From: ccpatton@vax.muskingum.edu (Eric Patton)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Transcript of Perot's speech to N.P.C.
Date: 8 Apr 92 17:17:59 -0600
Organization: Muskingum College

What follows is a complete transcript of Ross Perot's speech to
the National Press Club on March 18, 1992, which was broadcast
on C-SPAN.  If you find any semantic or syntactic errors in the 
text, then please e-mail me at the above address, and I will 
correct them.  And if you disagree with any or all of the speech,
please refrain from flaming me via e-mail.


********************************************************************************

H. ROSS PEROT:  Thank you very much.  It's a privilege to be with you again. 
You are all going to get to punch me around here for the last 30 minutes, so let
me open by asking you a question.  How many of you ate your broccoli today at
lunch?  That's good.  The last thing I read, it cures cancer.  I think we ought
to all try it.
     Now, you're going to have to endure my speech, but the Q&A period is fun,
so that gives you something to look forward to.  There's a reception before this
thing, and that's always fun because there's a pattern of questions.  I'll sweep
those out of the way first.  The most frequently asked question is, "Why did the
Press Club invite you again?"  Well, I don't know, so that's easy.  Then this 
one nice person came up and looked pretty stressed out and said, "Do you still 
write your own speeches?"  Well, that's the bad news.  I'm still writing my own
speeches, so don't expect too much.  One nice lady came up, and she looked 
really concerned.  She said, "Now, will you promise to keep the same ground 
rules, particularly the last part?"  I said, "Yes, I will."  Now, you don't know
what she's talking about, but here are my normal ground rules.  I don't care 
whether you agree with me or not.  I just come in here to get you stirred up, 
and then I leave town.  Now, that's the last part she wanted to make sure of--
that I would leave town.  I'll be out of town quick.  Normally, I have to.
     Millions of people from all over the world can only dream about coming to
America.  Just think how many people would leave Russia today to come to our
great country.  Now, aren't we lucky we're here?  We own this country.  It
belongs to us.  That's the central theme of everything I have to say today.  We
have a history of being first and best.  Remember when everybody said we
couldn't build the Transcontinental Railroad, that we'd never get it through the
Continental Divide and what have you?  We built it.  Remember when everybody
else tried to build the Panama Canal and couldn't build it?  We built it. 
Remember when Thomas Edison, whose teachers thought he was dumb, changed the
world?  You say, "Wait a minute, didn't he have an NSA grant?"  No!  He gave the
world the electric light, and I hope you never land at night when you come into
a huge city and look at that sparkling city down below you that you don't think
"One American did that on his own initiative."  Never forget while you're in
that airplane that two bicycle repairmen from Dayton, Ohio, taught the world to
fly.  Never forget there was a Dr. [Samuel Pierpont] Langley that had a
government grant, but the Wright Brothers _had_ to fly.
     Now, that's the history and the American dream, and that's what we've been. 
We changed the world with radio and television.  We were the first to put a man
on the moon.  We harnessed nuclear power, and the list of firsts could go on and
on.  Every person listening to this program, I hope, will take a minute and
think.  You know, you or I could be dying in the streets of India right now.  Or
we could be in a little boat off Vietnam dying of thirst.  Happy accident of
birth or for one reason or another, we're here.
     This is the place the rest of the world only dreams of coming to.  They
look up to and respect our great country.  We must continue to be an example to
the world in everything we do.  It is important that we continue to earn this
respect.  You say, "Well, how important is it that the rest of the world respect
us?"  I suggest to you it is very important, because as long as the world
respects and admires our country and as long as we deal fairly with other
nations, there is no more cost-effective deterrent to war.  Nobody picks on the
strong guy.  Few people pick on the strong nice guy.  The weak guy is in
trouble.  It's as old as the history of man.  Trust and respect are fragile on a
human and a national level.  You have to earn it daily.  You can lose it in an
instant.  The real question is, are our actions those that would continue to
earn us worldwide respect, particularly on our domestic issues?
     Let's take a quick glance.  We were blessed with a huge land mass and a
tiny population.  We had an abundance of natural resources.  We were a new,
growing, free nation that had barely begun to tap its potential.  Anytime we
exhausted the resources in one area, the call went out:  "Go west, young man, go
west."  Today we are a mature country with a large population.  We have occupied
the land and creatively tapped our natural resources.  We simply cannot continue
to spend beyond our means.  When you're small and growing, you can bury some of
those mistakes, but at this point in time you cannot.  And when you have
creatively tapped your minerals and natural resources, it is brains and wits
time.  Never forget that--brains and wits time.  Somebody can't understand good
Texas talk.
     We don't like to accept this, but we live in a tiny little world, and we're
stuck with international competition.  You don't have to like it, but you're
stuck with it.  Somebody wins and somebody loses, and they don't even give you a
red ribbon when you lose in business.  We've got to out-think, out-invent, and
out-produce out international business competitors if we want to maintain the
high standard of living that our people have enjoyed until now.  Many of our
international competitors have an advantage over us at this point.  Now, we like
to strut around and boast that we're the only remaining superpower.  Any time
you see anybody strutting and boasting, get nervous.  But, now, just watch them.
You know, we're the last superpower.  Well, you can't be a superpower unless
you're an economic superpower, and if you don't believe that, look at Russia,
and I rest my case.  That's all I've got to say about that.
     We've got to be economically strong to be a force for good throughout the
world.  If you question that, think of the finest person you know who gives away
millions of dollars each year to good and worthy causes and so on and so forth. 
Suddenly they're broke.  Same instincts, can't do anything, right?  You've got
to be able to have the ability to help other people.  Just the desire is not
enough.  We had the world's greatest economic engine that let us do these
things.  We let it slip away, and with it went a significant part of our tax
base.  And yet we continue to spend.  Our present policies will move us from
superpower to Third World status.  If you don't believe that, the principal
exports in New York harbor are scrap paper and scrap steel going to Japan, and
now they want to buy wood chips from Texas to make paper in Japan and sell us
paper in Texas.  Now, if that happens, I think we maybe ought to start looking
for a place to hide.  Just think about that--how far those wood chips have to go
to come back.  You'd think we could make paper right here, right?  We _can_ make
paper right here.
     At this point in time, it is absolutely irresponsible for both the White
House and Congress not to be linking arms, working together night and day to fix
these economic problems.  Unfortunately, this city has become a town filled with
sound bites, shell games, handlers, and media stuntmen, who posture, create
images and talk, shoot off Roman candles, but don't ever accomplish anything. 
If they want to debate that, I'll buy my own television time.  We need deeds,
not words, in this city.  In Churchill's own words, we need "action this day,"
not talk.
     Here's where we are.  Let's look at where we are.  We're $4 trillion in
debt.  We owe another $5 trillion we don't like to talk about.  We just kind of
keep it down there in the basement.  You say, "Well, what are you talking about,
Ross?"  I'm talking about a $1 trillion unfunded federal pension liability.  Any
question in your mind we're going to have to cough that up someday?  No.  The
additional debt piled up in 1992--just this one year, the election year--will
exceed the total expenditures of the federal government for the first 155 years
of our country's existence.  See, the man on the street doesn't know what $400
billion is.  That kind of clears his head.  The interest on the national debt
just this year exceeds the cost to fight and win World War II.  Please never
forget that paying interest does not buy anything for the American people.  The
total national debt was only $1 trillion in 1980 when President Reagan took
office.  It is now $4 trillion.  Maybe it was voodoo economics.  Whatever it
was, we are now in deep voodoo, I'll tell you that!
     In 1992, we're going to go in for another $400 billion.  You say, "Well,
wait a minute.  Let's just do some radical things and balance the budget this
year.  Let's do really strange and weird things, just think about them."  Well,
I'm going to throw a really stupid one on the table.  Let's just shut down the
Defense Department.  You don't get 400 billion bucks.  Well, that one didn't
work.  Let's just shut down all the public schools nationwide.  Sorry, that
won't get me $400 billion.  Well, what if we just seized all the Social Security
money coming in this year and used that to balance the budget?  Maybe if
everything stays right on track, that would just about do it.  Okay, now, let's
just go over and take it away from business.  Let's confiscate the Fortune 500
companies' profits.  I don't have half of what I need.  Well, that didn't work. 
Okay, year in and year out we're (sic.) saying to the rich folks, "Let's just
tax the rich and fix it."  Let's confiscate the Forbes 400 wealth.  Doesn't give
us nearly what we need, but we solved a problem--we're all blue-collar now,
right?  But we just took all the wealth, and we don't balance the budget for
one year.
     You say, "Okay, Ross.  Give us the bad news.  How much are we going to have
to raise personal income taxes to balance the budget this year, an election
year?"  Watch my lips.  You're going to have to double it.  You don't think
anybody would bring that up, do you?  I doubt it.  Okay, you can't do that to
the people, so let's just raise corporate taxes to the point where we balance
the budget this year.  We have to raise them 500 percent, and that dramatically
exceeds all corporate profits, so you can't do that.  That's how big $400
billion is.  Now, I'm not talking about the $4 trillion.  I'm just talking about
the $400 billion.
     The tax and budget summit in 1990--this was a study in White House
arrogance as far as I'm concerned.  We were told if we agreed to the $166
billion in new taxes, the 1991 deficit would be $63 billion.  The following
April, we said, "Oops.  It's going to be $318 billion."  That's a $255 billion
mistake.  That would get you fired in the most soft-headed company in corporate
America.  Now, there are a lot of reporters here today.  I never got the word,
and I read the paper.  Nobody ever told me that while they were increasing our
taxes by $166 billion, they increased federal spending by $304 billion, or $1.83
in new spending for every tax dollar raised.  I'm not too smart, but I can
figure out that we spent more than we took in, and as far as I'm concerned, we
were conned.  Who conned us?  The people who are working for us, our elected
officials.
     We were told at the tax and budget summit that the five-year deficit would
be $92 billion.  Now we're told it'll be a trillion.  That's just a $900 billion
mistake.  The chief financial officer of a publicly owned company wound be sent
to prison if he kept books like our government.  We used to have a saying in
Texas that maybe they put lunatics in charge of the insane asylum.  I don't
quite know what the problem is here, but this is an out-of-control financial
situation.  To me this is like flying a 747 down on the deck at night through
the mountains with no engines.  It's just a question of which hill you're going
to hit.
     We cannot continue to tolerate this.  The average citizen works five months
a year just to pay his taxes.  Forty-two percent of his income goes to taxes. 
All the personal income taxes collected west of the Mississippi are needed just
to pay the interest on the national debt.  That's kind of depressing, isn't it? 
Just think of all those folks working west of Mississippi not buying anything
new--just paying interest on the debt.
     Let's look for the good news.  Well, surely all this spending created
utopia here in the United States and everything is wonderful and perfect and
we've just got to kind of scramble around and clean it up, right?  Surely we
bought a front-row seat, a box seat for the main event.  Where do we stand? 
Let's take a hard look at utopia.  We're the largest debtor nation on Earth. 
We're the most violent, crime-ridden nation in the industrialized world. 
Millions of innocent people have created their own prisons.  They have to put
bars on their windows, bars on their doors because we've abandoned their
neighborhoods to crime, and you don't have to go 10 minutes from the White House
or 10 minutes from the Capitol of the United States to see that.  That's
inexcusable.
     We spend over $400 billion a year on education including colleges, yet we
rank at the bottom of the industrialized world in terms of academic achievement. 
We have the largest number of functional illiterates in the industrialized
world.  We spend, but, see, we've got all these things that don't work for us. 
We spend a lot on education that doesn't work.  We spend more than anybody else
on health care, and yet we rank behind 15 nations in life expectancy and 22
other nations in infant mortality.  We've got 5 percent of the world's
population, 50 percent of the world's cocaine use.  Until we get rid of that
we're going nowhere.  Getting rid of it won't be free.  Our system of justice
has failed the people.  We've got 5 percent of the world's population,
two-thirds of the world's lawyers, and the average fellow on the street can't
afford one to go to court.  Strange.  Young lawyers out of law school make more
than judges.  There's a legal system upside down.
     Go to London, Paris, Rome and the other cities in Europe that have existed
for many centuries.  They work.  Now, then, go to our cities, which are
relatively brand-new.  New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Detroit and many
other major cities are dirty, run-down, ravaged with drugs, crime, and violence. 
What's wrong with us?
     Now, let's start right here in Washington where the president can look out
the window at Washington and the Congress can look out the window at Washington. 
I love this.  They are just covered up with security.  All the folks that work
for us are just covered up with security, right?  But the folks that are the
bosses of this country, the people, are in high-crime areas and totally exposed. 
Kind of strange, I think.  Maybe it even seems normal here, but it seems odd
when you get away from it.  We've got the murder capital of the United States
here.  Fifth- and sixth-graders in this city, 31 percent of them have witnessed
a shooting, 43 percent have witnessed a mugging, 67 percent have witnessed a
drug deal, and 75 percent have witnessed an arrest.  Think about it.  Is this an
alabaster city gleaming undimmed by human tears?  That's what the rest of the
world thinks we are.  That's what we had been.  That's what we can be, but that
is not what we are today.  Now go to Singapore.  There's a jewel of a city. 
When you are there, you're looking at tomorrow.  Some of our cities, you leave
and you think you've seen yesterday.
     Okay, who's at fault?  You know, the first thing you've got to do in our
country is blame somebody, right?  Well, go home tonight and look in the mirror. 
Everybody watching television, go home tonight and look in the mirror.  You and
and I are at fault because we own this country, and there is the problem in a
nutshell.  We have abdicated our ownership responsibility.  As owners of this
country, we hold the future of this country in the palm of our hands.  I ask you
now, can we agree that going $4 trillion into debt did not create utopia?  We've
wasted the money.  We've got to pay the $4 trillion back, and we've got to pay
the interest.  Obviously, throwing money at problems has not created utopia, and
yet we continue to do it this year.
     Today we have a government in gridlock.  Nothing happens unless Congress
and the White House work together constructively for the benefit of the people. 
That's the way our founders planned it.  That's the way it ought to be.  Daily
we watch with fascination as Congress and the White House finger-point, shout,
fight with one another like children.  Recently it's been more like mud
wrestling as far as I'm concerned.  You know, if you and I don't like one
another but we are equals and nothing's going to happen unless we work together,
we have no choice.  I just think it's ludicrous that we seem fascinated by this
as opposed to being so repelled by it that they'd cut it out.
     I feel as owners of this country if we're going anywhere, you've got to
send them a message:  You work for us.  We don't work for you.  Under the
Constitution, you are our servants.  Grow up!  Work as a team.  Serve the
people.  Solve the problem.  Move on to the next one.  Build a better country,
and stop throwing away money we don't have.
     We're spending our children's money.  Never forget it.  On the trend we're
on now, it'll be a $12 trillion debt by the year 2000.  Now, that's so big
nobody can think about it.  Let me just put it to you in plain terms.  Do you
realize that at $12 trillion, you could buy a $120,000 house for every family in
this country?  We can't afford a $12 trillion debt because the interest alone
on a $12 trillion debt would be approximately $1 trillion a year.  And guess
what the gross receipts in our country are right now.  One trillion dollars a
year.  You'd just be spending it all on interest.  It won't work.  The primary
rule of finance is never finance long-term projects with short-term debt.  How
many of you know what percent of our debt is due and payable in the next five
years?  Sixty-eight percent is due and payable in the next five years.  Go home
tonight and pray that the Japanese, the Germans, and the Arabs keep showing up
to buy our T-bills.  You don't want to put this country in that kind of a
situation, and whose fault is it?  We all have to go look in the mirror.  I ask
everybody that's listening and watching this today to think, "Did I know that 68
percent of our national debt is going to turn over in the next five years?"  If
the answer is no, why not?  You own this country.
     The message to us from both political parties this year--I love the message
coming from both parties--is, "Can we buy _your_ votes with _your_ money this
year?  And, by the way, we'd like to borrow $400 billion of your children's
money this year."  And, of course, we and our children will have to pay it all
back with interest, but that comes later, after the election.  Your first
reaction is, "How dumb do they think we are?"  Well, wait a minute.  It's
worked for years.  Who knows, maybe it'll work again.
     We need fundamental long-term solutions to these problems, and at this
point we're running around in Washington with a hypodermic needle loaded with
novocaine trying to give everybody quick, temporary pain relief just to get past
the election.  These quick fixes will, with certainty, produce additional
long-term damage to our economy.  The best analogy I can give you is an old race
horse that has a good record.  It's good bad knees, but we've got to get one
more race out of him.  We shoot him up.  He runs the race, and that's his last
race because we wrecked his knees.  This is absolutely irresponsible,
particularly if you love your children.  If I haven't touched you yet, I'm sure
I just touched everybody listening to this speech right now.  Look at those
little children or the big ones.  Are you willing to put this burden on them? 
Absolutely not.
     Fixing these fundamentals is far more important than who gets elected. 
Delaying work for one year is irresponsible.  Can I prove that point?  Yes.  We
knew in 1984--the president of the United States was formally told by a
presidential commission that the savings and loan industry was a mess.  It was a
$50 billion problem then.  Don't you wish it were a $50 billion problem now?  We
didn't do a thing until the day after the election in 1988.  Do you know why? 
The savings and loan crooks were pouring into this city with money, just taking
care of everybody that needed anything.  But isn't this interesting, the day
after the election we started to fix the problem.  By then it was a
several-hundred-billion-dollar problem.  But the PAC money kept flowing.  Any
business executive who behaved in this manner would go to jail--not be fired. 
Think about it.  Why is it that these people who work for us put other people in
jail, skate off with the money and keep the party going?
     Now, the folks in Congress and the White House, in my judgment, are not
villains on this whole economic situation.  They just don't know what to do. 
Most of them are either lawyers or career politicians.  They don't understand 
business, so they just stand there frozen, worrying about their images, taking
polls, bouncing personal checks and raising money from foreign lobbyists as the
economy deteriorates.  You're here and I'm not, but when I'm here in the halls
of Congress, I just find it fascinating who's wandering up and down the halls of
Congress and what their mission is.
     Never forget the United States government is the world's largest and most
complex business.  Anybody want to disagree with that thought?  Can you think of
any more complex business?  Now, for a moment let's assume you own the country,
a hundred percent.  With that thought in mind, ask yourself which of these
candidates for president you would let run your business.  You say, "Well,
that's too big a problem."  Fine.  But maybe it's just a normal medium-sized
business.  Let's say it makes a $100 million revenue.  Which of the current
presidential candidates would you let run your medium-sized business that you
own personally?  When you own the business, you really think about that sort of
thing.  You own this country!  For some reason we disconnect and don't think in
terms of who can make it work.
     Here are a few basics--things we've got to do.  We're deeply in debt, we're
spending beyond our means.  We've got to protect the job base.  "Why do you come
to that, Ross?"  That's where the taxes come from.  People who are not working
don't pay taxes.  With our $4 trillion debt, we need all the taxes we can get. 
You can't sit back and let the job base deteriorate.  When you lay off a worker,
never forget--you had a taxpayer, right?  Now you've got a welfare user.  Do you
understand that his welfare check will be bigger than his tax deduction used to
be?  It's a double hit, and it's more than a double hit.  We need a growing job
base to produce a growing tax base.  We need taxpayers, not tax users.  We need
strong growing companies to keep America at work, and it's got to be our highest
priority.
     There is no place to run, no place to hide, you've got to make the words
"made in the U.S.A." the world's standard for excellence once again.  Otherwise
people won't buy our products.  If you wonder about that, just go home and look
at your television and your consumer electronics tonight.  Look at the car
you're driving.  We've got to make "made in the U.S.A." the world's standard for
excellence.  We can help on the government level by ceasing the adversarial
practices with business and not getting our pockets picked at international
trade negotiations.  I hope you'll bring that up in the Q&A because, boy, oh,
boy, is that a sad event!  In our country, there is an adversarial relationship
between government and business.  In our international competitors who are
winning, there is an intelligent supportive relationship between government and
business.  We'd better study it, we'd better copy it, we'd better improve on it.
     Our educational system has to be the finest in the world.  We know what
needs to be done.  Let's stop reading to children in school.  Let's stop having
two-day summits for governors that don't amount to anything, and let's get down
to blocking and tackling and fixing it now because you won't have the benefits
for 15 to 20 years.  Every day is precious, and we just talk about it.
     We've got to have strategic plans industry by industry.  There are
industries we've got to keep in this country, and we're losing them right and
left.  We've got to target them.  They will create millions of jobs.  We've got
to make sure that we're first and best.  In Japan, that's called MITI [Ministry
of International Trade and Industry].  Study it, analyze it, improve on it,
instead of trying to dismantle our companies.  In Washington, the principal
contribution to American industry is to try to break its legs every day. 
Anybody that's a businessman will tell you that.  People in Washington do not
know how to do this.  Take a page out of FDR's book.  Bring up people who do,
pay them a dollar a year, pay them nothing.  Have them figure it out, get it
done.  Right now our government will not accept that kind of outside assistance. 
Until you change that, you won't have the people up here you need.  We think 10
minutes ahead.  Japan thinks 10 years ahead.  I suggest we start thinking 15
years ahead and ace them.
     Our current tax system is like an old inner tube with a thousand patches. 
I suggest we throw it out and start with a blank sheet of paper.  Set the
criteria.  Number one, if must be fair.  Number one, a), it's got to raise the
revenues.  Number two, it should be paperless for most Americans.  This is
nothing more interesting than running several different computer models,
building a consensus with the American people and marching forward from there
with a new tax system that works.
     Philosophically I'm for fair trade.  We don't have free fair trade.  The
White House is all excited about the new trade agreement with Mexico.  This
agreement will move the highest paid blue-collar jobs in the U.S. to Mexico. 
This is going to create serious damage to our tax base during this critical
period.  We have got to manufacture here and not there to keep our tax base
intact.  I hope we'll talk about that in the Q&A.
     We've got to have an intelligent energy policy.  We've known that since the
'70s.  Nobody wants to touch it.  We'd better get started.
     We're divided by racial strife.  I just hate this!  Look, we're not Japan
where everybody's the same race, same religion, same background, same
philosophy.  We're a melting pot, right?  Okay, we ought to love one another. 
That takes care of most of us.  Then for the guys who can't quite cross that
bridge, we ought to get along with one another, because divided teams lose and
united teams win.  Now, I am sick and tired of watching both political parties
try to divide our country during the campaign.  We need to unite as a team. 
Now, then, finally you've got a few hard-core haters.  My advice to them is just
pretty simple and blunt.  Nobody's going to leave the country.  Nobody's going
anywhere.  We're stuck with one another, so let's get back up into category two. 
Let's get along with one another, form a united team and stop wasting all this
energy on racial strife.  We will not have a winning team, if we do all these
other things, if we left that unattended.
     You say, "All right, Ross.  Which one of the presidential candidates can
fix this?"  Solomon can't fix this--the wisest man that ever lived.  You know
why?  Because _we_ have to fix it.  You cannot just go vote in November, send
some poor devil up there and go home.  You're going to have to get in the ring,
stay in the ring and act like you own this country.  Our founders created a
government that came _from_ us.  Please listen carefully to this.  We now have a
government that comes _at_ us.  The process has reversed itself.  That's why you
have to get in the ring.  You must never leave the ring again.  Once millions of
good decent citizens assume this ownership role, anything is possible.  If you
had problems of this magnitude in your business, you'd grad control.  You, the
people, must take control of this great country.  And since we, the people, own
this country, here are just a few unsolicited ideas.
     Number one, you've got to be fully informed.  How can you become fully
informed?  Not with sound bites.  We've got to have, using television, an
electronic town hall where we explain each of these issues we're talking about
today in great detail to you, and with the current technology we have today, you
can respond by congressional district and send a laser-like signal to every
congressman in Washington about what you want as a way of clearing their heads. 
You just wide around the special interests.  You say, "Even those dudes from
Asia that are spending $400 million a year in this country?"  Yes.  They're
going to listen to you because you own the country if you act like owners.  The
American people will then understand the problems and the alternative solutions. 
With this knowledge you can make sound decisions.  Then you can respond, and
Congress will know.  If you say, "Well, generally, what are you talking about,
Ross?" you saw the CBS program after the State of the Union.  You can do that
sort of thing now.  You can do that sort of thing much refined now, and when
interactive television comes, you can do it right on the bull's eye.
     We've got to stop deficit spending immediately.  We've got to replace
Gramm-Rudman with a real bill that cuts out all the tricks, loopholes, and
improper accounting procedures.  You've got to take away Congress's right to
raise taxes.  Now, there's a radical idea.  You say, "Well, that means a
constitutional amendment."  Fine.  Now, you say, "Why am I doing it?"  These
boys are drinking too much, that's why.  You've got to take the bottle away from
them for a while at least.  Now, if they need more money, just put it on the
ballot and let the owners of the country sign off.  The board of directors and
the stockholders of a company would want to.  Well, that would be controversial,
but that's why I put it on there.  You know, step one is stop the bleeding. 
Step two is make sure you don't just tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and
spend.
     Now, then, here's one.  From now on, if they want a raise, put it on the
ballot.  That's all federal employees.  You own this country.  You know, any
publicly owned company, you can't give yourself a raise.  I think the Congress
would be a lot more comfortable with that.  Congress, White House, the whole
bunch--if they want a raise, just put it on the ballot.  If we think they're
doing a good job, we'll give it to them.
     Give the president the line-item veto to get rid of porkbarrel and waste. 
Now, I say that for three reasons.  Number one, we ought to do it.  Number two,
I'd like to see what he does with it.  And, number three, I'd like him to stop
whining about it.  Now, just put it on there, and then go on from there.
     Now, finally, Congress absolutely must not exempt itself from the laws it
imposes on us.  You know all about that.  This includes, but is (sic.) not 
limited to the Disability Act, the Equal Opportunity Act, the Occupational
Safety Act, etc.
     Cut the retirement plan.  It's two to three times as good as the one we
have for ourselves.  It's unrealistic for the servants of the people to have a
better retirement than the people.
     Restructure the whole system--I can summarize what I've tried to say--where
citizens come to Washington to serve us, not to cash in.  Require all members of
Congress and the president to turn in excess funds from each campaign.  Some
guys have war chests now of up to $13 million, $15 million.  A non-incumbent
doesn't stand a chance.  The founders of this country would be shocked to know
that.  Stop cashing in on public service.  Pass a law.  On this, if I could have
one wish before I turn out the lights, this is it:  Former federal
officials--elected, appointed, and career service officials--cannot serve as
lobbyists for domestic interests for five years after they leave office and they
cannot lobby for foreign countries, companies, or individuals for ten years, and
there are criminal penalties if you do.  Now, these boys come up here--and I'm
not talking about elected necessarily--the appointed guys on the staff, stay a
few years, cash in, make 30,000 bucks a month and are on the campaign staffs. 
What can be more obscene than that?  These are lobbyists for foreign countries. 
You don't come to Washington to cash in; you come to serve the people.
     Pass a law making it a criminal offense for foreign companies or
individuals to influence U.S. laws or policies with money.  Here's one I am
particularly interested in.  Pass a law that no former president, vice
president, cabinet officer, CIA director, Federal Reserve chairman, Senate
majority leader, speaker of the House and others you may want to put on the list
can ever lobby for either foreign or domestic interests, accept gratuities or
fees, or cash in in any way on their service.  They came to serve us, not to
cash in.  You say, "What if they write a book?"  Give the money to charity.
     Okay, eliminate PACs.  Make our elected officials responsible to the
people.  Eliminate all possibilities of special interests giving large sums of
money to candidates.  Leave no loopholes.  Limit political contributions to
$1,000.  No large gifts.  Shorten the time for campaigns.  Cut them to five
months.  That'll cut the costs.
     Now, here's a weird one.  Why do we have elections on Tuesday?  A working
fellow can't get there.  Let's have elections on Saturday and Sunday.  Why can't
we leave the polls open two days?  If anybody has a good reason, call me
collect.  You know, I would like for everybody to vote.  I would like for
everybody to really know the issues, not to be sound-bitten to death, and then
go vote.  Make it easy for people to vote.  It's really fun when you get
interested in it.  The Seventh Day Adventist says, "Can't go on this day." 
Well, if you do Saturday and Sunday, you can handle everybody.  You know,
Baptists can vote on Saturday.  Folks who go to church on Saturday can vote on
Sunday.  It just all works out.  No exit polls.  A criminal offense if anybody
prints exit polls.  And no data from East Coast polling booths until the last
booth closes in Hawaii so that you don't influence the election.  Now we're
getting things a little bit straightened out.  You say, "Ross, this is kind of
basic, simple stuff."  Well, let's start with basics.  Make adequate television
time available for all candidates so the incumbent doesn't have an advantage.
     Get rid of all the freebies.  These are things that just look bad.  You
know, you got the free haircuts, the big gymnasiums.  One electrician stopped me
one day and said, "Why don't these boys join a health club?  It's hard times." 
You know, we're talking about all this fancy stuff--free prescription drugs,
parking places and so on and so forth.  Get rid of the 1,200 airplanes worth $2
billion that are used to fly our servants around like royalty.  Keep an airplane
for the president if you want to.  Downsize it to a Gulfstream.  The Cold War is
over!  Now let me just lay it on you.  It costs the taxpayers several hundred
thousand dollars every time the vice president goes to play golf the way we fly
him now.  Here's my advice.  Let him, let everybody else that's up here go to
the airport, get in line, lose their luggage, eat a bad meal and get a taste of
real life!  Now, I don't want to leave anybody out, so if somebody needs to go
to the dentist, just tell him to catch the bus.
     Okay, now, slash the White House staff, the cabinet staffs, the
congressional staffs.  If I've learned anything in my business career, nothing
happens at headquarters.  All the action's in the field.
     In summary, we own this country.  Government should come from us.  It now
comes at us with a propaganda machine in Washington that Hitler's propaganda
chief Goebbels would have just envied.  We've got to put this country back in
control of the owners.  In plain Texas talk, it's time to take out the trash and
clean out the barn or it's going to be too late.  We've got a choice.  We can
wait until the clock stops ticking and it'll take us two decades to fix it or we
can move now.  It's our choice.
     I make no bones about it, and I think I speak for most everybody here.  I
love this country, and I love the people in this country.  And I love the
principles this country was founded on, and I am sick and tired of seeing these
principles violated.  My comments today are dedicated to millions of folks who
don't get to speak at a place like this, but I think I share their views.  As I
look at our country today, I can't help thinking of General Motors in the
mid-'80s.  There was plenty of time and plenty of money to fix it all, and they
waited and waited and waited and waited.  Now they're losing $500 million a
month.  They're permanently downsizing.  This is our greatest corporation.  I
started with IBM.  Nobody could have ever convinced me that IBM would have to
downsize, and yet they are.  Time is not our friend.  It's unconscionable not to
move now.
     The American dream can survive, but it'll only survive it we're willing to
accept the responsibility that goes with this country.  Go home tonight.  Think
about the history of the country.  Think about the problems we have today. 
They're nothing compared to those that the people had at the time of the
Revolution.  And if you say, "Gee, I can't just get caught up in all this,"
we're not asking the average citizen to do anything except know the issues and
be alert and let his congressman know and the White House know what he wants.
     Contrast that--I'm just going to give you one man who signed the
Declaration of Independence, John Hart.  He was driven from his wife's bedside
by the English as she was dying.  Their 13 children had to flee for their lives. 
He had to live in the fields and forests and caves until the end of the war.  He
returned home after the war to find his wife dead, his farm and his house
destroyed, and his 13 children had disappeared.  A few weeks later he dies from
exhaustion and a broken heart.  Now, that's what people did to give us this
country.  And won't we do the little simple things we have to do to make it what
it can be?
     Think about the sacrifices your parents made for you.  Did they love you
more than you love your children?  Of course not.  Okay, then let's start making
some sacrifices to leave our children a better country.  We can do it.  Let's
work, let's sacrifice and let's leave them a better country.  Let's leave them a
country where they can dream great dreams as we did and have those dreams come
true.  If we will do that, then without any question we can be a shining beacon
to the rest of the world whose best days are in the future.  It's a privilege to
be with you.  Thank you.
Q:  The question everyone wants answered is, will you run for president?
PEROT:  I've said for years I'm a businessman.  I was on the Larry King show. 
He asked me for an hour, people called in and asked me for an hour, and I
finally said, "Look, there's one scenario and only one scenario under which I'd
run.  If ordinary people in 50 states went out in the streets on their own
initiative--not programmed, not orchestrated like rabbits the way we try to do
everything now--did it on their own and put me on the ballot in all 50
states--not 48, not 49, but 50--then I would run."   But then I turned to Larry
and I said, "That won't happen.  It's too complicated."  So right now, to my
amazement--and I guess everybody's amazement--there are people at work in 50
states on their own initiative.  Now, will it happen?  I don't know.  The ball
is in the owners' court.
Q:  A friend was contacted by an advance man for the Perot for President
movement and was told that the draft-Perot movement was raising $5,000 PAC
contributions to finance the campaign, would hold a third-party convention to
draft you in August, and is already compiling a list of vice presidential
candidates that includes Jean Kirkpatrick and Libby Dole.  Please comment.
PEROT:  Well, none of that's true.  It's what you call damage control, I guess,
up here.  I don't know what it is, but it's not true.  Tell them I said put a
name on that person.
Q:  Where would you cut federal spending in order to reduce the federal debt?
PEROT:  You mean before you had to really start thinking?  Well, the president's
own comptroller says we waste $180 billion a year through fraud and
mismanagement.  I saw a statement the other day that said, "But, gee, it would
take a billion dollars to find it."  Well, that's a nice return!  And everybody
that's ever been around the IRS says, "You know, if you had a decent computer
system we'd collect another $100 billion a year."  Well, that can't cost very
much compared to picking up $100 billion, but by the time they get it through
procurement, we'll all be dead under the current system.  So, now we're up to
$180 billion.  Now, this gets a little technical, and you've got to handle this
smoothly, but, see, one of the reasons we're in the spot we're in, we've been
defending Asia and Europe out of our pocket.  So we go very nicely and
diplomatically and positively to our friends in Europe and say, "Folks, we just
can't do it anymore, but if you want to pay us $100 billion a year, we'll be
glad to kind of stick around, and, you know, if something pops up, we'll be
there."  Go to our friends in Asia.  That's another $100 billion.  Tell them the
same thing.  You say, "Wait a minute, Ross.  They'll just shut it down."  Don't
be silly.  You've got an unstable Russia.  You've got a hungry bear, right? 
Nobody knows what's going to happen in Russia.  Only a fool would shut down the
ability to keep Europe and Asia stable, because the bear can go two ways.  When
you get hungry, you're going to go for food, for things, right?  It's a short
trip to Europe, right?  You say, "Well, this can't happen."  Think it through. 
Russia is in a very unstable phase, and we're doing nothing to help them.  We
should be helping them constructively.  We're not.  That's the American way. 
'You know, we're willing to fight, but then we're not willing to clean up after
the fight.  If you want to see a miniature of that, go to Panama.  We did
nothing after we tore the place to pieces.  Nicaragua finally got lucky and Mrs.
[Violeta] Chamorro came in and then we never did anything to help her.  That's
the cheapest stuff you ever do.  Now, then, I picked up $200 billion more. 
Now, if you want to really get controversial, just don't give folks that don't
need it their Social Security and Medicare.  For example, I'd get along all
right without mine.  Again, I had an economist whose name is a household word
now tell me that that would give you $100 billion a year.  We're now up to $480
billion a year, and we haven't really gotten serious.  There is waste and abuse
everywhere.  I think the $180 billion is low, but I'll take it.  In the real
world, though, you got to really dig and clean all that stuff up.  We got a lot
of it.  You know, we just spend, spend, spend.  Most importantly, we've got to
protect that job base and build that job base.  A growing tax base is
fundamentally important to getting this $4 trillion paid off and giving our
children a better future.
Q:  How can America improve its competitiveness with an administration that
denies we have a problem?
PEROT:  You can't.  Did you ever have a friend that drank all the time and said,
"I'm just a social drinker"?  Step one, you've got to have confrontation.  Step
two, you've got to get them out there to Betty Ford or somewhere and get them
dried out.  And then, step three, the hard part, is staying off.  But when
you're in denial, you haven't even taken the first step.  That's where we are as
a country.  We had the recession thing, right?  Well, you know, God bless them,
they didn't know.  Now, wait a minute, wait a minute.  Take just a good decent
person and put him in those limousines, put him in those cavalcades, fly him
around in 747s--you kind of lose touch with reality in a hurry.  So it's the
system.  You can replace everybody here, keep the system intact, and the new
people will be just like the old people.
Q:  If the government doesn't work to achieve macroeconomic stability, sound
infrastructure and a quality educational system, isn't the rest of what passes
for economic policy just so much idle tinkering?
PEROT:  Absolutely.
Q:  Granted, General Motors may not be in the shape it's in under your
direction, but if you had taken over GM within the last 18 months, what would
you have done differently than the current GM restructuring that is costing
74,000 jobs?
PEROT:  I don't know.  I'm not close enough to the details.  Let me tell you,
beware of anybody that gives you simple solutions to complex problems.  Anything
you want to ask a question about, let's go through the engineering process. 
Number one, take it to pieces.  Number two, find the best system in the world
that works, study it, take it to pieces.  Number three, get the best people who
know that industry.  You say, "No, wait a minute, Ross.  Conflict of interest." 
I say fine.  You ought to have poets and economists and lawyers do it?  No. 
You've got to have people who know the industry.  I mean, make them sign
something--they go to jail for 10 years if they do anything wrong.  They'll do
it.  Good people will.  Then put together several alternative plans.  Now,
this is the unthinkable in our country.  We go from great idea to mass
production to failure.  In the engineering process, you do pilot projects.  I'd
love to see three great health care plans being piloted with you, the American
people, knowing all the details about all three, and the people responsible for
each of the three having the ability to fine-tune, fine-tune, fine-tune, so that
at the end of the pilot it is obvious which one best serves the American people. 
That's all you have to do.  You'd have to do that at General Motors.  I'm not
close enough to it.
Q:  Should the U.S. government be working to open Japanese markets for cars and
computer chips or should it be left to U.S. companies?
PEROT:  Look, the government gave it away; the government's going to have to get
it back.  We don't hear anybody that knows how to horse trade.  That's our
problem.  See, if we were over in Saudi Arabia somewhere looking for a camel and
we came up to a tent and the fellow had a 40-year-old, three-legged, one-eyed
camel and we stopped and knocked on the tent and said, "I'd like to buy your
camel," the first thing the Arab would say is, "Oh, it's my son's pet.  I
couldn't think of selling the camel."  We'd hop in our car and drive on.  The
Arab would say, "I thought he wanted to buy the camel."  He was just starting
the negotiation, right?  Now, these negotiations are so well-run on their side
and so poorly run on our side that you could make a tragic comedy out of it and
run it on television.  And the sad thing is whole industries have disappeared
because of that.  You've got to get folks in that know how to negotiate.  We
have people in this country that know how to negotiate, but it seems like they
get people who blew up balloons in the last election. let them do it for a
while, until they have enough contacts with the other side.  Then they become a
foreign lobbyist at 30,000 bucks a month.  I'm not too smart, but I can figure
out why that doesn't work.  You read the book _Agents of Influence_ in terms of
the patterns of people coming off these negotiating teams and going to work for
the other side.  What if our generals and admirals went to work for the enemy at
the end of their careers?  Unthinkable, right?  Why in the world would we let
people do that in the civilian sector?  We shouldn't.
Q:  Aren't you being too hard on Congress?  After all, if they can't balance
their own bankbooks, how do you expect them to do anything about the federal
deficit?
PEROT:  Okay, now let's assume you have servants working in your house, and
let's assume that for several decades you've let them just kind of pick up the
pocket change, steal some of your jewelry and drive your car when you're out of
town because you are a lousy manager, owner.  Don't get too upset.  They
probably started out as honest people.  I guarantee you, replace everybody
there, put a new crop in, leave it the way it is, and you'll reproduce the same
kind of stuff.  Why?  Because you have gone home.  You are an absentee owner and
you've turned the reins over to other people and now you're paying for it.
Q:  Do you support freedom of choice, a woman's right to choose to have an
abortion if she wants one?
PEROT:  I know you've got to go down through every, I guess--see, I'm a
businessman.  You got the gray owl in there anyway?  Probably he's there, too. 
But, anyhow, just a short answer.  I think this is the woman's decision.  God
knows what kind of demonstrations I'll have outside my office now.
Q:  What is your position on federal gun control?  Do you support the Brady bill
and a ban on assault weapons?
PEROT:  You can't sound-bite this one either.  Now, when I was a boy, everybody
had guns, but we didn't shoot one another.  Right, Sarah?  Now everybody's got
guns and they go out and shoot one another.  I grew up with some tough guys in
the Depression.  We didn't carry guns to school.  A hundred and thirty-five
children carry guns to school every day.  You can't have learning in that
environment.  Obviously we've got to clean this up.  The Brady bill is you
register and what have you.  Well, the bad guys--that's not going to slow them
down 10 minutes.  Your big-time dope dealer, you can buy guns from all over
the world, right?  You got all the money in the world to go buy those guns. 
You're going to have to have a much tighter plan.  Let's go through the
engineering process.  Let's figure out what we have to do to really nail this
thing.  Go through each of these issues.  Number one, how do you fix it?  Get
two or three plans.  Experiment with those plans.  See which ones really work. 
Come to the American people over the electronic town hall and television and
say, "All right, here we are on gun control"--one, two, three, four, five--"and
we believe this is the answer."  You just send a bullhorn message back to
Congress--we want that, we don't want that, we want plan B, whatever you
want--and we will move swiftly and surely, fix that and move on to the next one. 
Gun control is a very complex issue, but we've got to think, what is the
objective?  Get the guns out of the hands of the bad guys.  You don't care if
people collect guns.  You don't care if people have guns for hunting.  You care
like the devil if somebody's just going to show up on the street and shoot you
because he's bored, and that happens in our country now.  We've got to fix that
and fix it now.  That can be fixed, but you can't fix it ducking it and you
can't worry about all these powerful lobbies.  You've got to figure out what is
good for the owners of the country and do it.
Q:  Unfortunately we're out of time, and we didn't get to all the questions--not
even a fraction of them.  We have a certificate of appreciation for you and a
book from the National Press Club.
PEROT:  Thank you.
Q:  And we have one last question.  If you had to decide which party ticket to
run on for president, would you choose the GOP or the Democrats?
PEROT:  Fortunately I don't have to make the decision.  But, as I said in the
past, I don't want to do this and if I ever had to do it, I would only do it as
a servant of the American people.  I would not compromise or sell out or make
deals with anybody for anything.  Now, you're here in Washington and you
understand the system and you could not move the ball three inches inside one of
those established parties if that were your philosophy.  In closing, I've got to
say this.  This is a book on the American Indian.  Never forget, the Indian
came here from Asia.  He came across what is now the Kuril Islands.  It was a
solid land mass.  He survived through Alaska, Canada, the United States, the
desert and the rainforests of South America all the way to the tip of South
America and built great civilizations.  Nothing ever stopped him--until we put
him on the reservation.  Don't ever put anybody on the reservation again.  Our
current welfare system puts people on the reservation.  The Industrial
Revolution occurred.  The Indian was out of the game, and it will take several
decades to put this noble hunter back in the game.  Any program we have should
be to put people back in the game, not to put them on the reservation, and
you've got a big one here--you follow me?--where you just kind of live, but you
don't produce.  Can you imagine how rotten you'd feel about yourself if you
couldn't produce and you couldn't take care of yourself and someone else had to
take care of you?  Always have a plan to put them back out hunting.  Thank you
very much.
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:17923 talk.environment:1434 alt.activism:7593