The Exchange; Interview with Joe Lieberman

From New Hampshire Public Radio I'm Laura canoing and this is the exchange. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman likes to say he's from the electable wing of the Democratic Party. It's a not so subtle warning to Democratic voters that while leftwing candidates may excite the heart they could go down in flames on Election Day. Lieberman's currently embarked on his leading with integrity tour promoting what he says is his more electable agenda. For example Lieberman supported the war in Iraq and now backs the president's request for reconstruction aid. Democratic opponents call him Bush lite But Lieberman says voters want an independent thinker. Also the senator points to his record on abortion rights Medicare the environment and other issues where he stood solidly with his fellow Democrats today in the exchange. It's our second conversation with Joe Lieberman and we want to hear from you 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 2 and 8. And Senator Lieberman good to have you back. Thanks for your time Larry.

Good to be back. Thank you. All the Democratic candidates of course are criticizing President Bush but I want to hear from you without mentioning George Bush or any of your other fellow Democrats. Just tell me why you Joe Lieberman should be president. Irregardless of anybody else that you may be right. You know that's that is an important question that's one that I had to answer myself before I decided to run. I'm running because I believe in my head and my heart that I am the president that America needs right now. This is a very tough time for our country. We are we are suffering from challenges to our economy to our economic security and to our personal security here at home and around the world in a way that we never have been before. So I now have been lucky enough to have more than three decades in public service. I have the experience I have the I have the values I have the ideas to make America's future better. I know how to work with different groups of people in our diverse country bringing

them together to get things done. And I will lead with integrity. For me this is all about making promises and keeping them. Is that what integrity means to you to me. To me it means making promises and keeping them trusting the people enough to level with them and being honest and honorable to the best of your human ability in everything you do is set a standard for for integrity in leadership. Ultimately campaigns are about issues and ideas. But I think in the final analysis people make a judgment about the person about the candidates can I trust this man or woman who wants to be president or senator or governor or whatever to do the right thing for me and the country regardless of what's politically easy. That's what my record of public life has shown that's

the way I've campaigned. I haven't pandered. I haven't waffled. I've said what I believe is right for America's future. And that's the way I will lead America. As president I will lead with integrity. You said that these are tough times. And you mentioned the security situation and certainly upheaval in Iraq has a lot of Americans worried in fact there have been some horrible suicide bombings there just in recent days. You have voted in favor of giving President Bush the authority to go to war how do you feel about that vote today Senator Lieberman. I feel deeply that it was the right vote. And this is a decision that I made long before George W. Bush became president. I made it after a lot of thought and working together with colleagues John McCain former Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. We actually in 1998 after Saddam kicked the UN inspectors out of Iraq. Introduce something called the Iraq Liberation Act where we said this guy Saddam

Hussein is dangerous so five years ago you get you've got a lot of America's policy not just to contain him but to change the regime. Why did we say that. Because the evidence was clear. He said it himself. He wanted to be the dictator the controller the Emperor of the Arab world that would have been terrible for the Arab world and terrible for us. He was a tyrant to his own people killing them suppressing them and giving them no freedom. He he had chemical weapons we use them against the Iranians and the Kurds. He invaded Iran and Kuwait as part of his dream of expanding his empire. He told the United Nations after the Gulf War that he had enormous quantities. He specifically said how much of chemical and biological weapons anthrax botulinum toxin sarin gas enough to kill millions of people he never accounted for those. So McCain and Kerry and others and I concluded that we had to get rid of this

guy. We didn't introduce legislation. It was passed and signed. We have a different way of doing it. We wanted a much more aggressively support the Iraqi opposition to Saddam. So when one when we came along after September 11th and the president said he wanted to take action and get rid of Saddam. I supported it. This is something you've been thinking about for a long time and I supported it and I believe the world is safer without him. There are certainly America safer and certainly the people of Iraq have a better life look. But looking back. I'm really outraged by the misstatements by the exaggerations by the by the over making of the case that George Bush did before the war and particularly outraged by the total lack of a plan to secure the peace after Saddam was gone and as a result this president pushed away our allies. He didn't know he had no preparations. Now Iraq is in a mess and that didn't have to be this

way. We could have had allies with us we could have other soldiers sharing the burden and the risk of peacekeeping we could have had other countries sharing the cost with American taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq. There's still time to do it. It's critical that we do it because now this is not just become an effort to make sure that in the place of Saddam we have a free modern stable Iraq run by the Iraqis for their own benefit. But now the terrorist have swarmed in there and we heard this way and these attacks were carried out by foreign yeah for killing Americans. They're also blowing up Red Cross headquarters U.N. headquarters. These are enemies of civil. They blew up the holiest Shia Muslim site a mosque in Najaf a while back. The world ought to be standing with us. Unfortunately this president has not been able to rally the world to do that. Let me ask you about that. How would a President Lieberman rally the world to do that. I mean if you had the same goal as George Bush did how would you have done the buildup to

war differently. Well the first thing is that I wouldn't have taken some of the policy positions unrelated to Iraq that convinced a lot of the rest of the world including our closest allies in Europe that we didn't care about what they thought that as pulling out of the global warming agreement. Sounds far from Iraq. I met with a group at the Ministry of Defense from the United Kingdom last fall when when the talk of war against Iraq was there and there was somebody there from the administration once Democrats Republicans administration Congress he said to the minister of defense from the United Kingdom What can we do to get more people in Europe to support us against Saddam. And the Minister Geoff Hoon said something riveting. I'm going to surprise you he said do something about global warming. Why. Because when President Bush pulled out of the global warming agreement everybody is worried about global warming in Europe. They know that we're the largest

cause of global warming. When when Bush said we're getting out of this agreement it was a statement that we don't care about the rest of the world we're irresponsible. Same about the International Court of Criminal Justice. I'd get us into it. And then I would sit down and negotiate with the United Nations in a way that this administration did not just a few weeks ago the U.N. passed the resolution. It was paper no money no troops. Why. Because the Bush administration continued to demand control for the United States of Iraq. I didn't support the war to have the U.S. control Iraq. I supported the war to get rid of Saddam Hussein and to let the Iraqis control around the bush administration's position was if they waited for the UN they would wait forever because it's become quote unquote a debating society. Well that's not true in this case. What they did was make it into a debating society because they they were not willing to negotiate generously with Kofi Annan and the French and the Germans our allies to bring

them into sending troops to stand by our troops so it's not only Americans dying to send money so it's not only American taxpayers paying for the rebuilding of Iraq we have no choice but to but to go on here and what we talked about the $87 billion. So a lot of money in the reconstruction of Iraq. Bush wants Yeah more money than we should be spending there if we had a better foreign policy because we'd be sharing the cost of it. But in the end you got to make a decision. So I didn't duck it. I didn't play politics. I was shocked at some of my Democratic opponents who supported the war but then voted against the money to support the troops that were sent there for the war. To me this was a test. And if you want to be president you've got to show you're willing to be a leader and leadership means doing what's right when it's not politically easy. And I just felt we had to support our troops certainly didn't want to spend our whole hour on Iraq. Do you want to ask you know one last question we have so many other issues to tackle but one last question the premise of of going in there in

the first place you know you mentioned Saddam Hussein is a bad guy. He used chemical weapons. There are a lot of bad guys. The leader of North Korea comes to mind. So why not just go into all these countries and get all these bad guys well. So that's why I don't support the Bush doctrine of preemptive military action a foolish unnecessary or hurtful doctrine that unsettled our allies and truly agitated our enemies. You've got to use the word that more than military power. You've got to use diplomacy you've got to use economic aid. You've got to use better communications it seems to me at that moment. And again I've felt this since 1998 but particularly after September 11th when a lot of us looked back and said Why didn't we do more to stop Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Look we knew that they they rode that truck into the World Trade Center in 1993 we knew that they. There's a long list. They blew up the USS Cole the embassies in Africa. Why didn't we stop them before September

11th. And then I think a lot of us began to look at Saddam and say This guy is next and we've got to stop him so we never look back and say after he does something devastating to Americans we had the chance to get them out of power. That's part of what would happen. I wouldn't put Kim Jong Il in the same category. Kim Jong Il I think the Bush administration has handled this crisis terribly they've made it into a crisis. Kim Jong Il I believe wants to create wants to negotiate wants to create a non-aggression agreement with us and get economic investment from us. Is he dangerous. He sure can be. He's become more dangerous as a result of the the terrible Bush foreign policy opened up the nuclear arms plant is producing nuclear fuel building nuclear weapons and the danger is he'll sell them to anybody who's willing to pay for them including Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and other terrorist groups so I think that Saddam was at that point

the most dangerous threat to our security. I want to ask you about one more international hot spot and then turn to some domestic issues. And that's the Middle East you know every day suicide bombings in Israel killings in Palestinian areas. How do you Senator Lieberman respond to critics who worry that Arabs and Palestinians wouldn't want to sit down with a Jewish president. Just not true. I mean Arabs and Palestinians I visited with Arabs and Palestinians over my time in the U.S. Senate. I'd say more than any other candidate for president this year more than George Bush did before he became president because. Because I know how important peace in the Middle East is to the United States. And every time I've been greeted as an American who happens to be Jewish they're not concerned about some of these faith. They're concerned that a lot of them like to talk about the similarities between Islam and Judaism as monotheistic faiths. They're concerned about policies and you know I would not turn my back on the Middle East the way George Bush has done. Bill Clinton brought us this close

to the one solution that will end the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians a two state solution. And Arafat rejected it and then the violence began. And we're only going to get back in a better to a better place if if America has a high level emissary there fulltime pressing both parties to take steps for peace. Most important and necessary of all is to is to help develop a Palestinian leadership and there are plenty of people there who can do this able honorable people to make 100 percent effort to stop the terrorism from Palestinian territory against Israeli innocents. When that happens the doors are wide open to move toward peace. And as president I would devote some of my time to this. It's that critical. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is the number here in the exchange. 1 800 8 9 2 and 8. I'm Laura my guest today Joe Lieberman Connecticut senator Democratic presidential candidate.

Lieberman's been in the U.S. Senate for three terms. He was also Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election. Senator Lieberman began his political career in Connecticut State Senate and he's also served with his state's attorney general. Join us. What issues do you want the next president to focus on. What do you know want to know about Joe Lieberman and where he stands. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 2 and HPR and Senator Lieberman let's turn to some domestic issues. The first one I'd like to ask you about is the USA Patriot Act which as you well know is now being criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike for being overbearing reaching too far. How do you feel about that vote today for the USA Patriot Act. Well I feel the way I did when I voted I remember making a statement saying that we were in a new world after September 11th law enforcement needed some new authority but we had to do it in a way that protected the civil liberties of the American people because that's what defines us. It would be a painful irony if in response to the terrorists who attacked us on September

11th who attacked us because they hate our way of life they hate our freedom they hate our tolerance and diversity that we are self compromised our freedom. And I said that we were on the face of it thanks to a lot of. And Cinelli great work by the neighboring senator Pat Leahy who was then chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The Patriot Act was a lot better than it was originally. Then the form it was originally sent to us by by the Bush administration and John Ashcroft. But we the best thing we did was I said I have some fears about how this is going to be used. But there's two two two pieces of insurance we have here one is that the courts can stop the press accusers from the worst use of it too. We're not we sunset at this substantial parts of the Patriot Act expire in 2005 and this is going to be an occasion for Congress to look and demand that the administration tell us how they views this. A lot of the fear about the Patriot Act is fear of John Ashcroft. And

unfortunately it's well-justified fear the administration in this area so many others hasn't really told us how it's use the act. I've seen some things that I don't like where they've held material witnesses alleged material witnesses without giving them rights under this Act. There was great fear about how one section of the act would be used to penetrate and get hold of library records. I was worried about that too. Librarians were worried about it then finally after months and months of wrangling and accusations back and forth Ashcroft announces that no one has used that had checked that part of the Patriot Act. Well nonetheless we had to take a look at it to tell you the worst violation of civil liberties that has been carried out by the Ashcroft Justice Department was under immigration law not the Patriot Act but yeah no mention here. And the most the most egregious and this is documented in a report by the inspector general of the Department of Justice in the month or so after September 11th almost 800 immigrants foreign

nationals in the U.S. were arrested jailed held without charges without notification to their family and friends about where they were. And with out the right to counsel. That's un-American and that's not going to happen when I'm president of the United States no matter what your suspicions are no matter how devastating the circumstances under which you're acting. America is not a country where we lock people up and hold them for months without giving the right of counsel and telling their families where they are. Their efforts now in Congress to change the USA Patriot Act. Are you involved in any of those efforts. I'm not on the committee that deals with these the president has an Ashcroft to propose that I believe three additional components to a kind of chapter two of the Patriot Act. I've said first that we better have a clear statement of disclosure by the administration of exactly how they've used the Patriot

Act before we do this because they've held back on that. Secondly without getting into the details there are two parts here that would give power to administrators or prosecutors to issue subpoenas. And one other thing if we go without a court order I don't like that. I'm I'm skeptical about that. There is however another part that would extend the capital punishment to people involved in terrorist acts. And I'm definitely open to that because I have supported capital punishment for heinous acts like that. So that's being discussed. I don't think it's going to. Well the Republicans may try to move it but my guess is until we take a second look at the Patriot Act we're not going to do anything about Patriot Act 2 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number in the exchange. And Senator Lieberman let's go to the phones a stratum first. Bryant is calling from there. Hello. Bryant. Go ahead.

How are you. Fine glad. I. I want to ask you a quick question in reference to terror. Yes. And the picture that's being painted by Walter Reed. I'm listening to is that President Bush is an absolute nightmare coming to the White House. Frankly his handling of 9/11 and Iraq. I'd like you to get into more detail and I'd like all the candidates in more detail exactly when and when you become president. You know what specifically what you're going to do differently because I know the public is in the dark because we're not privy to a lot of great national security issues things that we don't know what decisions they make because it's a national security issue to tell the country what they know and why they make the decisions they make. But I'd like you to give them more detail exactly what you're going to do your sort of what would shape his foreign policy. BRYANT Yeah I mean if you are tired of hearing that President Bush is a nightmare he's a nightmare nightmare. I mean what would you do. Yeah.

BRYANT Yeah and I take brand's question I mean specifically in the war on terrorism. I hope that's right. Try to take that on. Look at a lot of ways. I always say I'm not saying George Bush was not a good guy. I'm saying he is a bad president and in a lot of ways his presidency has been a nightmare certainly for our economy in the millions of people who've lost jobs in IT and also in many ways for relations with the rest of the world. I'm I'm going to what about you. I mean that's Brian's point OK enough. George Bush what about you enough about George Bush. Let's let's talk about briefly what the thread is history has now preven presented America and the world with a very serious challenge which is the threat of radical extreme violent Islamic terrorism. And we have to defeat it or of our future and our children's future is going to be full of a lot more danger and security than we want it to be we can't let this become what I believe bin Laden and others like him wanted to become which is a world religious war. How do you go about defeat. First this is this is so big I got to try to do it

quickly. First we've got to we've got to change our intelligence structure. Let me go one step beyond that and it's a fight that's going on now. John McCain and I put in legislation to create a commission to investigate how did September 11th happen. George Bush fought that commission for more than a year. Why. We want to know how it happened so we can do everything possible to prevent it from happening again. Finally we pressured enough to get it created. As you probably saw in the media in the last week the Bush administration is now failing to operate it wants no way. Q What I would do is to make sure that that the United States revealed everything that happened before September 11th including the daily intelligence briefings that the president gets which he's holding back. Secondly why do I say that the American intelligence failed prior to September 11th. We need to take it on and reform it and make it better. This president hasn't done that. Secondly we've got to be aggressive about doing anything we can to capture and or

kill the terrorists themselves. But in the end we're going to win this by winning the hearts and minds of people in the Islamic world. That means standing for more freedom and opportunity in the Islamic world telling them what we're about. Finally we've got to beef up our homeland security and we'll talk more about homeland security. Scuse me for interrupting after a short break. Stay with us. More with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman 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 political Islam and its challenge to the west. It's 9:30. Good morning. I'm Dan COLGAN At New Hampshire Public Radio. We get support from our contributing listeners support also comes from. I help connect offering Photoshop digital imaging seminars including film to pixel's what you need to know to move to digital photography. That's happening November 21st online

at. I helped connect dot com. From New Hampshire community lone fun celebrating 20 years of supporting quality housing jobs in child care for New Hampshire families online at any age. See I left dot org. And infusion solutions a bed for a family of skilled care givers providing in-home delivery of pharmaceutical intervener services for over 15 years on the web at IID cash infusion solutions. This is the exchange I'm Laura Conaway. Wednesday on the exchange the politics of labor as union numbers shrink and party lines blur. We'll ask how much the union vote still matters. That's tomorrow on the Exchange right now. We're talking with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman. He's a U.S. senator from Connecticut. He's been in the Senate for three terms. He was also Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election. Join us with your questions and comments. What do you want to know about where Joe Lieberman stands on the issues. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7

7. And Senator Lieberman let's turn to taxes. You voted against President Bush's tax cut package how come oh it was fiscally irresponsible. Never offered a way to pay for it. As a result we're going to have the largest deficit in American history and that means that every penny leftover in the Social Security fund after benefits are paid are now being taken out to pay the cost of the federal government. That's wrong. The Bush tax cuts also gave much too much to people at the top in income who don't need them. They didn't do anything to close the outrageous corporate loopholes that exist and they were the one note policy that the Bushes had to get the economy going and that's part of why there are three and a half million people out of work that weren't out of work when he became president or why the middle class today feels more squeezed by rising health care costs rising education costs and

and sinking income median income in America has dropped for two years. That says it all. I want to ask you about the deficit you said that tax cuts were responsible for that. Republicans say it was mostly the economy going down because of 9/11 and so forth and then when you have less tax revenue coming in you automatically get a deficit. They're saying the tax cuts were actually a small percentage. It was some the economy but it was a lot and will continue to be even more the tax cuts as they balloon on expenses this goes on. I mean I've called in this campaign for pulling back the Bush tax cuts and the highest income Americans we can save hundreds of billions of dollars that way and highest income is how much. I started at 250000 believe it or not you can still save hundreds of billions of dollars that way. And I would protect the middle income tax cuts that have been adopted that Democrats keep because the middle class is under stress. I've gone one step further and I'm the only candidate in this race to propose tax reform. I want

to pass a special surcharge on higher income Americans making over $250000. I want to close corporate loopholes and I want to take that money and give a tax cut to 98 percent of the taxpayers in Iowa and New Hampshire and in America. That's the broad middle class. Why. Because they need it. And why else. Because if you look at long term trends corporations and the highest income Americans are paying a smaller and smaller percentage of the cost of government the middle class and those working hard to get into it are paying a higher and higher percentage. That's that's unfair and I'm willing to take that on with my tax reform proposal. I have an interesting analysis after the 2002 elections that as you know were bad for Democrats in Congress. This analysis said that the Democrats and I'm quoting the class warfare of you know tax cuts for the rich and George Bush has supported this. That didn't resonate with voters that Americans think Hey if you got rich

it's because you worked hard and you deserve to keep that money and I might be rich someday too and I'm darn darn well going to want to keep my money if I can. I think you put two things together. There are a lot of that don't go together I think in fact that Democrats in the 2002 election didn't give a very clear message at all. I don't agree with the class warfare message in fact that I would say that in some ways George Bush has declared reverse class warfare the rich against everybody else. And you're absolutely right. The dream of America and it's the Democratic Party over the years it has stood most for it. Create a system in which the government gives people a little help so they can work their way up to the middle class and beyond. Most people I talk to in America don't hate the rich. They want to get rich themselves. But that doesn't justify the government of George Bush has given so many billions of dollars to people who don't need it and hasn't adequately helped the middle class in the working lower middle class that are working to make their lives better. That's what my tax reform proposal is about. It's about fairness

not about class warfare. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number on the exchange to Litchfield now and Suzanne. Hello Suzanne. You're on the air. Go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. Morning Senator. Good morning Susan. I've been writing to you so far. I'm talking about health care. Personally I have a lot of people have said they will be. I have part time job now and I'm security and a pension. My husband passed away. It's going to be fixed. Yea the realization of I don't work I don't get paid. I have no benefits. And if something would happen what kind of health care to be able to approach that contingent on. Because I have you know Medicare that's very heavy but doctors taxes pay for everything. Medicare doesn't cover it all for you Suzanne now and I have had it. Then I went

to. OK because they were wet and said Well Suzanne this is a great question. It is a great question. So since she's 68 the answer for Suzanne is really to make Medicare better. The answer for Suzanne and seniors is to take this great program make it better most particularly to include prescription drug benefits under Medicare that the health care the health care crisis today takes many forms. But the most serious is the rising cost and the fact that an increasing number of people don't have health insurance. It went up 2 million in the last couple of years to over $43 million. So you know some of the this is a difference among the Democratic candidates and of course Bush hasn't done anything about it. But among the Democratic candidates someone do it all at once and spend so much money that it'll put us as far into deficit as Bush's tax cuts have. I don't think we can do that and I don't think the government can take it all over. I proposed national health insurance pools like the

ones that members of Congress and federal employees get their insurance out of and give people the right to buy into those pools. It'll cost a lot less than insurance costs in the market. I'm going to limit the profit that health insurance companies can make in those pools because it's going to they're going to be so big and I'm going to say that we're going to subsidize up to a hundred and eighty five percent of poverty levels which gets into the $30000 plus range. The cost of health insurance for people who come into it. I want to start with kids. Give every one of the 9 million children it doesn't have health insurance a membership card. And what I'm calling Medich kids when they leave the hospital after they're they're born. And every kid I meaning every kid you know if you're rich rich kids can make a decision because it'll be free for working poor. And then a sliding scale as you get in other middle class but you may decide even if you're cut if you're if you're covered by a good plan at your employer you may decide you don't want to buy into Medicare or you may decide it's cheaper and has better coverage and then it can

you can buy it at a rate that's probably comparable to what what you're paying in the private sector. Who's who's going to be eligible for this. Kids self-employed who are paying an enormous amount unemployed. I want to make sure that if you lose your job you don't lose your health insurance. I'm going to require that your employer cover you for two months after you get let go and then you can buy into this plan. Seniors who are not old enough for Medicare retire maybe at 55 they have a terrible time getting affordable health insurance that they can buy into the small businesses that are there whose backs are being broken now because the insurance costs so much they can put their employees into this national health insurance pool. Bottom line there is an expert at Emory University Maine and Ken Thorpe I've never met them I don't know him. He's actually coming to New Hampshire on November 10th to care for him with us here. That's great because I gather he's an expert and as he's you could find this on my web site Joe 2004 dot com w w w 2004 to come Thorpe

has examined all the plans that the candidates put out and I believe it's fair to say that he's concluded that my plan would cover more people who are uninsured today at a lower per person cost than any other plan. The way we do it is the right way to do it. And I'm really excited about it and it's going to be a priority for me as president. So is it possible that if this plan existed. Ok I'm middle class so I have a choice likely to stick with my current or go to whatever you want to call it. Is it possible that eventually everybody would just decide to go to this and we have Canada. No I don't. A lot of people competing with a lot of people would go to. But let me be clear about this because I'm focusing on where I think the greatest need is. So if you work for a company that has 50 or fewer employees you can buy into this. But if you work for a company that's larger the burden is still going to be while you're working on your on your employer because we can't do it all we can't afford to do. So I'm going to focus on need 9 million

children self-employed small business employees that don't have insurance now and seniors who are not old enough to acquire to be eligible for Medicare. All right let's go back to the phones 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number. Our guest today in exchange Joe Lieberman. Connecticut senator Democratic presidential candidate join us 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Let's go to Manchester next Senator Lieberman. Aaron joins us from there. Hi Aaron. Hello. Senator Lieberman I'm with Granite Staters for medical marijuana and the Institute of Medicine Senator reported in a report in 1999 concluded that quote There are some limited circumstances in which we recommend smoking marijuana for medical uses. Senator Lieberman as president would you arrest people for taking their medicine. Aaron it is Aaron right. Yes he said. Aaron let me say to

you that I was at a forum in St. Anselm College and somebody asked me that last night. And I frankly haven't given it a thought. I want to give it and I'm going to do that real quickly my recollection is as a senator influenced to a great degree by people like Barry McCaffrey and some some studies that were done I fought by the Institute of Medicine that questioned whether marijuana was necessary as as a pain reducer which I gather is what most people are asking about here whether it wouldn't be better for the health of people and for us society if they used other painkillers. But I've now had a bunch of people here in New Hampshire asked me this question I want to go back and look at it again. One of the gentlemen last night gave me a fact sheet that I'm going to review. So I promise you keep asking and as soon as I reach that judgment which I'm not going to delay it a long time. I'll I'll answer that question by the way we were talking about your health care plan before. Are you going to find the money to pay for it Senator Lieberman.

The money which is a $30 billion set right well over 10 years on this is the largest cost item in the budget priorities that we got. It could cost as much as $750 billion and that's this is serious. So here's what I have said. Part of this is going to come from pulling back the highest income Bush tax cuts. Part of it's going to come from some of those increases excuse me that I'm recommending the wealthiest surcharge Americans the surcharge those who can afford it. Part of it I believe will come from a growing economy. I've got a plan to create 10 million new jobs in the first four years. And part of it I've said that I'm only going to implement this program as we can afford it and what's my standard of affording it. I want to reduce the deficit every year. That's my goal. And so I've got a series of priorities. First I want to cover the kids. Every one of the 9 million children that doesn't have health insurance and then and then I want to make sure that the unemployed are covered and I'll go on down the list. Small

businesses are the small business center. All right. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number 1 800 892 and HPR. You mentioned just a moment ago about jobs and how you pay for your health care plan through an increasing economy. You said 10 million jobs in the first four years of a Lieberman administration can the government really do anything to quote unquote create jobs. Yeah real good question. You know I work very closely with Bill Clinton who have known for oh since 1970 in the policies of his campaign and in his administration we had a basic philosophical attitude opinion which was that the government doesn't create jobs the private sector the private sector create jobs creates jobs but government can one create an environment in which the private sector has the confidence to invest and create jobs. How do you do that by being fiscally responsible as George Bush has not been by having a government that enforces the law that fights corporate

greed and illegal behavior. I announced a program today to deal with the scandals now erupting in a mutual fund 401k industry because why do you do that. Because if the government doesn't create confidence that there's a kind of economic cop on the beat that people don't have the confidence to invest it helps the economy grow. So that's how you create the right environment. Secondly the government itself can make investments that help business and economic growth what do I mean education is the most important of all innovation. We've got tax cuts for businesses to acquire capital to invest to acquire equipment to create job growth in the Bush tax cuts. Some of it but not enough. Most of the Bush tax cuts were all trickle down economics give a lot of money to the richest people somehow will find its way to create jobs it doesn't. Let's just say briefly that the height of this was earlier this year when the president said he had yet another tax cut program. Seven hundred and fifty billion dollars over the next 10

years. And he bragged that it would create a million and a half jobs. Now simple math will tell you that that means he was going to spend a half million dollars a job. I don't know any business person who would do that and why because too much of it was thrown away to people who don't need it who would just put it in their accounts and it wouldn't have productive use. I believe in tax cuts not just for the middle class but for businesses. I support a zero capital gains tax for investments and start up businesses and new stock issues by small businesses. Why. Because if you're a match capital with innovation that's the way to create new businesses new industries and hundreds of thousands of new jobs. And let me ask you a question about the tax cuts because President Bush has continued to maintain and Republicans have continued to maintain that eventually his tax cut package will boost the economy. I'm sure you're aware Senator Lieberman later this week the government is going to report on economic activity for the summer and that a lot of economists think it could be as high as 6

percent. That's a walloping good number is George Bush right. Maybe his tax cut plan didn't. I mean here's here's the deal. If you put enough money into the economy it will begin to show some growth. Part of that unfortunately is spending that the government is doing on the war in Iraq. We wish we didn't have to do it but that has that positive effect. What we don't see in these numbers is increasing jobs. This remains there may be the beginning of a recovery. We don't see the kind of virtuous cycle of investment by business. And new job creation. In fact we see a jobless or job loss economy. And until the you know the economists and the administration may say the economy is recovering but until businesses start rehiring people people are not going to feel that the economy is working. And that's what I'm afraid will continue to happen. We remain on an edge here economically.

And I worry about it so the American people if the economy has rebounded 6 percent in the last quarter does that make it harder for Democrats to say Hey George Bush is no good steward of the economy. Well let's see where it is next year. And yes it does because look we're still going to have the largest deficit in our history. We're going to have to pay it back our kids and grandkids are we have the largest trade deficit in our history we're bleeding manufacturing jobs at the economic cost of education health care are going up. The times are not what they should be. And the people know that. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 2 and HPR is the number here in the exchange and to Concord Now Jason is up. Hello Jason go ahead you're on the Exchange. Good morning. Hi Jason. Hi. I was just calling. I haven't gotten you yet. During your trips here in New Hampshire I was wondering if you could talk about your plans and about your plans for dealing with pollution and global warming and other problems like that.

Jason thank you. We've got a couple of questions on that. Yes. Yesterday on the show too Jason thanks for asking. It happens that I have had a passion about environmental protection for as long as I've been in public life going back to my time in the state Senate in the 1970s which came a little bit after the first Earth Day I said when I declared for president that I was going to make America stronger at home and stronger in the world. The very first detailed policy statement I put out was on energy because our energy policy under Bush was so bad. Drilling for oil in the Arctic Refuge is if that in Alaska that will help us giving oil. The oil industry everything it wants exactly the wrong policy so long no matter how strong we are militarily so long as we're dependent on foreign oil to power this country we're going to be weak. And that's why my energy policy will make us stronger in the world create jobs here at home protect the environment. What do I propose. You gotta start with transportation. Two thirds of our energy is consumed in

transportation. And I'm proposing a requirement that that the American automobiles vehicles in this country use two million barrels of gallons of gas annually less that would get us to 40 miles per gallon. So that was a deficiency. Gotta force that to happen. Controversial politically unpopular and some special because what you got is going up and it keeps getting shot down. Secondly we need to invest and I talked about investments in innovation in new energy technologies like fuel cells. That's the hope of the future. Third we need to focus on renewables. And my package includes a requirement that 20 percent of the power produced by power industry in America utilities comes from renewables energy wind solar et cetera. Incidentally Dick sweat of New Hampshire has been the head of my energy advisory task force and they made a very interesting proposal to me the most abundant

natural source of energy we have in America left in the earth is not oil we're losing it it's coal right. Coal is dirty but they came up with a proposal to invest a lot of money and seeing one can we get coal out of the ground in an environmentally protective way and to then develop something from it that is also environmentally protective. There is very exciting work being done to take gas out of coal and including hydrogen. And then you'd be able to use that hydrogen and fuel cells which is really clean. So this week and in fact John McCain and I'm very excited have offered a the most comprehensive anti-global warming proposal ever to come before Congress we're going to debate it Wednesday and Thursday. The Bush administration of course is opposed to it. We we don't expect to win but we think we going to get some good support and a lot of what I've described in my energy plan will be in our global warming proposal. It's not only the right thing for our environment for our economy but it's one of the best things we could

do to say to the rest of the world that doesn't trust us under George Bush. We know this is an international problem we know that we're the greatest cause of it. We're going to do something to make it better. Like to ask you just very briefly about that bill because again we had a couple of questions about it yesterday when Republican Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire was here. Yes. Somebody called about the Lieberman McCain bill to cut carbon dioxide which as you said is blamed for global warming. Senator Sununu and others say that this could increase our energy costs by 20 to 30 percent. Not true with respect. First up John McCain and I are using a system that was part of the Clean Air Act for acid rain. It's a so-called cap and trade. We're going to set up a market where we're people first but you got to have a cap you got to say and this is our goal that by 2010 the emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases go down to 2000 levels we've got to reduce it and to do that we set that cap and then we allow polluters to trade within

it. So it's a market approach a market approach we've had estimates from two independent sources including one at Harvard and the name I forget of the institute that did this that say that the average increase for American families would be about $25 a year in the cost of this. You know I think American families are ready to pay $25 a year more maybe 50 hours a year more for a cleaner environment and for us to save our kids and grandkids from the changes in their life that I'm convinced will will come from global warming if we don't begin to do something about it. Senator Lieberman I can't let you go without asking you about the Iowa caucuses. Yes. Why did you decide to drop out. Because I love New Hampshire because I also love Iowa. Now I have to answer for here. Here's the deal. This isn't a new process a new schedule in the presidential primary contest. We've got not just Iowa New Hampshire now in the first two weeks we've got nine states that are going to vote. And you just got to decide where are you going to put your resources to get the best return and the caucuses are very labor intensive.

I decided I wanted to start in the first in the nation primary New Hampshire. I feel good about the independent minded voters here. I'm an independent minded Democrat. I think I'm going to surprise here and then go on to February 3rd where seven states will vote. I'm doing well. And in those states and we're going to win some of them and then I think the field of candidates will down. So it was it was that kind of resource decision I feel good about it it means Laura that I'm going to be back in New Hampshire an awful lot in the coming days and weeks in fact we're going on the air with our first commercials here in New Hampshire tomorrow which I think are going to be an interesting unusual set of commercials in which I'm going to be talking directly to the people of New Hampshire about big issues that are on their mind Iraq tax cuts and what I intend to do about them. Well speaking of those independent minded voters of New Hampshire Senator Lieberman why do you suppose so many of them at this point are gunning for Howard Dean. Howard you Howard's done well. I think most voters independents and

Democrats in New Hampshire are undecided. Every indication that I have tells me people in New Hampshire take this choice seriously. Howard Dean's done a great job in building up a support base here. But I still believe a majority of voters is undecided and I believe I'm there. I'm a New Hampshire kind of candidate and I'm going to provide leadership with integrity and a lot of straight talk in this campaign and as president so I look forward to two a good three months from now of the primary. And a great result that night. All right. Well Senator Lieberman I hope you come back in exchange. Laura I will make you that promise. That's a straight talk answer. I'll be back. We've got that on the air. By the way sorry about the Yankees not the most the greatest test of whether I was prepared to lead with integrity to answer the question in New Hampshire about whether or not I really was ahead of him. We have a group led by Frank and Joe Sullivan in Manchester a

truly magnanimous group called Red Sox fans for Lieberman. I don't know really what a group less where we're both as Frank just said to me last night. Well neither one of us. But you know what. It was a great baseball season. Yeah it was. I found myself even getting involved in it and I don't care that much about baseball. See the next time take care. Thank you very much. Senator Joe Lieberman Connecticut U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate. And we will continue our candidate interviews next week we have several candidates lined up including Senator John Kerry. As I said on November 10th the exchange is going on the road to the Conium. We'll be talking about all the presidential candidates health care plans. More information on that will be coming up in the days ahead. The exchanges the production of an HPR produced by Keith shields frankly and Sally Hersh engineer is Dan COLGAN And Mark