SEN. KENNEDY: I think he’s going to be a tough contender for it, and I think he’s underestimated by a number of Republicans, but I think the Democrat’s going to be the better candidate and he’s—that’s the one I intend to support.

MR. RUSSERT: And that will be John Kerry if he runs?

SEN. KENNEDY: If he’s going to run. If he runs, I’m supporting him.

MR. RUSSERT: You also in your book say this about education, “I propose that every child in America, on reaching eighth grade, be offered a contract. Let students sign it, along with their parents and Uncle Sam. The contract will state that if you work hard, finish high school, and are accepted for college, the federal government will guarantee you the cost of earning a degree.”

SEN. KENNEDY: Right. That’s right.

MR. RUSSERT: Where are we going to get that money?

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SEN. KENNEDY: Well. We don’t have an alternative, Tim, in the areas of education. The Chinese now are graduating 650,000 engineers a year; the Indians, 350,000 engineers a year. We’re at 72,000 and half of those are foreign students. We’re facing in the areas of globalization, we’re either going to equip every young person in this country to be able to deal with globalization, every worker to get continuing training, or we’re going to be a second-level country in another 25 years. And that’s going to take education, it’s going to take investment on that. If we are spending $10 billion dollars a month, $10 billion dollars a month on Iraq. If we’re going to spend a trillion dollars, which is the—Mr. Schultz’s estimate, who’s the Nobel Laureate, he says it’s going to cost a trillion dollars. We ought to be able to educate every child, provide continuing training, and make sure that our American young people and older people are going to be ably equipped for globalization.

MR. RUSSERT: But Senator, will you be willing to raise taxes to pay for this?

SEN. KENNEDY: I’d pay—we restore the kinds of tax structure that we had when we had the greatest period of economic growth and price stability under President Clinton.

MR. RUSSERT: Why?

SEN. KENNEDY: Go back to that particular time, but the fact is we’re spending now the $10 billion dollars a month. I’d rather put that in education. I think most Americans would rather. We’d be—you’re talking now a trillion dollars. You’re talking about $100 billion dollars this—over $100 billion dollars this year, and $100 billion dollars you can do all of those things and educate every—everybody.

Now finally, let me point this out. When we passed the GI Bill at the end of World War II, the Treasury figured out $7 dollars was returned for every dollar that was invested in education. Seven dollars returned. You will find out that most people that reviewed that program said it was the best investment that this country has ever provided because it produced more income in terms of it. And that is what education does, it creates opportunity, it can create activity, and it create—it makes sure America’s going to continue to be number one. Not only economically, this is militarily, Tim. This is important to our national security, well-educated individuals that have the high-tech training, and that no country is going to be ahead of the United States in terms of science and research.

MR. RUSSERT: What are we going to do about $3-dollars-a-gallon gasoline?

SEN. KENNEDY: The president, the president should have called the head of the oil companies into the White House and started jawboning. He should have done that a week ago. Why he doesn’t do that, I do not understand. He ought to be pointing out that hard-working Americans, middle-class people, who have their sons and daughters in Iraq and in Afghanistan, that this is not a time for greed. And he ought to activate and call the Federal Trade Commission—which is basically a sleepy organization that has given an interim report in terms of price-fixing and gouging—he ought to get them off and have them working seven days a week, 24/7, to make sure that we know exactly who is price-gouging. And third, we ought to have a bipartisan effort to recapture, recapture these excessive profits that are going to the oil industry and return them to working families and middle-income families.

MR. RUSSERT: But that’s not the only reason that gas prices are $3 dollars.

SEN. KENNEDY: It’s not the only one, but why are we tolerating this extraordinary explosion of the president of Exxon getting a half a billion dollars in separate fees? We need an excess profits tax that’s going to return that to working families. This is not a time for greed, and that is what we have on this. And the administration has been slow, it has failed to take action, and the Democrats are going to demand it.

MR. RUSSERT: What’s going to happen in the midterm elections?

SEN. KENNEDY: Democrats are going to be successful. I think we’re going to make progress. I think we’ll carry the Senate and also the House.

MR. RUSSERT: Both houses?

SEN. KENNEDY: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: What will be the big issues?

SEN. KENNEDY: The big—the overarching issue is the gross incompetency of this administration in every aspect, whether it’s in the Medicare prescription drug bill--45 different programs in my state of Massachusetts—rather than the simple kind of a program that would have been the Medicare system on that thing, the incompetence that we had down in Katrina, the cronyism that we have had in terms of the individuals that have taken government jobs, the refusal of accountability in terms of the—of Iraq. I think it’s all, it’s all out there.

MR. RUSSERT: So you think the Republicans will be blamed for corruption?

SEN. KENNEDY: I think there’s certainly a big—there’ll be a heavy burden for them to try and defend what’s been happening here. The sweetheart contracts, the Halliburton sweetheart contracts that have been out there, I think they’ll have a heavy burden to do so.

MR. RUSSERT: Your very first appearance on MEET THE PRESS in 1962, there was a lot of corruption in Massachusetts, and you were asked, “What would be the political effect of those Democrats who were guilty of corruption?” Let’s watch.

(Videotape, March 11, 1962):

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Will the Democratic Party be harmed this year by these scandals?

SEN. KENNEDY: Well, I think the question of whether individuals who have come up, who’ve been indicted, have been Democrats, I think are irrelevant, really, any more than you can say that because certain of these people belong to a certain racial group, a religious group, a racial group, or from a certain city and town are necessarily all evil.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: When it’s Democrats, it’s irrelevant.

SEN. KENNEDY: That’s, that’s really not the issue, is it? I mean, is it just the individuals or is it the whole culture? And I think what most Americans understand is that there is the whole permeation, sort of the stench of money and corruption and cronyism and fixed deals and special interests, that the special interests get special consideration when they make the contribution, all of that sort of wrapped on in...(unintelligible).

MR. RUSSERT: Democrats as well as Republicans?

SEN. KENNEDY: There are some, and there ought to be the accountability. But this is—this really is something that is just waiting on the administration and upon the leadership. The leadership has an opportunity to clear—have done something, and it should have.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Ted Kennedy, thank you for joining us. The book, “America: Back on Track.”

SEN. KENNEDY: “Track.”

MR. RUSSERT: Thanks for joining us.

SEN. KENNEDY: Nice to see you. Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: Coming next: What effect, if any, will all the White House staff changes have on the Bush presidency? Is there anything the president can do to reverse his decline in the polls? Our roundtable is next, right here on MEET THE PRESS.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: Changes at the White House: the firing of a CIA officer and more, coming up right here on the MEET THE PRESS roundtable.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: And we are back. Welcome, all.

CONTINUED

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