My Plan's Better Than Your Plan

By Michael Kinsley

JIM LEHRER: You recently described your opponent as "a disgusting, wormlike excuse for a human being." What did you mean by that?

THE CANDIDATE: I have never criticized my opponent in personal terms. This election should be about the issues and my plan and his plan. What I was referring to in that remark is the fact that my plan is better than his plan.

Let me tell you about my plan. Under my plan, $17.1 trillion. All current seniors would be put in a lockbox. My opponent has said $63.4 billion, but that's simply wrong. He is misrepresenting my plan. My plan is $17.1 trillion and all seniors in a lockbox. And I will veto anyone--anyone, Jim, I feel very strongly about this--veto anyone who says otherwise. Putting seniors in a lockbox will be my Administration's No. 1 priority.

So you take that $17.1 trillion, saute it lightly for 40 years and divide by 5, by which time 2.3 million schoolchildren will be reaching retirement age without being able to read the labels on their prescription drugs. My opponent's plan would ignore this problem for the first 23 months and then take the first derivative times 6%--oh, yes you would! Yes you would! I've read your plan--but under my plan, every citizen of this country would multiply 19 by 7 and get a very large number. And I believe the American people can be trusted to perform this math for themselves, because under my plan they will be tested every 15 minutes, unlike my opponent's plan, which would test them every 20 minutes. Testing every American as often as possible will be my Administration's special No. 1 priority.

Finally, under my plan, I would run my plan past Alan Greenspan and toss the whole thing out if he doesn't like it. My opponent's plan claims to run itself past Alan Greenspan, but if you study the details, it really doesn't. My plan would run my plan past Alan Greenspan at least 3 1/2 times as often as my opponent's plan. Checking with Alan Greenspan will be my Administration's superspecial priority gold No. 1 priority.

Now let me tell you about my opponent's plan. His plan calls for 14 trillion minus 7 in just six years. And no lockbox. Even worse, under my opponent's plan, 81% of all seniors. And the square root of 54 whatsoever. In my view, that is totally inadequate. It's not a good plan. We can do better. I wouldn't even call his plan a plan. I'd call it a fuzzy plan. Or no plan at all, because just six years from now is six years away. The American people are tired.

One of them is in this auditorium. A triple amputee from Benton Harbor, Mich., she used her one remaining hand to drag herself along the interstate all the way to Boston so she could be with us here tonight. And this is her story. She's an heiress of an agribusiness fortune who set up a tax shelter in the Cayman Islands, only to find that she'd missed a filing deadline under the needlessly complex S.A.Y.W.H.A.T. law--and I thank my opponent for supporting this valuable legislation. But I think that's wrong, just plain wrong, and as President I would not interfere.

I know we're 47 minutes over the 2 min. 17.3 sec. allowed under the commission rules for the second rebuttal to the first candidate's reply to the opponent's indignant explosion of outrage at the first candidate's outrageous lies and character assassination, but I cannot let my worthy opponent criticize my plan as he has done. My lovely, lovely plan. My darling plan. I just love my plan. My plan is better than his plan, quite frankly.

And let me tell you why. This is a crucial election. My opponent would use 63.5% of the surplus over 23 years. I say that's not good enough. America's working families are entitled to 64.1% over 26 years. That's a big difference.

And one other thing the American people should know about my plan: I will never, ever ask working families to entrust their kids' education to an HMO. Under my opponent's plan, HMOs will be free to continue accepting patients and even to treat their ailments under some circumstances. That is unacceptable. It is not part of my plan.

It saddens me that my opponent has chosen to engage in negative personal attacks such as saying my plan isn't better than his plan. We should be discussing the issues, such as the fact that my plan is a better plan, not engaging in irresponsible innuendo, such as implying that my plan is not a better plan. Any problems he may have with my plan are a personal matter and have no place in the public debate.

Michael Kinsley is editor of Slate.com