October 15, 1992
Carole Simpson. Good evening, and welcome to the second of three Presidential debates between the major candidates for President of the United States. The candidates are the Republican nominee, President George Bush; the independent, Ross Perot; and Governor Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee.
My name is Carole Simpson, and I will be the moderator for tonight's 90-minute debate which is coming to you from the campus of the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia.
Now, tonight's program is unlike any other Presidential debate in history. We're making history now, and it's pretty exciting. An independent polling firm has selected an audience of 209 uncommitted voters from this area. The candidates will be asked questions by these voters on a topic of their choosing, anything they want to ask about. My job as moderator is to, you know, take care of the questioning, ask questions myself if I think there needs to be continuity and balance, and sometimes I might ask the candidates to respond to what another candidate may have said.
Now, the format has been agreed to by representatives of both the Republican and Democratic campaigns, and there is no subject matter that is restricted. Anything goes. We can ask anything. After the debate the candidates will have an opportunity to make a closing statement.
So, President Bush, I think you said it earlier, let's get it on.
President Bush. Let's go.
Ms. Simpson. And I think the first question is over here.
Foreign Trade and Domestic Jobs
Q. I'd like to direct my question to Mr. Perot. What will you do as President to open foreign markets to fair competition from American business and to stop unfair competition here at home from foreign countries so that we can bring jobs back to the United States?
Mr. Perot. That's right at the top of my agenda. We've shipped millions of jobs overseas, and we have a strange situation because we have a process in Washington where after you've served for a while, you cash in, become a foreign lobbyist, make $30,000 a month, then take a leave, work on Presidential campaigns, make sure you got good contacts, and then go back out.
Now, if you just want to get down to brass tacks, first thing you ought to do is get all these folks that have got these one-way trade agreements that we've negotiated over the years and say, "Fellas, we'll take the same deal we gave you." They'll gridlock right at that point, because, for example, we've got international competitors who simply could not unload their cars off the ships if they had to comply, you see, if it was a two-way street, just couldn't do it.
We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. To those of you in the audience who are business people, pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers, and you can move your factory south of the border, pay $1 an hour for labor, hire young -- let's assume you've been in business for a long time; you've got a mature work force -- pay $1 an hour for your labor, have no health care -- that's the most expensive single element in making a car -- have no environmental controls, no pollution controls, and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south. So if the people send me to Washington, the first thing I'll do is study that 2,000-page agreement and make sure it's a two-way street.
I have one last part here. I decided I was dumb and didn't understand it, so I called the "Who's Who" of the folks that have been around it. And I said, "Why won't everybody go south?" They say, "It would be disruptive." I said, "For how long?" I finally got them up for 12 to 15 years. And I said, "Well, how does it stop being disruptive?" And that is, when their jobs come up from $1 an hour to $6 an hour, and ours go down to $6 an hour, then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals. We've got to cut it out.
Ms. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Perot. I see that the President has stood up, so he must have something to say about this.
President Bush. Well, Carole, the thing that saved us in this global economic slowdown has been our exports, and what I'm trying to do is increase our exports. If, indeed, all the jobs were going to move south because of lower wages, there are lower wages now, and they haven't done that. So I have just negotiated with the President of Mexico the North American free trade agreement, and the Prime Minister of Canada, I might add. I want to have more of these free trade agreements because export jobs are increasing far faster than any jobs that may have moved overseas. That's a scare tactic, because it's not that many. But any one that's here, we want to have more jobs here, and the way to do that is to increase our exports.
Some believe in protection. I don't. I believe in free and fair trade. That's the thing that saved us. And so I will keep on, as President, trying to get a successful conclusion to the GATT round, the big Uruguay round of trade which will really open up markets for our agriculture, particularly. I want to continue to work after we get this NAFTA agreement ratified this coming year. I want to get one with Eastern Europe. I want to get one with Chile. Free and fair trade is the answer, not protection.
As I say, we've had tough economic times, and it's exports that have saved us, exports that have built -- --
Ms. Simpson. Governor Clinton.
Governor Clinton. I'd like to answer the question, because I've actually been a Governor for 12 years, so I've known a lot of people who have lost their jobs because of jobs moving overseas, and I know a lot of people whose plants have been strengthened by increasing exports.
The trick is to expand our export base and to expand trade on terms that are fair to us. It is true that our exports to Mexico, for example, have gone up, and our trade deficit's gone down. It's also true that just today a record-high trade deficit was announced with Japan.
So what is the answer? Let me just mention three things very quickly. Number one, make sure that other countries are as open to our markets as our markets are to them. If they're not, have measures on the books that don't take forever and a day to implement.
Number two, change the Tax Code. There are more deductions in the Tax Code for shutting plants down and moving overseas than there are for modernizing plants and equipment here. Our competitors don't do that. Emphasize and subsidize modernizing plants and equipment here, not moving plants overseas.
Number three, stop the Federal Government's program that now gives low interest loans and job training funds to companies that will actually shut down and move to other countries, but we won't do the same thing for plants that stay here. So more trade, but on fair terms, and favor investment in America.
Ms. Simpson. Thank you. I think we have a question over here.
Federal Deficit
Q. This is for Governor Clinton. In the real world, that is, outside of Washington, DC, compensation and achievement are based on goals defined and achieved. My question is about the deficit. Would you define in specific dollar goals how much you would reduce the deficit in each of the 4 years of a Clinton administration and then enter into a legally binding contract with the American people that if you did not achieve those goals that you would not seek a second term? Answer yes or no, and then comment on your answer, please.
Governor Clinton. No, and here's why; I'll tell you exactly why, because the deficit now has been building up for 12 years. I'll tell you exactly what I think can be done. I think we can bring it down by 50 percent in 4 years and grow the economy.
Now, I could get rid of it in 4 years in theory on the books now, but to do it you'd have to raise taxes too much and cut benefits too much to people who need them, and it would even make the economy worse.
Mr. Perot will tell you, for example, that the expert he hired to analyze his plan says that it will bring the deficit down in 5 years, but it will make unemployment bad for 4 more years. So my view is, sir, you have to increase investment, grow the economy, and reduce the deficit by controlling health care costs, prudent reductions in defense, cuts in domestic programs, and asking the wealthiest Americans and foreign corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, and investing in growing this economy.
I ask everybody to look at my economic ideas. Nine Nobel Prize winners and over 500 economists and hundreds of business people, including a lot of Republicans, said this is the way you've got to go. If you don't grow the economy, you can't get it done. But I can't foresee all the things that will happen, and I don't think a President should be judged solely on the deficit.
Let me also say we're having an election today. You'll have a shot at me in 4 years, and you can vote me right out if you think I've done a lousy job. I would welcome you to do that.
Ms. Simpson. Mr. President?
President Bush. Well, I've got to -- I'm a little confused here because I don't see how you can grow the deficit down by raising people's taxes. You see, I don't think the American people are taxed too little. I think they're taxed too much. I went for one tax increase, and when I make a mistake, I admit it, say that wasn't the right thing to do. Governor Clinton's program wants to tax more and spend more: $150 billion in new taxes, spend another $220 billion. I don't believe that's the way to do it.
Here's some things that will help. Give us a balanced budget amendment. He always talks about Arkansas having a balanced budget, and they do. But he has a balanced budget amendment; have to do it. I'd like the Government to have that. I think it would discipline not only the Congress, which needs it, but also the executive branch.
I'd like to have what 43 Governors have, the line-item veto. So if the Congress can't cut, we've got a reckless spending Congress, let the President have a shot at it by wiping out things that are pork barrel or something of that nature.
I've proposed another one. Some sophisticates think it may be a little gimmicky. I think it's good. It's a check-off. It says to you as a taxpayer -- say, you're going to pay a tax of $1,000 or something; you can check 10 percent of that if you want to in one box, and that 10 percent, $100, or if you're paying $10,000, whatever it is, $1,000, check it off, and make the Government, make it lower the deficit by that amount. If the Congress won't do it, if they can't get together and negotiate how to do that, then you'd have a sequester across the board. You'd exempt Social Security. I don't want to tax or touch Social Security. I'm the President that said, "Hey, don't mess with Social Security." And we haven't.
So I believe we need to control the growth of mandatory spending, back to this gentleman's question, that's the main growing thing in the budget. The program that the President -- two-thirds of the budget, I, as President, never get to look at, never get to touch. We've got to control that growth to inflation and population increase, but not raise taxes on the American people now. I just don't believe that would stimulate any kind of growth at all.
Ms. Simpson. How about you, Mr. Perot?
Mr. Perot. Well, we're $4 trillion in debt, and we're going into debt an additional $1 billion, a little more than $1 billion, every working day of the year. Now, the thing I love about it -- I'm just a businessman. I was down in Texas, taking care of business, tending to my family. This situation got so bad that I decided I had better get into it. The American people asked me to get into it. But I just find it fascinating that while we sit here tonight, we will go into debt an additional $50 million in an hour and a half.
Now, it's not the Republicans' fault, of course, and it's not the Democrats' fault. What I'm looking for is who did it? Now, they're the two folks involved; so maybe if you put them together, they did it. Now, the facts are we have to fix it.
I'm here tonight for these young people up here in the balcony from this college. When I was a young man, when I got out of the Navy, I had multiple job offers. Young people with high grades can't get a job. The 18- to 24-year-old high school graduates 10 years ago were making more than they are now. In other words, we were down to -- 18 percent of them were making -- the 18- to 24-year-olds were making less than $12,000. Now that's up to 40 percent. And what's happening in the meantime? The dollar's gone through the floor.
Now, whose fault is that? Not the Democrats; not the Republicans. Somewhere out there there's an extraterrestrial that's doing this to us, I guess. [Laughter] And everybody says they take responsibility. Somebody, somewhere has to take responsibility for this. Put it to you bluntly, the American people: If you want me to be your President, we're going to face our problems. We'll deal with the problems. We'll solve our problems. We'll pay down our debt. We'll pass on the American dream to our children. I will not leave our children a situation that they have today.
When I was a boy, it took two generations to double the standard of living. Today it will take 12 generations. Our children will not see the American dream because of this debt that somebody, somewhere dropped on us.
Ms. Simpson. You're all wonderful speakers, and I know you have lots more to add. But I have talked to this audience, and they have lots of questions on other topics. Can we move to another topic, please?
We have one up here, I think.
Presidential Campaign
Q. Yes, I'd like to address all the candidates with this question. The amount of time the candidates have spent in this campaign trashing their opponents' character and their programs is depressingly large. Why can't your discussions and proposals reflect the genuine complexity and the difficulty of the issues to try to build a consensus around the best aspects of all proposals?
Ms. Simpson. Who wants to take that one? Mr. Perot, you have an answer for everything, don't you? Go right ahead, sir. [Laughter]
Mr. Perot. No, I don't have an answer for everything. As you all know, I've been buying 30-minute segments to talk about issues. Tomorrow night on NBC from 10:30 to 11, eastern, we're going to talk about how you pay the debt down. So we're going to come right down to that one, see. We'll be on again Saturday night 8 to 9 o'clock on ABC. [Laughter]
Ms. Simpson. Okay, okay.
Mr. Perot. So the point is, finally, I couldn't agree with you more, couldn't agree with you more. And I have said again and again and again, let's get off mud wrestling. Let's get off personalities, and let's talk about jobs, health care, crime, the things that concern the American people. I'm spending my money, not PAC money, not foreign money, my money to take this message to the people.
Ms. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Perot. So that seems directed. He would say it's you gentlemen that have been doing that. Mr. Clinton, Governor Clinton, how do you -- President Bush, how would you like to respond?
President Bush. Well, first place, I believe that character is a part of being President. I think you have to look at it. I think that has to be a part of candidate for President or being President. In terms of programs, I've submitted, what, four different budgets to the United States Congress in great detail. They're so heavy they'd give you a broken back. Everything in there says what I am for. Now, I've come out with a new agenda for America's renewal, a plan that I believe really will help stimulate the growth of this economy.
My record on world affairs is pretty well-known because I've been President for 4 years. So I feel I've been talking issues. Nobody likes "who shot John," but I think the first negative campaign run in this election was by Governor Clinton. And I'm not going to sit there and be a punching bag. I'm going to stand up and say, "Hey, listen, here's my side of it." But character is an important part of the equation.
The other night, Governor Clinton raised -- I don't know if you saw the debate the other night, suffered through that. [Laughter] Well, he raised a question of my father. It was a good line, well-rehearsed and well-delivered. But he raised a question of my father and said, "Well, your father, Prescott Bush, was against McCarthy. You should be ashamed of yourself -- McCarthyism."
I remember something my dad told me. I was 18 years old, going to Penn Station to go into the Navy. He said, "Write your mother," which I faithfully did. He said, "Serve your country." My father was an honor, duty, and country man. And he said, "Tell the truth." And I've tried to do that in public life, all through it. That has said something about character.
My argument with Governor Clinton -- you can call it mud wrestling, but I think it's fair to put it in focus -- is I am deeply troubled by someone who demonstrates and organizes demonstration in a foreign land when his country's at war. Probably a lot of kids here disagree with me, but that's what I feel. That's what I feel passionately about. I'm thinking of Ross Perot's running mate sitting in the jail; how would he feel about it? But maybe that's generational. I don't know.
But the big argument I have with the Governor on this is this taking different positions on different issues, trying to be one thing to one person here that's opposing the NAFTA agreement and then for it; what we call waffling. And I do think that you can't turn the White House into the waffle house. You've got to say what you're for. And you have got to -- --
Ms. Simpson. Mr. President, I am getting time cues, and with all due respect, I'm sorry.
President Bush. Excuse me, I don't want to -- no, go ahead, Carole.
Ms. Simpson. Governor Clinton.
President Bush. I get wound up because I feel strongly.
Ms. Simpson. Yes, you do. [Laughter]
Governor Clinton. Let me say first of all to you that I believe so strongly in the question you asked that I suggested this format tonight. I started doing these formats a year ago in New Hampshire, and I found that we had huge crowds because all I did was let people ask questions, and I tried to give very specific answers. I also had a program starting last year.
I've been disturbed by the tone and the tenor of this campaign. Thank goodness the networks have a fact check so I don't have to just go blue in the face anymore. Mr. Bush said once again tonight I was going to have a $150 billion tax increase. When Mr. Quayle said that, all the networks said: that's not true; he's got over $100 billion in tax cuts and incentives.
So I'm not going to take up your time tonight, but let me just say this. We'll have a debate in 4 days, and we can talk about this character thing again, but the Washington Post ran a long editorial today saying they couldn't believe Mr. Bush was making character an issue, and they said he was the greatest political chameleon, for changing his positions, of all time.
Now, I don't want to get into that -- --
President Bush. Please don't say anything by the Washington Post.
Governor Clinton. Wait a minute. Let's don't -- you don't have to believe that. Here's my point. I'm not interested in his character. I want to change the character of the Presidency. And I'm interested in what we can trust him to do and what you can trust me to do and what you can trust Mr. Perot to do for the next 4 years. So I think you're right, and I hope the rest of the night belongs to you.
Ms. Simpson. May I -- I talked to this audience before you gentlemen came, and I asked them about how they felt about the tenor of the campaign. Would you like to let them know what you thought about that, when I said, "Are you pleased with how the campaign's been going?"
Audience members. No!
Ms. Simpson. Who wants to say why you don't like the way the campaign is going? We have a gentleman back here?
Focusing on Issues
Q. If I may, and forgive the notes here, but I'm shy on camera. The focus of my work as a domestic mediator is meeting the needs of the children that I work with by way of their parents, and not the wants of their parents. I ask the three of you, how can we as, symbolically, the children of the future President, expect the two of you, the three of you, to meet our needs, the needs in housing and in crime and you name it, as opposed to the wants of your political spin doctors and your political parties?
Ms. Simpson. So your question is -- --
Q. Can we focus on the issues and not the personalities and the mud? I think there is a need -- if we could take a poll here with the folks from Gallup, perhaps -- I think there is a real need here to focus at this point on the needs.
Ms. Simpson. How do you respond? How do you gentlemen respond to -- --
Governor Clinton. I agree with him.
Ms. Simpson. President Bush?
President Bush. Let's do it. Let's talk about programs for children.
Q. Could we cross our hearts, and it sounds silly here, but could we make a commitment? You know, we're not under oath at this point, but could you make a commitment to the citizens of the United States to meet our needs, and we have many, and not yours again? You know, I repeat that; that's a real need I think that we all have.
President Bush. I think it depends on how you define it. I mean, I think, in general, let's talk about these issues, let's talk about the programs. But in the Presidency, a lot goes into it. Caring goes into it; that's not particularly specific. Strength goes into it; that's not specific. Standing up against aggression; that's not specific in terms of a program. This is what a President has to do.
So, in principle, though, I'll take your point. I think we ought to discuss child care or whatever else it is.
Ms. Simpson. And you two?
Governor Clinton. Ross had his hand up.
Mr. Perot. No hedges, no ifs, ands, and buts, I'll take the pledge, because I know the American people want to talk about issues and not tabloid journalism. So I'll take the pledge, and we'll stay on the issues.
Now, just for the record, I don't have any spin doctors. I don't have any speechwriters. Probably shows. [Laughter] I make those charts you see on television even. [Laughter] But you don't have to wonder if it's me talking. Hey, what you see is what you get. If you don't like it, you've got two other choices, right?
Governor Clinton. Wait a minute. I want to say just one thing now, Ross, in fairness. The ideas I express are mine. I've worked on these things for 12 years, and I'm the only person up here who hasn't been part of Washington in any way for the last 20 years. So I don't want the implication to be that somehow everything we say is just cooked up and put in our head by somebody else. I worked 12 years very hard as a Governor on the real problems of real people. I'm just as sick as you are by having to wake up and figure out how to defend myself every day. I never thought I'd ever be involved in anything like this.
Mr. Perot. May I finish?
Ms. Simpson. Yes, you may finish.
Mr. Perot. Very briefly?
Ms. Simpson. Yes, very briefly.
Mr. Perot. I don't have any foreign money in my campaign. I don't have any foreign lobbyists on leave in my campaign. I don't have any PAC money in my campaign. I've got 5 1/2 million hard-working people who have put me on the ballot, and I belong to them.
Ms. Simpson. Okay.
Mr. Perot. And they are interested in what you're interested in. I'll take the pledge. I've already taken the pledge on cutting the deficit in half. I never got to say that. There's a great young group, Lead or Leave, college students, young people who don't want us to spend their money. I took the pledge we'd cut it out.
Ms. Simpson. Thank you. We have a question here.
Domestic Infrastructure
Q. Yes. I would like to get a response from all three gentlemen. And the question is, what are your plans to improve the physical infrastructure of this Nation, which includes the water system, the sewer system, our transportation systems, et cetera? Thank you.
Ms. Simpson. The cities. Who is going to fix the cities, and how?
President Bush. I'd be glad to take a shot at it.
Ms. Simpson. Please.
President Bush. I'm not sure that -- and I can understand if you haven't seen this because there's been a lot of hue and cry. We passed this year the most farthest looking transportation bill in the history of this country since Eisenhower started the interstate highways, $150 billion for improving the infrastructure. That happened when I was President. So I am very proud of the way that came about, and I think it's a very, very good beginning.
Like Mr. Perot, I am concerned about the deficits. And $150 billion is a lot of money, but it's awful hard to say we're going to go out and spend more money when we're trying to get the deficit down. But I would cite that as a major accomplishment.
We hear all the negatives. When you're President, you expect this. Everybody's running against the incumbent. They can do better; everyone knows that. But here's something that we can take great pride in because it really does get to what you're talking about. Our home initiative, our homeownership initiative, HOPE, that passed the Congress is a good start for having people own their own homes instead of living in these deadly tenements.
Our enterprise zones that we hear a lot of lip service about in Congress would bring jobs into the inner city. There's a good program. I need the help of everybody across this country to get it passed in substantial way by the Congress.
When we went out to South Central in Los Angeles -- some of you may remember the riots there. I went out there. I went to a boys club, and every one of them, the boys club leaders, the ministers, all of them were saying, pass enterprise zones. We go back to Washington, and very difficult to get it through the Congress.
But there's going to be a new Congress. No one likes gridlock. There's going to be a new Congress because the old one, I don't want to get this man mad at me, but there was a post office scandal and a bank scandal. You're going to have a lot of new Members of Congress. And then you can sit down and say, "Help me do what we should for the cities. Help me pass these programs."
Ms. Simpson. Mr. President, aren't you threatening to veto the bill, the urban aid bill, that included enterprise zones?
President Bush. Sure, but the problem is you get so many things included in a great big bill that you have to look at the overall good. That's the problem with our system. If you had a line-item veto, you could knock out the pork. You could knock out the tax increases, and you could do what the people want, and that is create enterprise zones.
Ms. Simpson. Governor Clinton, you're chomping at the bit.
Governor Clinton. That bill pays for these urban enterprise zones by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more, and that's why he wants to veto it, just like he vetoed an earlier bill this year. This is not mud slinging. This is fact slinging.
President Bush. There you go.
Governor Clinton. A bill earlier this year -- this is fact -- that would have given investment tax credits and other incentives to reinvest in our cities and our country. But it asked the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more. Mr. Perot wants to do the same thing. I agree with him. I mean, we agree with that.
Let me tell you specifically what my plan does: My plan would dedicate $20 billion a year in each of the next 4 years for investments in new transportation, communications, environmental cleanup, and new technologies for the 21st century. We would target it especially in areas that have been either depressed or which have lost a lot of defense-related jobs.
There are 200,000 people in California, for example, who have lost their defense-related jobs. They ought to be engaged in making high-speed rail. They ought to be engaged in breaking ground in other technologies, doing waste recycling, clean water technology, and things of that kind. We can create millions of jobs in these new technologies, more than we're going to lose in defense if we target it. But we're investing a much smaller percentage of our income in the things you just asked about than all of our major competitors. Our wealth growth is going down as a result of it. It's making the country poorer, which is why I answered the gentleman the way I did before.
We have to both bring down the deficit and get our economy going through these kinds of investments in order to get the kind of wealth and jobs and incomes we need in America.
Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot, what about your plans for the cities? You want to tackle the economy and the deficit first.
Mr. Perot. First, you've got to have money to pay for these things. So you've got to create jobs, and there are all kinds of ways to create jobs in the inner city. Now, I am not a politician, but I think I could go to Washington in a week and get everybody holding hands and get this bill signed, because I talked to the Democratic leaders, and they want it. I talked to the Republican leaders, and they want it. But since they are bred from childhood to fight with one another rather than get results, I would be glad to drop out and spend a little time and see if we couldn't build some bridges.
Now, results is what counts. The President can't order Congress around. Congress can't order the President around. That's not bad for a guy that's never been there, right? But you have to work together. Now, I have talked to the chairmen of the committees that want this; they're Democrats. The President wants it. But we can't get it because we sit here in gridlock because it's a campaign year. We didn't fund a lot of other things this year, like the savings and loan mess. That's another story that we're going to pay a big price for right after the election.
The facts are, though, the facts are the American people are hurting. These people are hurting in the inner cities. We're shipping the low-paying, quote, "low-paying" jobs overseas. What are low-paying jobs? Textiles, shoes, things like that that we say are yesterday's industries. They're tomorrow's industries in the inner city.
Let me say in my case, if I'm out of work, I'll cut grass tomorrow to take care of my family. I'll be happy to make shoes. I'll be happy to make clothing. I'll make sausage. You just give me a job. Put those jobs in the inner cities, instead of doing diplomatic deals and shipping them to China, where prison labor does the work.
Washington Gridlock
Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot, everybody thought you won