Highlights of Friday's debate between Republican presidential hopefuls Gary Bauer, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Alan Keyes, Steve Forbes and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, as transcribed by the Federal Document Clearing House:

Asked if affirmative action has made America a better nation:

MCCAIN: Yes, but quotas have made it worse.

BAUER: I think that the idea behind affirmative action was legitimate and decent, but when you start counting by race, you divide America, you don't bring it together.

BUSH: Only if affirmative action means equal opportunity for everybody.

FORBES: Quotas and set asides are wrong, and that's why we genuinely need real affirmation of opportunities starting by letting parents choose their own schools for their own children.

HATCH: When affirmative action means job training outreach and education it's good. When it starts pitting one group against another throw a system of preferences, it's bad. And I've got to tell you quotas are wrong for America, and I agree: Equal opportunity is what we should have for everybody.

KEYES: I think it maybe more important to ask whether it's helped the people it was supposed to help. And I think it has actually hurt them by damaging the reputation of many minorities in this country and not giving them credit for their real achievements, and I think that's wrong.

Bush was asked by Bauer about the recent turnover of the Panama Canal back to Panamanian control:

BAUER: Are you willing to take the steps necessary including putting our military back in Panama in order to stop the Chinese from taking over influence there?

BUSH: Our country has signed a treaty; I believe we ought to honor the treaty. But when I'm the president, if I find in any way, shape or form the canal is closed to world interests, I will do whatever it takes to keep the canal open.

It is in our national strategic interest to have a peaceful hemisphere. It is in our national strategic interest to have a hemisphere in which trade can flow freely. And I will liberate the canal if I have to.

McCain was asked, for the second night in a row, about his role overseeing the FCC, which makes important decisions regarding some of his key campaign donors.

Q: Senator, I'm reading from the Associated Press ... ``two weeks after Ameritech's chairman held a fund-raiser for him, Senator John McCain sent a stinging letter to federal regulators accusing them of being unfair toward the phone company.''

Senator, your letter went on to say that the letter was not meant to benefit any one single person.

And you have said in your own defense that this is part of what is wrong with Washington. However, do you understand now the appearance here and can you tell us here tonight is there anything else about the transportation you use, about the letters you have written, anything else that you know of that is about to come out?

MCCAIN: I have, first of all, no idea. But the fact is that again my job as chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation is the oversight of bureaucracies that are supposed to be serving the people. The Federal Communications Commission has not been doing that. But all the times when I have weighed in I have asked them to do their duty and to expedite the procedures as they're laid out under the law and according to existing regulations.

I will continue to do that job, and when a constituent, a person of mine who has trouble - or a citizen of this country who can't get a reaction or an answer from a bureaucracy that's paid for with their tax dollars - I believe that people like me should weigh in, particularly when it is my responsibility as chairman of the committee.

McCain was given the chance to ask Gov. Bush about the differences between their two proposed tax cut plans.

MCCAIN: Well, governor, I know your people are running around saying that your tax cut is bigger than mine. I think the phrase they used was the tax gap between Bush and McCain. I'm more concerned about the surplus gap. It's fiscally irresponsible to promise a huge tax cut that is based on a surplus that we may not have. My tax plan is fiscally conservative. It's about the same as yours for middle-income and lower income Americans. It places a top priority on saving Social Security. It offers a needed tax break for middle income people and it begins paying down the national debt. My friends, we ought to pay down the national debt. George, the American people are tired of people who make promises, who make promises about tax cuts that they can't keep.

BUSH: The senator and I have a fundamental disagreement. Let me see if I can put it in human terms for you.

Chris and Beth Bradley came to the airport today. They make $42,000 a year in income. Under the plan that you laid out, Mr. Senator, here in South Carolina, they will receive a $200 tax cut. Under the plan that I propose and will get through the United States Congress, they receive a $1,852 tax cut. The fundamental difference is that the additional $1,600 - the difference will go to Washington under your idea, and under my idea it goes into people's pockets. There is enough money to take care of Social Security. There is enough money to meet the basic needs of our government. And there is enough money to give the American people a substantial tax cut and that's exactly what I'm going to do.