The Census Bureau...

CHENEY: I think it goes to Senator Edwards.

IFILL: It goes to the Senator. I see you. I just asked him about Israel, even though we didn't actually talk about it much.

CHENEY: I concede the point.

(LAUGHTER)

EDWARDS: No, I did talk about it, Israel. He's the one who didn't talk about it.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, the Census Bureau ranked Cleveland as the biggest poor city in the country, 31 percent jobless rate.

You two gentlemen are pretty well off. You did well for yourselves in the private sector. What can you tell the people of Cleveland, or people of cities like Cleveland, that your administration will do to better their lives?

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, there are several things that I think need to be done and are being done.

We've, of course, been through a difficult recession, and then the aftermath of 9/11, where we lost over a million jobs after that attack. But we think the key is to address some basic, fundamental issues that the president's already working on.

I think probably the most successful thing we can do with respect to ending poverty is to get people jobs. There's no better antidote to poverty than a good, well-paying job that allows somebody to take care of their own family.

To do that, we have to make America the best place in the world to do business. And that means we've got to deal effectively with tax policy. We've got to reduce the litigation costs that are built into our society. We've got to provide the adequate medical care and make certain that we can, in fact, create the opportunities that are vital to that process.

I'd zero in, in particular, on education. I think the most important thing we can do is have a first-class public school system. I'm a product of public schools.

And the president, his first legislative priority was the No Child Left Behind Act. It was the first piece of legislation we introduced.

We got it passed that first summer on a bipartisan basis. We even had Ted Kennedy on board for the effort.

And it does several things. It establishes high standards. It, at the same time, sets up a system of testing with respect to our school system, so we can establish accountability to parents and make certain that they understand how well their students are doing. And they have the opportunity to move students out of poorly performing schools to good schools.

It strikes me that that is absolutely the heart of what needs to be done from the standpoint of education.

It's also important, as we go forward in the next term, we want to be able to take what we've done for elementary education and move it into the secondary education.

It's working. We've seen reports now of a reduction in the achievement gap between majority students and minority students. We're making significant progress.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: Gwen, your question was about jobs?

IFILL: It was about jobs, and it was about poverty.

EDWARDS: I thought it was about jobs and poverty. I hope we get a chance to talk about education, but that's what the vice president talked about.

Here's what's happened: In the time that they have been in office, in the last four years, 1.6 million private sector jobs have been lost, 2.7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. And it's had real consequences in places like Cleveland.

Cleveland is a wonderful, distinguished city that's done a lot of great things, but it has the highest poverty rate in the country. One out of almost two children in Cleveland are now living in poverty.

During the time that the vice president and the president have been in office, 4 million more Americans have fallen into poverty.

During the time that the vice president and the president have been in office, 4 million more Americans have fallen into poverty.

And what the most striking and startling thing is, they are the first presidency in 70 years -- and I'm talking Democrats, Republican, presidents who led us through World War, through the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Cold War -- every one of them created jobs until this president.

We have to do better. We have a plan. We're going to get rid of -- by the way, they're for outsourcing jobs. I want to make sure people hear that, the fundamental difference with us. The administration says over and over that the outsourcing of millions of American jobs is good. We're against it.

We want to get rid of tax cuts for companies sending jobs overseas. We want to balance this budget, get back to fiscal responsibility. And we want to invest in the creative, innovative jobs of the future.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

CHENEY: Gwen, we've got 111 million American taxpayers that have benefited from our income tax cuts.

We've got 33 million students who've benefited from No Child Left Behind.

We've got 40 million seniors who benefited from the reform of the Medicare system. The Democrats promised prescription drug benefits. For years they've run on that platform. They never got it done. The president got it done.

We also dropped 5 million people totally off the federal income tax rolls, so they no longer have to pay any federal income tax at all.

So the story, I think, is a good one.

And the data he's using is old data. It's from 2003. It doesn't include any of the gains that we've made in the last years. We've added 1.7 million jobs to the economy.

IFILL: Thirty seconds.

EDWARDS: The vice president and president like to talk about their experience on the campaign trail. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Millions have fallen into poverty. Family incomes are down, while the cost of everything is going up.

Medical costs are up the highest they've ever been over the last four years. We have this mess in Iraq.

Mr. Vice President, I don't think the country can take four more years of this kind of experience.