Market briefing --- Bob (fast)
Third and final presidential debate --- Peter (slow)
>> welcome back to the final, dramatic half hour of “world financial report,” i’m bob bowden. for a second day in a row, stocks were down and bonds were up. the chart there with the dow and s&p 500 both down .75%, and the nasdaq down .25% on the day. the dow finishing just above 10,000 after dipping below 10,000 intraday. returning to arizona state university and tempe for tonight’s third and final presidential debate. peter cook is standing by with tim adams, policy director for the bush campaign.
>> we are joined this hour by tim adams from the bush campaign. thank you for your time today. i want to ask you the political question before the policy discussion and that is how important is tonight’s debate to the outcome of this election?
>> they’re all important. i think the president is on his game. i understand the campaign is down here, we’re motivated and he’ll do an outstanding job.
>> there are polls going into this that if you look at the specific domestic issues that john kerry has the advantage among voters on certain issues. how does president bush deal with that? do you concede that john kerry has an edge on those issues?
>> the polls have jumped around a lot on those issues. it’s easy to do well on the polls when you’re out promising to everyone what everyone wants to hear, which is what john kerry is doing. the president stands in stark contrast to john kerry, which is big taxes, more government, bigger healthcare and i think at the end of the day the american people will make the right choice, and that’s president bush.
>> there are many debating on whether american voters are focused on the deficit. doesn’t it resonate with voters when they hear this is a record federal deficit under the watch of this president?
>> i think they understand the challenges we’ve inherited and what’s transpired. we lost a million jobs in the 90 days after 9/11. i think they understand. they’re very savvy and they understand the president is on a trajectory to cut the deficit in half.
>> on the subject of jobs, a lot of focus and criticism of mr. snow’s comments on jobs earlier this week in ohio, the treasury secretary. can this campaign run simply on job growth in the last year or so, don’t the american people have to look at the whole four years?
>> i think we’re running on more than just job growth. homeownership at an all-time high, net wealth at an all-time high, g.d.p. growth which this year will be the third best in 20 years, twice the rate of the europeans so i think we have a very good across-the-board record, not just one statistic.
>> if you look at the current job growth right now, i know it’s not to the satisfaction of the administration right now, what can george bush promise to the american people in terms of job growth going forward?
>> we need to make sure america is best place to do business in the world. we need to keep tax codes low and reform the tax code.
>> healthcare came up in st. louis, the kerry campaign. jason furman here a short time ago saying he hopes it comes up because this a clear distinction between the president and senator kerry, senator kerry’s current proposal to cover 27 million additional people without insurance and the president’s own proposal would not cover that many people. how do you do it?
>> the american people have a clear choice, do they want a healthcare plan that will turn medicaid into from a $44 million program to one with 60 million people, a massive expansion of government and i don’t think the american people want that. we have a common sense, affordable plan and that’s what the american people want.
>> one subject matter that economists have questioned both campaigns on is if the budget is going forward and in particular, with the retirement of baby boomers and social security and medicare going forward, there are problems we have to deal with now but the long-term problem is staggering to some. how is the president going to deal with that?
>> it’s not just social security and medicare but medicaid and john kerry’s historic expansion of medicaid is only going to exacerbate the conditions you discussed but the president has a plan to allow young people to voluntarily put aside a small portion of their payroll tax into a personal account and we can save the system for my children and hopefully their children. john kerry believes there’s no problem, standing in contrast to the views he had six or seven years ago when he said personal accounts are a good way to go.
>> will president bush spell out to the american people how he will pay for the personal accounts?
>> i think he’ll talk passionately about all of the policies tonight.
>> when all is said and done, with domestic issues, do you think the economy will be the central focus this evening and is the president prepared to address where the economy is going right now?
>> absolutely. we talked about the economy on the campaign trail every day, throughout the campaign and throughout the last four years. this president is focused on growing this economy. think about the challenges we’ve go know through, near historic proportion and despite those challenges, we’ve had 1.9 million jobs created in the last 13 months, we’ll have economic growth this year, close to the third best year in 20. this economy is doing well. we will do better but we have to keep taxes low for the middle class.
>> any surprises tonight for the president?
>> just the usual passion and principle.
>> thank you very much, tim adams with the bush campaign, policy director for the campaign, thank you for joining us here in tempe, arizona. bob, we send it back to you.
>> looks like a nice day in tempe, thank you. tonight’s debate will compete against two baseball playoff games, one between the new york yankees and boston red sox, and the other, astros and cardinals. the second debate was watched by 47 million viewers, a 25% drop from the first matchup according to nielsen media research. when we return, toyota says demand for its hybrid gasoline electric cars and trucks is tremendous. we’ll hear from the company’s executive vice president on those hybrid cars when we return.
