Moderator: We intend to ask the candidates, What do you intend to do about prescription drugs? The rules of engagement are -- you are not allowed to say that the "government" will pay for them because, of course, the government has no resources. Vice President Gore, we will begin with you.
Gore: The American people are endowed by our Founding Fathers with life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness. There is no way in which happiness can be pursued if you can't afford the basic medium of happiness, which is health. I talked the other day to a woman in East Hartford, Conn. She is a 65-year-old retired clerical worker who has no insurance coverage for drugs. Her monthly drug bill for her diabetic ailment is $506. Her monthly Social Security check is $496. Somebody has to pick up her medical expenses.
Moderator: Governor Bush, who is that somebody?
Bush: Well, the best way to put that is: the lady's neighbor.
Moderator: How will the neighbor pay?
Bush: Got to be through taxation; there's no other way.
Gore: I wouldn't put it quite that way.
Bush: No, you wouldn't, because your scam is to make it sound as though the diabetes pills are going to materialize, just like that, for your lady in East Hartford, at no palpable cost to anybody, let alone her next-door neighbor, who, when you put the problem to her in this particular way, is less eager to vote for "free drugs" -- less eager to vote for you -- than she was before.
Moderator: Are you saying, Governor Bush, that you're against helping the diabetic lady in East Hartford?
Bush: I'm in favor of encouraging any relief plans for the specially needy designed and financed by the states with reference to the community's own priorities and resources. There's a family tradition, where I come from, against voodoo approaches to national problems. You do too much voodoo, you pop off, and who is expected to pay for that expense? Uncle Sam?