Bush, Kerry spar in final debate

TEMPE, Ariz. — An energized President Bush and Sen. John Kerry battled over who is tougher on illegal immigration and a stronger proponent of tax cuts in their third and final debate, a domestic-policy clash that spilled over to the war on terrorism.

Mr. Bush, who angered many conservatives earlier in the year with a proposal to relax penalties against illegal immigrants from Mexico, accused Mr. Kerry of seeking an amnesty.

“I don’t believe we ought to have amnesty. I don’t think we ought to reward illegal behavior,” Mr. Bush said last night. “And here is where my opponent and I differ. In September 2003, he supported amnesty for illegal aliens.”

Mr. Kerry supports amnesty for some illegal aliens and shares the president’s desire for a guest-worker program. He said Mr. Bush broke a promise to enact that program, which he said would not go far enough.

“The second thing we need is to crack down on illegal hiring,” Mr. Kerry said. “It’s against the law in the United States to hire people illegally, and we ought to be enforcing that law properly.

“The borders are more leaky today than they were before 9/11.”

The president called that an “outrageous claim.”

“He just doesn’t understand how the borders work, evidently, to say that,” Mr. Bush said, pointing to the increased manpower and new technology that he said the Border Patrol now has.

But Mr. Kerry refused to back down.

“Four thousand people a day are coming across the border,” he said. “We now have people from the Middle East, allegedly, coming across the border.”

Throughout the 90-minute debate at Arizona State University, the two candidates sparred over hot-button social issues such as abortion, gun control, an amendment to prohibit same-sex “marriage” and affirmative action. They also traded charges over whose record was worse with respect to jobs, health care and fiscal discipline.

Both seemed to be testing each other with jabs, with neither man delivering a conclusively damaging charge or withering joke. But the president repeatedly returned to Iraq and Mr. Kerry’s qualifications to lead in the war on terror, reminding the audience that the senator voted against the resolution authorizing the first Gulf war, when many nations were “part of the coalition.”

Mr. Bush hammered Mr. Kerry’s voting record on taxes, listing again and again the number of times Mr. Kerry has opposed tax cuts or voted for tax increases.

“There’s a mainstream in American politics, and you sit on the far left bank,” Mr. Bush said, mentioning Mr. Kerry’s liberal colleague. “As a matter of fact, your record is such that Senator Ted Kennedy is the conservative from Massachusetts.”

He said Mr. Kerry voted to increase taxes 98 times, voted against tax cuts 127 times and voted to waive budget caps 277 times.

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