I think by 1994 we probably ought to be able to get to a balanced budget.
But the interesting factor, the President said, President Lix said, I said no to taxes.
And the only way he's going to get taxes is almost to get down on his knees and say to
the Congress of the United States, this is my program and I'm asking for it.
How do you put new educational programs in?
How do you put in new childcare programs in if you don't get fresh currency?
The currency, the money is not there for those programs unless he goes the tax route, which
he says he's not going to go.
And that is one of his great problems that he faces.
And indeed the dialogue between the President-elect and the Congress on the tax issue obviously
is going to be a rather long one.
It is 42 minutes after the hour.
Mason Dixon line.
Do, does Trent Lott look to you like politically speaking the man of the future, conservative,
Republican, Southern?
Well, he's the man of the hour for Mississippi.
I assume that's right.
Thank you both.
On the other hand, Congressman Lott, do Democrats like Bob Carey over there spell trouble for
George Bush to use the words of Senator Bob Dole?
Well, I think it's not the right time to be talking about trouble.
I think what we ought to be talking about is what can we do working together to help
our country and to move our country forward in prosperity and every other way.
So I don't look at it as a negative thing.
I think we ought to be looking positively right now.
Who is going to be making that first positive overture when you all get together?
Will that come from the executive branch or from the Hill?
Well, I think it doesn't help if the Congress starts off talking negatively.
But I think the first overture does need to come from the new President of the United
States.
And I'm sure George Bush is going to be very aggressive in trying to work with the Congress,
both houses of the Congress.
Governor Carey, what do you need to hear from the Vice President, the President-elect?
Well, I think that's what Trent is absolutely right.
We're going to need to see from the President a willingness to take on some of the responsibilities
for solving America's problems.
In particular, not just shove off upon the Congress those of the most unpleasant.
We face some major problems, not only with the fiscal deficit, but with the trade deficit,
and an awful lot of problems at home.
One of your opening questions referenced why is it that Democrats do well at the state
level.
Well, an awful lot of that has to do with our understanding that most of the problems
are going to be solved here at home.
Our schools, our environment, our agriculture problems are likely to be solved here at home,
and we've got to make that effort here.
Congressman Lott, what do you think, and I'm going to guess that some Reagan appointees
in Washington by the hundreds, if not the thousands, are a little nervous this morning
when they hear George Bush's Chief of Staff talking about putting their own men and women
in those slots.
Why aren't Reagan appointees going to be good enough?
Do you think they'll be more conservative or less?
Well, I think some of them will be the same, but I think that George Bush and his administration
will take a fresh look and try to bring in some new fresh people, and that's important.
But remember this, our new President George Bush is experienced.
I think that's one of the reasons why he won.
I think that's why I won in Mississippi, and he ran on some very important values in the
American people's mind.
George Bush will be able to work with the Congress.
He'll also put together a good team in Washington because he knows how to get the job done there.
Did you hear Tony Coelho earlier on the program say that he'll govern as a moderate?
He may, but that's in the eye of the beholder.
I think that people are looking for leadership that has some values they stand for.
You may describe them as liberal, moderate, or conservative, but the main thing is to
have some direction and some things we do stand for and we're willing to fight for.
That's the way the people in Mississippi voted this year.
I think that's why they voted for George Bush, and I think that's why they voted for
Trent Lock.
All right, gentlemen, once again, our congratulations.
We'll be seeing more of you.
In a moment, we'll see how many of those propositions on ballots across the country may have after
we take station break.
KCRA, the home of live camera 3.
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Not all the votes cast on Tuesday were for candidates.
Voters in 41 states also marked their ballots for or against a number of propositions and
referendum.
Subjects range from auto insurance and gun control to abortions and AIDS.
For some of the outcomes, we welcome Dr. David McAuley back for the second consecutive morning.
He's a professor of political science at Brigham Young University and the author of
a book on propositions.
Dr. McAuley is in our Salt Lake City affiliate, KU-TV.
Good morning again.
Good morning, Brian.
Do proposition vote totals generally correlate directly with the turnout or they lag farther
behind?
Well, there is some what we call drop off.
A good question.
It depends upon the complexity and length of the ballot.
It can be as high as 20% of those who turn out to vote not voting on some ballot proposition.
So, it would vary by state.
But yesterday, given the number of measures, I suspect there was a lot of drop off on ballot
propositions in a state like California.
Since we're only going to do a couple of minutes on this, we're going to oversimplify some
of the measures a great deal.
But let's review some of the major ones.
In Maryland, for example, gun control to keep the ban on cheap handguns, the voters voted
yes.
This is a big defeat for the NRA?
That's a big defeat for the NRA and a big victory for folks who want to ban Saturday
night specials.
As I said yesterday, if it did pass, I thought it would give courage to state legislatures
around the country to do what Maryland did.
Yeah.
California auto insurance.
There were five measures out there.
The major ones, no on reducing car insurance premiums, no on reforming rate settings.
Is that a big win for the auto insurance folks?
Well, in many ways it is.
But I think it speaks to the complexity of that California ballot.
I think voters resulted to voting no on all of them because it became so complicated.
What are the national implications of California's votes on AIDS?
They said no on the required reporting of positive AIDS tests, but yes on AIDS tests
for certain crimes.
How do you read that?
Well, I think that they were very different measures.
I think California voters behaved responsibly certainly with respect to the one of rape
victims and police officers who were assaulted.
They certainly deserve the right to know if their assailant has the disease.
On the other measure, lots and lots of folks came out against it.
I think that that is a sign that it was seen as a civil liberties issue.
Abortion was on the ballot in three states, in Michigan, Arkansas, and Colorado.
And in each case, the voters decided yes to ban state-financed abortions.
This is another one of those yes, no that's terribly caught up in semantics.
Brian, is this clearly a victory for the anti-abortion forces?
It is, and in fact it's a reversal of the trend we'd seen up through 88 where the pro-choice
folks had been winning these kinds of state funding of abortion referendums.
I think this is the issue, Brian, that we're going to see over and over again in 1990 and
perhaps beyond.
The anti-abortion forces will take some victory here in these three and I think go to several
other states with similar measures.
Another one that we're certain to see come up again is nuclear power.
We had votes in two states.
Massachusetts voted no on shutting down nuclear power plants.
Nebraska voted no on ending interstate nuclear waste disposal.
That's kind of a mixed signal there, isn't it?
Yeah, I think it is, but they were very different measures.
The Nebraska one had to do with an interstate compact that had been there for some time
and I think was seen as a commitment the state had already made and ought to be lived up
to.
The Massachusetts one was a way to decide whether or not to proceed with the generation
of nuclear power.
Lots of money was spent to defeat it, consistent with what we were talking about yesterday.
Yeah, final note.
Once defeated, are these propositions dead and buried or can they simply pop up time
and time again?
Oh, they pop up time and time again and in fact in initiative politics you win by losing,
Brian, because by virtue of getting on the ballot and getting you and me to talk about
them the morning after, they've succeeded in setting the agenda.
As one comic says, what a country.
David, Dr. David McAvee, thank you very much.
It will not be as exciting socially because a lot of those people have been around for
years and years and years and I think if Dukakis had come in there would have been a lot more
excitement because it's just a new energy, a new addition, new blood.
But I do think that the Bush people's, I mean this sounds ironic, but I think that the Bush
administration will be much more democratic in the way it handles its social events and
the kind of social tone because I think that's the kind of person Barbara Bush is and I think
she's going to have a great deal of influence on who comes to the White House and who's
in favor and I think the kinds of people that she has as friends are people who are just
ordinary nice people, people who she's known, people from the Hill, people in the Senate,
Senate wives like her a great deal.
So I think that it won't be nearly as exciting and glitzy as it was during the Reagan administration
but I think it will be a lot calmer and it will be a lot more real Washington.
Sally, do you think that the Washington social scene helps set policy?
I think people outside of Washington don't have any idea how valuable the social scene
is in Washington.
When you talk about social scene it always sounds so frivolous but what people don't
understand is that it's not, people don't go out for fun.
They go out because they're working.
This is just an extension of the working day and when they go out at night they make contacts,
they make deals, they get together with each other and it promotes communication, particularly
when you have a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House and a Republican administration.
Oftentimes those people have no way to get together or meet each other except at dinner
or at night where they can have informal conversations.
Sally Quinn, thank you so much for joining us.
Sick words, a democracy has to offer, the people have spoken.
You spent the evening with your dad as he went over the top, tell us what it was like.
Well it was a little tense early until some of the big Midwestern states started going
his way and at that point all the burdens of campaigning left our shoulders and we started
to celebrate.
Frankly the impact of the election has not sunk in yet Brian.
We're all wondering what it means to our private lives, we all know what it means to the country
though and it's good news.
I'm proud to say that we not only will continue to have a Democratic Congress but it looks
as if a strengthened Democratic Senate.
If there's any good news to be found this morning where is it?
Well I think it's to be found in the Senate, in the House and the governorships, it's at
every level, we're doing very well.
Sort of like a McDonald's election, no Big Mac, no mandate, no agenda, no coattails.
How deeply would I have to scratch to find some anger in you toward Michael Dukakis for
not running a better campaign?
No not me, I've seen what these people go through and I think we're fortunate that we
have people like Mike Dukakis and George Bush that are willing to sacrifice and their families
are willing to sacrifice.
This is an ordeal.
Thank you all.
Mr. Lieberman what as we speak is your lead over Senator Weicker?
Well Jane the lead is variously estimated as between 7,500 and 15,000.
It's a small close win but nobody thought I ever had any chance so I'm glad if I win
by 10 votes.
But when it was official and you were the governor-elect, who did you turn to, your
wife or your dad?
Oh I turned to both Jane.
How's that for somebody who grew up in a political household?
When you talk about finding this common ground that Democrats must find with the president-elect,
where do you think they might find the most fertile possibilities?
Well when he said that he wanted to have a more gentle and kind nation.
A campaign is a disagreement and disagreements divide but an election is a decision and decisions
clear the way for harmony and peace.
It's been a long morning.
Good morning we hope.
Hope you've enjoyed it.
We'll see you tomorrow.
We're going to a pretty place called Chepaенсky.