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CNN Crossfire
Democratic, Republican Economic Plans Unveiled; Anti-SUV Campaign Heats Up
Aired January 08, 2003 - 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: it's still the economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The White House is opened to working with Congress to get something done for the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Whose plan has the better chance? The Democrats?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: What the Democrats problem is, is nothing is good enough for them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Then how about the Republicans?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: This president has a record of job creation that is zero.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: If you're driving an SUV, are you feeling guilty yet?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I helped hijack an airplane.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I helped blow up a nightclub.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Ahead on CROSSFIRE.
Live from the George Washington University: Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson.
(APPLAUSE) TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST: Welcome to CROSSFIRE. Pay no attention to that persistent whining sound you hear from Capitol Hill. It's only Democrats. They finally realized this week that, in fact, they lost the mid-term election. We'll ask tonight's guests, including Ralph Nader, what the Republican takeover of Washington will mean for the economy and for doing business on Capitol Hill.
Later, Arianna Huffington will attempt to explain why if you drive a sport utility vehicle you're helping terrorism. But first, our CROSSFIRE "Political Alert."
Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman makes almost every decision more in sorrow than in anger. It's his nature. But next week Lieberman will be doing at least one thing with glee, announcing for president. On Monday, Lieberman will jump into the race for the Democratic nomination. Many would argue that Lieberman never stopped running once Al Gore put him on the ticket in 2000, but it actually goes farther back than that.
As proof, Lieberman will launch his campaign at Connecticut's Stamford High School, where he ran for president of the class of 1960, won and simply kept going. Recent polls show that Lieberman is garnering significant support from black voters, which, of course, means he could prove a formidable challenger to the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination: the Reverend Al Sharpton.
Why are you laughing? It's true.
PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Of course it's not. Lieberman brings a lot to the field. He's most hawkish on Iraq, calling for an invasion of Iraq long before even Bush was. But I'll tell you this, he is chapping (ph) me lately, because he's gone months, maybe, I don't know, a year, without coming on CROSSFIRE and answering tough questions from you and some tough ones from me, frankly. If Lieberman wants to be tough enough to take on Bush, he ought to be able to be tough enough...
CARLSON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I agree with you.
BEGALA: Well, President Bush today -- speaking of our president -- likes to trot out carefully screened and scripted yuppie families to demonstrate the effect of his tax cut. He calls them tax families. He uses them to argue that his tax cut is not only for the mega rich.
So I thought in fairness we'd take a look at how two mega rich families fare; specifically, the Bush and Cheney families. The Bloomberg News Service reports that Mr. Bush would have saved a total of $44,500 on his taxes last year if the new Bush tax cut had been the law of the land at the time. Dick Cheney does even better, pocketing an extra $320,000 a year from the Bush tax cut.
Now look, none of this is to say that the president and the vice president designed their tax cut to benefit themselves. Rather it just happens that the people who benefit most are corporate kingpins and quick buck artists who get rich my insider deals of looting, failing corporations. When asked by Bloomberg to comment, Mr. Bush noted that his wealth is in a blind trust, then he laughed his ass off. Unbelievable.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Actually, I think that's exactly why he passed the tax cut. It's to make money. I think that's why he ran for president. It's a money making scheme, the president's -- but, Paul, that is absolutely ludicrous. The argument that only Mark Rich and people like -- oh, sorry -- is going to get rich from this tax cut is insane. And, in fact, we'll talk about later in this show, it is rich people who pay the taxes.
BEGALA: No, actually it's not. We'll talk...
CARLSON: Actually, it is.
The FBI is under fire tonight after it was revealed that an all- points bulletin the bureau issued last week was based on a hoax. As it turns out, five members of a terrorist cell did not sneak across the Canadian border into the United States. The men did not exist. There was no plot.
How can did the FBI get it so wrong? By getting its information from the Canadian government, which in turn got its information from accused smuggler named Michael Hamdani, who apparently made it all up. The Canadians say they gave Hamdani a lie detector test. American officials, however, point out that a Canadian lie detector test is quite different from the American version.
Under the Canadian polygraph system, authorities threaten to feed subjects to a polar bear unless they absolutely promise to tell the truth. Apparently it doesn't always work.
BEGALA: Well, you never know. You know, a couple of Molsons maybe loosened him up like truth serum. That could work, too.
On this, though, this is a really, really tough call. I'm not a big fan often of the FBI or the Bush administration, but they put the information out, it turned out to be false. Still better I think to try to give us information that we can...
CARLSON: I agree with that. But it also points out a potentially weak link in the system, which is other countries. You need to have countries that have their acts together and who are on your side in the fight against terrorism. I'm not sure Canada always is.
BEGALA: Oh, of course Canada always is. They're a great allies of ours.
Well, the University of Maryland researchers have released a study of almost 6,000 Maryland homicide cases over two decades. They concluded that there is an enormous racial disparity in the application of the death penalty. The study reported in today's "Washington Post" concludes that black people who murder whites are twice as likely to be sentenced to death as white people who murder whites. And black people who kill white people are four times more likely to get the death penalty as black people who murder other blacks.
The study's director concluded, "The kind of disparities we're finding are systemic. They cannot be identified on a case-by-case analysis." Still, Maryland's new Republican Governor, Robert Ehrlich, has pledged to reinstate the death penalty and to decided on alleged injustices on a case-by-case basis.
CARLSON: Actually, the study itself is sort of ludicrous because it doesn't take into account the nature of the crime, which is key, of course, in sentencing. However, I think there is a real case to be made against the death penalty. It's a case that needs to be made head on. Not through these dumb side channels (UNINTELLIGIBLE). If it's immoral, if the government shouldn't be killing people, just say so. Just make the case.
BEGALA: The government shouldn't be killing people, I agree with that.
CARLSON: I think liberals ought to make the case directly rather than with these phony studies.
BEGALA: This is an important study, nonetheless.
CARLSON: One of the last Democrats in the entire American south has announced his retirement tonight. Senator Zell Miller of Georgia released a statement saying he will not run for reelection in 2004. Miller, thoughtful to the end, says he will leave his seat immediately after the election so that his successor will start out with a seniority advantage under Senate rules.
Even Democrats can see that Georgia is now a Republican state and that their party cannot even hope to hold on to the seat. And so just one question remains: will the Republican who replaces Miller next year despise the leadership of the leadership of the Democratic Party as much as Zell Miller despised it? That may not be possible, which means that Democrats may be gaining and Republicans may be losing one of their most capable spokesmen.
BEGALA: I love Zell Miller, as you know. I worked for him for many, many years.
CARLSON: I do too.
BEGALA: I'm desperately close to him. He's the greatest governor Georgia ever produced and leaves a terrific legacy. But he also leaves a very deep strong Democratic base. No Democrat ever told you they're going to lose the seat. He has to follow him -- get this list -- Mark Taylor, who is a very able lieutenant governor; Kathy Cox, the Secretary of State, Thurgood Baker, the first African- American attorney general in that state, a huge vote-getter.
Maybe Max Cleland will come back after being trashed by the Republicans. Democrats will hold that Zell Miller seat in no small reason because of what Zell Miller did to build the party in that state.
CARLSON: If I could just ask the producer to save this tape...
BEGALA: Absolutely.
CARLSON: ... for November of 2004, so I can mock you then. I look forward to it.
BEGALA: You save that tape and you will see how wrong you are. By the way, Republicans want to put up Ralph Reed, the incredibly unctuous, slimy chairman of the Republican Party down there, former Christian Coalition dirt bag.
CARLSON: Unctuous, slimy dirt bag. OK. Get him on the issues, Paul. That's where you're strong. Get him on the issues.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Perfect preparation to be a Republican senator. Under cover -- speaking of slimy, under cover of darkness last night, our president sneakily re-nominated all of the proposed federal judges who had been rejected by the U.S. Senate last year. The group includes some of the finest minds of the 12th century. Apparently that's par for the course for Bush.
According to a new book written by David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, Mr. Bush's White House is downright hostile to intellectuals. "The Bush White House," Mr. Frum writes, "has a dearth of high-powered brains. One seldom heard an unexpected thought in the Bush White House or met someone who possessed unusual knowledge." A truly frightening revelation about any White House.
"Conspicuous intelligence," Mr. Frum goes on to say, "seemed actively unwelcome in the White House." Now Frum calls the president himself, "often uncurious and, as a result, ill informed." No great shock there.
But Frum sees Bush's greatest redeeming quality his genial, friendly every man nature as phony. "In private," Frum writes, "Bush was not the easy, genial man he seemed to be in public." Uncurious, ill informed, anti-intellectual and not very nice. That's what his friends say about him.
CARLSON: Well I will grant you, Paul, that President Clinton did have what you term unusual knowledge. But I think the fact is that all America is better off that George W. Bush -- whatever his faults -- was president on September 11 and not Bill Clinton. And I think even you deep down know that. And I think most people, Democrats and Republicans, are grateful for that, because they realize his qualities are the ones needed to respond to a crisis at that time.
BEGALA: Like Clinton couldn't have found his way to a bunker on the side of a mountain in Omaha? No, the way that Bush and the Republicans try to politicize 9/11 is really, really outrageous.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: It was a terrible tragedy; all Americans suffered. And for Bush to try...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: It's not outrageous to point out that some people are better at dealing with crisis like that than others. And President Bush was the perfect man for that crisis. And President Clinton would have been a disaster.
BEGALA: How so? As you yourself wrote -- you yourself wrote a column, Tucker, saying he went and hid in the side of a mountain when Rudy Giuliani went to the site of the World Trade Center.
CARLSON: Because, Paul, unlike President Clinton, who would sit unable to make up his mind for hours and hours upon time, years in some cases, clarity of vision is what a leader requires in a situation like that and you know it.
BEGALA: So Clinton would still be pondering, maybe we shouldn't strike back, huh? That's such a load. Please.
Both the Democratic and Republican Parties have unveiled programs to help revive our economy. But House Majority Leader Tom DeLay today said that he considers President Bush's $674 billion price tag maybe a little low. He calls it the floor and not the ceiling. Congressman DeLay says he wants to tack on additional tax cuts. When asked if the price tag could top $1 trillion, the Republican majority leader responded, "Who knows."
Stepping into the CROSSFIRE to debate the rival economic plans on Capitol Hill, consumer advocate, former Green Party presidential candidate, Ralph Nader. He is the author of "Crashing The Party: How To Tell The Truth And Still Run For President." With him, former Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Bob Walker.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Mr. Nader, thanks for joining us, as always. All the rhetoric -- and undoubtedly we're about to hear some more -- about how this tax proposal is a payoff to the rich, I just want to put into perspective the role of the rich in the American economy. I want to read from a recent editorial from the "Wall Street Journal."
Here what's it says. "In 1999, 553, 380 taxpayers -- out of hundreds of millions -- anted up 28 percent of tax revenue. IRS data from 2000 shows that the top five percent of taxpayers (those with incomes of $128,000 and higher) paid over half the total tax revenue. Since it's exactly the rich who disproportionately pay most of the income tax, it would be impossible to lower the taxes without benefiting them disproportionately. It's their money."
Isn't this fundamentally true? Rich people are the ones who pay. We keep America afloat.
RALPH NADER, CONSUMER ADVOCATE: You've got a bad premise here, Tucker. Since the rich people have grabbed off more of the wealth than they deserve by keeping minimum wage low, by preserving all the corporate tax subsidies, handouts, giveaways, all the tax loopholes, now you want to take that unfairness and use it as an argument to reduce their taxes further? I mean, have you ever taken a course in logic?
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Well so, I guess -- well, I think, Mr. Nader, it's a different kind of logic. Your logic, if I'm hearing you correctly, is that the entire system, that is the United States of America, is so intrinsically corrupt that rich people, no matter who they are, don't deserve to be rich. That money is by definition stolen. That's what you just said unless I misunderstood you.
NADER: You don't deserve to have more power and making responsible exercise (ph). :
CARLSON: No, we're talking about money, not power, sir.
NADER: Power leads to money.
CARLSON: OK. But...
(CROSSTALK)
NADER: No, it's not abstract. If you control Congress through all kinds of campaign money, et cetera, you're going to get Congress to give you all these goodies you don't deserve. Aren't you worried about the 47 million workers in America who work full time who can't earn a living wage? Aren't you worried about...
CARLSON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), but you're still changing the subject and not answering my question.
NADER: Well, no, then let's go back to the subject. First of all, all this tax stuff that Bush has put forward is not really designed to lift the burden, it's designed to stimulate the economy. Correct? Why do you have to stimulate the economy when there's huge unused capacity, when there's plenty of capital around, and when interest rates are at historic lows?
The issue is to stimulate economic demand. And the way you do that is you start a public works program by getting rid of the -- and paying for it -- by getting rid of the huge hundreds of billions of corporate welfare that CATO and Heritage and other of your think tanks have documented and decried. And second, you the lift the minimum wage.
It's $5.15 an hour federal, Tucker. It should be $8 an hour if it was index since 1968, the wave members of Congress have indexed and more their own salary.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Let me get Congressman Walker into this. Let me start with first principles. I do think it's agreed upon that the big problem in the economy is corporate overcapacity right now. Corporations have more capacity than they are able to sell right now. This is why they're operating at -- some of them -- at as little as 75 percent of capacity. That is one out of four of their plants being shut down. Given that, is the best way to stimulate the economy by favoring targeting wealthy investors or middle-class consumers?
BOB WALKER, FMR. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, it's by giving money to the investment class. And the investment class includes the wealthy and the middle class, because a lot of the pensions, the college funds that people have socked away at the present time are involved in the stock market. And so it's extremely important to give those investors some payback for the risk that they take.
BEGALA: See this I think is the heart of the argument. And I think you state it well and honestly. Democrats believe the economy is driven by middle-class consumers, and that the way to tap that capacity is to give more money to the master sergeants and maids and ordinary folks who will actually spend it.
See rich people tend to save their money, god bless them. Our folks would tend to spend that money. That would stimulate the economy and make Bill Gates all the richer. What's wrong with that theory?
WALKER: But the way in which they get the money to spend is by having a job and having a good job. The way in which they have a good job is to have investment money, risk behind that investment, so that you can, in fact, produce the jobs in this economy so people do have the money to spend.
BEGALA: Let me give you a theory -- a hypothetical...
(CROSSTALK)
WALKER: This is all about growth and jobs.
BEGALA: We all agree with that. You're the CEO of the Walker Widget Corporation (ph) and you've shut down one out of four of your plants because you have to. You're not a mean, heartless guy, but you have to because you have too much capacity. I give you a tax benefit of $1 million. Are you going to reopen those plants?
WALKER: Absolutely.
BEGALA: No, you don't have -- it was the buyer (ph) Widgets (ph), Bob.
WALKER: No, that's just wrong.
BEGALA: Give your money to Widget (ph) purchasers. They'll buy it and you'll be able to open your plants.
WALKER: One of the things that I would want to do is I would want to participate in the global economy in a way that increases my productivity so that I'm competitive worldwide. One of...
BEGALA: So you'd open new plants without customers? WALKER: No. The way in which you do that is by having the investment money to put into that kind of productivity. And the investment money comes out of stockholders and comes out of the pension funds and a lot of other people who are investing in the future of this country.
Now the problem is, if there is no investment in the future of the country, there is no future. And in my view, it's extremely important for us in the future to ensure the people who are willing to take the risk of putting their money out there the chance to earn enough on that money that they, in fact, then spend money in the economy and also give the middle class in this country an opportunity to have jobs and spend the money in the economy.
NADER: But the pension funds are 401(k)s. When they get dividends, they're not taxed anyway. This is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Bush is doing on dividends doesn't effect them. They get tax-free dividends.
WALKER: Yeah, but the fact is that what you have is a lot of 401(k)s have become 101ks at the present time because the stock market has dropped so substantially. What this is going to do is raise the level of stock market participation as a result of the tax exclusion for dividends. And that, in fact, will increase the amount of wealth in the 401(k)s, which will be an extremely valuable thing to huge numbers of middle-class families.
NADER: You know economists don't agree with that. There's plenty of capital. That's the point. Drowning in capital.
The issue is demand. You got to give those workers more money so they can buy more things.
WALKER: And the way you give them more money is to have them have a job.
NADER: No. You raise the minimum wage to what it should be adjusted for inflation.
WALKER: When you raise the minimum wage, it does not do a thing with the big companies that you keep talking about. It absolutely destroys the small businessman, the little guy who is trying to make a living, that in many cases is not making more than about $20,000 a year himself in profits in his company.
NADER: So you think there should be a decline in minimum wage, which is what happens when you...
(CROSSTALK)
WALKER: No.
NADER: But it is declining. It's $5.15 when it should be $8.
WALKER: I think in a stagnant economy that to impose extra costs on small business will simply drive that small business out of the market and will decrease the number of jobs in the country. That, in fact, will drive us more toward recession and depression. And I think small business in this country is the bedrock on which we build the future economy.
NADER: There's a problem with your argument, and that is they've raised their prices -- small businesses -- since 1968. You'll agree, right? But the wages have not been keeping up. And the point is they've been getting a windfall. Minimum wage is designed -- if you work hard in this country 40 hours a week, shouldn't you be able to live on it?
WALKER: I think it's extremely important that we produce the kind of, first of all, education system that provides trained workers for business so that they can, in fact, pay above the minimum wage. One of the real problems in business today is the education system isn't working. And so what you end up having to do is retrain workers when they come through the door and that is a cost to the business over and above the minimum wage that they're paying.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Ralph Nader, I want you to respond to the most interesting thing I've seen all week. This is the Secretary of Commerce, Don Evans. And he's explaining the effect of the president's tax proposal. Listen to this, this is interesting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON EVANS, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: This is a progressive tax cut, which means that those at the higher end of the tax scale will be paying a greater percentage of the taxes after this is implemented than those -- than before the tax cut was implemented. So it's a progressive tax cut. Those that are taking on a larger percentage of the burden now will take on an even larger percentage of the burden after this tax cut is passed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So if you follow that, the top five percent already paying more than half of all taxes in the United States. After this plan is enacted, they will pay a higher percentage. I would think that's just the sort of class warfare approach you would favor.
NADER: It's like Secretary Evans just finished reading George Orwell. When you have a $350 billion ten-year windfall on dividends, one percent, the top one percent of the people in this country account for about 40 percent of the dividends. And if you knock out the dividend tax-free pension funds, it's even higher than that.
CARLSON: Well, wait. Hold on. Please address the core question. What do you think of the fact that, as a percentage of taxes paid, the rich will pay more after this is enacted? That's a very interesting point that cuts exactly against what you've been arguing.
NADER: No, the arithmetic doesn't add up. Look, how can you -- if the dividend tax exemption goes to mostly wealthy people, how can you say they're paying more? These people who are bringing in huge dividends from a million shares of General Electric or IBM or whatever, they're not going to be paying any taxes on that. So how can you say that gives them a greater share...
CARLSON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) taxes on them.
WALKER: But where is that money going to go is the question.
BEGALA: Bob Walker, let me show you a couple of other statistics from the Tax Policy Center. They looked at two different things. They looked at all of the quintiles. Who gets what out of the Bush plan and the Democratic plan.
First, let's look at the middle of the middle class, the middle 20 percent of Americans. Let me put this up on the screen. Under the Bush plan, they get about $265. Under the Democratic plan, more than 20 percent more. They get about $337.
So more bang for the buck for the middle class in the Democratic plan. But now let's look at the top one percent. Let's see how they fare. Under the Bush plan, $24,428. Under the Democratic plan, $518. That's the difference. This is why Bush's cost six times more, because he's giving it away to the mega rich.
WALKER: Well, you know the point is that I don't know where they started their statistics. Most of the statistics that come up with those kinds of figures start with the idea of including people who pay no income taxes as a part of the overall mix.
BEGALA: They're not Americans?
WALKER: Well sure they're Americans.
BEGALA: I thought we were giving tax relief to all Americans, Bob. If you won't cut the payroll tax, you won't cut the excise tax, you won't cut the property tax, that's what poor people pay. You only cut the rich man's taxes. Why?
(APPLAUSE)
WALKER: I'm all for cutting payroll taxes and doing some of those kinds of things too. But I will tell you that this is an income tax issue. And so you cannot look at who doesn't pay income taxes at all. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why the numbers that Tucker was citing work is because you end up having people who are now paying taxes who are no longer going to pay income taxes. They drop completely off the rolls, when the number goes down, as they do in the Bush plan.
Again, if you take a look at the figures that include all of the taxpayers, the figure that the Bush administration has is that a middle-class family will receive over $1,000 of tax benefits out of this plan. That's a pretty good return for a middle-class family to get $1,000 back. For most middle-class families, $1,000 is worth a lot of money. BEGALA: We started this discussion with you saying -- this is your phrase, not mine -- that the economic plan should be targeted at the investor class. Now you're saying, oh, all of a sudden, now the Bush plan helps the middle class, even though I think...
WALKER: But I included the middle class in the investor class. They are a part of the investor class at the present time.
BEGALA: But their investments are already tax free.
(CROSSTALK)
WALKER: ... well, they're doing that. But there are also middle-class people out there, Paul, who actually buy stock.
NADER: But, look, this is an assortment of gimmicks and tips is the Bush plan. If you want to create good paying jobs, distribute them throughout the economy, especially in the inner city. You have a public works program to start repairing America, the schools, the clinics, the mass transit, the buildings.
Wait. And how do you pay for that? How do you pay for that? Just what the CATO and other institutes are showing the savings are. Huge military boondoggles condemned by retired admirals and generals, including Secretary Rumsfeld, said he can't get rid of some of these Soviet-era weapons systems and hundreds of billions...
WALKER: But he's trying.
NADER: But he failed. Because of Congress and the Lockheed Martins of the world.
WALKER: He's working at it.
NADER: But he's admitted failure. But anyway, the other thing is the corporate welfare. You should be against corporate welfare. The mining subsidies, the Bermuda tax havens.
CARLSON: Will you answer one question quickly before you go on? Everyone is against corporate welfare.
(CROSSTALK)
NADER: But that's where you get the money to create those jobs.
CARLSON: You're holding up -- it's very clear you're holding up to increase the minimum wage as a panacea or at least as a way to boost the economy. What percentage of Americans employed full time receive minimum wage? Do you know?
NADER: About eight million. Number one, eight million.
CARLSON: Eight million? Now what percentage of the American workforce is that?
NADER: But if you raise the minimum wage to where it should be if it was indexed...
CARLSON: It's tiny.
NADER: It would 25 million at $8 an hour.
CARLSON: I understand. We're just going to take a quick commercial break. We'll be right back. In just a minute, we'll ask our guests about some of the other challenges that the Republican Congress is enacting, including a new way of slicing the pizza rule, whatever that is.
Later, the candidates and the calendar. Ready or not, the 2004 presidential race is off and running. And when you fill up your SUV's tank, are you also filling up the terrorists' wallets? That's doubtful, but we'll hear from someone who is worried nonetheless. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Welcome back. Now that the Republicans 108th Congress has come to town, things are going to be done a little differently. House Republicans have already changed ethics rules, including the so- called pizza rule. It allowed lobbyists, charities, too, to send free food to members of Congress and their staffs, but not in excess of $50; hence, pizza.
The new rule should enhance the quantity and quality of food in congressional offices. Tonight we chew it over with consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader and former Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Bob Walker.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Bob, first, it is telling that the Republican Congress, which won't raise the minimum wage, drags its feet on extending unemployment benefits so that at Christmas time a million Americans lost their unemployment benefits. Moves, as General Patton would have said, like poop through a goose. He didn't exactly use that word, but you get it.
To change the ethics rules just to lighten their burden just a little bit. This pizza rule that Tucker pointed to is just to me more emblematic than the bigger one, which is they passed a rule that now says any group that can register as a charity can fly a congressman to a resort and wine and dine him or her. And the chairman of the Ethics Committee, a Republican chairman was not even consulted on this.
And this is what Joel Hefley, the Republican chairman of the Ethics Committee, told "The Washington Post." "Hefley said he, too, has concerns about the measure to allow charities to pay for congressional travel to resorts. 'It does open the gates to abuse,' he said." Why are they doing this?
WALKER: Well, I have concerns about it. And I think the Ethics Committee will look into it. And I think that's probably the right thing to do. But the fact is that, for some charities, members of Congress are an attractive thing to have come to their events and so on, and it helps them get people there. It helps them raise money for the charity. If in fact there are strict rules put on it that assures the charity itself is actually paying the bills and that you do not have corporations who are paying for a lot of this travel, and that all of the money from the event goes to charity and doesn't go somewhere else, I mean, there may be a way of writing rules that actually makes that into a useful kind of thing.
But I think it's something that has to be looked at. But the pizza rule, in all honesty, is one where the members of Congress aren't going to benefit from that. It's going to be some young staff that stays in there late at night. And instead of being charged $50 against their limits for the pizza, it's going to be...
(CROSSTALK)
NADER: Corporate food stamps.
CARLSON: But wait a second. These guys work a lot longer hours than you and I do, and they get paid a lot less than you and I do. And why are you trying to make life as unpleasant for them as you possibly can? Why not let them have their pizza? Who cares? They are public servants; they deserve it.
NADER: There's petty corruption. All kinds of nice fruit baskets and mild liquor comes up there. The main thing is what Bob pointed out. It's these corporate sponsored charities which become golf tournaments in fancy resorts, and the members of Congress and their families are ferried out, all expenses paid to schmooze. And this led to scandals in the early 90s to national television exposes.
And watch this. It led to 99 percent of the House putting these rules into effect which they're now starting to unravel. So 99 percent...
CARLSON: Are you saying congressmen can be bought with a fruit basket and a round of golf? Is that what you're saying?
NADER: It's all part of the matrix, isn't it? A little bit here, a little bit there.
WALKER: But I asked the question on the Hill today. I said, you know, will the corporations be able to pay for the members of Congress to participate. And the answer is no. I mean, the charity itself is going to have to actually put the money up in order for this to happen.
BEGALA: But Bob, what's to prevent the Arsenic Information Institute, lobbying for more arsenic in the water -- which President Bush supports. What's to prevent them from registering the charity with the IRS? It would be a nonprofit, it would be a charity, and flying all of us out there?
(CROSSTALK) WALKER: Could you ask the question in anymore of a pejorative way?
BEGALA: If I could, I'd come up with it, because I think that's legalized (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I think you make a good point about the pizzas, but...
WALKER: But the point is they have to qualify as a 501C3 (ph).
BEGALA: But anybody can as long as they make...
WALKER: Well, they've got to be able to show that they actually put the money toward a charitable cause.
BEGALA: You watch how fast the tobacco skags do this.
WALKER: But...
NADER: But the donors are the corporations. See the main thing is the decline of ethics. In 1995, 99 percent of your colleagues, Republicans put these rules in place.
WALKER: Well, I helped do it, so I mean that's the reason why I'm interested in this.
NADER: Why are they, why...
BEGALA: You have a very strong argument (ph)...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: We're almost out of time, but very quickly, tell me the Democrats who -- and the people on the left are so upset about this -- where were they when Senator Torricelli was getting free suits and antiques and watches...
(LAUGHTER)
NADER: Good point.
CARLSON: ... where were they, though?
NADER: They were looking the other way.
CARLSON: That's appalling, isn't it?
NADER: Absolutely.
CARLSON: Aren't you ashamed and kind of disappointed?
NADER: Ashamed? What are you talking about? You think the Democrats are on my back?
CARLSON: That's the spirit.
(APPLAUSE) CARLSON: That's why we like you, Ralph Nader.
BEGALA: Let's drive Torricelli out of the Senate. Ah -- already been done.
Bob Walker, former congressman from Pennsylvania, thank you very much.
WALKER: Thank you.
BEGALA: Ralph Nader, former Green Party presidential candidate, thank you both very much.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Next, in the CNN "News Alert," Connie Chung will give us the latest details on the investigations in to a pair of air tragedies.
After that, we will consider the ever growing field for Democratic candidates in the primaries and caucuses.
Before we drive off in to the sunset though, Arianna Huffington asks, "What would an al Qaeda terrorist want you to drive?"
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEGALA: As we reported at the top of the show, sources tell CNN that Connecticut Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman will join the field of Democratic presidential candidates next week.
And if all of this talk about 2004 seems just a tad early, consider this. Today's edition of the political newsletter, the Hotline, reports that Iowa Democrats may set their caucuses as early as January 17 of 2004, just a few days more than one year from today. And the New Hampshire primary could be January 27.
Here to talk about the already steamy presidential campaign, Democratic consultant David Axelrod and Republican strategist, Terry Holt.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Guys, thank you for coming.
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: David Axelrod, thanks for joining us.
I want to read you a quote particularly, I thought, thoughtful quote about the problems that Dick Gephardt might have if he runs for president...
DAVID AXELROD, DEMOCRATIC AXELROD: Yes, yes...
CARLSON: Let me go through the motions any way. I love this part.
(LAUGHTER)
"The question is can he get the stench of Washington off him? The challenge for Gephardt is how much is he seen as the heartland populist candidate and how much is he seen as institutional Washington candidate?"
AXELROD: Right.
CARLSON: The genius behind that of course was you.
AXELROD: Thank you.
CARLSON: Tell us about the stench of Washington on Dick Gephardt?
AXELROD: Well, it was more a commentary on Washington than Dick Gephardt.
(LAUGHTER)
I want to make that clear. I feel a little like Ralph Cramdon (ph) and my big mouth and all of that.
But you know, I think that the great -- I was around in 1988 and Paul was as well when Gephardt ran for president. I was working for another candidate.
I was impressed by the campaign that he ran. He was a very, very convincing populist from the heartland. If he can recapture, I think he can be the nominee of the party. But the challenge is to be seen as that, and not as the former minority leader. And that's really the point I was trying to make.
CARLSON: Well, here's the problem. I would submit that there's another problem with the Gephardt candidacy and that he's seen, at least here in Washington, as someone who is so annoyed by the loss of the midterm, that he sort of took his marbles and went home.
He's announced that he's not going to run again in 2004. I want to read you a quote from him, himself.
Mr. Gephardt, "I wish we had won seats in the midterm. If that had happened I likely would have stayed in the leadership."
Now what, I mean, this is a man who is asking us to vote for him for president, but showing no resolve. "You know, if you, my party, isn't in power, I'm leaving. I don't want to play."
AXELROD: Yes, but you know the fact is that out there in the real world people aren't concerned about this stuff. This is an inside Washington deal. People are concerned about their health care. They're concerned about educating their kids. They're concerned about their jobs themselves as you guys just talked for some period of time.
And if he speaks convincingly on those issues, I don't think people are going to say, "yes, but you said that you would have stayed on as minority leader." I think that's inside baseball.
BEGALA: That's a good point. Terry Holt (ph), let me ask you about Joe Lieberman, who today let it be known to our sources anyway, that he's going to file papers to become a presidential candidate.
He was all of the papers today. Let me read you a quote in the Baltimore Sun talking about the president's economic plan, the kitchen table economic issues that Mr. Axelrod was just talking about.
Here's what he said. "President Bush's plan is an irresponsible, ineffective, ideologically driven wish list that is obvious" -- oblivious it should be, typo -- "to the particular problems our faltering economy is facing."
That's music to my ears as a Democrat. This is exactly the case that you're worried about Democrats making against the Bush economic plan, isn't it?
TERRY HOLT, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: Well, I'm not worried too much about this field of Democrats at this stage. I mean, the Democrats don't seem to have made any progress since the last election where they were all over the place. They didn't have an agenda. And they had a horrible election day.
You know, this guy changed every position he ever held to run for vice president last time, whether it was school choice, tax cuts or...
BEGALA: He did win, came in first, got more votes than Dick Cheney.
HOLT: ... there's another gentlemen sitting down at the White House. Whereas, the Republicans have been focused. They've had agenda...
AXELROD: Why don't you ask Ralph Nader about that.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: I'm sorry, go ahead.
HOLT: Well, the fact of the matter is that the Republicans are united behind this president. He's been consistent. He's had a pro- growth, national defense message that's getting out. People like him and trust him. And this crowd doesn't stand for anything.
That's a big problem.
BEGALA: This is even more music to my ears that Lieberman getting on a more populist economic program, because it is the tell tale music of hubris, my friend.
The guys running Bush's political operation are long time friends of mine. They are brilliant, but you know, they're starting to believe their own press, aren't they Terry.
You're not scared of any of these Democrats, are you? Tell me that. Make me happy.
HOLT: Well, I'll tell you, they're all liberal as the day is long.
BEGALA: Sure, they can't touch Bush. You just relax. Eat right and exercise. Bush will get reelected, brother.
HOLT: I will tell you, Paul...
BEGALA: Don't worry.
HOLT: I love to have elections about differences. And this will be a great election about differences. The president is for less taxes. Dick Gephardt, who I think is the strongest candidate in this race right now, has voted for every tax increase in his career, and voted against every tax cut.
So I like those differences.
AXELROD: That's actually not true. I mean, he in fact voted -- one of the issues that was raised was that he voted for the Reagan tax cut in '82, which you probably applauded...
HOLT: Darn wrong. It was 20 years ago.
AXELROD: Here's the music...
HOLT: I apologize...
AXELROD: The odd music that I heard you say is that he's running on a pro-growth platform, and we've lost two million jobs.
(LAUGHTER)
ALELROD: I don't know how much more growth we can stand.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Well, wait. I want to read you a quote from my...
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: ... I may differ here a little bit. Actually I like some of the candidates, one in particular running on the Democratic side. I want to read you a quote from one of them, the Reverend Al Sharpton.
(LAUGHTER) CARLSON: "I'm qualified, probably more qualified than any other person who is expected to be in the Democratic ticket in 2004 because actually I have a following and I speak for the people."
David Alexrod, do you take Al Sharpton seriously?
AXELROD: Well, I think he's going to be a serious player in the sense that he will arrive at the convention and he will have delegates. And I don't think anybody should kid themselves. He does speak to and for a constituency. And I've done races in New York. I've seen Reverend Sharpton. He is a smart, clever person.
I think he's been on this program probably. And you've seen it yourself. But you know, will he be the nominee? Obviously not. Will he be a player? Yes.
CARLSON: Will he have a prime time speaking role in Boston at the Democratic convention?
AXELROD: Well, I don't know.
CARLSON: What do you think?
AXELROD: So far as I know, they haven't worked out the speaking arrangements.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: But if he has delegates, he'll have to speak, won't he?
AXELROD: Well, he will probably have to speak. And you know, I don't think that it's any different than past conventions in our party or your party. People of different ideological stripes get a row.
HOLT: And you have to have charisma to get elected president. And there's a charisma deficit in this group. Al Sharpton has plenty of charisma. You ought to think about that.
CARLSON: Amen.
HOLT: That's right.
BEGALA: Al Sharpton is going nowhere fast except on to CROSSFIRE where we love having him. But you know, he just had his first event in New Hampshire. And he drew 75 people.
HOLT: That's great.
BEGALA: Come on.
CARLSON: That's actually not that unusual.
BEGALA: They got to hang a pork chop around the guys neck to get the dog to play with him.
No, he ain't no where except to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). HOLT: Living room discussions. He can't 75 people...
CARLSON: He's listening to the people.
Paul, look, the people.
BEGALA: The CBS -- a rival network -- the CBS news folks to conduct a poll this week. And they asked people -- this is the Achilles heel of Bush -- that's why he is going to be a one-term wonder like his daddy. They asked people this question, "Who do the Bush administration policies favor?"
Fifty-nine percent of us say the rich, 11 say the middle class; only 2 say the poor and only 23 say everybody.
Sixty percent of Americans say Bush favors the rich. This is the Achilles heel for him, isn't it?
HOLT: Well, let's go for the class warfare when we don't have an agenda. I mean, the fact of the matter is the president has passed an historic education reform package. If we didn't have Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt running...
BEGALA: Did he fund that? It was a year ago today? Did he fund it?
HOLT: ... running the Democratic Party of Congress -- of course.
BEGALA: No, he didn't.
HOLT: There was a 9 - 10 percent increase in education funding.
BEGALA: He didn't fund it. He broke his promise. The law says how much money should be in. Bush underfunded it by billions of dollars.
HOLT: Well, we have increased funding for education every year the Republicans have been in the majority in Congress.
I think that says more about...
BEGALA: Well, that was because Clinton was in the presidency for most of those years.
HOLT: ... our priority in education than...
CARLSON: David Axelrod, very quickly, we're almost out of time. Edwards, John Edwards of North Carolina, a year ago being talked up as this great force.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Really. I could show you the polls; we don't have time. He's really fallen in the estimation of fellow Democrats. Why is that? Why has he blown up so early? AXELROD: Well, because we're all -- we play the inside game. He had a bad few minutes on Tim Russert's show and that got the chattering class going. I think he recovered a little bit last week on Stephanopoulos's show.
And you know, your poll of yesterday was somewhat surprising to me, because he was doing pretty much as well as everyone else.
I think Edwards is a resourceful guy, and wouldn't count him out of this race. His problem is the experience issue, and he's going to have to find a persuasive way to deal with it.
CARLSON: Oh, it's going to be fun to watch.
David Axelrod, Terry Holt, thank you both very much. We appreciate it.
BEGALA: Very good job. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
AXELROD: Thank you.
CARLSON: A viewer who has almost graduated from Saturday morning cartoons has found some new super heroes. We'll get to that in our "Fireback" segment.
But next, a commercial you may be seeing over the weekend isn't designed to get to you buy more beer or as it turns out more SUVs. We'll show it to you. We'll be right back.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. We're coming to you, as we do every night, from the beautiful, wonderful, George Washington University here in downtown Washington, D.C., home of the Colonials.
The biggest trend in the auto industries are all on display this week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. And sport utility vehicles are so hot that even Porsche is getting into the act. The Porsche SUV is perfect for off-roading to your children's soccer games. If you're in a hurry, it goes zero to 60 -- get this -- in seven seconds.
Chances are Arianna Huffington will not be driving one and not because they go for $58,000 grand a pop. She is a syndicated columnist, the author of the soon to be published book, "Pigs At the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining America."
She joins us from Los Angeles to discuss her concerns with SUVs.
Arianna, thank you for joining us.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, DETROIT PROJECT: Thank you.
CARLSON: Arianna, I want to show you something you've doubtless seen because you're behind it, but I'm not sure all of our viewers have seen it yet. It's so over the top I want to put it up. This is one of the ads against SUVs. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD ACTOR (voice-over): This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive who sold the gas to that George bought for his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Now I guess, Arianna, one of the many things that bothers me about this spot is the moral equivalence it implies. It implies -- you know, "drive an SUV, hijack an airliner; in both cases you're committing terrorism."
That's just silly and wrong, isn't it?
HUFFINGTON: Do you think that the Bush administration's drug war ads are silly and wrong?
Because the moral...
CARLSON: Yes, yes, I do. I do think they're silly and wrong.
HUFFINGTON: Well, I haven't heard you say that before tonight. But the point is that they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to equate smoking a joint with funding terrorism.
We are making an infinitely more credible link because the truth is that driving an SUV is a lifestyle choice. And to have the sale of SUVs go up by 6 percent in the last year at the time when we are being told by the administration that we're at war, that we need in increase our oil independence, that we should not be beholden to terrorist harboring nations.
It doesn't make any sense at all.
BEGALA: Well, Arianna, let me ask you a more fundamental question. Why this crusade? Homelessness is up. Poverty is up. The uninsured is up. We've got enormous problems in this country. Why did you pick this?
HUFFINGTON: Well, we can have multiple crusades. Right now we believe that the time of the of September 11th is for us to increase our oil independence. I mean, look at the way we're kowtowing to Saudi Arabia. We are actually basically allowing a nation that's harboring terrorism that subsidizing suicide bombers, that's sending quote unquote "charitable contributions to hijackers." We're basically allowing them to get away with everything just because we need to continue to be -- to feed our oil addiction.
And you know, isn't it amazing that the McCain-Kerry bill was defeated in the last Congress, that would increase our fuel efficiency standards? Isn't it amazing that the administration is suing the state of California for daring to impose more fuel efficient standards?
CARLSON: Wait, Arianna...
HUFFINGTON: It doesn't make any sense.
CARLSON: But Arianna, nobody is defending Saudi Arabia or its role in terrorism, et cetera.
I just guess I object to the singly out of SUVs. Because as you know, pickup trucks don't get any better mileage than SUVs. The elderly cars, cars that were made 20 years ago driven mostly by poor people, they get even worse gas mileage.
But of course poor people can't afford to buy fashionable and very expensive hybrid cars. Why pound on poor people just because can't afford it?
HUFFINGTON: Tucker, I'm driving -- Tucker, let me get the facts straight. I'm driving a hybrid car. It's cost $17,000. It does 52 miles to the gallon. If you want to buy a hummer (ph) on the other hand, at $50,000 -- that's how much it costs. It's nine miles to the gallon, and they can't keep in stock.
And there is a...
CARLSON: But your car can't drive over anything though, can it?
(LAUGHTER)
HUFFINGTON: OK, here...
CARLSON: I bet it can't.
HUFFINGTON: ... is the other fact. There are -- it's true. Some people who need to go off road. It's an infinitesimal proportion of the people who drive SUVs. You know why? Because there's a ridiculous tax loophole that basically means you can depreciate two- thirds of your SUV like you can depreciate $25,000 of a $37,000 SUV.
CARSON: Really.
HUFFING ton: And this unfairness -- absolutely.
CARLSON: I'm going to do that. I had no idea.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Let me ask you about -- sorry to cut you off, Arianna. OK.
HUFFINGTON: Yes, just let me say one more thing. The reason why is that in 2000 alone the three auto makers spent $37 million in lobbying. You have Andy Card, the chief of staff, who was the chief lobbyist for the auto makers.
Basically, once again special interests have tromped the public interest.
BEGALA: Well, let me ask you though, about the safety issue. That ad, it like the drug ads, which I think are moronic because they're too attenuative (ph). OK, you're asking -- you draw this linkage and here's George and there's an oil executive and then there's Saudi Arabia and then there's terrorists.
You're asking somebody to make all of those linkages and see the safety threat of terrorism and then ignore the obvious safety threat of putting then in a little $17,000 hybrid tin can.
I mean, peole are safer with their kids in SUVs, aren't they?
HUFFINGTON: You are way behind the curve. I highly recommend you read Keith Bradshaw's book. He was the New York Times Detroit correspondent. And his book is phenomenal.
It actually explains step by step why the SUVs are actually much more dangerous. They're four times as likely to roll over as ordinary cars. And they are three times as likely to kill their passengers as ordinary cars.
This is one of the myths that Detroit has perpetrated, the safety of SUVs. I would like to actually read the facts.
BEGALA: Well, I'm going to read your book. I don't know if I want to read Bradshaw's.
CARLSON: Arianna, really quickly, can you give us three other crusades that you might undertake in the future to save energy, to say asking people to live in tents or can you take it one step...
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: ... beyond the SUVs? Quickly.
HUFFINGTON: Actually, let me just say what we are going to do. We are going on this crusade because all we need is a critical mass of people and then we're going to be as successful as the designated drive campaign. Do you remember that campaign?
CARLSON: Oh...
HUFFINGTON: Before the campaign, it was very chic and very macho to drink and drive. After that, it because socially irresponsible. We want the same change with SUVs.
CARLSON: Well, we will still like you better than the ladies from MADD though.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: You have more of a sense of humor.
Arianna Huffington, thank you for joining us from Los Angeles.
HUFFINGTON: Thank you.
CARLSON: We appreciate it. Thanks.
BEGALA: Coming up in our "Fireback", one of us gets a less than friendly invitation from some Canadians, that country to the north, the frozen north.
We'll explain. We will be right back.
(APPLAUSE)
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. It's time for our "Fireback" segment. We invite you go completely bananas and write us e-mail, and you do.
First up tonight is James Snell (ph) of Hanford, California. "I'm tried of hearing the Democrats pull this class war crap," he writes elegantly. "The Democrats have no vested interest in generating real economic growth as long as the economy can be used as an issue in the 2004 presidential election, and it shows."
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Well, I sort of agree with that. They do have an incentive to want the economy go bad.
BEGALA: The Democrats under President...
CARLSON: Now admit it.
BEGALA: ... generated 23.8 million new jobs. The Republicans under...
CARLSON: Yes...
BEGALA: ... Clinton have cost us 2 million -- I mean under Bush -- have cost us 2 million.
CARLSON: It's totally untrue.
I mean, you say it every night, doesn't make it any truer.
BEGALA: No, Democrats are proven they're better at running the economy.
CARLSON: I've noticed, yes.
BEGALA: Maryland (ph), the last name, Princeton, New Jersey writes, "Paul, do you think President Bush read your book? Maybe he'll stop beating the war drums and do something with our economy now."
And I don't know that the president has time. I know he's a busy man. I may send him the Cliff Notes, maybe a comic version or something. He's too busy to read my book. I don't blame him.
CARLSON: How do you tell the Cliff Notes apart from the regular version?
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: No, sorry. No, I'm a fan. I'm not beating up on you, Paul. Look, I'm not beating up. I'm in the book.
BEGALA: Tucker is in the book.
CARLSON: Yes, I am.
Buy the book.
Jason McGredy (ph) of Sidney Mines, Nova Scotia, Canada, that's the foreign country to the north of here, writes, "Your comments about Canada, a foreign country to the north of here, citing that the U.S. needs another parking lot are totally out of line. Our prime minister punched out a fellow who bothered him, so lose your bow tie and head north to a place where men are men. Bring some friends."
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Whoa. Sounds like Jason is a little lonely. That's quite an invitation.
That invitation makes me a little nervous. "Men are men. Bring some friends."
Thanks, Jason.
BEGALA: Men are men, bring some friends." IT's lonely and cold in Sidney Mines.
No, no. Here is Steven Krueger (ph) in Winnipeg, another terrific Canadian city, writes, "CROSSFIRE is my favorite show." Clearly an intelligent man, obviously a Canadian. "When I was eight or nine I would watch super hero shows, and CROSSFIRE reminds me of one of them. James Carville is Bald Boy, lovely, and Paul Begala is the Clinton Caper. They fight the evil, Novak and Attack and his trusted side-kick, Tucker the Terror. This would be the perfect show if someone had some sort of super strength and lightening power."
Steven, it's obvious you haven't been watching. I do have super strength and lightening power. You just haven't been watching.
CARLSON: Steven is sitting alone in his bedroom with Spock ears on. I can just picture him.
Yes, sir a question.
BEGALA: May the force be with you, whatever that is.
Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You indicated earlier the eight million people in this country are earning minimum age are insignificant. Those are your words.
CARLSON: I didn't say that. And I think it's fewer than eight million.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, well, either way. Do you really think the people who bag your groceries, wash your car, and cook your meals in Georgetown, are they really insignificant?
CARLSON: It goes with out saying that they're not. I didn't say that. And that's quite a demagogic point to make. And I appreciate it. What I was saying was that the number of people in the economy who rely on minimum wage jobs as full time employment is very small. Doesn't mean that they're insignificant. It means raise the minimum wage is not going to change the economy.
BEGALA: Well, but the key...
CARLSON: It's an economic fact.
BEGALA: ... no but Tucker, the key weasel word there is "full time jobs." Corporate America gives them these crummy -- I almost used another word -- crummy part time...
CARLSON: Actually, it's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) labor unions as (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
BEGALA: ... jobs without benefits. That's why so many minimum wage workers are working part time because corporate American don't want to pay them benefits either.
We ought to raise the minimum wage, have a health care plan that provides for them.
(APPLAUSE)
Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our dependence on oil in the Middle East is something that needs to be changed, but calling it terrorism if you drive an SUV is just crazy.
CARLSON: I agree with that. I think we tried to point that out to Ms. Huffington. If fact, it desensitizes people. I mean, it may be a good thing to drive SUV, maybe a bad thing. It's a subtle conversation. There are nuances of valid ones. But to call everybody who drives an SUV an accomplice to terrorism sort of dulls our senses, I think, and is a bad idea for that reason.
BEGALA: Speaking of dull senses, from the left, I am Paul Begala. Good night for CROSSFIRE.
CARLSON: From the right, I'm Tucker Carlson. Join us again tomorrow night for yet more CROSSFIRE.
"CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT" begins right now. Have a great night.
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Campaign Heats Up>
Aired January 8, 2003 - 19:00 Â ET
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: it's still the economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The White House is opened to working with Congress to get something done for the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Whose plan has the better chance? The Democrats?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: What the Democrats problem is, is nothing is good enough for them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Then how about the Republicans?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: This president has a record of job creation that is zero.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: If you're driving an SUV, are you feeling guilty yet?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I helped hijack an airplane.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I helped blow up a nightclub.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Ahead on CROSSFIRE.
Live from the George Washington University: Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson.
(APPLAUSE) TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST: Welcome to CROSSFIRE. Pay no attention to that persistent whining sound you hear from Capitol Hill. It's only Democrats. They finally realized this week that, in fact, they lost the mid-term election. We'll ask tonight's guests, including Ralph Nader, what the Republican takeover of Washington will mean for the economy and for doing business on Capitol Hill.
Later, Arianna Huffington will attempt to explain why if you drive a sport utility vehicle you're helping terrorism. But first, our CROSSFIRE "Political Alert."
Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman makes almost every decision more in sorrow than in anger. It's his nature. But next week Lieberman will be doing at least one thing with glee, announcing for president. On Monday, Lieberman will jump into the race for the Democratic nomination. Many would argue that Lieberman never stopped running once Al Gore put him on the ticket in 2000, but it actually goes farther back than that.
As proof, Lieberman will launch his campaign at Connecticut's Stamford High School, where he ran for president of the class of 1960, won and simply kept going. Recent polls show that Lieberman is garnering significant support from black voters, which, of course, means he could prove a formidable challenger to the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination: the Reverend Al Sharpton.
Why are you laughing? It's true.
PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Of course it's not. Lieberman brings a lot to the field. He's most hawkish on Iraq, calling for an invasion of Iraq long before even Bush was. But I'll tell you this, he is chapping (ph) me lately, because he's gone months, maybe, I don't know, a year, without coming on CROSSFIRE and answering tough questions from you and some tough ones from me, frankly. If Lieberman wants to be tough enough to take on Bush, he ought to be able to be tough enough...
CARLSON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I agree with you.
BEGALA: Well, President Bush today -- speaking of our president -- likes to trot out carefully screened and scripted yuppie families to demonstrate the effect of his tax cut. He calls them tax families. He uses them to argue that his tax cut is not only for the mega rich.
So I thought in fairness we'd take a look at how two mega rich families fare; specifically, the Bush and Cheney families. The Bloomberg News Service reports that Mr. Bush would have saved a total of $44,500 on his taxes last year if the new Bush tax cut had been the law of the land at the time. Dick Cheney does even better, pocketing an extra $320,000 a year from the Bush tax cut.
Now look, none of this is to say that the president and the vice president designed their tax cut to benefit themselves. Rather it just happens that the people who benefit most are corporate kingpins and quick buck artists who get rich my insider deals of looting, failing corporations. When asked by Bloomberg to comment, Mr. Bush noted that his wealth is in a blind trust, then he laughed his ass off. Unbelievable.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Actually, I think that's exactly why he passed the tax cut. It's to make money. I think that's why he ran for president. It's a money making scheme, the president's -- but, Paul, that is absolutely ludicrous. The argument that only Mark Rich and people like -- oh, sorry -- is going to get rich from this tax cut is insane. And, in fact, we'll talk about later in this show, it is rich people who pay the taxes.
BEGALA: No, actually it's not. We'll talk...
CARLSON: Actually, it is.
The FBI is under fire tonight after it was revealed that an all- points bulletin the bureau issued last week was based on a hoax. As it turns out, five members of a terrorist cell did not sneak across the Canadian border into the United States. The men did not exist. There was no plot.
How can did the FBI get it so wrong? By getting its information from the Canadian government, which in turn got its information from accused smuggler named Michael Hamdani, who apparently made it all up. The Canadians say they gave Hamdani a lie detector test. American officials, however, point out that a Canadian lie detector test is quite different from the American version.
Under the Canadian polygraph system, authorities threaten to feed subjects to a polar bear unless they absolutely promise to tell the truth. Apparently it doesn't always work.
BEGALA: Well, you never know. You know, a couple of Molsons maybe loosened him up like truth serum. That could work, too.
On this, though, this is a really, really tough call. I'm not a big fan often of the FBI or the Bush administration, but they put the information out, it turned out to be false. Still better I think to try to give us information that we can...
CARLSON: I agree with that. But it also points out a potentially weak link in the system, which is other countries. You need to have countries that have their acts together and who are on your side in the fight against terrorism. I'm not sure Canada always is.
BEGALA: Oh, of course Canada always is. They're a great allies of ours.
Well, the University of Maryland researchers have released a study of almost 6,000 Maryland homicide cases over two decades. They concluded that there is an enormous racial disparity in the application of the death penalty. The study reported in today's "Washington Post" concludes that black people who murder whites are twice as likely to be sentenced to death as white people who murder whites. And black people who kill white people are four times more likely to get the death penalty as black people who murder other blacks.
The study's director concluded, "The kind of disparities we're finding are systemic. They cannot be identified on a case-by-case analysis." Still, Maryland's new Republican Governor, Robert Ehrlich, has pledged to reinstate the death penalty and to decided on alleged injustices on a case-by-case basis.
CARLSON: Actually, the study itself is sort of ludicrous because it doesn't take into account the nature of the crime, which is key, of course, in sentencing. However, I think there is a real case to be made against the death penalty. It's a case that needs to be made head on. Not through these dumb side channels (UNINTELLIGIBLE). If it's immoral, if the government shouldn't be killing people, just say so. Just make the case.
BEGALA: The government shouldn't be killing people, I agree with that.
CARLSON: I think liberals ought to make the case directly rather than with these phony studies.
BEGALA: This is an important study, nonetheless.
CARLSON: One of the last Democrats in the entire American south has announced his retirement tonight. Senator Zell Miller of Georgia released a statement saying he will not run for reelection in 2004. Miller, thoughtful to the end, says he will leave his seat immediately after the election so that his successor will start out with a seniority advantage under Senate rules.
Even Democrats can see that Georgia is now a Republican state and that their party cannot even hope to hold on to the seat. And so just one question remains: will the Republican who replaces Miller next year despise the leadership of the leadership of the Democratic Party as much as Zell Miller despised it? That may not be possible, which means that Democrats may be gaining and Republicans may be losing one of their most capable spokesmen.
BEGALA: I love Zell Miller, as you know. I worked for him for many, many years.
CARLSON: I do too.
BEGALA: I'm desperately close to him. He's the greatest governor Georgia ever produced and leaves a terrific legacy. But he also leaves a very deep strong Democratic base. No Democrat ever told you they're going to lose the seat. He has to follow him -- get this list -- Mark Taylor, who is a very able lieutenant governor; Kathy Cox, the Secretary of State, Thurgood Baker, the first African- American attorney general in that state, a huge vote-getter.
Maybe Max Cleland will come back after being trashed by the Republicans. Democrats will hold that Zell Miller seat in no small reason because of what Zell Miller did to build the party in that state.
CARLSON: If I could just ask the producer to save this tape...
BEGALA: Absolutely.
CARLSON: ... for November of 2004, so I can mock you then. I look forward to it.
BEGALA: You save that tape and you will see how wrong you are. By the way, Republicans want to put up Ralph Reed, the incredibly unctuous, slimy chairman of the Republican Party down there, former Christian Coalition dirt bag.
CARLSON: Unctuous, slimy dirt bag. OK. Get him on the issues, Paul. That's where you're strong. Get him on the issues.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Perfect preparation to be a Republican senator. Under cover -- speaking of slimy, under cover of darkness last night, our president sneakily re-nominated all of the proposed federal judges who had been rejected by the U.S. Senate last year. The group includes some of the finest minds of the 12th century. Apparently that's par for the course for Bush.
According to a new book written by David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, Mr. Bush's White House is downright hostile to intellectuals. "The Bush White House," Mr. Frum writes, "has a dearth of high-powered brains. One seldom heard an unexpected thought in the Bush White House or met someone who possessed unusual knowledge." A truly frightening revelation about any White House.
"Conspicuous intelligence," Mr. Frum goes on to say, "seemed actively unwelcome in the White House." Now Frum calls the president himself, "often uncurious and, as a result, ill informed." No great shock there.
But Frum sees Bush's greatest redeeming quality his genial, friendly every man nature as phony. "In private," Frum writes, "Bush was not the easy, genial man he seemed to be in public." Uncurious, ill informed, anti-intellectual and not very nice. That's what his friends say about him.
CARLSON: Well I will grant you, Paul, that President Clinton did have what you term unusual knowledge. But I think the fact is that all America is better off that George W. Bush -- whatever his faults -- was president on September 11 and not Bill Clinton. And I think even you deep down know that. And I think most people, Democrats and Republicans, are grateful for that, because they realize his qualities are the ones needed to respond to a crisis at that time.
BEGALA: Like Clinton couldn't have found his way to a bunker on the side of a mountain in Omaha? No, the way that Bush and the Republicans try to politicize 9/11 is really, really outrageous.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: It was a terrible tragedy; all Americans suffered. And for Bush to try...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: It's not outrageous to point out that some people are better at dealing with crisis like that than others. And President Bush was the perfect man for that crisis. And President Clinton would have been a disaster.
BEGALA: How so? As you yourself wrote -- you yourself wrote a column, Tucker, saying he went and hid in the side of a mountain when Rudy Giuliani went to the site of the World Trade Center.
CARLSON: Because, Paul, unlike President Clinton, who would sit unable to make up his mind for hours and hours upon time, years in some cases, clarity of vision is what a leader requires in a situation like that and you know it.
BEGALA: So Clinton would still be pondering, maybe we shouldn't strike back, huh? That's such a load. Please.
Both the Democratic and Republican Parties have unveiled programs to help revive our economy. But House Majority Leader Tom DeLay today said that he considers President Bush's $674 billion price tag maybe a little low. He calls it the floor and not the ceiling. Congressman DeLay says he wants to tack on additional tax cuts. When asked if the price tag could top $1 trillion, the Republican majority leader responded, "Who knows."
Stepping into the CROSSFIRE to debate the rival economic plans on Capitol Hill, consumer advocate, former Green Party presidential candidate, Ralph Nader. He is the author of "Crashing The Party: How To Tell The Truth And Still Run For President." With him, former Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Bob Walker.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Mr. Nader, thanks for joining us, as always. All the rhetoric -- and undoubtedly we're about to hear some more -- about how this tax proposal is a payoff to the rich, I just want to put into perspective the role of the rich in the American economy. I want to read from a recent editorial from the "Wall Street Journal."
Here what's it says. "In 1999, 553, 380 taxpayers -- out of hundreds of millions -- anted up 28 percent of tax revenue. IRS data from 2000 shows that the top five percent of taxpayers (those with incomes of $128,000 and higher) paid over half the total tax revenue. Since it's exactly the rich who disproportionately pay most of the income tax, it would be impossible to lower the taxes without benefiting them disproportionately. It's their money."
Isn't this fundamentally true? Rich people are the ones who pay. We keep America afloat.
RALPH NADER, CONSUMER ADVOCATE: You've got a bad premise here, Tucker. Since the rich people have grabbed off more of the wealth than they deserve by keeping minimum wage low, by preserving all the corporate tax subsidies, handouts, giveaways, all the tax loopholes, now you want to take that unfairness and use it as an argument to reduce their taxes further? I mean, have you ever taken a course in logic?
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Well so, I guess -- well, I think, Mr. Nader, it's a different kind of logic. Your logic, if I'm hearing you correctly, is that the entire system, that is the United States of America, is so intrinsically corrupt that rich people, no matter who they are, don't deserve to be rich. That money is by definition stolen. That's what you just said unless I misunderstood you.
NADER: You don't deserve to have more power and making responsible exercise (ph). :
CARLSON: No, we're talking about money, not power, sir.
NADER: Power leads to money.
CARLSON: OK. But...
(CROSSTALK)
NADER: No, it's not abstract. If you control Congress through all kinds of campaign money, et cetera, you're going to get Congress to give you all these goodies you don't deserve. Aren't you worried about the 47 million workers in America who work full time who can't earn a living wage? Aren't you worried about...
CARLSON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), but you're still changing the subject and not answering my question.
NADER: Well, no, then let's go back to the subject. First of all, all this tax stuff that Bush has put forward is not really designed to lift the burden, it's designed to stimulate the economy. Correct? Why do you have to stimulate the economy when there's huge unused capacity, when there's plenty of capital around, and when interest rates are at historic lows?
The issue is to stimulate economic demand. And the way you do that is you start a public works program by getting rid of the -- and paying for it -- by getting rid of the huge hundreds of billions of corporate welfare that CATO and Heritage and other of your think tanks have documented and decried. And second, you the lift the minimum wage.
It's $5.15 an hour federal, Tucker. It should be $8 an hour if it was index since 1968, the wave members of Congress have indexed and more their own salary.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Let me get Congressman Walker into this. Let me start with first principles. I do think it's agreed upon that the big problem in the economy is corporate overcapacity right now. Corporations have more capacity than they are able to sell right now. This is why they're operating at -- some of them -- at as little as 75 percent of capacity. That is one out of four of their plants being shut down. Given that, is the best way to stimulate the economy by favoring targeting wealthy investors or middle-class consumers?
BOB WALKER, FMR. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, it's by giving money to the investment class. And the investment class includes the wealthy and the middle class, because a lot of the pensions, the college funds that people have socked away at the present time are involved in the stock market. And so it's extremely important to give those investors some payback for the risk that they take.
BEGALA: See this I think is the heart of the argument. And I think you state it well and honestly. Democrats believe the economy is driven by middle-class consumers, and that the way to tap that capacity is to give more money to the master sergeants and maids and ordinary folks who will actually spend it.
See rich people tend to save their money, god bless them. Our folks would tend to spend that money. That would stimulate the economy and make Bill Gates all the richer. What's wrong with that theory?
WALKER: But the way in which they get the money to spend is by having a job and having a good job. The way in which they have a good job is to have investment money, risk behind that investment, so that you can, in fact, produce the jobs in this economy so people do have the money to spend.
BEGALA: Let me give you a theory -- a hypothetical...
(CROSSTALK)
WALKER: This is all about growth and jobs.
BEGALA: We all agree with that. You're the CEO of the Walker Widget Corporation (ph) and you've shut down one out of four of your plants because you have to. You're not a mean, heartless guy, but you have to because you have too much capacity. I give you a tax benefit of $1 million. Are you going to reopen those plants?
WALKER: Absolutely.
BEGALA: No, you don't have -- it was the buyer (ph) Widgets (ph), Bob.
WALKER: No, that's just wrong.
BEGALA: Give your money to Widget (ph) purchasers. They'll buy it and you'll be able to open your plants.
WALKER: One of the things that I would want to do is I would want to participate in the global economy in a way that increases my productivity so that I'm competitive worldwide. One of...
BEGALA: So you'd open new plants without customers? WALKER: No. The way in which you do that is by having the investment money to put into that kind of productivity. And the investment money comes out of stockholders and comes out of the pension funds and a lot of other people who are investing in the future of this country.
Now the problem is, if there is no investment in the future of the country, there is no future. And in my view, it's extremely important for us in the future to ensure the people who are willing to take the risk of putting their money out there the chance to earn enough on that money that they, in fact, then spend money in the economy and also give the middle class in this country an opportunity to have jobs and spend the money in the economy.
NADER: But the pension funds are 401(k)s. When they get dividends, they're not taxed anyway. This is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Bush is doing on dividends doesn't effect them. They get tax-free dividends.
WALKER: Yeah, but the fact is that what you have is a lot of 401(k)s have become 101ks at the present time because the stock market has dropped so substantially. What this is going to do is raise the level of stock market participation as a result of the tax exclusion for dividends. And that, in fact, will increase the amount of wealth in the 401(k)s, which will be an extremely valuable thing to huge numbers of middle-class families.
NADER: You know economists don't agree with that. There's plenty of capital. That's the point. Drowning in capital.
The issue is demand. You got to give those workers more money so they can buy more things.
WALKER: And the way you give them more money is to have them have a job.
NADER: No. You raise the minimum wage to what it should be adjusted for inflation.
WALKER: When you raise the minimum wage, it does not do a thing with the big companies that you keep talking about. It absolutely destroys the small businessman, the little guy who is trying to make a living, that in many cases is not making more than about $20,000 a year himself in profits in his company.
NADER: So you think there should be a decline in minimum wage, which is what happens when you...
(CROSSTALK)
WALKER: No.
NADER: But it is declining. It's $5.15 when it should be $8.
WALKER: I think in a stagnant economy that to impose extra costs on small business will simply drive that small business out of the market and will decrease the number of jobs in the country. That, in fact, will drive us more toward recession and depression. And I think small business in this country is the bedrock on which we build the future economy.
NADER: There's a problem with your argument, and that is they've raised their prices -- small businesses -- since 1968. You'll agree, right? But the wages have not been keeping up. And the point is they've been getting a windfall. Minimum wage is designed -- if you work hard in this country 40 hours a week, shouldn't you be able to live on it?
WALKER: I think it's extremely important that we produce the kind of, first of all, education system that provides trained workers for business so that they can, in fact, pay above the minimum wage. One of the real problems in business today is the education system isn't working. And so what you end up having to do is retrain workers when they come through the door and that is a cost to the business over and above the minimum wage that they're paying.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Ralph Nader, I want you to respond to the most interesting thing I've seen all week. This is the Secretary of Commerce, Don Evans. And he's explaining the effect of the president's tax proposal. Listen to this, this is interesting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON EVANS, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: This is a progressive tax cut, which means that those at the higher end of the tax scale will be paying a greater percentage of the taxes after this is implemented than those -- than before the tax cut was implemented. So it's a progressive tax cut. Those that are taking on a larger percentage of the burden now will take on an even larger percentage of the burden after this tax cut is passed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So if you follow that, the top five percent already paying more than half of all taxes in the United States. After this plan is enacted, they will pay a higher percentage. I would think that's just the sort of class warfare approach you would favor.
NADER: It's like Secretary Evans just finished reading George Orwell. When you have a $350 billion ten-year windfall on dividends, one percent, the top one percent of the people in this country account for about 40 percent of the dividends. And if you knock out the dividend tax-free pension funds, it's even higher than that.
CARLSON: Well, wait. Hold on. Please address the core question. What do you think of the fact that, as a percentage of taxes paid, the rich will pay more after this is enacted? That's a very interesting point that cuts exactly against what you've been arguing.
NADER: No, the arithmetic doesn't add up. Look, how can you -- if the dividend tax exemption goes to mostly wealthy people, how can you say they're paying more? These people who are bringing in huge dividends from a million shares of General Electric or IBM or whatever, they're not going to be paying any taxes on that. So how can you say that gives them a greater share...
CARLSON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) taxes on them.
WALKER: But where is that money going to go is the question.
BEGALA: Bob Walker, let me show you a couple of other statistics from the Tax Policy Center. They looked at two different things. They looked at all of the quintiles. Who gets what out of the Bush plan and the Democratic plan.
First, let's look at the middle of the middle class, the middle 20 percent of Americans. Let me put this up on the screen. Under the Bush plan, they get about $265. Under the Democratic plan, more than 20 percent more. They get about $337.
So more bang for the buck for the middle class in the Democratic plan. But now let's look at the top one percent. Let's see how they fare. Under the Bush plan, $24,428. Under the Democratic plan, $518. That's the difference. This is why Bush's cost six times more, because he's giving it away to the mega rich.
WALKER: Well, you know the point is that I don't know where they started their statistics. Most of the statistics that come up with those kinds of figures start with the idea of including people who pay no income taxes as a part of the overall mix.
BEGALA: They're not Americans?
WALKER: Well sure they're Americans.
BEGALA: I thought we were giving tax relief to all Americans, Bob. If you won't cut the payroll tax, you won't cut the excise tax, you won't cut the property tax, that's what poor people pay. You only cut the rich man's taxes. Why?
(APPLAUSE)
WALKER: I'm all for cutting payroll taxes and doing some of those kinds of things too. But I will tell you that this is an income tax issue. And so you cannot look at who doesn't pay income taxes at all. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why the numbers that Tucker was citing work is because you end up having people who are now paying taxes who are no longer going to pay income taxes. They drop completely off the rolls, when the number goes down, as they do in the Bush plan.
Again, if you take a look at the figures that include all of the taxpayers, the figure that the Bush administration has is that a middle-class family will receive over $1,000 of tax benefits out of this plan. That's a pretty good return for a middle-class family to get $1,000 back. For most middle-class families, $1,000 is worth a lot of money. BEGALA: We started this discussion with you saying -- this is your phrase, not mine -- that the economic plan should be targeted at the investor class. Now you're saying, oh, all of a sudden, now the Bush plan helps the middle class, even though I think...
WALKER: But I included the middle class in the investor class. They are a part of the investor class at the present time.
BEGALA: But their investments are already tax free.
(CROSSTALK)
WALKER: ... well, they're doing that. But there are also middle-class people out there, Paul, who actually buy stock.
NADER: But, look, this is an assortment of gimmicks and tips is the Bush plan. If you want to create good paying jobs, distribute them throughout the economy, especially in the inner city. You have a public works program to start repairing America, the schools, the clinics, the mass transit, the buildings.
Wait. And how do you pay for that? How do you pay for that? Just what the CATO and other institutes are showing the savings are. Huge military boondoggles condemned by retired admirals and generals, including Secretary Rumsfeld, said he can't get rid of some of these Soviet-era weapons systems and hundreds of billions...
WALKER: But he's trying.
NADER: But he failed. Because of Congress and the Lockheed Martins of the world.
WALKER: He's working at it.
NADER: But he's admitted failure. But anyway, the other thing is the corporate welfare. You should be against corporate welfare. The mining subsidies, the Bermuda tax havens.
CARLSON: Will you answer one question quickly before you go on? Everyone is against corporate welfare.
(CROSSTALK)
NADER: But that's where you get the money to create those jobs.
CARLSON: You're holding up -- it's very clear you're holding up to increase the minimum wage as a panacea or at least as a way to boost the economy. What percentage of Americans employed full time receive minimum wage? Do you know?
NADER: About eight million. Number one, eight million.
CARLSON: Eight million? Now what percentage of the American workforce is that?
NADER: But if you raise the minimum wage to where it should be if it was indexed...
CARLSON: It's tiny.
NADER: It would 25 million at $8 an hour.
CARLSON: I understand. We're just going to take a quick commercial break. We'll be right back. In just a minute, we'll ask our guests about some of the other challenges that the Republican Congress is enacting, including a new way of slicing the pizza rule, whatever that is.
Later, the candidates and the calendar. Ready or not, the 2004 presidential race is off and running. And when you fill up your SUV's tank, are you also filling up the terrorists' wallets? That's doubtful, but we'll hear from someone who is worried nonetheless. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Welcome back. Now that the Republicans 108th Congress has come to town, things are going to be done a little differently. House Republicans have already changed ethics rules, including the so- called pizza rule. It allowed lobbyists, charities, too, to send free food to members of Congress and their staffs, but not in excess of $50; hence, pizza.
The new rule should enhance the quantity and quality of food in congressional offices. Tonight we chew it over with consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader and former Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Bob Walker.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Bob, first, it is telling that the Republican Congress, which won't raise the minimum wage, drags its feet on extending unemployment benefits so that at Christmas time a million Americans lost their unemployment benefits. Moves, as General Patton would have said, like poop through a goose. He didn't exactly use that word, but you get it.
To change the ethics rules just to lighten their burden just a little bit. This pizza rule that Tucker pointed to is just to me more emblematic than the bigger one, which is they passed a rule that now says any group that can register as a charity can fly a congressman to a resort and wine and dine him or her. And the chairman of the Ethics Committee, a Republican chairman was not even consulted on this.
And this is what Joel Hefley, the Republican chairman of the Ethics Committee, told "The Washington Post." "Hefley said he, too, has concerns about the measure to allow charities to pay for congressional travel to resorts. 'It does open the gates to abuse,' he said." Why are they doing this?
WALKER: Well, I have concerns about it. And I think the Ethics Committee will look into it. And I think that's probably the right thing to do. But the fact is that, for some charities, members of Congress are an attractive thing to have come to their events and so on, and it helps them get people there. It helps them raise money for the charity. If in fact there are strict rules put on it that assures the charity itself is actually paying the bills and that you do not have corporations who are paying for a lot of this travel, and that all of the money from the event goes to charity and doesn't go somewhere else, I mean, there may be a way of writing rules that actually makes that into a useful kind of thing.
But I think it's something that has to be looked at. But the pizza rule, in all honesty, is one where the members of Congress aren't going to benefit from that. It's going to be some young staff that stays in there late at night. And instead of being charged $50 against their limits for the pizza, it's going to be...
(CROSSTALK)
NADER: Corporate food stamps.
CARLSON: But wait a second. These guys work a lot longer hours than you and I do, and they get paid a lot less than you and I do. And why are you trying to make life as unpleasant for them as you possibly can? Why not let them have their pizza? Who cares? They are public servants; they deserve it.
NADER: There's petty corruption. All kinds of nice fruit baskets and mild liquor comes up there. The main thing is what Bob pointed out. It's these corporate sponsored charities which become golf tournaments in fancy resorts, and the members of Congress and their families are ferried out, all expenses paid to schmooze. And this led to scandals in the early 90s to national television exposes.
And watch this. It led to 99 percent of the House putting these rules into effect which they're now starting to unravel. So 99 percent...
CARLSON: Are you saying congressmen can be bought with a fruit basket and a round of golf? Is that what you're saying?
NADER: It's all part of the matrix, isn't it? A little bit here, a little bit there.
WALKER: But I asked the question on the Hill today. I said, you know, will the corporations be able to pay for the members of Congress to participate. And the answer is no. I mean, the charity itself is going to have to actually put the money up in order for this to happen.
BEGALA: But Bob, what's to prevent the Arsenic Information Institute, lobbying for more arsenic in the water -- which President Bush supports. What's to prevent them from registering the charity with the IRS? It would be a nonprofit, it would be a charity, and flying all of us out there?
(CROSSTALK) WALKER: Could you ask the question in anymore of a pejorative way?
BEGALA: If I could, I'd come up with it, because I think that's legalized (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I think you make a good point about the pizzas, but...
WALKER: But the point is they have to qualify as a 501C3 (ph).
BEGALA: But anybody can as long as they make...
WALKER: Well, they've got to be able to show that they actually put the money toward a charitable cause.
BEGALA: You watch how fast the tobacco skags do this.
WALKER: But...
NADER: But the donors are the corporations. See the main thing is the decline of ethics. In 1995, 99 percent of your colleagues, Republicans put these rules in place.
WALKER: Well, I helped do it, so I mean that's the reason why I'm interested in this.
NADER: Why are they, why...
BEGALA: You have a very strong argument (ph)...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: We're almost out of time, but very quickly, tell me the Democrats who -- and the people on the left are so upset about this -- where were they when Senator Torricelli was getting free suits and antiques and watches...
(LAUGHTER)
NADER: Good point.
CARLSON: ... where were they, though?
NADER: They were looking the other way.
CARLSON: That's appalling, isn't it?
NADER: Absolutely.
CARLSON: Aren't you ashamed and kind of disappointed?
NADER: Ashamed? What are you talking about? You think the Democrats are on my back?
CARLSON: That's the spirit.
(APPLAUSE) CARLSON: That's why we like you, Ralph Nader.
BEGALA: Let's drive Torricelli out of the Senate. Ah -- already been done.
Bob Walker, former congressman from Pennsylvania, thank you very much.
WALKER: Thank you.
BEGALA: Ralph Nader, former Green Party presidential candidate, thank you both very much.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Next, in the CNN "News Alert," Connie Chung will give us the latest details on the investigations in to a pair of air tragedies.
After that, we will consider the ever growing field for Democratic candidates in the primaries and caucuses.
Before we drive off in to the sunset though, Arianna Huffington asks, "What would an al Qaeda terrorist want you to drive?"
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEGALA: As we reported at the top of the show, sources tell CNN that Connecticut Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman will join the field of Democratic presidential candidates next week.
And if all of this talk about 2004 seems just a tad early, consider this. Today's edition of the political newsletter, the Hotline, reports that Iowa Democrats may set their caucuses as early as January 17 of 2004, just a few days more than one year from today. And the New Hampshire primary could be January 27.
Here to talk about the already steamy presidential campaign, Democratic consultant David Axelrod and Republican strategist, Terry Holt.
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Guys, thank you for coming.
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: David Axelrod, thanks for joining us.
I want to read you a quote particularly, I thought, thoughtful quote about the problems that Dick Gephardt might have if he runs for president...
DAVID AXELROD, DEMOCRATIC AXELROD: Yes, yes...
CARLSON: Let me go through the motions any way. I love this part.
(LAUGHTER)
"The question is can he get the stench of Washington off him? The challenge for Gephardt is how much is he seen as the heartland populist candidate and how much is he seen as institutional Washington candidate?"
AXELROD: Right.
CARLSON: The genius behind that of course was you.
AXELROD: Thank you.
CARLSON: Tell us about the stench of Washington on Dick Gephardt?
AXELROD: Well, it was more a commentary on Washington than Dick Gephardt.
(LAUGHTER)
I want to make that clear. I feel a little like Ralph Cramdon (ph) and my big mouth and all of that.
But you know, I think that the great -- I was around in 1988 and Paul was as well when Gephardt ran for president. I was working for another candidate.
I was impressed by the campaign that he ran. He was a very, very convincing populist from the heartland. If he can recapture, I think he can be the nominee of the party. But the challenge is to be seen as that, and not as the former minority leader. And that's really the point I was trying to make.
CARLSON: Well, here's the problem. I would submit that there's another problem with the Gephardt candidacy and that he's seen, at least here in Washington, as someone who is so annoyed by the loss of the midterm, that he sort of took his marbles and went home.
He's announced that he's not going to run again in 2004. I want to read you a quote from him, himself.
Mr. Gephardt, "I wish we had won seats in the midterm. If that had happened I likely would have stayed in the leadership."
Now what, I mean, this is a man who is asking us to vote for him for president, but showing no resolve. "You know, if you, my party, isn't in power, I'm leaving. I don't want to play."
AXELROD: Yes, but you know the fact is that out there in the real world people aren't concerned about this stuff. This is an inside Washington deal. People are concerned about their health care. They're concerned about educating their kids. They're concerned about their jobs themselves as you guys just talked for some period of time.
And if he speaks convincingly on those issues, I don't think people are going to say, "yes, but you said that you would have stayed on as minority leader." I think that's inside baseball.
BEGALA: That's a good point. Terry Holt (ph), let me ask you about Joe Lieberman, who today let it be known to our sources anyway, that he's going to file papers to become a presidential candidate.
He was all of the papers today. Let me read you a quote in the Baltimore Sun talking about the president's economic plan, the kitchen table economic issues that Mr. Axelrod was just talking about.
Here's what he said. "President Bush's plan is an irresponsible, ineffective, ideologically driven wish list that is obvious" -- oblivious it should be, typo -- "to the particular problems our faltering economy is facing."
That's music to my ears as a Democrat. This is exactly the case that you're worried about Democrats making against the Bush economic plan, isn't it?
TERRY HOLT, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: Well, I'm not worried too much about this field of Democrats at this stage. I mean, the Democrats don't seem to have made any progress since the last election where they were all over the place. They didn't have an agenda. And they had a horrible election day.
You know, this guy changed every position he ever held to run for vice president last time, whether it was school choice, tax cuts or...
BEGALA: He did win, came in first, got more votes than Dick Cheney.
HOLT: ... there's another gentlemen sitting down at the White House. Whereas, the Republicans have been focused. They've had agenda...
AXELROD: Why don't you ask Ralph Nader about that.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: I'm sorry, go ahead.
HOLT: Well, the fact of the matter is that the Republicans are united behind this president. He's been consistent. He's had a pro- growth, national defense message that's getting out. People like him and trust him. And this crowd doesn't stand for anything.
That's a big problem.
BEGALA: This is even more music to my ears that Lieberman getting on a more populist economic program, because it is the tell tale music of hubris, my friend.
The guys running Bush's political operation are long time friends of mine. They are brilliant, but you know, they're starting to believe their own press, aren't they Terry.
You're not scared of any of these Democrats, are you? Tell me that. Make me happy.
HOLT: Well, I'll tell you, they're all liberal as the day is long.
BEGALA: Sure, they can't touch Bush. You just relax. Eat right and exercise. Bush will get reelected, brother.
HOLT: I will tell you, Paul...
BEGALA: Don't worry.
HOLT: I love to have elections about differences. And this will be a great election about differences. The president is for less taxes. Dick Gephardt, who I think is the strongest candidate in this race right now, has voted for every tax increase in his career, and voted against every tax cut.
So I like those differences.
AXELROD: That's actually not true. I mean, he in fact voted -- one of the issues that was raised was that he voted for the Reagan tax cut in '82, which you probably applauded...
HOLT: Darn wrong. It was 20 years ago.
AXELROD: Here's the music...
HOLT: I apologize...
AXELROD: The odd music that I heard you say is that he's running on a pro-growth platform, and we've lost two million jobs.
(LAUGHTER)
ALELROD: I don't know how much more growth we can stand.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Well, wait. I want to read you a quote from my...
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: ... I may differ here a little bit. Actually I like some of the candidates, one in particular running on the Democratic side. I want to read you a quote from one of them, the Reverend Al Sharpton.
(LAUGHTER) CARLSON: "I'm qualified, probably more qualified than any other person who is expected to be in the Democratic ticket in 2004 because actually I have a following and I speak for the people."
David Alexrod, do you take Al Sharpton seriously?
AXELROD: Well, I think he's going to be a serious player in the sense that he will arrive at the convention and he will have delegates. And I don't think anybody should kid themselves. He does speak to and for a constituency. And I've done races in New York. I've seen Reverend Sharpton. He is a smart, clever person.
I think he's been on this program probably. And you've seen it yourself. But you know, will he be the nominee? Obviously not. Will he be a player? Yes.
CARLSON: Will he have a prime time speaking role in Boston at the Democratic convention?
AXELROD: Well, I don't know.
CARLSON: What do you think?
AXELROD: So far as I know, they haven't worked out the speaking arrangements.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: But if he has delegates, he'll have to speak, won't he?
AXELROD: Well, he will probably have to speak. And you know, I don't think that it's any different than past conventions in our party or your party. People of different ideological stripes get a row.
HOLT: And you have to have charisma to get elected president. And there's a charisma deficit in this group. Al Sharpton has plenty of charisma. You ought to think about that.
CARLSON: Amen.
HOLT: That's right.
BEGALA: Al Sharpton is going nowhere fast except on to CROSSFIRE where we love having him. But you know, he just had his first event in New Hampshire. And he drew 75 people.
HOLT: That's great.
BEGALA: Come on.
CARLSON: That's actually not that unusual.
BEGALA: They got to hang a pork chop around the guys neck to get the dog to play with him.
No, he ain't no where except to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). HOLT: Living room discussions. He can't 75 people...
CARLSON: He's listening to the people.
Paul, look, the people.
BEGALA: The CBS -- a rival network -- the CBS news folks to conduct a poll this week. And they asked people -- this is the Achilles heel of Bush -- that's why he is going to be a one-term wonder like his daddy. They asked people this question, "Who do the Bush administration policies favor?"
Fifty-nine percent of us say the rich, 11 say the middle class; only 2 say the poor and only 23 say everybody.
Sixty percent of Americans say Bush favors the rich. This is the Achilles heel for him, isn't it?
HOLT: Well, let's go for the class warfare when we don't have an agenda. I mean, the fact of the matter is the president has passed an historic education reform package. If we didn't have Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt running...
BEGALA: Did he fund that? It was a year ago today? Did he fund it?
HOLT: ... running the Democratic Party of Congress -- of course.
BEGALA: No, he didn't.
HOLT: There was a 9 - 10 percent increase in education funding.
BEGALA: He didn't fund it. He broke his promise. The law says how much money should be in. Bush underfunded it by billions of dollars.
HOLT: Well, we have increased funding for education every year the Republicans have been in the majority in Congress.
I think that says more about...
BEGALA: Well, that was because Clinton was in the presidency for most of those years.
HOLT: ... our priority in education than...
CARLSON: David Axelrod, very quickly, we're almost out of time. Edwards, John Edwards of North Carolina, a year ago being talked up as this great force.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Really. I could show you the polls; we don't have time. He's really fallen in the estimation of fellow Democrats. Why is that? Why has he blown up so early? AXELROD: Well, because we're all -- we play the inside game. He had a bad few minutes on Tim Russert's show and that got the chattering class going. I think he recovered a little bit last week on Stephanopoulos's show.
And you know, your poll of yesterday was somewhat surprising to me, because he was doing pretty much as well as everyone else.
I think Edwards is a resourceful guy, and wouldn't count him out of this race. His problem is the experience issue, and he's going to have to find a persuasive way to deal with it.
CARLSON: Oh, it's going to be fun to watch.
David Axelrod, Terry Holt, thank you both very much. We appreciate it.
BEGALA: Very good job. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
AXELROD: Thank you.
CARLSON: A viewer who has almost graduated from Saturday morning cartoons has found some new super heroes. We'll get to that in our "Fireback" segment.
But next, a commercial you may be seeing over the weekend isn't designed to get to you buy more beer or as it turns out more SUVs. We'll show it to you. We'll be right back.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. We're coming to you, as we do every night, from the beautiful, wonderful, George Washington University here in downtown Washington, D.C., home of the Colonials.
The biggest trend in the auto industries are all on display this week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. And sport utility vehicles are so hot that even Porsche is getting into the act. The Porsche SUV is perfect for off-roading to your children's soccer games. If you're in a hurry, it goes zero to 60 -- get this -- in seven seconds.
Chances are Arianna Huffington will not be driving one and not because they go for $58,000 grand a pop. She is a syndicated columnist, the author of the soon to be published book, "Pigs At the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining America."
She joins us from Los Angeles to discuss her concerns with SUVs.
Arianna, thank you for joining us.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, DETROIT PROJECT: Thank you.
CARLSON: Arianna, I want to show you something you've doubtless seen because you're behind it, but I'm not sure all of our viewers have seen it yet. It's so over the top I want to put it up. This is one of the ads against SUVs. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD ACTOR (voice-over): This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive who sold the gas to that George bought for his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Now I guess, Arianna, one of the many things that bothers me about this spot is the moral equivalence it implies. It implies -- you know, "drive an SUV, hijack an airliner; in both cases you're committing terrorism."
That's just silly and wrong, isn't it?
HUFFINGTON: Do you think that the Bush administration's drug war ads are silly and wrong?
Because the moral...
CARLSON: Yes, yes, I do. I do think they're silly and wrong.
HUFFINGTON: Well, I haven't heard you say that before tonight. But the point is that they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to equate smoking a joint with funding terrorism.
We are making an infinitely more credible link because the truth is that driving an SUV is a lifestyle choice. And to have the sale of SUVs go up by 6 percent in the last year at the time when we are being told by the administration that we're at war, that we need in increase our oil independence, that we should not be beholden to terrorist harboring nations.
It doesn't make any sense at all.
BEGALA: Well, Arianna, let me ask you a more fundamental question. Why this crusade? Homelessness is up. Poverty is up. The uninsured is up. We've got enormous problems in this country. Why did you pick this?
HUFFINGTON: Well, we can have multiple crusades. Right now we believe that the time of the of September 11th is for us to increase our oil independence. I mean, look at the way we're kowtowing to Saudi Arabia. We are actually basically allowing a nation that's harboring terrorism that subsidizing suicide bombers, that's sending quote unquote "charitable contributions to hijackers." We're basically allowing them to get away with everything just because we need to continue to be -- to feed our oil addiction.
And you know, isn't it amazing that the McCain-Kerry bill was defeated in the last Congress, that would increase our fuel efficiency standards? Isn't it amazing that the administration is suing the state of California for daring to impose more fuel efficient standards?
CARLSON: Wait, Arianna...
HUFFINGTON: It doesn't make any sense.
CARLSON: But Arianna, nobody is defending Saudi Arabia or its role in terrorism, et cetera.
I just guess I object to the singly out of SUVs. Because as you know, pickup trucks don't get any better mileage than SUVs. The elderly cars, cars that were made 20 years ago driven mostly by poor people, they get even worse gas mileage.
But of course poor people can't afford to buy fashionable and very expensive hybrid cars. Why pound on poor people just because can't afford it?
HUFFINGTON: Tucker, I'm driving -- Tucker, let me get the facts straight. I'm driving a hybrid car. It's cost $17,000. It does 52 miles to the gallon. If you want to buy a hummer (ph) on the other hand, at $50,000 -- that's how much it costs. It's nine miles to the gallon, and they can't keep in stock.
And there is a...
CARLSON: But your car can't drive over anything though, can it?
(LAUGHTER)
HUFFINGTON: OK, here...
CARLSON: I bet it can't.
HUFFINGTON: ... is the other fact. There are -- it's true. Some people who need to go off road. It's an infinitesimal proportion of the people who drive SUVs. You know why? Because there's a ridiculous tax loophole that basically means you can depreciate two- thirds of your SUV like you can depreciate $25,000 of a $37,000 SUV.
CARSON: Really.
HUFFING ton: And this unfairness -- absolutely.
CARLSON: I'm going to do that. I had no idea.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Let me ask you about -- sorry to cut you off, Arianna. OK.
HUFFINGTON: Yes, just let me say one more thing. The reason why is that in 2000 alone the three auto makers spent $37 million in lobbying. You have Andy Card, the chief of staff, who was the chief lobbyist for the auto makers.
Basically, once again special interests have tromped the public interest.
BEGALA: Well, let me ask you though, about the safety issue. That ad, it like the drug ads, which I think are moronic because they're too attenuative (ph). OK, you're asking -- you draw this linkage and here's George and there's an oil executive and then there's Saudi Arabia and then there's terrorists.
You're asking somebody to make all of those linkages and see the safety threat of terrorism and then ignore the obvious safety threat of putting then in a little $17,000 hybrid tin can.
I mean, peole are safer with their kids in SUVs, aren't they?
HUFFINGTON: You are way behind the curve. I highly recommend you read Keith Bradshaw's book. He was the New York Times Detroit correspondent. And his book is phenomenal.
It actually explains step by step why the SUVs are actually much more dangerous. They're four times as likely to roll over as ordinary cars. And they are three times as likely to kill their passengers as ordinary cars.
This is one of the myths that Detroit has perpetrated, the safety of SUVs. I would like to actually read the facts.
BEGALA: Well, I'm going to read your book. I don't know if I want to read Bradshaw's.
CARLSON: Arianna, really quickly, can you give us three other crusades that you might undertake in the future to save energy, to say asking people to live in tents or can you take it one step...
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: ... beyond the SUVs? Quickly.
HUFFINGTON: Actually, let me just say what we are going to do. We are going on this crusade because all we need is a critical mass of people and then we're going to be as successful as the designated drive campaign. Do you remember that campaign?
CARLSON: Oh...
HUFFINGTON: Before the campaign, it was very chic and very macho to drink and drive. After that, it because socially irresponsible. We want the same change with SUVs.
CARLSON: Well, we will still like you better than the ladies from MADD though.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: You have more of a sense of humor.
Arianna Huffington, thank you for joining us from Los Angeles.
HUFFINGTON: Thank you.
CARLSON: We appreciate it. Thanks.
BEGALA: Coming up in our "Fireback", one of us gets a less than friendly invitation from some Canadians, that country to the north, the frozen north.
We'll explain. We will be right back.
(APPLAUSE)
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. It's time for our "Fireback" segment. We invite you go completely bananas and write us e-mail, and you do.
First up tonight is James Snell (ph) of Hanford, California. "I'm tried of hearing the Democrats pull this class war crap," he writes elegantly. "The Democrats have no vested interest in generating real economic growth as long as the economy can be used as an issue in the 2004 presidential election, and it shows."
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Well, I sort of agree with that. They do have an incentive to want the economy go bad.
BEGALA: The Democrats under President...
CARLSON: Now admit it.
BEGALA: ... generated 23.8 million new jobs. The Republicans under...
CARLSON: Yes...
BEGALA: ... Clinton have cost us 2 million -- I mean under Bush -- have cost us 2 million.
CARLSON: It's totally untrue.
I mean, you say it every night, doesn't make it any truer.
BEGALA: No, Democrats are proven they're better at running the economy.
CARLSON: I've noticed, yes.
BEGALA: Maryland (ph), the last name, Princeton, New Jersey writes, "Paul, do you think President Bush read your book? Maybe he'll stop beating the war drums and do something with our economy now."
And I don't know that the president has time. I know he's a busy man. I may send him the Cliff Notes, maybe a comic version or something. He's too busy to read my book. I don't blame him.
CARLSON: How do you tell the Cliff Notes apart from the regular version?
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: No, sorry. No, I'm a fan. I'm not beating up on you, Paul. Look, I'm not beating up. I'm in the book.
BEGALA: Tucker is in the book.
CARLSON: Yes, I am.
Buy the book.
Jason McGredy (ph) of Sidney Mines, Nova Scotia, Canada, that's the foreign country to the north of here, writes, "Your comments about Canada, a foreign country to the north of here, citing that the U.S. needs another parking lot are totally out of line. Our prime minister punched out a fellow who bothered him, so lose your bow tie and head north to a place where men are men. Bring some friends."
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: Whoa. Sounds like Jason is a little lonely. That's quite an invitation.
That invitation makes me a little nervous. "Men are men. Bring some friends."
Thanks, Jason.
BEGALA: Men are men, bring some friends." IT's lonely and cold in Sidney Mines.
No, no. Here is Steven Krueger (ph) in Winnipeg, another terrific Canadian city, writes, "CROSSFIRE is my favorite show." Clearly an intelligent man, obviously a Canadian. "When I was eight or nine I would watch super hero shows, and CROSSFIRE reminds me of one of them. James Carville is Bald Boy, lovely, and Paul Begala is the Clinton Caper. They fight the evil, Novak and Attack and his trusted side-kick, Tucker the Terror. This would be the perfect show if someone had some sort of super strength and lightening power."
Steven, it's obvious you haven't been watching. I do have super strength and lightening power. You just haven't been watching.
CARLSON: Steven is sitting alone in his bedroom with Spock ears on. I can just picture him.
Yes, sir a question.
BEGALA: May the force be with you, whatever that is.
Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You indicated earlier the eight million people in this country are earning minimum age are insignificant. Those are your words.
CARLSON: I didn't say that. And I think it's fewer than eight million.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, well, either way. Do you really think the people who bag your groceries, wash your car, and cook your meals in Georgetown, are they really insignificant?
CARLSON: It goes with out saying that they're not. I didn't say that. And that's quite a demagogic point to make. And I appreciate it. What I was saying was that the number of people in the economy who rely on minimum wage jobs as full time employment is very small. Doesn't mean that they're insignificant. It means raise the minimum wage is not going to change the economy.
BEGALA: Well, but the key...
CARLSON: It's an economic fact.
BEGALA: ... no but Tucker, the key weasel word there is "full time jobs." Corporate America gives them these crummy -- I almost used another word -- crummy part time...
CARLSON: Actually, it's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) labor unions as (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
BEGALA: ... jobs without benefits. That's why so many minimum wage workers are working part time because corporate American don't want to pay them benefits either.
We ought to raise the minimum wage, have a health care plan that provides for them.
(APPLAUSE)
Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our dependence on oil in the Middle East is something that needs to be changed, but calling it terrorism if you drive an SUV is just crazy.
CARLSON: I agree with that. I think we tried to point that out to Ms. Huffington. If fact, it desensitizes people. I mean, it may be a good thing to drive SUV, maybe a bad thing. It's a subtle conversation. There are nuances of valid ones. But to call everybody who drives an SUV an accomplice to terrorism sort of dulls our senses, I think, and is a bad idea for that reason.
BEGALA: Speaking of dull senses, from the left, I am Paul Begala. Good night for CROSSFIRE.
CARLSON: From the right, I'm Tucker Carlson. Join us again tomorrow night for yet more CROSSFIRE.
"CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT" begins right now. Have a great night.
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Campaign Heats Up>
