From: mpye@netcom.com (Michael Pye)
Subject: The Debate debate
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 03:46:34 GMT

[forwarded]

I'd like to offer an opinion on the Vice-Presidential debate, and the 
1992 election in general.

Many people (in my humble opinion) are overly concerned with "who 
won" the debate, who had the best speaking skills/stage presence, or 
who got in the best "zingers". In most elections, what is promised 
before election day rarely has any relation to what happens after 
election day, so I feel that the above is irrelevant.

The important thing to be taken away from the debate is: who has the 
best ideas to get the country out of the mess we're in? 
Unfortunately, most of the debate was spent distorting statistics, 
disputing the other guy's statistics, or using catchy phrases to try 
to trap the other guy into saying something that would be regretted 
later. As Perot is fond of reminding us, so little time is spent on 
the issues.

If one more person says they feel sorry for Admiral Stockdale, I 
think I'll scream. There's no reason to feel sorry for him, and I 
don't think he wants our sympathy. What he wants is to ADVANCE 
SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS, by way of an intelligent discussion of the 
issues. Unfortunately, the focus of these debates more resembles 
"National Enquirer"-style journalism than, perhaps, Wall Street 
Journal-style journalism.

One point that has been completely missed in this whole process is 
that the President controls only a small part of the discretionary 
funds portion of the Federal budget. The lion's share of the 
discretionary funds is controlled by Congress. It is extremely 
ironic, and sad, that the Democratic candidates have managed to 
saddle a Republican President with the blame for a problem largely 
caused by a Democratic Congress. It was the Democrats, including Rep. 
Panetta from Monterey, that badgered the President into the 1990 
budget agreement.

If we as a country were serious about solving our massive economic 
woes, we would immediately, as a Nation, demand a line-item veto for 
the President to eliminate the disgusting PORK that creeps into so 
many bills that the President is asked to sign. This leads to massive 
"deals" that if the Republicans want to pass "this", then they must 
also approve "that" which  is tacked onto the bill, which has nothing 
to do with the original thrust of the bill. A vast majority of 
Governors have this power. In this era of fiscal austerity in the 
Government, it is criminal that a line-item veto hasn't been given to 
the President. (By the way, I approve of a Presidential line-item 
veto regardless of who is President.)

In most Presidential elections, people complain about having to 
choose the lesser of two evils. Well, this year at least there is a 
third choice, and it is distinctly different, not only from the other 
two, but also from politics as usual. I suspect this is one of few 
Presidential elections in U.S. history where a party has presented 
candidates for both President and Vice-President, neither of whom are 
LAWYERS. 

The basic choice, in my opinion, is between an economic cataclysm 
that will surely result from the tax-and-spend Clintonistas, who have 
the audacity to advance the theory that Government can spend your 
money better than you can, and the Republicans, who have shown little 
indication to realistically grapple with the hard decisions required 
to pare down the Federal budget to a level which will allow the 
Country to balance its checkbook. I think Clinton's right when he 
says "It's time for a change": a change from politics as usual, a 
change from rhetoric, from broken promises, from poor accountability 
to the American people, a change from inflationary economics, a 
change from National leadership that is more driven by the PACs and 
by the polls than by the American people. As the saying goes, it's 
time to do something different, even if it's wrong, because doing the 
same thing is certainly not right.

I have four children and we live on one income, which is a difficult 
thing to do in these trying times. When my children grow older and 
talk of the Economic Cataclysm of the 1990's, I have to be able to 
look them in the eye and tell them I voted for someone to shake up 
the process and honestly grapple with the issues. The only way I can 
do that is to vote for Ross Perot. I disagree with some of his 
positions, including his pro-abortion stance (let's get rid of this 
"woman's right to choose" rhetoric and call it what it is: 
pro-abortion). However, the economic survival of this country is 
paramount, because if the U.S. fails economically, it may also fail 
to exist as we now know it.

In the final analysis, I'd rather have two honest men, who have 
little to gain other than the satisfaction of having done the right 
thing, working night and day on solving the problems of this country 
from a fresh perspective, than putting two old-guard politicians back 
in the White House that are still more interested in rhetoric than 
solutions.

Those two men are Ross Perot and Admiral Stockdale.