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Barbara Coles: Iıd like to welcome our viewers and listeners in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont to this New England Public Forum, and welcome also to Republican Presidential Candidate, Richard Lugar, thanks for being here.
Lugar: Thanks very much, Barbara, thank you.
Coles: And also joining us is Chris Graph, who is the bureau chief for the Vermont Associated Press. And Kevin Landrigan, political reporter for the Telegraph of Nashua. Welcome to you both.
Reporters: Thank you, thank you, Barbara.
Coles: Weıll be taking your questions in just a few minutes and you can reach us by calling 1-800-639-8408, thatıs 1-800-639-8408. But letıs get the discussion started with a question from Kevin Landrigan, of the Telegraph.
Landrigan: Thank you, Barbara. Senator, wh- you entered this race proposing a national sales tax and in retrospect, would you have been better off calling for a flat income tax and could you tell the listeners and viewers tonight the difference for real families between your plan and something like the Steve Forbes flat tax plan.
Lugar: Certainly, the, the tax fair will be better off with my plan because I get rid of all of the income taxes and the Internal Revenue Service and, and move to tax spending. The flat tax, at itıs best, still leaves the income tax structure there and a lot of record keeping, the audits, the IRS is still there. Uh, and in essence, there could be some hopeful changes with savings and investments but under my plan, theyıre most certainly going to occur. If the dollar you takes, h-home is yours, and you can save and invest and make money and thatıs still yours and you can pass on to your loved ones, no strings attached, these are powerful incentives to save and invest, they make an enormous difference in the movement toward productivity and higher wage s for all Americans, quite apart from control of your money. Now that is the basic difference with the flat tax, essentially, you, you still have an income tax and my, my guess is that, uh, your tax has not been any lower, Iım, a lot of debate right now as to whether the various flat tax proposals, uh, raise the deficit some more. If so, I, uh, people are going to be unhappy about that. Uh, I would just say that ultimately we are talking about growth in the country. Thatıs the importance of the argume nt. And we have to have that because, uh, average families are going no where in the country.
Reporter: Senator, you have a very impressive resume in foreign affairs, foreign policy, you were chairman of Senate Foreign Relations for two years. Uh, youıve been active in Bosnia, you were very active in South Afica economic sanctions. Yet, this doe snıt seem to be an election where foreign policy is a real asset, how can you make it that?
Lugar: Well Iım not certain I can make it that. I would just say that the President is uniquely the person responsible for the security of the country. Uh, governors, mayors, uh, I was once, deal with welfare, with budgets, with taxes, uh, and I dealt with that, continue to do so, but the President has to have a good national security team and preferably, some experience with leaders abroad, with some idea of how America can lead the world for our own security, for our own trade advantages. So Iım goi ng to continue to speak to those issues and not on the top ten. I understand that crime, education, jobs, way up there. But the President is that unique figure. Everything else doesnıt go very well if we do not handle our foreign policy and security we ll. I know how to do that, I know more about it than any other candidate running, including the present incumbant. And Americans will sleep sounder if Iım President.
Reporter: Youıve tried in some ads in Iowa, just recently to, uh, put together the issue of foreign policy and jobs.
Lugar: Yes.
Reporter: How does, how do they go together.
Lugar: They go together because if the United States is working to organize Europe, a new NATO with new missions and organize Asia, so that the Chinese come into that security posture. Uh, the quid pro quo for that is more access for us to markets. In other words, we, weıd take hold as we can, uniquely, at this point, in the nationıs history, with America leading. With America insisting upon the end of barriers to our trade. And, and for safety for our business people. It makes a very large differen ce, how assertive the American President is and how skillful he is in dealing with these relations. If thatıs the point Iım making, our bread and butter in terms of growth comes from exports. Trading within this country, weıre going to have zero growth. We all know that, but the trick is how do you get the exports moving? What is the relationship with American authority? I think itıs very direct and Iım trying to demonstrate that in these ads and in my speeches.
Coles: Iıd like to take just, uh, a minute just to remind our radio audience of the telephone number. It is 1-800-639-8408, thatıs 1-800-639-8408. Uh, my question, Senator, is, uh, youıre quoted in todayıs Boston Globe as saying that some leaders of yo ur own Republican party give the impression that this quote: ³a very mean spirited, hard harded group of folks,² and that is what of course the Democrats would say. But, but why are you saying it and what does it exactly mean?
Lugar: Well, I, uh, started saying this at the Iowa straw votes, a, a long time ago as I listened to my fellow competitors. Now, uh, I would just say anybody whose watching C-SPAN that night, or, a replay of that, heard some pretty tough language, about .
Coles: Wh-What tough language, Senator?
Lugar: Well, essentially, people were attributing, uh, the problems of America, to Americans who donıt work very hard, who are not pulling their way on the wagon, who ought to get off or on the wagon, as the case may be, to immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, uh, to whom weıre ascribed all sorts of difficulties. Uh, it-it is, uh, there were even aspersions that, uh, some how or other that uh, people of, uh, dubious moral character were undermining the country. All of that, uh, may have some trut h, but, uh, all, the point Iım trying to make is that I suggested the twelth commandment, that Republicans not sp-speak poorly of other Americans, quite apart from other Republicans. Iıve never seen a political party that gained very much strength by fi nding enemies of the people everywhere and trying to play off of them and the point that I was making is that, uh, we had better be more thoughtful as a party in terms of our language, uh, more upbeat in terms of affirmative action. Uh, not only with reg ard to equal opportunities, but, uh, affirmative action in terms of savings, investments, growth, better foreign policy constructive people. Uh, uh, presently, uh, some of my fellow competitors in this state. As I watched, uh, for an hour on television last night eleven ads, I think four of them, I would say were sharply negatively. Uh, now thatıs not the first time thatıs occured in politics. But weıre not translating what I was hearing out in Iowa, uh, uh, uh, in sort of this line up, itıs a pretty direct action in thirty seconds...
Reporter: But youıve been...
Lugar: And this is not I think a very good idea, ultimately.
Reporter: Youıve not only talked about the tone of some of the other candidates, youıve also talked about their message. Youıve said that they, the Republican party is in danger of marginalized, marginalizing itıs message. Which means in effect, that, t hat the other candidates are going for a very extreme group of, uh, positions.
Lugar: Well, that was my impression. Certainly in Iowa and subsiquently in some other of the various fora weıve had. Uh, if, if you had seen, Chris, the audience that was in front of us there, I think youıd understand. Looking in the eyes of the peopl e, they had come there for business. They were very partisan, they were very tough on behalf of their candidates, and uh, they had in some cases a single view of the truth. Some people came with specifically an anti-abortion message. Some came with an anti-homosexual message. Uh, some came with other single issues. You know, in which it was not a group for Republicans sitting their listening in a philosophical way, trying to say is this the best qualified person or, uh, what does person have to say? These are people who have pretty well-organized, uh, group and, and they come and they do business. Now, essentially, what I was saying is that we, we had better take a look at where we stand in the Republican party. We better invite a lot of people in , become much more inclusive, an-and, try to think with common sense, what uh, regular Americans think about a gammit of issues, if weıre to be successful in winning the general election.
Coles: Where would you, uh, say you fall in the political spectrum if, if the people you were just describing might be uh, further to the right. Where, where are you?
Lugar: Well, uh, us-usually in the, the national journal magazine, they list everybody from one the most liberal to one hundred the most conservative. I come somewhere between seventy-five and eighty-five in most years. Wh-which means on the right side of the spectrum. Probably even in the most conservative quarter.
Reporter: So doesnıt that say something then, when you are being perceived as the most moderate candidate in the Republican Primary.
Lugar: Yeah, yeah, I think it does. I mean it, it means that you are a conceeding a lot of the spectrum to President Clinton. Thatıs exactly what it means. And, and this is why in head to head races, Republicans have not been doing to swiftly in recen t months. Occassionally Senator Dole and a good week will bob up and, and be competitive. But in a bad week may be down ten or fifteen points, that ainıt very close. And this is what the President who is highly vulnerable for all sorts of reasons, but, uh, has had an appeal to people who have said that we donıt want extremists, we really want somebody with common sense.
Coles: I hate to interrupt because this is a great discussion, but I do have to say that we are having trouble with the telephone line. And I have a new telephone number to give you, so get your pencils ready, it is 1-800-639-8707, 1-800-639-8707. So ca ll that one instead of the other one.
Reporter: Senator, the school lunches, one of those conservative issues you have some ads on that,
Lugar: Yes.
Reporter: essentially say you protected the program from the hands of Bob Dole. Um, yet last summer, Newt Gingrich was saying the Democrats are demagoging saying we're trying to cut school lunch programs. What's the status of that program and what, wha t does a Republican leadership in Congress want to do with it's future?
Lugar: Well, for the moment, school lunches are safe.
Reporter: Right.
Lugar: Uh, uh, because the President vetoed both the welfare bill and the balance budget bill and therefore killed off any change at all. Now the point I was trying to make was that school lunches work well as a federal program, I didn't see a whole raf t of Governors coming before our committee wanting to take over school lunches. Some wanted to take over food stamps, and seven will have the privilege of doing that in a pilot project, if the budget thing finally passes. But with school lunches, I trie d to make the point that children cannot move from state to state, if somehow the state program on school lunches is not working well, um, the are defenseless, and this is the only meal for a lot of children. Uh, I think it's a very sound conservative, c ommon sense position. Why in the world it was even an issue. But there were some members of the House who said in an doctrinare fashion it doesn't make any difference if it works or not. It should all go back to the states, whether they want it or not. And, I sa-I said well hang on here, now. Ya know, let's take a look really at how things work in this world and I just simply objected very strongly.
Reporter: But isn't there a, isn't it, isn't it benefit for a family that's on welfare and depends on that assistance, isn't a cadillac queen or anything like that, isn't that benefit just as earnest. And so why should it a block grant plan for welfare when one state can be ripping the grants away from people who really deserve it?
Lugar: Well I think in the case of welfare, there are already a number of states who have demonstrated success in terms of programs they are administering. I am impressed with the testimony of Senator Angler in M-Michigan, Governor Thomson in Wisconsin . Uh, the efforts of Governor Merrill in this state. Uh, it appears to me that there, uh, is a track record atleast trying to correlate job training, uh, and movement of people into the job market, uh, with welfare benefits. And with, uh, special counc iling for, uh, unwed mothers and their special, uh, problems, uh, an-and effects for their children. Now, I, I think those programs ought to proceed. In, in my home town of Indianapolis, Mayor Goldsmith is attempting to take over welfare as Indianapolis Marion County. Uh, and the state legislator committee voted seven to four yesterday atleast in Goldsmith's favor. I, I, I am intrigued by his efforts, I think they may be more successful, with the, uh, 21,000 people that are on welfare in the city that I once served.
Reporter: Senator, many of the other candidates are running against Washington this year. You are a Washington insider, you also have been Mayor of a major city. You were on the school board in Indianapolis. But, what we're also seeing this year, are a dramatic, a record for almost a century, number of retirements of people from the House and from the Senate. Many of them just throwing up their hands saying I can't take it anymore. One of them is Senator Cohen from Maine. What can you say to people who are buying this argument that Washington's the problem not the solution?
Lugar: Well I say that's very simplistic, uh, situation. Probably basically nonsense, uh, Washington, uh, is never, or Concord, or Indianapolis are never the problem as locations. Uh, the people who are involved may not be doing things very well, but even then some do it pretty well and others don't. Ya know, this undiscriminating tarring and feathering of everybody doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I regret so many people are leaving and there are a variety of reasons. Uh, but I'm not. I, I thin k that the opportunities that I have to change the course of America for the better are substantial and they will remain and I hope I'll be able to do a big job of it as President and if I can I'll do as good a job as I can as a Senator. But I'm excited everyday by the adventure of service, the adventure of people that I meet, of new ideas and ways atleast of doing things that I've found constructive over the years and productive.
Reporter: Well, we have got, uh, President Clinton say last night in his State of the Union address, you know, the era of big government is over and he is trying to also say that government is changing dramatically. Can you just sort of give us one exam ple of a government program that makes you proud to be a member of the United States Senate and that you fight to save 'til your last breath.
Lugar: (laughing) Well, I'm not sure any program is worth fighting to save to the last breath. But I think the government has done a great job over th- course of time with the interstate highway system, uh, to name one. And likewise with communications generally in this country. Very sophisticated infrastructure, that clearly the federal government working with others, has brought about. Uh, air service and the safety that we have with the air controllers, very substantial progress. I believe, as a matter of fact, that the nutrition programs that come under my committee have had remarkable success in changing the health, the vitality, the safety net for life in this country. Uh, they work in perfectly and we try to improve them every year. But I w ould not abolish these for the sake just simply of making the argument that Washington ought to evaporate and these programs. Uh, that would not be, or, or, Ag. research very positively has made an enormous difference in my life time, from thirty-five bu shels of corn to one hundred and fifty bushels. That's a big change, it makes all the difference in our feeding this country with very few people and exporting to the world. It happened because of our good farmers but Ag. research played a big part in t hat.
Coles: Okay, I want to take just a minute to say that we are talking to Republican Presidential candidate Richard Lugar. I am Barbara Coles and joining me in this New England Public Forum are Chris Graph from the Associated Press in Vermont and Kevin La ndrigan from the Telegraph of Nashua. And we do have callers waiting on the line, so I do want to go to our first phone call, who, it is from Wayne, from Dover. Good evening, Wayne.
Caller: Good evening and welcome to New Hampshire, Senator Lugar.
Lugar: Thank you very much, Wayne.
Caller: Um, I have a question for you. I was interested, as President what would be your first domestic initiative and your first diplomatic initiative?
Lugar: Well my first domestic initiative will be to work with Bill Archer, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, uh, to commence the termination of income taxes in this country and the Internal Revenue Service and to move toward a national sale s tax. Uh, now that is a big order, but, uh, Bill Archer is just the man. He has been a champion of this idea for some time and that's why I have some confidence, we're going to have a good reception and a very good start for that idea. Diplomatically I would, uh, tackle initially this awesome problem of leakage of nuclear material from the former Soviet Union that occurs from laboratories, from other production facilities, because their security processes are inadequate and seven hundred attempts have been made to steal it and some have been successful and if we are not very careful that material is going to lead to nuclear events, first of all in Russia, probably in other European countries and eventually here. Now, let me just say that, uh, I've ha d some experience with this, I know what I'm talking about and the urgency for doing it is manifest. We're spending $8,000,000 in this country trying to keep the nuclear material we've produced and the chemical and biological material under wraps. We're , we've been successful thank goodness. They have not been. And, uh, therefore I would move with the Russian President, uh, in a cooperative effort while we still have that relationship to get this under control.
Reporter: Senator, uh, in the last six months hasn't Bill Clinton, uh, improved his record on foreign policy on the Bosnia peace agreement. Th-the most, if not all of the troops from Haiti are back and all the warnings about what would happen down there to the American troops have been largely unrealized, uh. Isn't he tougher as an opponent on that fundamental issue?
Lugar: Well I think he has had some successes and I'm grateful that that is the case as an American. And I'm prepared to help the President. Because, uh, I believe if I'm elected President I'm going to inherit the Bosnian predicament. I want to make s ure he makes as much headway as he can. Uh, whether it be there, or as you suggest in-in, uh Haiti. Uh, and the administration would claim in fact, uh, a longer list and namely progress with the peace initiative in the Middle East. Um, on top of that wh ich they've worked on. All, all I would say is however, uh, in the first, uh, two and a half years of the present administration, it was almost episodic. Fits and starts, a lot of denial, uh, hopefully he is getting better at it. Uh, we shall see reall y, even in Haiti whether that works out quite apart from Bosnia.
Coles: Senator, we have a, uh, caller on the line.
Lugar: Thank you.
Coles: Let's go, go to George from Springfield, Vermont. Good evening.
Caller: Good evening, Senator Lugar.
Lugar: Hello, George.
Caller: Uh, part of you campaign has been a call for national sales tax.
Lugar: Yes.
Caller: I was just wondering if you could explain why you feel that sales tax wouldn't be a regressive sales tax.
Lugar: Well, I would try to make certain that we exempted food, medicine, some shelter and clothing, and, and for that matter a basket of purchases that generally approximate what is now exempted in the progressive, uh, income tax. In other words, I wan t to make this neutral in terms of being regressive from the start. That will take some doing but that, uh, is clearly the frame work. Now, beyond that, uh, it's a new ballgame. I don't know what the spending habits are going to be of Americans, whethe r they're rich or they're poor, at, at, at for certain stage of affluence. And my, my own judgement is that given the incentives that will be there to save and invest they will do a great deal more, they will triple as a matter of fact the savings rate. So, that, that is why I want to make the basic move but I want to make it without injury to those who have low and low-medium income.
Reporter: Now your rate is seventeen percent.
Lugar: Yea, yes, that's right.
Reporter: Is that on top of what states, uh, would be,
Lugar: Yes, it is. Uh, uh, just as dark as it sounds. There, there, forty-five states have a sales tax. Uh, New Hampshire does not. Forty-five do. So you would have the sales tax of the state plus the seventeen percent.
Coles: So if's it's seven-
Reporter: So it might be twenty-one percent.
Lugar: That's correct.
Coles: Twenty-four percent.
Lugar: Yes.
Coles: Now is that going to provide enough revenue to fund federal government? I mean there's talk that the flat tax,
Lugar: Well, that's the reason seventeen has been selected. Now, uh, uh, let me just say that you have to take a look every year at the base of retail sales in the country, uh, by and large it has been growing fairly steadily. It's a pretty solid base . Uh, and the seventeen applied to that after exempting all the food purchases and the medicine, and a good bit of shelter and clothing requires the seventeen. If you didn't exempt that much, you could get by with a lower rate, or if you have greater gr owth in the country, you have that option.
Coles: Okay, we have another caller on the line. Let's go to Jim from Melrose, Massachusetts. Good evening.
Caller: Good evening. Senator Lugar,
Lugar: Yes, Jim.
Caller: Regarding the log jam between the President, Senator Dole and the Speaker, what have you done to unjam this gross lack of common sense on government furlows and shutdowns of various agencies, sir.
Lugar: Well, I have indicated, uh, to Senator Dole, I've never been in communication with the President about this, or Speaker Gingrich, but I have seen with Bob Dole, uh, that I just find it intolerable the disruption of service. I come from as former Mayor of Indianapolis, in which we kept the police department, the fire department, the sanitary department, every department going. We had labor disputes and we had difficulties and bad weather and everything else. But we required service, and we gave service. That has to be the tradition in the federal government. This is intolerable to have these shutdowns and to have a threat of default with regard to our debts. I, I, I just speak out as a Republican in saying let's get off of this. It not only i s bad government, I think it's bad politics and I'm not sure it leads to any negotiating leverage at all. Now if it's to reason, was thought. Now in fairness, when I heard the President last night talking about this. I thought how hypocritical. You're vetoes, Mr. President, shot down the Department of Interior flat. You closed the Washington Monument and you did it deliberately, uh, to make an object lesson of this. So, there's plenty of blame to share and if I had talked to him I would have given h im a point of view likewise.
Reporter: Today Bill Clinton had one of those Air Force One conversations with, uh, Newt Gingrich, about a down payment on a balanced budget. T- agreeing on all the issues that they can agree on and leaving the rest like Medicade, Medicare, welfare refo rm 'til after the election. Is that, is that the answer, to the problem, right now?
Lugar: I think it probably is. Uh, I think at this particular point Newt and Bob and the President ought to come to closure on a framework to balance the budget. They ought to pin down on the figures as they can. They ought to pin down the CBO scoring , so it's valid. They ought to pin down every compromise they have. But, but frankly the President does not want the states handling Medicade. He doesn't want them handling welfare. He doesn't want them handling lots of things. This is all mask and b udget figures, or some thought that they just got reasoned, it's not going to happen that way. That in a way, the election will determine whether in fact the progress back to state and local government continues or whether we move toward centralization. But the irony was the President was saying no more big government, in fact he is the last vanguard of protecting every bit of it. Da-he understands that, atleast, uh, I think, I understand that's where he is.
Coles: Uh, the tax pa-cut, is of course, uh, uh, a big issue that, um, politicians in Washington have gotten hung up on. Where do you stand on that? How big should the tax cut be?
Lugar: I don't know. I would say that at this point you heard the President last night talking in terms of tax cuts that come back to each family for each child. Um, Democrats by and large have shyed away from any capital gains tax reduction. George M itchell fought that tooth and toe nail, uh, all the time he was there. And really the President understands that would bring about growth. What he doesn't to-I suppose cross the left wing of the Democratic party. Uh, so I guess we're going to have, uh, ultimately a tax cut that involves the child credit. I hope we have a capital gains, now my guess is that's about where it'll settle down and probably at about one and a half of what had been suggested earlier.