Joe Biden

Transcript: Joe Biden during the third Democratic 2008 presidential primary debate (June 28, 2007) (the All-American Presidential Forum on PBS moderated by Tavis Smiley held at Howard University in Washington, DC)

SEN. BIDEN: The answer to your question: It is still the defining issue. And the decision today -- look at the minority views. The minority stated, had the rationale that was applied by the majority been applied the last 50 years, we would have never, never overcome the state’s effort to ignore Brown versus the Board.

But we can do something about it, and the place to start is through the next president of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. As some of you know, some of the people out on this stage and the press criticized me for being awful tough on Justice Roberts and awful tough on Alito; the problem was the rest of us weren’t tough enough on them. (Applause.) They have turned the court upside down, and the next president of the United States will be able to determine whether or not we go forward or continue this slide. It’s the single most imperative generational decision the next president will make, and you better pick the right person to make it. (Applause.)

MR. WICKHAM: Thank you, Tavis. This question is about the link between education and poverty. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2006 the unemployment rate of black high school graduates -- black high school graduates -- was 33 percent higher than the unemployment rate for white high school dropouts. To what do you attribute this inequity, which keeps many black families locked in the grip of poverty?

SEN. BIDEN: You know, DeWayne, one of the things that we all talk about is this achievement gap. We should remind everybody that the day before a black child, a minority child, steps into the classroom, half the achievement gap already exists. That is, they already start behind. So the moment they walk into that school, they are already behind.

And that gap widens. And it widens because we do not start school earlier. We do not give single mothers in disadvantaged homes the opportunities that they need in order to know what to do to prepare their children. A mother who talks to her child on a regular basis from infancy to being a toddler, that child when it’s two years old will have a vocabulary 300 words more than a child not talked to.

So it’s simple. You’ve got to start off and focus on the nurturing and education of children when they’re very young, particularly children from disadvantaged families. You’ve got to invest in starting kids in preschool at age four. They have a 20 percent better chance of graduating when they’re there. And you’ve got to make sure, as you go through the system, you have smaller classrooms, better teachers in the disadvantaged schools.

MR. SMILEY: Senator Biden.

SEN. BIDEN: It’s a -- time’s up. Thank you.

MS. MARTIN: Thank you, Tavis. Good evening, Governor. Good evening, candidates. I’m sure you’ll agree there are a lot of beautiful young people out here in the audience today, and we’re very pleased to be here at Howard University. So you can imagine how disturbed we were to find out from the Centers for Disease Control that African-Americans, though 17 percent of all American teenagers, they are 69 percent of the population of teenagers diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Governor and candidates, what is the plan to stop and to protect these young people from this scourge?

SEN. BIDEN: I will try to answer your question directly. You said, how do we prevent -- prevent -- these 17-year-olds from getting AIDS, HIV, how do you prevent that. All the things that were said here are good ideas; they don’t prevent that. What’s happened is there is a policy of neglect, denial and lack of honesty out there. The fact of the matter is, what Hillary points out, there’s neglect on the part of the medical and the white community focusing on educating the minority community out there.

I spent last summer going through the black sections of my town, holding rallies in parks, trying to get black men to understand it is not unmanly to wear a condom, getting women to understand they can say no, getting people in the position where testing matters. I got tested for AIDS. I know Barack got tested for AIDS. (Laughter.) There’s no shame in being tested for AIDS. It’s an important thing.

Because the fact of the matter is, in the community, in the communities engaged in denial, they’re engaged in denial, no one wants to talk about it in the community, and we do not have enough leaders, in the community and outside the community, demanding we face the reality, confront the men in the community, as well as the women, letting them know there are alternatives. (Applause.)

SEN. OBAMA: Tavis, Tavis, Tavis, I just got to make clear -- I got tested with Michelle. (Laughter, applause.)

MR. SMILEY: Ah.

SEN. OBAMA: In -- when we were in Kenya in Africa. So I want to --

MR. SMILEY: All right.

SEN. OBAMA: I don’t want any confusion here about what’s going on. (Applause continues.)

MR. SMILEY: All right.

SEN. BIDEN: And I got tested to save my life, because I had 13 pints of blood transfusion.

SEN. OBAMA: I was tested with my wife.

MR. SMILEY: And I’m sure Michelle appreciates you clarifying it.

SEN. OBAMA: In public. (Laughter.)

MR. NAVARRETTE: Thank you, Tavis. This week billionaire Warren Buffett said that the very wealthy aren’t taxed nearly enough. In fact, he noted -- (applause) -- in fact, he noted that he’s taxed at a lower rate than some of his employees, who earn much less. Do you agree that the rich aren’t paying their fair share of taxes? And if so, what would you do about it?

SEN. BIDEN: Warren -- Warren Buffett is right. I would eliminate the tax cut for the wealthy. They didn’t ask for it, as someone earlier said. They don’t need it. They’re as patriotic as anyone else if you ask them, and we’ve asked nothing of them.

The second point is, understand what happened this last election, in 2000. The first time in our history since we had the federal income tax, there was a fundamental shift of the burden from (sic) people who are wage earners away from people who are investors.

For the first time in our history, we’re in a position where those who are the wage-earners are paying a bigger chunk than they should. It’s got to shift back, and the basis for them doing that is they really believe the wealthy know better. They think we don’t know how -- average folks don’t know how to make the economy work. It’s all about their ideology. It’s got to fundamentally change. You have to tax investment and you’ve got to give a break, a break to wage-earners.

MR. WICKHAM: Okay. Okay, please stay with me on this one. According to FBI data, blacks were roughly 29 percent of persons arrested in this country between 1996 and 2005. Whites were 70 percent of people arrested during this period. Yet at the end of this 10-year period, whites were 40 percent of those who were inmates in this country, and blacks were approximately 38 percent. What does this data suggest to you?

SEN. BIDEN: As you well know, the bulk of the inequity’s at the state level, not at the federal level, number one.

Number two, we need diversion out of the system. I’m the guy that wrote the drug court legislation that is in the law right now.

Number three, you have to eliminate the disparity between crack and powdered cocaine. I’ve introduced legislation to do that, one to one, no difference.

And number four, you have to find a way in which you insist from a federal level that the states in fact apply the law equally -- they don’t -- through the Speedy Trial Act. The states -- 650,000 people coming out of the jail in the state prisons --

MR. SMILEY: Senator --

SEN. BIDEN: Three hundred thousand will come out addicted from the prison this year.

MS. MARTIN: Okay. The question is, would you support a federal law guaranteeing the right to return to New Orleans and other Gulf regions devastated by Hurricane Katrina, based on the United Nations human rights standards governing the internal displacement of citizens -- and I can go further -- that includes the requirement that authorities establish conditions and provides the means to allow internally displaced persons to return voluntarily in safety and dignity?

SEN. BIDEN: The U.S. Constitution should be sufficient. We don’t need to go to the United Nations; all we got to do is step up. We got to step up and pay to rebuild those firehouses, pay to bring those cops back, pay to rebuild those hospitals. It is a nation’s problem, it is not the problem merely of the people of Louisiana or New Orleans. This is an American city incapable on its own of doing this. (Applause.) It’s an American problem. We should guarantee the reconstruction.

MR. NAVARRETTE: A lot of Americans are concerned with outsourcing of U.S. jobs. Most corporations, I think it’s fair to say, don’t share that concern. In fact, they argue that we’re living in a global economy and Americans have to compete in that environment. Which side are you on? And if you agree that outsourcing is a problem, what’s your solution?

SEN. BIDEN: I agree with everything that was said here. But the bottom line here is that eliminating the tax breaks is not going to keep jobs here in America. We’ve got to make it more attractive to have jobs here in America and for corporations to be here.

You’ve got to take the burden off the corporations with a health care system that’s universal, so we’re not at a competitive disadvantage. You’ve got to have a better education system to provide for the highest-tech jobs that we educate our folks for, so we’re not importing 400,000 computer engineers to work in Silicon Valley. And you’ve got to deal with the innovation and infrastructure needs in this country -- tunnels, bridges, et cetera -- which we haven’t done to make us more competitive.

MR. WICKHAM: This question is about Darfur. This is the second time that our nation has had a chance to do something about genocide in Africa. The first came in Rwanda in 1994, when we did nothing as more than a half a million people were slaughtered there. What does this country’s unwillingness to move aggressively to end the slaughters that take place in Darfur today -- what does it say about our claim to moral leadership?

SEN. BIDEN: I have been calling for three years to stop talking and start acting. We don’t have to wait to get out of Iraq to regain our moral authority. We’ve lost part of our moral authority because we stood by and watched this carnage. And if need be, if the rest of the world will not act, we should, and should have already -- two years ago -- imposed a no-fly zone, and we should have two years ago, absent the willingness of the rest of the world to act, put American troops on the ground to stop the carnage. (Applause.)

Read Joe Biden's transcript from the first primary debate here

Read Joe Biden's transcript from the second primary debate here

2008 Democratic Candidates:

Joe Biden
Hillary Clinton
Christopher Dodd
John Edwards
Mike Gravel
Dennis Kucinich
Barack Obama
Bill Richardson