xcerpts from Monday's debate in Phoenix among Republican presidential hopefuls Gary Bauer, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Steve Forbes, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Alan Keyes, and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, as transcribed by the Federal Document Clearing House:
On gun laws:
BAUER: "I don't think this is a gun problem, as some would suggest. I think it's a problem of the heart and soul."
On the Clinton administration and foreign policy:
BAUER: "I think that there are many things happening in the world that we don't like.
But even a rich, powerful country like the United States will be bled dry if we try to intervene every place where our hearts have been touched. Horrible things are happening in Kosovo, but they're also happening in Indonesia and in many other places around the world.
We can use leverage with trade. We can use leverage with our foreign aid. But at a time when we have gutted the American military, taking us from 18 divisions down to 10, taking us from a 650-ship Navy down to 300, it is foolish and imprudent to be sending our men everywhere when the national security of the United States is not at stake."
On budget cuts:
BUSH: "I refuse to accept the premise that surpluses are going to decline if I'm the president. I think they're going to increase because my plan will increase productivity by cutting marginal rates.
On the WTO and China:
BUSH: Gary, I agree with you, that forced abortion is abhorrent. And I agree with you when leaders try to snuff out religion. But I think if we turn our back on China and isolate China, things will get worse. Imagine if the Internet took hold in China. Imagine how freedom would spread. I told -- in my earlier answer, I said our greatest export to the world has been, is, and always will be the incredible freedom we understand in America. And that's why it's important for us to trade with China, to encourage the growth of an entrepreneurial class. It gets that taste of freedom. It gets that breath of freedom in the marketplace."
On foreign policy:
FORBES: "In Bosnia, we didn't have to put ground forces there. This is not hindsight -- I wrote about it in the early '90s -- that if we have real diplomacy, we could have avoided that disaster by making clear to Milosevic that his victims, intended victims, would have the means to defend themselves. That would have solved that crisis without putting our people there. And when finally the Croats and the Bosnia Muslims got arms in '94 and '95, lo and behold, the aggressors were thrown out. We could have done the same thing in Kosovo.
We do have very real interests in the world, Candy. We have it in Asia, we have it in Europe. But this throwing our forces around and then not having an exit strategy and not building up the military is a policy of disaster.
On Washington:
"Washington can't do it. Washington and the government is taking too much of your money, which is hurting the quality of life."
On the vice presidential candidate:
HATCH: "My only problem with you, Governor, is that you've only had four and going into your fifth year of governorship in a constitutionally weak governorship. And frankly, I really believe that you need more experience before you become president of the United States. That's why I'm thinking of you as a vice presidential candidate.
Because if you had -- just think -- just think -- Ronald Reagan picked your father because he had foreign policy experience. Somebody suggested the other day you should pick me because I have foreign policy experience. They've got it all wrong. I should be president. You should have eight years with me and boy, you'll make a heck of a president after eight years. I'll tell you."
On the WTO:
HATCH: "Well, as you can see, that whole process fell flat on its face because the President was injecting into these debates, and into those negotiations, matters that just caused it to collapse. And it's a tragedy for this whole world."
On foreign policy:
KEYES: "We have got to be very careful not to lower the threshold of intervention. It was the pretext of the abuse of minorities in Poland and elsewhere that Hitler used for his aggressions, that other conquerors have used for their aggression.
On campaign finance:
KEYES: "Well, I actually think that all of these approaches are wrong because they're based on a premise that I think is unconstitutional. If we have the right of free association, then I think we have the right to associate our money with the causes we believe in any amount that we think is necessary to get those causes to work ...
No dollar vote without a ballot vote. You understand that? If you can't walk into the voting booth and cast a vote, you should not be able to make a contribution. No corporate contributions, no union contributions, no contributions, whatsoever, from any entities that are not actual breathing voters who can go cast a vote."
On the Clinton administration and foreign policy:
MCCAIN: "This administration is poll driven and not principle driven. We didn't have to get into Kosovo. Once we stumbled into it, we had to win it. And the fact is that this administration has conducted a feckless photo-op foreign policy for which we will pay a very heavy price in American blood and treasure.
You have to have a concept of what you want the world to look like, where our interests and our values lie and how we are going to bring this world into the next century and call it again, the American century."
On special interests:
MCCAIN: "Steve, if I may steal a famous line. It's very much like bears going after honey. I don't know where I heard that before.
But the fact is -- the fact is if you want to drain the swamp, you take the big money away from the big-time K Street lobbyists, and that way they lose their power and their influence."
