The Presidential candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, met in their second of three debates last night. While the stated focus was to be the economy, the questions came from the audience and from the internet so they covered a wide range of topics. Tom Brokaw of NBC News moderated the town hall debate that took place at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and was hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates.
Once again, OhMyGov! watched closely and scoured the transcripts for the candidates’ ideas about and plans for the United States government. Each candidate only mentioned the word in a relevant manner a handful of times – Obama just three and McCain five. But even in those few references, a clear difference in philosophy about the role of government does begin to emerge. Passages from the transcript are excerpted below.
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BROKAW: Senator McCain, for you, we have our first question from the Internet tonight. A child of the Depression, 78-year-old Fiora from Chicago. “Since World War II, we have never been asked to sacrifice anything to help our country, except the blood of our heroic men and women. As president, what sacrifices will you ask every American to make to help restore the American dream and to get out of the economic morass that we're now in?”
MCCAIN: Well, Fiora, I'm going to ask the American people to understand that there are some programs that we may have to eliminate.
I first proposed a long time ago that we would have to examine every agency and every bureaucracy of government. And we're going to have to eliminate those that aren't working.
I know a lot of them that aren't working. One of them is in defense spending, because I've taken on some of the defense contractors. I saved the taxpayers $6.8 billion in a deal for an Air Force tanker that was done in a corrupt fashion.
I believe that we have to eliminate the earmarks. And sometimes those projects, not -- not the overhead projector that Senator Obama asked for, but some of them that are really good projects, will have -- will have to be eliminated, as well.
And they'll have to undergo the same scrutiny that all projects should in competition with others.
So we're going to have to tell the American people that spending is going to have to be cut in America. And I recommend a spending freeze that -- except for defense, Veterans Affairs, and some other vital programs, we'll just have to have across-the-board freeze.
And some of those programs may not grow as much as we would like for them to, but we can establish priorities with full transparency, with full knowledge of the American people, and full consultation, not done behind closed doors and shoving earmarks in the middle of the night into programs that we don't even -- sometimes we don't even know about until months later.
Watch the clip of courtesy of C-SPAN.
BROKAW: Senator Obama?
OBAMA: You know, a lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11 and where you were on that day and, you know, how all of the country was ready to come together and make enormous changes to make us not only safer, but to make us a better country and a more unified country.
And President Bush did some smart things at the outset, but one of the opportunities that was missed was, when he spoke to the American people, he said, "Go out and shop."
That wasn't the kind of call to service that I think the American people were looking for.
And so it's important to understand that the -- I think the American people are hungry for the kind of leadership that is going to tackle these problems not just in government, but outside of government.
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QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE MEMBER: I want to know, we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs?
OBAMA: This is one of the biggest challenges of our times. And it is absolutely critical that we understand this is not just a challenge, it's an opportunity, because if we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new jobs, easily, here in the United States.
It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades.
And we can do it, but we're going to have to make an investment. The same way the computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying to figure out, for defense purposes, how to communicate, we've got to understand that this is a national security issue, as well.
We're going to have to come up with alternatives, and that means that the United States government is working with the private sector to fund the kind of innovation that we can then export to countries like China that also need energy and are setting up one coal power plant a week.
Watch the clip of courtesy of C-SPAN.
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BROKAW: Should we fund a Manhattan-like project that develops a nuclear bomb to deal with global energy and alternative energy or should we fund 100,000 garages across America, the kind of industry and innovation that developed Silicon Valley?
MCCAIN: I think pure research and development investment on the part of the United States government is certainly appropriate. I think once it gets into productive stages, that we ought to, obviously, turn it over to the private sector.
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QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE MEMBER: Senator, selling health care coverage in America as the marketable commodity has become a very profitable industry.
OBAMA: If you don't have health insurance, you're going to be able to buy the same kind of insurance that Senator McCain and I enjoy as federal employees. Because there's a huge pool, we can drop the costs. And nobody will be excluded for pre-existing conditions, which is a huge problem.
For the full debate go to C-SPAN's debate hub.
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[+] The role of government: The Vice President Debate
[+] Obama and McCain Remain Silent on the Federal Workforce
[+] The first debate: relevant snippets for those in government
[+] Presidential candidates on the environment and energy