Between the three candidates. President george bush, arkansas governor, bill clinton, and independent candidate ross perot. Good evening and welcome to this second of three president ial 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 tonights 90 minute debate, which is coming to you from the campus of the university of richmond in richmond, virginia. Now, tonights program is unlike any other president ial debate in history. We are making history now and its pretty exciting. In independent polling firm has elected an audience of 209 uncompetitive 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, lets get it on. Lets go. And i think the first question is over here. Yes, i would 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 u. S. The United States . Thats right at the top of my agenda. Weve shipped millions of jobs overseas and we have a strange situation because we have a process in washington where, after youve served for a while, you cash in, become a foreign lobbyist, make 30,000 dollars a month, then take a leave, work on president ial campaigns, make sure youve 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 whove got these oneway trade agreements that weve negotiated over the years and say fellas, will take the same deal we gave you. And theyll gridlock right at that point because for example, weve got International Competitors who simply could not unload their cars off the ships if they had to comply you see, if it was a 2way street, just couldnt do it. We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. To those of you in the audience who are Business People pretty simple. If youre paying 12, 13, 14 an hour for a factory worker, and you can move your factory south of the border, pay 1 an hour for labor, hire a young lets assume youve been in business for a long time. Youve got a mature workforce. Pay 1 an hour for your labor, have no health care thats the most expensive single element in making the car. Have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement. And you dont care about anything but making money. There will be a jobsucking sound going south. If the people send me to washington the first thing ill do is study that 2000page agreement and make sure its a 2way street. One last point here. I decided i was dumb and didnt understand it so i called a whos who of the folks that have been around it, and i said why wont everybody go south; they said it will be disruptive; i said for how long. I finally gotem for 12 to 15 years. And i said, well, how does it stop being disruptive . And that is when their jobs come up from a dollar an hour to 6 an hour, and ours go down to 6 an hour; then its leveled again, but in the meantime youve wrecked the country with these kind of deals. Weve got to cut it out. Thank you, mr. Perot. I see that the president has stood up, so he must have something to say about this. Carol, the thing that saved us in this Global Economic slowdown has been our exports, and what im trying to do is increase our exports. And if indeed all the jobs were going to move south because there are lower wages, there are lower wages now and they havent done that. And 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, and 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. Thats a scare tactic, because its not that many. But anyone thats here, we want to have more jobs here. And the way to do that is to increase our exports. Some believe in protection. I dont. I believe in free and fair trade, and thats 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 war 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. And free and fair trade is the answer, not protection. And, as i say, weve had tough economic times, and its exports that have saved us, exports that have built. Governor clinton. Id like to answer the question, because ive actually been a governor for 12 years, so ive 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 has gone down; its 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, and, if theyre not, have measures on the books that dont 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 plant and equipment here. Our competitors dont do that. Emphasize and subsidize modernizing plant and equipment here, not moving plants overseas. Number three, stop the federal Governments Program that now gives lowinterest loans and job training funds to companies that will actually shut down and move to other countries, but we wont do the same thing for plants that stay here. So more trade but on fair terms and favor investment in america. Thank you. I think we have a question over here. Yeah, 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 2nd term . Answer yes or no and then comment on your answer, please. No, and heres why. And ill tell you exactly why. Because the deficit now has been building up for 12 years. Ill tell you exactly what i think can be done. I think we can bring it down by 50 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 youd 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 five years, but it will make unemployment bed for four 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 prudent reductions in defensive, 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 and nine nobel Prize Winners in over 500 economist and hundreds of Business People, including a lot of republican said, this is the way youve got to go. If you dont grow the economy, you cant get it done. But i cant foresee all the things that will happen, and i dont think a president should be judged solely on the deficit. Let me also say, we are having an election today. Youll have a shot it mean for years and you can vote me right out if you think ive done a lousy job and i would welcome you to do that. Mister president. Well, im a little confused here because i dont see how you can grow the deficit down by raising peoples taxes. You see, i dont think the American People are taxed too little, i think there are taxed too much. I went for one tax increase and when i make a mistake i made it. I said that wasnt the right thing to do. Governor clintons program wants to tax more and spend more. 150 billion dollars in new taxes, spend another 220. I dont believe thats the way to do it. Here is 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. Id like the government to have that. I i think it would discipline not only the congress, which needs it, but also the executive branch. I would like to have 1 43 governors have, the line item veto, so if the congress cant cut, and weve 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 proposed another one. Some sophisticated think it maybe a little gimmicky. I think its good. Its a check off. It says to you as a taxpayer, say youre going to pay a tax of 1000 bucks or something, you can check 10 of that, if you want to, and the one box and that 10 , 100 dollars, or if youre paying 10, 000, whatever it is, 1000 dollars, check it off and make the government, make it lower the deficit by that amount. And if the Congress Wont do it, if they can get together and negotiate how to do that, then youd have a sequester across the board. Youd exempt social security. I dont want to touch tax or social security. On the president that said, hey, dont mess with social security, and we have it. So i believe that we need men to control the growth of mandatory spending, back to this gentlemans question. Thats 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. Weve got to control that growth to inflation and population increase, but not raise taxes on the American People now. I just dont believe that would stimulate any kind of growth at all. How about you, mr. Perot . Well, were four trillion dollars in debt. Were going into debt an additional one billion, little more than a billion dollars every working day of the year. Now, the thing i love about it, im just a businessman. I was down in texas taking care of business, tending to my family. The situation got so bad that i decided id 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 in additional 50 Million Dollars in an hour and a half. Now, its not the republicans fault, of course, and its not the democrats fault. And what im looking for is who did it . Now, they are the two folks involved so maybe if you put them together, they did it. Now, the facts are that we have to fix it. Im 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 cant get a job. People, the 18 to 24 Year Old High School graduates, ten years ago, were making more than they are now. In other words, we were down to 18 of them were making, have the 18 to 24yearolds, were making less than 12,000. Now thats up to 40 . And whats happening in the meantime . The dollars gone through the floor. Now, whose fault is that . Not the democrats. Another republicans. Somewhere out there theres an extra terrestrial that is doing to us i guess. And everybody says they take responsibility. Somebody somewhere has to take responsibility for this. Put it to you bluntly, American People, if you want me to be your president , were going to face our problems. Well deal with our problems. Will face less all of our will solve our problems. Will 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. How are children will not see the American Dream because of this debt that somebody somewhere dropped on us. You are all wonderful speakers, and i know you have lots more to add, but ive talked to this audience, and they have lots of questions on other topics. Can we move