Dean Outlines Agenda for a New Direction for America on FOX News Sunday

This morning, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean was a guest on FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace. Governor Dean answered questions on a range of issues including the Democrats' agenda, the need to change the course in Iraq, and Democrats' commitment to fiscal discipline.

Below are excerpts from his appearance:

Dean on the Democratic agenda:

"I think we're going to go back to the kind of governing, the kind of policies that we saw when Bill Clinton was President. I think a balanced budget is very, very important. National security is very, very important. We want to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Then I think you're going to see some things that we care about like -- traditionally care about, like fixing the Medicare thing, the minimum wage and so forth and so on. I think you'll see the main focus on balancing the budget, which was a Bill Clinton legacy and on strong security, implementing 9/11 [Commission recommendations]."

"We've been given an opportunity. Now the next two years is our opportunity to show that, yes, we can govern. The things the Republicans have said about us for the last 12 years are not true."

"We have an opportunity to show that we're tough on defense, that we're tough on balancing the budget, that we're going to be sensible, that we do want a commitment to a social safety net and economic justice, but we're going to use -- we're going to be careful and thoughtful and do this in a sustainable way."

"The DCCC and the DSCC did do a wonderful job. The truth is we got six Governors. We got nine additional legislative chambers. New Hampshire now has a democratic House and Senate for the first time in a century. We did great. I think the time really has come now, now that we're in power, at least in the Congress, to pull together, to be unified. We've got a lot to do in the next two years. We have to elect a democratic President."

Dean on the war in Iraq:

"The truth is the President still is in charge of military and foreign policy. We need to work with the President to get ourselves out of Iraq. The vast majority of the American people believe the truth, which is it was a mistake to get into Iraq in the first place. That the President does not believe. Everybody in America understands that we cannot stay -- except possibly the President and Vice President Cheney -- understands that we cannot stay in Iraq forever. We can't have a stay the course mentality. We need to get out of Iraq. The question is how we can do that. We hope to work with the President to bring our troops home. I think by establishing an arbitrary deadline of next June is not the way it's going to work. But this cannot be left to the next president, as George Bush once famously said."

"Our problem is we have to cut our losses and figure out how we're going to get our folks out and still defend the United States of America. Keeping 140,000 brave Americans in Iraq is not making America safer. It's very clear it has not made America safer and the American people just voted to say send some folks in there who are willing to be tough and smart about how we defend the country. We're not going to put up with terrorism in Iraq or any place else, but we can't keep 140,000 brave Americans in Iraq indefinitely. Did not we not learn this lesson in Vietnam?"

Dean on budget discipline:

"...Both Speaker-to-be Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid have said that we won't raise taxes on the middle class and that we will -- we will re-instigate something that was there in the Clinton administration called "Pago," or "pay as you go." No one in Congress may propose a tax cut or a program increase without saying where the money is going to come from. Ok, that is a very good start in principle. The revenues will not come from the middle class. In fact, many Democrats would like to give the middle class a tax cut."

"I think we have to be careful of that because I think frankly the budget deficit has been understated by about $100 billion. None of the Iraq money we're spending appears in the budget deficit because it's all on special emergency off the books stuff which is a chicanery, frankly. If there is going to be new revenue - which I think [former] Secretary Rubin is correct about -- it will come from rolling back special tax breaks the Republicans gave to oil companies, HMOs and so forth. That's a good place to start. The Democrats, my party, has to be very careful about spending. There are some things we want to do, cutting interest rates so kids can get to college easier, but we have to be very careful. We can't do everything."