Perot Warns a Depression Looms, Urges Quick Action

Warning that America is “on the edge of a severe recession or depression,” Ross Perot urged the nation’s leaders Wednesday to “get started now” on revitalizing the economy, adding that he may soon run television ads to highlight the dangers of not taking tough measures immediately.

At the present rate of decline, he declared, “The American dream is gone.”

But Perot, who abruptly ended his independent quest for the presidency last week, also expressed optimism that economic revitalization can be achieved.

“We can do it now. And if we do it carefully and do it well, we can avoid an economic catastrophe,” he said in a wide-ranging interview--the first he has given a newspaper since quitting the race last Thursday.

Perot said he would happily meet with President Bush or Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, to discuss his concerns.

“If they want to visit, certainly. I’ll visit with anybody anywhere,” he said. Both Bush and Clinton called Perot right after he withdrew and have been unabashedly courting his supporters.

Perot also spoke bitterly about the “brutal and intrusive” political process that, he said, deters well-qualified people from seeking public office, singling out the news media in particular.

“We’ve lost sight of what’s good for the country,” he said. “I marvel that anybody would put up with it--and certainly anybody that loves his family.”

Perot also defended his decision to abruptly abandon his insurgent bid for the White House, a unilateral decision that shocked and outraged his supporters throughout the country, many of whom felt Perot had betrayed their trust.

“I can now, maybe, make the issues the center of attention--as opposed to me being the center of attention--and this intense desire to destroy any person that threatens the two-party system,” he said.

Despite his harsh indictment of the process, which he insisted was not personal, Perot was relaxed throughout the interview, held in his posh, memorabilia-filled office in a glass high-rise overlooking North Dallas, at one point slouching back and draping one leg over the arm of a chair.

He laughed heartily, with an impish glint in his eyes, at some of the political reforms he would like to see enacted, such as subjecting congressional salary hikes to a “pay for performance” voter referendum. “That would shake the system,” he said.

Citing congressional perquisites, Perot decried the “disconnect” between politicians and the electorate, saying public officials now show “a total lack of sensitivity” to the public. “They all need to go back and become servants of the people,” he said.

Perot also called for eliminating special interest groups’ clout.

What clearly emerged from the hourlong interview was the Texas billionaire’s determination to remain a voice to be reckoned with in this and perhaps future election campaigns, at all levels.

“I will speak out in the unique position that I’m in,” he said. “We just have a lot of work to do right here, and nobody wants to face it.”

Perot also offered what, in effect, is a post-mortem on his own short-lived campaign, which has so altered the dynamics of this presidential campaign.

Referring to his supporters, Perot said: “They gave the individual citizen a voice again. Until now, the individual citizen has had no voice because of the cost of television time. The politicians have to go to the special interests to get enough money to buy enough TV time to run. And so that has turned . . . the citizens, the owners of this country, into listeners.”

Perot was most spirited when he talked about the dire economic consequences of not acting immediately to fix the nation’s economy. And he spoke in terms far more graphic than he--or Bush or Clinton--has articulated to date.

“If we have an economic catastrophe, tens of millions of ordinary people, of the type that signed petitions, will be devastated. And it’ll probably take us 20 years to recover,” Perot said.

“A severe recession or depression or call it what you will--and we’re on the edge of that now if you look at the numbers.”

Perot said such “numbers” will be in his long-awaited economic revival plan--”and in a form where the average citizen can understand them and react to them.” He said the plan may be ready for release by late next week.

A severe recession or depression, he said, would lead to “what I call the avalanche.”

That scenario, as Perot depicted it, would see the collapse, or “avalanche,” of the nation’s banks and savings and loan institutions far beyond the ability of the FDIC and FSLIC to salvage.

“So all of those salaried jobs will be paid for by the taxpayers from current taxes--at a time when huge numbers of people are out of work,” Perot said. “Then, if huge numbers of people are out of work, huge numbers of people will lose their homes and all the federally guaranteed home mortgages will kick in and that will have to be paid for--at a time when people don’t have work and the tax base is deteriorating.”

Furthermore, Perot added, “You’ve got federally guaranteed pension funds, including Social Security . . . and that number is in the trillions (of dollars) in terms of underfunding.”

In its near-final draft, Perot’s plan is known to include a $700-billion budget deficit reduction within five years, an annual 10-cent-per-gallon rise in gasoline taxes over the same period, higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco, the elimination of various federal subsidies, limits on mortgage interest deductions for homes costing more than $200,000, a 10% across-the-board cut in administrative costs of the federal bureaucracy, elimination of the proposed space station, a cut in cost-of-living increases in Social Security for the wealthy--which he did not define--and giving new tax incentives to businesses.

“All of these things are thinkable,” Perot said, adding that his plan would take 12 years to implement. “Our country is not geared to long-term thinking because of the political process. Our friends in Japan, and I mean that sincerely, have pointed out, they think 10 years ahead; we think 10 minutes ahead. So we’ve got to think 10 to 12 years ahead to straighten all of this out. And we can.”

He added: “What we desperately need is for the average citizen of the country to understand it and to create an environment where Congress and the White House can discuss these really ugly little things.”

Toward that end, he said, he is prepared to air “a series of ads” on various economic issues.

As one example, Perot envisions an ad showing the map of the United States, highlighting the Mississippi River--with every American’s tax dollars to the west being used merely to service the national debt.

“Now, if that doesn’t make a point, nothing will make a point,” Perot said.

He denied speculation, fueled by some campaign advisers, that the tough medicine contained in his economic revitalization package was a major reason that he withdrew from the race.

“No. I knew what the plan would have to be. I’ve known that from Day One,” Perot said.

The Dallas businessman, a one-time IBM salesman who made his fortune in the computer services business, said his delay in putting together his plan was simply due to his desire to first “have all our facts and numbers right.”

“See, Bush doesn’t have his plan yet. But that’s all right. Every day I was getting saturation bombing. But I would not let that rush us. I wanted to do it right,” Perot said.

He seemed most bitter when he talked about the “brutal, brutal, brutal” process of running for President.

“We ought to really think about the system. Have we got the best system? I’m just saying that we’ve created a system that is so intrusive and brutal and so unrelated to getting any facts straight,” he said.

“But do you have to destroy anybody that that person cares about and loves?” Perot continued.

“When I look at Gov. Clinton and his little girl, I say: ‘Oh, my God. Now what will she have to endure?’ That shouldn’t be that way. What will the wife have to endure? What will your grown children have to endure? What will your grandchildren have to endure?

“There are no rules regarding facts. There are no rules regarding truth. All those things get thrown out the window for a good story.

“And so, I would say at some point in time people ought to sit down and say: ‘Are we so involved in a game that we’ve lost sight of what’s good for our country?’ ”

Perot insisted he was not personally hurt by his own run for the Oval Office. He insisted that he withdrew because, as he stated last week, he had concluded that he could not win a three-way race and that the results would throw the election into the House of Representatives--and the country into chaos.

“But then the last thing you want to do is not be able to deliver for the people,” Perot said, leaning forward in his chair once more. “See, the one thing that would really break my heart would be to fail the American people. . . .”

Perot closed with a warning to the two parties and their candidates that his supporters could rally around him if their wishes are ignored.

“So the leverage of still being on the ballot gives the volunteers an enormous voice and . . . I will help them every way I can. And we’ll try to get the system to work for the people again because they are organized and have a voice.”