Q ~ The first thing I want to ask you is about term limits, at one time were you for term limits?
A ~ No
Q ~ You never were?
A ~ I voted for one term limits bill, at one point, because I felt like that that was the way the people wanted me to vote on that particular bill, but most of the term limits bills I have voted against and I've always made it clear that I personally have never been for term limits. I think they are a very bad idea. I don't think you would apply for any other position, you wouldn't tell a surgeon that just because he had been a surgeon for eight years or ten years that he couldn't be a surgeon anymore. And also there is greater turnover in elective offic than in any time in our history so it would solve a problem that doesn't exist. And it would give more power to the bureaucrats and the lobbists and the people would have less control over their own government. I think the people should be able to elect whomever they want wheather the person has been in office for two years or twenty years.
Q ~ I want to ask you about bankcards that charge really high interest rates.
A ~ Sure.
Q ~ People these days, you just about have to have a card, if you want to make a hotel reservation or airline reservation, and so forth. I'm old enough to remember a time when only the mob or the mafia committed usury.
A ~ Right
Q ~ And it just seems to me that legislators and banks are just being criminal.
A ~ Yeah, yeah, well I'm very much opposed to that, and the fact is, I have not for many years, although frankly I have just applied for one, for the very reasons, the very things you are talking about, I haven't had a personal credit card. I've had a governmet credit card because I had to, uh, and I haven't had a personal credit card because I just don't believe in it. But I'm finally, I'm going ahead and getting one because so many places they do ask you for them. Some motels won't even take a personal check.
Q ~ It's a real dilemma, is there anything that the legislature could do to make laws-?
A ~ Well I wish, I wish we could but they, there are so many credit card companies that are making such good money off of it that even if I introduced a bill like that, it wouldn't stand a chance of passage.
Q ~ So thats just like the wealthy, the big banks are taking away our democracy?
A ~ Well I don't believe that because I have seen a lot of people who have been financially ruined by that.
Q ~ Does it trouble you that the banks and these big corporations have all this power?
A ~ Yes it sure does.
Q ~ What could be done?
A ~ Well, what caused it in my opinion was, that you elected, the people elected so many liberal and left wing democrats to the congress that so over the years, they make the government so big, and big government in the end, benefits nothing really but big business and bureaucrats who work for the government, because big businesses are the ones who get the government contracts. They get the special favors, the tax loopholes, the regulatory rulings in their favor, and so what you have slowly over time, its happened every thirity to fifty years, over time the big just keep getting bigger and the small getting pushed back to the way side, and this has happened, in fact, liberals and left wingers are for that, they claim they're for the little man, but everything they have done has helped the big guys.
Q ~ Give me one example.
A ~ Well, it's happening in everything. It's happened, it's happened, Eisnhower, when he left, he warned against the military industrial complex, but almost every big corporation, uh, you couldn't find one of your bigger corporations that hadn't got some kind of tax break or some kind of cheap land, uh, uh, in these big time sports franchises, have gotten stadiums built by the taxpayers. Its in every industry.
Q Uh, I think, uh, ok, the next thing I want to ask you is about the media, in the little newsletter that you sent out, you said that they had lied and distorted the tax cut, could you be specific?
A ~ I was specific in that newsletter. I even had the specificity right there in the section you're talking about that the tax cut part was only 26.5% of the projected surplus.
Q Well what bothers me as a citizen, I read magazines like "The Nation" and other publications like that and Ralph Nader and people like that and they all say that this is a republican tax cut for the wealthy. So it leaves me in a bind as far as what to believe?
A ~ Well I don't think thats true and for the reason that I said in my newsletter. Nintyfive per cent, probably, of your taxes are paid by middle income people.
So any kind of tax break is going to benefit more middle income people, because they are the ones who are paying all of the taxes. I read a few years ago that if you took all of the income, 100% of income from millioniares in this country, it would only operate the federal government for it was, either fourteen or seven days. That doesn't even count state and local governments.
Q Well, let me ask you about welfare, it seems like the republican party, and I know Clinton signed the bill, the welfare bill--?
A ~ Yeah, after he vetoed it twice.
Q But it seems to me, I'll just give you one instance, the media, NBC, ABC, CBS, and all of these people that use our public air waves and our digital spectrum, they don't pay us anything for the use of that, and its got to be worth a lot more than what these poor women take in welfare and I just wonder why you want to target the helpless and hopeless and let these big media people take all this money--?
A ~ I don't.
Q Well how do you feel about that? Do you think they should pay us for the use of our public air waves?
A ~ Yes and uh, Let me tell you something, I am not, I'm probably the most anti big business person that you could find, because I'm in favor of the small and medium size businesses. But the big businesses do pay a whopping amount in taxes. They do that so they can say that they, you know they pay, you know, its a, 96% of all taxres are paid by upper 50% of people in income. And actually almost two thirds of your taxes are paid by the upper 10%.
Q Shouldn't they, I think about people like Bill Gates. I mean what's he going to do with all that money and a lot of the technology that he uses--?
A ~ Oh I don't, I'm not in favor of Bill Gates, I think in my opinion they should break up microsoft. But thats what I'm saying. If the liberal democrats hadn't given us the big government they have given us, Microsoft never would, or none of these other big businesses would have been able to go to the extent that they have gone.
Q Well I'm confused now, because I don't fear big government but I do fear big business and I don't understand how the liberals--?
A ~ Well I fear big government and big business, but big government is much worse that big business.
Q But we have a big country here and if, for instance, we don't have some kind of federal guidelines for schools, we're going to have a situation where some schools--
A ~ Well you know, I believe in freedom more that you do. I believe that the thing that made this country be great and gave us the good life that we have is because we limited the governemnt more that any other country in this world. But I tell you what I've done. I've given you fifteen minutes instead of five and I've got to run.
Q Ok, thank you.
