Original_To:  WORD
Original_cc:  185422285
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Wed, 14 Oct 1992 08:46:00 EST
From:         "Alec D. Plotkin" <185422285%VUVAXCOM.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject:      Reality vs. Rhetoric

 October 13, 1992

                      RHETORIC VERSUS REALITY
                    THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE


                     THE CLINTON ECONOMIC PLAN

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "He [Clinton] will raise your taxes..."

 REALITY: George Bush said "Read My Lips: No New Taxes" and then
 signed the second- largest tax increase in history. He raised taxes
 on the middle class. [Wall Street Journal, 8/12/92; Congressional
 Quarterly Almanac 1990] The Clinton/Gore plan includes $60 billion in
 middle class tax cuts. It will only increase taxes on the wealthiest
 few, those making more than $200,000 a year. [Putting People First,

 RHETORIC: "...he will increase spending..."

 REALITY: The conservative Cato Institute called Bush "the largest
 spender to sit in the White House in the past 30 years" -- noting
 Bush "increased the domestic budget more in 4 years than Carter and
 Reagan combined did in 12 years." [Cato Institute, 6/19/92]  The
 Clinton/Gore plan slashes $144 billion in unnecessary government
 spending and cuts the deficit in half in four years. [Putting People
 First] Arkansas' general spending growth since 1979 has been 13
 percentage points below the national average; growth since 1983 has
 been 24 points below the national average. ["Fiscal Survey of the
 States," National Governors Association]

 RHETORIC: "...he will make government bigger..."

 REALITY: For the first time there are more U.S. jobs in government
 than in manufacturing. [Bureau of Labor Statistics] The White House
 budget grew by 56 percent in real dollars and 26 percent in the
 number of employees since Bush took office. [U.S. Budget, 1991 and
 1993] Quayle is being dishonest about Clinton's record. Relatively
 speaking, the size of government in Arkansas has been shrinking under
 Gov. Clinton, not growing bigger as Mr. Bush claims." [Wall Street
 Journal, 10/1/92]

 RHETORIC: "...jobs will be lost."

 REALITY: There were 35,000 fewer private sector jobs in September
 1992 than there were when Bush took office in January, 1989. [Bureau
 of Labor Statistics] More than 550 economists think Dan Quayle's dead
 wrong. They've endorsed the Clinton plan. [Release, 10/8/92] In 1992
 Arkansas led the nation in job growth. [Bureau of Labor Statistics]

                           LEGAL REFORM

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "We want to reform the legal system
 because it's too costly. Bill Clinton wants the status quo."

 REALITY: Bush and Quayle want to limit the extent to which
 corporations can be punished for deliberately polluting, or putting
 our dangerous products. [Report from the President's Council on
 Competitiveness; Agenda for Civil Justice Reform, 8/91] The top
 contributing industry to the Bush/Quayle campaign is lawyers and
 lobbyists, contributing $1,369,002. [National Library on Money and
 Politics, 8/19/92]

                            HEALTH CARE

 RHETORIC: "We want to reform the health care system. Bill Clinton
 wants to ration health care."

 REALITY: A bipartisan panel of three Republican and two Democratic
 health experts says that the Clinton health care plan will save the
 average family $1179 more every year than Bush's plan; insure all
 Americans, while the Bush plan would leave 27 million people
 uninsured; save $746 billion, even after covering every American,
 while the Bush plan would save only $157 billion. [Washington Post,
 10/2/92] No reputable source believes the Clinton plan would result
 in the rationing of health care.

                             GULF WAR

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "You cannot sit there in an international
 crisis [like the Gulf War] and sit there and say, `Well, on one hand
 this is okay and on the other hand this is okay.'"

 REALITY: It's strange to hear Dan Quayle talking about making
 decisions about the Gulf War. According to "Nightline," Dan Quayle's
 "trip to Latin America and his vacation in Arizona suggest to some,
 that the Vice President was not a key player." ["Nightline," 10/2/90]
 Bill Clinton supported Desert Storm. In fact, he supported sending
 the Arkansas National Guard to support that effort -- the third
 largest sent by any state in the U.S. He supported giving the
 President the authority to go to war -- the issue voted on by the
 U.S. Congress. He agreed with the argument of those who believed we
 should allow sanctions more time to work before using military force.
 Many Republicans, such as Specter, Murkowski, Roth, and Coats. But he
 has been clear that the Congress should give the President the
 authority, "I personally don't think it would have been a good thing
 for Congress to go on record, in essence, watering down and

                          THE PHILIPPINES

 RHETORIC: "I talked to President Aquino. I made the recommendation to
 the President."

 REALITY: Dan Quayle's memory of his role is clouded. According to
 The Commanders, "White House Counsel Boyden Gray, who'd been called
 to the Situation Room to handle the legal implications of any
 decision to intervene, thought [Philippine President Corazon] Aquino
 sounded more in charge than Quayle. But to Gray, the most important
 performance during those early morning hours was Powell's. Not only
 was the Chairman back- stopping Quayle, but his had been the only
 voice to challenge the growing consensus that Mrs. Aquino's initial
 request for bombing should be approved." [Bob Woodward, The
 Commanders, p. 151]

                     THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT

 RHETORIC: "This is the Persian Gulf War, the most important event in
 his [Clinton's] political lifetime..."

 REALITY: Does Dan Quayle really believe that the Gulf War was more
 important than the end of the Cold War, civil rights laws in the
 United States or the empowerment of women in this nation?

                       SHIPPING JOBS OVERSEAS

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "We have never subsidized any country or
 any company to move from the United States."

 REALITY: As revealed by "60 Minutes" and "Nightline" exposes earlier
 this month, taxpayers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to
 encourage U.S. firms to move their jobs to Central America. Under
 Bush and Reagan, U.S. AID and other agencies have provided
 low-interest loans, subsidized worker training, construction of
 office or manufacturing space, and an elimination or reduction of
 tariffs for firms that locate in "export processing zones." Some $289
 million has gone to export promotion organizations in El Salvador,
 Honduras and other countries. [CBS "60 Minutes," 9/27/92; Los Angeles
 Times, 9/24/92] REALITY: The U.S. government has spent about $150
 million for job training in the Caribbean. During that same period,
 the federal government has spent just over $100 million for
 retraining American workers whose jobs have gone offshore.
 ["Nightline," 9/29/92] REALITY: Senator Gore voted against
 establishing the Caribbean Basin Initiative in 1982 and 1983. He also
 voted against expanding the program in 1990.

                     "..IT'S A BAD ECONOMY..."

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "It's a bad economy, it's a tough
 economy."

 REALITY: In September, Dan Quayle said the country is "technically
 out of the recession." [Associated Press, 9/9/92] Last January, Dan
 Quayle saw a "help wanted" sign at Burger King and called it an
 "optimistic sign that things are turning around in California." [Los
 Angeles Times, 1/18/92]

                          THE CLINTON PLAN

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said "your proposal is to raise $150 billion in
 taxes, to raise $220 billion in spending..."

 REALITY: The Wall Street Journal states that the net tax increase of
 the Clinton plan is $46 billion -- less than half the $106.7 billion
 net tax increase from George Bush's 1990 broken promise tax increase.
 [Wall Street Journal, 8/12/92] Dan Quayle ignores the fact that $58
 billion of the savings in the Clinton/Gore plan comes from closing
 foreign loopholes and make foreign companies pay their fair share of
 taxes. [Putting People First]

                            ENVIRONMENT

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "We are firmly behind preserving our
 environment and we have a good record with which to stand."

 REALITY: George Bush promised to be "the Environmental President" and
 then did his best to ruin the environment. Bush approved a plan to
 open up 50 million acres of wetlands to development -- half the
 nation's total. [New York Times, 7/4/92]; in Rio, Bush gutted the
 global warming treaty and refused to sign the biodiversity treaty.
 {New York Times, 5/13/92, Wall Street Journal, 5/27/92] And Dan
 Quayle's Competitiveness Council has proposed more than 100 weakening
 changes in Clean Air Act regulations. [Boston Globe, 5/2/91; USN&WR,
 5/19/92]

 RHETORIC: "In the book [Earth in the Balance] you also suggest taxes
 on gasoline, taxes on utilities, taxes on carbon, taxes on timber."

 REALITY: The Clinton/Gore plan does not include increases in any of
 these taxes. George Bush, on the other hand, recently signed a 56
 percent increase in the gas tax. [Congressional Quarterly Almanac,
 1990] Dan Quayle is seizing on a few phrases and distorting them.
 Gore believes that other nations, not the U.S., should pay the lion's
 share of efforts to help developing countries with their
 environmental problems. Even Bush's own Environmental Protection
 Agency Administrator, William Reilly, has said that Senator Gore "has
 done some important things. I don't think he's an environmental
 extremist." [Reuters, 8/7/92]

                     BUSH'S HEALTH CARE RECORD

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "President Bush has had his health care
 reform agenda on Capitol Hill for eight months."

 REALITY: Bush had been in office 1,112 days before he introduced his
 health care proposal. And now, 249 days later, he has still not sent
 legislation for his tax credit and voucher system - - the core of his
 program -- to Congress. [Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis
 Sullivan, news conference, 9/9/92]

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "He [Clinton] says he's for the pay or
 play health insurance. That's a seven to 9 percent payroll tax on
 every worker in America that participates in this program."

 REALITY: The Clinton plan has no payroll tax. Quayle backs up this
 charge with studies from the Urban Institute and CBO that analyzed
 other plans. Both have denied the Bush/Quayle claims. [Bush/Quayle,
 1992; CNN, 10/1/92]

                             ABORTION

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "I happen to be pro life. I have been pro
 life for my 16 years in public life."

 REALITY: Dan Quayle has flip-flopped on abortion. Asked last month
 whether he believed "that there is a case for abortion especially in
 the case of...incest," Quayle responded, "Yeah. That goes without
 saying." [Reuters, 10/25/88; David Frost interview, 9/24/92]

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "And Bill Clinton when he was Governor of
 Arkansas also worked with the right to life people and supported
 right to life people and now he has changed."

 REALITY: Bill Clinton has always supported Roe v. Wade, even as a law
 professor at the University of Arkansas 20 years ago. Bill Clinton
 opposes further restrictions on abortion at the state level and
 supports enacting the Freedom of Choice Act to write the protections
 of Roe v. Wade into federal law. Bill Clinton signed into law a state
 requirement that doctors and clinics notify the parents of minors
 seeking abortions or obtain a judicial consent for the abortion. He
 is opposed to any new federal restrictions on abortion.

 RHETORIC: Dan Quayle said, "At one time and most of the time in the
 House of Representatives, you [Al Gore] had a pro life position."

 REALITY:  Al Gore has consistently and persistently supported a
 woman's right to choose. A co-sponsor of the Freedom of Choice Act to
 protect the rights established in Roe v. Wade, Al Gore is pro-choice
 -- not pro-abortion. He is committed to reducing the number of
 unwanted pregnancies in American while preserving a woman's right to
 choose.
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