Ronald Reagan / George Bush Debate
Ronald Reagan / George Bush Debate
Continuation of debate between Republican Presidential Candidates George Bush and Ronald Reagan, moderated by Howard K Smith. Topics covered here include the Reagan's accuracy of figures, economy, combating inflation, and the reduction of the size of government. One should note that Mr. Reagan and Mr. Bush have a hard time disagreeing.
Ronald Reagan / George Bush Debate
Howard K. Smith: You re getting close on something you agree on, I want to try and keep you from agreeing. (Laughing) Governor Reagan there s a question I have to ask you. The front runner always get shot at more than anybody else because he s the point man and there s a volley I must ask you about and you should have a chance to answer. Many observers have said that many of the facts used in your arguments are wrong. You spoken about the Kennedy 30% tax cut when it was really 18%. Ronald Reagan: That was the first year. It was a two year tax cut, Howard, and it was 27% and I think that s close enough to round out to 30. (Applause) Howard K. Smith: You have spoken of a government accounting office that is showing either 11 billion or 50 billion wastes in government and GEO says it doesn t have such a survey. Ronald Reagan: It turned out it was the Justice Department that gave that figure. Howard K. Smith: You said it cost the government 3 dollars to provide 1 dollar worth of benefits and HEW say s it cost 12 cents for a dollar of benefits. Ronald Reagan: I wouldn t believe HEW if they were here in the room saying that. Howard K. Smith: There were several other facts like that cited, do you dispute those? Ronald Reagan: (He reaches into his suit pocket and takes out a piece of paper) Well, something just happened tonight. The UPI and a pretty good writer Don Lambrough just come out a story that has to do with one set of figures I used about how many employees the Carter administration added back. And it seems that one of the networks, which shall remain nameless, went on the air and they gone to a fellow in government to ask him, and he said, why there were only 6 thousand added in all these three years under the Carter administration. But Mr. Lambrough goes on to say that while my figures might have not been accurate at the time, I appear to be closer to the mark. He says in the last three years the total number of government workers has grown by at least 63,282 not 6,000. I have said 131,000. But then, he went on to point out that there are about 145,000 persons officially work for the department of HEW, however HEW is also paying the salaries of 1 million additional workers who labor for HEW and state and local governments, universities, consulting firms and other organizations. Moreover federal revenue pays the salary 77,000 state workers in the US employment and unemployment offices around the country. All of these workers who collectively add millions to the rolls are excluded from the government employee records. How much of their numbers increased over the last three years? No one knows because no official count has ever been taken. When this was added to the civilian and military employees on the government official rolls, we see that as many as 14 million people are working for the government, and this means at least one US worker out of eight owes his job to Washington and he concludes saying thus Reagan s 131,000 increase is perfectly possible and may in fact actually understate the real rise of federal government.
Ronald Reagan / George Bush Debate
Howard K. Smith: All right, you covered that point, now how about the other points (Audience applauds) do you think occasionally you do make a mistake? Ronald Reagan: Certainly, any one that s standing up without notes and adlibbing answers to questions is going to slip up. One on some oil figures comparing Alaska and Saudi Arabia. The figures weren t wrong, but of all the things I read and studied and researched on that I attributed them to the wrong report. And gave US Geological Survey the responsibility for having used those figures, and so again they checked simply with US Geological Survey who said those figures weren t in our report, but I found that s all I had done, in that particular one What were some of those others you mentioned there, because I ve been waiting for an opportunity to do this? I have confidence in the facts and figures that I used. Howard K. Smith: I don t want to insist on them but you said it cost 3 dollars to deliver 1 dollar in benefits. Ronald Reagan: Well I ll tell you, this did appear in an account by an economist, and I will admit, not having a chance to check it the economist. I took the figure that was used for redistribution of income, outside of social security to people below the poverty level, and I took the figure of those below the poverty level and divided it into the total figure. And it came out, that if the people below the poverty level were getting all of the money in that budget, a family of four would be receiving 27 thousand dollars a year, which is about four times as much as their receiving and I figure that makes 3 to 1 overhead. (Applause.) George Bush: In my view what we ought to be doing something about the employee thing. You know, Jimmy Carter fought the Leech amendment that would of set a ceiling on federal employment through attrition. Nobody would have been thrown out of a job, but as people left, some of would not be replaced. He fought against that, he campaigned on less people employed. I drove by the EOB the other day and across from it is a building, I am told is staffed may be some on temporary assignment, by people really working for the White House. White House staff is drawn. They don t feel any of this recession. They don t feel any lay offs that the steel workers feel or felt or some of the people around here are beginning to feel. And so that s what I do on that one. On energy, I don t believe frankly that there s enough oil in Alaska within the reasonable future to replace the 9 million of barrels a day that we get from overseas. I believe a decline curve is already set in on Alaskan oil. Some companies already started pulling out of Alaska. And so my energy program is not just decontrol in figuring we can get it all in Alaska, but it s to use alternate sources of energy, go with decontrol, of course, but to use alternate sources of energy as well.
Ronald Reagan / George Bush Debate
Howard K. Smith: Let me ask you both something that is just developing now, and that is that famous recession we been waiting for and which is now at last beginning to happen. It may be there when either of you becomes President. What is your tendency to let a recession go its length in the hope that it will reduce inflation or try to halt recession by things like government expenditures or tax cuts that may stimulate inflation? Governor Reagan. Ronald Reagan: Well, I don t believe the alternative to inflation is recession. I think that s old fashioned economics. I don t think you have to trade unemployment, and incidentally, President Carter as a candidate, said he would never fight inflation by using unemployment. President Carter in his present economic message has said that as a part of his fight against inflation, unemployment is going to be allowed to go up 1, 1 and half or 2 percentage points. Now this is self destructive. Because for every single percentage point that you add to the unemployment rolls, you add 25 to 29 billion dollars to the federal deficit. Both in the loss of revenue from those no longer working and the benefits that goes out to them. No, I would do the things that I have talked about. Regard the cutting of government and I can point to some experience in the same situation. When I became governor of California it was just like the Federal Government, bankrupt, and with a deficit and a mounting deficit. And I know that some of these things work. I would even go back to an example that happened since I was Governor in California, Prop. 13. Everyone in the country heard the horrifying tales of what was going to happen if they cut the property tax as much as Proposition 13 said they were going to. Well it s been in effect about 18 months now, and the result is there are 100,000 fewer public workers, but the private sector in these 18 months has created 532,000 new jobs, and the state of California wound up with a 3 billion surplus. Howard K. Smith: Ambassador Bush. George Bush: I don t believe there is an economic total soft landing. I don t believe it, not my concept of economics. I believe you are going to see some increase in unemployment. I believe the way you fight back is to stimulate capital formation, risk taking in production. And the way you do that is in this kind of approach to cutting taxes I talked about as well as fighting the inflationary side by getting government spending under control. And I believe it would work. There are programs that will help with retraining. I like the idea of training people in the private sector for jobs that exist through tax credits rather than train them up in a SETA program that gets some kids hopes up. He really wants to work, gets his hopes up and there s no government job for him or any job for him. Train him for jobs that don t exist, so I m afraid you re going to see unemployment creep up. I would fight that by production, supply side tax cuts, stimulating the private sector. I believe that would work if you hold government under control, but you can t go and risk making the deficit bigger at the same time, otherwise you still would have that inflationary My problem with Jimmy Carter when he came in, he addressed himself to one thing, stimulation of employment sector and lowering unemployment. He did that to some degree for a while but inflation went right off the charts because of these reckless deficits. Ronald Reagan: Well, he did other things to create the reckless deficits. He said he was going to streamline government and he streamlined it, he created the energy industry that s got a budget as big as the total profits as the major oil companies. He s now created the cabinet level, National Department of Education with more billions of dollars. He s got the biggest staff, as you pointed out in the White House, I think of any President that we know of. I think that, he who is going to trim things. I laughed when he called Teddy Kennedy the biggest spender in the senate. Well he s the biggest spender that s ever been in the White House. I just feel when you said again, stimulate provide incentive for increased productivity. The American worker today is saving the lowest percentage of his earnings at any time in the last thirty odd years. And a Japanese worker can save 5 times the percentage of his earnings that an American can, West German worker 3 times. It s that money that is not going into savings accounts, not going to insurance premiums, that is not there as capital to invest in the private sector, and the only capital investment they ve been able to make has been mandated on them by this government to meet certain federal requirements, either in safety or environment or whatever, its added to production cost its reduced productivity. And I want to see an increase in productivity too. All I can say is I think the system your talking about we been trying for a lot of years really, off and on. And I think it s time for something new. And I think what is new is, let s believe in the people once again so they can spend their money smarter than the government can.
Ronald Reagan / George Bush Debate
Howard K. Smith: Let me ask you a question that is almost philosophical? Ladies and gentlemen please suppress your enthusiasm until we re finished because people will think someone is taking sides and we don t want to think you are. Mr. Reagan and Ambassador Bush, you blame the government for many of our ills, but in many ways who s not government absolutely essential and has many achievements to its credit. The most productive industry we have is agriculture and its productivity is here mainly to government activity and research stations. WWII the government created an aluminum industry when private industry wouldn t touch it, then sold it to private industry. And our most spectacular achievement lately, the putting a man on the moon was a government project, a government plan which private enterprise carried out. Aren t you underrating the effectiveness of government? George Bush: No, I don t think government compares to production. You can find an example of the aluminum industry, now much better done in the private sector. And when you have a wartime economy, of course you re going to have government intervention in certain things, stimulation of ship building for example. To tell you what s happening, government has moved in on the private sector with so much regulation. I built a business right here, in Texas, started it from scratch. And when we started out in the Gulf to drill a well, we needed, I think it was 2 permits. Today, I m told its 12 permits. Every time you turn around there s too much regulation. Yes, government does some things, and it can help people, and they do help people. And I m not an anti government person. They provide for the defense, and there s certain functions the government has, that are compassionate and I think good. And I have a difference with the governor, whether you turn everything back to the states or not, welfare for example, I think there is room for a partnership there. But what government does is not productive and we ought to be cutting it back because it isn t adding to this productivity that I think it is essential, if we re going to beat inflation and give the by-pass citizen. The person in the 5th ward in Huston, that s been by-passed, give them an opportunity to have a running start as they get into the work force. Howard K. Smith: Mr. Reagan. Ronald Reagan: Yes, Howard, I brought some figures along here because I felt they might come in handy someplace and here it is. If Americans since 1950, in the last 30 years, had been able to save and invest, if our economy had grown only 1 and a half % more a year, our incomes would be 50% higher, jobs would be plentiful, we d have a balance budget, lower payroll taxes instead of higher, stable prices, a solvent Social Security Program and our industrial economy would be three times as great of that of the Soviet Union, and we would have unquestioned military superiority. Now you mentioned, I agree too. There are legitimate functions that government must perform. And the basic three that are outlined in the very basis of our government and our constitution is that the federal government exists to protect us from outside aggression, our national security, to protect us from disorder within, and to guarantee the stability of our money. And in all three of those at the moment, we could say, that this administration has failed. They have not protected our national security, they have let it decline where we re in the most dangerous point we been in, that I can recall. We know about disorder in the streets, crime and so fourth. The third one also, the stability of our money, the dollar is worth less in relation to other currency than it s ever been in our history.