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Gary Johnson

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Gary Johnson is a former two-term governor of New Mexico who appeared on The Bob Zadek Show as honorary chairman of OurAmericaInitiative.com. In the 2010 episode he discussed foreign policy and military spending, his use of the veto as governor, drug policy, prison privatization, and the Gulf oil spill. A 2011 episode is represented in the excerpts only by Bob Zadek’s introduction of Johnson as a 2012 presidential candidate and chairperson of ouramericainitiative.com.

Foreign policy and military spending

Johnson told Bob Zadek that out of the dollar being spent worldwide on military expenditures, 50 cents is spent by the United States, while the United States is 5% of the world’s population, and that China is spending 8 cents out of that dollar. He said the government needs to protect individuals from harm and to protect the country from countries or terrorists that would raise arms against the United States, but argued that security is not being threatened in either Iraq or Afghanistan. He said he had been on record before the invasion of Iraq believing the United States had the military surveillance capability to see Iraq roll out any weapons of mass destruction and could have annihilated that situation militarily within minutes, but that he felt going into Iraq would mire the country in a civil war with no end. He called the initial foray into Afghanistan completely warranted as a matter of getting Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, but said they are not there anymore, and asked whether the same needs being met by building roads, schools, bridges and highways in Iraq and Afghanistan do not exist in the United States. Libertarians For Change (2010)

Johnson framed the fiscal constraint as central: with the government borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar it spends, he asked what good the country is to the world, to its citizens, or to itself if bankrupt. He said the purpose of the Constitution and the founding of the country was that the country leads by example, that it has always stood up to the bully on the block, and that it has lost that and become the aggressor. He said the country has a constitutional obligation to provide for a strong national defense and that he would not shy away from that, but that it has gone out of bounds when it comes to acting outside its own country. Libertarians For Change (2010)

Asked by Zadek whether the United States should intercede in genocides such as Bosnia, Darfur and the Sudan, Johnson said he would hate to see the country stand by and witness a genocide taking place and not participate in seeing it come to an end, but acknowledged Zadek’s point that the country often gets involved under the banner of stopping a genocide and makes things worse rather than better. He said he would like to leave that question open. On Zadek’s question whether troops should be pulled out of Western Europe, Germany, Spain and South Korea, Johnson returned to the 43% figure, saying that what government needs to be cut just to balance expenditures with revenues is 43%, that the military should take its part of that and be cut by 43% also, and that there are something like 100,000-plus troops in Europe, perhaps it ought to be 57,000. He said there would have to be shared pain across the board as the country gets its fiscal house in order, and that defense has to be part of that. Libertarians For Change (2010)

Vetoes and political technique

Zadek asked Johnson whether, as governor of New Mexico, he had faced a democratically controlled state legislature; Johnson answered, “Yes, two to one.” Asked how he accomplished so much with the legislature of the opposite party, Johnson said he ended up vetoing 750 pieces of legislation, and that on top of that he had line-item veto, which he took to a new art form, vetoing thousands of pieces of legislation. He described this as saying no to spending and no to special interests, whether individuals or corporations, and said people saw that what he was about was equality for all and leveling the playing field. As an example he said he would have dried up funding for neighborhood pavement projects in lieu of statewide funding projects. He said that in a state that was two-to-one Democrat, having vetoed that many pieces of legislation, one would think he would have sailed out of office, but he was re-elected, which he offered as evidence that the notion of fairness and of what government should be resonated with people. Libertarians For Change (2010)

Zadek asked whether Johnson’s political technique was to go above the legislature and appeal directly to the people, something he said Reagan did and Schwarzenegger was unsuccessful in doing, and whether that was his secret weapon. Johnson answered that whether or not that was his strategy, people saw it and understood the notion of cost-benefit and of best product and best service at the lowest price. He said he had run his own business and knew what it is to make a payroll and to turn out the lights at the end of the day, to buy a commercial airline ticket rather than fly on the state airplane because it is cheaper, and not to do anything first class because it costs more than they would pay for themselves. He said he stood in line as governor of New Mexico, though sometimes he was the reason people were there and went to the head of the line, but that when it came to going out to dinner or a movie or a sporting event, he stood in line. Libertarians For Change (2010)

Drug policy and prison privatization

A caller identified as Chad, who described himself as a Democrat who never thought he would vote for a Republican, asked Johnson to expand on what he means by harm reduction with respect to drugs other than marijuana, and raised an objection to privatizing prisons on the ground that corporations running them have an incentive to put more people in prison in order to profit. Johnson answered on privatization first, saying that in New Mexico about 600 prisoners were housed out of state at the state’s expense and that the prison system was run by the courts under a consent decree. He said the legislature did not want to appropriate money to build new prisons, which was something that needed to be done, so he basically privatized the prisons, and that on an apples-to-apples basis the private prisons cost two-thirds that of the public prisons. He said it flies in the face of logic to expect private prisons to have a huge vested interest in keeping people in jail and a gigantic lobby, and that he found just the opposite. He said that if the country adopted reasonable drug policies and got people out of jail, shutting down prisons would be a great thing, and that from his own experience it is a whole lot easier to shut down the private prisons as opposed to the public prisons. Libertarians For Change (2010)

On harm reduction, Johnson said that if all drugs were legalized tomorrow the world would be a better place, that the same argument from marijuana can be applied to the other drugs, but that the only drug he is espousing legalization on is marijuana. He said that if the other drugs were looked at first as a health problem rather than a criminal justice problem, that could go a long way toward rational drug policy, and that if marijuana is legalized people will begin to understand the notion of personal responsibility and that 90% of the drug problem is prohibition-related, not use-related. He said this is in no way to condone drug use, that he does not drink, smoke marijuana or do drugs, but that he has, and that from his own experience marijuana is much safer than alcohol. Libertarians For Change (2010)

The Gulf oil spill

In the final segment, Zadek asked Johnson what headline lessons the Gulf oil spill teaches about the relationship between Americans, business and government. Johnson said he was disappointed, and that the government could take on the role of an information clearinghouse tomorrow, providing the best information possible. He noted that Bobby Jindal was calling for a sand barrier to be built on beaches and asked why it was not being done, and said he wondered personally why there were not barges at sea pumping up oil and water and separating them at a point, which seemed to him to make sense from a cost-benefit standpoint; he said he did not have the answer but had seen an oil executive on television talking about the same thing. He said the government had not stepped up and provided leadership — saying here is what is happening, here is what we intend to do, inviting the best and brightest to submit ideas and airing those ideas. Libertarians For Change (2010)

Johnson said the relief valve failed, and that if there is any lesson to be taken away, government does have a responsibility and a role, in this case to pass legislation that makes it impossible for something like this to happen again where a shut-off valve does not shut off. He said there will be future environmental atrocities, but it should not be the same issue repeating itself, and that the entity that will suffer the most is BP, which will pay, as will everyone, from the environmental damage. Zadek put to him that BP will pay through the nose in the marketplace, that its stockholders will pay, and that the market has punished BP instantly, while if culpability lies at least in part with government there is no accountability at the government level. Johnson said he did not have the answer to that either, and that Zadek hit it on the head: the market value of BP had decreased $70 billion, and no entity has suffered or will suffer as much as BP, which will for the rest of its existence and may have to change the name of the company in the future. Libertarians For Change (2010)

Across episodes

The excerpts show two episodes touching on Gary Johnson: the 2010 appearance, in which he discussed foreign policy, military spending, vetoes, drug policy, prison privatization and the Gulf oil spill, and the 2011 episode, which the excerpts represent only through Bob Zadek’s introduction of Johnson as a 2012 presidential candidate and chairperson of ouramericainitiative.com. The excerpts show no development between the earlier and later treatment.

What the sources do not cover

The 2011 episode’s substantive discussion is absent from the excerpts, which break off at the heading for the segment on foreign intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, so no positions from that appearance can be reported. The excerpts do not state the outcome of any election Johnson stood in, the dates or contents of the legislation he vetoed, or the terms of the consent decree under which New Mexico’s prisons were run. They also do not give the name of the bill or amendment behind any of the policies discussed, nor the fate of the private prisons after his governorship.

Episodes

4 appearances, 2010–2012.

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