VPs kaffeeklatsch #1

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, the Census Bureau ranked Cleveland as the biggest poor city in the country, 31 percent jobless rate.

You two gentlemen are pretty well off. You did well for yourselves in the private sector. What can you tell the people of Cleveland, or people of cities like Cleveland, that your administration will do to better their lives?

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, there are several things that I think need to be done and are being done.

We've, of course, been through a difficult recession, and then the aftermath of 9/11, where we lost over a million jobs after that attack.

This figure is widely disputed, with even members of his own administration in disagreement. I'm disappointed Edwards did not challenge this figure. Oh, well... back to the response:

But we think the key is to address some basic, fundamental issues that the president's already working on.

I think probably the most successful thing we can do with respect to ending poverty is to get people jobs. There's no better antidote to poverty than a good, well-paying job that allows somebody to take care of their own family.

To do that, we have to make America the best place in the world to do business. And that means we've got to deal effectively with tax policy. We've got to reduce the litigation costs that are built into our society. We've got to provide the adequate medical care and make certain that we can, in fact, create the opportunities that are vital to that process.

Whoa there, cowboy, the question was about making peoples' lives better, and you're droning on about tax policy and litigation? Litigation is not the problem, if it were not for rapacious greed and corruption on the part of Corporate America, there would be no litigation. Let's see, who would benefit from limiting corporate liability and exposure to lawsuits? Workers? No, silly, the answer is corporations. We need more checks on their greed, not fewer.

And do you really have any clue how it feels to be unemployed? Do you worry every month how you're going to pay for health insurance? Do you have any compassion at all for the many who have lost their livelyhoods as the result of offshoring and outsourcing? Is the gradual erosion of workers' benefits, wages, safety, and representation a good thing? Well, I guess for your corporate pals, it is.

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