The deficit is Perot’s main target and, according to him, the reason “we are now in deep [economic] voodoo.” Perot has a standard rap on reducing the deficit that includes eliminating wasteful government spending ($180 billion a year), ending social security and Medicare subsidies to affluent retirees ($20 billion a year), getting Germany and Japan to pay the costs of stationing U.S. troops overseas ($100 billion a year) and improving tax collections by the Internal Revenue Service ($100 billion a year). Every one of these estimates has been disputed by the Bush administration in recent weeks. Perot, who recently ruled out raising taxes with the possible exception of taxes for education, now seems to be restudying his little list. He should be cautious. Getting specific about cutting the deficit is like walking blindfolded into a maze of special-interest booby traps. But stay tuned: he may be fool enough to do it.
Perot says he wants “strong, growing companies that keep Americans at work” and that “we’ve got to protect the job base.” Fine-but how would he do that, and what is government’s role? One answer, apparently, is to play hardball with Japan and other overseas competitors. Perot says he is a free-trader, but he is sharply critical of the Reagan-Bush record in international trade negotiations and sometimes sounds like a fire-breathing protectionist. He recently told the Los Angeles Times, for example, that he wants to compel Japan to accept “the same deal” on auto imports that Japan has given the United States. “You are going to see the clock stop,” he said. “You could never unload the ships to this country, just never unload the ships. “Perot is also vehemently critical of the Bush administration’s pending free-trade agreement with Mexico.
And while he rejects the term, Perot seems to advocate a form of national industrial policy-a partnership between government and key sectors of the manufacturing economy along the lines of Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). Such a partnership, he says, should create long-range “strategic plans, industry by industry,” and might include government subsidies. At a minimum, Perot says he would try to end the “adversarial relationship between government and business” and replace it with an “intelligent, supportive” relationship. What does this actually mean? It’s hard to say. But there’s plenty of opposition, from business people and economists alike, to the idea that government should try to pick winners and losers.
While Perot has proposed few specifics since the presidential campaign began, his track record in Texas is fairly clear. There, he pushed for improved early-childhood education, equalized funding for poor school districts, reduced class sizes in elementary school and the controversial “no pass, no play” rule for high-school athletes. But Perot also backed reforms that are opposed by teachers’ unions and school bureaucrats nationwide: ideas like merit pay, teacher-competency examinations, a longer school year and achievement testing. (His views on school choice, a hot-button issue with conservatives, are unknown.)
For a man who made billions in the healthcare industry, Perot is notably vague about the best way to overhaul the out-of-control U.S. health system. His suggestion-with no specifics-is to conduct a large-scale national experiment with two or three different approaches to reform, then pick the-approach that works best. If, as many in Washington believe, the polar positions are national health insurance versus private-sector reform, Perot seems to have tacitly straddled the issue.
It’s a woman’s decision, Perot says-although he also says he supports the idea of requiring parental consent in abortion cases that involve young girls.
Perot says he favors it, and he criticizes the current tax code as “a old inner tube with a thousand patches.” He also attacks “the bubble” as “the grossest inequity” he’s ever seen. (The bubble is an anomaly in the 1986 tax-reform law that effectively levies higher marginal rates on upper-middle-class taxpayers than on the wealthy.) Perot says he wants a fairer tax code-and one that allows most Americans to file “paperless” tax returns. A modem in every pot?
This one takes Perot straight into the lion’s den, unless the millions of retirees who blocked a relatively modest Medicare-fee increase three years ago have suddenly become altruistic. The issue is whether the federal government should end social-security and Medicare benefits for affluent older Americans. Perot says he could save $20 billion a year by ending benefits for “folks that don’t need it,” including himself. Sounds fair, but where would he draw the line? Bush administration officials say Perot would have to cut off benefits for every older American with an annual income more than $60,000 to save $20 billion-and that’s an awful lot of mad-as-hell retirees. Mr. Perot, meet the AARP.
Newsweek Poll
Why supporters like Perot:
CURRENT 5/18-20 Dislike other candidates 52% 36% Leadership 24% 29% Stands on issues 12% 20%
Does he need to say more about his policies or do you understand him?
TOTAL PEROT SUPPORTERS Say more 70% 67% Understand him 25% 31%
For this NEWSWEEK Poll, The Gallop Organization interviewed 753 registered voters by telephone June 4 -5. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Some “Don’t know” and other responses not shown. The NEWSWEEK Poll Copyright 1992 by NEWSWEEK, Inc.
