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CNN Crossfire
Will Single-Sex Schools Work?; President Bush Switches Focus on Domestic Front
Aired May 10, 2002 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: CROSSFIRE -- on the left, James Carville and Paul Begala. On the right, Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson. In the CROSSFIRE tonight, sex and the classroom. Does the gender of your classmates affect academic performance? Some lawmakers say it does.
As the war on terrorism drags on, President Bush is turning his focus to the domestic front. Is this a strategy that will keep voters happy?
Fund-raising for a presidential library can lead to some unlikely solicitation. We'll tackle that in our quote of the day. Ahead on CROSSFIRE.
From the George Washington University, James Carville and Tucker Carlson.
TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST: Good evening and welcome to CROSSFIRE. We are coming to you, as we always do, live from the George Washington University here in downtown Washington, D.C.
Tonight, the mommy issues. That's what some are calling President Bush's new emphasis on domestic politics. Education, health care, tax cuts. It's a change in tack. Will it work in time for the midterm elections? We'll ask our guests tonight, Congressman Tom Davis and Jim Moran.
But first, sex and education -- is one better than two? That's the president's position. Under a plan introduced recently by the Bush Administration, public school districts will be encouraged to separate the girls from the boys.
Supporters say everyone does better in single-sex schools. Critics call it segregation. We have one of each tonight. Please welcome Kim Gandy of the National Organization for Women, and joining us from Dallas, Texas, Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
JAMES CARVILLE, CO-HOST: Good afternoon, Senator Hutchison. How are you today?
SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R), TEXAS: I'm great. Nice to talk to you.
CARVILLE: I went to a single-sex school from the eighth to the twelfth grade and I didn't like it very much. I wanted to go to school with girls. Why should a kid in the eighth grade today,a young boy, want to go to school with just boys when you can go to school with girls too?
HUTCISON: Well, I would never advocate that public education go all one way. But, James, what we're trying to do is make sure that all the options are open to public school students that would give them the chance to fulfill their full potential. And in some cases, parents would like to send their young boys to an all-boy school or girls to an all-girl school.
CARVILLE: Yes, if you go to a private school you can have all Baptists that go there, you can have all Jews that go there. Why don't you have all Baptist and all Jewish public schools if you want to give them the same opportunity they get in a private school.
HUTCHISON: Wel, I think that people who decide to send their children to parochial schools, certainly, I think it's wonderful that they can. But in public schools I do think we have a responsibility to try to give every option to parents to carve their education in a way that will bring out the best in their children.
CARVILLE: So you would favor all Jewish public schools?
HUTCHISON: Particularly, I think, adolescents, and people who are in that sort of awkward stage can benefit, and some parents would like for their children to go to the same-sex schools. Or maybe just same-sex classes.
CARVILLE: Senator, but what I'm saying is you have the option of going to an all-Jewish private school, so you would be in favor of testing maybe all Jewish public schools, too?
HUTCHISON: Oh, no, not at all. We have a bar between religion and public education in our country, and it's not the same. It's apples and oranges. We're talking about public schools that would give every option to children to reach their full potential.
Parochial schools should be private, and I encourage, of course, any kinds of private institutions. But for public schools, we have a particular responsibility to give the options to parents if they want a public school setting, to try to tailor the education, particularly in those middle school, maybe elementary school.
For instance, in Seattle a school that, a coed school, the principal decided in the Thurgood Marshall Elementary School to go into single-sex classes, because the fourth graders were just too rowdy. And they have found phenomenal results in that school just in one year.
CARLSON: I bet they have, senator. Let me ask you -- let me take your argument to Kim Gandy here from NOW. Now, if you have children, and I don't know if you do, but if you did, you could choose any school you wanted. You can afford it, as a NOW executive relatively affluent, relative, anyway, to people who live in public housing. They don't have a choice. They have to send their kids to the public schools. Why shouldn't they have a choice to send their children to single-sex schools if they want to?
KIM GANDY, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: I do have children. I have two daughters, first grade and third grade, and they're in the D.C. public schools, and I'm a very involved parent.
CARLSON: But that's your choice to send them there. Presumably you could send them to private or parochial school.
GANDY: I could absolutely choose that. The reason that we don't have segregation in the public schools is for many of the same reasons that James alluded to.
CARLSON: But that was a ludicrous argument.
(CROSSTALK)
GANDY: Oh, no. We had all-white private schools and still do have some all-white private schools. Segregation is not a solution to the problems that we have in the educational system, and segregating girls from boys doesn't solve the problem. For instance, Senator Hutchison just referred to a school where the fourth grade boys were rowdy. So the solution to rowdy fourth grade boys is to take all the girls...
CARVILLE: You are telling me there were rowdy fourth grade boys, I can't -- oh!
GANDY: I am shocked and appalled.
CARLSON: Let me just point out the fundamental flaw in your argument, and in James...
GANDY: Let me make a parallel...
CARLSON: Hold on. You just equated single-sex schools with racist, segregated schools. Let me suggest the difference is we don't recognize innate differences between the races, we do between the genders. We know for a fact and I think even now admit that boys and girls are different. They learn differently and therefore perhaps having separate schools is appropriate.
GANDY: Let me stop you there, because that absolutely is not a concession.
CARLSON: Most people in the world know that.
GANDY: That's something that worries me, actually. I was a Math major and a Physics minor. My two daughters are very highly competitive in Math. It's their best subject. I don't want somebody saying girls learn differently and doing like the vocational schools in New York City, where the predominantly male vocational schools have all the advanced placement courses. The girls vo-tech schools, not a single one of them has even one A.P. course in Math... CARLSON: But as you know, they're not single-sex schools, so.
GANDY: They are. They're almost entirely single-sex. They have no Math, Biology, Chemistry, Physics or Computer Science. That's not where I want my girls to go and I don't think any parents want that. They want good schools.
CARVILLE: This strikes me -- we live in a society where males and females work together. When these kids go to college now, they live in the same dorms together. According to Phil Gramm, they're actually -- in Texas A&M and Baylor in your state, they have males and females having sex together, which I'm sure startled a lot of people. I meant to say Tom Delay. Excuse me, Senator Gramm, it was Tom Delay. I get them confused sometimes. But doesn't it make sense that children ought to be educated in the same kind of environment that they have to live in?
HUTCHISON: Are you talking to me?
CARVILLE: Yes, ma'am.
HUTCHISON: Good, because I think we're talking about a time in their lives when they're immature. Now first of all, I want to make it clear, this is not a mandate. This is not even an encouragement. This is an option if parents want it. We want parents to be able to make those decisions.
We want the school districts to be able to offer it without bureaucrats in Washington saying no, you can't do it. That's the point here. It's not really that we're saying it's better, although study after study after study show that at this very tender age, girls and boys do better in the single-sex atmosphere, but many do better in the coeducational atmosphere.
(CROSSTALK)
CARVILE: Yes, ma'am. I want to move to the question of studies, because I want to give you a chance to respond to that, because apparently according to you, there is no credible study that shows this?
GANDY: Absolutely not. If you look at the American Association of University Women, certainly an organization that looks out for and desires the equal education of girls and the advancement of girls and National Women's Law Center, they have extensive information about...
CARLSON: OK, let's look at some of the information.
GANDY: Could I finish?
CARLSON: Go ahead.
GANDY: Senator Hutchison got an opportunity to finish all of her answers. They look...
CARVILLE: That's because I'm a lot nicer than he is. GANDY: They looked at these so-called studies and what they found is that the successes of the schools, where there was success, was not attributable to their single gender quality.
These were schools that had small classes, that had extra resources, that had highly motivated teachers, and that had selective student bodies. You pick any school and you do all those things, that's going to be a successful school.
CARLSON: I understand your point...
(CROSSTALK)
CARVILLE: She makes a point. I'll give (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
CARLSON: Let me address the specifics of what you're saying. You had an op-ed today in "USA Today."
GANDY: I did.
CARLSON: In which you cited this national women's law center, a group I'm not intimately familiar with, I'll admit. But you have in here -- you use the example of New York City's public vocational schools, which are not conventional schools, A. B: They are not single-sex schools. They are not public single-sex schools.
GANDY: But they are highly sex segregated.
CARLSON: That is a phrase. It is not the same as single sex. So essentially, this is completely speechless. You're comparing two totally different things.
GANDY: There is a public entity that has decided to give the schools which are predominantly male, not entirely, but almost entirely male, opportunities to have all sorts of advanced...
CARLSON: But what percent?
GANDY: It's over 90 percent. Advanced placement courses, and these are public programs. These vocational schools are public programs...
CARLSON: But they're not single-sex schools.
GANDY: ... that were almost entirely highly sex segregated. Over 90 percent have no access to it. In fact, we had in the Philadelphia independent school district case a number of years ago, they found girls high and boys high public schools, sex segregated. The boys school had a planetarium. They had a science laboratory.
CARLSON: The girls just had a box of rocks and that was all they had.
GANDY: The girls didn't have any of those things.
CARLSON: OK. We're going to have to take a quick commercial break. And when you find a study that addresses the actual issue, we'll talk about that.
But next, when we come back, we'll continue our debate over whether single-sex education is in James Carville's erudite phrasing, quote, "the dumbest idea ever."
And then, Americans students are failing their history tests. Get your pencil. We'll see how well you do.
Also, President Bush woos the home crowd. Will it work? Some congressmen join the CROSSFIRE. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARVILLE: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. The debate is our need for single sex public schools and classrooms. Our guests, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Kim Gandy of the National Organization for Women. Senator Hutchison?
HUTCHISON: Yes.
CARVILLE: Most analysts, and is this correct, say that these single-sex schools would be more expensive than dual boy or girl schools. Is that correct?
HUTCHISON: Oh, I can't say that that's correct at all, particularly if a school district makes a decision to perhaps offer single-sex classes within the same school or if they offer a girl's school and a boy's school. I don't think you can say it would be more expensive.
CARVILLE: So if you add up -- a county in Texas had a single high school and they'd split off, they'd have to build another high school if they were so adamant about getting the boys away from the girls. It would have to cost more. I mean, it's not a commonsense thing, isn't it?
HUTCHISON: Well, if they decided to build a whole other school and there was only one, yes. But that's their decision. They will be paying for it. What we're trying to do is say we want all the options available. We're not telling a school district to do it.
And you know what? If the school district doesn't do it and the parents are happy with the education their children are getting, it's not even an issue. But what's happening is, schools like the Young Women's Leadership School in Harlem, which has shown such a phenomenal success for these young girls, has a waiting list that is two times the number of people that they can accept. So I think people are voting with their feet, and I want them to have that option.
GANDY: Well, there's a reason that they have a waiting list. They're very -- they're able to be selective about their student body. They have special teachers. They have very small classrooms. In fact, the interviews with the girls at that school say the thing they like the best about the school is not that it's all girl, but because they have very small classrooms and it's a small school where they can get to know their teachers, and get to know the other students. We can do that for all of our kids.
(CROSSTALK)
HUTCHISON: Let me say that these young girls...
CARVILLE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they actually admit who they want?
HUTCHISON: Let me just correct one thing that he said...
GANDY: They have a waiting list. They have over 1,200 people on the waiting list.
HUTCHISON: These girls do not have high scores when they come in. They're not being selective. They are taking girls and bringing them up to a higher standard. That's what's so wonderful about this.
CARLSON: Of course. You know, Kim Gandy, I want you to...
GANDY: Western High in Baltimore that's used frequently as an example by the proponents of this, in fact, is selective. Middle school students with poor...
CARLSON: I'm not using it as an example. So let me ask you about -- let me ask you another question.
GANDY: ... who are not high achievers are not even eligible to attend that single-sex public high school.
(CROSSTALK)
We have many gifted and talented programs that I think are great. And I think we should encourage gifted and talented programs.
CARLSON: Amen.
GANDY: Or magnet schools.
HUTCHISON: Absolutely, of course we should suggest that.
CARLSON: But for the purposes of this discussion...
(CROSSTALK)
I wish you'd just answer my question.
GANDY: But for gifted and talented programs, Senator, we don't need to have the schools segregated by sex. And you apparently are afraid of my answers because you don't want to let me get them out.
CARLSON: You're afraid of my question, Kim Gandy. You're answering...
(CROSSTALK)
Why don't you answer the one I am asking and that's this...
GANDY: I did answer all of your questions.
CARLSON: Not yet.
GANDY: And what you've not allowed me to do is finish my answers.
CARVILLE: Thank you. I like a woman that stands up for herself.
CARLSON: And that was a marvelous answer.
GANDY: And I learned that in a co-ed school, too.
CARLSON: I bet you did. But you know what? This argument that you and others make that schools ought not to be single-sex because that's not the way society is, we've got to be preparing children for real life. Schools themselves are not real life. Kids don't get paid wages. They don't pay FICA tax. They don't get fired for a reason. Because we put them there to learn, not to learn what the real world is about, but to learn information. Correct?
GANDY: But they don't just learn issues. They don't just learn dates and sums and reading, writing and arithmetic. They also learn about life. They learn how to get along with other students. They learn what works, what they can get away with, what doesn't work and what they can't get away with.
And if you give the message to boys, for instance, that they don't need to compete against girls, all the girls are going to be taken away, they don't have to compete with them, if you give the message to girls that the only way that they can exercise leadership and be credible and successful is to do it outside the presence of boys, you are not preparing them for a life together.
(CROSSTALK)
CARVILLE: It's probably schools in Britain that are full of buggery and God knows what not. You ought to let people go to school with boys and girls together. That's the way God meant it.
CARLSON: Some of us are a little more tolerant of that behavior.
Thank you very much, Kim Gandy. If you could answer this question, did you have a nice time? I hope you did. Thanks for joining us. Senator Hutchison, thank you for joining us from Dallas. We appreciate it.
CARVILLE: Thank you.
CARLSON: Up next, everyone says high school students don't know much about history. How about our studio audience? The exam begins when we return.
Also, our quote of the day. Here's a hint. The man who uttered it is nearby, very near, dangerously near. We'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CARVILLE: You've read the paper, you've watched CNN, but do you really know what's going on in the world? Not until you've seen our CROSSFIRE "News Alert."
Like Saul on the road to Damascus, Pat Robertson has undergone a remarkable conversion. As the New York Times first reported, Pat Robertson was a race horse owner on the sly and that he instructed his handlers to keep a man about who really owned the thoroughbred.
He bought one for a reported $520,000, appropriately named Mr. Pat. After the Times story ran, the religious broadcaster was flooded with letters from angry followers. In a letter of apology, Robertson wrote, "I'm sorry that my fondness for equine athletes has caused you an offense."
Robertson now says he'll sell his horses by November, just in time for the start of the greyhound season.
You know, I got a confession. I'm a horse degenerate. I love to go to racetracks and all I want to know, Reverend Robertson, what was the horse's buyer speed number? Was it any good for that $520,000?
CARLSON: And do they have them for dogs, which are much cheaper?
CARVILLE: There you go.
CARLSON: And in news from the ocean state tonight, residents of Rhode Island will soon have another reason to consider themselves distinct. Not only is theirs the smallest state in the nation, it's also about to have the strangest license plates. Legislation passed yesterday in the Rhode Island Senate creates the new state tags with an image of Mr. Potato Head.
The plastic spud toy, which turns 50 this year, is made in Rhode Island. Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci is said to be strongly supportive of the new license plates. This is considered encouraging since Cianci, currently facing a list of federal corruption charges, may soon be making them.
CARVILLE: Now what one San Francisco newspaper calls Danielle's parking orgy. Wow, I gotta read this. Someone who owns 26 cars, you'd think the romance novelist Danielle Steel could bloody well afford private parking. Turns out she has 28 parking permits, the largest number issued in the city where the number of vehicles outnumber on-street parking by nearly 200,000.
Steel says she parks most of her cars on her own property. City officials aren't buying it. Plans are under way to limit residential parking permits to three per family. Three per family? Wow! What are they gonna do there?
CARLSON: How would you do? Not well.
CARVILLE: I couldn't live there.
CARLSON: OK. And next up some history-making news today. High school seniors don't know much about history. According to a new Education Department report, 57 percent of seniors could not perform at even a basic level. James and I took the test before the show, and needless to say, aced it.
Now it's our audience's turn, and turns out through our contacts in academia -- there are many -- we obtained a sample question.
Here it is. Question, an important factor leading the United States to enter the first world war was a) the existence of treaties between the U.S., Great Britain, and Austria-Hungary, b) the U.S. policy of opposing communism, c) German attacks on U.S. shipping, d) Russian attacks on U.S. settlements in the Aleutian Islands?
CARVILLE: And here we are at the George Washington University, and we're going to ask you to take the test. Please consider each answer, and as I give the letter, applause if you think that is the correct one. All of those in favor of answer A, please applause.
(APPLAUSE)
All of those in favor of answer B, please applaud.
(APPLAUSE)
All of those in favor of answer C, please applaud.
(APPLAUSE)
And all of those in favor of answer D indicate by applauding.
And C got the most applause, and C is the right answer.
CARLSON: The George Washington University! Congratulations, you did well!
CARVILLE: You got it!
CARLSON: Straight ahead on CROSSFIRE, in our news alert, an update on mail bomb suspect Luke Helder.
And the quote of the day, here's another hint, it comes from the most famous bald man on this program.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. We're coming to you as always, live from the George Washington University here locally in downtown Washington.
It's time now for the quote of the day. It comes tonight from someone right here on CROSSFIRE. Actually someone right here on the set. A slender, bald man with a foreign accent. Today's quote arrived on my doorstep recently in the form of a fundraising pitch for the William J. Clinton Library School Center Megaplex. That pitch was written by none other than James Carville. Here's what James said about the former president's plans for the future. "I can't begin to tell you everything Bill Clinton will get involved with or accomplish in the years to come. I'm not even sure he knows. At the end of the day, he'll have accomplished something, something truly important that will help people and improve their lives." Well we know what that is now. Right around the time you were writing those words, Bill Clinton was in talks with NBC to replace "SALLY JESSE RAPHAEL." That is the special something that proves to the world.
CARVILLE: That's the problem. You know what you need to do is you need to read "Mediahorse online" instead of listening to the lies that they put out. And understand what the president -- what they were talking about is him doing, these sort of forums with people on a limited basis. Wait, and I'll tell you what, if he doesn't do anything else in his life, he's done more to improve more lives than any American in the last 50 years. And I'll tell you what...
CARLSON: So it doesn't matter (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
CARVILLE: No, it doesn't.
CARLSON: It doesn't matter if he's on "Sally Jesse Raphael."
CARVILLE: No, he's done so much. And if you look at Mediahorseonline.com, you would know that what they were talking about was a sophisticated public affairs program that you had people in there. Don't pay attention to all of this garbage that people put out. It's nothing but talk radio and cable TV.
CARLSON: Charlie Rose for daytime.
CARVILLE: Right.
CARLSON: OK, that's sounds just great. I can't wait to see it. Stay right here. You won't want to miss our fireback segment. One of our viewers wonders if James has ever worked for a psychic hotline. You be the judge. Also, the president taking aim at Democrats over tax cuts, education and other key domestic issues. Will it win votes in the GOP in November? We'll ask our guests in the CROSSFIRE. Be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. President Bush on the move. Three states this week alone. In Ohio today, he pitched his welfare plan. In Michigan and Wisconsin earlier this week, he talked about education. On Monday he goes to Illinois. Why the frenetic movement? This would be some of the reason. A poll for congressional Republicans found that 79 percent of voters rated domestic issues more important than international ones. Here's part of what Mr. Bush said today about his welfare plan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH: One of the parts of our welfare reform, reauthorization is to promote abstinence, is to be willing as a society...
I've heard all the reasons why we shouldn't. Let me give you a reason why we should. It works every time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Will it work? Not abstinence, the president's political plan. Please welcome our guests from Virginia, Democratic Congressman Jim Moran. From the same state, but different party, Republican Tom Davis. Oh, come on out. Welcome. Welcome.
CARVILLE: Congressman Davis, let's say it's October. And I'm the Republican media consultant. And I run into you. And I said guess what the Democrats have a spot on television saying? They say that the Bush administration's proposal, worst education budget in seven years, a 2.8 percent increase for education. It is barely enough to meet the cost of inflation and less than one-fourth of the 13 percent average increase under the last seven years under Clinton. And they are further saying that we blew a $5.6 trillion surplus. What are we going to tell them?
REP. TOM DAVIS (R), VIRGINIA: Well, first of all, they're wrong. All although the increase is 2.8 percent, but it increased 15 percent last year.
CARVILLE: That was a Clinton.
DAVIS: No, this was under the Bush administration budget last year. So it's 2.8 percent. On top of that, when you average it together, we've had larger increases. Of course, it's not how much you spend. It's how you spend it.
CARVILLE: Right.
DAVIS: Secondly, look, the deficit situation is not a result of the tax cuts. It's a result of the weakening economy and 9/11. Just about a third of it is a result of tax cuts, which really are phased to the out years.
CARVILLE: Right, so in other words, (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We're only proposing 2.8 percent increase for the next seven years? And we blew the whole surplus? We've got to come up with a better answer than that.
DAVIS: Well, we're going to be back. I think we'll be back in balance in a year. But I think most importantly is what are we doing to people...
CARVILLE: Well, no, but these Democrats apparently are not lying when they say that we're just basically covering the cost of inflation. We have to call it lying liberals, I mean, after all.
CARLSON: Actually, let's ask one. Congressman Moran, I -- James just suggested. And I've heard you suggest many times that this president, through his profligate spendthrift ways, has blown the budget. Basically, he's a wild-eyed spender. And I'm wondering, tell me about the Democratic budget in the House, the budget Democrats put forth. What's it like?
REP. JIM MORAN (D), VIRGINIA: First of all...
CARLSON: Well, you haven't put one forward? Is that -- you're not going to tell me that, are you?
MORAN: No, we did. I'm on the budget committee.
CARLSON: Yes, I know. That's why I want to get on your budget.
MORAN: And we did have a budget that protected Social Security and Medicare, because those are trust funds that people pay into. And they ought to be preserved for that purpose. And we voted six times to do just that. And it also paid off the debt. It did not support a tax cut that took $2 trillion out of federal government over the next 10 years.
CARLSON: I'm sorry...
CARVILLE: You mean, according to the White House, the biggest contributor to the deficit is the tax cut. Right there in Mitch Daniel's document.
CARLSON: Now James, if I could clarify something here.
CARVILLE: I just want to want to know...
DAVIS: There is no Democratic budget.
CARLSON: There is no Democratic budget. Isn't that true?
What are you talking about? My impression was, and you will make news if you clarify this, that there was no Democratic budget. What budget are you talking about?
MORAN: The Senate is in the majority. And they're going to introduce a...
CARLSON: No, but you made reference to the House budget. And I just had never heard of that before. What budget are you talking about?
MORAN: When the tax cut was enacted, there was no money to work with. And so, our role was to...
CARLSON: Criticize but not come up with a better idea?
MORAN: There's no money, Tucker. And we do support a strong military defense. We support homeland security. But we would never have voted for the depth of that tax cut. Because it took $2 trillion out of Social Security and Medicare and $4 trillion out of the subsequent decade.
(CROSSTALK)
CARVILLE: Somebody tell me, does our constitution say that the president should submit a budget or the minority party of the House of Representatives submit a budget?
CARLSON: Actually, both have every year since 1978.
CARVILLE: You know, again, what does the constitution say? Great, Henry Hyde walks around with one in his pocket.
CARLSON: So you're the constitution party now.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: Money bill started in the House. The fact is for the first time in at least 15 years, the Senate Democrats aren't going to get a budget out and the House Democrats didn't submit one. And frankly, their only answer, when you hear what Jim is saying is to raise taxes.
CARVILLE: Well, no. Go ahead. Go ahead.
MORAN: It's not a matter of raising taxes if the tax cuts have not taken place. And the fact is that this was the most near-criminal thing that the Congress has done certainly in our lifetimes, Tom. To take that kind of money out of Social Security and Medicare, knowing that the baby boom generation is going to add 77 million people to the retirement rolls.
DAVIS: Oh, they didn't do that, did they Jim? Oh.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: No, but you know what? I'll agree with you. Congressman, I'll even agree with you. I'll even give you that. And let me ask a follow-up question. You know, they're all criminals, they ought to go to prison, new Ken Starr on the scene.
MORAN: No, I didn't say that.
CARLSON: But hold on. I'll just say they did something wrong. My question to you is...
MORAN: It's irresponsible.
CARLSON: What exactly is the solution? Democrats, as you know, haven't proposed legislation to fix Social Security. It strikes me they have one of two options though. If it is broken as you say it is, that's either raise taxes or reduce benefits. Which one do you support?
MORAN: I support suspending tax cuts that have not taken place. I had a trigger amendment. That was my amendment, that the Republican rules committee would not make an order because they knew it would have been passed. Because what it said is that if we are cutting taxes by paying for it taking the money out of Social Security and Medicare, then we suspend it until we have the money to pay for further tax cuts.
CARLSON: So you're on the raising taxes side, not the... MORAN: It's not raising tax. It's just simply not cutting the...
DAVIS: It's not cutting the deficit. If you notice that if you suspend future cuts.
CARLSON: I have noticed that.
CARVILLE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). But basically, Congressman Moran says, Tucker says that the Republicans, it's a very legitimate thing for these Democrats to say that the Republicans blew $2 trillion out of the trust fund.
CARLSON: James, that's what we call a rhetorical device. I didn't actually agree with the congressman.
CARVILLE: What are you going to say?
DAVIS: We didn't blow anything.
CARVILLE: You didn't spend the dough?
DAVIS: We sent it back...
CARVILLE: You sent it back to your contributors.
DAVIS: We sent it back to American people.
CARVILLE: In a form of a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on that.
DAVIS: The only thing the Democrats are offering is fear itself.
CARVILLE: Really? They offered a lot more than that. I'll tell you what, we offered a hell of a lot more than 2.8 percent for schools.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: They haven't offered a budget.
CARLSON: But Congressman Moran, you must admit, and I'm actually going to congratulate you from a political standpoint. Democrats have been excellent at blocking virtually everything this president has tried to do. And we can spend a lot of time talking about this, one of my favorite subjects.
MORAN: That's not true at all, Tucker.
CARLSON: But let's just start with judges. OK, we've got a little list here of the number of circuit court judges that have been held up in the Senate by Democrats. Now people always -- Democrats are saying, well they did it to us. It turns out that's not true.
CARVILLE: And President Clinton was elected. You see, he was elected. And so, when you have the moral authority of an election, you ought to be able to control the federal judiciary. They don't have that.
CARLSON: James, if I could explain that he is now waging war. Do you think it's legitimate for him to do that?
CARVILLE: You shouldn't appoint -- you shouldn't take over the federal judiciary.
(CROSSTALK)
CARVILLE: That's right. He wasn't elected.
DAVIS: We're not talking about the future.
CARLSON: Well, let's talk about the present. Mr. Moran, look at this. In the first two years, circuit court judges, George W. Bush nominated 29, approved 7. Bill Clinton, same period 22, 19 approved. So even if you were to buy the revolting argument that they did it to us, it's still not even true, is it?
MORAN: Tucker, some of those judges, I do think, ought to go through the nomination process.
CARLSON: Amen.
MORAN: And I think that's been unreasonably delayed in the case of some of them. But an awful lot of them are ideologues. And you know, the senators are trying to represent their constituents. And their constituents obviously don't want right-wing ideologues determining the judicial direction of this country. And that's what it's all about.
DAVIS: I mean, I think Jim is right. And a lot of this is just everybody's prepositioning themselves for the Supreme Court vacancies that are likely to occur and sending that shot across the bow. But they ought to do a better job of moving a lot of these nominations are really moderates. They are horribly right wing. They've made their point on Pickering. I think it was a bad point, but that's through -- let's focus on some of these judgeships.
CARLSON: OK, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back to talk about more things the Democrats are doing wrong. We're not done with our debate on the president's new focus on domestic issues. After that, of course, we have fireback. Pretty fiery letters this evening. So stay tuned. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARVILLE: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. We continue the debate on President Bush's sudden focus on domestic issues, after a new poll showed most voters don't care about international issues. Our guests, Republican Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia and Democratic Congressman Jim Moran, also of Virginia. And we have James Carville and Tucker Carlson, also of Virginia.
CARLSON: Amen.
CARVILLE: So we have a big Virginia. It's a big Congress.
Congressman Davis, already the Democrats are going to be hitting the Republicans for blowing the surplus, and for not increasing spending on education. And then we find out that companies are paring back on retiree health care benefits and the Democrats are probably going to run a spot on that. What is the Republican plan for rising health care costs and companies paring back on retirement benefits?
DAVIS: Well, first of all, we have a managed care bill in conference. If we could get -- the differences are very, very small, if we could get the parties to agree, we could move it out. The House has passed a version, Senate's passed a version. In the house, we're going to do a prescription drug benefit for seniors and try to move that either right before Memorial Day or after Memorial Day.
CARVILLE: And this is more generous than the Democrats wanted?
DAVIS: You're the one who talked about the budget constraints, right there, Jim. Ours are within the budget that has passed.
CARVILLE: Well, wait a minute. What budget constraint was there on the $180 billion Farm bill the president's going to sign?
DAVIS: I voted against that. I voted against it.
CARLSON: And thank you, both of you, for doing that, by the way.
MORAN: But you know, I'd love to say on prescription drugs, we're not going to get a prescription drug benefit because the Republican plan puts it through the insurance companies. The insurance companies don't even want to do it. It's going to provide minimal assistance. It's a fig leaf. It needs to be done under the Medicare program, or we need to cover at least 50 percent of the cost of drugs. And we've got to get some control over drugs, at least those that are able to prolong people's lives and improve their lives. And the Republican plan...
CARLSON: Now Mr. Moran, let me ask you about something that the president talked about today.
MORAN: Yes. It's all because of the tax cut they can't afford to.
CARLSON: I know it is. The one that -- wait hold on. Now you settle down. No, no, no.
CARVILLE: The Democratic plan uses Medicare, an existing, might I add popular program?
MORAN: Well, same as the Republican plan.
DAVIS: Medicare works.
CARVILLE: And they go to the insurance companies. OK. But they go to the insurance companies?
MORAN: And it only uses one percent of the cost for administration, whereas insurance companies use up to 20 percent.
CARLSON: And having confused our viewers completely, let me move to another subject. And that is welfare reform. The president gets up today and says look, you know, I've got a bunch of commonsense ideas on it, abstinence, promoting marriage. These are obvious solutions to poverty, single motherhood being a major cause of poverty. I'm wondering how Democrats are going to attack this, the party that's against marriage, or against truly -- I mean, as a political matter, how are you going to attack that?
MORAN: We're certainly not against abstinence. But we are for facing reality. And the reality is that you need to be able to educate and train people, so they can provide for their families. President Bush's proposal doesn't do that. It doesn't allow education and training to substitute for work, so that people can take care of their children, and also prepare themselves for some kind of advancement.
CARLSON: But I thought it was...
MORAN: It's going to put a lot of -- force a lot of people into fast food restaurant jobs and so on, and never be able to provide for their families. And it requires 40 hours of work, when the average work week in your labor statistics is 35 hours.
CARLSON: But that's not true. As far as I know, and maybe you can correct me, but it's 70 percent of recipients within five years needs to be employed. It's not as if every welfare recipient is going to be booted over to Burger King.
MORAN: Well then, why did the National Governor's Association come out for square against it?
CARLSON: They didn't want to pay for it. Mr. Davis, why did they come out against it?
DAVIS: They don't want to pay for it. They want to pass the bill on to Washington.
CARLSON: That's exactly right.
CARVILLE: I'll tell you, would you introduce this bill? No politician can speak of abstinence unless that politician practices it themselves. How about that? Because when I was 19, I didn't think about nothing else but girls. And I'll be damned -- and I'll bet you that most politicians are the same way. Why do you want to tell 19- year-olds now they shouldn't think about girls?
DAVIS: You find me the sponsor, and I'll think about that.
CARVILLE: OK.
CARLSON: Well, actually, this the same point he made in the last segment, which was he was sexually starved in his boyhood. Your politics grow out of this, doesn't it? CARVILLE: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think this is to go and sit up there and say that's a realistic thing, and not tell kids about birth control, not give people sex education and knowledge, somehow or another, these guys think that a lack of knowledge is going to stop people from having sex. That's ludicrous.
DAVIS: Nobody is barred from doing that under welfare reform.
CARVILLE: And it's abstinence only education.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: There is a separate pot for states that want to do that, but no state's barred from doing that.
CARLSON: When the president says look, my welfare program is going to encourage people to get married, because it's the single-most important thing you can do to get people out of poverty, you can't possibly have any problem with that.
MORAN: I want to encourage them to get married, but not with people who are going to abuse them, and not to provide for their children.
CARLSON: Hush, hush. You think the president's...
MORAN: A lot of teenage mothers are in untenable situations. And they're with men who have fathered their children, who are not going to make good husbands, let alone good fathers. And I think we need to face the reality of what it's like out there, and give them an option to be able to live some independent, and self-sufficient lives and provide for their families.
CARLSON: OK, well, unfortunately we have to face reality that we're out of time. But we appreciate both of you coming. Proud representatives of Virginia, we appreciate it. Thank you.
The time you've been waiting for is almost here. Among our many, many pieces of correspondence, a suggestion for what James and I ought to be doing at the end of the show, if you can imagine. Fireback is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARVILLE: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. And we're on fire tonight here at the George Washington University in beautiful Foggy Bottom in Washington, D.C. And we are going to fireback, where you get a chance to tell us what you think. And sometimes, we really get told what people think.
"James, why do you bother to ask a question of your guests if you are constantly answering the questions before they get a chance to? Were you ever employed by Psychic Hotline?" Bruce Hagen, Mount Kisco, New York.
CARLSON: Were you? CARVILLE: You know, I do -- I can see into the future here. And I know sometimes these people are going to be evasive -- no, actually I have attention deficit syndrome and I can't wait...
CARLSON: Given your last job, I don't think you do.
"Thanks to CNN for CROSSFIRE. It's the only must-see show on TV. Just one request. Please don't pit Pretty Boy," that's me, "against James. It's just not fair. There are heavyweights and flyweights. Tucker's fighting up too many weight classes." Jim Cody. You sound like a pretty tough guy, Jim Cody. Why don't you come to CROSSFIRE? People -- taking that boxing promo a little too seriously.
CARVILLE: You're right, man. Wow. All right, here we go. "James, please help Tucker get a haircut." What do I know about hair? I ain't got none. "That hippy look went about the time you lost yours. He should embark on your style. Keep up the good -- whatever you're doing." Jerry.
CARLSON: What? So I ought to shave my head and go to the Leon Spinks School of Elocution?
CARVILLE: There's a lot of things, Tucker, there's a lot of things I'd call you, wrong being one of them, but hippy not being one.
CARLSON: That's right. Here we go.
I would love to see at the end of your show, James Carville and Tucker Carlson give each other a warm embrace. It would be nice to show that two people so diametrically opposed do actually care for one another. I think it would give your show some humanity." John Valencia. It's funny, John, before the show there's laughter, and tears and poignant moments. It's actually a lot like a Meg Ryan movie. When we get on the set, we have to turn all that off.
CARVILLE: Actually, Tucker's a great guy. I think quite highly of him. He's just wrong. He can be good and wrong.
CARLSON: We have a question from the audience. Yes?
AMY: My name is Amy. I'm from Falls Church, Virginia. I was wondering why Tom Daschle's being permitted to hold the U.S. court system hostage by not even scheduling hearings for the U.S. Bush judicial nominees?
CARLSON: You know, that's an excellent question. And I think part of it is it's a complicated issue and a lot of reporters don't understand it. But I think the real answer is, Democrats have learned they could get up there again and again and again and just deny it and pretend it's not true, people kind of believe you after a while. Yes, sir?
CARVILLE: Next question.
STEVE: I'm Steve from Washington, D.C. This is question for Mr. Carville. CARVILLE: Yes, sir.
STEVE: Your buddy, Dick Morris, predicts that Hillary Clinton will be the next president, presumably 2008. Do you agree, disagree, and why?
CARVILLE: Well, I think we'll have a Democrat elected in 2004, and she won't run. And the Democrats will be elected in 2008. So I agree, but it will be 2012 before Mrs. Clinton will be president of the United States. But she's so young and vibrant and beautiful and brilliant that I have no doubt that...
CARLSON: But you know the problem is in order to run in a presidential campaign, you have to give an actual interview with real journalists. And she's never done that. Don't imagine she will. Always invited here on CROSSFIRE. Imagine it will be her first stop when she begins her ill-fated campaign. Good luck.
CARVILLE: From the left, I'm James Carville. And good-night from CROSSFIRE.
CARLSON: And from the right, I'm Tucker Carlson. Join us again Monday night for another edition of CROSSFIRE. Have a great weekend. See you.
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