Clinton: Nevada ‘massively important’ for Kerry

Monday, Nov. 1, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

From Yucca Mountain to homeland security to a livable wage for working Americans, former President Bill Clinton said there are numerous reasons why Nevadans should make fellow Democrat John Kerry the next president.

In an exclusive interview with the Sun en route to a campaign appearance on Saturday for Kerry at the Desert Willow Community Center in Henderson, the nation's 42nd president said that the election Tuesday will be a referendum on Yucca Mountain as it pertains to Nevada.

Clinton said he believes Kerry's stand against the federal government plan to ship 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste to a repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas could help the Massachusetts senator carry Nevada.

Kerry has charged that Republican President Bush went back on his word and ignored sound science by signing off on the plan to bring the radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain. Bush has said that he considered sound science and that he did not break a promise he made to Nevadans when he first ran for the presidency in 2000.

Clinton said the presidential election in Nevada is "an up-or-down referendum on Yucca Mountain" that presents a clear choice between Kerry and Bush.

"When I ran in '92 I told you I would never approve it unless the science was right, and I was never convinced, so I resisted the approval for eight years," Clinton said. "In '92 and '96 the people couldn't have known so they took me on my word and I am grateful.

"When President Bush ran in 2000 he said, 'I won't approve it unless the science is right' and they took him on his word and gave him a narrow victory here as they had given me twice. So in 2002, as soon as (Energy Secretary) Spencer Abraham says everything is fine, he immediately approved it. Nevada took him to court and they said the scientific questions are nowhere near answered, but they're still pushing for Yucca Mountain.

"So Kerry says it won't happen. We know that the Bush administration wants it to happen. So this is the first time Nevadans have had a clear referendum on Yucca Mountain. If George Bush carries Nevada and is elected president, the inescapable conclusion will be that a majority of citizens in this state are willing to take Yucca Mountain. Never mind what the science says. There's no way out of that. That's the vote."

But Clinton said Yucca Mountain alone wouldn't enable Kerry to carry the state. A statewide Las Vegas Sun/Channel 8 Eyewitness News/KNPR Nevada Public Radio poll last month found that only 5 percent of very likely voters said Yucca Mountain would be the most important issue in their vote for president.

Other issues that Clinton believes will help put Kerry over the top in Nevada include the state's high percentage of individuals without health insurance, the high number of personal bankruptcies and inadequate funding for children who attend public schools.

"You've been disproportionately hurt by the fact that the No Child Left Behind act hasn't been funded, and that poor children have been kicked out of after-school programs," Clinton said. "Nevada would be disproportionately benefitted by a Kerry victory by putting more money into eduction.

"Nevada is a state where you can generate enormous numbers of new jobs with clean energy, solar energy, wind energy, other things that would make us less dependent on foreign oil. Kerry will be much more aggressive at pushing that."

Whether the federal minimum wage should be increased from $5.15 an hour, where it has been for seven years, is another issue that separates Bush and Kerry. Bush has said he would consider an increase provided it does not place unreasonable costs on small businesses and other employers.

Kerry has vowed to raise the minimum wage to $7 an hour by 2007, arguing that the current minimum wage represents a 30-year low in purchasing power. The issue is also on the ballot in Nevada in the form of Question 6, a proposed amendment to the Nevada Constitution that would require employers in the state to raise the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour for workers who do not have health care.

"The Republicans always try to put a minimum wage bill in some sort of poison pill," Clinton said. "The last time President Bush supported a minimum wage hike it essentially gave the states the power to opt out of it. The Republicans don't like the minimum wage. They keep saying it costs employment but there is not a shred of evidence that it does.

"If anything, it adds a little bit to employment because minimum wage workers, when they get a hike in their pay, spend all their money. If you want a minimum wage increase, you ought to be for Kerry because he's clearly and unambiguously for it. President Bush has had a Republican Congress. Any time he wanted to raise the minimum wage he could have raised it. They simply don't believe in it. It is not a priority of theirs.

"The idea that I got two big tax cuts and we haven't raised the minium wage is appalling to me. Nobody can really live on the minimum wage we've got now."

Another difference between Bush and Kerry is their take on the future of Community Oriented Policing Services, a federal program Clinton got Congress to approve in 1994 in order to put an additional 100,000 police officers on the nation's streets.

The program has actually resulted in the hiring of more than 118,000 officers at a cost of more than $9 billion since it was instituted. The Bush administration, arguing that the program has already met its goal, has proposed spending just $97 million in the next federal budget on the program for officer training and technology.

Clinton said that while the Bush plan would increase funding for training first responders, it would also eliminate federal funds for 88,000 police officers nationwide.

"I just think that's a terrible, terrible mistake," Clinton said. "Kerry will reinstitute it and also beef up our fire services."

Kerry, arguing that the program has reduced crime and is worthy to retain for the sake of homeland security, believes it should be fully funded so that more officers can be hired. He has said he would provide the funding to hire as many as 100,000 new firefighters and other first responders nationally and train 5,000 more law enforcement officers to handle homeland security in local communities.

Again, Clinton believes Kerry is right on this issue.

"This issue doesn't have much traction in the states that don't feel personally threatened by terror," Clinton said. "But this is a big issue in New York. Most people outside of New York think they're voting for Kerry because it's a big liberal Democratic state. Let me just remind you we have a Republican governor, a Republican state senate and a Republican mayor of New York City. New York is not a liberal Democratic state.

"But Kerry is going to win New York big and one reason is the people of New York, who have paid more than any other people in America in this war on terror, like his security plan better. A big part of it is this whole homeland security, first responder thing.

"The majority of people know that we need to make a new beginning at home. If they can be convinced that their security will not be weakened in the fight against terror or in dealing with the troubles in Iraq by changing presidents, then I think they'll vote for John Kerry."

Clark County Sheriff Bill Young has said that Las Vegas deserves more homeland security funding because of its high profile as the nation's foremost tourist destination. Clinton said arguments such as those made by Young are "compelling" because homeland security money should be distributed to localities based on potential terrorist threat targets or "magnets."

"One of the most disappointing things to me in the Congress is that half of this homeland security money is just purely given out on politics," Clinton said. "They give it out on a per capita basis across the country without any regard to the threat. We shouldn't be giving out half this money because everyone could use a new radio system in their police department. It's nice to do but it's a scandalous waste of money.

"New York is underfunded. Washington, D.C., is underfunded. We underfund a lot of our ports, like the port of New Orleans, the port of Miami and the port of Seattle. Las Vegas would fall in that category."

One facility that Clinton said deserves more funds is McCarran International Airport.

"The reason I'd like to see more done at the airport here is the last thing you want to do is make Las Vegas inhospitable," he said. "You don't want to turn it into an armed camp, where people feel like it will take them three hours to get through the airport.

"I would be looking for non-intrusive ways, like checking the cargo containers or having good camera systems or having good intelligence about who might be in and out."

As for security abroad, Clinton praised Kerry for gaining the support of retired generals and admirals who "like his security plan better than the current administration's plan."

Kerry's plan, according to Clinton, would expand the Army and get more help in Iraq and elsewhere because "it doubles the Special Forces and intensifies efforts against Osama bin Laden and other terrorists."

"It invests more effort in trying to contain the weapons of mass destruction problem in Iran, North Korea, Russia and elsewhere," Clinton said of Kerry's plan.

"It also has a serious homeland security component. Here we are over three years after 9/11 and we're still checking only 5 percent of the cargo containers at our ports and airports. Every security expert says you can't have any deterrent effect at all unless you check a minimum of 10 to 20 percent of them."

Clinton had plenty to say about other topics as well, including a dispute that Hungarian Holocaust survivors have been having with the Bush administration.

American Jews, led by critics such as World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman, have taken the Bush administration to task for failing to support reparations from the United States government for Hungarian Holocaust survivors. Bronfman served as chairman of a bipartisan American Holocaust assets commission that was formed under Clinton.

The survivors in question were victims of plundered treasure at the hands of Nazi occupation during World War II. The so-called Hungarian Gold Train, which included 29 boxcars of gold, silver, art and other family belongings, was confiscated by the U.S. Army but a class action lawsuit representing 30,000 Holocaust survivors was filed in U.S. District Court in Florida seeking up to $150 million in compensation for belongings that were not returned to them.

"I don't understand it," Clinton said. "The Bush administration has presented itself as a great friend of Israel and American Jewry. There's no question that Jews, as a result of the Holocaust and the war, lost billions of dollars of assets.

"Now these families, many of whom are poor Hungarian Jews and some of whom live in Nevada apparently, all they asked for was compensation of $10,000 per family, very modest compensation. In fact, they're entitled to more."

The Justice Department initially chose to fight the lawsuit on grounds that the statute of limitations expired long ago and that the survivors have no legal grounds to sue the federal government. The Justice Department has since changed its tune and announced earlier this month that it would attempt to reach a settlement.

"The Bush administration fought it in court and they're still fighting it," Clinton said. "Finally, as the election draws near they seem to be open to negotiations. I have no explanation for it. This is an administration that is strong on the upper income people and throwing money at other people and I think this is wrong. It shows you an insensitivity that is unforgiveable. I know it's not a big issue in the election but it's a big issue with me.

"I put the credibility of the United States on a totally bipartisan basis out there in the world, that we had to compensate Holocaust victims for the loss of their assets. In the single instance where America owes money the Bush administration has refused to pay up. What was John Ashcroft thinking? They knew the United States led the world in getting other countries to give up $8 billion to compensate these families. Our credibility on this issue has been severely damaged, not only in America but around the world."

Clinton chastised Bush and the Republican Congress for wanting to place more power over health care decisions in the hands of health maintenance organizations and drug companies.

"So they passed a prescription drug bill that had a $40 billion outright subsidy to the drug companies, actually deprived some seniors of the coverage they already had, made it illegal for the government to bargain for lower prices for drugs bought in bulk under Medicare, and tried to get people to take out medical savings accounts," Clinton said.

"What Kerry wants to do is to put more power into the hands of patients and doctors and give individuals and small businesses more options to purchase health care without mandating anything.

"What Kerry wants to do is give Medicare the power to bargain for lower costs for drugs bought in bulk, like the VA (Veterans Administration) hospitals do, allow the reimportation of safe drugs from Canada to provide price competition, and allow small businesses and individuals who don't have health insurance to buy into the federal program, which is a private program. It has over two dozen choices."

The reason Kerry's health care plan makes sense, Clinton said, is that because the federal program would be larger, the administrative cost per policy would be smaller, leading to lower inflationary costs. Clinton also favors an aspect of Kerry's plan that offers reinsurance to policy holders who want to exceed certain limits of health care coverage.

"Kerry's plan is purely voluntary, puts more power into the hands of patients and physicians, gives them more choice," Clinton said. "Bush's plan, I think, is high cost and low coverage because it continues to push people into HMOs and lets the health insurance and drug companies call the shots. So I think Kerry's plan is a lot better."

When asked what a president could do to lower gasoline prices, Clinton said the long-term answer is for the nation to lessen its reliance on foreign oil.

"We need to be driving more hybrid vehicles," he said. "We need to be using more solar power. We need to be using more wind power. We need to be using more efficient insulation materials in our buildings, our homes and our factories. There is right now today a $1 trillion global untapped market for alternative energy technologies."

The problem is that alternative energy entrepreneurs don't have the same access to capital as do "old energy" oil and coal companies, Clinton said.

"The old energy economy, oil and coal, is well organized, well financed and well connected politically," he said. "What people should be focused on is whether they want to be paying these gas prices next year and the year after that and whether they want their children to be political slaves to a dependence on foreign oil.

"Even though the economy is down, so we should be using less energy, we're importing more foreign oil today than we were the day I left office. We need to change direction."

Recent quadruple-bypass heart surgery has not kept Clinton from hitting the campaign trail and speaking his mind on behalf of Kerry as the 2004 election enters the home stretch.

"I feel great," he said. "I get tired fairly easily but otherwise I'm doing great."

After addressing a Kerry rally Friday at the Clark County Government Center, Clinton stayed overnight and had the community center rally on Saturday in Henderson before heading to New Mexico.

Given Nevada's designation as one of the nation's few remaining battleground states in the race between Kerry and Bush, it should surprise no one that Clinton, a skilled campaigner, would want to visit states in play leading up to the election.

These are some of the election scenarios Clinton believes could occur, with 270 electoral votes needed for victory:

"Lets suppose John Kerry wins every state that Al Gore won (in 2000) and New Hampshire. That would give him 264 votes. Then, to win the election, he'd have to win Nevada and Arkansas or Nevada and one other place.

"Lets suppose John Kerry wins Ohio but loses Iowa and Wisconsin. To win the election he'd have to win Nevada.

"If he lost Iowa, Wisconsin and Hawaii, one of the states that is doing better economically because they get huge amounts of defense spending, he'd have to win Nevada and Arkansas.

"If he won Florida but lost Wisconsin and Iowa and Hawaii, he'd have to win Nevada. There are several scenarios under which how Nevada goes will determine the outcome of the presidency. So it's a massively important state."

Bottom line is no one knows who is going to win, including Clinton, who occupied the White House from January 1993 through January 2001.

"No one knows what is going to happen in all these states," Clinton said. "Kerry could win in Ohio and Florida and the election would be over. But Bush could win in Ohio and Florida, in which case Kerry has got to win a bunch of little states. No one knows what is going to happen. I don't have a clue.

"All I can do is try to clarify the choices for people. It's an easy election if people really understand the choices. It's not like these people don't have clear disagreements. They're both very strong people. They are people with convictions. But I think if people clearly understood what the real differences are, they would choose John Kerry."

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