Ralph Nader on Budget & Economy 2008 Independent for for President; 2004 Reform nominee; 2000 Green nominee

Half of federal budget is now military spending

• Who says not to health care to all? It’s the health insurance industry, the drug companies and HMOs.
• Who’s against a living wage? It’s McDonalds; it’s Burger King; i ‘s Wal-Mart.
• Who’s against fair taxation, and against taxing speculation? It’s the corporations.
• Who’s opposing cleaning up pollution? It’s the corporate polluters.
• Who’s against world peace and waging peace? The Lockheed-Martins. It’s the military-industrial complex.

Jobs lost may not be replaced by new ones

47 million full-time workers make less than $10 an hour

Use surplus to rebuild country & provide for communal needs

A: First of all, the surpluses are very hypothetical. The economy could turn down. Second, the surpluses involve a lot of Social Security surpluses, which must be secured. Third, we’ve got priorities. Abolishing child poverty should be one. Rebuilding and repairing America, the public works, the drinking water systems; public transit systems, schools, clinics are crumbling. And third, we really need to focus on a universal health insurance that’s accessible with an emphasis on prevention. Those are communal needs of the American people as a community. They’re overwhelmingly desired. The Bush tax cut is basically to make the rich richer, including himself after taking advantage of a Texas Ranger stadium subsidy boondoggle that turned a $600,000 investment that he borrowed in the Texas Rangers into a $14 million profit. He knows about corporate welfare. He’s a corporate welfare king.

Top priorities: Infrastructure; poverty; preventive health

A: [My priorities would be]:
1. I’d rebuild public works - all those things underground. Mass transit andpublic transit should be built in city after city.
2. I’d do more to abolish child poverty.
3. I’d upgrade preventive health care. Source: National Press Club interview (aired on NPR) , Jul 23, 2000

   High gas prices are the fruit of corporate power

   Nader joined in Bush’s attack on Gore and the Clinton administration for what he called their lack of a policy to address rising gas prices. The administration has “simply been asleep at the wheel,” Nader said. He charged that the Justice Department’s failure to challenge oil company mergers has allowed the concentration “of the oil industry’s economic power in fewer hands and gives these merged companies greater opportunity to manipulate prices.” Source: Terry M. Neal & Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post, p. A04 , Jun 29, 2000

   People indicators are down despite good economic indicators

   Q: Clinton-Gore put out statistics in 1996, and again this year, saying, “Lowest unemployment in this century, 3.9%, 20 million new jobs created. Deficits turned to surpluses. Mr. Nader,” they’ll say, “the economy is doing great. No one’s going to listen to your message of doom & gloom.”
   A: They didn’t create 22 million jobs. That was created overwhelmingly by the private economy. They didn’t have much of a fiscal policy. Yeah, you have nine years of growth, nine years of corporate profits, nine years of stock market prices. But let’s look at people indicators. A majority of the workers making less today in inflation and adjusted dollars than they did 25 years ago and they’re working 160 hours more a year on the average. 20% child poverty, the highest percentage of poverty by far in the Western world. People having trouble making ends meet, even with two incomes because they’re not having a livable wage. And so they have to go deeper in debt. Consumer debt now has soared over $ 6.2 trillion. Source: Interview on ‘Meet the Press’ , May 7, 2000

   Two-tiered economy is unhealthy & troubling

   There is a two-tier economy where the top 10% is doing quite well, the top 1% spectacularly. But the top 1% of the richest people in this country have financial wealth equal to the combined 95% of the American people. That’s a very unhealthy inequality which is even troubling Alan Greenspan. Source: Interview on ‘Meet the Press’ , May 7, 2000

   Allow citizen lawsuits for waste in govt spending

   Citizens must have full legal standing to challenge in the courts the waste, fraud, and abuse of government spending. Overly complex, mystifying jargon in our laws and procedures must be simplified and clarified so that the general public is not shut out from readily understanding and challenging them. Source: The Concord Principles, An Agenda for a New Democracy, # 5 , Feb 21, 2000

   The economy is down, when measured by human yardsticks

   Business commentators say the economy could scarcely be better. If, instead of corporate yardsticks, we use human yardsticks to measure the performance of the economy and go beyond the quantitative indices of annual economic growth, structural deficiencies become readily evident. Despite record economic growth, corporate profits, and stock market highs year after year, a stunning array of deplorable conditions still prevails year after year. For example:
   • A majority of workers are making less now, inflation adjusted, than in 1979
   • Over 20% of children were growing up in poverty during the past decade
   • The minimum wage is lower today, inflation-adjusted, than in 1979
   • American workers are working longer and longer hours with less time for family and community
   • Consumer debt is at an all time high
   • Personal bankruptcies are at a record level
   • Personal savings are dropping to record lows
   Source: Green Party Announcement Speech , Feb 21, 2000

   Fed worries wrongly about wage inflation over profits

   Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, is remarkably selective in what kind of inflation he is against. The Fed Chairman does show consistent concern about one inflationary indicator -- any rise in ordinary wages -- and he is regularly relieved to see that they have been “stable,” even though labor’s productivity has been up sharply recently. It is clear that he loses little sleep over workers not sharing in the massive profits that their companies are reaping. Source: In the Public Interest: “Inflation & the Federal Reserve” , Nov 15, 1999

   Spend surplus on public works & infrastructure

   Strikingly absent from the debate [on spending the surplus] are recommendations on investing in a public works program. At no time in recent history has a program to construct, rebuild or repair crumbling bridges, schools, sewer lines, docks, parks, mass transit systems, libraries, clinics, courthouses and other public amenities and infrastructure been so urgent or achievable. This-an era of burgeoning private wealth and large projected public surplus-is the time to reinvigorate our public investments. Source: Article, “Perspectives On Federal Spending” , Jul 27, 1999

   1990s S&L crisis cost taxpayers billions

   The savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s is probably the worst banking scandal in U.S. history. Taking advantage of the federal government's promise to insure S & L deposits, scoundrels and reckless incompetents, pursuing risky investments or cynical Ponzi schemes, ran many of these institutions into the ground, frequently lining their own pockets in the process. More than one thousand S & Ls closed their doors forever, requiring the federal government to create a new agency, the Resolution Trust Corporation, to manage the cleanup. The cost of this debacle to taxpayers, who are forced to bail out this wave of crime, irresponsible speculation, and mismanagement, is in the hundreds of billions of dollars, with bills that extend into the next century. Source: No Contest, by Ralph Nader, p. 39-40 , Dec 22, 1998

   GNP fails to measure quality of life

   Why don’t we analyze our economy qualitatively? And why are almost all the economic indices quantitative and oriented toward the corporate way of defining economic progress? Like the GNP: it has been going up in our country gradually for over twenty years, but 80% of the people’s standard of living has been going down. That’s because we’re not looking at the qualitative aspects of these economic activities.

   For instance, if you have a lot of street crime or a lot of pollution, [dealing with those] generates a lot of economic activity, profits, jobs, and sales. But that’s not something we really want an economy to spend its time doing. It’s necessary that it be done, but it doesn’t really advance the ability of people to buy homes or to pay for their children’s education.

   We don’t measure whether an economy is developing. We just measure whether companies are selling more, whether inventories are up or down, not whether the health, safety and economic well-being of people are being advanced.

   Source: Alternative Radio, interview by David Barsamian , Dec 9, 1995

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