ABC This Week-Transcript

Interview

ABC This Week-Transcript

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: And we're back with Senator John McCain. He's with us from Jacksonville, Florida on Super Bowl Sunday. Good morning, Senator. I want to get to Social Security in just a second, but let me begin with Secretary Rumsfeld on Iran. It seems like there's some calculated ambiguity in the U.S. policy. We're going to follow a diplomatic course. We're not going to embrace the European initiative. We're not contemplating military action at this time, but we're not taking it off the table. Do you have a clear sense of what U.S. policy is and do you think it's the right policy?

SEN. McCAIN: I think it's one of the most difficult challenges we face. We are obviously militarily occupied in Iraq. This government is an oppressive and repressive one. But one that has great control over the people of Iran. I think that this policy has got some calculated ambiguity to it because we can't take the military option completely off the table. But we can't saber-rattle, either. We have to explore every option possible, including working with the Europeans, including going for sanctions through the U.N. Security Council and other means. Because if we don't exhaust every other option, then we will then not be credible in the world and with the American people. But this is really an enormous challenge and this is a threat to what is looking like a pretty bright horizon in the Middle East, particularly with the Palestinians and the Israelis beginning the peace process.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But do you think the military option is feasible? A lot of people have pointed out that the Iranian nuclear program is dispersed and covert, it can't be taken out.

SEN. McCAIN: I think, you know, from a tactical basis, it would certainly be more difficult than the Iraqi action, air strike against the reactor in Iraq. We probably have the military capability. It would probably entail civilian casualties. You don't know exactly how the Iranians would react. If they're capable, they might strike Israel. This is, as I say, this is a very, very difficult and complex issue. But one of the answers, as the president said, is we should encourage the forces of freedom and democracy in Iran and as the Secretary earlier said, this is a sophisticated society. They were making great progress for awhile and unfortunately they've had significant setbacks.

But this is maybe one of the most difficult and delicate operations that we've been involved in. But the moral of the story is we better do a job a preventing these things from happening before we're presented with almost insoluble dilemmas.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay. Let's turn to Social Security. Two straight talk questions right at the top. Does President Bush have the votes to pass his plan?

SEN. McCAIN: I don't know. I think there's many members of Congress sitting on the fence. There's a number of members of the Senate and the House who are not happy about President Bush coming to a neighborhood near them. (Laughs) So I think it's too early. I think the battle is just being joined.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: And number two, does he have your vote?

SEN. McCAIN: I haven't seen the specific outlines, but I'm certainly with him in principle. I think that for us to wait until 2042 when it's completely bankrupt would be crazy. I think in 2018, if we're going to wait till even then, then we're going to be faced with some stark choices, none of which are acceptable. And I would remind you that we have a federal program for members of Congress and federal employees where you can put up to 10 percent into one of these accounts, one of five, that are in the stock market. And they've paid off between six and ten or eleven percent.

So I don't think that this is an issue that can't be addressed in the way that the president is prescribing it and I think it deserves attention now.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But Senator McCain, that program you're talking about doesn't take the money out of the payroll tax and that's what the president's proposal would do, first of all. Secondly, I know you're been for this for a long time, but in 2000, when you were running for president, the heart of your Social Security reform plan, in addition to private accounts, was paying down the national debt. I want to show you something you said on Larry King at the time:

SEN. McCAIN (On "Larry King, Live"): In town hall meeting after town hall meeting, I have average Americans stand up and say to me: "Senator McCain, all these years, you've been running deficits, we've accumulated this debt. We're paying more interest, as much interest on it as we are spending on national defense. We ought to pay down that debt."

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Since then, the national debt has gone up by two trillion dollars. Independent analysts have said that the president's private accounts would increase the public debt by at least four trillion dollars over the next twenty years. Can you buy off on that kind of increase in the debt?

SEN. McCAIN: I can buy off on a lot of things because I don't know any other answers in order to save Social Security. Let me point out that I wanted to take, when we had a three trillion dollar surplus, two trillion dollars, shove it into Social Security and balance it out, and it would have made things easier. And the reason why I voted against the tax cuts, particularly against the wealthiest Americans, is because we didn't know the cost of the war and with the deficits that we're now running.

I'm glad the president's coming over with a very austere budget. I hope we in Congress will have the courage to support it. But this is a tough issue. But I do not believe that any in Congress will tell you that we should wait until 2018 or 2030 or whatever it is before we address this problem -- is a viable option. And it seems to me that personal savings accounts is a way to start to ameliorate this additional debt we're going to run up by saving Social Security.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But sir, isn't it true that in the short run, at least, and by the short run, I mean 20 years, the public debt is going to be increased by creating these private accounts?

SEN. McCAIN: I think that they will be increased to some degree, although I would think that -- I am confident that once they start coming back, the additional revenues as associated with being invested in reasonable, guarded investment accounts, that that will reduce the deficit that we would otherwise face. We're going to face it. And the question is, do you address it earlier or later?

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: That will only happen, of course, if the overall system is reformed and, as the president outlined on Wednesday night, that's going to include some benefit cuts.

Final straight talk questions, what kind of benefit cuts should future retirees expect?

SEN. McCAIN: I think it depends on when we do it. And first of all, those who oppose this, my question is what is your answer? If we wait till 2018, then we're going to either cut benefits, raise taxes, or some combination of both. I predict to you that this great national debate needs to go on. I think the president is very appropriately trying to address it now. But the opponents owe the American people an alternative solution besides the system going bankrupt over a relatively short period of time.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, I want to put you in a political pickle here. Who's going to win tonight?

SEN. McCAIN: I think the Patriots will probably do that. But I'll tell you, the spirit of these Eagle fans is quite something around here. They waited a long, long time.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Nice straddle, Senator. We'll talk to you soon.

SEN. McCAIN: Thanks.

END.

Source