George W. Bush in State of Michigan Archives

On Drugs: A leader learns from his mistakes and shares wisdom

On Tax Reform: People should not pay more in taxes than they do for food

On Abortion: No pro-life pledge; VP & judges will simply be qualified

BUSH: I’m going to pick a vice president who can be the president. I’ll pick judges who strictly interpret the constitution and not use the bench as a way to legislate. And I will work to keep the Republican Party pro-life.

FORBES: It’s a typical hedge. Where’s the pledge, not a hedge? Vagaries aren’t going to work. We need something specific.

BUSH: I will have a vice president who can become the president. That’s the test, Steve. I will have a vice president that agrees with my policy. I’m going to have a vice president that likes me. I can’t be any more clear -- you may not like the answer, but that’s my answer.

On Foreign Policy: Entrepreneurial China trade differs from totalitarian Cuba

BAUER: You just made the case for withdrawing MFN status from China. Everything that you just said about Cuba applies to China.

BUSH: There is a huge difference between trading with an entrepreneurial class like that which is growing in China and allowing a Castro government to skim capital monies off the top of capital investment.

BAUER: Tell the people rotting in the prisons of China that there’s any difference between Castro’s Cuba & Communist China. There is none.

BUSH: If we turn our back on the entrepreneurial class that is taking wing in China, we’re making a huge mistake.

BAUER: They are using that money for a massive arms buildup that our sons will have to deal with down the road.

On Foreign Policy: Cuba: No trade, since investments prop up Castro regime

On Foreign Policy: Africa: Rally world to help AIDS, but not with US funds

On Government Reform: Agrees to no negative ads; stop tearing each other down

FORBES. The answer is if being negative is telling the truth I will continue to tell the truth. People deserve it, we deserve an honest and open and vigorous debate. And if a man breaks a pledge [re 1997 tax cuts], the voters ought to know it.

BUSH: I’ll run positive ads. Listen, I cut taxes as the governor. That’s a fact. That is the bottom line. The people of my state know my record and they endorsed it with an election. And yet if you look at [Forbes’] ads it doesn’t say that. I don’t mind debates. I do mind Republicans tearing each other down.

FORBES. You’re not going to win the White House by making pledges that are then broken. We’ve been through that before, particularly on taxes. A pledge made should be a pledge kept. And in Texas it was your own party that saved you from breaking that pledge. You tried to break it, they blocked you.

On Tax Reform: Leaving money in Washington means bigger budget spending

BUSH: I have a plan that takes $2 trillion over the next 10 years & dedicates it to Social Security. My plan has been called risky by voices out of Washington. In my judgment what’s risky is to leave a lot of unspent money in Washington, because guess what’s going to happen. It’s going to be spent on bigger federal governments.

McCAIN: Your tax plan over the next five years not only spends all of the surplus, it spends $20 billion in addition to that. But this idea that somehow if the money is left. -- you don’t understand the role of the president. The president of the US will veto bills that spend too much. I’ll veto bills that force Congress to spend less. That’s what’s being president is all about.

On Tax Reform: 1997 no-tax pledge: judge results, despite breaking pledge

BUSH: I led my state, in 1997, to the largest tax cut in Texas history. I laid out a plan that cut $1 billion of property taxes.. I am a tax-cutting person.

FORBES: There was a lot of hedging about this pledge. The pledge was made in 1994. I have a copy of it here, promising not to raise the sales tax or to propose any kind of income tax. When he proposed this bill in 1997 it did have provisions in there for tax increases including increasing a sales tax. Pledges should not be lightly made and a pledge is a promise. Bush’s own staff admits that he broke the pledge. In 1998, I supported you & I would have voted for you. But you did break that pledge.

BUSH: [People] need to look at the results. That’s what’s important. The results are people from all walks of life received a substantial tax cut under me as the governor of Texas.

On Tax Reform: Cut top tax rate to 33% while cutting lower income taxes too

McCAIN: I have never engaged in class warfare. [But] there’s a growing gap between the have’s and have-not’s in America and that gap is growing and it’s, unfortunately, divided up along ethnic lines. We ought to cut middle-income and lower-income taxes. But I’m not sure we need to give two-thirds of that tax cut [money] to the wealthiest 10% of America.

BUSH: I believe everybody ought to get a tax cut. I believe it’s important to cut the top rates. I think it’s important to drop the 39.6% [top tax rate] to 33%. I also know it’s important to make sure people who are on the outskirts of poverty get a tax cut as well. And my plan does both.

On Tax Reform: “A tax-cutting person” in TX, would do same for US