The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Kwame Holman and Ray Suarez look at the Washington struggle over cutting marriage and other taxes, Lee Hochberg reports on the growing number of teenagers in the workplace, Gwen Ifill explores the latest skirmish in the politics of abortion, and Susan Dentzer and a specialist update the fight against Alzheimer's Disease. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The Middle East summit went into a marathon phase today. They went all night at Camp David, with President Clinton taking a break from negotiations at 5:00 AM. He resumed work a few hours later. He's due to leave tomorrow for an economic conference in Japan. And White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart would not say if tomorrow is a deadline for the peace talks, but he did say this:

JOE LOCKHART: There is not an open-ended or unlimited amount of time so people understand the pressure that they're under because the stakes are high here and the issues are important. And I think, you know, people have been at this now for quite some time. So I think you can expect that they're tired, but they're staying at it.

JIM LEHRER: The Camp David talks sparked new protests today. Several hundred Palestinians marched in Gaza and the west bank. They urged Yasser Arafat not to recognize Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem. The Palestinians want the Arab eastern half of the city for their capital. The Senate today voted to repeal the so-called marriage penalty. The vote was 61 to 38. The Republican bill would cut taxes by $248 billion over ten years. It must now be reconciled with a House version. President Clinton has said he'd sign it, but only if Republicans add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. We'll have more on the tax fight in Congress right after the News Summary. The House rejected a ban on Internet gambling last night. It fell short of a two-thirds majority required under a special rule. It would have curbed Internet casino games and sports betting, and banned online sales of lottery tickets. Supporters said gambling sites attract compulsive or underage bettors. Industry officials said they'd accept limited regulation, but not a ban. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Washington taxes debate, teenagers at work, abortion politics, and an Alzheimer's update.

FOCUS - TAXING ISSUES

JIMLEHRER: Tax time in Washington. Kwame Holman begins.

CLERK: Mr. Graham of Minnesota, aye.

KWAME HOLMAN: Fresh from winning passage of a repeal of the estate tax last week, Senate Republicans today set their sights on eliminating another popular target in the tax code, the so-called the marriage penalty. The marriage penalty results from a quirk in income tax law that forces some 25 million married couples to pay more in taxes than they would if they filed as singles. Utah Republican Orrin Hatch explained how, using three mythical families.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: Let's suppose we have three families, all neighbors, living in the same street in Ogden, Utah. These families are nearly identical in that they each have three children and household incomes of $80,000 a year. The only differences in these three families were in the marital status of the parents, and who earns the income. In the first family, the Allen family, the parents are married; and both work outside the home, and each of them earns $40,000 for a total of $80,000. The second family, the Brown family, they are also married, but only the husband works outside the home, earning $80,000 per year. The third family, the Campbell-Clark family, are unmarried parents, and each of them earns $40,000 a year for a total of $80,000. As you can see from this chart, under current law, the Allen and the Brown families each pay $9,222 in income tax each year. The Campbell-Clark family, however, because they can file as single tax payers because they're not married, pay only a combined $7,885. Therefore the Allens suffer a marriage penalty of about $1,300 each year, even though the circumstances are basically the same.

KWAME HOLMAN: To address the discrepancy, the Republican plan would increase the standard deduction for married couples to twice the deduction of a single taxpayer, double the amount married couples may earn before they're taxed at the 15% and 28% rates, and increase the earned income tax credit for low-income workers-- that would eliminate the marriage penalty paid by couples like Senator Hatch's Allen family. But Republicans want to go further to grant relief to one- wage-earner families like the Browns, who already enjoy a so- called marriage bonus.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: It is true that the browns do not suffer a marriage penalty, but why should they pay higher taxes simply because their family income is earned by one spouse and not two? However there are also about 108,000 couples in Utah who are like the Browns and would be left behind by marriage tax relief like we passed in 1999.

KWAME HOLMAN: But Democrats railed against the Republicans' ten-year, $248 billion plan, arguing it costs too much, yet only eliminates part of the marriage penalty arising from a complicated tax code. Minority Leader Tom Daschle used his own example of a couple who earns $70,000 a year.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Here's what the Republicans do. The Republicans will provide, under their relief-- I mean under their bill, 39% of the relief. That's all you get. That's all you get. I mean, here they are spending $248 billion, and they can't even do it right. They can't fix all 65 provisions. They fix three, and so you leave the balance under the Republican bill for another day, apparently. Madam president, we don't believe that that ought to be the way you fix the marriage penalty. We think you ought to fix the marriage penalty if you say you're going to fix it, and we provide 100% relief: $1,125 in relief for that couple making $70,000 a year.

KWAME HOLMAN: Senate Democrats have their own plan, which would give couples the choice of filing joint or single tax returns, whichever gave them the most tax relief.

SPOKESMAN: The Democratic alternative provides simplicity. Taxpayers would be allowed a choice, not a difficult concept for us in America: If you benefit under the tax code, by filing as a single person, if you are married, that is your option, and you can do so-- no ifs, ands, or buts. And - conversely -- if you benefit as a married person by filing a joint return, that is your choice as well. It is that simple. Whatever fits your individual need. It is tailored, it is specific, and it is simple.

KWAME HOLMAN: But at $54 billion over ten years, the Democratic plan falls short, according to Bill Roth, chairman of the Finance Committee.

BILL ROTH: Today's amendment imposes arbitrary limits on the marriage penalty relief and begins to phase out the benefits at $100,000 of income, and then completely shuts them off at $150,000 per couple. I don't see how we can justify solving the marriage tax penalty for some, but letting it remain for others at an arbitrary income level. This does not have to be, and should not be, an issue of the rich versus the poor.

SPOKESPERSON: The clerk will call the roll.

KWAME HOLMAN: But outnumbered as they are, Democrats failed to win passage of their plan last night, clearing the way for this afternoon's vote on the Republican plan.

CLERK: Mr. Hagel, aye.

KWAME HOLMAN: In the end, a handful of Democrats voted with Republicans, allowing them to move closer to getting a marriage penalty bill to President Clinton quickly, well before they convene their national convention. President Clinton has said he will veto the legislation unless Republicans agree to a Medicare prescription drug benefit, an offer Republicans have declined.

JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez has more.

RAY SUAREZ: Joining me now to talk more about the marriage penalty and other tax cuts on the agenda in this political year are Diana Furchtgott-Roth, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Max Sawicky, an economist at the Economic policy Institute. Well, Diana Furchtgott-Roth...

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH, American Enterprise Institute: Yes.

RAY SUAREZ: ... when you go in to fix something like the marriage penalty, which by all accounts is an unintended quirk of the way the brackets were structured, can you go in there and perform that kind of delicate surgery in just fix that, or do you end up having almost inevitably other unintended consequences?

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Well, you can actually go in and fix the problem, which is that when two single people who earn money get married, they end up paying more after they get married than they did before, and that's a serious moral and social problem today. And in the proposed Republican bill, the one that just passed, yes, that fixes that problem indeed. And what they've done is they've doubled the exemptions. They've increased the 15% bracket so it's twice the amount for married couples as for singles. They have done the same with the 28% bracket. And that's going to fix that particular problem. What it does, an unintended consequence of that, is that it gives a bigger tax cut to married couples where there's just one earner. It gives an added marriage bonus to stay-at-home moms, but give that we see so many problems with children today that a lot of parents would really like to spend more time at home, I think there's nothing really wrong socially with doing that, and it's better to err on the side in these days of surpluses of too much tax relief than too little tax relief for couples.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, the fastest growing component of American households are households that consistent of one person. Is there a possibility that they're going to say, hey, wait a minute, where's mine?

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Sure, sure, they are, but one of the reasons is that here we have a big marriage penalty, and a lot of these single people just don't find it advantageous to get married. And if they were to... because they see if they were to get married, their tax bill is going to go up. And so this marriage penalty tax relief, this bill that was just passed is going to encouraging them... it's going to take away the disincentive for getting married. And so that's going to help with that.

RAY SUAREZ: Max Sawicky, is this a bill that looks like good policy to you?

MAX SAWICKY, Economic Policy Institute: No, I think it's bad policy on a number of counts. It spends money, much of the resources in the bill go to family who face no marriage penalty presently. In fact, almost half of married couples in the tax code have something analogous to a marriage bonus. Their taxes are lower by virtue of having married. So we have a lot of money going for people that had no marriage penalty to begin with. Secondly, the way they fix this, there are many ways to fix the marriage penalty if that's what you set out to do. The way they fix this confers benefits on low-income families in the neighborhood of $100 or $200 or $300. And as you go up the income scale, the benefits increase a great deal.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: But that's because they pay more taxes. These people pay more taxes.

MAX SAWICKY: Well, they pay more incomes tax, but of course, low-income families pay payroll taxes as well, and it would be eminently feasible in the incomes tax to provide relief, recognizing the fact that families pay payroll tax. Most... many families pay more payroll tax than income tax. By expanding the earned income tax credit and, as I've proposed in a paper with Robert Cherry of Brooklyn College, merging that with the child credit and the dependent exception, it would be possible to provide relief to low-income families who work with children and also reduce marriage penalties for those income level families where in fact marriage penalties are greatest in the tax load. They're much higher in percentage terms for people in the earned income tax credit program who pay taxes, whether it's payroll taxes or income taxes, than marriage penalties are in percentage terms for high-income or even middle-income people.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: But the Senate bill does just that. It increases the earned income credit by two and a half thousand dollars on the top and two and a half thousand dollars on the bottom.

MAX SAWICKY: No. It doesn't eliminate marriage penalties for earned income tax credit people.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: As long as -

MAX SAWICKY: It's a very minor change.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: As long as we have any kind of welfare programs, as long as we have any programs for people at the bottom, we're going to have some kind of penalty as these people grow out of them and become better off.

MAX SAWICKY: The question is how much resources they put to fixing that problem, and the answer is very little, and how much resources in the tax bill go to high-income, relatively speaking, couples. And the answer is the vast bulk of resources in this tax bill go to high-income couples, whether they had a marriage penalty or not. So this really isn't about marriage, it's about an early Christmas present to the Republican electorate.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, as we saw in the -

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: They pay most of the taxes. I mean, the top 50% of tax filers pay about 90% of the taxes. So any tax cut we're going to get gives most of the tax benefit to the upper income.

MAX SAWICKY: It doesn't have to be that way because they pay payroll taxes too, and the base for the earned income tax credit, namely earnings, is exactly the base for the payroll tax. So by expanding the earned income tax credit in a non-trivial way, it's possible to defray more of payroll tacks, which is what low-income people pay to a much greater extent than the personal income tax.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Excuse me, Max, but expanding it by two and a half thousand dollars on the top and on the bottom is non-trivial?

MAX SAWICKY: Not to me. No. I think it's very minor.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's turn to the estate tax, which is another thing that's been on the Congress' plate in recent weeks. The way that they are proposing to change the tax strikes a lot of people who are watching the political goings on as sort of fair and also very simple to understand. Max Sawicky, you a problem with that?

MAX SAWICKY: Yeah, there's all kinds of reasons to retain some kind of estate and gift tax. The one we have now could be repaired in a variety of ways, but basically we have a situation now in the income tax where it's possible for much income in the form of capital gains to not be taxed under the income tax. Now, in the bill that was passed, there is some provision to capture that income after a person dies but as some economists wrote in a paper out of the Brookings Institution, Joel Slimrod and William Gail, it's very likely that that provision is a bait and switch procedure because it will be so hard to implement. Basically it requires an heir to have records of assets purchased by the person that bequeathed them to that heir, and that could have been a long time ago. It could be very complicated and cumbersome and difficult to administer. So arguably this feature of the bill that was passed will fall out of the law when it becomes impossible to implement and will end up with no estate and gift tax and no tax on the basic source of income that helps people get really rich in the U.S. capital gains.

RAY SUAREZ: Diana Furchtgott-Roth.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Well, I think estate tax is grave robbery. It's grave robbery. These people have paid taxes on the money. This is a wealth tax. It's money that's already been taxed. It's been taxed once.

MAX SAWICKY: What about capital gains that haven't been taxed during a person's lifetime?

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: These capital gains, if the person were to sell it, they would pay capital gains.

MAX SAWICKY: But if they don't sell, there's a step up, namely, the cost is adjusted, so there's no tax.

RAY SUAREZ: If you do have a portfolio of investments and you die before you sell them realizing the profits, does somebody pay a tax on it if you reduce or eliminate the estate tax?

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: No, no, no. The situation would be that if people have stocks that they leave to their heirs, there is, as max pointed out, the provision in the bill that would have the step up in basis. Now, Max is saying, well, in practice this wouldn't be workable because they wouldn't put it in, but the estate tax repeal bill has made a provision for that.

RAY SUAREZ: Help me understand this.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: -- what Max is saying - or as you might right now -

RAY SUAREZ: If you held this portfolio, various things, houses, land, stock, and it's appreciated a great deal during your life, but you die before realizing this appreciation, will somebody pay a tax on it?

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Right now?

RAY SUAREZ: Given the versions of the plan the Republicans have put forward.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Under current law, it can be passed on tax free. Under the versions passed by Congress, yes, the heirs would pay the part of the capital gains that capital gains owed on the basis of that stock. Max is just saying...

MAX SAWICKY: When they eventually sell.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: When they sell it.

MAX SAWICKY: If they sell.

RAY SUAREZ: But they can continue to hold it and continue to enjoy the appreciation.

MAX SAWICKY: There's a tax advantage for capital gains.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: But that's the case with everything. For example, if you're give an house and you don't sell it and you pass it on to your son who passes it on to his son, you wouldn't pay capital gains on it just because you don't sell. You don't derive the benefit of the money either.

MAX SAWICKY: By contrast, if you have a certificate of deposit and you have a cash interest, that's classified as what's called ordinary income, the kind of income that ordinary folks get, and the rates for that kind of income are higher than the rates for capital gains income, which itself enjoys other types of advantage. So there's a gross unfairness presently in the income tax in terms of the way different types of income are taxed. Repealing the estate and gift tax arguably makes that quite a bit worse. The tax system becomes less progressive, rather than staying the same at minimum or becoming more progressive.

RAY SUAREZ: Diana Furchtgott-Roth, respond to that point, that by eliminating the estate tax you favor income earned from investments over income that's earned by just going out and working.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Well, I think that income should be taxed once, but I think it's a myth that it's the very wealthy that pay the estate tax. If you look at the data, you can see that people who pay estate tax at the highest rate, 55%, are father fewer than people who pay tax at the lower rates, 39%, 38% -- about 70% of them. Most people pay tax at the lower rates. You're not getting the very wealthy with the estate tax -- in many cases because they have lawyers and they can put their money in trusts. They can put their money in estates. It's retired teachers, a couple retired professors who have a house that's worth, I don't know, grown to $400,000 and a few retirement accounts. They're the ones that are paying the estate tax because right now the estate tax limit is only $675,000 for everything.

RAY SUAREZ: But it's going up to $1 million?

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: In 2006, which is six years, yes, yes, that's true.

MAX SAWICKY: Only $675,000. Somebody that receives that amount of money just once is by that... by virtue of that immediately very much better off than the vast majority of people. In fact, two out of 100 estates only... only two out of 100 are taxable in the first place. Again, that study by Slimrod and Gail found that the average rate of tax, in other words, the average share of an estate one pays in tax for what they call large estates, which means estates larger than $2.5 million is actually about 19%. For the other estates that are taxable, it's around 13%. So, in fact, the magnitude of the tax and the coverage have been grossly overstated in the public debate.

RAY SUAREZ: Max Sawicky, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, thank you both very, very much.

MAX SAWICKY: Thank you.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: Thank you.

FOCUS - WORKING TEENS

JIM LEHRER: Teenagers in the workplace. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

TEEN: All right.

CUSTOMER: Thank you.

TEEN: You're welcome.

LEE HOCHBERG: The teenagers behind the counter at Spud's Fish and Chips in suburban Seattle are as much a part of the atmosphere as the fish itself. This summer, 22 teenagers will fry and flip and serve the fish that customers line up for. Like many fast food establishments, Spud's hires mostly teenage employees. Nationwide, 80% of teens hold after-school or summer jobs. Half of 12th-graders work more than 20 hours a week during school, a significant jump since the last generation of teens. Andrew Schetzle says he does it to pay for his car.

ANDREW SCHETZLE, Spud Fish and Chips:> I just like to have it since I'm 16 and I can get one now. It's just nice to have, so I can listen to my own music.

CHRIS ZASCHE, Spud Fish and Chips: You've got to have money to pay for stuff.

LEE HOCHBERG: Pay for what?

CHRIS ZASCHE: Skateboards. That's all I pay for, and car insurance.

LEE HOCHBERG: You rarely hear, at least in this middle-class Seattle suburb, that they're working to support the family, or even save money for college. That's no surprise, says Mary Miller of Washington State's Department of Labor and Industries.

MARY MILLER, Washington State Department of Labor & Industries: Part of it is a conspicuous consumption that's been going on in our culture over the last 20 years or so, and kids are very specifically marketed to, you know? Cars, designer clothes, I mean that's clearly part of what is motivating kids to work.

LEE HOCHBERG: Employers hungry for workers in the hot economy are happy to snatch the low-wage teens. Spud's manager Pat O'Brien says his workers begin at minimum wage.

PAT O'BRIEN, Manager, Spud Fish and Chips: Really to hire somebody older, I can't afford to pay them more just because of their age. I've got a budget I can afford to pay, and minimum wage in this state is $6.50.

LEE HOCHBERG: The question is, is all of the work good for teenagers? Despite the money and the responsibility and self-esteem some say they get on the job, there's increasing evidence that they may be overdoing it.

MARY MILLER: Except under certain circumstances, I don't think kids should be working during the school year more than 20 hours a week.

LEE HOCHBERG: A National Research Council study concludes too many teens are working too many hours in dangerous jobs. Federal child labor laws ban teens from such hazardous jobs as working on roofs. And they prohibit 14- and 15- year-olds from working more than 18 hours a week during the school year. Though there's no federal law regarding the hours worked by those 16 and older, some state laws cover them. But a Rutgers University report found American businesses employ 150,000 teens in violation of those laws, saving themselves $155 million a year.

EMERGENCY TECHNICIAN: ...Blood pressure at 117...

LEE HOCHBERG: Teens are injured at a rate twice that of working adults. 100,000 teenagers a year come into emergency rooms after job injuries. 70 die on the job. A 15-year-old Seattle boy shattered his skull and died after falling four stories from the roof of this building two years ago. Brian Schwartz was working as a window washer when the rig to which he was tethered tore loose. The state fined Schwartz's employer for allowing the underage teen to work above ground level, in violation of state law, and inadequately training him. The teenager likely was too inexperienced to recognize the unsafesetup.

MARY MILLER: They have different level of judgment, their perception of risk and vulnerability differs. They are expecting it to perhaps be a safe environment, you know? "Why would they ask me to do something dangerous?"

LEE HOCHBERG: Miller says even when employers follow safety laws, the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which sets some of those laws has fallen out of date.

MARY MILLER: They haven't kept up with the times. Deep fat fryers have been found to be extremely hazardous, and contribute to many injuries, or meat slicers, or, you know, the boom in construction where there's an increased demand for workers.

LEE HOCHBERG: The very act of being in the workplace can put teens at risk. A Colorado high school student and his girlfriend were slain in February as the student prepared to close the sandwich shop where he'd worked the late shift. One quarter of teen deaths in the workplace are caused by violence, usually a robbery. Teens often are left by themselves in restaurants or groceries to guard cash registers late at night.

TEEN: Give me your money and put it in the bag. Hurry up.

OTHER TEEN: I'm going to push the button to get the money.

LEE HOCHBERG: Safety experts say employers should offer armed robbery training courses like this one given recently to employees at Spud's. Although there have been no holdups at the restaurant, teen workers got advice on how to handle one from retired Spokane police officer John Moore.

JOHN MOORE, Crime Safety Trainer: How intimidating is this? How intimidating is this weapon?

TEENS: Very intimidating.

JOHN MOORE: Very intimidating. So we're likely then to look where?

TEEN: At the gun?

JOHN MOORE: Everywhere but the gun. If you don't look at the robber, your risk level goes up. I guarantee it. The point here is you don't physically resist this.

TEEN: What if it's just, like, some small guy and, you know he doesn't have a gun on him?

TEEN: Well, I mean, if they got it to your back, you can lean back into it. That's what my dad said you can do.

JOHN MOORE: You shouldn't do it. We don't do that kind of thing because it only takes one mistake to get a whole bunch of people hurt.

JOHN MOORE: The younger people... "Nothing can happen to me. I mean, I can't get hurt." They may not know, for example, that they don't resist a holdup.* I mean, because of watching television, they wouldn't have a clue.

LEE HOCHBERG: For all of the concerns about physical dangers, the larger question is whether school, and not paid labor, should be a teen's real job. The National Research Council finds teens who work more than 20 hours per week are less likely to finish high school and more likely to use drugs. Some teachers at Juanita High School, where the Spud employees go, say half of their students work 40 or more hours per week during the school year.

GAIA HAWKIN, High School Teacher: By the junior or senior year, a very large number of the kids come to school and they fall asleep promptly. And when you wake them up, they'll tell you that that they're just tired, and they'll say, "well, I had to close the store last night. The person who was supposed to close the store didn't show up."

CHRIS ZASCHE: You get home and you have all this homework, and sometimes you just don't want to do it. It's just like... I don't know, it's just too late and you just... So every once in a while, you know, you just don't do your homework.

LEE HOCHBERG: Teacher Gaia Hawkin says half of her 150 students are performing below ability.

GAIA HAWKIN: The price is too high. Their job is school. Their job is learning. Once you have learned how to say "do you want French fries with that?", You have kind of run out of the growth at the job level that they are doing.

LEE HOCHBERG: Washington State officially requires teacher approval before students are allowed to work, but schools and employers seem to be getting around it.

LEE HOCHBERG: The teachers never signed off on it -- there was no form?

BRIAN McCAULEY, Spud Fish and Chips: No.

GAIA HAWKIN: I have never been asked to approve or disapprove. I have never had a counselor or anyone say to me, "this kid has applied for a work permit. How are they doing in your class?"

CUSTOMER: I'll have a number 24.

LEE HOCHBERG: With demand for teen workers showing no sign of ebbing, the National Research Council recommends Congress limit the work hours and types of jobs available to 16- and 17-year- olds. One bill would cap their hours at 20 a week during school. Younger teens could work only 15 hours a week. But the bill is stalled in the House Education and Workforce Committee, and is unlikely to become law this session.

LEE HOCHBERG: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, abortion politics, and an Alzheimer's update.

FOCUS - ABORTION POLITICS

JIM LEHRER: Gwen Ifill has the abortion story.

GWEN IFILL: For any candidate running for President, abortion is the issue that never seems to go away. Not for the Republican candidate, who opposes abortion rights...

BERNARD SHAW: Governor Bush, if you could write a two-sentence amendment to the United States Constitution on abortion, what would it be?

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: It would be that every child born and unborn should be protected in the law, and every child should be welcomed in life. I believe it's important for our party to maintain our pro-life position. I believe it's important for the next President to recognize good people can disagree on this issue. So the next President must elevate the issue of life to convince people of the preciousness of life, not only for the young, but for the elderly, as well. I'm a pro-life candidate, and I have been a pro-life governor.

GWEN IFILL: ...And not for the Democrat, who supports abortion rights.

JIM LEHRER: How important do you think the abortion issue should be in this campaign?

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE: Well, given the fact that whoever is elected President will probably be appointing three justices of the Supreme Court, maybe more, and shaping the opinion of the Supreme Court for the next 30 to 40 years on the issue of a woman's right to choose, civil rights and other issues... I think that it's very important. There's no question that there's a pretty clear contrast between my position and Governor Bush's position. I support a woman's right to choose, and I will not have it undermined or weakened or taken away.

GWEN IFILL: As Bush and Gore prepare to name their running mates, activists on both sides of the abortion issue are hoping to seize the initiative. Republicans have long battled among themselves over abortion. Potential running mates like Governors Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, and retired General Colin Powell, all favor abortion rights. But conservatives within the GOP, led in the past by Pat Buchanan, have said such a position should be a disqualifier. A Catholic group calling itself Priests for Life announced today it will buy ads in newspapers and on television demanding that opposition to abortion be considered a political litmus test. Governor Bush is the target of liberal criticism as well. Planned parenthood has begun running this national television ad.

ANNOUNCER: He agrees he's the most anti- abortion governor in America, and supports a constitutional amendment that would take away our right to choose. Does that sound compassionate or responsible? Get the facts and decide for yourself.

GWEN IFILL: In a new CBS News poll released yesterday, 38% of those who say they support Bush, also said he should pick a running mate who opposes abortion. But Bush is already assured the Republican nomination. Among all voters in the same poll, 59% said if Bush chooses a running mate who supports abortion, it would make no difference.

GWEN IFILL: Now, more on the politics of abortion and the effect it will have on this year's elections. Gloria Feldt is the President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Carol Tobias is the director of the National Right to Life Political Action Committee.

GWEN IFILL: Carol Tobias, is abortion really going to be a big issue this year or is it just a knee-jerk thrust that we assume that every four years?

CAROL TOBIAS: There is a certain segment of the population that truly does care about this issue, and it is going to be an issue for them. In 1992, 13% of the voters said that abortion was one of their top two issues. In 1996, it was 12% of the voters. So certainly there is a large segment out there who really care about this issue.

GWEN IFILL: Does that make it a big deal, Gloria Feldt?

GLORIA FELDT: I think that this is going to be one of the defining issues as we get closer to November 7. The candidates begin to sound more and more like each other as they each try to appeal to the broad middle when they go through the campaign period. But on the issue of abortion, and it's not just abortion, I don't think the abortion issue is just about abortion. I think it's just the tip of a whole ideological iceberg that involves family planning, medically accurate sexuality education, the whole issue of who should be making these personal and private childbearing decisions, the individual or the government. It's all part of a much bigger issue, and I think it can be a defining issue, and certainly for the compassionate conservative women who we've identified as a very important voting group, it is a very salient issue that can turn their vote one way or the other.

GWEN IFILL: Carol Tobias, define compassionate conservative women; using Gloria's definition, that means Republican women. Do they really exist, and can they tip the balance in an election like this?

CAROL TOBIAS: There are Republicans that support abortion, but there are actually more Democrats who oppose abortion, so it's going to be playing one way for one group, but one for another. Gloria mentioned the candidates speaking to a broader audience, and that is where I truly believe that George Bush has the advantage. George Bush believes that taxpayers should not have to pay for abortions with their tax dollars. He thinks parents should be involved if their minor daughter is considering an abortion. He certainly opposes the partial-birth abortion procedure. Al Gore is on the other end. He does support tax funding of abortion. He doesn't think parents should be involved. He does support partial-birth abortions. So he's got a very extreme position that is going to make it difficult for him to reach out to those who may be concerned or interested in this issue, but it's not a defining issue for them.

GWEN IFILL: George W. Bush, you have to look hard to find what he has to say about abortion in any case. The National Review called his stand "friendly non- involvement." Are you disappointed? Do you wish he would make abortion a more central issue?

CAROL TOBIAS: I think he's doing a great job. George Bush has taken a strong position in support of protecting unborn children. We're very pleased with that. I think he's doing a great job on his campaign of working with this issue.

GWEN IFILL: How about Al Gore, Gloria Feldt? Does it help him to make abortion a central issue, even if you define it as broadly as you're attempting to and saying it's all about people's choice about a number of personal issues. Do you think it helps him to make abortion a central issue, especially if Democrats oppose it?

GLORIA FELDT: Since the Supreme Court is now hanging by a one-vote thread in terms of its upholding the basic fundamentals of our right to choose, and in reality, it's kind of... This last decision was more like a 4-4-1.

GWEN IFILL: You're talking about the abortion ban.

GLORIA FELDT: The Nebraska case, the abortion ban case from Nebraska, in which one of the justices who wrote a concurring opinion said, but if you write it differently, I would find it constitutional, I think it's become clear how important the President of the United States is, because the President, after all, does appoint those justices, and even though this last case was about abortion, it was about, again, so much more. It was about whether a legislature or the doctors ought to be able to make medical judgments about what's in the best interest of the health of the woman. And you have to remember that the legal and constitutional underpinnings of "Roe V. Wade," which made abortion legal, are exactly the same legal and constitutional underpinnings of "Griswold V. Connecticut" that made birth control legal all over this country. So we are talking about much more. I think that Vice President Gore could do a lot better for himself if he spoke more broadly about these issues and really brought them to the forefront because they do affect every woman, man, and family in this country.

GWEN IFILL: Are you talking about the Supreme Court decisions or do you interpret the balance of the Supreme Court the same way?

CAROL TOBIAS: Gloria is trying to broaden the recent Supreme Court decision... She was even bringing in family planning, contraceptives. The Supreme Court ruled that the state of Nebraska could not ban one particular procedure, a partial-birth abortion, in which a child is delivered all by the head, stabbed in the back of the head with the scissors, opened up to create a hole so the brain could be suctioned out. Then you have a dead baby. The Supreme Court said states cannot restrict that procedure. 75% of the people in this country oppose that procedure think it should be banned. Al Gore is on the wrong side, and I think if abortion is an issue in this election, it's going to be partial-birth abortion, because that has become the debate in this country for the past four or five years, when you talk about abortion, it has been forecast. And that's going to hurt Al Gore.

GLORIA FELDT: The central ruling of the court in this instance was that a state cannot disqualify a woman's health, that a woman's health must be considered...

CAROL TOBIAS: Except George W. Bush...

GLORIA FELDT: George W. Bush approves of ... supports a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion and makes no exception for the health of the woman. That is a big deal. That is a big deal.

GWEN IFILL: Let's talk about the Vice Presidential selection. That's what's looming right now. We're trying to decide whether, especially George W. Bush is going to be able to decide to pick someone who supports abortion rights and still survive as a Republican nominee. What do you think about that?

CAROL TOBIAS: I think George Bush should pick a pro-life running mate because that would be consistent with his message. I'm waiting for someone to ask Al Gore if he's going to select a pro- life Democrat as his running mate.

GWEN IFILL: Let me follow up first on what you said. Do you think if he picked a Tom Ridge, would that be a problem? Would he lose voters?

CAROL TOBIAS: I think a lot of people would be very concerned. He would be sending mixed messages to the conservative base and the Republican Party.

GWEN IFILL: How many Democrats would al gore lose if he were to look high and low and find himself a Democratic running mate who didn't support abortion rights?

GLORIA FELDT: I think that the choice of the vice Presidential running mate is not the big deal that is been made right now. Quite frankly, it is the President in either case, whether it's Bush or Gore, it is the President who appoints members to the Supreme Court. It is the President who puts forth an agenda. It is the President who signs or vetoes bills. So in my view, while it's been an interesting speculation that's been going on, on both sides I think, truth be known, it's really the President who is the key person here.

GWEN IFILL: So if George W. Bush were to run with an abortion... anti-abortion running mate and he also is anti-abortion and he were to be elected, that wouldn't bother you at all?

GLORIA FELDT: It would bother me a great deal because a woman's right to choose would be totally at risk, but I don't think the Vice Presidential candidate makes the difference in that equation. It's the man who is running for President.

GWEN IFILL: Carol Tobias, what happens with your argument if George W. Bush... There's an Associated Press survey which came out today which showed that half of the delegates to the Republican convention said even if he picks an abortion rights running mate, they don't care, it's okay by them. There seems to be some undercurrent in the Republican Party that George W. Bush can basically do whatever he wants and it's fine by them. Is it fine by you?

CAROL TOBIAS: I think there's a lot of speculation about something that, you know, we're going to know about in another week, week and a half. And we have not been focusing that much attention on it. Certainly, like I said, we've been encouraging Governor Bush to select a pro-life running mate, but there's more important things we're doing, focusing on the unborn child and encouraging people to take that into account when they vote this November.

GWEN IFILL: Does abortion in the end move voters? Does it move committed voters on either side? Would they actually switch votes based on a candidate's view of abortion? Are you going out on a limb by trying to get voters based on that issue, Gloria Feldt?

GLORIA FELDT: Well, what we found in our polling and focus groups is that with women, this group of Republican and independent women who begin predisposed to vote for Republican candidates in general and are predisposed to vote for George W. Bush, once they learn of his positions on abortion, family planning and sexuality education, they move away from him very quickly, and that's why we feel it is so important to with able to get the facts to people, just the facts. That's all it takes. We don't have to do nasty attack ads or grainy pictures. We just need to give people the information, and there is a very substantial group of women forwhom this is a fundamental human rights, civil rights issue, and it will move their vote.

GWEN IFILL: And what are the votes you need to move in this election to support your point of view?

CAROL TOBIAS: We're going to get the pro-life vote out. In election after election you can look at election polls and post election polling. There are a certain number of people in this country who are going to vote on the issue of abortion. The pro-life voters always outnumber our opponents. That has been an advantage for pro-life candidates. I have no doubt that will continue this year. As for the pro-choice Republican woman who, you know, Gloria's group is trying to pull away from George Bush, I think they're going to find him very acceptable because they do support some limits on abortion. Again, the tax funding, parental involvement, partial birth abortion, those are very good issues for George Bush that are going to hurt Al Gore.

GWEN IFILL: Carol Tobias and Gloria Feldt, thanks very much.

UPDATE - ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the latest on Alzheimer's research. Susan Dentzer of our health unit begins. The unit is a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SUSAN DENTZER: Roughly four million Americans suffer from the debilitating effects of Alzheimer's disease, along with another eight million worldwide. But those numbers pale compared to the total of 22 million around the globe who could be affected by 2025. As the first international conference on Alzheimer's wrapped up today in Washington, D.C., there was both worry about the future and a glimmer of hope stemming from news of potential new treatments. Researchers from a California biotechnology company, Elan Pharmaceuticals, reported on the latest progress toward an Alzheimer's vaccine. First announced a year ago, the vaccine appears to prevent or reduce one of Alzheimer's key features, but so far only in mice and other animals. Those features are the sticky protein deposits in the brains of Alzheimer's patients that are known as amyloid plaques. The plaques are believed to cause the death of other brain cells.

SPOKESMAN: It should look like this.

SUSAN DENTZER: The scientists at Elan first genetically altered a group of mice so that they developed the exact type of plaques found in humans with Alzheimer's. Then they harnessed the animals' immune systems to fight the plaques by injecting the mice with the vaccine. That shrank or eliminated existing plaques and blocked formation of new ones. The slide on the right is from the brain of a mouse that had been given the vaccine. It had virtually no plaques, compared to the slide on the left of an untreated mouse. At the conference, the Elan researchers added the good news that the vaccine had passed the first round of safety tests in two dozen human Alzheimer's patients.

DR. DALE SCHENK, Elan Pharmaceuticals: We are just now getting into the first step, which is safety studies, and the initial results from those studies in the U.S. suggest that the vaccine was well tolerated. That means the vaccine can now move ahead to clinical trials next year to test whether it actually works to reduce plaques in humans.

JIM LEHRER: More now from Dr. Steven DeKosky, head of the Department of Neurology and the Alzheimer's Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He also chairs the medical and scientific council for the Alzheimer's Association, a national advocacy group. Doctor, welcome. Help us understand how important this vaccine development is.

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center: Well, I think there are a number of important points about the vaccine. The first is, of course, that it represents a way that we could treat, as well as try to prevent Alzheimer's disease from developing in people. The second is that the early studies, especially in the mice, they've now been accompanied by some other studies by other groups using other techniques,

how that we actually can stop or slow down the accumulation of this amyloid protein in the brains of experimental animals, which means we think we ought to be able to do it in humans.

JIM LEHRER: And that amyloid protein, that is the most crucial part of Alzheimer's, is it not?

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: Well, it depends on who you ask. There are groups who feel that it is the primary and the central problem with the disease. There is another signature abnormality in the brain that occurs in all patients with AD called neurofibrillary tangles, and these are gatherings of an altered protein inside nerve cells which itself can kill the cells. The amyloid and the plaques... the amyloid plaques and the tangles were the two things that Alzheimer, himself, noticed when he first described the disease. We think the amyloid is the starter point. We certainly believe that what happens in the brain that causes a lot of the trouble in thinking relates to amyloid, and that's why it's become a prime target to try and stop.

JIM LEHRER: But the vaccine has no effect, at least no demonstrated effect on the second, on the tangles at this point, correct?

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: Well, the mouse models that we have right now don't have tangles. And they are models of the accumulation of amyloid -- still an immensely power -- an immensely useful tool. We don't know what the relationship is to tangles and plaques in the brains of humans. One of the questions will be, if you stop the amyloid, will that somehow stop the plaques from occurring, because they're somehow being started by the same mechanism, or will the tangles continue on?

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry.

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: The advantage is... here's how we look at it: People say, "well, if you top the amyloid but don't stop the tangles, will the disease go on?" And the answer is, it's possible that it will, but when we talk about stopping amyloid to slow the progression of the disease down, if the tangles continue the progression of the disease but at a greatly slowed pace, we'll have won a great victory.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the vaccine, where does it come from? Is it manmade, or does it come from some natural product or what?

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: The vaccine is a combination of the actual bad player in the brain, the actual what we call beta-amyloid fragment accompanied by an immune system stimulant. So in Alzheimer's Disease, what we think causes the plaque or the deposition of this material is that a normal protein that normally is cut in quite a long place, kind of like a grass clipping, gets clipped in an abnormal place as a very, very small fragment, and it's this fragment that builds up. What the Elan people did was actually inject that fragment, we know exactly what the sequence of the protein is that makes up this little fragment, they injected that into the mice, and the mice made antibodies to it, just as you and I make antibodies when we're injected with a vaccine for pneumonia or for chicken pox.

JIM LEHRER: So if this turns out to be effective, and you'd have to go... I'll get to that question in a minute. The next step, what has been established now with this 24 people who were given this test is that it's safe. In other words, there are no side effects that would keep a human being from taking it. Correct?

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: That's partly true. The humans who got it in the United States got a single shot of the vaccine. And the report was they had no ill effects. That's very good news. This vaccine, like most vaccines we're familiar with, would be given in repeated doses like booster shots, and in fact, the mice who got the treatment that they showed last year received shots every several weeks. The question is then, not only is a single shot of the vaccine safe, but are repeated shots safe, or would you have a problem that might build up over time. To answer that question, the scientists in the United Kingdom, Elan, are giving repeated injections, every two months or so, to another 80 or so patients to see if they will be tolerant of multiple injections of the vaccine. If those studies prove safe, and they'll probably be done I suspect by the end of 2000, then they will begin the treatment trials to see about efficacy or about effect of slowing progression.

JIM LEHRER: That treatment trial, explain in simple terms what a treatment trial of this magnitude, of this disease, with this vaccine would involve.

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: Well, I couldn't speculate on exactly how Elan would do it, but in general, what... what an example design would be would be a group of people who would receive repeated injection let's say once every three...

JIM LEHRER: Hundreds of people, thousands of people?

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: It would depends on how strong an effect they thought they would get. The stronger the effect, the fewer people you need to show your effect. But I would suspect probably a couple of hundred people to start. And then a certain percentage of those people would receive the vaccine, and a certain number would receive an inactive injection.

JIM LEHRER: And these would be people who have already been diagnosed with Alzheimer's?

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: Absolutely. You would want people who had as secure a diagnosis of Alzheimer's as possible, because amyloid doesn't appear to play a role in any other dementia.

JIM LEHRER: So the test would be if you could reduce the plaque, right, and if you could do that, then you're working on not only a vaccine, but you're also working on a cure, are you not?

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: Other way around. Actually, it's even easier.

JIM LEHRER: All right.

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: If it reduces the plaque, I'd say fine, but what we'll be looking for clinically in these people is whether or not the rate of change in their memory or their thinking function is slowed down. So we actually don't have a way to measure the amount of plaque in a living human now, a number of people are trying to figure that out. We're really interested in will their memories be better or will their loss be slowed.

JIM LEHRER: It's the symptoms. It's not what is going on inside. It's what you can actually see and hear and observe.

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: Right. At the meeting, at the world Alzheimer's Conference, which was the Alzheimer's Association's Conference last week, there were a couple groups that showed in animal models similar to the Elan model that for the first time they had behavioral changes in the animals, the animals behavior appeared a bit better if they also were deprived of the amyloid by the vaccine. That's the first behavioral data we've seen. We were very happy to see that. The human studies would have gone on even if the mice had not shown a behavioral change, but the fact they were better the vaccine certainly is encouraging in terms of our looking for behavioral changes in humans who get the vaccine.

JIM LEHRER: Doctor, finally, there are millions of people who either have Alzheimer's who have loved ones who have Alzheimer's; everybody has the fear that they are going to get Alzheimer's. What can you tell them tonight in terms of a potential timetable, not predict whether or not this is going to work or not, but let's say it does work, what kind of timetable are we looking at for when it might be available for everybody?

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: Well, there are... we'll step back and do that in sequence. There are medications currently available for Alzheimer's Disease treatment -- both for the thinking problems and for the behavioral problems, and that's very important for people to realize.

JIM LEHRER: Already.

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: Already. That's correct. There are also supports from the Alzheimer's associations and other groups.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: There are other medication, and some of them had preliminary data presented at this meeting that work in different ways, but have shown some promise in treatment of the disease. And finally, the other kind of therapeutic approach to amyloid, stopping the biochemical scissors that clips it in the wrong place, was shown at this meeting. Studies of those kinds of medications, as well as the vaccines, are probably, assuming that the studies were realistically probably maybe three years away.

JIM LEHRER: Three years away?

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: That's my estimate.

JIM LEHRER: Go ahead.

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: It will take us a year to finish the safety studies of the vaccine. It will probably take another year or so for the first studies to show whether or not using the vaccine repeatedly in people slows the progression of the disease to the point where the FDA would say, okay, this is an appropriate drug to use or an appropriate strategy.

JIM LEHRER: Got you, doctor. Thank you very much.

DR. STEVEN DeKOSKY: You're welcome.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday: Negotiators went all night at the Middle East summit, with President Clinton holding talks until 5:00 AM. He's due to leave tomorrow for an economic conference in Japan. And the Senate voted to repeal the so-called marriage penalty tax. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.