1992 Presidential Debate - Part 2

43. LEHRER: All right. We go now to Mr. Perot for a 2-minute question, and it will be asked by John Mashek.

MASHEK: Mr Perot, you talked about fairness just a minute ago and sharing the pain. As part of your plan to reduce the ballooning federal deficit, you’ve suggested that we raise gasoline taxes 50 cents a gallon over 5 years. Why punish the middle class consumer to such a degree?

44. PEROT: It’s 10 cents a year cumulative. It finally gets to 50 cents at the end of the 5th year. I think “punish” is the wrong word. Again, see, I didn’t create this problem. We’re trying to solve it. Now, if you study our international competitors, some of our international competitors collect up to $3.50 a gallon in taxes, and they use that money to build infrastructure and to create jobs. We collect 35 cents, and we don’t have it to spend. I know it’s not popular, and I understand the nature of your question. But the people who will be helped the most by it are the working people who will get the jobs created because of this tax.

45. Why do we have to do it? Because we have so mismanaged our country over the years, and it is now time to pay the fiddler. And if we don’t, we will be spending our children’s money. We have spent $4 trillion worth. An incredible number of young people are active in supporting my effort because they are deeply concerned that we have taken the American dream from them. I think it’s fitting that we’re on the campus of a university tonight. These young people, when they get out of this wonderful university, will have difficulty finding a job.

46. We’ve got to clean this mess up, leave this country in good shape, and pass on the American dream to them. We’ve got to collect the taxes to do it. If there’s a fairer way, I’m all ears (laughter) –aah. (Laughter and applause) But–but–see, let me make it very clear. If people don’t have the stomach to fix these problems, I think it’s a good time to face it, November. If they do, then they will have heard the harsh reality of what we have to do. I’m not playing Lawrence Welk music tonight.

47. LEHRER: All right, Governor Clinton, you have a minute, sir.

CLINTON: I think Mr. Perot has confronted this deficit issue, but I think it’s important to point out that we really have 2 deficits in America, not one. We have a budget deficit in the federal government, but we also have an investment, a jobs, an income deficit. People are working harder for less money than they were making 10 years ago, 2- 3rds of our people–a $1600 drop in average income in just the last 2 years.

48. The problem I have with the Perot prescription is that almost all economists who’ve looked at it say that if you cut the deficit this much this quick it will increase unemployment, it will slow down the economy. That’s why I think we shouldn’t do it that quickly. We have a disciplined reduction in the deficit of 50 % over the next 4 years, but first get incentives to invest in this economy, put the American people back to work. We’ve got to invest and grow. 9 Nobel Prize-winning economists and 500 others, including numerous Republican and Democratic business executives, have endorsed this approach because it offers the best hope to put America back to work and get our incomes rising instead of falling.

49. LEHRER: President Bush, one minute, sir.

BUSH: Your question was on fairness. I just disagree with Mr. Perot. I don’t believe it is fair to slap a 50-cent-a-gallon tax over whatever many years on the people that have to drive for a living, people that go long distances. I don’t think we need to do it. You see, I have a fundamental difference. I agree with what he’s talking about in trying to get this spending down and the discipline, although I think we ought to totally exempt Social Security. But he’s talking tough medicine, and I think that’s good. I disagree with the tax-and-spend philosophy. You see, I don’t think we need to tax more and spend more, and then say that’s going to make the problem better. And I’m afraid that’s what I think I’m hearing from Governor Clinton.

50. I believe what you need to do is some of what Ross is talking about: control the growth of mandatory spending and get taxes down. He’s mentioned some ways to do it–and I agree with those. I’ve been talking about getting a capital gains cut forever, and his friends in Congress have been telling me that’s a tax break for the rich. It would stimulate investment. I’m for an investment tax allowance; I’m for a tax break for first- time homebuyers. And with this new Congress coming in, gridlock will be gone, and I’ll sit down with them and say let’s get this done. But I do not want to go the tax-and-spend route.

51. LEHRER: All right, let’s move on now to the subject of jobs. The first question goes to President Bush for 2 minutes, and John will ask that question.

MASHEK: Mr. President, last month you came to St. Louis to announce a very lucrative contract for McDonnell Douglas to build F-15s for Saudi Arabia. In today’s Post- Dispatch, a retired saleswoman, a 75-year-old woman named Marjorie Roberts, asked if she could ask a question of the candidates. She said she wanted to register her concern about the lack of a plan to convert our defense-oriented industries into other purposes. How would you answer her.

52. BUSH: I assume she was supportive of the decision on McDonnell Douglas, I assume she was supporting me on the decision to sell those airplanes. I think it’s a good decision–took a little heat for it, but I think it was the correct decision to do. And we worked it out, and indeed we’re moving forward all around the world in a much more peaceful way. So that one we came away with in creating jobs for the American people. I would simply say to her, look, take a look at what the president has proposed on job retraining. When you cut back on defense spending, some people are going to be thrown out of work. If you throw another 50,000 kids on the street because of cutting recklessly in troop levels, you’re going to put a lot more out of work. I would say to them, look at the job retraining programs that we’re proposing. Therein is the best answer to her.

53. And another one is: stimulate investment and savings. I mean, we’ve got big economic problems, but we are not coming apart at the seams; we’re ready for a recovery. With interest rates down and inflation down, the cruelest tax of all, caught up in a global slowdown right now, that that will change if you go with the programs I’ve talked about and if you help with job retraining and education. I am a firm believer that our America 2000 education problem is the answer–a little longer run; it’s going to take awhile to educate. But it is a good program. So her best help for short term is job retraining, if she was thrown out of work at a defense plant. But tell her it’s not all that gloomy; we’re the US, we faced tough problems before. Look at the misery index when the Democrats had both the White House and the Congress. It was just right through the roof. Now, we can do better. And the way to do better is not to tax and spend but to retrain, get that control of the mandatory spending programs. I’m much more optimistic about this country than some.

(APPLAUSE)

54. LEHRER: Mr. Perot? Mr. Perot, you have one minute, sir.

PEROT: Defense industries are going to have to convert to civilian industries. Many of them are. And the sooner they start, the sooner they’ll finish. And there will be a significant transition. And it’s very important that we not continue to let our industrial base deteriorate. We had someone who I’m sure regrets said it in the president’s staff said he didn’t care whether we made potato chips or computer chips. Well, anybody that thinks about it cares a great deal. Number one, you make more making computer chips than potato chips; and, number 2, 19 out of 20 computer chips that we have in this country now come from Japan. We’ve given away whole industries. So as we phase these industries over, there’s a whole of intellectual talent in these industries.