Jan. 17, 2000
By
Tom Cronin
CyberCaucus 2000 News Service
Drake
University
DES MOINES, Iowa -- During the Des Moines Register's presidential candidates debate Saturday, the six candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination agreed that integrity and honesty need to be restored to the office of the president. On issues of health care, taxes and foreign policy, however, the candidates found they had several opposing viewpoints.
Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the party's front-running candidate, and Arizona Sen. John McCain had disagreements about taxes and ethanol, while former White House official Gary Bauer and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch argued about U.S. foreign policy toward China.
Magazine publisher Steve Forbes, who said he has visited Iowa more than any other Republican candidate, said he would fix problems facing agriculture and health care by changing the American political system. Former ambassador Alan Keyes attacked both free trade and the nation's banking system, calling for the elimination of the Internal Revenue Service and the nation's withdrawal from the World Trade Organization.
Register editor Dennis Ryerson moderated the debate, which was broadcast to a national television audience.
Despite disagreements about whether patients should be permitted to sue their Health Maintenance Organizations, all the candidates agreed that the federal government should have less control of health care.
"The danger in the health care debate is that America falls prey to the idea that the federal government should make all decisions for consumers, and the federal government should make all decisions for the providers, that the federal government should ration care," Bush said. "The good news is none of us on this stage support that. The other two candidates running for [the] Democrat[ic] Party sound like they support that."
McCain said health care is a key issue because World War II veterans were promised quality health care, but they are not receiving it.
"We promised them ... health care benefits when we asked them to go out and serve and sacrifice," he said. "We're not doing that, my friends. They deserve the health care benefits that we promised them, and ... I see these World War II veterans. They deserve far better than what they're getting, and this administration is AWOL. on this issue."
Forbes said the problem with the health care system in the United States is that the federal government and HMOs control health care resources, which should be left in the hands of patients.
"There is no need for all these third parties: HMOs, insurers, employers, gatekeepers, government bureaucracies that stand in the way," he said. "It's true, if you work for the federal government as a civilian [or] if you're a member of Congress, you have your choice of several hundred different health care plans. If it's good enough for Congress, it should be good enough for the elderly in America."
Hatch said he has been working on long-term health care issues for several years. For example, he helped draft a bill calling for increased home health care for senior citizens, and he has worked on nursing home issues, he said.
"I'm not just talking about [health care]," he said. "I've actually done it. And that's what I offer to the people here in Iowa and the people throughout this country: experience."
McCain, who is second behind Bush in many polls, criticized Bush's tax plan for giving tax relief to the richest 1 percent of Americans instead middle to low-income Americans.
"For the first time since Dwight David Eisenhower, we've got a surplus, and the question is what do you want to do with it?" he said. "I want to give it to low and middle-income Americans as a tax cut. ... But I also think we've got a ticking time bomb out there called Social Security. That has got to be fixed. We've got a national debt of $5.6 trillion that we need to pay for because we're laying that debt on young Americans."
Both Keyes and Forbes said that instead of giving tax relief to Americans, income taxes should be eliminated.
"I think that as you listen to all these folks, you need to get a little aggravated with the fact that they're all going to give you something," Keyes said. "And if you stand back and realize what it is, you'll realize that it's your own money."
Keyes also said that the banking system in the United States is insensitive to the needs of the family farmer, and a free-trade approach to the distribution of American farm products "does not allow us to maximize the clout we gain from our enormous market."
"... I want to get away from this collectivist bargaining approach, and in a hard-hitting way -- a business-like approach -- force other countries to accept our goods as the condition of their entering into American markets," he said.
Bush and McCain disagreed, and Bush said the United States should not use food as a "diplomatic weapon."
"... [T]he most productive farmer in the world is the American farmer and the Iowa farmer," McCain said. "The people in Beijing and Bangkok and Paris will be eating Iowa pork, and they'll love it because I'll get these products into their markets."
In addition to advocating stronger American values, Bauer said he would strip China of its most favorite nation status, which is what he said former President Ronald Reagan would do if he were still president.
"They're building their military, they've made a move on the Panama Canal and we give the canal away," he said. "Unbelievable. I will repeal most favorite nation status for China. Most of my competitors up here today will not."
Hatch said that instead of isolating China from other nations, China should interact with other nations and be expected to abide by international laws.
"Yeah, they don't treat liberty very well over there," he said. "They violate human rights, they've enslaved the Tibetans and they've threatened Taiwan. ... On the other hand, I don't think the way to solve the problem is to isolate China. I think the way to solve the problem is to bring China into the world of nations, WTO, IMF, et cetera, where they've got to act like real human beings."
When asked what they would do to restore honesty and integrity to the office of the president, the candidates took turns attacking the Clinton administration, but each candidate took a different approach.
"The office is greater than the occuupant," Bush said. "So whoever is elected, and I hope it's one of us, when we put our hands on the Bible, we will swear to uphold the laws of the land, but we will also swear to uphold the honor and the dignity of the office."
Hatch said the Clinton administration is the "most deceitful and corrupt" administration in the nation's history, and he focused on the example President Bill Clinton set by having smoked marijuana.
"When the president said on MTV, 'I didn't inhale,' that sent the wrong message to every kid in this country," he said. "All those kids knew that he had to inhale, and he did inhale. And if he did then, a lot of them think, well, why can't they. Now that's the kind of example we've got to get rid of."
Forbes said he intends to clean the "stench" left by the Clinton administration's numerous scandals.
"This administration has abused every sort of power," he said, "whether it was going after the travel office in this tawdry scheme to try to make money for their friends, whether it was the sudden appearance in the White House basement of 900 FBI files -- sensitive files on their opponents -- and the administration wants you to believe that those files appeared by sort of a bureaucratic version of the immaculate conception."
Keyes said the scandals of the Clinton administration are not just Clinton's problem, but everybody's problem.
"Bill Clinton's not the only one who needs to shape up," he said. "We all need to shape up, starting with getting back to our allegiance to the fundamental moral principles that are this nation's strength and that ought to shape its heart."