Word: trillion
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...sure, there is some hard-earned pessimism about government programs at work. But much of the pessimism is mere posturing. Bush and others have said repeatedly in recent weeks that the government has spent "$3 trillion over 25 years" fighting poverty, with the implication that this money has been lavished on the underclass. According to the White House's own figures, most of this mystical $3 trillion went for such non-underclass and politically sacrosanct programs as Medicare (more than a trillion) and veterans' benefits ($287 billion). The good intentions of anyone who talks about $3 trillion spent fighting poverty...
...cannot -- it is morally wrong, this is a fundamental principle -- spend our children's money. To my knowledge, the President never talks about the $4 trillion debt and what we should do with it, and yet I'm supposed to have the perfect solution to it immediately...
...have a $4 trillion debt. We added 10% to it just this year because it's an election year. The first thing you have to do is stop the bleeding. That is the deficit. You should not continue to build the debt...
...answer," alarm bells should go off. Each time Perot promises to get "world-class experts" together to solve a national problem, warning lights should flash. There is, alas, nothing simple about governing today's America; there is nothing easy about solving pressing problems when the government is nearly $4 trillion in debt; world-class experts are no substitute for presidential leadership; and electronic town meetings are no quick fix to replace the clash of competing interests that is the stuff of politics. The issue is not sincerity; Perot believes what he says. Rather the question before the nation...
...President to fight for new market-oriented, antibureaucratic approaches to poverty -- including programs that Bush himself had halfheartedly proposed in previous budgets. As William Bennett, the former drug policy director for Bush, observed, "If you're going to denounce a set of programs that we've already spent $2.5 trillion on, you'd damn well better have an attractive alternative." Suggestions from these "bleeding-heart conservatives" include...