RAY SUAREZ: The United States is now trying to get help from the United Nations in the form of a resolution to internationalize the mission in Iraq. How much decision-making power can the United States share, while at the same time urging other countries to share the cost and share the risk of being there?

RAY SUAREZ: Ambassador Moseley Braun, several of the earlier speakers mentioned that our traditions don't involve American troops ever serving under shared or foreign command.

Given the situation currently, and given the United States' effort to internationalize the load, carrying the load in Iraq, is it time to revisit that standard?

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: Let me slightly answer your question a different way. Let me mention a name that probably nobody has heard in a long time. And that's Osama bin Laden–“bin missing.”

We haven't been looking for him because we got off on the wrong track. And we got on the wrong track in large part because the Constitution's guidance in this regard–Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution–calls on the Congress to declare war. That didn't happen in this case. And the resolution allowed this president to go off hell-bent for leather on this what I've called a misadventure that has really–now is beginning to come back. The chickens are beginning to come home to roost.

The fact of the matter is, however, that we don't cut and run. Americans don't cut and run. We have to support our troops in the field. I think supporting them not only means giving the command on the ground what they need but even supplies. I spoke to the mother of a young man who's serving abroad, serving in Iraq now, and she was complaining about the fact that they don't even have the things they need in the field. So we are in a position now in which we have–this administration has frittered away the goodwill, failed to go after Al Qaeda and bin Laden, thumbed their nose at old Europe and the international community, left our troops in the field without the resources they need and put us in a situation in which they have no answer for the American people how we can get out with honor.

It seems to me that that is the challenge. And so I welcome the international community. I am grateful that they are considering some burden sharing here. I hope that it will allow us, within the tradition of U.S. command and control over our own forces, allow us to extricate ourselves with honor but continue a viable war on terrorism that gets bin Laden and his pals and all the people who would do harm to the American people.

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Let's talk about the economy.

So the economy is growing slightly. The number of jobs is continuing to decline. And unemployment has risen faster for Hispanics than any other sector of the country. Right now, it stands at 8.2 percent. What would you do as president of the United States to remedy the situation?

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Thank you, Senator. Ambassador Moseley Braun, he's saying to repeal the tax cuts in 2002, 2003. Do we ask people to give the money back?

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: No. No, you'll never get it back. The point is – The point is, we are witnessing for the first time in recent history embedded wealth, entrenched poverty and a shrinking middle class in America. And the only way we can turn that around is to end the trickle-down economics that have given the wealthiest Americans more money than they can even reasonably use and give people opportunity to support themselves and their families. If you invest in the masses of the people, you can create jobs and create the kind of stimulus for the economy that will give prosperity to everybody.

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Well, how do you create those jobs?

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: You do it–well, when I was in the Senate, I proposed rebuilding our nation's crumbling schools. That's one way. A second way is to begin to rebuild traditional infrastructure–roads and bridges and the like. Another way, which I find very exciting, is to invest in environmental technologies–technology transfer, creating incentives for people– for entrepreneurs to create whole new industries and environmental technologies that, frankly, will not only preserve our air and our water and our soil here, and deal with energy shortfalls and difficulties, but also give us product to sell to the rest of the world.

I want to finish up with one other point. I am also very concerned about the pay gap–what I call the sticky floor–on which many women, who are sole providers often for their families, are stuck.

Women–right now, you've heard 76 cents on the dollar. That's for Anglo women. African-American women, it's about 67 cents on the dollar. And Hispanic women, it's about 56 cents on the dollar. You can't use 56 cents to buy a dollar loaf of bread. You have to be able to support your families. And getting rid of this pay equity–of the pay inequities and leveling the playing field between men and women in terms of the amount of money that they earn, that they can–with which they can support their families is a real priority and will be a priority in my administration.

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Forty-one million Americans do not have access to medical care or health care.

One-third of Hispanics of the 38 million Hispanics in this country do not have health care. At a time of record federal government deficits, how can this country bring the number of uninsured down?

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: You have said in the past that all Americans should have health insurance through the government. That's a national health insurance. How do you pay for it?

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: The way that you get universal coverage is that you have a single-payer system.

And if you have a single-payer system, then you will be able to cover everybody. Everybody in this country already gets health care. If you fall out and you don't have insurance, somewhere you will be cared for. Probably in an emergency room. It'll probably be the most expensive care you can get. And the cost will just get shifted throughout the system to other payers–many times, people who pay for insurance through their employer. What I've proposed is a single-payer system that will take advantage of the fact that we are already paying 15 percent of our gross domestic product on health care, de-couple it from employment so that it's not a burden on job creation, it's not a burden on small businesses, it doesn't come out of the payroll tax, which is the most regressive tax, to begin with. And with the revenue that we have from that, from that 15 percent, we can then afford a system much like the federal employees have under what's called FEHBP, a federal system in which you have a single payer but the administration takes place by the companies that individuals choose.

The most important part of this is that the physician or the provider and patient relationship has to be central to the health care system. Because if you do that, then you will have a dynamic in favor of quality of care and taking care of patients and people's illnesses–or wellness as well, frankly, because prevention is a big part of this. But you will have a dynamic in favor of quality that the current profit-driven system does not have.

We are wasting an awful lot of money on profit on the one hand and disconnects between the different public system on the one hand, private system on the other. We're wasting an awful lot of money that could be better put to provide us with a rationalized system, a single-payer system of health care for everybody.

RAY SUAREZ: A quick response from Ambassador Braun.

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: I want to take issue. A single-payer system will not raise taxes on the middle class. And indeed, the plan I've proposed will free up middle-class incomes because it'll take some of the pressure off of the payroll tax. We can fund this within current spending without raising taxes. And I think it's very important that people understand this is not new tax burden on anybody. This is universal health care in a way that makes sense.

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: We're nearing the end of the debate so let's try to be brief with our answers. We're going on to the next subject.

It seems like politicians nowadays are afraid to use the A-word, amnesty, as if it were a contagious disease. So let's talk about legalization or regularization of undocumented workers.

Would you support legalizing undocumented immigrants in this country?

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: (Speaking in Spanish) About 39 states have already discussed or debated giving undocumented immigrants access to driver's licenses. The California legislature just approved it and Governor Davis is about to sign it. How do you stand on that?

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: Let me say, the amnesty–I would agree with legalization. But the real issue is our relations with the rest of this hemisphere. And this administration has missed the boat altogether. They have turned their backs. We should be reaching out to the rest of this hemisphere. We should be welcoming people to this country. And instead of pandering to fear, as the Ashcroft and–the Bush-Ashcroft administration has done, they have pandered to fear since 9/11 and they use that as an excuse really to shut down opportunities for people to share in the American dream who want to, hardworking people who are willing to contribute–who are contributing to this country.

MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Well, what about for those who live here now?

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: That's correct. Well, those who live ought to have their status–ought to be able to get driver's license, ought to be able to participate as citizens participate. We need to be normalize our relations with documented, as well as undocumented people who are here in the United States. And I think that really moving away from the kind of–again, the fear that has characterized this administration's approach to these issues is the first step that we have to take.

My late mother used to say, it doesn't matter if you came to this country on the Mayflower or a slave ship, across the Rio Grande or through Ellis Island, we are all in the same boat now. And this election– this election really does pit which direction our country is going to head. Are we going to put ourselves in a position to move forward, to reach out to others, to resolve these issues instead of having people locked up and their phones tapped and their e-mails tapped and locked up in secret arrests and the like?

Instead of doing that, can't we begin to reconcile our relations with others, to work well with others at the international community to begin to restore the kind of hope and optimism that has always characterized this country? Because I believe–if I can finish this–I believe the real issue here is our generation's responsibility to make sure that we leave no less for the next generation than we inherited from the last one. And working together is the only way we're going to be able to that.