What's on the table?

DEAN: I'm a strong supporter of Medicare. It's a sound contract between the seniors of this country and Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The rest of our Social Security is not on the table. I'm a strong supporter of Social Security. And those programs need not be cut.

We can balance the budget. But if those programs are in trust funds and the trust funds are reasonably solvent -- Medicare until 2023, Social Security until about 2043 -- what you need to do is get rid of every dime of the Bush tax cuts.

Some up here say we should keep the middle-class tax cuts. What middle-class tax cuts? On the average, 60 percent of the people in this country got a $304 tax cut. One percent, which are rapidly writing $2,000 checks to George Bush, got a $26,300 tax cut.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

And in the meantime, think of what's happened to your college tuition or your kids' college tuition. What about your property tax? Has that gone up more than $304 in the last 2 1/2 years?

We need to get rid of every dime of the president's tax cuts, begin to start balancing the budget and restore things like Pell grants and full funding of special education...

(APPLAUSE)

... so we can pay to have a good college education and balance the budget.

(APPLAUSE)

IFILL: Excuse me just one moment. Did you say Medicaid was off the table, as well?

DEAN: I'm sorry, what?

IFILL: Did you say Medicaid was off the table, as well?

DEAN: Well, I plan to add $87 billion to Medicaid so we can have universal health insurance for everybody.

(APPLAUSE)

PERKINS: Senator Kerry, your plan to balance the budget?

KERRY: Well, let me just say that, last week in Iowa, Governor Dean said that entitlements were on the table. Now, if he just took Social Security and Medicare off the table, the question is, what entitlements are on the table? Veterans' pensions, food stamps, Medicaid, Social -- disability? He can't answer that question.

Now, I'm going to do exactly what Bill Clinton did. I'm going to cut the deficit in half in the first four years. Bill Clinton's plan was to balance the budget in 10 years, not the five Governor Dean says.

The reason we decided not to do it in five was because it required extraordinary cuts in the things we just talked about doing: investing in the city of Detroit, investing in our schools, investing in health care, making our economy move.

KERRY: When Governor Dean just said, "What middle-class tax cut," let me tell him what middle-class tax cut.

The Burnett (ph) family in Colfax, Iowa, earned $70,000. But under his plan, they are going to pay $2,178 more in taxes because they lose the child credit to raise their children, they pay a penalty for being married again because he puts it back, and they lose the 10 percent bracket, as everybody else here does. So you begin to be taxed at 15 percent, not 10 percent.

Those aren't Bush Republican cuts, those are the Democrat cuts that we worked hard to put in place to protect the middle class.

(APPLAUSE)

Bill Clinton protected the middle class; we grew the economy. If you liked Bill Clinton's economy for eight years, you're going to love John Kerry's for the first four years.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21551-2003Oct26?language=printer

So, the question is, what entitlements are on the table? Veterans' pensions, food stamps, Medicaid, Social -- disability?

What's on your table? lol. Sorry, just in a goofy mood I guess!

smart move. Very sharp presentation showing WHY he should be the middle class' Dem of choice.

He is talking about??

It's not a "middle class tax cut" It is a tax cut for those who have children...meaning the wealthiest who also have children benefit as well.

The ONLY benefit I received was the benefit for married people.

That is a tax cut for the married...again one which the wealthy benefit from.

Why isn't Kerry talking about specific MIDDLE CLASS tax cuts?

He is talking about tax cuts for the married and those who have children - a middle class individual who has neither a spouse nor children does not benefit from these.

For example, a gay couple gets no benefit whatsoever from these - poor, middle class, rich, whatever.

C'mon Mr. Kerry can't you tell the difference between your demographic groups? Remember, your supporters tell us how intelligent and straight-shooting you are.

but it's so much easier to demagogue the issue like republican's do.

"If we get rid of all the Bush tax cuts a crippled sloth farmer in Iowa with 10 kids will have his taxes raised a whopping 900 percent! Dean is the enemy of the common man!"

"We're going to have to limit the growth of entitlement programs. We don't have to cut," the former governor of Vermont said during the taping of "Iowa Press" on Friday at Iowa Public Television.

http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/22538134.html

How's Kerry going to balance the budget? He seemed to avoid the question in order to bash Dean with a blatant lie for some reason.

Seriously. Do you not understand that slowing the growth is a cut? Has been for a hundred years.

In Kerry political rhetoric land, maybe.

Seriously. Do you not understand that slowing the growth is a cut? Has been for a hundred years.

In Washington, because of "base line budgeting" a reduction in the INCREASE is considered a cut. But in the real world, it is an INCREASE!

If you were scheduled to get a 9% raise next year, but only got a 7% raise, did you get a pay cut? NO! And to claim otherwise is nonsense.

You are telling us if your pay were scheduled to go up 9% next year, and suddenly your boss told you it would only be 7%, you would be thanking him for the 'raise'? :eyes:

Less money into a program is a cut. More money into a program is a raise. The Domenici plan that Dean supported in 1995 would have put less money into the program. And to claim otherwise is nonsense. Dean repeats the same spin Gingrich used to try to justify the cuts back then. I ain't going for it.

Since I got tombstoned for not answering a poster on another thread.

You are telling us if your pay were scheduled to go up 9% next year, and suddenly your boss told you it would only be 7%, you would be thanking him for the 'raise'?

Is that what I said? No. Not even close. I said, if I was scheduled to get a 9% raise next year, but only got a 7% raise my pay was NOT cut. It was INCREASED.

Less money into a program is a cut. More money into a program is a raise.

If Program A got $10 Billion in FY 2003 and then got $13 Billion in FY 2004 did the program get cut? NO! Funding INCREASED!

And to claim otherwise is nonsense.

To claim that an INCREASE in dollars is a cut is what is nonsense.

You are telling us if your pay were scheduled to go up 9% next year, and suddenly your boss told you it would only be 7%, you would be thanking him for the 'raise'?

Is that what I said? No. Not even close. I said, if I was scheduled to get a 9% raise next year, but only got a 7% raise my pay was NOT cut. It was INCREASED.

All I can say is, your boss must love having salary negotiations with you. He can tell you he's giving you less, and you think it's more.

and we are supposed to be impressed with this. We Democrats won that battle when Clinton would not back down and allowed the government to be shut down. Now Dean resurrects the same Gingrich argument that "a slow in the growth rate is not a cut" in the Democratic primaries, and we are supposed to forget what we were saying a few years ago.

No thanks, I'll stick to my principles.

So, the question is, what entitlements are on the table? Veterans' pensions, food stamps, Medicaid, Social -- disability?