Ronald
Reagan/John
MR. MOYERS: None of the questions has been submitted in
advance either to the League of Women Voters, or to the candidates, or to their
representatives.
Gentlemen,
thank you both coming. The ground rules
you agreed upon with the League are brief: Each panelist will ask a single
question. You will have two and a half
minutes in which to respond. After you
have stated your position in those two and a half minutes, each of you will
have one minute and 15 seconds for response.
At the close of the debate, each of you will have three minutes for
closing remarks.
We ask the
Convention Center audience to abide by one simple ground rule: Please do not applaud or express approval or
disapproval during the debate. You may
do that on November 4th.
Having won the toss of the coin, Mr. Anderson
will respond to the first question from Carol Loomis.
MS.
LOOMIS: Mr. Anderson, opinion polls show
that the American public sees inflation as the country’s number one economic
problem. Yet as individuals they oppose
cures that hurt them personally. Elected
officials have played along by promising to cure inflation, while backing away
from tough programs that might hurt one special interest group or another, and
by actually adding inflationary elements to the system, such as indexing. They have gone for what is politically
popular rather than for what might work and amount to leadership.
My question
-- and please be specific -- is: What
politically unpopular measures are you willing to endorse, push, and stay with
that might provide real progress in reducing inflation?
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Well, Ms. Loomis, I think it’s
very appropriate that the first question in this first debate of campaign ’80
should relate to the economy of the country, because it seems to me that the
people who are watching us tonight, 221 million Americans, are truly concerned
about the poor rate of performance of the American economy over the last four
years.
Now,
Governor Reagan is not responsible for what has happened over the last four
years, nor am I. The man who should be
here tonight to respond to those charges chose not to attend.
But I want
to answer as specifically as I can the question that you have just put to me. Let me tell you that I, first of all, oppose
an election year tax cut, whether it is the ten percent across the board tax
cut promised to the taxpayers by my opponent in this debate tonight, or whether
it is the $27.5 billion tax cut promised on the 20th of August by
President Carter.
I simply
think that when we are confronting a budget deficit this year - - and this
fiscal year will end in about ten days, and we are confronted with the
possibility of a deficit of $60 billion, perhaps as much as $63 billion – that
that simply would be irresponsible; that once again the printing presses will
start to roll; once again we will see the monetization of that debt result in a
higher rate of inflation.
Even though
we’ve seen some hopeful signs, perhaps, in the flash report on the third
quarter, that perhaps the economy is coming out of the recession, we’ve also
seen the rise in the rate of the prime; we have seen mortgage rates go back up
again, a sure sign of inflation in the housing industry.
What I
would propose -- and I proposed it way back in March, when I was a candidate in
my own state of
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Anderson, your time is up.
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: -- I think is necessary.
MR.
MOYERS: Ms. Loomis.
MS.
LOOMIS: Governor Reagan, repeating the
question, and I would ask you again to engage in as many specifics as you
can. What politically unpopular measures
are you willing to endorse, push, and stay with that might provide real
progress in reducing inflation?
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: I believe that the only unpopular measures
actually that could be – would be applied would be unpopular with government,
and with those, perhaps, some special interest groups who are tied closely to
government. I believe that inflation
today is caused by government simply spending more than government takes in, at
the same time that government has imposed on business and industry, from the
shopkeeper on the corner to the biggest industrial plant in America, countless
harassing regulations and punitive taxes that have reduced productivity, at the
same time they have increased the cost of production.
And when
you are reducing productivity at the same time that you are turning out
printing press money in excessive amounts, you’re causing inflation. And it isn’t really higher prices; it’s just
you are reducing the value of the money.
You are robbing the American people of their savings.
And so the
plan that I have proposed -- and contrary to what John says, my plan is for a
phased-in tax cut over a three-year period -- tax increase in depreciation
allowances for business and industry, to give them the capital to refurbish
plants and equipment, research and development, improved technology -- all of
which we see our foreign competitors having and we have the greatest percentage
of outmoded industrial plant and equipment of any of the industrial nations –
produce more and have stable money supply and give the people of this country a
greater share of their own savings.
Now, I know
that this has been called inflationary by my opponent and by the man who isn’t
here tonight. But I don’t see where it
is inflationary to have people keep more of their earnings and spend it and it
isn’t inflationary for government to take that money away from them and spend
it on the things it wants to spend it on.
I believe
we need incentives for the individual and for business and industry, and I
believe the plan that I have submitted, with detailed backing and which has
been approved by a number of our leading economists in the country, is based on
projections, conservative projections out for the next five years, that
indicate that this plan would by 1983 result in a balanced budget.
We have to
remember when we talk a tax cut, we’re only talking about reducing a tax
increase, because this Administration has left us with a built-in tax increase
that will amount to $86 billion next year --
MR. MOYERS: Your time is up.
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: -- and $500 billion over the
next five.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Anderson.
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Mr. Moyers, in addition to
saying that this no time for a tax cut in view of the incipient signs of
renewed inflation, in addition to calling for restraint in federal spending,
fifteen months ago I also suggested we ought to have an emergency excise tax on
gasoline. I say that because I think
this year we will send $90 billion out of this country to pay for imported oil,
even though those imports have been reduced.
And since I first made that proposal fifteen months ago, the price of
gasoline, which was then 80 cents, has gone up to $1.30.
In other words, we have had a huge increase of
about 50 cents a gallon since that time, and all of that increase has gone out
of this country, or much of it, into the pockets of OPEC oil producers, whereas
I had proposed we ought to take – put that tax on here at home, reduce that
consumption of that imported oil, recycle those proceeds then back into the
pockets of the American workers by reducing their tax payments, their Social
Security tax payments, by 50 percent.
That, I think, in addition would be an anti-inflationary measure that
would strengthen the economy of this country.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Reagan.
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: Well, I cannot see where a 50
cent a gallon tax applied to gasoline would have changed the price of
gasoline. It would still have gone up as
much as it has, and the 50 cents would be added on top of that, and it would be
a tax paid by the consumers, and then we are asked to believe that some way
they would get this back to the consumers.
But
why? Why take it in the first place if
you are going to give it back? Why not
leave it with them?
And while
John spoke about fifteen years ago and the position that he – or fifteen months
ago and what he believed in, fifteen months ago he was a co-signer and
advocating the very tax cut that I am proposing and said that that would be a
forward step in fighting inflation, and that it would be beneficial to the
working people of this country.
MR.
MOYERS: The next question goes to Mr.
Reagan from Daniel Greenberg.
MR.
GREENBERG: Well, gentlemen, what I would
like to say first is I think the panel and the audience would appreciate
responsiveness to the questions rather than repetitions of your campaign
addresses.
Now, my
question for the Governor is every serious examination of the future supply of
energy and other essential resources, including air, land and water, find that
we face shortages and skyrocketing prices, and that in many ways we are pushing
the environment to dangerous limits.
I would
like to know specifically what changes you would encourage and require in
American lifestyles, in automobile use, housing, land use and general
consumption to meet problems that aren’t going to respond to campaign lullabies
about minor conservation efforts and more production.
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: Well, I believe that
conservation, of course, is worthy in and of itself. Anything that would preserve to help us use
less energy, that would be fine and I am for it. But I do not believe that conservation alone
is the answer to the present energy problem because all you are doing then is
staving off by a short time the day when you would come to the end of the
energy supply.
To say that
we are limited and in a dangerous point in this country with regard to energy I
think is to ignore the fact. The fact is
that in today’s oil wells, there is more oil still there than we have so far
taken out and used. But it would
require what is known as secondary or tertiary efforts to bring it out of the
ground. And this is known oil reserves,
known supplies.
There are
hundreds of millions of acres of land that have been taken out of circulation
by the government, for whatever reason they have, that is believed by the most
knowledgeable oil geologists to contain probably more oil and natural gas than
we have used so far since we drilled that first well 121 years ago.
We have a
coal supply that is equal to 50 percent of the world’s coal supply, good for
centuries in this country.
I grant you
that prices may go up because as you go further and have to go deeper, you are
adding to the cost of production. We
have nuclear power which, I believe, with the most stringent of safety
requirements, could meet our energy needs for the next couple of decades while
we go forward exploring the areas of solar power and other forms of energy that
might be renewable and that would not be exhaustible.
All of
these things can be done. When you stop
and think that we are only drilling on 2 percent, at least only 2 percent of
the possibility for oil of the whole continental shelf around the United
States, when you stop to think that the government has taken over 100 million
acres of land out of circulation in Alaska alone that is believed by geologist
to contain much in the line of minerals and energy sources, then I think it is
the government, and the government with its own restrictions and regulations,
that is creating the energy crisis, that we are indeed an energy rich nation.
MR.
MOYERS: I would like to say at this
point that the candidates requested the same questions to be repeated for the
sake of precision on the part of the interrogator.
So, Mr. Greenberg,
you may address Mr. Anderson.
MR.
GREENBERG: Mr. Anderson, I would like to
know specifically what changes you would encourage and require in American
lifestyles, in automobile use, housing, land us and consumption to meet
problems that aren’t going to respond to campaign lullabies about minor
conservation efforts and more production.
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Well, Mr. Greenberg, I simply
cannot allow to go unpassed the statements that have just been made by Mr.
Reagan, who once again has demonstrated, I think, a total misunderstanding of
the energy crisis that confronts not only this country but the world when he
suggests that we have 27 years’ supply of natural gas, 47 years’ supply of oil
and all the rest, and that we really, all we have to do is to get the
government off the back of the oil industry and that is going to be enough.
I agree
with what I think is the major premise of your question, sir, that we are going
to have to create a new conservation effort in the minds of the American people,
and that is simply why I proposed fifteen months ago the emergency excise tax
on gasoline that I did. I did it as a
security measure to be sure, because I would rather see us reduce the
consumption of imported oil than have to send American boys to fight in the
But at the
same time, I think it is going to take a dramatic measure of that kind to
convince the American people that we will have to reduce the use of the private
automobile. We simply cannot have people
sitting one behind the wheel of a car in these long traffic jams going in and
out of our great cities. We are going to
have to resort to vanpooling, to car-pooling.
We are going to have to develop better community transportation systems
so that with buses and light rail, we can replace the private automobile in
those places where it clearly is not energy efficient.
I think
that with respect to housing, when we are consuming, even though our per capita
income today is about the same as that of the Federal Republic of Germany, we
are consuming about, by a factor of two, the amount of energy that they consume
in that country.
Surely
there are things that we can do in the retrofitting, in the redesign of our
homes, not only of our houses but of our commercial structures as well, that
will make it possible for us to achieve.
According to one study that was published a short time ago, the Harvard
Business School Study indicated that just in the commercial sector alone of the
economy, we could save between 30 to 40 percent of the energy that we consume in
this county today.
So I think
yes, we will have to change in a very appreciable way some of the lifestyles
that we now enjoy.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Reagan.
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: Well, as I have said, I am not
an enemy of conservation. I wouldn’t be
called a conservative if I were. But
when my figures are challenged, as the President himself challenged them after
I made them, I think it should be called to the attention of John and the
others here that my figures are the figures of the Department of Energy, which
has not been overly optimistic in recent years as to how much supply we have
left. That is the same government that
in 1920 told us we only have enough oil left for 13 years, and 19 years later
told us we only had enough left for another 15 years.
As for
saving energy and conserving, the American people haven’t been doing badly at
that because in industry today we are producing more over the last several
years, and at 12 percent less use of energy than we were back in about 1973,
and motorists are using 8 percent less than they were back at that time of the
oil embargo.
So I think
we are proving that we can go forward with conservation and benefit from
that. But also, I think it is safe to
say that we do have sources of energy that have not yet been used or found.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Anderson.
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Mr. Greenberg, I think my
opponent in this debate tonight is overlooking one other very important fact,
and that is that we cannot look at this as simply a national problem, even
though it is true that perhaps between now and the end of the decade our total
consumption of oil may not increase by more than perhaps a million or two
barrels of oil a day. The rest of the western
world, we are told, may see its consumption increase from 51 million barrels to
about 66 million. And that additional 15
million barrels is going to cause scarcity.
It is going to cause scarcity in world markets, because there are at
least five reputable studies, one even by the American Petroleum Institute
itself, that I think clearly indicates that somewhere along around the end of
the present decade, total world demand for oil is simply going to exceed total
available supply.
I think
that conservation, I think that a change in lifestyle is necessary, and we had
better begin to plan for that now rather than later.
MR.
MOYERS: This question goes to you, Mr.
Anderson, from Charles Corddry.
MR.
CORDDRY: Mr. Anderson, you and Mr.
Reagan both speak for better defense, for stronger defense and for programs
that would mean spending more money. You
do not either of you however, come to grips with the fundamental problems of
manning the forces, of who shall serve and how the burden will be distributed. This will surely be a critical issue in the
next presidential term.
You both
oppose the draft. The questions
are: How would you fill the
understrength combat force with numbers and quality, without reviving
conscription; and will you commit yourself here tonight, should you become Commander-in-Chief,
to propose a draft, however unpopular, if it became clear that voluntary means
are not working?
MR.
ANDERSON: Mr. Corddry, I am well aware
of the present deficiencies of the armed forces of this country. When you have a report, as we did recently,
that six out of ten CONUS divisions in this country, continental United States
Army divisions simply could not pass a readiness test; that two out of three
divisions that were to be allocated to the so-called rapid deployment force
could not meet a readiness test, and in most cases, that failure to meet the
test was because of a lack of manning requirements and inability to fill many
of the slots in those divisions.
Yes, I have
seen figures that indicate that perhaps as of September 1980, this very money,
that there is a shortage of about 104,000 in the ranks between E-4 and
E-9. And there were reports, public
reports not long ago, about ships that could not leave American ports because
of a lack of crews.
I talked to
one of the leading former Chiefs of Naval Operations in my office a few weeks
ago, who told me about 25,000 chief petty officers being short.
But I think
that that is clearly related to the fact that, going back to the time when the
all volunteer army was created in 1973 – and I worked hard for it and supported
it - - we simply have failed to keep pace with the cost of living. And today on average, the average serviceman
is at least 15 percent - - and I happen to think that’s a very modest estimate
- - 15 percent below what has happened to the cost of living over that period
of time. And as a result the families of
some of our young servicemen are on food stamps. I think that’s shocking, it’s shameful.
So, yes, I
told the American Legion National Convention, the VFW National Convention, when
I spoke to each of those bodies, I outlined a very specific program of increasing
pay and allowances, reenlistment bonuses.
That only makes sense.
But I would
leave you with this thought, sir, to be quite specific in my answer to your
question: that of course, to protect the
vital interests of this country, if that became impossible, If I could not,
despite the very best efforts that I ask the Congress to put forward to raise
those pay and incentives and allowances, of course I would not leave this
country go undefended.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Corddry?
MR.
CORDDRY: Mr. Reagan, I will just repeat
the two questions: How would you fill
the under-strength combat forces, with numbers and with quality, without
reviving conscription, and will you commit yourself here tonight, should you
become the commander in chief, to propose a draft, however unpopular, if it
becomes clear that voluntary means are not solving our manpower problems?
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: Mr. Corddry, it’s a shame now
that there are only two of us here debating, because the two that are here are
in more agreement than disagreement on this particular issue, and the only one
who would be disagreeing with us is the President, if he were present.
I too
believe in the voluntary military. As a
matter of fact, today the shortages of noncommissioned officers that John
mentioned are such that if we tried to have a draft today, we wouldn’t have the
noncommissioned officers to train the draftees.
Now, I
believe the answer lies in just recognizing human nature and how we make
everything else work in this country when we want it to work. Recognize that we have a voluntary
military. We are asking for men and women
to join the military as a career, and we’re asking them to deal with the most
sophisticated equipment. And a young man
is out there on a billion dollar carrier in charge of the maintenance of a $25
million aircraft, working 100 hours a week at times, and he’s earning less for
himself and his family while he’s away from his family that he could earn if he
was in one of the most menial jobs working 40 hours a week here at home.
As an aid
to enlistment - - we had an aid. 46
percent of the people who enlisted in the voluntary military up until 1977 said
they did so for one particular reason:
The GI Bill of Rights, the fact that by serving in the military they
could provide for a future college education.
In 1977 we took that away from the military. That meant immediately 46 percent of your
people that were signing up had no reason for signing up.
So I think
it is a case of pay scale, of recognizing that if we’re going to have young men
and women responsible for our security, dealing with this sophisticated
equipment, then for heaven’s sakes let’s go out and have a pay scale that is
commensurate with the sacrifice that we’re asking of them.
Along with
this, I think that we need something else that has been allowed to
deteriorate. We need a million-man
active reserve that could be called up in an instant’s notice, and it would
also be trained, ready to use that type of equipment. Both of these I think would respond to the
proper kind of incentives that we could offer these people.
The other
day I just - - I’ll hasten - - I just saw once example. Down in
MR.
MOYERS: Your time is up, Mr.
Reagan. I’m sorry.
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: I’ll catch up with that later.
MR.
MOYERS: You can finish that after it’s
over. Mr. Anderson.
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Mr. Moyers, I must say that I
think I have a better opportunity, however, of finding the necessary funds to
pay what admittedly will be a very, very substantial sums of money. We signed on bill, or we passed one bill just
a couple of weeks ago in the House of Representatives, for $500 million, a half
billion dollars. That is just a down
payment, in my opinion.
But unlike
Governor Reagan, I do not support a boondoggle like the MX Missile. I’ve just gotten a report from the Air Force
that indicates that the 30-year life cycle cost of that system is going to be
$100 billion. The initial cost if about
$54 billion, and then when you add in the additional cost, not only the
construction of the system, the missiles and the personnel and so on, when you
add in the additional cost over the life cycle of that system, over $100
billion.
I would
propose to save the taxpayers of this country from that kind of costly
boondoggle.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Reagan?
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: Well, let me just say that, with
regard to that same missile system, I happen to support and believe in the
missile itself. But that’s not the $54
billion cost that John is talking about.
He’s talking about that fantastic plan of the Administration to take
thousands and thousands of square miles out in the Western states. And first he was going to dig a race track
and have it going around in a race track, so it would meet the requirements of
the SALT II treaty, and now he’s decided he’ll have a straight up and down
things, so it can be both verifiable and yet hide able from the Soviet Union.
We need the
missile, I think, because we are so out of balance strategically that we lack a
deterrent to a possible first assault.
But I am not in favor of the plan that is so costly. And therefore, if I only had another second left,
I’d say that that high school class in military training - - 40 of its 80
graduates last year entered the United States service academies, West Point,
Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy.
And to see those young men made me very proud to realize that there are
young people in this country who are prepared to go into that kind of a career
in service of their country.
MR.
MOYERS: This question comes to you, Mr.
Reagan, from my colleague, Lee May.
MR.
MAY: Mr. Reagan, the military is not the
only area of crisis. American cities are
physically wearing out, as housing, streets, sewers and budgets all fall
apart. And all of this is piled upon the
emotional strain that comes from refugees and racial confrontations.
Now, I’m
wondering, what specific plans do you have for federal involvement in saving
our cities from this physical and emotional crisis? And how would you carry out those plans, in
addition to raising military pay, without going against your pledge of fiscal
restraint?
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: I don’t think I’d have to go
against that pledge. I think one of the
problems today with the cities is federal aid.
The majors that I’ve talked to in some of our leading cities tell me
that the federal grants that come for specific cause or specific objective come
with such red tape, such priorities established by a bureaucracy in Washington,
that the local governments’ hands are tied with regard to using that money as
they feel it could best be used and for what they think might be the top
priority.
If they had
that money without those government restrictions, every one of them has told me
they could make great savings and make far greater use of the money.
What I have
been advocating is, why don’t we start with the Federal Government turning back
tax sources to states and local governments, as well as the responsibilities
for those programs? 75 percent of the
people live in the cities. I don’t know
of a city in
But where
are we getting the money that the Federal Government is putting out to help
them?
But there
are other things that we can do with inner cities. And I believe - - I have talked of having
zones in those cities that are run down, where there’s a high percentage of
people on welfare, and offer tax incentives.
The government isn’t getting the tax now from businesses there because
they aren’t there, or from individuals who are on welfare rather than
working. And why don’t we offer
incentives for business and industry to start up in those zones? Give them a tax moratorium for a period if
they build and develop there.
The
individuals that would then get jobs, give them a break that encourages them to
leave the social welfare programs and go to work. We could have an urban homestead act. We’ve got thousands and thousands of homes
owned by government, boarded up, being vandalized, that have been taken in in
mortgage foreclosures. What if we had a homestead
act and said to the people: For one
dollar, we sell you this house. All you
have to do is agree to refurbish it, make it habitable, and live in it. Just as 100 or more years ago we did with the
open land in this country, urban - - or country homesteading.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. May.
MR. MAY: Mr. Anderson, let me ask you: What specific plans do you have for federal
involvement in saving cities from the physical and emotional crises that
confront them, and how would you carry out those plans, in addition to raising
military pay, without going against your pledge of fiscal restraint?
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Mr. May, I recently saw a
Princeton University study that indicated that the cities of America, the large
cities of this country, are in worse shape today than they were in 1960. It seems to totally belie the claim that I
heard President Carter make a few days ago that he was the first President that
had come forth with a real urban strategy to meet the problems of urban
Incidentally,
just this last week the crown jewel in that program that he had devised was
stolen, I guess, because the conference Committee turned down the ambitious
plan that he had to increase the amount of money that would be available for
the Economic Development Administration for loan guarantees and direct loans
and credits.
I’m happy
to say that, in contrast to that, the Anderson-Lucy platform for American
program for the ‘80s has devoted considerable time and in very specific detail
we have talked about two things that ought to be done to aid urban
We call,
first of all, for the creation of a $4 billion Urban Reinvestment Trust Fund,
to do exactly what you spoke about in your question: to rebuild the streets, to rebuild the
cities, the leaking water mains.
I was in
We have
also provided in our program for a $4 billion community trust fund, and we’ve
told you where the money is coming from.
It’s going to come from the dedications by 1984 of the excise revenues
that today are being collected by the Federal Government on alcohol and
tobacco. That money I think ought to be
put into rebuilding the base of our cities.
In addition
to that, jobs programs to re-employ the youth in our cities would be very high
on my priority list: both the Youth
Opportunities Act of 1980 and a billion dollar program that I would recommend
to put youth to work in energy projects, in conservation projects, in projects
that would carry out some of the great national goals of our country.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Reagan, your response?
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: John claims that he is making
clear where the money will come from. It
will come from the pockets of the people.
It will come from the pockets of the people who are living in those very
areas. And the problem is, with
governments federal, state and local taking 44 cents out of every dollar
earned, that the Federal Government has preempted too many of the tax sources,
and that the cities - - that if Pittsburgh does not have the money to fix the
leaking water mains, it’s because the Federal Government has preempted it.
Now the
Federal Government is going to turn around and say: Oh, you have this problem. We will now hand you the money to do it. But the Federal Government doesn’t make
money. It just takes it from the
people. And in my view this is not the
answer to the problem.
Stand in
the
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Anderson?
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Well, of course, where has the
private sector been, Governor Reagan, during the years that our cities have
been deteriorating?
It seems to
me that to deny the responsibility of the Federal Government to do something
about our crumbling cities is to deny the opportunity, for one thing, to 55
percent of the black population of our country that is locked within the inner
cities of the metropolitan areas of our country. We simply cannot ignore the fact that in
those cities today we have 55 percent youth unemployment amongst black and
Hispanic youths. And why is that? It’s because they have lost their industry.
And why
have they lost their industry? It’s
because they no longer present the kind of viable economic climate that makes
it possible for industry to remain there or to locate there. I think government has a responsibility to
find jobs for the youth of this country, and that the place to start is to
assist in the very important and necessary task of helping cities rebuild.
MR.
MOYERS: Jane Bryant Quinn has the next
question for you, Mr. Anderson.
MS.
QUINN: Mr. Anderson, many voters are
very worried that tax cuts, nice as they are, will actually add to
inflation. Many eminent conservatives
have testified that even business tax cuts, as you have proposed, can be
inflationary as long as we have a budget deficit.
Now, Mr.
Reagan has mentioned that he put out a five year economic forecast, which
indeed he did, but it contained no inflation number. You have published a detailed program, but
it, too, doesn’t have any hard numbers on it about how these things work with
inflation.
So I would
like to ask you if you will commit to publish specific forecasts within two
weeks so that the voters can absorb them and understand them and analyze them,
showing exactly what all these problems you have mentioned tonight on energy,
on defense, on the cities, how these impact on inflation and what inflation is
actually going to be over five years.
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Ms. Quinn, I would be very
happy to accept the challenge of your question tonight, to tell the voters of
this country exactly what I think it is going to cost, because I believe that
all too often in past elections politicians have simply been promising people
things that they cannot deliver. When
these presidential debates were held just four years ago, I remember the
incumbent President, who was willing to debate, President Ford, telling the
American people that they simply ought not to vote for somebody who promised
more than they could deliver.
Well, we
have seen what has happened. We haven’t
gotten either the economies in government that were promised; we haven’t gotten
the 4 percent inflation that we were supposed to get at the end of Mr. Carter’s
first term. Instead, we had, I think, in
the second quarter of Consumer Price Index registering around 12 percent, and
nobody really knows with the latest increase in the Wholesale Price Index, that
is about 18 percent on an annualized basis, what it is going to be.
Let me say
this. I think my programs are far less
inflationary than those of Governor Reagan.
His own running mate, when he was running for the presidency, said that
they would cost 30 percent inflation inside of two years, and he cited his leading
economic advisor, a very distinguished economist, Paul McEvoy, as the source of
that information. He went so far as to
call it voodoo economics.
I have been
very careful, I have been very careful in saying that what I am going to do is
to bring federal spending under control first.
I would like to stand here and promise the American people a tax cut as
Governor Reagan has done, but you know, it has gotten to be about a $122
difference. Somebody worked it out, and
they figured out that between the tax cut that Governor Reagan is promising the
American people, and the tax cut that Jimmy Carter is promising in 1981, his is
worth about $122 more.
So you,
dear voters, are out there on the auction block, and these two candidates are
bidding for your voles, and one is going to give you $122 more if you happen to
be in that range of about $20,000 a year income.
I am going
to wait until I see that that inflation rate is going down before I even begin
to phase in the business tax cuts that I have talked about. But I think by improving productivity, they
would be far less inflationary than the consumption oriented tax cut that
Governor Reagan is recommending.
MR.
MOYERS: Ms. Quinn?
MS.
QUINN: Mr. Anderson, I will call you for
that forecast.
Mr. Reagan,
will you publish specific forecasts within two weeks so that the voters can
have time to analyze and absorb them before the election showing exactly what
all these things you have discussed tonight for energy, cities and defense,
mean for inflation over the next five years?
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: Ms. Quinn, I don’t have to. I have done it. I have a backup paper to my economic speech
of a couple of weeks ago in Chicago that gives all of the figures, and we used,
yes, we used the Senate Budget Committee’s projections for five years which are
based on an average inflation rate of 7 ½ percent which I think that under our
plan can be eliminated, and eliminated probably more quickly than our plan, but
we wanted to be so conservative with it that people would see how well it could
be done.
Now, John
has been in the Congress for 20 years, and John tells us that first we have got
to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes.
But if you have go a kid that is extravagant, you can lecture him all
you want to about his extravagance, or you can cut his allowance and achieve
the same end much quicker.
But
government has never reduced, government does not tax to get the money it
needs. Government always needs the money
it gets, and when John talks about his non-inflationary plan, as far as I have
been able to learn, there are 88 proposals in it that call for additional
government spending programs.
Now, I
speak with some confidence of our plan because I took over a state, California,
10 percent of the population of this nation, a state that if it were a nation
would be the seventh ranking economic power in the world, and that state, we
controlled spending, we cut the rate of increase in spending in half. But at the same time, we gave back to the
people of
We have
considered inflation in our figures. We
deliberately took figures that we ourselves believed were too
conservative. I believe the budget can
be balanced by 1982 or 1983, and it is a combination of planned reduction of
the tax increase that Carter has built into the economy, and that is what he is
counting on for his plan, that he is going to get a half a trillion dollars
more over the next five years that he can use for additional programs, or
hopefully someplace down the line balancing the budget.
We believe
that that is too much additional money to take out of the pockets of the
people.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Anderson.
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Mr. Moyers, I am not here to
debate Governors Reagan’s record as governor.
This is 1980 and not 1966. But I
do know that despite his pledge to reduce state government spending, that it
rose from $4.6 billion which to took office in 1967 to $10.2 billion during his
eight years in office, spending, in other words, more than double, and it rose
at a faster rate than spending was rising in the federal government.
But on his
very optimistic figures about his tax cut producing a balanced budget by 1983,
and the fact that he is using, he says, the figures of the Senate Budget
Committee, that Senate Budget Committee report does not accommodate all of the
Reagan defense plans. It doesn’t
accommodate the expenditures that he calls for accelerated development and
deployment of a new manned strategic bomber, for a permanent fleet in the
MR.
MOYERS: Would you have a comment, Mr.
Reagan?
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: Well, some people look up
figures and some people make up figures, and John has just made up some very
interesting figures. We took the Senate
report, of course, but we did factor in our own ideas with regard to increases
in the projected military spending that we believe would over a period of time
do what is necessary.
Now, also
with regard to the figures about
MR.
MOYERS: Our final question comes from
Soma Golden, and it is directed to Mr. Reagan.
MS.
GOLDEN: I would like to switch the focus
from inflation to God.
This week
Cardinal Mederas of
You, Mr.
Reagan, have endorsed the participation of fundamentalist churches in your
campaign; and you, Mr. Anderson, have tried three times to amend the
Constitution to recognize the “law and authority” of Jesus Christ.
My
question: Do you approve of the Church’s
actions this week in
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Reagan.
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: It is my question.
Well,
whether I agree or disagree with some individual or what he may say or how he
may say it, I don’t think there is any way that we can suggest that because
people believe in God and go to church, that they should not want reflected in
those people and those causes they support their own belief in morality and in
the high traditions and principles which we have abandoned so much in this
country.
Going
around this country, I think that I have found a great hunger in
Now, I have
thought for a long time that too many of our churches have been too reluctant
to speak up in behalf of what they believe is proper in government, and they
have been too lax in interfering in recent years with government’s invasion of
the family itself, putting itself between parent and child. I vetoed a number of bills of that kind
myself when I was in
Now,
whether it is right for, on a single issue, for anyone to advocate that someone
should not be elected or not , I won’t
take a position on that. But I do
believe that no one in this country should be denied the right to express
themselves, or to even try to persuade others to follow their lead. That is what elections are all about.
MR.
MOYERS: Ms. Golden?
MS.
GOLDEN: Okay. I would point out that churches are
tax-exempt institutions, and I will repeat my question.
Do you
approve the Church’s action this week in
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Ms. Golden, certainly the
Church has the right to take a position on moral issues, but to try as occurred
in the case that you mentioned, that specific case, to try to tell the
parishioners of any church, of any denomination, how they should vote or for
whom they should vote, I think violates the principle of separation of church
and state.
Now,
Governor Reagan is running on a platform that calls for a constitutional
amendment banning abortion. I think that
is a moral issue that ought to be left to the freedom of conscience of the
individual, and for the state to interfere with a constitutional amendment and
tell a woman that she must carry that pregnancy to term regardless of her
personal belief, that I think violates freedom of conscience as much as
anything that I can think of.
And he is
also running on platform that suggests a litmus test for the selection of
judges, that only judges that hold a certain “view” on the sanctity of family
life ought to be appointed to the federal judiciary, one of the three great
independent branches of our government.
No, I
believe in freedom of choice. I don’t
believe in constitutional amendments that would interfere with that. I don’t believe in trying to legislate new
tests for the selection of the federal judiciary. On the amendment that you mentioned, I
abandoned it fifteen years ago, and I have said freely all over this country
that it was a mistake for me or anyone to ever try to put the Judeo-Christian heritage
of this country, important as it is, and important as my religious faith is to
me, it is a very deeply personal matter, but for me to try in this very
pluralistic society of ours to try to frame any definition whatever of what
that belief should be is wrong.
And so not
once, but twice in 1971, I voted on the floor of the House of Representatives
against a constitutional amendment that tried to bring prayer back into the
public schools, I think mother ought to whisper to Johnny and to Susie as they
button their coats in the morning and leave for the classroom, be sure to say a
prayer before you start your day’s work.
But I don’t
think that the state, the board of regents, a board of education or any state
official should try to compose that prayer for a child recite.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Reagan.
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: The litmus test that John says
is in the Republican Platform says no more than the judges to be appointed
should have a respect for innocent life.
Now, I
don’t think that is a bad idea. I think
all of us should have a respect for innocent life.
With regard
to the freedom of the individual for choice with regard to abortion, there is
one individual who is not being considered at all, and that is the one who is
being aborted. And I have noticed that
everybody that is for abortion has already been born.
I think
that technically - - I know this is a difficult and an emotional problem, and
many people sincerely feel on both sides of this, but I do believe that maybe
we could find the answer through medical evidence if we would determine once
and for all, is an unborn child a human being?
I happen to believe it is.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Anderson.
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: I also think that that unborn
child has a right to be wanted, and I also believe, sir, that the most
personal, intimate decision that any woman is ever called upon to make is a
decision as to whether or not she shall carry a pregnancy to term. And for the state to interfere in that decision,
under whatever guise, and with whatever rationale, for the state to try to take
over in that situation and by edict command what the individual shall do and
substitute itself for that individual’s conscience, for her right to consult
her rabbi, her minister, her priest, her doctor, and other counselor of her
choice, I think goes beyond what we want to ever see accomplished in this
country if we really believe in the First Amendment, if we really believe in
freedom of choices and the right of the individual.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Reagan, you now have three
minutes for closing remarks.
GOVERNOR
REAGAN: Before beginning my closing
remarks here, I would just like to remark a concern that I have that we have
criticized the failures of the Carter policy here rather considerably, both of
us this evening, and there might be some feeling of unfairness about this
because he was not here to respond. But I believe it would have been much more
unfair to have had John Anderson denied the right to participate in this
debate.
And I want
to express my appreciation to the League of Women Voters for adopting a course
with which I believe the great majority of Americans are in agreement.
Now, as to
my closing remarks, I have always believed that this land was placed here
between the two great oceans by some divine plan. It was placed here to be found by a special
kind of people, people who had a special love for freedom and who had the
courage to uproot themselves and leave hearth and homeland and come to what in
the beginning was the most undeveloped wilderness possible.
We came
from a hundred different corners of the earth; we spoke a multitude of tongues;
landed on this eastern shore and then went out over the mountains and the
prairies and the deserts and the far western mountains to the Pacific, building
cities and towns and farms and schools and churches. If wind, water or fire
destroyed them, we build them again, and in so doing, at the same time, we
build a new breed of human called an American, a proud, and independent, and a
most compassionate individual for the most part.
Two hundred
years ago Tom Paine, when the thirteen tiny colonies were trying to become a
nation, said “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Today we are confronted with the horrendous
problems that we have discussed here tonight, and some people in high positions
of leadership tell us that the answer is to retreat, that the best is over,
that we must cut back, that we must share in an ever-increasing scarcity, that
we must, in the failure to be able to protect our national security as it is
today, we must not be provocative to any possible adversary.
Well, we,
the living Americans, have gone through four wars. We have gone through a great depression in
our lifetime that literally was worldwide and almost brought us to our
knees. But we came through all of those
things, and we achieved even new heights and new greatness.
The living
Americans today have fought harder, paid a higher price for freedom and done
more to advance the dignity of man than any people who ever lived on this
earth. For two hundred years we have
lived in the future, believing that tomorrow would be better than today, and
today would be better than yesterday.
I still
believe that. I am not running for the
presidency because I believe that I can solve the problems we have discussed
tonight. I believe the people of this
country can, and together we can begin the world over again. We can meet our destiny, and that destiny is
to build a land here that will be for all mankind a shining city on a hill.
I think we
ought to get at it.
MR.
MOYER: Mr. Anderson, you have the final
three minutes.
CONGRESSMAN
ANDERSON: Mr. Moyers, President Carter
was not right a few weeks ago when he said that the American people were
confronted with only two choices, with only two men, and with only two
parties. I think you have seen tonight
in this debate that Governor Reagan and I have agreed on exactly one thing,
that we are both against the reimposition of a peacetime draft. We have disagreed, I believe, on virtually
every other issue.
I respect
him for showing tonight, for appearing here, and I thank the League of Women
Voters for the opportunity that they have given me. I am running for President as an independent
because I believe our country is in trouble.
I believe that all of us are going to have to begin to work together to
solve our problems.
If you
think that I am a spoiler, consider these facts, Do you really think that our
economy is healthy? Do you really think
that 8 million Americans being out of work and that 50 percent unemployment
among the youth of our country are acceptable?
Do you really think that our armed forces are really acceptably strong
in those areas of conventional capability where they should be? Do you think that our political institutions
are working the way they should when literally only half of our citizens vote?
I don’t
think you do think that, and therefore I think you ought to consider doing
something about it and voting for an independent in 1980.
You know, a
generation of office-seekers has tried to tell the American people that they
could get something for nothing. It has
been a time, therefore, of illusion and false hopes, and the longer it
continues, the more dangerous it becomes.
We have got to stop drifting.
What I wish
tonight so desperately is that we had had more time to talk about some of the
other issues that are so fundamentally important. The great historian Henry Steele Commager
said that “In their lust for victory, neither traditional party is looking
beyond November.” And he went on to cite
three issues that their platforms totally ignored: atomic warfare - - Presidential Directive 59
notwithstanding, if we don’t resolve that issue, all others become irrelevant;
the issue of our natural resources, the right of posterity to inherit the
earth, and what kind of earth will it be;
the issue of nationalism, the recognition, he says, that every major
problem confronting us is global and cannot be solved by nationalism here or
elsewhere, that is chauvinistic, that is parochial, that is as anachronistic as
state’s rights was in the days of Jefferson Davis.
Those are
some of the great issues, atomic warfare, the use of our natural resources, and
the issue of nationalism, that I intend to be talking about in the remaining
six weeks of the campaign, and I dare hope that the American people will be
listening and that they will see that an independent government of John
Anderson and Patrick Lucey can give us the kind of coalition government that we
need in 1980 to begin to solve our problems.
Thank you.
MR.
MOYERS: Mr. Anderson, we, too, wish
there were more time, and for all the limitations of the forum - - and there
are other forums to try - - the Chair for one would like to see such meetings
become a regular and frequent part of every presidential campaign.
Mr. Reagan,
Mr. Anderson, we thank you for coming, and thanks to our panelists, Carol
Loomis, Daniel Greenberg, Charles Corddry, Lee May, Jane Bryant Quinn, and Soma
Golden.
And thank
you in the audience at home for joining us.
The first
presidential debate of 1980 has been brought to you as a public service by the
League of Women Voters’ Education Fund.
I’m Bill
Moyers. Good night.