Jan. 24 Republican debate transcript

Williams: Senator, time is up.

Mayor Giuliani, you have in the past supported a wide array of tax cuts. Do you think it's a mistake that they're not in this package?

Rudy Giuliani: I think it's packaged for -- what it does is OK, and I would support it, but it doesn't go far enough. I think, in the face of what's been going on, which obviously is a matter of serious concern, we should be very aggressive.

Congressman Dreier and Senator Bond introduced legislation -- I think it was yesterday -- that was my tax package. It would be the largest tax reduction in American history. It would take the Bush tax cuts, make them permanent, reduce the corporate tax, reduce the capital gains tax, reduce taxes on those things that would allow business to see America as more competitive.

And you almost don't have a distinction any longer between temporary and permanent in the kind of an economy that we live in.

Look at it this way -- we're a competitive economy. We're competing with the rest of the world. If America overtaxes, if America overspends, if America over-regulates, if America oversues, then business and jobs and money go elsewhere. And we're doing all four of those things.

So Senator McCain is right. We need to put as much emphasis on reducing spending. And this has to be a permanent package. So I hope that this is the beginning of a dialogue where what will happen is major tax reductions, major reductions in spending on the civilian side, a real analysis of our regulations.

Just how much business are we running out of the United States because of the excesses of Sarbanes-Oxley?

There was a report a year ago that showed that London was going to pass New York as the financial capital of the world. As a New Yorker, that was troubling to me. But as an American, it should be troubling to everyone.

Williams: Mr. Mayor, the time is up. The questioning continues with Tim Russert.

Tim Russert: National security, the war in Iraq had been the dominant issue in the campaign until a few weeks ago. And now the economy has taken hold. Ask any of the voters; it's the economy.

Senator McCain, you have said repeatedly, quote, "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."

Is it a problem for your campaign that the economy is now the most important issue, one that by your own acknowledgment you're not well versed on?

McCain: Actually, I don't know where you got that quote from. I'm very well versed in economics. I was there at the Reagan revolution. I was there when we enacted the first -- or just after we enacted the first tax cuts and the restraints on spending.

I was chairman of the Commerce Committee in the United States Senate, which addresses virtually every major economic issue that affects the United States of America. I'm very well versed on economics.

And that's why I have the support of people like Jack Kemp, people like Phil Gramm, people like Warren Rudman, people like Doug Holtz-Eakin, people like Marty Feldstein.

That's why I have a strong team around me that respect my views and my vision. And that's why the Wall Street Journal, in a survey of economists, recently that the majority of economists thought that I could handle the nation's economy best.

And I have been a consistent fighter to restrain spending and to cut taxes. And my credentials and my experience and my knowledge of these economic issues, I think, are extensive and I would match them against anybody who's running.