By: H. Ross Perot
Our country faces a momentous choice. The fact is the United States is on an unsustainable course. At stake is nothing less than our position in the world, our standard of living at home and our constitutional freedoms.
That is why I am endorsing Mitt Romney for president. We can’t afford four more years in which debt mushrooms out of control, our government grows and our military is weakened.
For the past four years, we have squandered one opportunity after the next to turn things around. The longer we delay acting, the steeper the price we will have to pay.
Let’s look at the country as it is now.
The American economy is stagnant. Economic growth is insufficient to create enough jobs for a country whose population is growing. The result is unemployment stuck over 8 percent for every single month of Barack Obama’s presidency. We have 23 million Americans who are looking for work and either can’t find a full-time job, can’t find a job at all, or who have given up looking. That is wrong. It’s not the way America ought to be.
At the same time, and not unrelated, is the extraordinary explosion of federal deficits and federal debt. In the last four years during Obama’s presidency, he’s added around $5 trillion to our national debt, more than any previous president. This was accomplished by successive federal budgets that each ran deficits exceeding $1 trillion a year. It is this massive deficit spending that threatens to undermine our future standard of living. To pay for our government’s massive debts, Washington’s profligacy, our children and grandchildren will be paying interest and principal on the nation’s debt for untold years into the future. That is wrong. It’s not the way America ought to be.
Even as we have engaged in runaway domestic spending, the country has been put on the path to massive cuts in the defense budget. President Obama’s own Secretary of Defense has called the proposed cuts “devastating†to our nation’s security. History teaches that the price of military weakness always exceeds the price of preparedness. And yet at a moment when turbulence is sweeping critical regions of the world, we are increasingly unprepared. That is wrong. It’s not the way America ought to be.
It is for these reasons that I am endorsing Mitt Romney. He has spent most of his career in the private sector. He understands how jobs are created. He understands how government can get in the way of that process. As a president, he would do what this administration has been unable to do, which is reform our federal government, pare it back, and — most critically — keep it from acting as a brake on economic growth.
Equally important, as a governor, Mitt Romney balanced the budget of his state for four straight years without raising taxes. Writing in all caps is called shouting, and that fact is something that deserves to be shouted from the rooftops. I should add that Gov. Romney accomplished this feat while working with a legislature that was overwhelmingly under the control of the Democratic Party in one of the most liberal states in the country. In short, although he is a rock-solid conservative, he knows how to reach across the aisle and make common cause with those with whom he disagrees.
These are leadership qualities that are sorely needed in Washington today. President Obama promised a great deal. He has had his chance. The results are visible for all to see. It is time for a new beginning. It is time for Mitt Romney.
