Joseph Lieberman in 2006 CT Senate Debate

On Energy & Oil: Cheney energy bill was imperfect but good for CT

LIEBERMAN : There you go again. You’ve been spending your money on commercials to criticize me for voting for that energy bill. Look, very rarely do you get a perfect bill. The tax credits for the energy industry in that big energy bill last year were bad. I said so. I am co-sponsoring legislation to try and repeal them. They were wrong. But I’ll tell you why I voted for the bill. But there were other parts of it that will save Connecticut electricity customers $800 million. Would you have voted against that? The other thing that it did is had the most substantial incentives for clean fuel, alternative fuel and fuel cells, which can create thousands of new jobs in the fuel cell industry in Connecticut, and I hope you would not have voted against that. But most of all, we’ve got to get energy independent.

On Foreign Policy: North Korean missiles were provocative, but don’t over-react

A: The North Korean act of firing those missiles was a provocative act. We should take it seriously. But we should not overreact to it. The fact is that the Bush administration in the last five and a half years has had an inconsistent and ultimately unsuccessful policy toward North Korea. And when I say inconsistent, sometimes saying that we would talk to the North Koreans in the six-party talks, sometimes saying we would not.

I think we are a strong enough nation that the one thing that hasn’t been tried either by the Clinton administration or the Bush administration is to talk directly to Kim Jong Il. We don’t lose any options if we do that. I wouldn’t do it now, because I wouldn’t reward his provocative act.

The danger is Kim Jong Il will sell these things to anybody who will buy them, including terrorists. That’s why it’s time for tough diplomacy and, I believe, economic sanctions against this regime.

On Free Trade: Connecticut jobs rely on exports

LAMONT: Senator, we just keep exporting jobs. Over the last 18 years, we have lost 40% of our manufacturing jobs and a lot of our defense-related jobs. Going forward, [we should] invest in infrastructure. That’s public transportation. That’s freight. That’s ports. These are all things necessary to be able to build a base upon which small businesses can grow. We have been losing good-paying jobs in the state, and if Ned Lamont is a US senator, we can turn that around with a long-term strategy.

On Government Reform: Public has right to know candidate’s personal income taxes

LAMONT: I have done everything asked of me to respect the public’s right to know. We have submitted hundreds of pages of documentation on everything financial.

LIEBERMAN: He hasn’t answered the question. I take it that he is saying he will not release his returns. I think that’s an insult to the public’s right to know.

On Government Reform: Earmarks are great for Connecticut

LIEBERMAN: We were all against the bridge to nowhere. But there are earmarks that are good. Is he against the earmarks I put in the bill for $50 million to decrease congestion along I-95, or the money for ferry service from Bridgeport? Those are good earmarks.

LAMONT: Alaska gets 10 times what we do. We’re not doing very well on that front. But more importantly, I think we should outlaw these earmarks. They corrupt the political process. They are written by lobbyists & they’re wrong. You support the earmarks, you work with the lobbyists, & that’s what needs to be changed.

LIEBERMAN: The earmarks are great for Connecticut

On Homeland Security: Last thing we want is to release dangerous Gitmo detainees

The Bush administration felt its way and pushed the envelope, and the Supreme Court last week, in what I thought was an extraordinary decision in the best tradition of America, said, Mr. President, no one in this country is above the law, not even the president in a time of war. That was the right decision, and now the president will have to do what he should have done earlier, come to Congress and negotiate a legal way to treat the detainees at Guantanamo.

Please understand that there’s nothing in that court decision that orders us to release those detainees. They are dangerous. And the last thing we want to do is release them.

On Immigration: Now it’s too easy to come in across our border

On Immigration: Earn citizenship only after 11 years of waiting within rules

On Jobs: My seniority helps me deliver contracts and jobs to CT

A: The first thing to say is that I built up some seniority, and that helps me deliver contracts and jobs for Electric Boat. I was able to insert in a bill $75 million of design work which will keep hundreds of designers and engineers at Electric Boat working. I am the second in seniority among Democrats on the Public Works Committee. That allows me to return transportation, more transportation and public works money to the state.

On Principles & Values: I’m not George Bush, but Lamont is running against him

I have done so not for partisan reasons, but because I believe he was wrong. I’m a Democrat with a 35-year record of fighting for progressive causes, for the middle class, for civil rights, for women’s rights, for human rights and a lot more. I voted with my Senate Democratic colleagues 90% of the time. And when I have disagreed, I have had the courage of my convictions to say so. That’s who I am. That’s who I have been. And that’s what I offer Connecticut voters for the next six years -- experience, principles and results.

On Principles & Values: Would run Independent due to Lamont’s single-issue candidacy

A: What a Democrat means to me is what it meant in 1960 when President Kennedy summoned my generation into public service. In our time, the Democratic Party has been the great hope of people rising in our country, and it remains that way.

[My opponent] is running a single issue campaign. He is a single issue candidate who is applying a litmus test to me. It’s not good enough to be 90% voting with my colleagues in the Senate Democratic Caucus. He wants 100%. And when a party does that, it’s the beginning of the defeat of that party. I want Democrats to be back in the majority in Washington and elect a Democratic president in 2008. This man and his supporters will frustrate and defeat our hopes of doing that.

On Social Security: I looked at privatization but decided against it

LIEBERMAN: On Social Security privatization--I looked at it in the late 90s. I decided it was a bad idea. I opposed it in 2000. I voted for resolutions against it. On the day that Pres. Bush started his campaign to privatize Social Security in 2005, I was one of 41 Democratic senators to say explicitly that I think it’s a bad idea, it would hurt Social Security. So why don’t you stop spreading that kind of untruth?

On War & Peace: Overthrowing Saddam was right, and we can’t abandon Iraq now

A: My position on Iraq has been clear. And I believe it was the right thing for us to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I have been critical of the things that the administration did after that. But the fact is, we’re there now. And we have a choice. And that choice is between helping the Iraqis achieve a free and independent Iraq or abandoning them and letting the terrorists take over. The latter choice is one we cannot make. And I have leveled with people about it and asked them to respect me for having the guts to take an unpopular political position.

On War & Peace: Getting out too soon will be a disaster for Iraq and for us

LAMONT: Absolutely. Like Chris Dodd, like the heart of the Democratic Party, I supported both of those amendments [setting a deadline for withdrawal]. It’s time for us to change course. Time for us to start getting our frontline troops out of harm’s way, within the next six months, and we get our troops out of Iraq over the course of the next year. That fundamentally is a change of direction. You have an open-ended stay-the-course strategy.

LIEBERMAN: Absolutely untrue. I have said the sooner we get out of Iraq, the better. But if we get out too soon, it will be a disaster for the Iraqis and for us. If you tell your enemy when you’re going to leave, they’ll wait and create disaster.