Look what Jimmy Carter did 20 years ago. We doubled the fuel mileage standards of our automobiles. We greatly increased the fuel efficiency of our appliances, and the price of gasoline went down for the next 20 years. We got a little fat and happy and we started driving SUV’s again. But now is the time to deal with conservation in a serious way. And Sen. Lieberman’s support of the Dick Cheney energy bill was a mistake.
A: The biggest threat to the US and world peace is a rogue nation that has nuclear arms capability, and they can sell that to terrorists or potentially launch. And North Korea fits that description. I know the Bush administration called this provocative and not an imminent threat, but I think it’s the most serious threat facing the US today.
As a senator, I would get Republicans and Democrats together. I would get them behind closed doors. I’d give them real intelligence. I’d explain the severity of the situation. I’d explain it to the American people. I’d let them know the importance of what we’ve got to do.
Obviously, we can’t work alone. China, South Korea, and Japan are so key to everything we have got to do in North Korea. And working with them in a constructive way, with a constructive dialogue, we have got to get Kim Jong Il off of that murderous path that he’s got. Pres. Bush has got to get it right this time.
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
A: Either I’m far left or I’m too cozy with the Republicans, but it’s a little difficult to be both. I think these are all distractions from the issues that people care about. What people want to know is how come Sen. Lieberman in 18 years in the Senate has never signed onto a bill that provides universal health care for each and every American?
A: We have a president who is acting as if he is above the law right now. Look at what Guantanamo, look at what Haditha, look at what Abu Ghraib has done to the moral authority of the US. We are a much stronger country when we are true to our values, a much stronger country when it comes to the war on terror when we’re true to what we stand for, and we’ve compromised a lot of that over the last few years, and that weakens our country. I look at the illegal wiretaps. I thought that was a time that Democrats should have stood up and held the president accountable [with censure]. I think we should have said that was wrong.
A: When it comes to securing our border which so important, you can militarize the border like George Bush says, you can put up fences and walls, but as long as you have employees hiring illegals, people will be coming across the border and looking for a better opportunity for their kids. Under the Bush administration, we have cut down on the number of employer enforcements & that’s why we have a lot of the illegal immigration that we have today.
I think we have got to be careful about [saying] the guest workers are doing jobs that Americans just won’t do. You pay a decent wage with decent benefits, you’ll find Americans are willing to do these jobs
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.
Look at the record. Gas prices have doubled. Skyrocketing health care costs are bankrupting families and small businesses alike. Connecticut families are working harder and harder and earning less and less. We’re more dependent upon foreign oil. We’re more dependent upon foreign capital, and we have 135,000 of our bravest troops stuck in the middle of a bloody civil war. And I say that those who got us into this mess should be held accountable.
A: In terms of support for the Ned Lamont campaign, it’s grassroots support. We have got tens of thousands of people across the state of Connecticut and beyond who want the Democrats to stand up and be counted, be clear about where we stand, think boldly, talk boldly about what we want to do, offer real, constructive alternatives to the Bush agenda.
Right now we have got 63 lobbyists for every Congressman in Washington DC. You have got the best Congress that money can buy. But when it comes to the Democrats, I think it’s important we go down to Washington DC, and start talking about the common good. I think that’s where we make a difference as Democrats, and I think that’s when we start winning again.
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?
LAMONT: Senator, you’re the only person in Connecticut who is confused about my position on the war in Iraq. President Bush rushed us into this war. He told us it would be easy. We would be welcomed as liberators. Weapons of mass destruction. And Sen. Lieberman cheered on the president every step of the way, when we should have been asking the tough questions. And this war is not a single issue, Senator. It says so much about what type of a country we are. The tens of thousands of people who have died and been wounded, the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been spent and wasted and the values, the values about this country and our moral authority, and what it says about who we are. It’s destabilized the Middle East, it was a mistake, and we should admit it.
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.
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The above quotations are from 2006 Connecticut Democratic Senate Primary debate, July 2006.
Click here for other excerpts from 2006 Connecticut Democratic Senate Primary debate, July 2006. Click here for other excerpts by Ned Lamont. Click here for a profile of Ned Lamont.
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