MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. When Republican Congressman Randy pled guilty to accepting more that $2.4 million in bribes, he forced a special election out in . That was last June. In the Republican rich fiftieth district defeated Democrat Francine Busby by four percentage points and now they are at again in the general election this November. It s a Bilbray/Busby rematch. And both are here to debate the issues this evening. Let me ask you a simple question. I hope I can get a simple answer. Should we stop the flow of illegal people coming across the border into the , yes or no?

FRANCINE BUSBY (D), DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR THE HOUSE: Absolutely.

REP. BRIAN BILBRAY ®, : Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: Stop the illegal people from coming in. What is the best weapon for stopping a person from coming in illegally?

BILBRAY: Well the first thing is you don t reward those ...

MATTHEWS: No, what is the best weapon?

BILBRAY: The best weapon is enforcing the law.

MATTHEWS: Enforcing which law?

BILBRAY: Enforcement of employer enforcement, I mean ...

MATTHEWS: OK, employers, you can t hire illegals.

BILBRAY: Can t hire illegals.

MATTHEWS: Would you like to see a tough enforcement Miss Busby of illegal hiring?

BUSBY: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: So where do you disagree? Miss Busby first.

BUSBY: Because what Mr. Bilbray is talking about is just more of the same policy that has already failed. MATTHEWS: Well they never enforced employer sanctions. Well how can you say it has failed. I ve never heard of enforcement yet.

BUSBY: No, they are not enforcing it and all he wants to do is do more enforcement.

MATTHEWS: When have you ever heard of somebody fined for hiring somebody illegally?

MATTHEWS: That s why we need comprehensive reforms. San Diego would be a disaster without a guest worker program, and we need to give the boarder patrol the virtual fence that they want to help them smartly scan that border, see where the activity is and they can be more effective in stopping it at the border.

MATTHEWS: So you are the liberal in this issue?

BUSBY: You know what we need to stop.

MATTHEWS: I am just asking, are you the liberal and he is the conservative? Just give me the information here.

BUSBY: I am giving you, I am a realist. We have a real situation here. In San Diego this is not some theoretical issue. We have people crossing the border here. We have people living here. We have people working here. We have people in our health clinics and our hospital and in our schools, and we need to address every aspect of that, and Mr. Bilbray only talks about enforcement and that s not going to solve our problems in San Diego.

BILBRAY: Chris, what is happening is you have got Miss Busby and others proposing to do another amnesty like Simpson-Mazzolli. My position is that and the House position is before we talk about anything like that, we have to go back and do the enforcement part. Busby may talk about the hospitals and about crime, I was a county supervisor. I was chairman of San Diego County. I saw the costs of $50 million a year for law enforcement, $100 million a year just in hospital and Medicare cost. So the real difference here is the fact this is an issue that I know I have worked, I have been fighting for for a long time. And we don t need to go back and give amnesty and reward people who are here illegally.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you. Let s switch to right now because it s a hot issue. If there is a measure on the floor next year, when the new Congress meets, and either one of are there voting for San Diego, and the vote is to extend the U.S. mission in Iraq, to give the president another couple of years, to the end of his term to keep our troops here, would you vote for it, Miss Busby?

BUSBY: You know what those troops are ...

MATTHEWS: Would you vote to give the president two more years in Iraq so he can do what he said he wants to do is keep our troops there through the end of his term? Would you give him that authority?

BUSBY: I am going to make sure Congress works with that president to have a plan. We need to have some benchmarks. We need to have a time line, and we need to get to make sure that we have a plan here.

MATTHEWS: OK, if he simply says I want a resolution of support to do what I have been doing since 2003. Let me have the authority to stay in Iraq with the troops and be commander in chief, would you vote yes on that vote or no?

BUSBY: What he is doing now is not, staying the course is not an option, so I would not give him a blanket double-check.

MATTHEWS: Would you give him that?

BILBRAY: I would tend to vote yes, unless there were some extraordinary reasons to basically pull the carpet out on support of the effort, I would give him the benefit of the doubt.

MATTHEWS: Will you vote, let me ask you about the other issue of Republicans, which you always win on, would you vote to raise taxes in any way?

BILBRAY: I wouldn t raise taxes.

MATTHEWS: In any way?

BILBRAY: In any way, no.

MATTHEWS: Would you vote to extend the Bush tax cuts all the way?

BILBRAY: Yes. MATTHEWS: Miss Bilbray, what is your position on the Bush tax cut? Would you extend it? Would you limit it? Would you cap it? What would you do with it?

BUSBY: That Bush tax cut has got us looking at $9 trillion in debt. It s completely irresponsible to talk about more tax cuts without putting it into that context, so what I am going to do is try to work with people to reduce this deficit and, you know, keep taxes to a reasonable amount, but we need to look at that deficit before we talk about more taxes.

BILBRAY: The problem with the deficit is we are spending too much money. It s not that Washington isn t taking in, we are taking in more money than we ever have. The problem is we are spending too much.

MATTHEWS: OK, you have grown up in the United States. You have grown up in the United States. I want you to rate this president and look at the big boys, Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, whoever you want to put at the top and then put the other ones at the bottom. Where would you put this president on a scale of one to ten Miss Busby?

BUSBY: At the bottom. I think that his failed plans, this Iraq, this preemptive war in Iraq that has led to chaos and destabilization in the Middle East has made this world a more dangerous place. We are not safer here. We have this tremendous amount of debt.

MATTHEWS: OK, at the bottom.

BUSBY: At the bottom.

MATTHEWS: Where would you put him, one to ten sir.

BILBRAY: I would put him between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, which would be about a five or a six.

MATTHEWS: He s a middle of the road president.

BILBRAY: Middle of the road president.

MATTHEWS: He s a mediocre president.

BILBRAY: Well I mean he s ... MATTHEWS: Well, come on, give me a verb, give me and adjective?

Mediocre, average?

BILBRAY: I think that he is a sign of times, and he is during tough times.

MATTHEWS: Is he a great president?

BILBRAY: He s not great upon my issues. I mean immigration I m very upset with him about.

MATTHEWS: Is he great on defending America?

BILBRAY: I think he is very good on defending America.

MATTHEWS: Is he a great president?

BILBRAY: He s great for defense.

MATTHEWS: OK, thank you Congressman Brian Bilbray. Thank you Francine Busby, his opponent in this upcoming general. This document was created with Win2PDF available at http://www.win2pdf.com. The unregistered version of Win2PDF is for evaluation or non-commercial use only.