Warner: I support Roe v Wade. But I think folks with differing views on the issue of abortion can all agree that we ought to do everything we can to reduce unintended pregnancies. I signed a bill when I was governor to require parental notification with a judicial bypass. As the father of three daughters, I am very comfortable with this law.
Jim Gilmore: As governor of Virginia, I stood for the sanctity of life, pushing through legislation that created a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions, required parental notification for minors and banned partial birth abortion. As your U.S. senator, I will continue to work to preserve Virginia values including the protection of human life.
Gilmore: I do not support quotas, but all during my career I have worked to create opportunities for minorities.
Warner: I'd like to see an America where there's not a need for affirmative action, but for now, we need to make sure there is a level playing field for everyone to participate. I come from the business world, and I think most business people will tell you that they want to recruit employees who were educated in an environment where they were exposed to diverse people and ideas. As I have said many times in the past, I continue to be opposed to the use of quotas.
Warner: I will seek the advice of our military leaders as they begin a review of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. We also need to have appropriate recruitment and retention polices that will keep our military strong.
Gilmore: I do not support any changes in the current policy.
Warner: The federal role in public education should be to provide the right incentives for underperforming schools and to work with states and localities to make sure we have an educated and competitive workforce. While I agree with the goals of No Child Left Behind, I think the policy has been poorly implemented. As governor, I was proud that we made the largest investment in public education in Virginia history. Over the course of my administration, the percentage of fully accredited public schools increased from 40 percent to 92 percent. Virginia students posted the highest math SAT score increase in the nation, and Virginia was recognized as a leader in areas ranging from high school reform to school efficiency.
Gilmore: I do not believe the "No Child Left Behind Act" is working and I believe we need to return those responsibilities to the states.
Warner: We need to fix our nation's health care system. It's both a moral issue and a competitiveness issue--we simply cannot allow 47 million Americans to go without access to health care while those who are fortunate enough to have insurance pay twice as much per person as our competitors around the world. By focusing on preventative care and cutting costs through proven measures like switching to electronic medical records, we can expand coverage and increase quality of care. I do not support a government run, single payer system.
Gilmore: I support a broad range of health care reform including tax reform to help people buy health insurance and maintain health savings accounts. I believe we also need medical liability reforms to reduce frivolous lawsuits and help bring down health care costs.
Warner: We must keep our military strong by providing compensation and incentives that allow us to meet our recruiting goals and result in our soldiers wanting to stay in the military for longer. We must recommit to providing world-class health care and education benefits to our troops and military veterans. They stand for us on the battlefield, and we must stand with them when they come home. Improving the services veterans receive is not only good government, it is a debt of gratitude we owe them for their sacrifices and accomplishments.
Jim Gilmore: As a veteran myself, I believe we must provide for our service members and their families while they serve and that our injured service members and veterans must not be left behind.
Warner: As chairman of the National Governors Association, I helped formulate a bi-partisan plan to slow the growth of entitlement health care costs, and I'll bring the same approach to Washington. Social Security benefits are the bedrock of retirement for most Americans. It's estimated that without Social Security, more than 50% of seniors would be living in poverty and for two-thirds of the elderly, Social Security provides the majority of their income. I support a bi-partisan commission similar in structure and process to the BRAC commission, which seeks to reduce the influence of politics and special interests and concludes with a simple "up" or "down" vote on its ultimate recommendations, to explore commonsense ideas that will keep the Social Security program secure and solvent.
Gilmore said there was no deficit when he ended his term and that he delivered a balanced budget. He also noted that Warner promised not to increase taxes when running for governor but later instituted the largest tax increase in state history.
Warner said the problems in banking and the mortgage business were caused by “too many people asleep at the switch in Washington. Everyone was looking at the next quarterly profits, and no one had a long-term plan,” he said.
Gilmore said the situation stems from companies allowing too much borrowing against too little assets. “We simply have to have more oversight right now to make sure that people understand that they can’t operate their businesses that way against the public interest,” he said.
Warner faulted Washington and Wall Street for being “asleep at the switch.” He said the country should look at Britain’s use of a single financial regulator as a possible model to fix the current crisis. “If there was ever a time to send somebody to Washington that can read a balance sheet... it’s now,” Warner said.
They agreed that voters have a clear choice when it comes to personality and leadership styles. Gilmore said he would be a conservative voice in the Democratic-controlled Congress.
Warner argued that he has the experience to end years of partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill and that Virginia voters are ready to embrace his philosophy of seeking common ground.
Warner said he has expressed support only for rolling back top-tier tax breaks by the Bush administration and is against tax increases on small businesses.
Warner countered that the tax increase was needed to close a $6 billion budget shortfall that he said he inherited from Gilmore. Gilmore said he left office with a balanced budget. Gilmore said Warner’s tax increase did little to help road-building, and they were proof that Warner would support higher federal taxes as well. “Taxes are coming at us like a freight train,” Gilmore said. Gilmore was referring to Obama’s proposal to roll back Bush’s tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans. Warner said he supports eliminating those tax cuts as a way of reducing the federal deficit.
Warner, who was executive director of the Virginia Democratic Party when those comments were allegedly made, responded by noting that his sister home-schools her children and that he has long had a reputation for being a supporter of gun rights.
WARNER: My position is that Congress should lift the moratorium on offshore drilling and leave that decision to the states. I don’t believe we should be drilling in ANWR. Because Congress set it aside as a pristine area and similar to Senator McCain’s position, I see the dangers. But where I disagree with Jim is that this is somehow the silver bullet. America has 3% of the world’s oil and we use 25% of the world’s oil. Drilling alone isn’t going to solve the whole problem. Investing in alternative energy is going to provide more immediate relief.
REALITY: Governor Warner’s veto message on the 2005 offshore drilling ban called on the state to monitor “federal developments on domestic energy production,” as part of a larger state study. Warner vetoed the bill because it encroached on the role of the Governor to direct the activities of the Virginia Liaison Office and directed the Commonwealth to advocate for federal legislation that has yet to be introduced. [Warner Veto Message, 3/29/05]
In January 2006, a study prepared for Governor Warner and state legislators “recommended that Virginia allow offshore exploration for natural gas and oil deposits but take precautions to protect the environment.” The study “suggested that drilling take place at least 50 miles from the coast and that no pipelines or other equipment be placed ashore.” [Washington Post, 4/6/06]
Gilmore: “That’s a mischaracterization of what I did with the Tultex people in Southside.”
REALITY: The legislation would have paid for health insurance for the unemployed workers, including 3,300 Tultex Corp. employees in Henry County who lost their jobs when the giant sweatshirt maker declared bankruptcy. Gilmore said he had no choice but to veto the assembly’s plan, describing it as a “health care benefit entitlement, but only for displaced textile workers in the Martinsville area.” [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 5/20/00]
Taking their cue from Gov. Gilmore, Republicans kept legislation to help unemployed textile workers bottled up in committee. The bill had bipartisan support before Gilmore weighed in. [One legislator] said. “There’s only one person who is diametrically opposed to this, and he’s the governor.” [AP, 2/12/00]
Look at how we approached the budget when we were both governor. Jim Gilmore promised to end the car tax. But it ended up costing three times more than what he said. He used budget gimmicks, tried to hide the problem, and drove Virginia into the fiscal ditch. When I inherited the problem, which grew to a $6 billion shortfall, I leveled with the people, made the hard cuts, reformed state governments, and brought republicans and democrats together, to bring about bipartisan budge and tax reform.
Virginia became the best managed state in the nation. So if you want a senator who will work on budget and the economy and has a proven track record of results, I’d ask you to hire me and bring our country back on the right path.
REALITY: The update to the Joint Finance Committee letters are public, e-mailed to all General Assembly members, and posted on the web just after the Governor receives it. The monthly revenue reports also are widely reported by the media
REALITY: While running for governor in 1997, Gilmore promised Virginia voters that his car tax repeal would cost no more than $620 million and would not require any cuts in core services. By the time Gilmore left, he cut millions from necessary programs and the car tax repeal was creating a nearly $2 billion hole in Virginia’s budget. [AP, 4/30/04
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The above quotations are from 2008 VA Senate Debate between Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner.
Click here for other excerpts from 2008 VA Senate Debate between Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner. Click here for other excerpts by Mark Warner. Click here for a profile of Mark Warner.
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