For the first time face to face the first debate of the 2000 presidential election was held at the campus of the University of Massachusetts. For ninety minutes last night, Democratic candidate Vice President Al Gore and Republican Candidate Governor of Texas George W. Bush battled one another over tax cuts, prescription drugs, Social Security, energy policy, abortion, and education. On issues such as tax cuts, the Vice President proposed a plan, which cut taxes for …showed first 75 words of 562 total…

…showed last 75 words of 562 total…the math on Bush’s tax plan and demonstrated why it would not be a good decision, Bush replied that he was doing “fuzzy math.” and “phony numbers” They couldn’t even agree on the size of the tax cut. Bush said that he would return $1.3 trillion of the predicted ten-year budget surplus to taxpayers. Gore said it would be $600 billion more than that. These somewhat heated debates will continue Wednesday, October 11 and Thursday, October 12, 2000.