The Exchange; Interview with Howard Dean

From New Hampshire Public Radio I'm Laura Conaway and this is the exchange. Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean is with us today. Although seen as one of the more liberal Democrats running Dean says he was a tightwad as Vermont governor and would bring that fiscal conservatism to the Oval Office. Still his administration would spend money on expanding health care education job creation. Most Democratic candidates support these programs too. But Dean's rivals have attacked him on other subjects saying for all his professed straight talk. Howard Dean has reversed his positions on issues such as gun control Medicare and even the war in Iraq. Howard Dean joins us in the studio for a second time this primary campaign. We'll tackle those issues and more. Join us with your calls 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 888 9 to HPR. Governor Dean good to have you back. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me back Laura. Now last time you were here it was purely biographical we talked about your background and we

listened back to that interview yesterday and one of the things that struck us was that your two favorite presidents were George Washington because of his enormous impact on the evolution of the rule of law and Harry Truman and Truman because and I'm quoting he was able to make the toughest decisions with the least regard to polls. My question for you is how often these days do you feel like Harry Truman on the campaign trail a lot. Harry I've got my supporters are wearing Give them hell Howard buttons and of course that comes from Give them hell Harry and Harry Truman's famous rejoinder was I don't give them hell I just tell the truth and the Republicans think it's hell. Harry Truman was a fighter he did an incredible things. He integrated the armed forces in 1948 a vastly unpopular move in both the north and the South. He recalled General Douglas MacArthur very very popular military hero who simply was not obeying the orders of the commander in chief. He was willing to do the things that had to be done in the best interest of the country and he really didn't care what the polls showed. And I think that's very important that a president.

Let's jump into one of the major issues of this campaign and especially your campaign. Governor Dean and that is your opposition to the war in Iraq. Senator Kerry said here recently that you did voice support for something called the Biden Lugar amendment which would have given the president authority go to war but in a different form or different wrinkle as he put it. Now first of all what is the Biden Lugar. Senator Kerry. I understand Senator Kerry has spent so much time attacking you on this program that you had to say well can we talk about Senator Kerry for a moment as usual as many many of the attacks are. There's a grain of truth in there. And then the rest of it comes later. The Biden Lugar amendment was an amendment that required the president to come back to Congress to get authorization to go to war. It required him to go to the United Nations. What Senator Kerry and Wes Clark and all those folks supported unfortunately was not the Biden Lugar Amendment it was it was the power to do giving the president of the United States the power to go to war without coming back from Congress. I think that we made a terrible mistake going into Iraq. I think giving the president time to go in and put together a union coalition

coalition would have been fine but that's not what they did. They didn't support the Biden Lugar amendment. They supported a blank check for the United States to go to war which he subsequently did five months later I think Congress could have taken their time looked at the facts and the facts did not support the president we have now seen that all the things that the president said to justify going into Iraq. Were misleading and you know I've been attacked because of a lack of foreign policy experience. I don't think the kind of foreign policy experience we want in the White House from a Democrat is the foreign policy experience that sent us to war in Iraq without knowing why we're there. So Biden Lugar would have required the president to go to Congress and would have required him to go to the U.N. or the White House or the U.N. for authorization then said he had to. And if he couldn't get it under any circumstances he was going to have to come back to Congress to get authorization. And that's the key difference between myself and Senator Kerry and the others on this and the Iraq war issue. There have been polls showing that many Americans some even show that most Americans still think the war

in Iraq was a good idea good idea to get rid of Saddam Hussein was a great idea to get rid of Saddam Hussein but now we're stuck there. Of course it cost us $166 billion a year. Four hundred lives well in almost 2000 wounded many of those who have lost limbs and will never be the same. I think the price we pay is enormous. And the truth is Saddam Hussein was never a threat to the United States. Iraq is more dangerous to America today than they were when Saddam was in there. If our mission in the world was to get rid of every bad dictator then I have a whole other list of about 15 more that I can go get. I don't think that's our mission in the world. I think our mission in the world is to defend the United States of America and to stop genocide if necessary. Now some will say oh well didn't he commit genocide. He did during the first Bush administration he wanted to use that as a justification. Then you don't pick a 10 year old massacre have to go and you should have gone in when we were there in the first place so this is a backwards foreign policy. They never thought about what they were doing. And the Democrats in Washington went along with it and that is not a

good marker for what you might do as president if you're willing to be bamboozled by a president who gives you bad information. Before we set off to war. So even though it was a good idea take it it's great to get rid of Saddam Hussein. If you were president you would not have gone in in the first place that's when you left Saddam Hussein. If I were president as if I were president the United States at that at that time I would very much have tried to get to get the United Nations to either remove Saddam or keep him under wraps which we were successfully doing for 12 years we had overflight zones we were shooting down any planes that challenged us. It was the Clinton policy basically. I think the Clinton policy worked very well and the Bush policy has now resulted in $166 billion being spent in Iraq for that money. You could have and sure had health insurance for every single man woman and child and had another $80 billion to start to balance the budget and fund education reduce property taxes in New Hampshire which have soared because of this president's fiscal stewardship or lack of same. And you mentioned the taxes where it and I want to turn to that. You have called for full repeal of President

Bush's tax cut. Now does that include full repeal of the reduction in the marriage penalty. Getting rid of that new child tax credit. So players why. The average person in the top 1 percent of Americans got $26000 and tax cuts. The average person 60 percent of Americans got $304 some got more. Some got zero a lot got zero. Fifty percent of Americans got a hundred dollars or less. This tax cut was skewed towards those people who were financing George Bush's re-election campaign. I disagree with those Democrats who say we can only repeal the tax cuts for the wealthy. Let me tell you why the $304 that middle class people got was accompanied by huge property tax increases because the president chose to give the bulk of the money to people like Ken Lay who ran Enron and then short no child left behind which is a bad bill anyway and it's a federal education. Right. And special education. So those weren't funded right. Driving your property taxes go up.

He cut money for fire and police those monies had to be made up with local property taxes and tax increases. He cut 84000 kids off pell grants college tuitions of soared because the president decided to give tax cuts to Americans which amounted to $304 for 60 percent of Americans. I think most people would gladly give up $304 of their kids college tuitions were more reasonable if their property taxes went down if they had adequate fire and police protection. So 300 dollars for 60 percent of Americans say and that's all they got. That's what they got on average. Now the my rivals are saying well so-and-so who makes $40000 with three children and this and that and the other thing got $2000. You can always that's what Bush does. You can always put pick people out and say this is their tax cut you take it away. There's another reason to say we should repeal the whole tax cut and that is I don't think Democrats are going to beat George Bush by saying we're going to give you everything. Yes you can have a tax cut. You can have health insurance. You can have special education funding your property taxes will go down. Who's going to believe that. Let's be truthful about money. I believe we ought to have a balanced

budget in this country. You can't get to a balanced budget and have tax cuts have funding for special education have health care this election for me is about empowering Americans to make decisions is about treating voters as adults which no politicians do very often of either party where they come from Washington. Let people make responsible decisions in their own lives. We know we can't both have the new living room set and pay off our credit card debt. We can do one or the other but not both. I think we ought to pay off the credit card debt before we get the new living room set. Let's let Americans vote on that. But they're not going to hear a lot of blather from me about you can't have everything and you can have a tax cut too because people shouldn't believe it and if they do believe it that we're not going to have the kind of strong country that we ought to have. That's a tough position for a presidential candidate to take. I'm remembering past campaigns where candidates said no I'm not going to cut your taxes. In fact I'm going to take that tax cut away and those candidates didn't make it to the well except that we're not really talking about tax taking tax cuts away what we're really talking about is lowering property taxes

instead of giving you a $304 income tax. You get that. I think they sure do in New Hampshire. They sure do. People are very sensitive to what they're paying in property taxes. I was talking with the woman last night. We've got on the subject of college tuition this is a teacher. She's been there for 20 some odd years she makes decent money although her husband just lost her job and had to get a lower paying job. They are really struggling to send their kid to college because they make too much money quote unquote to get any kind of financial aid. And yet they really struggle. Now if George Bush had done what I want to do on college stuff in terms of making college education easier to fund instead of giving tax cuts of $26000 to the wealthiest million people in America then we'd have a shot. Middle class people would have a shot. This is an administration administration who has done everything they can for corporations and the people who are writing those $2000 checks to the campaign and they're doing nothing for middle class people who are losing their jobs and finding it harder and harder and harder to pay their taxes pay their health insurance and send their kids to college.

Now one more thing on taxes you said empowering Americans to make decisions. That's what you said. Your position is all about. Republicans would say that the more money people have in their own pockets the more empowered they are to make decisions because they're deciding how to spend it on health care on higher education on whatever that might be true except that the president didn't put any money back in their pockets he gave it all to his friends. Ken Lay and the boys who run Enron $304 doesn't go very far to paying your increased property taxes or paying your kid's college tuition are paying your health care premiums that have gone through the roof because the president cut back on Medicaid and so that the cost of that population then gets shifted to all the people who have insurance. This is not a president who's going to stand up for ordinary Americans and he hasn't done that. Let's go to the phones 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number in the exchange. I'm Laura Conaway. My guest today Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. Howard Dean is a doctor. He was Vermont governor for more than a decade. He also served as lieutenant governor of Vermont State Rep join us if you want to know where Howard

Dean stands on an issue important to you. Give us a call 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 2 an HPR and the first call is from Brookline Ariella. Hi Arielle go ahead you're on the air. Hi Governor Dean. I am hearing a lot of people saying basically what they said when Bill Clinton was running which was how could a governor of my state with not much experience on the national level be an effective president. I was wondering how you would answer that and what you've done in Vermont that you would want to do last night on the domestic side. I want health insurance for everybody in Vermont today. Almost every child has health insurance under the age of 18 are working poor people have health insurance. One third of our seniors have prescription benefits. We got tired of waiting for Washington to do something about and so we did it. I want health insurance for every American every other industrialized country in the world has health insurance it doesn't have to be run by the government. You can do it in the private sector in a public private partnership but we've got to do that. The cost of that is 87 billion dollars which is what we're spending in Iraq over 10

years. Them each year and the 10 billion year up which is what we spend in Iraq every year. Now we made a choice. I don't think it's the right choice but that's the choice the president made. I do I want to invest in early childhood. People blame the public schools all the time for not graduating people who can read and write. The truth is we often send them kids who can't learn when they're when they're 5 years old. We need to invest in early childhood and we've done that in our state as well and has driven our child abuse rate down by 43 percent in 10 years. I want a balanced budget. We cannot continue to afford the credit card president borrow and spend borrow and spend and borrow and spend in foreign policy. I want a foreign policy consistent with American values. I believe that the Clinton administration far more represented what America what was right about American foreign policy in the Bush administration we cannot have a preemptive policy of striking everybody that we don't like. There was no evidence. A year later that Saddam Hussein was ever a danger to the United States of America. But there is evidence that they are now because al Qaeda is probably in

Iraq probably responsible for some of the attacks on American troops and Iraqis. So I think the president has really gone off in the wrong direction on foreign policy. And I think the Democrats and I'm running against supported that President when he did that and I think that was the wrong thing to do. Now what you're saying there was no evidence Iraq was a danger but the United Nations even people who oppose the United States going in there did worry that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. That's what the whole and for this it was it was there was no question about that. So there is a threat there. But the question is is a threat to the United States. My position before the Iraq war started is that Iraq was a threat to its neighbors and therefore the United Nations had an obligation to deal with that. But Iraq was never a threat to the United States and the president admitted. About four weeks ago that there was no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. Even though he led us to believe 70 percent of Americans believed that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 because of the president's misstatements.

You also mentioned in your answer to Ario health care as I understand your plan Governor Dean it would expand current programs to include more Americans including the private sector. The plan very briefly everybody under 25 can get a government health insurance program if they want one or they don't they can keep their current health insurance. Everybody who makes less than thirty three thousand dollars a year can get a government health care program if they want one like Medicare or Medicaid. It's like Medicare that's S-CHIP program would be the closest child health program then. And of course everybody over 65 would have Medicare with a prescription benefit what would be the reverse of what the president is trying to pass. Because the president is trying to pass a bill that will help the people who don't need the help and it doesn't help the people who really are paying two or three or four or five hundred dollars a month that they don't get much help with the people who are paying $50 a month get help it seems an odd way to do it to me but I think it's mostly driven by the vote getting that policy. The rest of the people. Let's suppose you're making $40000 a year and you're self-employed and you can't afford health insurance. You get to buy into the same plan that Congress has for

7 1/2 percent of your adjusted gross income less than $300 a month. That's a program that people can afford. It's a program that covers everybody. It's not free. It's not run by the government. The congressional plan is a consortium of private insurance companies. It's good insurance. It's parody. You can't be denied for pre-existing condition if you're 58 years old and you have cancer or you had cancer and now you have heart disease and high blood pressure you still cannot be turned down for insurance and you pay the same amount of money a healthy 27 years old would. Both those things called guaranteed issue and community rating we have in Vermont we have for years. It's a much better way to insure people. What I want to do is not try to reform the whole system right now. I simply want to get everybody in the system because when we try to reform the system. Harry and Louise who you may remember is the great actors I remember come out of the woodwork and say oh you're going to lose you can't choose your doctor anymore you can't have your insurance company the government is going to run everything. Well this doesn't do any of those things. It's just exactly the system we have now. But it's expanded to cover everybody. And $87 billion will go into helping small businesses buy health insurance and

individuals buy health insurance who can't afford it. When we did a live form actually on presidential healthcare plans up in the county in New Hampshire a week or so ago one of the issues that came up Governor Dean was skepticism from providers. They said that today it's hard enough to find doctors to take patients already who are under chip or under Medicare under Medicaid. Already there's not enough doctors who will take these patients. So how do you expand the pool of doctors willing to accommodate all these new patients who had that problem when we do this in Vermont for everybody under 18. We've had to raise reimbursement rates. You can't have you can't do it on the cheap that you can't do it on the cheap. You got to pay people for their work. And so we raised the reimbursement rates to pediatricians. Let's go to Manchester Andrew is up from there. Hello and are you on the exchange. Go ahead. Morning. Good morning Governor. My question is on universal health care how and when you talked about it just a minute ago how and when do you think that will happen here in America. Well it is your plan universal. It doesn't cover everybody it theoretically it does. But here's here's the here's what we did. There are no mandates in this plan. This

plan is designed to do one two things one cover everybody and two to pass. People said well we should have a single payer well maybe we should but it won't pass. So all I'm doing is I'm taking 20 years of experience in both health care because I'm a doctor and delivered health care and in government and designing a plan that will pass. And the salient features are that everybody will be enrolled who doesn't have insurance but they can opt out. We think about 3 percent of people will opt out just because they don't want health insurance for some reason. With some people our plan our plan for under kids. Ninety nine percent of our kids are eligible for health insurance but only 96 percent actually have health insurance. We have done everything. We sign kids up at school in Vermont. Yeah we sign off at school we sign them up. They come to the emergency room we sign them up any place we can. I did television ads. We chased him at playgrounds. Yeah exactly. We didn't mean anything to get these families signed up. We still don't have 3 percent of the ones that are eligible signed up. Why. A variety of reasons people move a lot so they may just be there for a

little while and then move someplace else harder to find them. Some families feel strongly they don't want anything to do with the government. So they're not going to accept a government program. Others may feel that this welfare medicaid used to be considered welfare related program and Vermont now it's a middle class program for kids. But you know there's some translation time there. Some people we think will opt out of my plan at the top level if they make $100000 a year. They may just say well I'm not going to pay seven and a half percent of my income I'm just not going to have health insurance. And there are some people who do that so our actuary a very well respected firm in Washington called Lewin Group said you have to. If we're going to put our name on this you have to say that you may have as many as 10 million people who people who choose not to be insured or you can't find but it is universal. It's just that we don't think we're going to find everybody unless you choose to make it mandatory. Trouble is once you do that that's what John Edwards and I think Wes Clark has said that parents mandatorily must buy health insurance for their kids. Well this is New Hampshire and I live across the river in Vermont. And one thing these two states have in common is we do

not like mandates. Once you tell somebody they're going to have to do something we resist. So there are no mandates in my in my bill because I don't think that will that will help pass it. And that means there'll be some people who will willingly be uncovered and we have to put that in our estimation. I want to turn to campaign finance reform. Governor Dean you recently decided to forego public financing of your presidential campaign. How come. Because George Bush is going to raise he's already raised a hundred million dollars. I've raised more than every other Democrat. We've only got a quarter of what he's got. We think our campaign is campaign finance reform we outraised every other Democrat in the last quarter by three times as much as anybody else and raised average gift with seventy seven dollars. That's campaign finance reform. Our target is to get two million people to give us a hundred dollars to compete with George Bush. He's going to raise at least two hundred million dollars. We think there are 2 million people in America that would gladly pay $100 dollars to send George Bush back to Crawford Texas and that's what we're going to do. Is the sort of the ultimate campaign finance reform is the grassroots organization that we've

put together. You polled your supporters and said Should I do this or not. The reason we did that is because we knew that if they didn't support it we couldn't do it. You wouldn't do it if they had said no. But clearly if they had said no we would not done it because they would have indicated to us that they're not willing to support us going outside the campaign finance laws. What we what we the campaign finance law says that if you raise money the first $250 will be matched by the federal government. Since all our country or many of most of our contributions are small contributions. We had about 18 million dollars coming to us from the federal government which we gave up. Now you don't do that without going to your supporters and saying look we're going to have to raise not only 18 million dollars more than we thought but we're also going to have to raise substantial amounts of money in small donations to compete with George Bush. Are you up for this. Because if their answer is no we're not up for this. Then we can't do it. How do you feel about criticism that decisions like yours are. You know the beginning of the end for the public financing system of presidential elections. I think the beginning of the end for the public financing system was George Bush in 2000 when he raised $100 billion

to spend outside the campaign finance reform system the campaign finance reform is something I believe in I believe in public financing of campaigns. But I also believe in spending limits. When we passed and I signed the campaign finance reform bill in Vermont we challenge something called the Buckley vs. Valeo decision in 1976 which said decision right. They said that political donations are free speech. So you can't say our political spending is free speech. You can't put a limit on it. We challenge that with our law which is then suspended by the courts until it gets to the Supreme Court. I think spending limits are absolutely essential for real campaign finance reform otherwise people either who have personal fortunes or people who can raise large amounts of money because they're indebted to corporations such as the president will be able to outraise every other candidate and I don't think this country is a strong country if you can buy a democracy to limit spending. No don't focus so much on the contributions but limit spending limit spending. I do want to focus on the contributions. I don't think it's right to give your campaign five million dollars or

50 million dollars as Steve Forbes tried to do or did successfully. That's not right either. What this what this has got to be about is leveling the playing field so everybody has a chance. And so ordinary Americans can participate and that's exactly what our campaign has done. Ordinary Americans taking back their country. We will talk more with Howard Dean in just a moment and we'll take more of your calls 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 to HPR. This is the exchange on NH. More with Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean coming up in just a minute on the exchange on New Hampshire Public Radio. And coming up at 10:00 on the Diane Rehm Show it's the weekly news roundup. It's 9:30. Good morning I'm Don Colgan had New Hampshire Public Radio support comes from contributing listeners like Cecile Abels of Strafford.

Additional support comes from compu care a Peterboro digital dictation solution since 1989 now providing the newest Dragon dictation software with sales training and demonstrations online to abilities dot com. From the merchants of Woodstock Vermont welcoming the savvy shopper to the diverse shops restaurants galleries and lodgings of historic Woodstock Vermont. And the Every Child Matters Education Fund making child abuse prevention a priority in New Hampshire. Information online at every child matters. Dot org. This is the exchange. I'm Laura Conaway. Today we're talking with Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean about the major issues in this primary. We've already talked about Iraq and taxes and campaign finance reform. And we want to hear from you. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 for the next president of the United States what do you think the top priorities should be. Do you want to know where Howard Dean stands on the issues important to you.

Governor Dean is running with eight other Democrats in New Hampshire's presidential primary. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number 1 800 8 9 2 and HPR and let's go next to Canberra. Tim joins us from there. Hello Tom you're on the air. Go ahead. Hi. Governor Dean I've heard a little bit about your hiring plan but not in great detail. I'm a little worried about the cost of the utility me basically what it is and how it would cover and how you pay for it. Sure. It cost 7 billion dollars. That includes a quadrupling of the size of Americorp which is a way to help kids pay for college when they do service to America. The money comes from repealing the three trillion dollar tax cut that mostly went to the top 1 percent of Americans. And the plan is as follows. It's actually quite simple. We start in the eighth grade with kids and parents getting them to commit to doing well in high school so they can go to college and saying that every year you will be guaranteed a package of ten thousand dollars in loans or

grants depending on your financial circumstances for the four years you are in college. If you don't go to college but you get higher technical training advanced technical training this will cover that as well. The loans would have to be repaid. But no more of your 10 years no more than 10 percent of your income would ever be used for loan payments and they loans with payments repayments would end after 10 years. So that after 10 years you would be absolved of your loans even if you hadn't paid him and paid him off as long as you paid 10 percent of your income. How do colleges feel about that. Well because there's this is this is federally subsidized loans because we're not talking about private loans or the private cost of the government Yeah that's cost. That's what the 7.1 billion dollars per year when it's fully ramped up. Now if you go into public service professions such as teaching nursing social work fire police protection first response. You only have to pay a maximum of 7 percent of your income per year to pay off your loans and after 10 years they're paid off the reason for that is a lot of people

would like to go into teaching would be great teachers. But after 30 or 40 thousand dollars with the loans they can't afford a first year to pay any of that back in a first year teacher salary and leave any kind of a life at all we need people to go into teaching we need people going in nursing and so forth. So that's it. It's pretty simple to understand. It cost 7 billion dollars which is a lot of money but not so much of a 2.1 trillion dollar budget or not so much when you compare that we're spending $87 billion in Iraq $7 billion to make sure that every kid and American go to college if they're qualified. The other piece is really important is this business of talking to kids in the eighth grade and their parents a lot of kids either don't do well in high school or drop out because they think there is no hope of ever going to college. And if they knew that there was hope of going to college and they could pay for it we think they would do better in high school and be committed. And so that's why we want to reach out to the 8th grade students and not just talk about this when you're a senior in high school. I have one question about that loan provision where after 10 years you don't have to pay off the rest of it. Doesn't that encourage me to go to the most expensive school I can find

because I'm not going to have to pay the whole bill. Well yes and no. You only get $10000 a package guaranteed. So if you go to the most expensive school you can find then you would have to get supplemental help from school. And if you're qualified for it fine. Why not. The other piece that I had a question about is I have read that sometimes when you give a lot of financial aid or put a lot of financial aid in the system it encourages colleges to raise their costs because they think well everybody's getting the grant anyway. So I think that's I think that's a legitimate issue. We really struggle with that issue. The rate of cost increase in higher education over the last 20 years has been almost twice the rate of inflation lately that's that's been cut back. But tuitions and expenditures are different things. Tuitions have gone up through the roof in almost every state because the president has cut back on aid and help for the states. Then of course cut back on things and higher education is one of things that gets cut tuition is a different matter. I mean excuse me. Total expenditures are

different matter. I don't think that total expenditures ought to be rising as fast as they do some years. But that's been really the higher education has been under enormous pressure since this president start running started running half trillion dollar deficits every year. And so that's really not so much of an issue. Now see some of the Republican lawyers want to. I mean lawmakers want to cap tuition. The truth is the tuition is up because of what they did with the budget and capping tuition is only going to make it harder for higher education. If you want it kept tuition you've got to adequately support higher education in states that know what they're doing do that they give the support and then they say but you've got to leave the tuition at a reasonable level. I to ask you about gun control. Governor Dean that's been an issue in this Democratic primary and a big issue for Democratic primary voters what types of federal gun control do you feel is appropriate and what types are not. Well the interesting thing about this one is that Senator Kerry has spent a lot of time attacking my position on gun control which really is no different than him different than his. He told The Washington Post that each state ought to be free to make their own laws over and above

their basic federal laws which is my position. So I thought that was kind of amusing. I saw the big headlines in the paper the Kerry attacks Dean on gun control and I thought what do you suppose could be motivating that. Here's my position. You know we don't have much gun control and Vermont. We have had five homicides one year most we ever had when I was governor I was 25 and you know we're a hunting state a very rural state. My attitude towards guns is as I support the assault weapons ban and I support the background checks. I don't think most hunters that I know think you need an AK 47 to shoot a deer in order. They think that that criminals and people who are mentally ill or have guns. And I also support closing the so-called gun show loophole. I think you ought to have instant background checks for people who buy guns that wherever they buy them. And it's not a hardship on the gun owners as long you don't have a waiting period or the gun sellers. And after that I think every state ought to make their own laws. You know if if

Arkansas doesn't want to have any more gun control than that then fine. If a state like California New Jersey wants more gun control which they do then fine let them have more. Let them make their own laws. That's it. That's my attitude. Has your position changed since you were Vermont governor because that's been the issue that others have criticized you for that as governor you supported. You did not support the ban on assault weapons. No that's really not true. There was a question that in 1992 I think that asked would I as governor push an assault weapons ban in the state of Vermont. I said no because you know we're having homicides rate homicide rates among the lowest in America. I've always said I'd sign any gun control bill that would save lives. But I had never saw one in Vermont because our homicide rates are very low. Most of those were not not homicide with firearms and if they were they were certainly homicides with firearms that nobody was talking about banning which are usually hunting rifles. So I never saw a gun control bill in Vermont we do have we do ban guns from schools which I don't understand you don't

do an answer. But my attitude towards gun control is look the rural states often don't need gun control. States like Arkansas or North Dakota or Montana or Vermont and the urban states might want gun control let them have and things flow so much though. Governor Dean this is the criticism anyway that you know to say we don't need it in this state but you do need in this state. Some people say that doesn't work because for example Washington D.C. has very strict gun control and yet most of the guns you know they have terrible crime rate there. Most of the guns are found to have originated in Virginia or Maryland or you know Virginia Beach Virginia did something first of all as you enforce the firearms laws that would happen a lot less. Virginia did something we did something about that there was a study about 15 years ago that showed most of the illegal guns in New York came from Virginia. So Virginia passed a law limiting the number of guns you could buy and how often you could buy them. And that seemed to have improved the situation somewhat. There are if you if this

administration talks you know about safety. But John Ashcroft doesn't enforce gun laws. There were something like I don't know something in the neighborhood of 100000 people who lied on their gun purchase forms last year. I think we in the Justice Department invested get it less than a thousand. So I think you ought to enforce the gun laws we have. Let states add more if they wish but I really don't think that the same kind of gun laws that you want in California and New York and New Jersey are applicable to Arkansas and Vermont and North Dakota even though there's a flow on a no gun trafficking knows no boundaries like what the trafficking is illegal. And if we prosecuted that properly that I think would solve the problem. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number in the exchange. I'm Laura Conaway my guest today Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. He's a doctor former Vermont governor who also served as lieutenant governor in his state and as a state

representative join us 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is the number here in the exchange and to Manchester next. Jay is on the air. Hi Jay. Go ahead. Yes. Governor Dean I'm aware that there's an energy bill now for vote in Congress and I'm sure John Kerry is not going to be there to vote on it as far as I understand. Is this something Democrats would be standing up against is it a good idea as it's proposed right now or not. Yeah I don't want to be hypocritical about this which is why I'm not governor anymore so I can campaign more freely than than the senators. But they need to be in Washington to stop this bill. This bill is a disaster. And there are critical votes a couple of them missed the votes on I think two of them missed votes on funding adequate funding of No Child Left Behind and failed by one vote it would have made it would have made the difference. You cannot miss votes on major issues. And I understand that you know it's a little hypocritical of me maybe because I you know I decided not to run for office so I could run for president for another term so I could run for president. But they made the decision to be in the Senate and be in the house and run for president.

They can. I don't care. From my point of view they had missed 80 percent of their votes. But there's 20 percent of them that are really really hard and tough. And this is one of them. Here's what this bill does. It gives $16 billion to the oil and gas lobby. It has a terrible effect on the state of New Hampshire because New Hampshire has 15 percent of it grow of its ground water polluted with a chemical called MTBE which causes cancer which is an additive to gasoline. And in this bill there is a provision that allows the companies that make MTBE to be exempt from any lawsuits which means that if this bill passes the taxpayers of the state of New Hampshire will have to pay for the clean up of their ground water. It is a terrible appalling bill put together drafted by Vice President Cheney with the oil companies quite some time ago. That's how this administration works. This bill has to be defeated. It has to be defeated again 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number on the exchange and the guest Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Let's go to Manchester

again. And Aaron is up from there. Hello Aaron go ahead. Hello governor. This is Aaron Houston I'm with Granite Staters for medical marijuana. And Governor you've said in the past that you would favor John Ashcroft raids cruel and heartless raids on seriously ill patients like cancer and AIDS patients who have been recommended marijuana in states where medical marijuana is allowed. You've said that you don't favor reading those patients or continuing those rates. Or will you say outright you strongly pledged to stop those raids when you become president for the most part. Yes. The reason I'm hedging a little bit is because I don't know all the details of all the raids and it may be that some of the first of all I'm not a fan of John Ashcroft at all as you can imagine I you know I don't know all the circumstances were certainly not going to be rating people who are smoking marijuana because they have cancer. I mean that's out of the question if there are some abuses going on maybe there's a reason for it. But let me just tell

you my position on medical marijuana. First of all I disagree with the idea that political processes ought to be used to legalize medical marijuana. I'm a doctor. I'm going to use marijuana for medical reasons that ought to go through exactly the same process that every other drug does. When you when you decide whether it's a drug that makes sense from a medical point of view or not. So I object to legislatures and referendums and so forth deciding to legalize medical marijuana although I understand that part of that comes out of frustration because the Government's had this sort of Reefer Madness attitude towards marijuana for all these years. Here's what I'll do as president and as a physician I will require the FDA to review all the studies and complete new studies and they'll have to do it within 12 months to find out if medical marijuana really works or not. I'll tell you what my suspicion is having read the literature myself. My suspicion is that it will be allowed in certain circumstances for HIV AIDS patients and for victims of cancer. And it will not be allowed for things like glaucoma because the risks outweigh the benefits and there are other drugs that can treat

glaucoma adequately. But I think we need to go through the same scientific process and evaluation that we would go through with any other drug before we decide that medical marijuana is the way to go. But I will not be countenancing. We will not have an attorney general whose principal interest is xrayed people and take their marijuana way and put them in jail because they've they haven't have cancer or HIV AIDS. I find that to be appalling. So you would put marijuana through the regular drug problem put it through the drug trial process. See what see what the scientists say about when it's appropriate and when the risks outweigh the benefits. And it will not be used that the risks outweigh the benefits which is the standard criteria for new drugs and it will be if the benefits outweigh the risks. But foreign policy question for you Governor Dean if you took the Oval Office in January of 2005 chances are good they will still be detainees from the Afghan war at Guantanamo Bay. Now how would a Dean administration deal with those people. That's according to a law that fortunately that case has been taken up by the Supreme Court. The Afghan detainees at Guantanamo Bay are difficult legal question. The some of

the other things that the Patriot Act are not a difficult legal question. I cannot believe that it's that's allowable under the Constitution the United States to arrest an American citizen without having recourse to a lawyer or being charged and there are Americans who have been held for significant periods of time in detention without being charged or having a lawyer. That is outrageous. The combatants the dummies at Guantanamo that's a different situation. They are enemy combatants. They should be should be given the rights of the Geneva Conventions but they have less rights say than an American citizen who is charged with being involved in terrorism or something like that and I'm not I'm not a lawyer I'm not familiar enough with what those rights are in Guantanamo Bay. But the Supreme Court has agreed to take that case in and and give us a decision and I think I'll support that decision whatever it might be. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number on the exchange. Another caller from Manchester. Now Bill.

Go ahead Bill you're on the air it's your turn to Governor Dean let the government of Israel has been constructing a 25 foot something known as an apartheid wall in the West Bank. That's the foreign policy particularly President Bush in any of his declarations never seems to be able to criticize Israel for any of their really brutal brutal actions towards the Palestinians. Well you don't read a lot of criticism for Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian people. What would you do. I guess I specifically ask would you make U.S. aid to Israel contingent on the removal of that wall. Actually I rarely say anything in defense of President Bush but I'm going to do that this time. He did condemn the wall in a speech in London a couple of days ago. And I think he didn't condemn it saying it should never be built but he said the course of the wall was the wrong course and it was it was problematic and I agree with that. I think that I think Israel has a

right to defend itself against suicide bombers for sure. And I think the wall is unfortunate but if they deem it necessary they have the right to do that but what they don't have the right to do is put the wall deeply into Palestinian territory. And I think that's a mistake. Now the more complicated question is what would we do about it. The law already says that that loans to Israel loan guarantees to Israel are to be reduced by the amount of money that Israel puts into new settlements in the West Bank. The president has already said that he believes that the loan guarantees ought to be reduced by the amount they're spending putting together the wall where the wall is in an incursion into Palestinian territory. That is not the same as saying reducing aid to Israel and I don't think we can reduce the aid that we give Israel because the aid that we give Israel was a part of a deal. Was Jimmy Carter struck between Egypt and Israel. They both got the same amount of aid in return

for signing a peace treaty and both Israel and Egypt although it's a very cold peace have observed the letter of the law and maintain that peace so I don't think we can go back and change the rules many years later and say well now we're going to take your aid because we don't agree with you because that aid was given as a quid pro quo for maintaining the peace and developing peace between Egypt and Israel. So there are things we can do I think the and I have to say that I also agree with President Bush's assessment of Arafat. There are. I've met. I've been to the Middle East. I've met Palestinians who I think are going to be very good leaders of what will one day be a Palestinian state on the West Bank. Yasser Arafat is not one of them. He is the sort of the old time survivor leader who in my opinion puts the interests of his own leadership in his own position and power above the interest of the Palestinians 80 percent of the Palestinians now live below the poverty line. Most Israeli parents send their kids to school not knowing they haven't gotten them back in one piece every day. These are two people that desperately want peace and the key is getting the leaders to agree to it. And I think that Arafat has demonstrated that he is not particularly interested in peace. But there are leaders such as

Salam Fayyad who are very interested in peace. I think Abu Abbas the prime minister who resigned because of Arafat's meddling I was very interested in peace. I think we will get to peace in the Middle East. It does require the United States maintaining a position where it can be trusted to the negotiating table by both parties to conquer next and Linda. Go ahead Linda it's your turn you're on the air. Hi Governor Dean. Recent Massachusetts Supreme Court decision on same sex marriages I think is going to bring to the presidential campaign this issue and your position on civil unions for same sex marriage. What I want to ask you is not about what's equity equitable to same sex couples but instead about your thoughts on a national perspective on how it's incriminatory against heterosexual married couples to not recognize same sex couples in the same way meaning the marriage penalty tax. You know the same sex couples who have kids are single a kid.

Is no child there is no parental responsibility. When a married couple of children apply for college they have to clean up parent income on a same sex couple their kids are going to be eligible for scholarships and student loans and grants because only one income because of the classification that's in any argument that's you know that's a very legitimate argument I had never heard it. And believe me I know this issue inside out isn't that it hasn't and you signed the first unions which you still use. Bill here's where I am on all this stuff. First of all the federal government has no right to say who can get married and who doesn't that is a state prerogative. Not a federal government prerogative and my job as president is not to tell the states what they can and cannot do on this issue. My job as president is to make sure every single person has equal rights under the law. So what I have said is that I will by executive order when possible by going to Congress when necessary. Recognize whatever arrangement states have to bring equity to gay and lesbian Americans. Vermont does not have gay marriage. We have civil unions which brings equity in the bill. It

says marriage is between a man and woman but gay or same sex couples may enter into a civil union have all the exact same rights for example the tax rights you are talking about and responsibilities they pay the marriage penalty when they file their taxes if they check off a box that says civil union. So that sort of gets around that problem. What I think should happen at the federal level is that the federal government should not make laws regarding marriage period. Does that mean the federal Defense of Marriage law. I think I think the defense of marriage law is unconstitutional. And and that will eventually be tested I'm sure because it's none of the federal government's business what the federal government's business is is to recognize equal rights under the law. And so I would recognize those arrangements in the states choose to make in our case civil unions and make sure that immigration rights taxation rights inheritance rights hospital visitation rights we're all the same for everybody. That does not mean that the federal government either should make a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage or Nor

does it mean the federal government ought to promote gay marriage. Marriage is none of the business of the federal government it's up to the states to do that. But equal rights is the business of the federal government. I think we ought to pursue that although the recognition issue comes up when you make it a state issue. That means other states become concerned that they might have to recognize you know a marriage I think or excuse me a civil union. I think they have to recognize the equal rights under the law. I don't think they have to recognize the marriage because each state makes its own laws. But marriage. But see here's what's so complicated about this. Most Americans believe that marriage is a religious concept which is true it started out as a religious concept but as the rule of law evolved it also became a civil rights concept. Now what the problem with the issue of same sex marriage is that there are many religious people that believe that's a bad thing and it's wrong and we're not to tell the churches who they can and can't marry. That's up to them. But the civil aspect of marriage deserves is underlined by the notion that everybody ought to have equal rights in the law under the law that's why we called our institutions civil unions because there are churches

that recognize same sex couples. That's fine. There are those who won't. Religion is the business of churches and religions but equal rights is the business of government. That's why we called our civil unions and not gay marriage. I want to talk to you about an issue that keeps coming up in this campaign it's what your rivals call the electability issue. And Knight Ridder Newspapers. No no small newspaper organization recently said that although your positions may win you a nomination from the Democrats once it gets into the general campaign President Bush's people will describe you as an out of touch tax and spend week on defense liberal and I'm quoting just as Republicans did with great success against George McGovern Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. You respond to that electability issue that you might do fine in the primary but once you get to the big leagues you know you for lunch. I actually think we may be the only Democrat that's electable because we're the only Democrat with a national organization and with. And the key thing is we are the only Democratic candidates right now that's bringing new people into this process one quarter of all the people who gave us money were under 30 years old last time and we raised three times as much

as everybody else. We have 140000 volunteers around the country in all 50 states and eight and in 50 cities. The only way to beat George Bush is not to try to be like him when you support the Iraq war or you vote for some tax cuts because you don't want to be soft on middle class tax cuts and then you vote for No Child Left Behind. I mean no child left behind is devastating every school country every school system in the country and everybody running for president voted for it that could except for me because I saw it coming. What you want to win the presidency is somebody is going to stand up for what they believe at the time and not put their finger in the wind and say well I really didn't think the president's doing a good job in helping in Iraq. Well if you don't think he's doing a good job in Iraq would you send him there in the first place for the Democrats who've gotten in trouble in this country because we went along with the most conservative. He's not actually a conservative because conservative balanced budgets radical president in our lifetime because they were afraid. If you're afraid you're never going to get elected president. The only way to beat him is not to try to take five hundred thousand votes from him by being a little like him which is the strategy of the

Democrats in Washington. The way to beat him is to bring new people into the process that had previously given up on voting because they can't tell the difference when the Democrats and the Republicans anymore and get them to vote. And when you do that you expand the electorate and then you win elections for Republicans ever to say that the tax has been liberal is a joke. My record on money is far better than the Republicans are. Not one Republican presidents balanced the budget in 34 years in this country you cannot trust Republican administrations with your money. If you look at my record in Vermont I balanced budgets better than anybody else. Governor Dean. We may see you another time on the campaign trail. There's still a couple months left so we will see you again. Thank you for your time. LAURA. Vermont governor excuse me former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and Democratic presidential candidate. The exchange is a production of an HPR produced by Keith shields Ty Fraley and Rebecca Kaufman engineers Dan COLGAN And I'm Laura No. 1.

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