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Alan
Keyes’
Pro-life Advocacy
Faith
and Freedom Foundation
PO Box 1310
Herndon, VA 20172
info@faithandfreedomfoundation.com
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Republican Presidential Debate
January 26, 2000
New Hampshire
[Excerpt]
Question: Mr. Keyes, you advocate a national sales tax to
replace the federal income tax. Let's assume for a moment that Congress
doesn't pass your national sales tax plan. What then? What would be your
fallback position on taxes?
KEYES: I have to tell you, I actually think that that would not be an
appropriate question for me to answer. I think that we have to move away from
the slave income tax, and that I am working to put together a coalition of
people around the country who understand that we have surrendered control of
our income to the government, giving them a preemptive claim that they then
determine the extent of over our money. As long as that is the case, in
principle the government controls every penny that is made and earned in the
United States, and anything left in our pockets is left there by the sufferance
of our politicians. This is an unacceptable situation.
And so I am not going to answer a question based on the notion that the
people of this country should acquiesce, and that we should simply continue
to do what my colleagues want to do tinker around with a system where they
get to be the gatekeepers of our money. I will not allow that to continue. I
will work to change that, and we must move to abolish the income tax, and
replace it with the original Constitution of the country. I believe that that
is the alternative that needs to be placed before the American people. And if
we can effectively put together in this election the coalition to support
that, then the Congress will respond to the will of the people.
Question: Can you offer us some more specifics on your national sales
tax proposal? Is it a tax on goods and services, and what percentage would
you put on that tax?
KEYES: I support a "fair tax" proposal that is out there on
the table, that would replace both the income tax and the payroll tax. The
rate would probably have to be, for that purpose, around 20% or 23%. It would
be on the retail sales; that is, it is not a tax on production. I think that
what the Europeans have done in the way of VAT's and other taxes that
intervene in the production process actually burdens productivity and
discourages it. You want an end tax, on consumption, of retail sales,
excluding a certain market basket of goods and services that represent the
essential necessities of life so that the poor and those on fixed incomes
would be able to exempt themselves from taxation through their own judicious
use of the proper choice, and others, who feel that they cannot bear the
burden of the sales tax, would be able, by following that frugality track, to
do the same thing.
Question: According to population experts, within years whites will no
longer be a racial majority in the United States of America. Should our
national dialogue drop the words "minority," "majority"?
KEYES: I think that it would be advisable, and I have always argued,
in fact, that categorizing people according to race and group is bad in this
country. I think that one of the things that has been done by quotas and
other approaches that people say are to benefit minorities is that in fact we
have retained the categories of racial discrimination and racial
consciousness. I think we would do better to focus on our common American
identity, to renew our allegiance to those moral principles that define that
common American identity, so that we can move forward. And if there are
people in this society that need help, we should give them that help based on
their need, based on the scars that they have suffered, perhaps, from past
abuse and discrimination, not based on race and minority background of that
kind
. . .
Question by Ambassador KEYES: Senator McCain, in my past questioning I
think I have established that you support the Clinton policy "don't ask,
don't tell" on gays in the military. But I heard today that you had been
asked a question about what you would say if your daughter was ever in a
position where she might need an abortion. And you said at first, as I
understand it, that the choice would be up to her, and then that you would
have a family conference.
I have got to admit, I think that displayed a profound lack of understanding
of the basic issue of principle involved in abortion. After all, if your
daughter came to you and said she was contemplating killing her grandmother
for the inheritance, you wouldn't say "let's have a family conference."
You would look at her and say, "Just say no, because that is morally
wrong."
It is God's choice that that child is in the womb. And for us to usurp that
choice in contradiction of our Declaration principles is just as wrong.
Therefore, how can you take the position that would subject such a choice to
a family conference or any other human choice? Isn't it God's choice that
protects the life of that child in the womb?
Senator McCain: I am proud of my pro-life record in public life. I'm
the only one here who has gone to the floor of the Senate and voted in the
preservation of the life of the unborn. I have worked very hard for the ban
of partial birth abortion. I have sought for approval and legislation
requiring parental consent and parental notification. I am proud of that
pro-life record, and I will continue to maintain it. I will not draw my
children into this discussion.
KEYES: Meaning no offense, Senator, the question wasn't about your
record. It was about your understanding. If we take a position on this issue,
and are then nominated by this party, we will have to go forward to defend
that position in a field where Bill Bradley and Al Gore aren't going to take
your record as an answer. They will need a persuasive justification before
the American people as to why that position is consonant with our principles
and our heritage. And the answer you gave today does not display that kind of
understanding. How can we trust you to move forward and defend our position
on this issue?
McCain: Because unlike you, I have a 17 year voting record and record
of service to this country, including doing everything that I can to preserve
the rights of the unborn. I have spoken as eloquently as I can on that issue.
I am proud of my record. And that record I will stand on. And I am completely
comfortable with the fact that, as a leader of a pro-life party, with a
pro-life position, that I will persuade which is what really this is all
about to have young Americans understand the importance the preservation of
the rights of the unborn.
. . .
Governor Bush: To Alan Keyes. What's it like to be in a mosh pit?
KEYES: It's a lot of fun, actually; I enjoyed it.
Bush: On the stage after us will be two Democrats. And if you listen
carefully to what they are saying, it sounds like they loved what the
Clintons tried to do to health care. They want to federalize health care.
They want the federal government to manage our health care. I know you, and
the rest of us here, concerns about health care all over New Hampshire. What
is your view? Give us your principles on health care for America.
KEYES: I actually think it is very important not to turn health care
over to government domination, because we will get the same kind of results
that sadly we have gotten in our education system, where we spend more and we
get less, in terms of quality, as a result. We have to take an approach that
empowers those who are out there looking for health care services to be the
ones who can make the choices and make the decisions that will enforce,
within that system, a relationship between the money you pay and the quality
you get. That is something that empowered consumers should be able to do.
We should voucherize the federal program, so that
individuals will have a stake in making the right judgments about how they
get their health care. We need to set up medical savings accounts, and other
mechanisms, that will allow people to build up what they need in order to
meet their health care needs by making judicious choices that will give them
the power to go to the right doctor, to the right way of providing medical
services, according to their choice. I think that is the principle that we
need.
And by the way, that will help to keep costs down. Bureaucracies can't do
that job. But as we find in every other sector of our economy, when you
empower consumers to make choices, when you give them a range of choices, so
they can go away from those providers who are not giving them cost-effective
provision of services, that's when you are going to get the costs down, and
when we will have more medical dollars available to meet problems like
long-term health care, which is catastrophic for individual families, and
which they can't bear on their own.
Bush: Do you agree with me that it seems like the administration kind
of loves to dangle Medicare reform, kind of get people talking about it, and
then turn the tables for political reasons?
KEYES: I think they have done that in every respect, as a matter of
fact. Their aim, I believe, is to try to lure more and more people into a
government dominated system. And once you get the reins of control over
medical care into that government system, you will then, as unfortunately we
have found in other countries, be able to lower the quality and not give
people the kind of service that they need, while at the same time
shortchanging the providers of services so that you reduce the incentive for
training and quality care. That is the result we will get from socialism, and
I frankly am proud of the Republican Party for having stood together to
resist the socialization of medicine in this country. It was the right thing
to do, and I think it also helped, by the way, to safeguard the situation
that allowed us to continue on the road of prosperous expansion in our
economy.
Question: The President tomorrow night is expected in his State of the
Union message to propose federal subsidies to help low-income families
overcome the so-called "digital divide." Is it an appropriate use
of government funds to hand out computers, and provide internet access to
those who can't afford it? And if not, why not?
KEYES: I think this is another case where politicians try to jump on
the bandwagon of something that is going on in the economy, so everybody is
going to think that they actually had something to do with the result, when
they don't.
There is no need for this. We are already seeing out there proposals for the
distribution of free PC's, not based on some politician making a judgment and
spending taxpayer money, but based on the self-interest of those who are
involved in a new world, a new world in which participation is the key to
profit, and in which there is actually a strong incentive among those who
participate in the private sector to give access to individuals, so that they
can improve their opportunities for profit, for information sharing.
That is what has already been going on. It will continue. There is no need
for the government to pretend that it needs to take leadership here. I think
that is just political posturing.
Question: Mr. Keyes, what is your position on the death penalty?
KEYES: I believe that there are certain circumstances in which the
death penalty is in fact essential to our respect for life. If we do not, in
our law, send the message to everybody that by calculatedly, coldly taking a
human life in a way that, for instance, assaults the structures of law in a
society, or shows a cold-blooded and studied disregard for the value of that
life if we are not willing to implement the death penalty in those
circumstances, then we are actually sending a message of contempt for human
life. We are encouraging people to believe that that step is not in fact a
terminal step, when they faithfully and fatally decide to move against the
live of another human being. So I think that there are circumstances under
which it is essential, in fact, that we have and apply the death penalty in
order to send a clear moral message to people throughout our society that we
will not tolerate that kind of disrespect for life.
Question: In particular, in your judgment, what should be the minimum
death penalty age for young felons convicted of deadly crimes?
KEYES: I am not one of those folks who think that we ought to be
lowering the age at which we adjudge people to be adults. I believe that the
tendency in that direction now, to want to treat our children as if they are
adults, is a confession of our own failure as a society to maintain the
structures of family life, to maintain the basis of moral education. As a
result, yes, we have children now in whom there exists a howling moral void,
and those children engage in some acts that are heinous and shocking to us.
But at the same time, I think we need to respect the difference that exists
between children and adults. We need to insist, from adults, on moral
accountability and moral responsibility. We need to help our children develop
that ability to be mature adults. But I don't think that we should take out
our failure of moral education on younger and younger children. I think that
this is a great error.
Question: Should it be a felony for the President to lie to the
American people?
KEYES: I think that lying under oath is clearly a felony. But we
shouldn't think that that is how you take care of a President when he lies
and disregards his oath. That is the responsibility not of the courts, but of
Congress. And I think that this Congress, under the corrupt pressure from a
Democrat Party that surrounded its corrupt President, that refused, in fact,
to apply the necessary strictures in order to call this nation back to
accountability and integrity they need to be held accountable. The way in
which you deal with a President's failure to respect his oath is the
impeachment process, and willingness to remove him from office.
If Congress doesn't have the guts to do that, then our Constitution has been
gutted.
KEYES: I'd like to address my question to Steve Forbes. Steve, I'm
very concerned with the surrender of America's national sovereignty, and
steps that have been taken in recent years that undermine our allegiance and
application of our Constitution. Particularly I am concerned that by joining
the World Trade Organization, and subjecting the American people directly to
decisions taken by an unrepresentative body, that will then be applied
directly to their affairs without the intervention of their elected
representatives in the Congress or elsewhere, we subvert the American
Constitutional system.
Would you join me in a pledge, because of that assault on the Constitution
which it represents, to withdraw this nation from this unrepresentative body,
the World Trade Organization, and reestablish the sovereignty of the American
people in their international economic affairs?
Forbes: I believe in the sovereignty of the American nation and the
American people. I believe in a U.S.., not a U.N., foreign policy. I believe
that we should destroy or send the International Monetary Fund to political
equivalent of Jurassic Park, given what it has done.
Concerning the World Trade Organization, Clinton and Gore have made a total
hash of the thing. The whole thing was supposed to be designed to mediate
trade disputes, so they can reduce barriers that are in the way of our
products and surfaces. We are the biggest trading nation in the world, and
they discriminate against our products like no other nation. The WTO is like
the wooly mammoth. I think we have to take direct action. If that
organization can't get its act together, let it stay on the side and we take
direct action, as I propose to do, in reducing trade barriers with our
partners, starting with the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement with Ireland
and Britain. And we should do the same thing with Australia and other
countries in the Pacific Rim. That way we can stop this discrimination
against our products, and the WTO can go its own way.
KEYES: Sadly speaking, though I will try to be as polite about it as I
can, I seem to suffer from Gary's problem. I asked you a yes or no question
and could not get a yes or no answer. I think that the World Trade
Organization . . . and this isn't a question just of its effects out there in
the world. In principle we have done something that undercuts the sovereignty
of the American people, and that puts us in a position that violates the
Constitutional principle no legislation without representation. Will you
withdraw us from this unrepresentative body?
Forbes: I'm not gonna withdraw us from that body, for the very simple
reason, it's supposed to be there to help reduce barriers. If it doesn't,
then we bid it goodbye. We are a sovereign nation. If they do something that
is truly egregious, and breaks agreements on reducing trade barriers, we have
the power to take direct action and pull out, and say "no," we're
not going to abide with it. So this is an organization we should try to use
to reduce our barriers, 'cause our farmers are discriminated against, our
manufacturers are discriminated against, our services are discriminated
against. We need every vehicle and diplomatic tool possible to get those
barriers down, because when you have a level playing field, America reigns
supreme. And that's what I want, and if the WTO can't do it, I've got direct
action in reducing those barriers.
That's the key. We are sovereign; other nations are discriminating against
us. As a businessman, I have seen how they do it. I know how to get these
barriers down, unlike the Clinton/Gore administration.
Bauer: Alan, a couple of weeks ago you criticized my good friend John
McCain because he expressed some support of, or interest in, a controversial
music group. In view of that, I was a little surprised this week to see you
fall into a mosh pit, while a band called "The Machine Rages On" or
"Rage Against the Machine" played. That band is anti-family, it's
pro-cop-killer, and it's pro-terrorist. It's the kind of music that the
killers at Columbine High School were immersed in. Don't you think you owe an
apology to parents and policemen on that one?
KEYES: Actually, I don't, because I was in no . . . accusing me of
having some complicity in that music would be like accusing me of being
responsible for the color of my skin. When you can't control things, Gary,
you are not morally responsible for them. And I was not morally responsible
for the music that was playing as I stepped out of my rally, and faced Michael
Moore, whatever his name was, doing whatever he was doing. That's his
concern, not mine. And until you told me this fact, I had no idea what that
music was.
Contrary to our friend John McCain, who expressed the view that this was his
favorite rock group. I think telling somebody that it is your favorite thus
and such is actually taking responsibility for the choice, and making it
clear to folks that this is something that you prefer, and that this is
something that you care about, and so forth and so on. To do it in a
light-hearted way, rather than having it imposed on you by circumstances over
which you have no control, is something that I think is totally unacceptable.
So I think that I would beg to differ with you. I had nothing to do with that
music, disclaim any knowledge of it.
Admittedly, I was willing to fall into the mosh pit. But I'll tell you
something. Do you know why I did that? Because I think that exemplifies the
kind of trust in people that is the heart and soul of the Keyes campaign. It's
about time we got back to the understanding that we trust the people of this
country to do what is decent. And when you trust them, they will in fact hold
you up - whether it is in terms of giving help to you when you are falling
down, or caring for their own children.
So I thought that as an emblem of that trust, it was the right thing to do.
And anyway, my daughter thought it was a good idea.
Bauer: Well, daughters are extremely important. Alan, let me read a
quote from you. You said that one of the most important things is the dignity
of the presidency. In fact, you said that it is important that those of us
that aspire to be president not act like guests on the Jerry Springer show,
which is incompatible with the dignity of politics. Now, I will concede from
your answer, you didn't know about the music. But nobody made you jump in the
mosh pit. (KEYES: Oh, that's very true.) Do you think that is
consistent with the dignity of the presidency?
KEYES: Well, I would leave that to the judgment of the American
people. I do know that when I got down, one of the folks who was there with
one of the news crews looked at me, and he said, "You know, you are the
only person I've ever seen dive into a mosh pit and come out with his tie
straight." And I think that . . . do you know the real test of dignity?
The real test of dignity is how you carry it through hard times. I think I
learned that from my people. We went through slavery, when we didn't have the
outward signs of what others would call dignity, because we understood that
dignity comes from within. And that whatever circumstance you are going
through, you can carry that dignity with you, and no one can take it away.
So I think you may have a misunderstanding of dignity. It doesn't come from
what you do in a mosh pit. It comes from what you do as a result of the
convictions of your heart. And I'll leave it to the American people to judge
the convictions of my heart.
. . .
Question: Senator McCain, because of Mr. Keyes' references to you,
you've earned a rebuttal. Thirty seconds.
McCain: You know, Mr. Keyes, you attacked me earlier on about my
position defending the rights of the unborn. I want to tell you something.
I've seen enough killing in my life. I know how precious human life is, and I
don't need a lecture from you.
KEYES: One small comment. I didn't lecture you, Senator McCain.
(McCain: The next time, try decaf.) I simply pointed out that your answer
showed no understanding of the issue of moral principle involved in abortion.
And that inadequacy is not a "lecture." It's simply an observation
of fact.
. . .
Question: The commission for presidential debates has issued its
criteria for determining which candidates will be admitted to the nationally
televised debates this fall. One of the requirements is that all candidates
must be showing 15% in the polls. Some feel that 15% rule has the potential
to exclude independent candidates, specifically the Reform Party nominee. Do
you think that is fair?
KEYES: I think it is totally unfair. I think it would give a dangerous
power to pollsters and to those who are capable of manipulating those polls.
And I think it would be anathema to the process that ought to leave these
choices in the hands of the people. You won't get 50 people on a stage, if
you set the threshold of participation in those debates at the proper level
of qualification in states around the country.
It was not easy for the Reform Party to meet the qualification, but once they
have objectively met the qualification to be on the ballot in a sufficient
number of states to win the electoral votes needed for the presidency, no
polls or anything else ought to keep them out of the debates. You are
depriving the American people, when you do that, of a proper choice.
. . .
Question: Mr. Keyes, in the interest of human rights, should the
United States government fully open to the world its files on General Augusto
Pinochet, the former dictator of Chile?
KEYES: I believe that would in fact be a proper move to make. I believe
that information, (to) spread knowledge among people in order to make sure
that everyone will understand what the record is, is a correct and
appropriate thing to do. We are a society in which that kind of freedom of
expression is the foundation of integrity. So I would have no argument with
it, provided that you scrutinized that information to make sure that you
released nothing that would be damaging to the national security of the
United States. With that proviso, I think we ought to do what is necessary in
order to help people in the world understand the truth, in order to help
people who may have been victims of injustice to seek redress of their
grievances. I think that is a step that is not only in the best interest of
justice, but it is most consistent with America's ideal of justice for
individual human beings.
Question: Could the United States be culpable in the disappearance of
thousands of Chileans under the Pinochet regime?
KEYES: I would certainly hope not. But it seems to me that is the kind
of question that you ought to examine with an open mind, look at the facts,
and if those facts lead to culpability of individuals who happen to be
Americans, then we would pursue that according to our law and Constitution,
just as I believe it is appropriate for people in Chile and other countries
to pursue those matters in ways that are appropriate with their laws and
their Constitution and their sovereignty.
We should not countenance, in this country, human rights abuses by people who
are Americans. We don't believe in that, and I think that we would move
forward to do something about it. I don't think we ought to assume, however,
that that is the case. But I don't think that we should fear to pursue
justice in those cases.
. . .
Keyes: I think the choice that Republicans face - you need to consider
it in light of the fact that standing on this stage we have one fellow who
would give you Clinton's policy on gays in the military - "don't as, don't tell," another who would support Clinton's
policy on social security, another who will give you Clinton's trade policy
and Clinton's globalism in foreign policy. I think that as Republicans we
need to have a consistency in principle, go before the American people
challenging them to meet the moral crisis that is the chief issue of our day,
and standing on conservative principles across the board, in a way that will
allow us effectively and coherently to answer the attacks of our Democratic
opponents, and offer a positive alternative to the American people.
http://www.keyesarchives.com/transcript.php?id=122
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