Oct. 30 Democratic debate transcript

Kucinich: It's one of the reasons why the American people are so distressed with the current condition of the Democratic Party. They won't stand up to Wall Street, where there's over a trillion dollars of unregulated capital with hedge funds.

They won't end the war, as our party promised to do in the 2006 election. They won't stand up to the insurance companies, the for- profit insurance companies, by joining me in a not-for-profit system.

So people are asking them, "What's the difference between Democrats and Republicans?" Tim, my candidacy is a candidacy which will protect the interests of Main Street.

No privatization of Social Security, make the hedge funds accountable, protect the small investors who are at risk with these public offerings of these hedge funds.

My Domestic Policy Subcommittee has been looking at this. I was one of the first ones on Capitol Hill to look at it.

Right now, it's all about a redistribution of the wealth upwards, Tim. You know, the tax system is about redistributing the wealth upwards. The health care system redistributes the wealth upwards. Our energy policies redistribute the wealth upwards.

We have to have a president who is independent enough to be able to stand up to these interest groups and push the Democratic Congress to defend the American people by standing for the end of the war in Iraq, by standing for a universal, not-for-profit health care system, by standing for control of these oil companies, which are out of control, and, finally, by standing for the Constitution.

I will say it one more time. It's time for the Democratic Party to take a position on impeachment, and for the House of Representatives to move the bill that I've introduced.

Russert: Senator Edwards, you worked for a hedge fund. By every estimate, we could save $25 billion over 10 years, new revenue that could be used for a whole variety of programs. Why won't the Democratic Party act on this issue?

Edwards: They should. I mean, this is an example of the extraordinary corruption that still exists in the system and in the government.

What happened was, the Congress started to move to act. The lobbyists for the hedge funds descended and managed to kill it. It's just that simple.

This is one, unfortunately of a whole series of things, that indicate that our government doesn't work the way it should, and that corruption has crept into it. I wish it was the only thing. It's not the only thing.

I mean, we have young men and women serving this country patriotically and heroically in Iraq, and we've got a bunch of paid mercenaries moving around over there, working for Blackwater and others, who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bush and the Republican Party.

We've got politically connected people at home making millions of dollars while our men and women serve and put their lives on the line in Iraq.

We decided to try to keep the country safer by inspecting containers that come into this country. And who lobbied against it? The biggest company in America: Wal-Mart. We've had trade deals that have cost us millions of jobs, and what did America get in return? We got millions of dangerous Chinese toys.

These things are all evidence of a system that doesn't work. Now, we can turn our backs on it and pretend it's not true and, as I said earlier, leave this mess to our children and our grandchildren. Or we can do what the founding fathers said we should do.

And what has happened over and over in American history when this happened? There is nothing the American people can't do. We -- there's nothing wrong with the American people. They are strong, heroic, passionate. But their voice needs to be heard. The government belongs to them. It doesn't belong to this crowd of powerful, monied interests in Washington, D.C.

And we have to be willing to say the truth about it and to change this system so that our children actually can have a better life than we've had.

Williams: Senator, thank you. We're going to introduce the concept of a lightning round here. Take one question, go down the line; 30 seconds each, a time we're going to enforce.

And, Governor Richardson, we're going to start with you. This is about something called trends in international mathematics and science study. It's called "TIMS." A number of overseas nations took part in it.

It found that, overseas, students spend an average of 193 days, annually, in school.

The deficit, compared to the U.S., where it's 180 days, over 12 years, that adds up to a one-year gap between education in the U.S. and overseas.

Do you believe ewe in this country need to extend the school day and/or extend the school year, and will you commit to it?

Richardson: Yes, I'd commit to it. And I'm glad, finally, education is coming up in a major debate.

This is what I would do. We are 29th in the world in science and math compared to the E.U., to countries in China and India. They graduate four or five times more engineers. There is a competitiveness gap here.

This is what I would do.

One, I'd have 100,000 new science and math teachers. But we have to pay our teachers what they deserve, a minimum wage of what I believe is $40,000 per year. I'd get rid of No Child Left Behind. I would have science and math academies, but in the high school curriculum it is critically important that we have more civics, more language, and art in the schools to provoke creativity in science and math proficiency.

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