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[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC - "THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER]
CHOIR: [SINGING] Oh say can you see by the dawns early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous night O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming. And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. And the home of the brave.
JESSICA REIF: Good evening, ladies and gentleman. My name is Jessica Reif. And I'm the chair of the Cornell University College Republicans. With the presidential election less than 20 days away, the College Republicans and College Democrats are so excited to see that many members of the Cornell and Ithaca community are interested in talking about politics.
Tonight, you will hear from two of the nation's most distinguished political leaders about the role of government in a free society. We are very proud to further the political dialogue on campus by presenting this debate.
Many organizations came together to make this event possible. First and foremost, I would like to thank the Young America's Foundation and the Arthur Rupe Foundation. Additionally, I would like to give a special thank you to all of our co-sponsors, the Bartels Family Foundation, the College of Human Ecology, Cornell Forensic Society, Cornell Hillel, Cornell Institute of Public Affairs, Cornell Radio Guild WBBR, CUPB, CU Tonight, the Department of American Studies, the Department of Government, the Department of History, the Department of Policy Analysis and Management, the Division of University Communications, KAPi Pre-law fraternity, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the ILR School, and Zeta Psi Fraternity.
Finally, I would like to thank the University Communications Office and the press office for all of their hard work in executing this event, as well as the event managers and volunteers here tonight.
At the end of the debate, we will have an opportunity to have a question and answer session. Throughout the debate, please feel free to e-mail questions to the email address listed in your program. Questions will be selected at random and read aloud at the podium. Questions without a name and college attached them will not be considered.
But without further ado, I would like to introduce our moderator, Professor Sam Nelson. Professor Nelson has been a faculty member at Cornell for seven years. He teaches argumentation and debate in the IRL School and serves as the director of the Cornell Forensic Society, which is ranked fifth in the world for collegiate debate. During his 25-year college teaching career, he has received many debate coaching and teaching awards. Please join me in welcoming Professor Sam Nelson.
Now I would like to introduce Professor Rosemary Avery. Professor Avery is a Weiss presidential Fellow and the chairman of the Department of Policy Analysis and Management. She will be introducing our speakers this evening. Please join me in welcoming Professor Rosemary Avery.
ROSEMARY AVERY: Good evening, ladies and gentleman. I have the distinct pleasure tonight to introduce our debaters. Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1990 at age 32, from 1995 to 2007, served in the US Senate.
Amongst his many accomplishments, in 2000, he was elected the position of Senate Republican Conference Chair. He was the author and floor manager of landmark Welfare Reform Act in 1996. He was a member of the famous gang of seven that exposed the congressional banking and post office scandals. He served eight years in the Senate Armed Services Committee. And to add to all of that, he's the accomplished author of a 2005 New York Times bestseller entitled, It Takes A Family.
A passionate champion of Americans' founding principles, Senator Rick Santorum's impressive presidential campaign this year positioned him as a leading voice in the Republican Party. And it's earned him a reputation as a passionate fighter for conservative values, a vocal advocate for smaller government, for cutting wasteful spending, for strong national defense, and a return to our country's founding principles. Ladies and gentleman, please join me in welcoming Senator Rick Santorum.
Governor Howard Dean, Howard Dean graduated from Yale University-- not Cornell-- with a BA in political science in 1971 and received his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York in 1998.
He began his career in public service in 1982, when he transitioned from being a full-time practitioner to an elected representative in Vermont. He then went on to serve as governor of Vermont for 12 years, the second-longest serving governor in the state. And he left office of Vermont for his presidential campaign in 2003.
Since that time, he's served as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. During his chairmanship, he created and implemented the Fifty-State Strategy and the development of 21st century campaigning tools. He introduced the game-changing strategy of new era political campaigning based on grassroots support and cutting edge internet technology that has fundamentally altered the way in which we campaign in America.
He currently works as an independent consultant, focusing on areas of health care, early childhood development, alternative energy, and the expansion of grassroots politics all around the world. Give him a very warm Cornell welcome.
SAM NELSON: At this point, I'm going to describe the rules of the debate, the format that we will follow and give you, both the audience and the debaters, some advice.
Actually I'll start with that. As was mentioned in the introduction, I've been involved with debate for over 25 years. I've seen quite a few good debates, and I've seen quite a few bad debates in that period of time.
Let me talk about the good debates. The good debates occur when the participants listen to each other, answer the questions, and most importantly, have a spirited clash among their ideas. So let's shoot for all three of those today, gentleman.
And the good debates occur when the audience listens, is civil, and lets it known, with polite clapping-- but not screaming or yelling-- that they are happy with what they hear. Don't do it while the participants are speaking, because then everybody won't be able to hear what they're trying to get across.
These two men are very brave. They're willing to come to Cornell University, the paragon of higher education.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
Not only are they willing to come here, they are willing to do intellectual battle on this hallowed stage of Bailey Hall.
Let me just explain a little bit about the rules. So there will be opening statements. We flipped a coin in the back, and Senator Santorum will be giving the first of the opening remarks. The first question will go to Governor Dean. And then we'll alternate.
And these questions were decided through a bipartisan effort between the Cornell Democrats and the Cornell Republicans. So these are not questions that I thought of. They were actually hammered out through tough negotiations-- successful negotiations.
Then there will be closing remarks at the end. And then the debate will take on the unique feature that Jessica Reif talked about, where you'll be able to text in or e-mail in questions that you would like to ask. And then those will be asked at the end of the debate.
Are there any questions, gentleman? No? Any questions, audience? Don't answer that question. All right, so we will start with the opening statements, Senator Santorum.
RICK SANTORUM: Thank you, Sam. I appreciate that. Thank you for the opportunity to be here in Cornell. And thank you all for coming tonight. Governor Dean, good to be with you again.
And the question that's posed-- which is, what's government's role in a free society-- I would make the argument it's really the question before us as a country right now. I think that's-- as I travelled around the country running for president the last few years-- that's what Americans were concerned about.
What kind of country, what kind of government are we? Are we going through a transformation, as President Obama suggested that he would like to see America go through? And I'd like to say that, as was said in my bio, that I stand by what the traditional American principles that made this country successful-- about what the role of government is.
And that was decided by very learned men who thought long and hard, studied history, looked at humankind, looked at human nature, and came up with a couple of documents that established the United States of America, in essence. The first was the Declaration of Independence, which gave purpose to the revolution.
If you asked someone from Massachusetts or Virginia what we were fighting for in June of 1776, you would have gotten two different answers. But after the Declaration was established, we actually had a common purpose. I always say that America is not a race. It is not an ethnicity. We're all hyphenated Americans.
It is an ideal. It is a set of principles and values. And that is established in the Declaration, where-- these words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." That is the anchor of America.
And then what our founders did is went out and won freedom by winning the Revolutionary War. The second thing they did was order freedom. It was hard. They tried, the Articles of Confederation failed. And they established the Constitution of the United States.
And the Constitution is the operator's manual of America. It is the role of government in a free society. And they wrote the Constitution of the United States, a remarkable document that it is. And they established limited powers of government.
The Constitution is a limiting document. It's not an empowering document. It's a limiting document for the federal government in particular, leaving most of the responsibilities of governance to the state, and more importantly, to people.
So the role of government in America was an understanding that rights come to us not from the government, but from God. And that the government's role is limited to, well, look at what the Constitution said in the preamble.
What's the preamble to the Constitution? The preamble is the rationale or reason for the Constitution. And they gave five purposes of the Constitution. And I'm going to have to refer to them real quickly, but establish justice, provide for the common defense, ensure domestic tranquility, secure liberty, and promote the general welfare.
Very interesting, the verbs used. Established, provides, ensure, secure, all active words. The role of the government is to do those things, establish justice, provide for defense, domestic tranquility, safety, and peace.
When it came to the general welfare, the role was not secure or ensure welfare, promote the general welfare. The government's role was not to provide for welfare of the people, but to create an opportunity for people-- have their God-given rights, use those freedoms and opportunities to be able to form families, and communities, and churches, and schools, small businesses, community and civic organizations. And as de Tocqueville wrote about in the beginnings of this country, build a great and just society from the bottom up.
What is the other view? I would argue the view that Barack Obama wants to transform us to is a view that was discussed very heavily at the time of the American Revolution and adopted in France in the French Revolution, which was not God-given rights. They didn't believe in God given rights. In fact, it was a very secular revolution.
They believe rights came from fraternity. It was equality, liberty, and fraternity. Rights came from each other. And in fact, the government did establish rights. The government did order society, not from the bottom up, from the top down.
Because government was better able. They were used to being governed by kings and emperors. And so they were used to government being in a role of ordering society from on high. And that's what the revolution was about.
They just didn't like the monarchs. They wanted the people to have a much greater role in ordering in society through the government. As opposed to government allowing people to order the society from the bottom up.
So the question here before us-- not just in this debate, in my opinion, but in our country-- is whether we want to take the role of government as created by America and created this country, or whether we want to abandon that system and adopt the system of the French Revolution. Which became the dominant system in Europe.
When you hear-- you know, you say, oh, we're going become like Europe. That's what we mean. At least those of us who talked in those terms, that's what we mean. We mean the government is going to have the heavier hand. Government is going to be the order from the top down as opposed to the bottom up.
And that's the debate-- not just, I believe, for this election, but for our country.
SAM NELSON: Thank you. Governor Dean.
HOWARD DEAN: Thank you. I'm going to start off with a small rebuttal. I have yet to hear President Obama say he wanted to be like Europe. There are some other people who say he says that. But that's known as propaganda when you set up a straw man and then knock it over. So we'll discuss that.
Secondly, I always have fun with this part of the discussion because I get to give a very short Vermont history lesson. I am not the second-longest serving governor in history of the state of Vermont. I am the longest serving governor in history of the state of Vermont.
I served for 12 years. However, many people do not know that, like Texas, Vermont was an independent republic for 14 years. We seceded from Great Britain in 1777. We did not join the Union till 1791, despite the best efforts of New York and New Hampshire to claim that we were their territory-- a clearly fraudulent matter.
And Thomas Chittenden was elected for 17 one-year terms. However, nine of those were as governor of the Republic of Vermont, and eight were as governor of the state of Vermont. So I am the longest-serving governor in the history of the state of Vermont.
So actually, we actually believe in the same Constitution. That's what makes America a very interesting place. I also believe that the Constitution has been interpreted and it has evolved.
And I know there are those in the Supreme Court who claim that they are so-called originalists. But that didn't stop those originalists from deciding something that was never in the Constitution really secretly was, a corporation is not a person. At least I can't find that in the Constitution.
So when we speak, when we have a debate about big government, let us either embrace small government in its entirety-- which means that not only do we have small government and freedom, but we also allow people to marry who they want to and choose their own personal healthcare-- or let us have big government.
But big government means regulations and so forth. I don't believe the Constitution was ever written as a document that was meant never to be changed. In fact, it was changed numerous times. In the Constitution, slavery was permitted. We've changed that. And there are many other things that were permitted in the Constitution.
So the Constitution is a living document. And there's no basis for so-called originalism at all. There is a core of America that is different than Europe. We are, because of our heritage-- and this is where I agree with Senator Santorum-- a somewhat libertarian country.
The interesting thing about this is the Democrats are as libertarian as the Republicans. I argued vigorously against the individual mandate in the health care bill. Because Americans have a streak in them that does not want them to be told what to do by the government. And turns out, the individual mandate was totally unnecessary anyway to make the health care bill. So I thought it was a dumb thing to do politically with very little actual payoff.
So what we're talking about here tonight-- in my view-- is not a philosophical exercise in what the founders meant at the time. The founders, wonderful as all they were-- although very limited-- they would now demographically represent less than half of the American people-- white men-- but the only people that were allowed to write the Constitution. Another huge change.
So the founders did were brilliant. This was a Bourgeois, middle class revolution. And it served us well. It kept us away from the horrible violence of things like the French Revolution, the Jacobins, and so forth and so on.
But the fact of the matter is, this Constitution was meant as a living document. It was meant to evolve as the country evolved. And the people who wrote it those many years ago had no way of foreseeing what America would look like. And I'd imagine not a single one of them had imagined that America would look like it does today when they wrote the Constitution.
So my argument tonight is going to be this-- the Constitution is an extraordinary document. I believe that America is an exceptional place. But not for the reason that Governor Romney seems to want to talk about all the time. I don't think that individual Americans are any more exceptional than individual Europeans or Africans or Latin Americans and so forth and so on. I don't.
What makes this country a very special place, an extraordinary place, is in fact the founding documents. Because those founding documents raise the bar on what we expect from each other as human beings and how we relate to each other. There were rights enumerated in the Constitution and in the Declaration that put a whole new veneer on what was to be expected from millions of people all over the world as they subsequently rewrote their constitutions.
And interestingly enough, I would argue that the most significant piece of social engineering in government re-engineering that has taken place since that time is the foundation of the European Union. Governor Romney makes fun of Europe all the time. What the Europeans are trying to do is build on the original documents of the American Constitution, which gave individuals rights and expected high human values in individuals. What the Europeans are trying to do is extinguish religion and nationalism as a source of war on the most violent continent on the face of the Earth.
So when we think about freedom and the size of government, I'm going to argue that it's not how big or small the government is. It's what the result of what you get from the government that really matters. And that a shrunken, incapable government is more dangerous to the world than a government that's too large. Let us find a middle ground here. Let us not make a case for one extreme or the other. We have enough extremism in American politics as it is.
SAM NELSON: Thank you, Govenor Dean. Looks like we're going to have a good debate here. Looks like there might be some clash. So I was wondering if Senator Santorum would like to just have a quick response to what you've just heard.
RICK SANTORUM: I would. Thank you for the opportunity. I agree with Governor Dean that the Constitution was meant to be changed. That's why they put provisions in the Constitution on how to change it. They put the amendment process in place.
So you're right. They anticipated that America would change and certain values would change, the dynamics of the economy would change. Thankfully many moral decisions were changed. But they put the amendment process in place, why?
Well, because they wanted to make sure there was a broad consensus before that change was made. That the greatness of America is not our diversity, the idea that somehow only half of the people would be represented in this room. The truth is the truth whether it's represented by half the people in this room or anybody else.
And so our founders, I think, did a great job-- as the governor said-- of laying out rights, and the truth, and where they come from. And so the fact that they are diverse or not really doesn't matter. What matters is what they did.
And so what you have is a movement that has historically tried to change the Constitution without getting the consensus of the American public. And that's why I believe we have such division in our country today.
Because our country is great not because we're diverse. Our country is great because of the motto on the great seal, E pluribus unum. Out of our diversity, out of many, one. And you don't get to be one if one side can go about and use a branch of the government-- which was never intended to be powerful at all. It was the third article of the Constitution.
They put the most important first, the Congress, the second one the president, and the third-- a very little itty bitty document, a little section, establishing one court, the Supreme Court. And the Congress was supposed establish the other, and we could pull them out and cancel them.
They were never given the power to change the fundamental basis of our society-- the Constitution. But that's what's happened. And as a result, we aren't as much one as we used to be. Why? Because we haven't arrived at the changes in our country through the consensus that's necessary to pass constitutional amendments. That's a problem.
Now you may like what they did. You may like the rights that you've been given-- "rights--" but the process by which it was done can be turned against you just as much on things you don't like in the future.
That's why I agree, the Constitution is a living document. But it's a living document to be changed by the people of this country. Not by one radical section of the government.
SAM NELSON: I'm now going to start asking a few question. Let's try to keep the applause intense but short so we can get through as many questions as possible.
The first question that was given to me-- and it will start with Governor Dean and then we'll alternate-- deals with the issue--
RICK SANTORUM: Of education.
SAM NELSON: --of education. Thank you, Senator Santorum.
RICK SANTORUM: I paid attention.
SAM NELSON: OK, yeah. Thank you for paying attention when we were talking back stage. OK. The question is, what should government's role be in a free society in terms of higher education? However that question speaks to you, feel free to answer.
HOWARD DEAN: I think the way of answering this is the way I'm going to answer this a lot. Higher education is an important value in this country because it's directly connected with opportunity. And one of the things that's happened between the time I went to an elite Ivy League college and today is that-- wait a minute. How could you hiss? You went to an elite Ivy League college too, right? I know, that was a friendly hiss, right? Besides, you kicked our butt in football a couple weeks ago. And a school we both hate beat you after that.
So to get back to the matter at hand, so this is actually a great framing of what government should do. So what has government done about higher education? The costs in higher education have gone up at twice the rate of inflation. The only reason that there hadn't been more controversy is because medical costs are going up even faster.
So this industry has really gotten away with raising their costs at twice the rate of inflation for a long, long time. What did the government do? They made loans more available. Admissions committee made sure that diversity was part of the student body.
Which I think is actually a very important thing to do, not just for the kids who are diverse-- members of minority groups. It's also an incredibly important for the kids who are members of the majority. Because this country works because everybody does get to know each other and get along. And if you have the misfortune of going to a school that's not diverse and doesn't work on diversity, then I don't think you're getting the education that you're paying for.
Unfortunately, however, the way that we have decided to finance higher education actually does nothing to get education in controlled cost. Now, I'm in favor of doing what President Obama did, which was to raise Pell grants and student loans and so forth. But that, in the long run, is a time bomb.
Because I think the next big crisis, after we get through the economic crisis we're in today, is going to be a rebellion over student loans. One of my schedulers in my presidential campaign went on-- she was very young, she was only, I think, 18 or 20 when she was in the campaign, went on and did a bunch of other things, eventually went to law school. She has $200,000 worth of debt. She's now a member of the state legislature. I can assure you, in Vermont, you can never pay that loan off.
There are tons of kids-- we don't have people going into primary care and medicine anymore because they get out of medical school with such debt that they'd be indentured servants if they were in primary care. So the model is broken.
Now economics, the free market does work in higher education better than it works in other areas, like medicine. So you're seeing today, young folks like you, who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and aren't able to get student loans and so forth and so on, are going to community colleges for two years before they go on to the state colleges, because it's so much cheaper.
And that is going to put downward pressure on a lot of educational institutions costs. We are in a real crisis. I do not believe the best solution-- and I am a Democrat. And I'm in favor of higher education. I don't mind the size of government.
But I don't believe, ultimately, the best solution is to continue passing the funding to the students, having the students pass it to the higher education people, and the higher education people continue to spend at a rate that goes twice up as fast as everybody else. We're going to have to try a different model.
And that is a discussion that we need to have. But we cannot continue to have costs go up as high as they are. And we can't continue to use the model we're using today.
SAM NELSON: Thank you. Senator Santorum?
RICK SANTORUM: An area of agreement with Governor Dean. I find this one of the most difficult issues that I had to deal with when I was making these policy decisions. Everything Governor Dean-- other than he doesn't mind the great size of government-- I agreed with. He, I think, hit the nail on the head. It's a vexing problem.
We want to provide resources. Because we will not be successful as an economy unless we have the innovation and the brainpower to be able to continue to get better at whatever we do so we can compete against the rest of the world and maintain a high standard of living.
And obviously colleges and universities are a huge part of making that happen. I would add-- something that he didn't talk about, but I'm sure he would agree with me on-- that the one area I do believe that the federal government has in providing money for colleges is investment in research.
The Defense Department is probably the biggest investor in research in universities. But that's where we have to supply money to get that brainpower working to continue the innovation that is necessary. A lot of the basic research in particular needs to be funded at our colleges and universities.
So that's one area that I-- when I was in the Senate, I headed a Committee on Armed Services that did funding for these what are called 6.1 6.2, and 6.3 programs. And I was a big proponent of making sure that we had more money for those things. I think it's a good investment for basic research to be done here at our colleges universities.
But what Governor Dean said, it's going to happen. And I don't know what's going to happen, but obviously technology is going to drive-- you're seeing a lot of more online universities. The cost is simply becoming prohibitive.
And you can throw out more student loans for folks. You can borrow more money. But we all know-- Governor will tell you-- we're not going to be able to continue to provide everything we're providing now. We're spending way too much money. We're borrowing $0.40 of every dollar.
There's no way we're going to be able to continue all these programs-- as worthy as some of them are. Push is going to come to shove. And the universities that are continuing to build and grow and are going to be saddled with huge capital cost-- they're going to want somebody else to pay for them.
And I don't see how they're going to survive, candidly, when the competition hits-- when the dollars start to crunch-- and people are looking for a quality education but for a fraction of the dollars. And so I think Governor Dean is right. I think this is a subject that I believe, actually, Republicans and Democrats should try to get together because I think we both see the problem the same way. But we've got to figure out a solution or the private sector is going to do it, and a lot of universities are going to really tumble as a result, in my opinion.
HOWARD DEAN: I'd like to just add one thing to that. There are things that are good that are going on university campuses. Another elite Ivy League institution-- neither of ours-- started the program. Princeton did this about five years ago under Shirley Tilghman.
She started saying that nobody who makes less than whose family makes less than $60,000 a year will need to take out a loan. We just won't do that. We'll do the full grant. Now that's the university itself understanding that, if we want to continue to have the very best students go to that university, they can't do it--
RICK SANTORUM: WIth a how many billion dollar endowment?
HOWARD DEAN: Well, that's right. No, that's exactly right.
RICK SANTORUM: That's just not possible for-- and that's the problem.
HOWARD DEAN: No, no, we don't disagree. But this is at least a university that gets that it has a competitive problem. And spread elsewhere.
One of the things that Rick said, which I thoroughly agreed with, is there are going to be larger classes. There's going to be internet learning. Now too much internet learning leads to not such a great education. And we do see a lot of private for-profits that are running up huge student loans and so forth and maybe not granting degrees that are worth a lot.
But a lot of institutions are learning how to do internet learning. And this one I'm sure is, too. And there is a use for that. We're going to have to get much smarter.
And Senator Santorum is 100% right about the capital investments. Everybody wants everything for their university. We cannot continue to do that--
RICK SANTORUM: Same with hospitals, same thing.
HOWARD DEAN: See, exactly the same thing. And that's something that, if you get another big building, it's going to run the price up even higher. And it's going to continue to go up at twice the rate of inflation. And that's a major problem.
So the solution, the long-term solution-- and I support President Obama's increase in student loans, I very much support his taking away the vigorish from the banks and having the Direct Loan Program. But the fact is the way we finance higher education in this country is not going to work for the long term. And we're going to have to do something different.
RICK SANTORUM: All right, we found one area of disagreement. I don't support the Direct Student Loan Program. I think the private sector would be much better.
SAM NELSON: Thanks for pointing that out, Senator Santorum. I was afraid you guys might agree to much from now on. Let's go--
RICK SANTORUM: That will change with the next question.
SAM NELSON: The next question is about health care, basically the same question, what is the role of government in a free society in terms of health care?
RICK SANTORUM: The role of the government is to do what I said before. Just apply the same basic principles I talked about in question one, which is the government should be out there to provide opportunity for the marketplace to work effectively.
I think we-- as Governor Dean and I both agree, they're corrupting the marketplace in education. And it's not working effectively, and it's driving up all our cost. We just got to figure out a way to fix that. And hopefully we can.
Health care, I think Governor Dean would agree that we have a problem in health care. And the biggest problem in health care is cost. Cost is the biggest problem in health care. We have a much too costly health care system.
Well, how do we solve that problem? Well, in the private sector, how does cost get solved? When something's too expensive, what happens? Well, consumers opt to do something else, right? If you go to grocery store and chicken is expensive this week, you buy beef because it's on sale. Or you buy pork. So we are able to be good consumers.
One thing the American public is, we are great consumers. Except we are not consumers of health care. We are users of health care. But we don't pay for it. By and large, as even Governor-- 85% of some Americans-- some places, higher-- have health insurance coverage.
And someone else pays the bill or the big chunk of the bill. And as a result, we're insulated from the cost. It is no wonder, if you're insulated from the cost of something, that you use more of it. You get a big dollar value at a fraction of the cost.
And as a result, we are unwise consumers of health care. And we have a system that says pay for insurance up front. And then get all the health care you want at a fraction of the cost.
And what happens is, imagine if we did this for food, another great necessity. You went out to the grocery store, gave them $500 at the beginning of the month. And you could shop for free. You think obesity is a problem now?
But that's what we do with health care. It makes no sense. We need to have a system that involves the consumer, the patient, as well as the physician-- the physician has all the wrong incentives to control costs. They've got liability issues, so physicians don't like to be sued. So they end up doing more. They get paid more if they do more. Now that's changing with some insurance trying to capitate things.
But again, it's the top trying to control a basic transaction that should be allowed to work from the bottom up, which is consumer, hospital, patient, provider. That's the answer. And that's why I've been a great proponent of medical savings accounts-- or health savings accounts, as they're called right now.
I believe that everyone should have some insurance to cover catastrophic care. But for the ordinary care that people consume, there should be transparency in the health care system. You should know what the price of things are. Nobody knows what the price of a health care procedure is. And yet we wonder why we spend so much.
That's the fundamental problem that we have to get to. And if we don't get to it, we're never going to control costs. And that way we will never control access. And we will never have the money to spend on the system.
SAM NELSON: Thank you.
HOWARD DEAN: So, I'm now going to condense a 45 minute lecture into four minutes. And it's not going to be easy. First of all, the private market rules, free market does not work in health care, period.
In my 10 years of medical practice, I never once had a guy with crushing substernal chest pain get off my table and say, the guy down the street does it $2000 cheaper, doc. I'll see you later. This market doesn't work this way. And it doesn't work this way for a number of reasons.
First of all, the consumer can't be informed. I don't mean consumers are stupid, they aren't. But first, doctors and nurses are the worst possible patients you could have. And the reason is, they know a lot about medicine. And they're in no emotional condition to make the decisions that have to be made.
The reason I don't think that HSA-- the Health Savings Account stuff is-- it's worth something. Because it stops people from going to unnecessary office visit for $100. The big money in medicine is the $30,000 operation and the $60,000 rehab. And you don't have any say about that.
If I tell you you've got to have an operation or you're going to die, you're probably going to do it. And you're probably not going to shop around for the cost because you need to have it right then and there. This doesn't work.
And the other problem is-- and Senator Santorum touched on this-- we pay people for the wrong incentives. The incentives are all screwed up. For example, you pay me to do as much as I possibly can to you whether it works or not. You keep paying me if I do stuff.
This is the sickness model in medicine. We wait, because the sicker you get, the more likely it is I can fill my ICU beds and pay for health care. It is a crazy system.
So how do you fix it? And this goes directly to the role of government. I think the role of government in a free market capitalist system-- which we have in this country-- is to be the referee so that market forces don't run over consumers and individuals who need care. And our government needs to be a referee.
We need to change the system that we pay doctors and hospitals by. We got to start with Medicare. We don't need Paul Ryan to turn this thing into a voucher system in order for it to work.
What we do need is somebody who is going to stand up and say to the Medicare people, we are going to pay people by the patient from now on, not by the procedure. If you do that, all of a sudden, now we have a wellness system.
Because now doctors and hospitals can make more money instead of buying a lot of CAT scans and stuff that does extra procedures, they can hire nurse practitioners and stop 20-year-olds from becoming obese, kidney failed 50-year-olds-- which is going to cost a ton of money.
So the secret, if you want a system of prevention and if you want to save money with a predictable budget that the Congress can vote on every year in terms of what they're going to spend, is to change our medical system so we paid by the patient and don't pay by the procedure.
If you incent us to do stuff, we're going to do a lot of stuff. Incent us to save money by taking care of people early. It's the Kaiser model. It works very, very well. We ought to use it in Medicare.
There's going to be political backlash. I'll be a Democrat who will proudly stand up if Republicans will join me and get this done. Because it's nobody's interest-- Republicans or Democrats-- to have Medicare fail. And it will if we don't do something.
SAM NELSON: Senator Santorum.
RICK SANTORUM: The problem with medicine today is too much government already. Let's look at the reality. The majority of money spent in this country is spent by government health care programs.
Medicare and Medicaid-- Medicare in particular-- basically sets rates, sets reimbursements. Medicare, the government-- the reason the private sector doesn't operate well is because the government basically oversees it and runs it, even today.
And so the idea that now we're going to the government say, this is how you're going to pay people in the private sector is going to solve the problem. It may be a good idea. And here's the problem with government is it will take a good idea and say, OK, now we're going to make everybody do it. And it stops all the other good ideas from being even better than the good idea that they thought was the good idea at the time.
Let the marketplace work. If you have an innovation that is saving lives, that is reducing costs, it didn't come from the government. I guarantee you it didn't come from the government. It came from an innovation in the private sector.
And so you need to foster innovation. You need to give control to the private sector and to people. You need to give-- you say turn it into a voucher. It's a bad idea. Now obviously, none of the people in this room or very few of you are on Medicare. We already have a voucher program for Medicare. It's called Medicare Prescription Drugs. Seniors love it.
Medicare prescription drugs works. And I'll tell you how much it works, Medicare prescription drugs in the six years-- I think it's six years now that it's been in effect-- is 44% under budget. Why? Because we gave people money and said, here's the money that you can spend. Buy the program that best meets your needs.
And if you want to spend more, spend more. If you want to spend less, spend less. And so people made an economic decision. And they drove down costs, right?
[APPLAUSE]
So the idea that now we're going to give seniors the ability to go out and purchase the health insurance they want-- not that the government tells them they have to have-- and give them the ability to buy insurance from the private sector that meets their needs, and that they participate in these health care decisions is a bad thing, it's because there are many people who don't trust you to make those decisions. I do.
SAM NELSON: Governor Dean. Why don't you just say one word about this
HOWARD DEAN: So just a couple of very quick things. First of all, the problem is that transfers the rate of inflation, which is three times regular inflation, to the patient, the Medicare recipient, away from the federal government.
Secondly, because of Obama's bill, the private sector, in fact, is going to put these reforms in practice. And thirdly, some great ideas have come from the government. We have a Socialist system in this country that happens to be the most popular system of any of the systems, including Kaiser, Geisinger, or the Mayo Clinic.
It's called the Veterans Administration. It's a Socialist system, the government runs the hospitals. And the vets love it. And that was turned around by a guy named Ken Kaiser-- who ran the Veterans Administration for five years-- from one of the worst systems in the country to one of the best.
So I generally agree that great innovation happens in the private sector. But it can happen in government as well.
SAM NELSON: All right, I'll give you another opportunity, because I gave him extra.
RICK SANTORUM: Well, that's OK. I would say, yeah, the Veteran's Administration is a very small subset of the population. And we spend an enormous amount of money-- and rightfully so-- in providing for our veterans. But we also drop a lot of veterans out who don't get care in the VA and put them out into the private sector.
And the Veterans Administration-- my parents both worked for the VA for 40 years. And we saw it deteriorate over that 40-year period. And yes, did the government command and use private sector ideas to improve the Veterans Administration? Yes, it did.
But remember, it was the private sector that drove the innovation. And they're piggybacking a very small part of health care-- piggybacking on a broader private system. If we go to it as a large public system, innovation will be eliminated. And we'll be stuck in 2012 for your health care for a long time.
SAM NELSON: All right, so I'm going to ask another question. And then there's going to be an opportunity for you to take questions from the audience. And also some very short closing remarks.
So the last question-- I'm combining a few questions here. Because, for some strange reason, we didn't have any lack of argument so far. But as I was walking in today I received this little card. And it said, how do you decide who to vote for?
And I was informed when I was given it that this was going to be a question that was asked today. I didn't know this, being the moderator. But I decided, hey it's a good question. So we should ask it. So I want to know what your thoughts are on the upcoming election and how one should decide who to vote for. It's his turn.
HOWARD DEAN: Well, I'm going to give a very unconventional answer. I studied this a lot. And the Republicans figured it out intuitively long before we did. You don't actually have to decide who to vote for. You just have to decide to vote. Because if you decide to vote, your emotional side is already going to decide who you are going to vote for.
We are prisoners of our own values. And the Republicans figured out a long time ago that Republican voters were values voters. What they didn't know is the Democratic voters are also values voters.
Because we think we do it all on issues? Almost nobody votes on issues. There are a few that do. We vote our values.
And there's a guy named Drew Westen who wrote a book called The Political Brain. He was a neuropsychologist from Emory University in Atlanta. He put some Kerry supporters and some Bush supporters in 2004 in an MRI machine, stuffed them full with dye-- which I assume he had informed consent for-- and watched the limbic system, the emotional system, of their brain light up before the cognitive system in terms of when they were asked political questions.
The truth is, if you want to know who wins a debate, go home and TiVo or DRV or whatever you do-- DVR, sorry. The internet campaign indeed, right?
Go home and do that. And after you've seen the debate and listen to the issues, go home and watch it with no sound. You're going to see who the winner of the debate is going to be.
Because American voters are actually very smart. People say, oh, you're dissing American voters by saying they don't vote on issues. They do, some of them do.
What they do is they know that they can't possibly predict-- nor can either of the candidates predict-- what's going to happen in the next eight years or four years. They know there's probably going to be some big crisis. So what they do, emotionally-- and I think sensibly-- is they want to find the person who's going to do the things that are most likely to approach the problems that are going to face this country the way they would.
And that's a values connection. And that's why connection is so important in politics. It's now been proved scientifically. The Republicans figured this out and, frankly, kicked our rear ends with this for about four years or eight years.
Finally, when I got to be the DNC chair, I canned all the consultants that we've been paying to tell us how to lose all those years and found a 35-year-old African American pollster named Cornell Belcher, who modestly calls his outfit Brilliant Corners, and he was the first Democrat I'd ever met that understood that we were values voters, too.
And tonight in the question period, I hope we'll get a chance to talk about some of the polling we found out. Because your generation is an incredible generation. One of the things we found out-- Evangelical Christians in my generation, everybody knows it's all about abortion and gay rights.
In your generation, it's about climate change, it's about poverty. You're generation is the generation who wants to work together across what in our generation is a big divide. Which gives me great hope for this country.
Vote your values. You make the decision to go vote, and your instincts will take care of the rest of it.
SAM NELSON: Thank you.
RICK SANTORUM: I would generally agree that people vote their values. I do disagree that people are not issue voters. I think there are a lot of voters in America who vote on issues. Obviously a lot of those issues are driven-- clearly their opinions on those issues are driven by their values.
And some people have very, very strong set of principles and the issues that line up with them. And the country, as we've seen, is fairly divided on that front. And there's a very small group in the middle who, I would make the argument, don't vote on issues.
Because their value system is, well, let's say more fluid. They're not folks who have particularly strong convictions about how society and government should operate. They don't pay a lot of attention to how-- they're worried about their own life. They don't think about politics. They don't think about these things.
And, oddly enough, they're the ones who end up deciding the elections. Which is very, very interesting. And what I think we've seen over the last couple of elections is that those voters in the middle who don't pay a lot of attention, who aren't attached to a whole set of issues, tend to vote on how they feel about the candidates.
You sit, turning it on, and watching how the candidates are reacting. I think that's one thing. And is that invalid? No. I mean, the character of the candidate, the way they communicate and the way they relate to people is an important part, particularly for president.
It may be invalid, in my opinion, for a congressman or a senator. Because how they relate to you is not necessarily important in doing their job. But it is for a president.
For a president, you're electing a leader. You're electing someone who's going to take the responsibility as an executive. And so all of those personal characteristics I think is a very valid thing to look at that candidate.
So while I'm not a big fan of those swing voters from the standpoint of electing congressmen and senatora-- because I'm not too sure they're making the right decisions when it comes to that-- because they're more issues guys. They vote on issues.
The president leads. The president deals with crises. Congress really doesn't all that much do that. And so I would say that what you're seeing-- if we can tie into the second part of the question-- is what we're seeing in this election is in the last few weeks we've seen a couple of debates-- three debates, two by the presidential, one by the vice presidential.
And I think we've seen the American public have-- the folks who were in the middle, if you will, who have been swinging in this selection a little ways, swinging toward Governor Romney. And I think they were doing so because they liked what they saw.
They saw someone who was decent, who was straightforward, who was aggressive, knowledgeable, and sort of laid out the case in a very composed and calm way. Sort of unlike Joe Biden.
And they saw a president in the first debate who seem disinterested, annoyed to be there, and a president in the second debate who seemed sort of petulant and sort of angry at times.
And in fact, both of them got angry. But the here's the problem. Here's the problem with President Obama. One of the great attributes this president has had over the four years is people liked him, and they thought he was a really good guy. And he came across as not a really good guy.
Now Romney didn't come across that much better, in my opinion. But they didn't see Romney as a guy who was a really good guy.
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]
OK? They didn't. I mean, no, look, I think Romney is a good guy. I know him. I mean, he's a good guy. I'm just saying, the perception of Romney was he was a CEO who didn't care about people. I mean, that was the perception that was driven home.
[APPLAUSE]
Again, I'm not saying that's the truth. But that was the perception that was driven home. So it hurt the president to engage in that battle.
And I think that's why you're going to see this race-- I believe this race is over. I think this race is heading in the direction that is not going to turn around. I think Governor Romney is going to be elected. I think the Senate is going to be--
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
I think Republicans will control the Senate and actually by a pretty nice margin.
HOWARD DEAN: My prediction?
SAM NELSON: Yeah.
HOWARD DEAN: I actually thought the president did exactly what he had to do on Tuesday. It is important to be a nice guy in politics. But it's also important to be really tough so that people know you can stand up for America.
And if you don't stand up for yourself, you won't stand up for America. And that's what the president did is stand up for himself and not be pushed around. So I actually, I loved Joe Biden's performance too.
So I suppose you want me to make a prediction, which is completely foolhardy. So I'll give you the cable TV caveat. This is good for all of 24 hours until the next Gallup poll comes out.
I think we're going to win. I think it's going to be very, very close. If you want to pay close attention to the election, don't worry about the national polls. Look at the polls in Ohio, Florida, and Virginia. If Mitt Romney loses either Ohio or Florida, he doesn't get to be president. If he wins in both and loses Virginia, then he can still be president.
But he's got to win a bunch of swing states. This is a very close election. And it is true that Governor Romney I thought had a very good performance his first debate. And that did make a difference. And it swung things.
John Kerry had a good performance in his first debate against President Bush. And he came within one point of President Bush. Eventually that lead dissipated. I think we don't really have any idea who's going to win this election. But I'll tell you one thing, Barack Obama's got the best ground game I've ever seen in either candidate.
I'll tell you right now that Republicans generally run much better organized campaigns than Democrats do. It's just a fact. They're better organized in war and sort of a war mode in campaign time. No, I'm serious. That's a good-- they're very focused.
But Barack Obama-- when I ran for president in 2004, we had a record turnout in the Iowa caucus, a little over 100,000. When Barack Obama ran for president four years later, they broke the record by 100%. Over 200,000 people voted in the Iowa caucus. And that was his machine getting them out. And they're going to get those people out in Ohio and all those places too.
So I don't know who's going to win. I think it is going to be very close. And I think Senator Santorum is right. The momentum has been with the governor in the last couple of weeks. But there's still two weeks to go. And two weeks is an eternity in politics. And I do think that Barack Obama is going to be the next president of the United States.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
SAM NELSON: So just very quickly, there are some people in the audience that might be voting in their first presidential election. How should they very specifically decide who to vote for?
RICK SANTORUM: If you're talking about the presidential race I think the issue of, obviously, their values-- the presidential candidate's values-- and their character. I mean, I think character is a very important thing for a president. Their ability to lead this country and to bring this country together.
And that's why, again I would make the observation that in four years, the president has really failed on that last point. He has not brought this country. Together We are more divided in Washington DC as ever. And we have a president who has gone out and waged war on different elements of society.
And I don't think that's what America is looking for right now. They're looking for someone-- and I think one of the strongest thing Governor Romney did in the debates was talk about how he was able to work in a bipartisan fashion to get things done.
And the president has accomplished absolutely nothing in a bipartisan fashion. All the things he got done where when he had 60 votes in the Senate and a super majority in the House. And that isn't going to happen again in the next four years.
Whoever the president is, not going to have that house and that Senate. And if you want for more years like we had in the last three years, then you have a choice to make. If you want to try something different, I think you have another choice to make.
SAM NELSON: Governor Dean, very quickly.
HOWARD DEAN: Sure-- very quickly, when the leader of the opposition in the Senate says his only job is to get you out of office, it's kind of hard to work with him.
Secondly, maybe there's some warfare going on here. I'm glad the president has declared war on the banking establishment because they damn near ruined this country and sent us to hell.
Thirdly, Senator Santorum mentioned the last three years-- in the last three years, Barack Obama's administration has created over 4 million new jobs. And are we better off than we were four years ago? You bet we are.
AUDIENCE: No!
HOWARD DEAN: Yes, we are. And every economic statistic, the stock market is almost at the same high as it was before the crash and under the Republican administration of George W. Bush.
We're in much better shape than we were four years ago. And we were losing 800,000 jobs a month when Barack Obama took office. We're now gaining between 100 and 200,000.
Is it enough? No. But as Bill Clinton said at the convention, nobody could dig us out of the hole that we got dug for us when you give tax cuts to people and you don't pay for them. So, yeah, I'd give Barack Obama another four years so we can get us out of this mess. Because you can't trust people whose only agenda is to oppose to the President of the United States.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
SAM NELSON: All right. We're going to have a quick final about two minutes of closing remarks from each side. And then we're going to take questions from the audience.
HOWARD DEAN: I think I just did make my closing remarks.
SAM NELSON: If you want to forgo them, you can.
HOWARD DEAN: I'll forego them. I'll give them to Rick.
RICK SANTORUM: Well, I'll do the close since he just did his. I would make the case, certainly with respect to this election, yeah he created 4 million new jobs. But he lost 5 million before he created 4 million. There are less people working today. 50% of you graduating from college across this country are not going be able to find a job, 23 million people who are unemployed.
And let's just not even talk about the economy. Let's talk about what the president can do. The president has a limited role-- I'll admit, the president has a limited role-- or at least he should have a limited role-- on his impact in the economy.
But one thing he doesn't have a limited role is what the fiscal situation is not in your family, but at the federal government. And what this president has done is immoral. And that's the president's own words.
He said President Bush's $400 billion deficit was immoral. He had a $1.5 trillion dollar deficit. He's done more to destroy the economic future of you in the last four years to prop him up so he can look good for re-election, spending money-- $0.40 out of every dollar. $0.40 out of every dollar he is spending is borrowed.
And you will pay the interest on that. And right now you're not paying much interest. You're paying 1% or 2% on bonds. When this economy gets going again-- at some point it will-- you're going to start paying 4%, and 5%, and 6% interest on those bonds.
We're paying $300 billion a year on bonds right now. And it's going up a trillion dollars every year under President Obama, and will. His budgets don't change that.
Now imagine, instead of paying 1% or 2%, paying 6%. Which will happen. We're paying on the money today. We're going to spend a trillion dollars-- a trillion-- on debt. On just paying the interest on the debt.
We are going to become Greece. And we are going to be in a situation where you are going to struggle. We all are going to struggle as a society if we don't do something. And this president, in four years, did nothing. That is an indictment in and of itself to say we need someone who's going to take this job of getting this fiscal house in order in Washington DC serious.
The president never talks about it, never does anything about it other than say we're going to tax rich people, as if that's going to make up a trillion dollar deficit. There aren't even a trillion dollars that they made.
[APPLAUSE]
It's not telling you the truth. And that, in the end, is what's going to be the end of Barack Obama, is not telling you the truth of the problems that confront this country and giving solutions to fix them.
SAM NELSON: OK. Thank you, all right. So at this time I believe people will come out and take questions. Is that right, Jessie? OK.
ALEX PRUCE: Good evening, everyone. My name is Alex Pruce. I'm the vice chair of the College Republicans.
JESSIE PALMER: And I'm Jessie Palmer, and I'm president of the Cornell Democrats. And we're excited to have you hear tonight. All right. So we're going to begin with our Q and A.
ALEX PRUCE: Yes. So the first question comes from John Weinberg, IRL, 2013. What should be done to address the growing inequality and disparity between the richest and poorest parts-- oh, sorry. Sorry, wrong names associated with the wrong question.
As students entering the workforce, we face a dim job market and risk graduating in debt with bleaker future prospects than those of our parents. What should our government do to put us young Americans to work? Governor Dean first.
SAM NELSON: Do you have any--
HOWARD DEAN: I think the first thing to do is the government is not going to put you to work. The government can do things to change the economy. And all the things that President Obama's been trying to do-- despite the Republican opposition to everything, including the jobs bill, which cost us 2 million jobs-- are going to help.
But the real thing, the thing that's so extraordinary about this country is that in fact kids are going out of college and their starting their own businesses on the internet. And they're sometimes failing two or three times, and they're getting enormous amounts of experience.
I do not believe that we ought to be pessimistic. This year's college graduates will have a better shot than last year's college graduates, who will have a better shot than the year before. Now, you've got to work very hard. You've got to do internships and so forth and so on while you're in college and expose yourself to different kinds of fields.
But one of the things that's unfortunate in a political campaign is the out party always has to talk down how great America is, which you just heard from Senator Santorum. I think this is still a great country. And it's going to be a great country economically. And you're going to turn out to be one of the most extraordinary generations that has changed the face of the world by your ability to change politics.
Politics is broken in this country. And when the Bank of America, for example, raised their debit fee by $5, Molly Katchpole-- a 23-year-old graduate of Roger Williams College-- went online to change.org and beat up Bank of America so badly they had to rescind their order.
And when an intellectual property bill passed out of the Senate Judiciary in a bipartisan way that made it harder to free the internet, you all went online and you forced Harry Reid to put that bill-- it was the only bipartisan bill practically in the whole session aside and killed it.
So what I'm trying to say here is, do not let people talk down America to you just because it's a political season. The fact of the matter is you have enormous power to change your life and more ability to do that than any other generation in the history of the world. Because you can go online, get people together, create your own businesses.
So I don't expect the government to create jobs, because I do agree with Senator Santorum, the government doesn't create jobs for the most part, except by saving the jobs of Chrysler-- which Governor Romney would be happy to flush down the toilet apparently, according to his view. But the fact of the matter is, don't expect the government to create jobs for you. Go out and create them for yourself.
You have the ability to do it. You have the strength to do it. What the government's job is to do is to make sure the business climate improves so the economy improves. And I think President Obama has done a great job in doing that.
RICK SANTORUM: The fact is President Obama has done a very bad job creating jobs. And it's going to get worse, because in January, tax rates are going to go up, and go up dramatically. And they're going to go up across the board.
And if President Obama is successful in getting his tax proposal through, they won't go up across the board, but they'll go up with folks who do most of the hiring in this country. In addition, that Obamacare will be implemented, which will be a whole set of new taxes, including real estate taxes.
So now, when you sell your real estate, you're going to pay taxes to the federal government for Obamacare. You're going to have taxes go up on Medicare. You're going to see taxes go up in an economy-- like capital gains, and dividends, all those rates are going to go up at a time when our country continues to struggle.
And you're going to see new mandates be put in place by the federal government that requires businesses to do more things. Regulations-- this administration has gone hog wild on regulating everything. Energy-- not allowing energy to be produced in this country. We are becoming energy independent in natural gas right now-- not because of what President Obama's done-- but because of the private sector.
We could do the same thing with oil, but the president's not letting us do it. He's not building pipelines. He's not opening up offshore when we had a bipartisan agreement to open up offshore oil drilling. And the president put it back. He shut down drilling in the Gulf. He shut down drilling in Alaska. The drilling in Alaska that's going on right now is going to cease.
Why? Because in a couple of years-- those are folks who want $6 and $10 gas. Great, keep applauding. But $6 and $10 gas is not going to create a job for you. Because the higher the energy costs go up in this country, the less opportunity and less resources you're going to have.
Bottom line is if you want to grow the economy, then you have to create the opportunity for the people in the private sector to be profitable in what they're doing. And the president is making it almost impossible.
[APPLAUSE]
JESSIE PALMER: All right, our next question comes from Rebecca Keeble. And it is, Patriot Voices has petitioned against the UN Convention of Rights of Disabled Persons, which President Obama has sent to the Senate to be ratified. Please explain your position and what you would like to see in future disability policies?
RICK SANTORUM: Yeah, to explain what Patriot Voices is, it's an organization that I started after the campaign. My wife and I decided we were out there running around the country saying this is the most important election in the history of our country. And just because I'm not on the ballot doesn't mean that changed.
And so we decided to stay out there and start an organization to be involved in politics, but also in policy. And one of the things that was very sensitive to us-- many of you may have known, if you followed the campaign-- that we were blessed with seven children.
But our youngest daughter is a little girl who has Trisomy 18. Which is-- as Governor Dean will tell you-- is basically, in the medical jargon, a death sentence. Most of those children who have Trisomy 18 die at or before birth.
And of the 10% to survive, only 10% live to their first birthday. So it's a 1% survival rate for a year. Now she's 4 and 1/2 years old. She's a big beautiful miracle in our family.
But we were very sensitive as to what the medical profession, frankly, does to treat children like this. They see them as mentally disabled, physically disabled, and costly, and a burden to families, and recommend abortion or recommend not to treat or not to do anything. And that is considered, in their mind, the best interest of the child.
Well, in the rights in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, there's a provision in that law that says that the state will determine what's in the best interest of the child. As a parent of a special needs child, I don't want the state determining what's the best interest of my child.
HOWARD DEAN: I'm not familiar with this, so I'm not going to comment on it. And I think the UN is a necessary organization. It's certainly not as capable as it ought to be. But I think the United States has made a number of mistakes.
I don't have anything to say about the Rights of the Disability Convention, because I don't know what's in it. But I do have some to say about the land mines treaty, which we ought to be ratifying. Because the landmines treaty results in hundreds of thousands of kids every year losing their limbs because the cluster bombs don't blow up. And the land mines don't blow up.
And kids pick them up, and they're maimed or killed all over the world. And these weapons are not particularly helpful to our national defense, which was something I spent a lot of time on. I think we ought to ratify the UN treaty on the rights of the child.
I think we certainly ought to ratify the law of the Sea Treaty, which has been parked in the Senate for about 30 years as far as I can tell. There are some things that the United Nations does well. And there's a lot they don't do well.
I think they're an important organization badly in need of reform. So I don't support ratifying all of them. And I don't know if I would this or not, because I don't know what's in it. If it's that way Rick described it, I wouldn't want to support either.
But I do think that we make a political point during election years of beating up on the United Nations because of some of the things that people like Ahmadinejad come over here and say. And I think that's a mistake. We ought to try really hard to reform the United Nations and be tough with them.
But I don't think we ought to get rid of them. And I think we ought to be respectful of the other countries who put a lot of effort into getting some of these treaties signed that are really important. And those are two really important treaties.
SAM NELSON: Thank you. Next question?
ALEX PRUCE: So on the discussion of Ahmadinejad, our next question comes from Jessica Bornstein, arts and sciences class of '14. What role should the US play in mitigating a nuclear war with Iran, particularly pertaining to our critical ally, Israel?
HOWARD DEAN: I think this is an area where Barack Obama has been the most successful of any president in American history. The truth is the sanctions that we have now, for the first time, are crippling Iran economically. And the mullahs are now trying to come to the table.
That did not happen under President George W. Bush. It did not happen under Bill Clinton. It did not happen under George H.W. Bush, and it didn't happen under Ronald Reagan.
This is the most successful that we've ever been in terms of bringing Iran-- which I do believe is a very dangerous country, and probably the most dangerous nation on the face of the Earth-- under some kind of pressure. So they're going to have to behave themselves.
I don't think it's in our best interest to engage in war in the Middle East. We haven't done a very-- so I think we need to continue to ratchet up these sanctions as the president is doing. They're working. We just need to keep maximum pressure on the Iranians.
I take a very hard line on the Iranian government. I do not believe they ought to be permitted to have nuclear weapons in Iran. And I don't trust them. So I don't think they ought to any kind of nuclear program until we can verify that it's not being used for weapons.
They are a dangerous regime that will cause enormous pain to us, ultimately, mostly by attacking our allies in the region. But I do think this president has done what no other president has done in terms of applying sanctions that really work and making other nations also agree to those sanctions.
RICK SANTORUM: Let's review the facts about sanctions. I happen to know a little bit about that because I was the author of the Iran Freedom Support Act, which was a set of sanctions that I introduced back in 2004 when the Bush administration and everybody else said Iran was not trying to develop a nuclear weapon. I had better information, I thought, than what the president was sharing with the American public, and went ahead and authored a bill.
And who opposed me? Who filibustered that bill on the floor of the United States Senate? Joe Biden.
AUDIENCE: Yes!
[LAUGHTER]
RICK SANTORUM: Who voted against it on the floor of the United States Senate? Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Six months later, that sanction bill-- that tough sanction bill-- was watered down a little bit and passed unanimously and was put in place. It's one of the sanctions that Governor Dean is referring to that was trying to be effective in shutting down their nuclear program.
The Congress tried also in a bipartisan way to pass very tough sanctions. The president fought them in trying to pass these sanctions and has waived sanctions that were passed to placate the Russians instead of sticking with very, very tough sanctions to bring Iran to its knees.
No one wants a war. Except, if you listen to Iran, they seem to. They are the ones who are saying that they are going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. They are the ones who are threatening their neighbors.
You know, we've learned from history when countries say things like this and then are in the process of developing a weapon of mass destruction, it's probably a good idea to take them seriously. And what Bibi Netanyahu and the Israelis have asked the United States government is, yes, continue sanctions. All well and good. But it's not slowing them down effectively.
What we need to do is to draw a line in the sand and say, if you pass this point-- you who say all we were trying to do is develop nuclear power-- as they enrich to levels far beyond what's necessary for nuclear power-- that if you pass a certain point, we will act. And the President of the United States has said no.
And beyond that, he has continued to distance himself from the state of Israel and isolate them out there as the only one who seems willing to do something real to stop Iran. This is what empowers tyrants. This is why a re-elected Barack Obama, in my opinion, will mean a nuclear Iran and a very, very difficult time, not just for the Middle East, but for all of us.
JESSIE PALMER: So we have time for one more question. The Cornell Democrats and Cornell Republicans have been actively involved in registering our fellow students to vote. So, with that in mind, this question comes from Rhett Rampler from the College of Engineering. And he wants to know are the benefits of ensuring that no voter fraud occurs worth the cost of likely disenfranchisement?
RICK SANTORUM: The measures that are being put forward-- in my state of Pennsylvania as well as other states around the country-- is requiring a photo identification for purposes of voting. You need a photo ID to buy cough medicine. You need a photo ID to get on an airplane, to get on a train, to take most forms of transportation that the vast majority of people take.
In the state of Pennsylvania, 99% of people in the state of Pennsylvania have compliant photo IDs. 1% do not. And we had a system that was put in place that people could get it for free. And yet we hear these screams that all we're trying to do is intimidate voters and make sure that they don't vote.
Well, first, we're only talking about 1%. And we can get free photo IDs. And again, what does this 1% do when they get a cold? The bottom line, this is not about trying to disenfranchise anybody. It's about integrity at the voting box. It's about making sure that the people who come to vote are who they are.
Why is that so problematic? I don't get it. Unless you really don't want people to go to the voting booth and be able to vote more times or claim they're somebody else. I don't get it. To me, it seems as common sensical as anything that we'd want to assure the integrity of the voting booth.
And the way to do so is to use something that's common, which is a photo ID to make that happen. And yet, we see all these cries that we're trying to disenfranchise people when a very small fraction don't have it. So I think it's a reasonable course to take. And I very much support it.
HOWARD DEAN: So I'm incredibly glad Senator Santorum mention the Pennsylvania voting law as a law to hold up, because his own court system just threw it out because it discriminated against low-income-- Now, let me tell you, it was also a public official of the state of Pennsylvania who bragged that Pennsylvania was going to end up voting for Governor Romney because there are enough people who were going to be disenfranchised who would normally vote Democratic so that it would go-- he bragged on the record.
You know how many cases of voter fraud have been prosecuted in the United States in the last 10 years? 81 cases in 10 years. There was one instance of voter fraud in Florida by Nathan Sprole, who was a Republican operative, in the last week. There was 124 Democratic registrations that were ripped up and thrown out.
The voter fraud problem is not because of voter ID. It's because political operators in the Republican Party hire folks. And then they go and destroy registration and take away people's right to vote. Now, the fact of the matter is in the state of Texas, for example, if you go to the University of Texas, your photo ID is just fine.
But if you go to a private university in Texas, it doesn't count. Why do you suppose that is? Do you think maybe it is that they don't want people who might be out of state voting? Well, the Supreme Court has said that college students have a right to vote in the college or at home. And I am damned if I'm going to let a bunch of Republican political operatives take away the right to vote from students or anybody else.
If you're a party that depends on taking away people's right to vote-- and that is how you're going to win the election, then you ought not to be competing in the election.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
SAM NELSON: I would like to invite the two of you to shake hands.
RICK SANTORUM: No closing remarks? OK.
HOWARD DEAN: That's the closing remarks.
RICK SANTORUM: Thank you all very much. Thank you.
SAM NELSON: Thank you.
HOWARD DEAN: Thank you, good job.
SAM NELSON: Thank you. Travel safely.
JESSICA REIF: On behalf of the Cornell Republicans and Cornell Democrats, thank you so much for participating in this debate. And let's give a round of applause for our audience. You guys were a great audience today.
Former presidential candidates Howard Dean and Rick Santorum took the stage at Cornell's Bailey Hall October 18, 2012 to debate the role of government in a free society.
ILR School senior lecturer Sam Nelson, director of the Cornell Forensics Society, moderated the debate.
