Remarks to Employees of Solar Turbines in San Diego

Thank you very much. I'm very honored to be here. As you know, we're having a little meeting in San Diego this week.

[laughter]

And I didn't want to miss it, so I came out early. This a great opportunity, and I want to thank Don, I want to thank Governor Wilson, not only for the outstanding job he's done in the state of California, as one of our 32 Republican governors in America, but for our friendship and the work we've done together when we served in the United States Senate.

So I'm very happy to have the Governor with me this morning. And I was thinking, walking around, a lot of these things I don't understand.

But I understand they cost a lot.

[laughter]

Two million dollars, right? You just showed me one that's $2 million. I also understand there's a lot of horsepower. And I was looking for someone with a lot of horsepower who could generate a lot of electricity or a lot of energy in my campaign, so I picked Jack Kemp as my running mate, and he's going to get it done.

[applause]

He lived in San Diego five years. He went to grade school, high school and college in California. He is a Californian. And we will do a great job together.

We've believed over the years that we should give you more money to take home, and that we ought to spend a little bit less in Washington, D.C.

It makes a lot of sense to me, and it ought to make a lot of sense to the American taxpayer.

[applause]

Now there are always some people who are very skeptical. Well, you can't trust these politicians. They're going to tell you anything to get elected. Well, let me assure you that I want a balanced budget. I want a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, and I want to balance the budget by the year 2002.

But I can also tell you, as a budget deficit hawk, that we can do that and cut taxes at the same time and give more money back to you — not just the 15 percent across-the-board tax cut. But how many in this audience have children or grandchildren?

[applause]

A lot. A $500 tax credit for each child under 18. You have two, that's $1,000 you take right off your tax bill.

If it's four, $2,000. I met a man in Jacksonville, Florida who had 10 children under 18. And he said to me, that's $5,000, Senator, I can spend better than you can or anybody else in government. I can spend it better on my family, and you're going to make — we're going to make it happen.

It will happen next year. We are going to be elected for the right reasons, because we want change. We want more money in your paycheck.

DOLE: And we'll figure out a way to downsize the government a little bit, and you'll never miss it. You'll never miss it.

We'll cut out a few departments and cut back on some other programs that have been wasteful and give the money back to the people who are out there working every day, trying to make it work, as you're doing here in Solar.

That's what it's all about in America and that's what this campaign's going to be about. So I'm very proud to be a part of it and to be here today to sort of give you a little preview of what to expect in the next several months.

We also believe that reducing the capital gains rate will create more jobs and more opportunities for people all across America. And we're going to cut the capital gains rate in half. We're going to cut it in half. And that will mean a lot for your business, create more jobs, more opportunities.

And it's not for the rich. If you're making $35,000 — a family of four making $35,000 under our tax reduction plan, your taxes will be cut in half — will be cut in half. And I think that ought to be significant. That means you'll have a lot of extra money to spend.

[applause]

Now, I know in looking around there are lot of two-wage-earner families represented here. One of you works full-time for the government and the other works full time for the family.

Now we want to change that. If you want to work and your spouse wants to work, that's fine. But you ought to do it because you want to do it, not because you have to do it to pay your taxes year after year after year.

They keep going up and up and up.

And when President Clinton promised you a tax cut in 1992, as he did in California, what did you get? You got the largest tax increase in the history of the world, not just America, but the history of the world — $265 billion — that increased taxes on Social Security benefits. It raised your gas taxes. And 70 percent of all those taxes are being paid by small businessmen and small businesswomen across America.

So we're going to change that. We're going to give the money back. We've going to give as much as we can. And this is just phase one of our tax system. We're going to change the entire system. We believe we can end the IRS as we know it, and nobody will miss it in the process.

[applause]

So I'm excited about it.

In addition, we're going to have some reasonable regulatory reform. We want to protect food, water, all these things that should be protected, but we need to bring a little common sense into the problem. Regulations cost the average family in America about $6,000 per year. And some are necessary. Don't misunderstand me.

But many of the regulations are promulgated by people who've never visited a plant, never visited a farm. But they do it. And many times they do it because Congress has given them the opportunity. So we're going to look at all these new regulations and make certain that they're cost-effective, make certain they serve some purpose, and make certain they also have a little common sense.

If everything else fails out in our part of the country — and there probably are some former Kansans here — we say try a little common sense.

DOLE: And more often than not, common sense will work.

So in addition to that, we also believe there ought to be opportunity scholarships for low-income parents and lower middle-income parents. And we're going to spend between $12 and $15 billion — not new money, we're going to take it out of existing programs — to make certain that your children, the children of low-income or low middle-income parents can go to the school of their choice just as the president's daughter goes to the school of his choice. And we think that's right, but why not give that same choice to everybody else in America?

It seems to me if it's good enough for some who are in positions of power or prestige, it ought to be good enough for everybody in America, because education is the most important thing you can give your child. And we're going to see that it happens. And we have Governor Wilson's support in California. And we have the support of governors — Republicans and Democrats — pretty much across the country. And we believe it's important.

And if you stay home, if you're a homemaker, we're going to let you have what we have what we have in an individual retirement account — a spousal IRA it's called.

We believe homemaking's very important. And somebody who stays at home with their family should have the same opportunities as everybody else.

And that's going to be part of our economic package.

For some, a state tax relief. If you have a small business or a small farm or a small ranch and somebody dies, in many cases, you have to sell of the assets to pay the estate tax.

We're going to make it possible for small businessmen and small businesswomen and small farmers and ranchers to provide some tax relief so you keep the business, you keep the farm and create more jobs and more opportunities.

We don't believe we're undertaxed in America. That's the bottom line. We believe we spend too much of your money, and we take too much of it away. And we're going to send it back. And you can count on that.

Look at my record. My record is solid. I don't make promises I can't keep when it comes to balancing the budget.

And we're going to push a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to protect your generation and generations yet to come. And all of that is very important.

We look at drugs, look at crime, look at opportunities for children. If we want to restrain the use of drugs, if we want to restrain out-of-wedlock births, if we want to get a handle on crime, let's give our children a good education. And that, as I said earlier, is part of this program.

So for all the reasons I can think of, it seems to me that I couldn't have picked a better place to talk about this particular issue.

Everybody here works for a living. You're all taxpayers and paying taxes goes with a free country and a free America. We are the leader of the free world, whether we like it or not. And we have certain responsibilities.

But in my view, there's adequate room for change. We can reduce taxes. We can reduce the burden on you and your family.

DOLE: We can put more money into your paycheck, and that will be one of the defining differences in this campaign between candidate Bob Dole and candidate Bill Clinton. And in my view, the American people will speak.

[applause]

I just received a bulletin here. Pat Buchanan has endorsed the Dole-Kemp ticket, so we're happy to have that on hand, too.

[applause]

And I would say to everybody in the audience I have another great asset in my campaign in my wife Elizabeth. She is so talented...

[applause]

She is so talented Eleanor Roosevelt's trying to reach her.

[laughter]

And that's an indication of what she brings to my campaign.

So let me say to everybody, I don't know everybody's party. My parents were Democrats and they're the best people I ever knew. And they didn't change right away when I got elected. They wanted to see if it's work or stick.

[laughter]

And I would say to those of you who have parents and grandparents, I used to go home and my mother would say, "Now, don't touch my Social Security. That's all I've got. That's all I've got."

We're not going to touch your Social Security, "and don't touch my Medicare." We're not going to — we're going to correct Medicare, keep it alive and preserve it and strengthen it. Otherwise in five years, it's going to go broke.

Now, Bill Clinton won't tell you that. He'll tell you, oh, he's going to fix it and Republicans are to blame. But the bottom line is we need economic growth in this country. We need to create more jobs.

The growth rate's only been 2.3 percent that last three years, the lowest peacetime economic growth in the last 30 to 40 years, and we can do better.

It ought to be at least 3.5 percent. And when that happens, interest rates will drop on a student loan, a car loan, a home loan. Nothing but benefits will flow if we rely on growth, opportunity, lower taxes, less regulations.

And if we want to make America competitive, as you are competitive, other opportunities, other industries competitive , then we've got to get the job done. And that's why we're in San Diego, where Governor Wilson was former mayor for 12 years.

We came to San Diego because we believe that we can launch a campaign in San Diego that's not going be heard just across America. It will be heard around the world. The American people want fundamental change. They want us to stop spending so much of their money.

[applause]

And there's another convention going on in this state, and I would just say, "Mr. Perot, we are the reform party. The Republican Party is the reform party."

We sent the president a balanced budget. He vetoed it.

We sent him welfare reform. He vetoed it.

We sent him tax credits for families with children. He vetoed it.

DOLE: Time after time after time, we've addressed all the concerns that as far as I know have been raised by Ross Perot and others.

The Republican Party is the party of the future. The Republican Party is the party of reform. If you're not a Republican, if you're an Independent or Democrat, take a look at us. Take a look at us. We're reaching out. We want to bring more and more people into the Republican Party for the right reason — because we have the ideas and because we have the agenda and because we know precisely where we're headed.

And so again, I would thank you all very much for letting us interrupt your work schedule.

I hope you don't have — they don't have to work late, do they?

[laughter]

Otherwise, I'm out of here.

[laughter]

And don't forget November 5, is a very important date. November 5, is a date that we have an opportunity in this country as Americans to exercise the one thing that people living behind the curtain waited for 70-some years to exercise and that's the right to vote — the right to cast your vote, the right to make a difference, the right to speak your mind.

And I would just ask — because people have told me at home from time to time that "I didn't vote for you."

And I said, "Why?" "Well, you didn't ask me."

So I want to conclude by asking everyone in this audience, I would like to have your vote. I would like to have your vote for change, for your families, for your children, for opportunities, for the next century.

I love America as you love America and many of us have demonstrated our concern and our love for America. Many have made sacrifices for America, and we want to keep it strong.

We want to be the best there is in the world.

We're going to be better. And I would just conclude — my campaign slogan is: A better man for a better America.

Thank you very much. God bless America.

[applause]