The Unsorted BBS Collection/thegreatunsorted.tar/thegreatunsorted/texts/txtfiles_misc/issues54.txt

Text File | 1980-01-01 | 15KB | 361 lines

(this is a summary of where Perot stands on some general and pertinent
issues councerning our country.  Sources have been indicated where
possible.  Text from people other than myself are pre-pended with a
unique charater, i.e. '%'.

  Mr. Perot has not officially declared himself a candidate yet, so he
does not have a platform.  These issues below have been taken directly
from transcripts of him being interviewed and articles.  The list of issues
will be updated as more information is gathered.



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

THE ECONOMY

%First off, his two big goals are getting the economy back on the right
%trace (producing high quality products, reducing the deficit) and
%straightening out the budget mess in Washington. (Larry King 2/20).

GUN CONTROL


%He supports the rights of law biding people to own guns and will try to
%keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
             (National Press Club Conference 3/18/92)

    Does not believe that mandatory registering of guns will curb violence.
Believes that tougher laws against criminals using guns will be more effective.


ILLEGAL DRUGS

    Solicited by the governor of Texas in 1979 to help curb illegal drug use
in that state.  Proposed five bills that were later signed into law which
made Texas the least desirable state for illegal drug operations.

    (from the Perot Petiton Committee; (located at: Perot ftp site:
         cobalt.caltech.edu; /pub/bjmccall/Perot/Perot.bio)


HIRING POLICIES

   Favors giving war veterans preference in hiring for jobs:

   "... They've been in the trenches for us.  Now it's time for us to go
   to the trenches for them. ... Jobs.  Pretty darn simple.  If I want to
   thank your for putting your life on the line for me, I give you first
   priority for jobs.  ... When I say jobs, I mean jobs for everybody.
   Everybody fought, everybody ought to have the opportunity.  Historically,
   the minorities don't get the same breaks we get.  Straight down the
   board, color-blind, just like the military.  Follow that example.

                    (Larry King Live 3/19/91)


   Has been very pro-female in hiring at his former company EDS, says "they
   are smarter than men", and was one of the first big corporations to
   appoint a woman as a director.

                (CBS Face The Nation, 4/26/92)


   Would appoint people to serve him as president based on qualifications,
   not party affiliation, sex, or color.

                (    )


ABORTION

   He has said that he supports legal choice:

      "I think this is the woman's decision."

          (National Press Club Conference 3/18/92)


AIDS AND GAY RIGHTS:

  "It's an individual decision.  I will be making a very strong appeal to
   everyone to be responsible so that we try through personal responsibility
   to dramatically reduce the spread of AIDS and we will be working night and
   day to find a cure.  The damage in this country is serious but the damage
   around the world is incredible, particularly in some of the poor countries"

                    4/11/92 San Jose Mecury News article

ENVIRONMENT:

   Says he is an environmentalist, but believes that we must recover our
   economy first before we can spend money on environmental issues.  Opposes
   building factories in Mexico, partly because they have no pollution
   and environmental controls.  Says "if we're broke, we can't fix the
   environment."

         (Larry King Live 4/16/92)

DOMESTIC SERVICE:

Perot has suggested that young people of this country serve two years in the
public sector, sort of a domestic peace corps, that would include areas
such as the military, commerce, agriculture, interior, etc. to contribute to
the country and better themselves, and would like retired Gen. Norman
Schwarzkopf to run it:

    PEROT: Let me give you a suggestion: Public service; every young person
    in this country gives two years of his life in public service.  Can you
    imagine how that would change this country?  I dont' mean all in the
    military; across the board.  Now, we have the infrastructure and the
    military to handle it.  We would change this country forever.
    If you and I had had that experience as young people, we would have known
    as young people what government could and couldn't do, among other things,
    right?  We would have always voted and we would have been much more
    committed to this country.  One last point, Larry.  I've got just the guy
    to run it: General Schwarzkopf, when he retires.

                (Larry King Live 3/19/91)


DEFENSE

%He has said that we can no longer afford to pay $100 Billion to defend
%Europe and Asia (Japan).  He would ask Europe & Japan to pick up
%the bill.  (National Press Club Conference 3/18/92)

Perot is against a permanent U.S. force stationed in the Middle East:

    Number one, we can't afford it.  This is another subject.  We are running
    out of dollars in this country and we can't run around all over the world
    and do this sort of thing until we clean up our problems here.

                (Larry King Live 3/19/91)

Perot, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, has always been a strong supporter of
service people.  He served four years on a destroyer and aircraft carrier,
and he received the Medal for Distinguished Public Service for his efforts
in exposing treatment of U.S. POWs in Southeast Asia, the highest civilian
award presented by the Department of Defense.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

%He will balance the budget.  As a businessman he is used to having to
%balance the books.  I think he understands the numbers.  Perot
%realizes that with a $400B yearly deficit and 68% of the national debt
%due within the next 5 years, that there has to be big spending cuts
%(means testing for social security).  (National Press Club Conference 3/18/92)

 Perot is for cleaning up Washington's bad spending habits: "We waste $180
billion a year- fraud and mismanagement.  That's inexcusable."
            (Larry King Live 2/20/92)

TAXES

   Favors starting over with a new tax program:

  "I would start with a blank sheet of paper and create a new tax code.
   This one has so many patches put on it by special interests, you'll never
   straighten this code out.  People who come to Washington today, my first
   advice to you is wear your safety shoes and wear a helmet because the
   lobbyists running up and down the halls trying to get one more patch on the
   inner-tube of their special interests might just kill you."

                    4/11/92 San Jose Mecury News article

   Favors taxing the wealthiest Americans at a higher tax rate to reduce
   the deficit.

                (CBS Face The Nation, 4/26/92)

WELFARE

   Wants to reform the welfare system we currently have; expose fraud:

  "The worst of all welfare systems is one that passes welfare on from one
   generation to another...We certainly want to help people who need help.
   We cannot have waste and abuse in the welfare system.  It's too expensive.
   It's not right for people to just steal the money and there's a little
   bit of that.  But we certainly do have to help people who need help."

                    4/11/92 San Jose Mecury News article


CAPITAL GAINS

Favors a reduction in the capital gains tax (Larry King: 2/20)


%Perot was (and still is) a big critic of "junk" bonds and
%the excessive debt of the '80's.  The country has to build
%better products, not shuffle paper assets.

IMMIGRATION

  no word


EDUCATION

%Perot has been a strong supporter of education.  He was active in the
%Texas education reforms.  He often says that is cheaper to send a
%person to Harvard than to keep them in jail for a year.  The point
%is that people balk at paying money up front to educate kids (and
%keep them out of trouble) but don't think twice about paying to keep
%them in jail.  Perot would rather spend the money up front to avoid
%the greater problems and expense of fixing things after their broken.

Perot spent $15 million for a collection of rare books and gave them to the
University of Texas; spend $1.5 million on an original copy of the Magna Carta
as a gift to the American people, located at the National Archives.

            (ABC NEWS 20/20 4/3/86)


   Is a strong supporter of Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander;
believe that education is the key to a strong tax base for this country.

            (Larry King Live 3/19/91)

   Appointed head of a commission in 1983 to reform Texas' educational system.


TRANSPORTATION

  no word yet.


FOREIGN POLICY

%He would quit proping up dictators and then going to was to knock them
%down (Noriega, Sadam Hussain).  He is an outspoken critic of the Iraq
%War because (he claims) the US (Amb. April Glaspie) told Sadam that
%he could take the Northern Kuwait oil fields and then had to go to
%war when Sadam took all of Kuwait.  (Larry King 2/20/92)

%He strongly criticizes the Emir of Kuwait for waiting until US servicemen put
%new gold faucets in his bathroom before returning to Kuwait.

   PEROT: Now, they're hiring us.  That's fine.  I have one problem with the
   rebuilding of Kuwait, and that is for our Corps of Engineers to rush in
   to fix up the Emir's castle while his people don't have water.  It's a
   Wall Street Journal story.  They were all in a big snit because they didn't
   have the proper gold faucets- "they" being the Emir and his family -and yet
   the people had no water.

                (Larry King Live 3/19/91)

%Perot criticizes Bush's codling of Syrias Assad (who is enagaged in
%international terrorism and has taken over much of Lebannon).

            (DONAHUE 3/24/92)


   "We're better at winning wars than winning peace.  Look at Panama.
    We didn't win the peace.  We left the people devastated down there.  Look
    at Iraq.  We didn't win the peace down there.  They still have nuclear,
    chemical and bacteriological weapons.  (Saddam) Hussein is still in power.
    All we did is create a new bad boy in the Middle East, (President Hafez)
    Assad of Syria."
                    4/11/92 San Jose Mecury News article


  Perot supports helping out Russia and other coutries in real need:

   "I would love to have a country that could always reach out and help other
    countries.  It is a whole lot cheaper to help Russia right now than it is
    to have a new cold war pop up in 18 months because we didn't."
                         (Larry King 2/20/92)

 Perot has had successful experience in dealing with foreign countries:

    In 1969, the US government asked Perot to determine what action might be
    taken to improve the brutal treatment our POW's were receiving in
    Southeast Asia. He worked on this project for the next four years placing
    himself and his family at considerable personal risk, until the prisoners
    were released in 1973 at the  end of the war. In recognition of his
    efforts, Perot received the Medal for Distinguished Public Service,
    the highest civilian award presented by the Department of Defense.

    When two EDS employees were taken hostage by the Iranian government in
    1979, Perot directed a successful rescue mission composed of EDS employees
    and led by  Colonel Arthur "Bull" Simons. Perot personally went into Iran,
    and inside the prison where his associates were held. Noted author, Ken
    Follett, wrote a best-selling novel, On Wings of Eagles, about the rescue.
    An NBC Television miniseries was later made about this event.

                (from the Perot Petiton Committee)

Perot would like to see a permanent negotiating team in the Middle East
to negotiate a peaceful settlement:

    Now, if we just have people floating in and out of the Middle East- for
    example, our Secretary of State, no matter how able he may be, cannot go
    there, stay there, deal with Arabs, Israelis, Kurds, and what-have-you,
    and Palestinians, and make the kind of peace we have to make.  We'd better
    put a world-class, tough-as-nails negotiating team over there, leave them
    over there, leave them over there.  It'll take months; may take a year.

                (Larry King Live 3/19/91)

    Supports Israel in the Middle East, strongly opposed to Assad of Syria.


AMERICAN INDIANS

%In his NPR speech, Perot said that Indians were able to come across
%the Bering Straights and thrive all the way down to the tip of Chile,
%but once they were put on reservations, there culture suffered.
%The point was that putting restrictions on people will eventually
%break them (alcohalism, etc) and it is not easy to put the pieces
%back together again. (National Press Club Conference 3/18/92)

TRADE

  Supports free trade, as long as it's fair:

   "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."

      (National Press Club Conference 3/18/92)


  Perot favors a law  "that if you were elected or appointed or worked in
Washington you cannot be a lobbyist for a foreign government, foreign
individual, for 10 years."  (Larry King 2/20/92).


  Perot is also is in favor of tougher trade negotiations and fair rules:

    "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."

            (National Press Club Conference 3/18/92)

MISCELLANEOUS:

Would like to see voting booths open on Saturday and Sunday.

Critizes the current system of politics in our country, believes that
good people will eventually become corrupted regardless in the current
system we have.  Says that people in Washington lose touch with the real
world.