A John Edwards Presidency

1 January 2007 @ 13:49 | Posted in » Politics

In case you missed it this past week, John Edwards announced he is running for president.

All one needs to know about Edwards and what he would do as president is found in his interview with George Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos: What you’re calling for is going to cost money.

Edwards: Cost money, absolutely.

Stephanopoulos: Cost a lot of money.

Edwards: Let me speak to that. There is a tension between the desire, which I have myself, of getting us out of this ditch we’re in fiscally and, at the same time, doing the things that I believe we need to do to transform America to be effective in the 21st century.

Energy, I talked about energy already, universal healthcare, which you just mentioned just a moment ago, strengthening the middle class, doing things to lift 37 million people out of poverty, all those things cost money.

Stephanopoulos: And that means you have to put deficit reduction on hold.

Edwards: It means you cannot do about the deficit what you’d like to do, that’s true.

Stephanopoulos: And you’re willing to make that choice.

Edwards: I have said for the last two days, in town hall meetings all across this country, when asked this question, I have said there’s a tension between those two. If I were choosing now between which is more important, I think the investments are more important.

First of all, we can’t let the deficit get worse. We’d like to see it reduced. But I do not believe we can reduce it as substantially as we’d love to see done for the long-term fiscal and economic health of America and do the other things that need to be done, too.

Stephanopoulos: And on trade, no more free trade agreements, unless there are labor protections and environmental protections.

Edwards: Can I be really precise about this? Because this gets muddled over a lot.

I think trade is important, important for America, very important to the developing world, where I’ve spent some time over the last couple of years, and I have a personal investment in seeing those countries and those people be lifted up.

So I think trade matters. What I really believe is we need a trade policy that has labor and environmental protections that are achievable by those countries. If they’re being used as a ruse to create a protectionist barrier, then I am not for that.

Stephanopoulos: But what if those countries say you may think they’re achievable, they don’t and they don’t define it under the agreement.

Edwards: That’s what negotiations are about. The negotiations between us and these countries, that’s what they’re about.

What we’ve done, though, we have caved on those kind of standards in the past. I don’t think we can do that. I don’t think we should do that. I’m not for protectionism.

Stephanopoulos: Mrs. Edwards said you are more progressive than John Kerry.