Al Gore vs Ross Perot on NAFTA in 1993

[AZ Progressive]

[grasswire]

1. WOW

I lost a lot of respect for Al Gore watching that.

[newfie11]

2. Wonder how different it would be if Perot had won

I was all set to vote for him until he withdrew. i never heard why.

I wonder how different this country would have been if he had won. Hindsight And all.

Here we are now with a Dem president pushing a trade deal from hell.
Bernie will get my vote if he is the Dem choice.

[markpkessinger]

3. Perot was right about NAFTA, but not much else . . .

. . . He was basically a deficit hawk, not unlike the GOP deficit hawks of today, obsessed with cutting government spending, including programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Is that what you supported?

[newfie11]

4. I didn't remember him wanting to cut them

Last edited Sun May 10, 2015, 07:11 AM - Edit history (1)

But I see he did propose that.

Then there is Obama ( that I did vote for 2x).

Below is what I found. Now I was young when ole Ross was running and didn't pay much attention to Medicare etc.
Now I'm on medicare and don't appreciate the following:

The White House already tried cutting all three main entitlement programs, last year (cuts to Medicaid are actually cuts to Obamacare, for what it’s worth, since an expansion of Medicaid was a key plank of the new health care law).

The White House agreed to cut at least $250 billion from Medicare in the next 10 years and another $800 billion in the decade after that, in part by raising the eligibility age. The administration had endorsed another $110 billion or so in cuts to Medicaid and other health care programs, with $250 billion more in the second decade. And in a move certain to provoke rebellion in the Democratic ranks, Obama was willing to apply a new, less generous formula for calculating Social Security benefits, which would start in 2015.

[markpkessinger]

5. In fairness to you . . .

. . . much of Perot's spending cut agenda was cloaked behind innocuous sounding rhetoric about "balancing the budget." I think in 1992 and 1996, many of us didn't fully grasp the ramifications of that quite the way we do now, in this post-2008 meltdown environment.

[RufusTFirefly]

7. I support Rand Paul's position on drones...

... But there is no frickin' way that I would vote for that kook for any office. Perot was kind of like that. A stopped clock.

Although their rationales may be entirely different, it's not uncommon to find agreement between the left and the right on certain issues, such as war and corporate power as well as trade policies and campaign finance reform. These coalitions can be powerful in the short run and should definitely be established, but the politically naive should be very careful not to jump to conclusions and take them too far.

[Cooley Hurd]

6. I remember watching this...

Obviously, I was cheering on Gore and hoping NAFTA would actually work.

[secondvariety]

8. Perot was

right about NAFTA (although I suspect it was more self-serving than actual concern for the American worker) but I sure am glad that the little thin-skinned bantam rooster never had access to the Nuclear Launch Codes.

[Enthusiast]

9. I watched this event live. At the time I was a huge supporter of the Clinton-Gore team.

Being a Union man I did question their zeal in promoting NAFTA. But, because they were Democrats, and very articulate Democrats, I trusted their judgment.

In retrospect Gore comes off as a disrespectful snarky smart aleck. Especially now that we can see the results of NAFTA.

These past Democrats taught me a painful lesson. Do not trust the SOBs. Never believe in their words only their actions.

[raindaddy]

12. Gore comes off as a disrespectful snarky smart aleck.

In hindsight you're right.

[paleotn]

10. Perot's broken clock moment. (nt)

[SoapBox]

11. If we now think there was that "giant sucking sound", just wait...

These new deals will cause an "explosive decompression sound".

[louis c]

13. Every American who was born before 1974 is to blame

because of NAFTA.

I'm a union Democrat and I supported Rich Gephardt in the Primaries. I have this argument with a good friend all the time over these trade issues.

Here's how it goes. We live in a Democracy. There are primaries in this American Democracy, not just elections. I worked hard for Gephardt. He was against NAFTA and all trade deals. Make it in America, buy American. That's what would sustain our economy. Clinton didn't lie. He said he was for "free trade". It was no surprise. I really felt that these trade deals would kill the American economy. It was the only issue I agreed with Perot on, but I voted for him because I thought it was the most important issue in that election.

But I lost. My candidate lost in the primary and the other lost in the General Election. But everyone who voted knew exactly where each candidate stood on this important issue.

So, you know who's to blame for all this foreign trade that takes our jobs away? The voters of 1992. no one lied. Everyone voted with their eyes wide open. We had two chances to nix this thing before it happened. Once in the primaries and again in the November election.

The American voters are to blame. At least those of voting age in 1992. Pure and simple.

[panfluteman]

14. Yep - Al Gore Was Really Rude and Snarky.

I hated the way he constantly interrupted Ross Perot. But I suppose that that was their strategy - to never let Ross Perot get to throwing out the simple numbers of it all and concluding with his famous "giant sucking sound" remark.

In those days of our relative youth and naiveté as a nation, we tended to reverently accept the findings of studies, like the ones Gore mentioned. Now we're older and wiser, and we ask who did those studies and, more importantly, who funded them. But Ross Perot, being the seasoned and shrewd businessman that he was, wasn't one to let specious studies and cooked statistics fool him. He just looked at the simple matter of relative wages on both sides of the border, and came to the obvious conclusions. Gore was actually throwing up a misleading smokescreen when he gave the example involving the unequal trade tariffs between the US and Mexico. Now we know, and we can see the plain truth that, even if all the trade tariffs are all removed, jobs are gonna be shipped south of the border just because wages are so much cheaper down there. Duuhhh...

What we so urgently need in our country today is a healthy, functional National Economic Immune System, like we had in the Golden Age of America, before Reaganomics set in. By this I mean that those who run our economy, and our government, are actually working FOR the people - ALL the people - and FOR the greater good of the nation as a whole, and that they are actually willing and motivated to do so. And how do we do this? Get corporate money out of politics!

Yes, we all were younger and more trusting in those days. Ross Perot was a shrewd businessman, and extremely capable in financial and economic matters, but that's not all that is needed to run a nation. As one of you said earlier - should we have given that hotheaded bantam rooster the key to our nuclear codes? Probably not.