Lamar Alexander Speaks at a Town Hall Meeting in Londonderry (New Hampshire)

Ads about what his ideas are country you'll see my ads about welfare. You can see my television about conservation. You can see me talking about jobs in a balanced budget. I think that's what we ought to be doing in a presidential campaign. So I challenge him dump the negative advertising. Let's talk about new ideas. Let's talk about our old programs and what she got. And that's the purpose of all this and that would be the way to run the New Hampshire primary next. Tuesday night. You learn a lot in the grassroots campaign. For a long time people were saying well it's all over the New Hampshire primary will it make any difference any more neither will the Iowa caucus. It brought in so much television advertising that the idea of someone walking across hands. Or spending 80 days in Iowa as I did. Doesn't count. Well that's been proven to be wrong. In Iowa at least and I think New Hampshire citizens can sort through the mud slinging as well. Also I've learned a lot in the grassroots campaign. For example. ABC I thought was about as far as it went when I was in

Marshalltown Iowa last week and after hearing that someone at the back of the room said. Well why don't you say A B C D E F G. I said What world are you talking about. He said Well Alexandru the Clinton. Dole and even for Great Britain that it was here today. I worked with Bill Bennett for a long time. When I was the governor of Tennessee. He was the U.S. Department of Education secretary. And he came to our state. He helped us implement our program to pay teachers more for teaching well to raise standards at the universities. Bill I used to joke. Our views are almost the same on almost all issues. But that surprises some people. I think it's because of our temperament. We used to say Bill Bill can get up and say it's a it's a great day and everybody would say what a fine conservative Shreeves I can get up and say hanging by

their toes and cut out their entails and everybody would say What a pleasant person. So we might be we might be saying the same thing where it would work in any event. Bill Bennett's become the national chairman of the Alexander for president campaign. Bill Bennett is America's conservative conference. Of all of the people in this country whose support I would welcome. He's top on the list. Because he gives a clear signal a clear signal about where I'm coming from and where I hope you take this country. Than anyone else in the country other than the signal that I try to give. Myself. Bill Bennett's involvement is not just an endorsement. It's a part of who I am and where I hope this country goes. And that's what I'd like to talk with you about tonight. What to me what am I mean by new ideas. So let me start by the context in which I'd I'd like to. Put them. First. I'm an optimist about this country. I've had a real privilege.

I think I grew up in a privileged way. What I mean by that is my mother said that I have a library card from the day I was three. And a music lesson from the day I was four. I had everything I needed that was important. I had a strong family and a grandfather who ran away from home and became a railroad engineer. He got back home in the Tennessee mountains in time to say to me aim for the top. There's more room there. And so I thought I could grow up and be an engineer like he was or a concert pianist or the principal of the school board member and if somebody had said praise the United States well I would have said well why not. So far as I could tell in this country even kids like us could grow up to do those things. I've seen this country from a lot of different angles. I've been a governor a university president a cabinet secretary. I've helped to start a business that today has 12 twelve hundred employees. My wife and I had a fellow named Bob Keeshan. Who some of you would know better as Captain Kangaroo in 1987 started

a company that helps provide child care helps big companies provide child care for their employees. So when you read about me they'll say I have a lot of money. I hope I do. I don't have it yet because it's all in the stock of this company we started from scratch. It's been on the magazine fast growing list for the last three years. Someday we hope to sell the stock and make some money. I think it helps to have somebody in the president's office who's actually had a job actually been out of Washington. Not always worked through the government knows how jobs are created. So I'm proud of it. I admit to being a catalyst. And I think we need a little bit more capitalism opportunity in this country. I can see a rising shining America as we go into the next century. One that is a strong strong enough to defend ourselves. With more good new jobs than we lose. An America that has schools that are thought of as the best in the world just as our colleges and universities already are thought of as the best in the world. Our agriculture can be

the food which Saudi Arabia is to oil as we go into the next century. I can see an America that's comfortable in a room like this saying one nation under God without anybody squirm. I can see in America where we don't start out our meetings with someone new. By. Checking the color of his skin. I can see a country where the abortion rate and the divorce rate is headed in the right direction. And where families work harder to stick together. And fathers work harder to stick around. And I think I can almost see a country where you could almost hear the TV sets clicking off. As families spend more time raising our children. But I think we'll have to change our thinking in order to get where I want to go in this country and that's the reason I'm running for president. What I mean very simply by that. Is that I would like to lead us into the next century expecting less from Washington and asking more of ourselves.

Sometimes when I go to Washington. My friends there say to me that. Well why do you want to come back here why do you want to come back here. If you think the answers and the problems are all outside Washington why don't you stay out there. And what I say to them is look I'm not running for the presidency of Washington D.C.. I'm trying to be the president of the whole United States of America. And last time I checked our country was supposed to work. Not Washington agency by Washington agency but family by family church by church synagogue by synagogue neighborhood by neighborhood school by school. There's plenty to do in Washington. As commander in chief. I would stop the freefall in defense spending. I would never point the gun without being prepared to pull the trigger. I wouldn't send our troops into battle under United Nations command. I would sit down with our allies and I would say to them Look. We're the only superpower left. We know that. Let's divide our responsibilities up a little differently. We know we'll be expected to take a larger share of the

responsibility. In the major of if something happens in Korea for example we know who's going to get to carry more of the load. So they take more than your share of the responsibility when it comes to border patrol and pacification and peacekeeping. And if we'd had that kind of division of responsibility. Would not have ground troops in Bosnia. Tonight. I would balance the budget. That's a job for Washington to do. It wouldn't take me very long. I balance state budgets. I'm the only one running for president who's left who's ever bowed to government but which by itself is reason enough to put me in. Why would you say something about this. The balance was hard to see where you had to do this governor. Well at least I've had some practice which they have and I reduced the state's debt which I didn't have to do and I had a triple-A bond rating and we had no personal income tax. And this is a state about taxes but when I was true we had the fifth.

State taxes. So that's the record of fiscal accomplishment that I've had. And I feel this way about balancing the budget. All of them in Washington D.C. are beginning to remind me of a Boy Scout coming in and saying Give me a merit badge for telling the truth. I think what I'd say to my son is Son you're supposed to tell the truth. Who I learned to cook. I might give you that. I think we ought to say to the president and to the Congress you're supposed to balance the budget and get on with it and let's get on to the rest of the work that we have to do in this country. Let's get outside Washington and talk about jobs and schools and neighborhoods as well. I think there are some things that the national government needs to do more of. Bill Bennett and I talked about that today. We agree we need to do a better job of keeping illegal drugs out of this country. We need to do a better job for Washington of leadership on encouraging people not to use drugs and we need to do a better job in this country on controlling our borders to stop illegal immigration. So I would in my first

six months. Ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff. To recommend to me a new branch of the armed services. That has the mission of controlling our borders to do a better job of keeping out illegal drugs and illegal immigrants. I'm from the real world. I've been in the schools of East Los Angeles. I know that a third of the kids in the largest public school district in the country Los Angeles are illegally here. The valedictorian of Roosevelt High School two years ago is illegally here. We can't solve this problem by dealing with it after people are here. We have to control our borders in the first place. And one reason we need to get on with that is because our failure to control our borders and deal with illegal immigration is poisoning our attitude toward illegal immigration. People who are legally here playing by the rules paying taxes like you and I do have a right to be treated with respect and differently than people who are illegally here. The most important thing though we have to do is not in Washington. It's less from Washington and

more of ourselves. And let me just give you one example and then summarize the others and then we'll turn to your questions. And. Comments. Let's take the issue of wealthy. I don't know of any issue in American life. That troubles us more. I seem to remember a fellow named Clinton promising to end welfare as we know it. Three years ago course as with most things he didn't do what he said he would do. So we still have. And he wants to reinvent it as we know it. Here's the real world of welfare. On my 100 mile walk across New Hampshire. I came across a young couple from Nashua at the end of the day last summer who sought me out. They'd been down to the welfare office to get some help. The young man who has a job he makes about $7 an hour. Assistant chef he said. They have an 11 month old baby. The young woman does not have a job. But they were told was

that they should separate in order to get higher welfare benefits. They were shocked by that. They're humiliated by them. We often think how angry we are as taxpayers that we run a $50 billion Washington welfare program that pays people not to work and not to marry in order to get higher benefits. Just Hathor What about all the people who are humiliated who have to go through it. We should be embarrassed by this. We have 25 percent of all the money in the world in this country. 25 percent of all the money in the world. There shouldn't be anybody who goes to bed at night in Derry or Londonderry or Phil where I'm from. Who needs help who doesn't get it. Yeah we've hired Washington D.C. to create a social safety net that has gaping holes in it. And we all know that. I spent the night on the floor of a homeless shelter in Dallas. Summer before last. Father Jerry Hill. He helps 300 men every night. He may even take a federal grant anymore. He's so fed up with he said why should I try to fill out forms on Friday to justify what I do Monday through Thursday. And he's absolutely

outraged that we continue to pay drug addicts $446 a month in Social Security disability benefits. So how can I help. What I'm trying to do is to say get off drugs you can stay at my shelter or help me get a job. And here we're subsidizing their bad habits or Reverend Henry Delaney. Fascinating man. I spent the night with them to inner city of Savannah Georgia. He moved in there in 1989. This is an imposing fellow he is advertised as 500 pounds of prophecy. Whenever he goes out to make a speech he's that day. When he moved in we were gunshots up and down the street. Not anymore. He increased his congregation from 300 to 3000. He bought crack houses. The church did. He kicked the drug dealers out. He put the assistant ministers in. He started a school for boys. His wife started a school for little girls. He said to me why don't they ask me what to do about welfare. I work with people every day who need help. We have a lousy system.

But I know what to do. Here's what I would propose we do. Instead of Mr. Clinton's idea. Fix it one more time in Washington. Instead of the grand idea which is 800 pages of Republican rules from Washington. I would cancel the Washington welfare programs entirely. I would set up instead a neighborhood. A community charity foundation Derry in Londonderry in Nashville. Every community. In effect what we would do is instead of sending our money from Londonderry to Washington for those programs we would keep it here and we would spend it through the nonprofit agencies and the churches helping every single person in our community who needs help. I would add to that an idea that Senator Coats and Marvin Olasky have advocated which is that up to $500 tax credit. For each of us so that we could live up to 500 dollars to Father Hill and we're in Dallas forever. We're in Savannah already. Boys or girls club or or whomever in Londonderry

and then our selves could follow our money. You know I believe if we had an $80 billion fund in Nashville where I live and if we all went to work trying to identify every single person in that community who needed help. I believe that would be plenty of money. And there would be plenty of us to do that. I think it takes a much bigger heart to say I will help you then to say I will hire the governor in Washington to help you. So I would replace Washington welfare with neighborhood charity. It's less from Washington and more from ourselves. That's the way we should go into the next century. I would take the responsibility for education out of Washington and give it right back to Bob and to you that's where it belongs. The money and the responsibility belongs under the local school board in the family and with the classroom teacher. And I would add a federal G.I. Bill for kids to help little low income families. Have more choices of the schools their children

attend. I would take the the. The jobs are are are are on all of our money. I know little about them. As governor I helped our state go from one of the poorest to the fastest growing family income. I helped create a company as I mentioned walking across New Hampshire at the Burger King in Windham three of the husbands of the women who work there lost their jobs. President Clinton says the best economy we've ever seen one of our Those free families in Windham. People are changing jobs in this country. There are a lot of people who are driving to work wondering if they're going to have a job when they get there. So we need job growth to create the largest number of good new jobs. That means a new tax system with lower rates. A simple code. It means less regulations and it means a focus on education. It means university research for for technology and it means making it easier for people to change jobs. Turn the 20 billion dollars of job training programs into work scholarships. So if you're laid

off at AT&T you can take your scholarship to the prospective employer and say Here take the best training for work I think is work. I'm a supporter of the federal grants and loans for college. Some of my opponents was criticizing me a little bit because I recommended more spending for that as education secretary. I'll do it as president within a balanced budget because I've been to Commencement. I'm in the real world. I hear the shout coming up from the commencement. Way to go. Now it's the mom going back to school to get a degree and to get a skill only to get a job. And I think our new tax system needs to make it easier for pensions and for health insurance to follow a worker from one job to the next. And finally. If we want an America. That really believes in. Less for Washington and more from ourselves we need a Congress who understands that. And so I believe in term limits and in a million dollar congressional pensions. And I would cut the pay of Congress and send them home. I believe in a part

time citizen Congress even a Republican Congress would be a better Congress if it spent less time in Washington and more time at home. The easiest way for me to give you an idea about what I'm what's most important to me is to tell you about one other piece of federal legislation. This is the law that all of the senators running for president voted for that sets the weapons policy and every New Hampshire school. I think it shows how far off the cliff we've driven that means that a kid walks into the fifth grade Londonderry. I suppose you're supposed to call the United States Senate and ask him what to do that kids got a pocket knife. That's not the way I think it ought to be. I carried a pocket knife to school every single day growing up in Maryville Tennessee. So did every other boy. My mother heard me say that on C-SPAN and said well you've never told me you were doing. But I did it. And the reason we never used the knife on each other. Was

not because of the United States Senate. It was because of the strong families we came for the nosy neighbors who tried to keep us out of trouble. The algebra teacher. Who kept around as the scout leader who kept us busy the coach kept us tired. Whoever it was it brought this to the church three times a week because it was good for us. That worked in Londonderry too and in New York and in Boston and in East Los Angeles. Now it's very easy to say. And it's even true in the little town where I grew up where that's all fashion. That's all a long time ago. Even in my town. There abortion's that didn't used to be. There are more broken families than there were there are kids who show up at school abuse. Some who's not even had a parent at home the night before. There are a lot of things that make it harder to be a parent a teacher and a student in our hometowns today. That's true everywhere. But we've tried everything else. To try to solve the same problems we used to solve with a

strong family neighborhood church synagogue in school. And so far as I can tell not much of it has worked. So I think we need a president going into the next century who is willing to have a strong defense do what needs to be done in Washington make it easier for take control of our own lives but also tell the truth about personal responsibility. I will say. As a little bit of a preacher. That we should spend less time trying to figure out what the government owes us and less time trying to figure out who to blame for what goes wrong and wartime. Being willing to accept personal responsibility for the consequences of our own actions. You know the kids are running around the streets of London Derry or Nashville at 3 o'clock in the morning. We should go get them. If the television is trash. We should turn it off. If the kids aren't learning to read we should read too. I got my library card not from the president but from my mother when I was three that can still work and it works better than most things I know. At the hospital in Michigan where I was.

Two summers ago eight thousand babies were being born there every year. And the nurses told me that 3000 of those babies are being born already exposed to cocaine. Because their mother. Now we can create a new branch of the armed services to control our borders. And I wish. We can appoint a drug czar who will be as aggressive as Bill Bennett was and I will do that as well too. But the real answer to that problem in Detroit is not whether it's in Detroit. It's in the hearts and souls and mind of the. Men and women and the families of the neighborhoods and the churches and schools in Detroit. I would like to be the president who has a chance to engage in a vision contest with Bill Clinton next October. You know what he will do. There'll be a big debate. 40 million people will be watching. And he'll get a question right from the front row. And he'll move out from behind the podium like he did last time and your wife walked right up to the questioner. And he'll

look him right in the eye. He'll feel their pain. You'll go there and they all give a very good answers about our future. He'll face a compelling vision. And the whole country will turn around. To see what the Republican has to say. We got a good preview that two weeks ago when Bob Dole appointed himself to respond to Bill Clinton. We all respect Bob Dole. He is our finest and most respected legislative engineer. Bill Clinton is not much of a present. He zigs and zags he gets up on both sides of the bed every morning. He raised our taxes when he said he won. He's the only president we've ever had Who's felt it necessary to work out his midlife crisis in public. He's exactly he's exactly the wrong man to have this president. When the biggest problem we have is teaching our children the difference between right or wrong. Bill Clinton is exactly the wrong man to have his friends.

Well I will remind him two weeks ago that when his medicine show goes on the road it's a pretty good show. He believes almost everything he says he says it comes out of his mouth. He made a wonderful state of the Union address he had paragraphs of Ronald Reagan. He had paragraphs from George Bush. I was complimented to see he picked up a sentence or two from one of my speeches and he gives it very well. Now here's what we must do. In order to have a conservative vision of the future. Bill Clinton has to be back in Arkansas. So who can be. Which one of us can beat Bill Clinton is not just a political process question. It is a philosophical issue. It is a part of the whole thing. The same thing it takes to beat Bill Clinton is the same thing it takes to be the best first president of the next century. We need to nominate somebody who can paint a picture of our

future that is based upon our principles of job growth freedom from Washington and personal responsibility that is brighter and more compelling than whatever President Clinton paints based upon whatever he woke up believing that. A great number of Iowa. Brought themselves to say to Bob Dole. Senator Dole we restructure. We are grateful for your long service to our country in the United States Senate. You are our most respected. Legislative engineer. But you are not a visionary architect. You are not the man and having that debate with Bill Clinton next October. And you're not the man to be the first president of the next century. It's time for new leadership. It's time to move on. I'd like to be that new leadership. I'd like to engage in that vision conference. I'd like to present a conservative vision for the future that unites our party and unites our country and helps us have a rising shining America. We go to the next century. You can help with your vote. I hate to

say it counts a thousand times more than mine does in Tennessee. You get to shape the election. You've got to sort it out. The whole race is going to be over three weeks after you vote. You have a major responsibility. So since. The citizens of New Hampshire and I agree. That nothing is more important than education. I hope that you don't mind my suggesting that when you make your decision about for whom the vote that you remember your ABC. Alexander. The. Current. I. Yes ma'am. Thank you. Good.

OK here's how here's how I try to help you in in London and I know something about Barry in Londonderry in schools have been here before his education secretary I know you say you have a spirited discussion going on about how to fund the schools and the level and. And I'd like to I'd like to let me tell you how I approached it when I was governor. We were doing nearly as good a job as you were doing in Tennessee when I started you know the

first thing I did I went to Washington and closed our Washington office. And the second thing was I asked President Reagan to get the federal government. That. Little. Noise you. Get the federal government totally out of elementary and secondary education. Totally out didn't want anything to do with it. I wanted to put the responsibility on us because I knew that to improve our schools even though we were the third or fourth poorest state that we had the capacity with ourselves to do it. And so we went to work and we put computers in the schools. We began to open our schools from six to six in all year at no extra cost to the taxpayers. I can suggest to you how to do that. We begin to pay our teachers more for teaching. Well we're the only state to do that. We raised our admission standards at the universities and we generally put the highest possible priority on education. Now there's one thing that I would do from Washington that might be of some help. Well there are two things. One is that I would.

Actually have a. All. Right all I feel are things I've had to learn is to be wired up for all of us. What I would do is send all of the responsibility and the money for elementary and secondary education back to you. With one exception. I would have a Federal G.I. Bill for kids from middle and low income families. In school districts that want to give their children more choices of schools that would be one federal contribution that would help with money. Then I would become an advocate for the kind of schools of the future I'd like to see which I just mentioned. For example opening the school six to 6 all year our schools are not doing that at no extra cost to the taxpayer. And parents pay for it cost very much twenty five dollars a week. And it's an academic program not a babysitting service because what

they've learned from that is now open it to the schools. Two hundred and forty days a year instead of 180. In some of the school districts at the same cost that they that they're spending and we spend less per student I think than than you do. So I think it's important for me to say nothing is more important than education. I try to lead a movement to improve our schools. I'll keep strong support for federal grants and loans for college scholarships and for university research. But. I think. The quality of the schools in Derry and in Londonderry are really up to you. I'll come help with it but I think you have to make your own decisions about how to organize the schools how to spend the money what the level of your taxation ought to be in order for it. Yes. You know I really do. Very I really appreciate you saying that.

But I really try to help our state do in the 80s was to get its feet on the ground to regain its confidence as we head into the future. And that's really what our country needs to do. I remember if you don't mind just a hometown story I mean. Here's where we were. We were embarrassed. We had a governor selling pardons for cash. We were one of the poorest states. We weren't placing a value on education. Our road system is one of the worst. And here came the telecommunications age and we really weren't ready. I remember when we were trying to recruit the Saturn plant big General Motors invested about five billion dollars. All these officials from Michigan came down and I served them country ham and had Charlie McCoy play the harmonica after dinner at the governor's mansion. And one very elegant lady from Nashville came up to me afterwards and said Oh I'm so embarrassed. Well why are you there. I said Well here you had all these fine people down from Detroit. And you had that harmonica player after them. Why didn't you have someone play so. I said Madam why should have. Why should I have someone play average so that.

When we've got the finest harmonica player in the world. So we had to regain our confidence. I think our country is the same way. Because of job loss and because of the breakdown of the families the communities. The synagogues the churches and the schools. Those two groups of things. We have an anxious country at a time when there is no excuse for it. We've got more capacity to have our feet on the ground and go into the next century the confident way than any other country in the world. I know that for a fact. What I'd really like to do as governor is to help us we capture that spirit of confidence that America has traditionally made so that we would say to all these children who were here when they ask us about their future and aim for the top there is more room. And that when we sit up late at night and talk about the future that we really do believe that our children and our grandchildren will have more. More opportunities than we have in a lot of people don't believe it. I do. But I think we've got some work to do to make it through.

So. You. Know. Well I can leave. I mean the different people have different ideas of the presidency. See I don't see the president as a manager. Or as the China expert or as expert on anything really. I see the president as the commander in chief. And is the person who's supposed to pick two or three urgent needs develop a strategy to meet them and persuade half of us that he's right. That's what the president does. So I could link. Specifically. One. I could try to set a good example. That wouldn't be a bad place to start. The second thing I could do is lecture. Hollywood advertisers that could help me. Bill Bennett is not president. He's

made a difference in trash talk on television. They're changing their ways or at least not acting like it just because of the pressure he's brought on. One thing the president can surely do is to stop Washington from undermining personal responsibility which is what it does with welfare. I mean that breaks up families every day. If you encourage people not to work and not do the marriage penalty and our tax system makes it easier to not marry you pay lower taxes marry you pay higher taxes. Now what kind of incentive is that we're trying to encourage marriage rather than living together apart from. Marriage. Paying drug addicts $446 a month. What kind of incentive is that the father of Hill who's down there trying to help people get off get off drugs. And I think it's undermining personal responsibility when we pass a law setting the weapons policy in the Londonderry schools. It makes us think that somebody else is going to do what we ought to be doing our selves. And finally I think the president needs to say look.

Some things are your responsibility our responsibility. The truth is Washington can't do it. My mother gave me my library card not the president. That's the way it ought to work. And if someone says I have people who come up to me and said Our kids are running around doing this and such and Redbank What are you going to do about that as president. And my answer to that is those are your children. Why don't you go get them. I to say that in a way that shows a lack of understanding that life is harder than it everybody is working you don't have as much time as somebody has got to raise the kids and the parents are where the responsibility starts. And maybe the president can help but we've had some great awakenings in this country. And maybe we need another. We've learned to recycle it just by deciding to do it. We've learned that better just by deciding to do it. Maybe we could learn to rebuild our families neighborhoods churches

synagogues and schools just by deciding to do it. With the president who kept insisting on it in a gentle but firm. Way. Sir. Well. We could try to stop. I believe a new branch of the armed services could do a better job of stopping drugs than we are. But I believe the solution is the demand side. Is is is causing us in our own families to make a decision not to use drugs. I don't know any other solution to it. In the end is that what you're saying as well.

Well that would be legalizing it and giving up on the war against it. And I'm not prepared to do. It. Sir. All right. Well I don't support them. I think the right way to control guns is strict state laws. That penalize behavior for the use of a gun in the commission of a crime.

I think that's what works. That's. Right. By. Well. You. Know that there are in fact if you are if you aren't makes no difference and it's a it's it's a. Straight up question let me see if I can give you a straight straight answer. I. Am pro-life. My goal as president would be to reduce the number of abortions. I would. I would do more

than previous presidents have. To try to persuade this country to do that. I would use the moral authority of the presidency to do that. How would I do that. How would the government then. Make a difference. I believe states have the right to restrict abortion and that they should. I would like to encourage states to make adoption easier. We still have the irony in this country a great many more people who would like to adopt a child when there are children available for adoption. I think the federal government. Ought to stay out of it. The Congress or the state. Should not encourage abortions should not subsidize it and shouldn't. Prohibit. I feel that way about a great many things I'd like to keep the responsibility with the states and with communities and with individual responsibility. I'd be glad to. I don't intend to make litmus test appointments to the Supreme Court. I think President Clinton is wrong that one reason to make one reason not to.

Make litmus test appointments is just that presidents who've done that have usually been surprised by the justices. They have a point. So what I would try to do instead is appoint men and women of intelligence and good character who have us who are conservative and who have a strong belief in a limited role for the Central. Government. That would be the criteria I would use for Supreme Court appoint. Yes. Thank. You all. I can it's a good place to end the discussion. There's some other questions I hear and I'll be glad to do is to stand some way so I can meet everybody. I'd like to do that before you leave if you'd like to.

So where would someone that that I stand out here right after I get through. If you've got a question that I missed I'll try to. I'll. Try to answer it. But. Health-Care. Give you a two part answer. One would be the principles that I would use as president and any action that the federal government took on health care. One would be to decentralize the decision made that was a big mistake that President Mrs. Clinton made trying to get 500 people together to figure this all out too complicated figure out one place. So decentralize it push it down to the private sector and to the states as much as possible. To give providers as much flexibility as possible. Three do as little as possible to interfere with the doctor patient relationship. For lets try to find ways to turn consumers of medical services back into consumers again. We got into trouble with health care costs. I think when the third party payment started. I know that when these bills I don't remember what it was but these bills start arriving in my mail. From someone. About health care

services. I couldn't tell whether I'd been to the doctor or not or whether I'd paid the bill or whether I hadn't paid a bill or whether I owed a bill. And so I just tossed it in thicker. Well after a while another bill would come if I owned it. If that's what I was doing I would assume a lot of people were doing that and I think we got the position in this country where we lost control of our own sense of responsibility for spending our own money on health care services. So whether it's it's the savings accounts that Senator Graham pushed pretty hard. We ought to try that. We need to try various ways to turn this back into consumers so if we get sick tonight going home we make a judgment about whether we'll go to the emergency room for several hundred dollars or whether we'll make an appointment for tomorrow morning. A lot lower cost. Now one other part of the answer and it it kind of goes back to my favorite topic. Of trying to take say things out of Washington and run them better by getting more in our own hands. We hear all this said that if we give service we give responsibility back to states that

somehow the first instinct of a governor or a state will be to cut services or to hurt somebody. I hear this all the time and it really offends me because I used to go to governors conferences and we never sat around a table and said Well let me tell you about my worst school program my worst road program where I just raised the infant mortality rate. It was just the reverse. We were all trying to make things better in our states and in my home state. After I left office I had nothing to do with this give all the credit to the next governor. He somehow got his hands on the Medicaid program which is the fastest growing part of any states government. One of the biggest problems in Tennessee makes the decisions about how to spend the amount of money that the federal government in the state government together spend on Medicaid. That's not Medicare. It's the part that helps poor people. Governor McWhirter. In one year expanded the number of people covered by the Medicaid program by four to five hundred thousand. Spending the same amount of money that the federal government

was spending. And now 94 percent of Tennesseans have health care coverage. No other state has a higher percentage of people who have health care coverage. Now that is outrageous that the federal government is spending that much of our own money that badly. Now it's not all perfect in the Tennessee program the doctors are scurrying around the hospitals complaining. The insurance companies are working overtime trying to catch up with such a big change. But if there's any chance that by letting the states manage Medicaid. We could extend health care coverage to 94 percent of Americans. Then why wouldn't we do that overnight. The reason is President Clinton doesn't believe in it. And we need a Republican president who has the courage of his convictions and enough background in the real world outside Washington to actually insist on these things. I mean we all know this is true almost all of us do. And let's try at least I believe in Medicaid and in welfare and in elementary secondary education and drug use and in most law enforcement we know better. And a Republican president and a Republican Congress could build a

future based on that and going back to your point we could recapture our confidence if we got those things back in order.