The Triumph of Principle Over Politics
2012-01-21 · Guest: Gary Johnson (Former Governor of New Mexico) · 50:34
Gary Johnson Libertarian Presidential Platform
Bob Zadek interviews Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for President, about his platform of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism. They discuss Johnson’s plans to balance the budget, implement the Fair Tax, end the war on drugs, and significantly reduce military spending while reforming immigration through work visas.
Topics: Job Creation, Fair Tax, Civil Liberties, Drug Legalization, War on Drugs, Immigration Reform, Work Visas, Welfare Reform, Defense Spending, Foreign Policy, Balanced Budget
Speakers: Bob Zadek, Gary Johnson, Caller (Ed), Caller (Steve), Caller (Anne)
Job Creation and the Fair Tax [00:15]
Bob Zadek: Welcome to the Bob Zadek Show. I’m your host, Bob Zadek. 800-345-5639. Hopefully you have that number memorized and in speed dial. That is a number to call if you want to share a point of view with me. BobZadek.com is the website. Sign up for our subscription; you’ll be notified of all of my shows in advance so you can study up and ask the perfect question.
I’ve been doing this show maybe for three years today. This may very well be the third anniversary of my show, and I love doing it. I get a chance to meet lots of nice people. The best part of the three years of my doing this show has been clearly the opportunity to meet one of the finest men I have ever been privileged to meet. I met him several years ago and have admired him and admired his work ever since. He has now announced that he will be a candidate for the Libertarian nomination for President. I speak, of course, of Governor Gary Johnson, former two-term Governor of New Mexico. Gary would like to be the Libertarian nominee for President. The Libertarian Party is, I believe, on the ballot in all 50 states.
At the outset, I will share my bias and I wish Governor Johnson the very best of luck and thank Governor Johnson for agreeing to be on the show today. Before I turn the microphone over and share it with Governor Johnson, this is a propitious time for Libertarians and for Governor Johnson. A recent political poll indicated that two-thirds, about two-thirds of Americans would consider voting for a third-party candidate. The country is remarkably unhappy with the current slate of possible Republican candidates and with President Obama, who will be the Democratic candidate. The public is in a foul mood and is unhappy with the choices. What better time for there to be a third way than for a third-party run by Governor Johnson, if he is fortunate enough to get the Libertarian nomination? Governor Johnson, thanks so much for being on the show.
Gary Johnson: Bob, it’s great being on. I think we’ve timed this such with the game starting between Baltimore and New England that there probably won’t be any listeners today, so we can say anything we want.
Bob Zadek: Well, the Giants-Niners game doesn’t go on until another three hours from now, so I think we’ll be okay, at least on the West Coast. Now, Governor Johnson, a lot of the talk has been both political candidates or all contenders for the presidential nomination have indicated that their primary focus as President would be on job creation. As the Republicans are fond of saying, “jobs, jobs, jobs.” And I sort of, while acknowledging that yes, unemployment is up and the number of employed Americans is down compared to historic highs, I wondered to myself, is that really the primary job of the President to create jobs? After all, a President could create jobs by just hiring a whole lot of people, as they say, hire half the country to dig a hole and the other half to fill it in, and pay them all for their effort. Is that the job of a President and indeed of the federal government to “create jobs,” or is it something grander than that?
Gary Johnson: Well, I think that right now, I think the number one issue is the economy and it is jobs, and that the President of the United States could definitely play the biggest role in creating a level playing field for everybody to be able to get those jobs, if you will. So I am advocating or promising as President of the United States to submit a balanced budget to Congress in the year 2013, coupled with that, a promise to advocate on the part of throwing out the entire federal tax system and replacing it with the Fair Tax. For those listening, I would love everyone listening to check out FairTax.org. I really do think it reboots the American economy for the next 100 years. It does away with all existing federal tax—income tax, corporate tax—does away with withholdings and replaces it with a 23% consumption tax. It does away with the 16th Amendment, which allows for income tax. But it is cost-neutral over a very short amount of time. So it’s really the answer when it comes to exports with foreign countries. It makes our goods and services 23% more competitive, which is the answer. Also, in a zero corporate tax rate environment, if the private sector does not create tens of millions of jobs with a zero corporate tax rate, I don’t know under what circumstances the private sector will create tens of millions of jobs. Why would you start up, grow, nurture a business anywhere on the planet if given an opportunity other than the United States, given that kind of a business environment?
Civil Liberties and Personal Freedom [03:57]
Gary Johnson: So I do think that it is job one, but you know, you also need to couple it with civil liberties. And that’s the notion that, look, let’s watch out for government and how it plays a role in the bedroom, which it shouldn’t play a role in the bedroom. Get the government out of the bedroom. So I also support, in that context, I support gay marriage equality. I support a woman’s right to choose, fundamentally believing that that is a woman’s choice. And legalizing marijuana. Look, marijuana might not be the smartest choice in the world, but that’s what it is. It’s a choice. And as long as you’re not putting anyone else in harm’s way, that ought to be a right that you should be able to partake in.
Bob Zadek: What’s really interesting, Governor Johnson, is you just, in your opening comments, just introduced an entire seminar of political topics and political conversation. And it is so interesting to me, when you talked about tax policy, I asked about jobs and you responded with your very sensible view on tax policy. And what was most interesting to me is you didn’t say “create jobs” per se. You said, “Let’s reform the tax law and that will result in jobs, but the purpose is not the creation of jobs.” And that is where the mainstream political parties, in my opinion, go astray. It is the job of government, if anything, to simply create an environment where jobs will be a byproduct, will be a sensible and healthy byproduct. Anybody can create a job, just hire somebody to do a mindless act and you have created a job but done nothing to help the economy. And that’s the very interesting, subtle but very important point of your tax policy. The purpose is not to create jobs; the purpose is to make the economy efficient so that jobs will quite naturally be created. And that’s the important difference.
And the other comment, Governor Johnson, that I get moisty-eyed when you talk about it is when you talked about civil liberties. What troubles me so much and what troubles most Libertarians when they hear the debate, and which makes my embracing your candidacy so easy, is most candidates will treat, and indeed the governing parties create personal freedom as a nuisance, as something which is unimportant compared to the “issues of the day.” And for a candidate to run on a platform that no, nothing is more important than personal freedom and responsibility, it is so refreshing to have a candidate honor those values instead of treating them as discardable commodities. So I so much appreciate in your opening comments your specific mention of that.
The Role of Government in the Economy [07:43]
Gary Johnson: Well, of course, and I appreciate what you have to say too, Bob. I get to be on and shamelessly plug myself. So they did a study of all the potential presidential candidates—and potential presidential candidate given that I am running for the Libertarian nomination—but they did a study of all the presidential candidates and their records on job creation, and I had the best record of everybody that’s running for President. Now, when asked to respond to that, my response was, “You know what? As Governor of New Mexico, I did not create one single job, but I really do think that I contributed to the notion of a level playing field. I do think I contributed through rules and regulations in making job creation something easier to happen within the private sector.”
And then also, back to my shamelessly plugging myself, I don’t know if you saw it, I’m really excited by this, but about 10 days ago, the ACLU came out with a report and what they did is they awarded stars, if you will, or they gave a grade to all the presidential candidates. All the presidential candidates included in that was Barack Obama, who took third place when it came to civil liberties. Included in that was Ron Paul, that took second place when it came to civil liberties. And then the candidate that got the highest grade from the ACLU was me. I was really excited by that because the ACLU is an organization dedicated to the preservation of civil liberties, the Bill of Rights.
Bob Zadek: This is Bob Zadek. I’m talking with Governor Gary Johnson, who would love to have the Libertarian nomination for President. 800-345-5639. Your questions for Governor Johnson are welcome.
Ending the War on Drugs [13:13]
Bob Zadek: Governor Johnson gets a lot of attention for his view on the legalization of drugs. And most of the mainstream media, in my opinion, trivializes it and does not see the importance of that issue. The importance of the issue, in my opinion, is not that now drugs will be legal. That’s not the point. The point is the reason for the legalization, because that gives you an insight into what type of President Governor Johnson would be and what his values are. And I’ll, of course, not speak for Governor Johnson, but just to introduce this issue and then to put it aside because there are lots of equally important and more important issues, but just to dispose of it. The issue, as you will hear from Governor Johnson, is one of economics. It makes no gosh-darn economic sense to spend all this money trying to affect human behavior and trying to adjust behavior and make social to influence social behavior and to create crimes when there is no victim. It makes no economic sense and it simply is violative of American freedom. And as I said earlier, freedom is very, very important. So this is not about “I want the right” or any third party wants the right to use drugs. It is about the principle that governs drug policy. Governor Johnson?
Gary Johnson: Well, and I would like to also add that right now there is so much attention being given to the border violence with Mexico. And I would just point out that first of all, it’s very real. 40,000 deaths south of the border over the last four years. That this is a prohibition phenomenon. These are disputes that are being played out with guns rather than the courts. Legalize marijuana and arguably 75% of the border violence with Mexico goes away. I think we legalize marijuana in this country. I think we take some giant steps as a society to recognize drugs first as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue. I am in the camp that believes that 90% of the drug problem is prohibition-related, not use-related. And that’s not to discount the problems with use and abuse, but that should be the focus. And so it does have ramifications other than just cost. People are losing their lives over disputes, as we saw with the prohibition of alcohol. Disputes were being played out with machine guns on the street as opposed to in the courts. Let’s get these disputes in the courts and let’s get the income reported. Let’s regulate it, let’s tax it.
Drug Policy as a Health Issue [18:13]
Bob Zadek: And the best argument was Ken Burns’ five-part documentary recently on television, now available on DVD, dealing with prohibition. Of course, that’s alcohol prohibition. And when we look back and when we watch that well-done documentary, we scratch our heads and we say to ourselves, “What was the government thinking to try to prohibit alcohol?” It seems so absurd. Besides, it created the cash flow that gave organized crime in this country all the impetus. And besides all the corruption that it invited, we just say, “What were they thinking?” Well, someday Americans will look back over the “war on drugs” and will ask the Americans of the 1980s and 1970s and 1990s, “What were they thinking?” So Governor Johnson, you could not be more correct, besides the fact that we are harming third-world economies who become the feeders of the illicit drug market. So it is just plain common sense besides sound economic policy. And I thank you for the courage of taking that position and for making it so clear that this is not about using drugs; it is about the policy behind it. So thank you so much, Governor Johnson.
Gary Johnson: Well, and I think that you’re pointing out Ken Burns’ special. I could not help when watching that, doesn’t everyone see the correlation between what is happening now and what happened then? And I think it really, I do think that all of this helps. And significant is that just, gosh, three months ago, a Gallup poll came out and reflected the fact that 50% of Americans now support legalizing marijuana. And the reason for that is that more and more people are talking about the issue and understanding really fundamentally that it is a health issue first, middle, last, and that it is anything but a criminal justice issue. Might be a bad choice, but really, should a bad choice end you up in jail? Nobody wants their kids to do drugs, but you know what? If they do drugs, first of all, kids are great, kids are terrific, they’re your kids. They don’t belong in jail. This is an issue that belongs with the family, not the government and the criminal justice system.
Executive Experience and the Power of “No” [21:11]
Bob Zadek: Governor Johnson, we have three minutes before our mid-term break of 90 seconds. But when you were a successful—and by any measure you were a successful Governor, two-term Governor of New Mexico—you were in the belly of the beast. You were a Republican Governor with a Democratic legislature, and yet you were effective. You got things done. Obama cannot get things done, Democratic President with a Republican House. What is Obama doing wrong and what would you do right in your dealings with a legislature who might be hostile to some of your views? And we have two minutes before break. I know it’s a hard question to answer in two minutes; we can carry it over if you wish.
Gary Johnson: Well, Bob, I had the distinction as Governor of New Mexico of having vetoed more bills than perhaps the other 49 governors in the country combined. So I just want to say that by saying “no,” that is very, very significant and in a good way. “No” really boils down to less time and less money that you and I have to spend complying with government rules and regulations and laws that don’t make any difference in our lives. No difference at all. We’re not any safer, we’re not any better off, we just end up spending more time and more money complying with these rules and regulations and laws that I will tell you, in New Mexico, I didn’t pass so many laws because I felt like I was able to predict the unintended consequence that went along with it. And the unintended consequence always had a basis in time and money and the fact that it wasn’t going to make any difference whatsoever. So you can make a difference. All presidential candidates talk about all the things they’re going to do for you and I. I’d like to focus on all the things that I’m not going to do. And not going to do is really positive. Not going to do is the outrage of the Tea Party, which is “let’s slash spending.” We need to slash spending. But it’s also the outrage of Occupy Wall Street, which is “this country’s unfair, we deal it out unfairly, it’s for sale.” Well, let’s stop crony capitalism. And as Governor of New Mexico, it stopped. Good government was easy; it wasn’t hard.
Immigration Reform and Work Visas [25:40]
Bob Zadek: Welcome back to the Bob Zadek Show. 800-345-5639 is the way to share your views with myself, with Governor Johnson, and with my listening audience. Before the break, I mentioned to Governor Johnson that I would love to cover the hot-button issue of immigration. Immigration is an issue that I find the Republican position on immigration to be nothing short of shameful and possibly even racist. I hate the Republican position on immigration and I find the Democrats are nothing other than Republican wannabes because they sense that is the mood of the country and they are wrong. We have a caller, Governor Johnson, on the issue of immigration. Ed, welcome to the show.
Caller (Ed): Hey Bob, first of all, thanks for another very interesting show. And if the 49ers don’t win today, your show will be the highlight of my weekend. Ed, you were interested in immigration. Yeah, you kind of stole my thunder with your intro there, but how would Gary Johnson deal with the problem of illegal immigration?
Gary Johnson: Well, Ed, first of all, I would not build a fence. I think that that would be a terrific waste of time and money. Secondly, I recognize as a border state that we’re getting the cream of the crop when it comes to workers from Mexico. Are Mexicans coming across the border and taking entry-level jobs from Americans? Absolutely not, because you and I as Americans, we can sit at home and collect a welfare check that’s just a little bit less money or the same amount of money for doing nothing. So why go to work? So immigration needs to be about work, not welfare. And then I think we should make it as easy as possible for somebody that wants to come into this country and work to get a work visa. Not a green card, not citizenship, but a work visa that in my opinion should entail a background check and a Social Security card so that applicable taxes would get paid. Now if we implement the Fair Tax, taxes won’t be an issue because whether you’re illegal, legal, or a visitor, you’re going to pay the Fair Tax. It’s unavoidable. But question is, would Mexicans stand in line if the line was moving to get a work visa in lieu of crossing illegally? I think so. I think that they would absolutely stand in line.
Welfare Reform and State Innovation [29:35]
Gary Johnson: Regarding the 11 million illegal immigrants that are here in this country, I think it’s one of those unintended consequences of Reagan when he set up the amnesty program in the ’80s. He coupled that with putting government in charge of quotas, matching up workers with businesses, and from day one that was a breakdown. You cannot get a work visa and come into this country. You can’t get one. And yet you know that if you can get across the border, even illegally, that you can get a job. So that’s exactly what happened. And then lastly, as we discussed earlier, don’t discount the problems around the border associated with illegal crossings, violence associated with drugs. Legalize marijuana, in my opinion 75% of the border violence goes away, maybe even more. Because as a country we legalize marijuana, we take some giant steps toward understanding rational drug policy, which starts with looking at the drug problem as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue.
Caller (Ed): Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense, but I also wanted to ask him how would he deal with the problem of some illegal immigrants working the system here and taking advantage of our good healthcare system and taking advantage of all the kind of welfare benefits we have here?
Gary Johnson: Well, Ed, that was the starter is that we have to reform welfare in this country for ourselves, where welfare has a basis in work, meaning if you can work you will work. And that immigration should be about work, not welfare at all. And I would leave that as a state initiative. I’m proposing a balanced budget, I’m promising to submit a balanced budget to Congress in the year 2013. That means reductions of 43% in Medicaid and Medicare, and I believe that is more than possible if the federal government will block grant the states that fixed amount of money, take away all the strings and the mandates associated with Medicaid and Medicare, and leave it to 50 laboratories of innovation and best practice to make that work. I’m in the camp that believes that we are going to experience a monetary collapse due to the fact that we continue to print and borrow money to the tune of 43 cents out of every dollar that we’re spending. We are not immune to the mathematics of that kind of spending. So in the context of healthcare, of welfare benefits, I think that that should be a state-by-state issue. And how do they deal with legal immigrants with work visas? And perhaps they more than deal with that given the revenues or the taxes that the legal visa-carrying immigrant would be paying.
Bob Zadek: Thanks so much for your question, Ed. We appreciate you listening and go Niners. Governor Johnson, you managed in your last answer to evoke Justice Brandeis, citing the states as laboratories of innovation, and you managed to embrace Milton Friedman, who couldn’t agree more. Milton Friedman struggled with the issue of open borders with a welfare state, and he felt the welfare state was the problem, not the immigration. And he said the way to fix the problem is do away with the welfare state, not do away with the immigrants. So you’re embracing Justice Brandeis and Milton Friedman in one answer. Nice job.
Addressing Concerns About Illegal Immigration [32:35]
Bob Zadek: We have Steve on the phone. Steve, welcome to the show and what’s your issue?
Caller (Steve): Hi. Well, the issue is immigration. I’m confused here. You’re saying if you gave them a visa that would reduce a lot of the illegal immigrants?
Gary Johnson: Well, we want to reduce all, we want to document workers that are in this country. We want to make sure, I think we want to do a criminal background check on everyone that comes into the country. If they don’t have a work visa, then they wouldn’t have had that criminal background check. So that’s how you control the border.
Caller (Steve): Okay, you want me to give you a ground zero answer to what’s going on? I’m in ground zero San Rafael where there’s 200 on the corner every day when it’s nice out. They get caught, they go to 120 Montgomery Street in San Francisco immigration court. The court does nothing. I know some, they go there for five minutes, the guy says come back in six months. They repeat that like three times. They go to the immigration court, they go back to San Rafael and keep working. That’s one of the problems. The other one is I know other ones, they get their car taken away, they come back here three, four times from across the border. They catch somebody.
Bob Zadek: Steve, I’d like to ask, if I may, I’d just like to ask one question. You are, as most people are, your anger or your agitation or your discomfort—I don’t mean to put words in your mouth—is with illegal immigration. Now here’s a question, and I also have a negative feeling of course to illegal immigration. My question is, which part of those two words are you opposed to: the “illegal” part or the “immigrant” part? And Steve, by that I mean the following: if the immigrant were here legally, that is if the law was changed so that the borders are more or less open, therefore they, the “they” you’re referring to, would be here legally, would you then be totally comfortable because now they are no longer illegal?
Caller (Steve): It depends. You can flood an industry with immigrants and then ruin the industry. I’m in a blue-collar industry and they’re not picking lettuce. They’re hiring other immigrants, they’re in the blue-collar whatever—blue-collar construction, painting, trucks. They hire their relatives and their other relatives. So they’re flooding this industry. I guarantee if they flooded your talk show industry, you’d be pissed off too.
Bob Zadek: Actually Steve, I thank you so much for the call. We appreciate your comments and I know there is a very strong and opposing point of view. Governor Johnson, it’s interesting how this issue more than any other issue that I cover in my show gets people so worked up. I don’t get it.
Gary Johnson: Well, we don’t want to be paying for welfare benefits. We don’t want to be paying for welfare benefits. But I think recently there have been a number of studies that have more than suggested that by having legal immigrants, by having workers that are willing to come into this country and do work that United States citizens are not, that it benefits the whole economy, it benefits all job classes. And I guess I’m in that camp. I’m in the camp that believes that if you want to come into this country and work, that you ought to be given the opportunity to do that. And don’t put the government in charge of quotas. Either businesses have jobs or they don’t. And we certainly want to make sure that taxes get paid and we certainly want to make sure that we don’t have a criminal element, that we don’t have anybody that’s criminal come into the country. Bob, I’m going to have to borrow what you said earlier and that is: what is it that you don’t like, the notion of “illegal” or the notion of “immigrant”?
Bob Zadek: It’s a great question to narrow the focus. And what I hope people answer is that it’s the “illegal” part, because I’m fearful that—and it seems more Republicans than Democrats, if you can use those labels—just don’t like immigrants. And that’s the problem. And it’s the “illegal” part; even if you made it legal, these people would not be made happy. So it’s not the “illegal” part, it’s the “keep them out.” It’s this unpleasant part of policy that I really recoil against.
Gary Johnson: Well, and keeping in mind that we are a country of immigrants. We are all immigrants in this country. And I’ll just get back to the Fair Tax. I think implementing the Fair Tax, where you’re going to have massive job creation in this country as opposed to anywhere else because of a zero corporate tax rate environment, I think we would have a lot of entrepreneurs in this country that would perhaps need cheap labor that an immigration policy that allowed for immigrants that wanted to come into the country to get a work visa would be able to accommodate these businesses, this manufacturing occurring in the United States as opposed to anywhere else. So I see this as a good thing. And from my ground zero standpoint, which is border state with Mexico, New Mexico, we’re getting the cream of the crop when it comes to workers from Mexico. They’re really very, very hard-working. And coupled with, let me just acknowledge too, that we do not want to be paying for anyone coming across the border and receiving benefit as a U.S. citizen would when they’re not U.S. citizens. So welfare reform really also gets at the heart of all this.
Defense Spending and Military Alliances [39:33]
Bob Zadek: This is Bob Zadek. I’m talking with Governor Gary Johnson, who would love to be the Libertarian nominee for President. When we come back, the biggest item of the federal budget: defense. Governor Johnson’s views on defense, the Middle East, Afghanistan, and related issues. 800-345-5639. Stay tuned.
Well, the times they are a-changin’, maybe not the way Bob Dylan felt, but they sure are a-changin’. And I hope they change a lot more. To help our times change, I’m delighted to welcome back Governor Gary Johnson. Governor Johnson, defense is a big chunk of the budget. Our Department of Defense, in my view, has regressed back to its old title of Department of War, not of Defense. Your views on defense—actually, I think President Obama is starting to channel your views a tiny bit; he’s gotten the message. So tell us how President Johnson’s Defense Department would be organized and how its mission would change.
Gary Johnson: Well, let’s start with the premise that we should provide ourselves with a strong national defense. Bob, you said it, but the operative word is “defense,” not “offense,” and not the Department of War, which is in my opinion what it has become. So back to my promise to submit a balanced budget to Congress in the year 2013, that would include a 43% reduction in military spending, believing that we can provide ourselves with a strong national defense and should be vigilant to what are really bad actors out there. Let’s not be blind to the fact that there are threats and that there may be threats. But it needs to start with the notion of military threat. At the beginning, back to 2003, I did not think that Iraq posed a military threat to the United States. I know there was talk of weapons of mass destruction, but I felt back in 2003 that we had then as we do now military surveillance capability to see them roll out any weapons of mass destruction, and that if they were to have done that, we could have gone in and dealt with that. I thought if we were to have gone into Iraq, we were going to find ourselves in a civil war to which there would be no end. Afghanistan, I thought was a great example of, “Hey, we were attacked, we attacked back.” And after having been in Afghanistan for six months, we effectively wiped out Al-Qaeda. But that was 10 years ago. So we’re building roads, schools, bridges, highways, and hospitals in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world, and we’re borrowing and printing money to the tune of 43 cents out of every dollar to do that? That just seems crazy to me.
Bob Zadek: And Afghanistan is not even one of our states. Imagine that.
Gary Johnson: I’m opposed to foreign aid, but I think it’s important to distinguish between foreign aid and military alliances. Military alliances, in my opinion, being key to being able to reduce military spending by 43% and have the rest of the world take up the slack that we haven’t even allowed them to take up for decades and decades and decades. We’ve picked up the tab. Of the dollar that’s being spent on military spending worldwide every year, the United States is spending 52 cents of that dollar and we’re only 5% of the world’s population.
Bob Zadek: And what do we get for all that money? Not a thing.
Gary Johnson: Well, one of the things we get is 2,300 nuclear warheads. Do we really need to blow up the world nine or 10 times over? Won’t six times do? Do we really need to have 100,000 troops on the ground in Europe? Might 57,000 troops do? And I’ve got to tell you, I would love that briefing to really understand why we should have 57,000 troops in Europe as opposed to none. My point being that we should share in this—the rest of the world needs to share in this responsibility.
Foreign Policy and Unintended Consequences [45:03]
Gary Johnson: Iran, let’s look at Iran. First of all, I do not think there is a military threat from Iran. But maybe there will be, and we should be vigilant to what may be a military threat from Iran. But Iran is an unintended consequence of Iraq. We take out Iraq, we take out Saddam Hussein. Well, that was Iran’s adversary every single day. We take out Saddam Hussein, now they’re able to raise their head and potentially be a threat to other countries in the world, United States included. So I think it’s also naive to think that Israel is not going to act if in fact Iran does develop a nuclear warhead and the delivery to do that. And I think they would be acting in conjunction with us, them having been, always having been an important military ally in the past and present and future. And that in concert with Israel, we will deal with Iran. But back to military threat: there’s not a military threat. So reducing military spending by 43%, it’s a function of the nuclear warheads, it’s a function of the conflicts that we’re currently involved in, it’s the military that are in uniform, it’s the civilian support staff that goes along with that, it’s research and development. Look, we’ve heard for a long time we need to be fighting future conflicts, not conflicts of the past. It’s also intelligence. It’s leaner, it’s meaner. We’ve heard it talked about for decades and yet we’ve seen nothing for decades. When we talk about a 43% reduction to military spending, we’re only going back to the year 2003 to accomplish that from a budgetary standpoint.
Libya, there was never a military threat from Libya. There’s nothing in the United States Constitution that says that because we don’t like a foreign leader, we should go in and topple that foreign leader. Haven’t we injected ourselves into a civil war there? And we’re going to pick a winner. And in 20 years from now, is that winner going to be Mubarak, who we openly declared as somebody who was corrupt, but less corrupt than say someone else? Well, we’re making that judgment and we’re making that judgment for a foreign country. I just, the unintended consequence of our foreign policy, in my opinion, has made us a whole lot of enemies.
Bob Zadek: Governor Johnson, you are so correct about this. And in the few minutes we have, it strikes me that looking back over American history, we have fewer real threats to America, military threats, than maybe ever in our history. And yet we spend more and more and more on defense. Defense against what exactly? There is such a disconnect between the wars and the battles we’re preparing for and what are the real threats, all with a profound waste of money. So your views are so right on, Governor Johnson. And I really thank you for them because nobody else has the courage to speak those views.
Streamlining Government Agencies [48:52]
Bob Zadek: Just before we leave, Governor Johnson, we only have a minute. We have a caller who I think has been waiting for some time. We have Anne in San Francisco.
Caller (Anne): Hi, this is Anne. I do believe in a limited, smaller government as well. I’m not exactly a Libertarian. However, I believe that if we have government agencies that are paid to do a primary function and they can’t do that function, then they should be eliminated. For example, how am I as a citizen supposed to become an INS agent and check papers of everybody who comes to my door or anybody I hire? I have no idea if their paperwork is false or correct. I’m not going to go through that. We pay so much money. You’re worried about defense; I’m worried about all these other agencies: Homeland Security and INS and ICE and all of these other agencies that don’t seem to be able to function at their primary level. I mean, the primary goal of these agencies are to know who comes in the country and who leaves, and when they do and when they have extended their visa. And yet they can’t seem to do that. And I’m supposed to be verifying everybody? Well, if I have to do that work, then you better damn well pay me, you know, because why am I paying out of my taxes to support all these other agencies?
Bob Zadek: Anne, thank you for the call. You are a Libertarian. Welcome to the club. And Gary, thanks so much for joining me. Go Niners. This is Bob Zadek thanking Governor Johnson and wishing him the best of luck in his campaign. And to all my listeners, thanks so much for listening. See you next week.