoping that I had some extra drugs in my cabinet so I could help them through their health-care crises. We can do this. It is very doable. It will not be done by a Republican by any circumstances.

Any one of us up here would do better than George Bush in getting you a prescription benefit.

(APPLAUSE)

MCINTEE: Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

Representative Kucinich?

KUCINICH: I've held many meetings in my district with seniors to talk about this exact matter, Joyce, and I hear the stories of people foregoing purchase of things that they need at their house or apartment because they have the money to pay for their prescription.

People are paying $300, $400, $500 a month. I sometimes wonder how do people survive. How do seniors survive paying that kind of money?

My proposal for universal health care contains a provision which will have the federal government purchase in bulk these medications so that we can get the best price possible and include that as a benefit under national health care.

I further want to say that when you consider from my district and others go to Canada, take buses to Canada in order to get lower prescription costs. Canada has a national health-care system. Other places in the world that have lower cost of prescription drugs, also have national health-care systems, fully paid, universal health care.

Let's get the profit out of health care and let's get these pharmaceutical companies out of the business of gouging the American consumers.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Let me ask a question, if I could, and anybody take a shot at it.

When Representative Kucinich talks about Canada, and it's the same kind of question in reference to Mexico and people that live in western states in terms of going to those countries and getting a less expensive drug.

I guess it was about -- maybe you could help me up here -- I guess it's about five or six years ago where a piece of legislation was passed by the Congress, I believe signed by Clinton, that was in favor of the re-importation of drugs from Canada and Mexico to the United States, because as you said, they are cheaper.

They would -- there would have to be at least according to the legislation, proposed regulations by the secretary of HHS, and it didn't say "may" or "if you want to try it." It said, "you shall do that."

Now it's been on the books for like seven years. Donna Shalala didn't write those regulations. Tommy Thompson hasn't written those regulations, and so here is at least a piece of legislation that is sitting there waiting for the secretary of HHS to sign off on regulations that would at least give -- not totally it won't answer the question -- but at least give relief, some relief to people that are in that category.

And any of you. You know, the pharmaceutical industries are so powerful and they have been the vehicle that has prevented this from happening. Anybody take a shot at it. What would you do?

Go ahead.

GRAHAM: Well, I'd start out by enforcing the law which is on the books. It is a reasonable proposal to allow the people of America to have access to the same prescription drugs, made by the same company, packaged in the same bottles as they can buy in the United States but in many cases for two or three times greater price.

I would also make it easier for generic drugs to be made available to the American people.

(APPLAUSE)

Today, there are all kinds of subterfuges which are used to keep generic drugs from coming to market and being available to the American people.

An earlier question was what are the differences between the various plans for prescription drugs? Let me tell you the fundamental difference between the Bush plan and almost every other plan. He says that for the 85 percent plus of Americans who get their health care through the traditional fee-for-service Medicare, they will only get prescription drugs if either they've very poor or if they have extraordinarily high expenses.

For the 15 percent who are in HMOs, they will get an adequate prescription drug benefit. What is the goal? It's to privatize Medicare by driving, herding American seniors into what they want -- what they don't want to do which is to join an HMO.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

In this segment, we've covered everybody at least once except Reverend Sharpton. So let's turn to the Reverend on this question.

SHARPTON: I think that the first thing is -- the problem is a question of having a president that will enforce existing laws, and then instruct people that are in the administration, particularly the HHS secretary, to sign the legislation you're talking about.

But I think there's a more fundamental problem. I said at the beginning, we need to in 2004 to talk about adding a move to support the amendments that are now pending -- H.R. 28, H.R. 29, and H.R. 30 in the House -- to add amendments to the Constitution. One of the amendments is the right for Americans to have health care.

If the right wing can energize their electorate with constitutional fights, the right to bear arms, the right for other things, we need to talk about the real rights in America.

Americans need to start with the premise we have the right to health care, and then have government use that as the goal toward that. Then to enforce that, we would regulate big business. We would go after the pharmaceutical companies. We would put a ceiling on medical costs.

I think that we must first set the premise so we get to the right conclusion. The problem is that we don't think we have a right to health care in this country, but we do think that Charleton Heston has a right to a rifle.

I think there's something fundamentally wrong with that, and we need to challenge that in 2004.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

We now go to mike number two.

JACKIE DEHILL (ph): Good afternoon and hello. My name is Jackie De Hill (ph). I'm from the state of New Mexico. I'm a state employee. We have a great governor, Bill Richardson.

(APPLAUSE)

My question today is regarding the Supreme Court appointments. In the light of ongoing battles in the Senate of judicial appointments and with the likelihood that multiple slots in the Supreme Court will be opened over the next few years, these battles are sure to get more intense.

What will be your standards for selecting judicial nominees who would protect, rather than erode, our constitutional, civil and labor rights?

Thank you.

MCINTEE: Thank you. Why don't we go to some of the senators, because they have been deeply involved in this process of selection? And start off with Senator Edwards.

EDWARDS: Thank you, Jerry. I think actually I may be the only one on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and so I deal with this issue every day.

These judges that are coming from the Bush White House, if I can just put this in simple terms, they will take your rights away. It is no more complicated than that.

And we have to have judges who we know will enforce our civil- rights laws, will enforce our equal rights laws, will protect our civil liberties, will protect our constitutional rights, and this battle for these judges, including the Supreme Court nominee when it comes, is a battle about the fabric of America and what America really is.

Having grown up the way I did in the South, have grown up with the civil-rights movement, having watched people suffer and struggle in the cause for civil rights, we cannot go backwards. We must have judges that we know will enforce our civil-rights laws.

(APPLAUSE)

By the way, the president is also dead wrong about the affirmative action program at the University of Michigan.

(APPLAUSE)

And we need judges who we know will protect a woman's right to choose, will not allow Roe v. Wade to be eroded.

(APPLAUSE)

And they are the last protection against people like John Ashcroft, taking away your privacy, your civil liberties and your constitutional rights. This fight for judges, not just at the Supreme Court level, but at the circuit-court level and at even sometimes at the district-court level, is a fight that goes to the very fabric of what makes America great.

And if we as Democrats aren't willing to stand up on this issue, we don't stand for anything.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. Thank you, Senator.

Governor Dean asked to take a shot at this. Governor Dean?

DEAN: This is going to be a real quick one. First of all, I want to thank Senator Edwards and all of the senators and also Tom Daschle for filibustering Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owens. They are not qualified to serve.

(APPLAUSE)

Second of all, Bob Graham and I are the only people that have actually ever appointed judges, and I never thought I'd ever say anything that I agreed with Dick Nixon, but what we need is a strict constructionist. What we really need is a somebody who is going to uphold the Constitution, and what the president is doing is appointing members of the far-right federalist society who don't see the Constitution the way most Americans do.

I happen to think there is such a thing as a right to privacy in the Constitution, and we need to appoint judges who will support our civil liberties, who will declare parts of the Patriot Act unconstitutional. It is not OK...

(APPLAUSE)

... it is not OK to hold American citizens without the right to see a lawyer indefinitely. It is not OK to snoop through our video files to see what we rented last Saturday night.

I'm going to appoint judges, as I have in the past, who will uphold the Constitution, work hard and will not come with an ideological agenda.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

Ambassador Braun asked for a few moments.

We know how extreme this political -- the political agenda is of this current administration when the notion that Rehnquist's retiring frightens us. The fact of the matter is that they have so driven this court to the far, far, right wing that most of Americans would be hard pressed to identify any of our fundamental liberties in the decisions coming out of this crowd.

Our civil liberties are at issue. Not only did this administration give us Patriot One and Now Patio Two, the Domestic Security Enforcement Act, they're looking to go into your e-mails and your tap your phones. They're permitting secret detention of people. They're arresting people without charging them.

It is -- there is an atmosphere of fear in this country, coming out of that far right wing, that these judicial appointments can only -- can either stop or advance. And I think it is absolutely critical. Probably the most important thing that a president will do is find with a good head and a good heart who understand that our fundamental political compact, our Constitution is what binds us together and makes this country great.

And if we don't protect that Constitution and protect our individual liberties, we will turn over to the next generation an America very different than the one we inherited and very different than what I think we want to be seen as having crafted in our time.

So I think this is a critical issue.

Thank you.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

We don't want to let Senator Graham off the hook here. By being governor of the state of Florida, I assume he appointed some judges while he was down there and also in the middle of many of these judicial battles and the filibustering in the Senate.

So could you give us your feeling on this?

GRAHAM: The independence of the judiciary is an essential element of the preservation of our democracy. That was what John Adams said over 230 years ago. It is truer today than it was when he spoke those words.

And the independence of the judiciary is now at risk. One of the key elements of the maintenance of independence is that the president will nominate but the United States will confirm. They were intended to be equal partners.

GRAHAM: This president wants the United States Senate to leave, to go home, to get out of his business and his objecting of stacking the federal judiciary.

I have appointed many judges as governor and participated during the selection of federal district judges as a senator.

The qualities that I will look for as president of the United States are those that I have looked for in the past -- intelligence, fairness, temperament and the ability to grow in the job.

If you tell me today what a person is going to do 10 years from now, I say that person is so ideologically cemented that they are not qualified to be a federal judge.

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Reverend Sharpton, this has stirred some debate up here. Reverend Sharpton, and then Representative Gephardt, then Representative Kucinich.

SHARPTON: I think that one of the first things we must have is we must have the ability to nominate and appoint judges that show that their real commitment is to uphold the law and protect the law and protect citizens equally.

And I think that the cynical game that has been played by the Bush administration is not only to nominate right-wing ideologues, extreme right- wing idealogues, but also to play the game of coloring them as Latino or black in the name of diversity.

And I think that we've got to hit that on the head. His father did it with Clarence Thomas. He has attempted to do it with Estrada. The object has never been in slavery, when we fought for freedom and fought for the emancipation proclamation, the object was never to get more diversified slave masters. The idea was to get free.

(LAUGHTER)

And what he had tried...

(APPLAUSE)

... what he is trying to sell is that we should enjoy having minorities do us in more than having others do us in. We need to stop getting done in and have judges that stand up for justice no matter what color the judge may be.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

Representative Kucinich?

KUCINICH: One of the questions that I think any one running for president is going to have to answer is what we do about a Supreme Court where Roe v. Wade hangs by a single vote?

Can we leave that question to chance? Can we make it possible for someone to get appointed who will just do the right thing and then may decide the right thing is to vote to repeal Roe v. Wade.

I think it's going to be important for the next president of the United States to tell the American people that he or she will cause any appointee to have to answer on the question of Roe v. Wade, that there must be a litmus test on this question and that no one should be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States unless they are ready to keep Roe v. Wade in place and protect a woman's right to chose.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

Representative Gephardt?

GEPHARDT: I just want every one to really think about what this power means to you and our families going forward over the next six years.

If George Bush wins reelection, he's going to appoint judges for six more years, not just 18 more months.

The senators will tell you that when he sent these names over recently for these high judgeships, the nominees that were sent would not even give information to the Senate about their writings, about their beliefs, about some of their past decisions.

Bob Graham is right. They just told the Senate to get lost. They don't need them. They don't want them to be involved in this decision. This is an autocracy that's being demonstrated in front of your eyes.

You've got an attorney general that's interpreting every day a Patriot Act, which we probably needed because we got to rebalance freedom and security after 9/11. But look at what's happening before our eyes.

This is a huge deal, and what I ask you all to do is to go out and talk to your friends and neighbors and relatives, the voters in this election, and tell them the consequences of not paying attention to just this issue, but all of the other issues aside, this issue and what it will mean to have George Bush making these judgeships over the next six years.

We cannot have it happen. We've got to win this election.

(APPLAUSE)

MCENTEE: Thank you.

Delegate at mike six, and let me say this, we have