The following was authorized and paid for by
Democrats for Economic Recovery -- LaRouche in '92
"The Industrial Recovery of the United States"
March 8, 1992
ANNOUNCER: Democrat Lyndon LaRouche is seeking the nomination for
President of the United States. This is the same Lyndon LaRouche,
who many of you know as the innocent man whom President Bush is
keeping in a Federal prison. But, many of you also know LaRouche
as the only candidate who accurately forecast the reunification
of Germany; who foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union; and who
foresaw the current 1987-1992 spiral of depression in the U.S.
economy.
Many of you have asked: why is Lyndon LaRouche still in
jail, when the United States is in such a crisis?
On February 12, a supporter of Mr. LaRouche challenged
President George Bush during a campaign appearance in Bedford,
New Hampshire. The supporter asked the President:
LAROUCHE SUPPORTER: ``When are you going to release the files on
Mr. LaRouche?''
ANNOUNCER: Bush responded:
BUSH: ``He's in jail right now; he belongs in jail.''
ANNOUNCER: The supporter answered:
LAROUCHE SUPPORTER: ``You're holding him as a political prisoner.''
ANNOUNCER: And then the supporter showed the President a LaRouche
campaign bumper sticker ["George Bush: Don't Barf on Me"]. On
seeing the sticker, the President became dumbfounded and kept
shaking the supporter's hand, until the President's handlers
intervened to lead him away.
The scandal is that the White House felt it necessary to
falsify a key detail of this incident. Shortly after the
encounter, Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater claimed that
the LaRouche supporter had said, ``When are you going to let
LaRouche out of jail?'', as opposed to the actual question,
``When are you going to release the files?''
President Bush is holding tens of thousands of pages of
files on LaRouche, which the government has already admitted to
having. The President knows that these files would prove LaRouche
innocent, but Bush refuses to release the papers.
Why would President Bush risk being caught in yet another
cover-up scandal? Just in order to keep LaRouche in jail?
LaRouche, so far, is the only candidate running in either
party, who has offered the program to get the United States out
of Geroge Bush's new, ``Herbert Hoover depression.''
Everything which we will say here now, represents programs
which LaRouche has presented in detail, repeatedly, since the
1970s, when it became clear to him that America's physical
economy was heading into collapse. Many of you heard these
proposals in national television broadcasts since 1980.
The mass media told you that these proposals were
``extremist,'' and you believed the mass media. Because too many
voters ignored LaRouche's warnings, we are now in perhaps the
worst depression of the century.
LAROUCHE: ``This depression, like all modern depressions, is
completely unnecessary. During the period 1939-1943, President
Franklin Roosevelt proved that with the right measures the
federal government can get us out of a depression any time it
chooses; or can stop a depression at any time our government has
the sense and willpower to take the necessary measures.'' [from
"Our Economy Today," 1984]
ANNOUNCER: That was what Lyndon LaRouche said back in 1984.
Compare it to what other politicians and econmists have said.
Lyndon LaRouche understands that the necessary measures for a
general economic recovery must be based on a new industrial
policy.
LAROUCHE: The federal government will issue over $600
billion in low-cost credit to state and federal authorities for
infrastructural public works. This will create 3 million jobs in
the public sector, and also an additional 3 million jobs among
vendors to the government, in the private sector.
These combined six million new jobs will be devoted to
rebuilding five vital components of America's industrial
infrastructure.
First, the creation of a water management system capable of
insuring a sufficient supply of fresh water into the 21st
century.
Second, the rebuilding of our transportation grid,
especially our rail system, and development of roads and ports.
Third, the construction of the energy grid needed to power
an industrial recovery.
In addition to these three areas of ``hard'' infrastructure,
I will develop two vital areas of so-called soft infrastructure,
which are of equal importance.
The fourth of the five, therefore, is the creation of a
new health care infrastructure which is consistent with the
already-established, but now much neglected, requirements of the
Hill-Burton Act of 1946.
Fifth, we shall develop educational facilities suitable for
the tasks of the rising productivity in the coming century.
Federal investment in these five areas of infrastrucutre
will immediately halt the current depression collapse--as nothing
less will do. But, on top of these measures, and in order to
promote continued growth and increase in industrial productivity,
we will need a sixth area of development. We will need a science
driver, some great national mission, like the Kennedy Apollo
program, whose goals will be the kind of scientific breakthroughs
which will transform our productive, technological base.
ANNOUNCER: As Lyndon LaRouche has repeatedly explained in
national broadcasts over the last 12 years, there is one, basic
way out of a depression: we must build ourselves out of it.
LAROUCHE: That was how America got out of the collapse in
the 1930s; that is how President John Kennedy reversed the
recession of the Eisenhower Administration; and that is the
only way to start the process of recovery; through large-scale
investment in public infrastructure projects.
These public works are the indispensable means for
increasing the productivity of the entire economy, including the
private sector.
Take for example auto production. Private corporations
produce cars. But, to make a car, you need energy--lots of
it--which comes from public utilities. You must transport the raw
materials for the car, and the finished car itself, over public
highways or waterways. The workers who make the car are the
product of a public school system which is producing graduates
capable of operating advanced industrial technology. Even water
is key here: the production of a single automobile requires the
direct use of over 10,000 gallons of water per car.
If the roads fall into disrepair, if labor becomes
illiterate, if we stop generating enough power, then productivity
in the private sector collapses and this collapse is passed on as
poor product and increased cost to the consumer. The car will
cost more, but will be worth much less.
1. WON'T YOU PLEASE LET YOUR GRANDCHILDREN HAVE A DRINK OF
FRESH WATER? [title]
ANNOUNCER: Many people think that the amount of fresh water
available is determined by nature: either it rains enough, or it
doesn't. Actually, the pure water that you expect to come out of
your tap is based on billions of dollars and decades of work on
water management and purification.
Our problem is, that since the mid-1960s, the United States
has abandoned large-scale water improvement projects. This
problem was identified by Lyndon LaRouche in 1982:
LAROUCHE: Next to a general thermonuclear war, the greatest
single environmental danger to the American people over the
coming two decades is the danger that whole regions of our nation
will simply run out of usable, fresh-water supplies. [from "Won't
You Please Let Your Grandchildren Have a Drink of Fresh Water?"
pamphlet, 1982]
ANNOUNCER: Today, one decade later, LaRouche's predictions are coming
true. Some areas along our coasts are experiencing severe crises;
and, almost half of the United States has a water deficit. This
huge environemntal problem is not due to development; it is due
to the lack of development.
LAROUCHE: My solution to this crisis, is to revive the
long-established plans for a North American Water and Power
Alliance, known by its initials as NAWAPA. This was an idea
originally conceived in the early 1960s. Since the Northeast
region of North America as a whole--Canada and the United
States--receives about one-quarter of all rain and snow hitting
this continent, the NAWAPA plan would divert 15% of this flow
into a huge natural reservoir, the Rocky Mountain Trench in
British Columbia.
The water would be channeled through Canada, into the dry
southwest United States, and on into northern Mexico. In a second
phase, navigable canals will be constructed, linking this system
with the Great Lakes, the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and the Atlantic
and Pacific coasts.
This NAWAPA project would admittedly cost hundreds of
billions of dollars over the ten to twenty years required to
complete the construction. But, it will provide an additional 135
billion gallons of water per day for the United States. That is
enough water to satisfy the thirst of the biggest industrial
recovery in the history of America, and to ensure more than
enough supplies of clean water for our grandchildren.
2. REBUILD THE TRANSPORTATION GRID [title]
ANNOUNCER: During the Presidential campaigns in 1980, in 1984, in
1988, Lyndon LaRouche made detailed proposals for rebuilding
America's decaying transportation grid.
LAROUCHE: At the end of the 1980s, about 56 tons of goods
were shipped for every American household. This figure is a
disaster; it hasn't been this low since the 1950s. In 1967, we
reached a high point of 82 tons per household, but we have been
dropping ever since. How does this compare with the case for
other, competing industrialized nations?
In 1965, the transportation systems of Germany and Japan
moved only a small amount more than that of the United States. By
1987, the Japanese grid had grown by 38%; the German system grew
slightly; but, the U.S. system had dropped by 18%.
I will spend the $250 billion per year estimated as
minimally necessary for maintaining existing highways, and some
expansion. We should not spend more than this minimum, since the
recovery of the transportation grid depends upon the vast
expansion of our rail system.
Even now, railroads are, overall, the most efficient means
of transport. But, we are not talking about old diesel railroad;
we are talking, among other things, about trains without wheels,
magnetically levitated above their tracks, travelling at speeds
of up to 300 miles per hour.
Maglev trains exist. Germany has already built prototypes,
and plans to build a full commercial system already, between
Hamburg and Berlin.
As President, I will construct a maglev line--that is,
magnetic levitation, of up to 300 miles per hour in safety and
comfort--through the dense population concentrations of our
Eastern Atlantic Seaboard. Trains will travel the 450 miles from
Boston to Washington, DC in 90 minutes.
I will also construct two maglev corridors from Chicago to
New York City: one through Buffalo NY in the north; then another
through Pittsburgh.
These maglev systems will pay for themselves, even just in
terms of wasted passenger-hours saved. An estimated $40 billion of
value is lost as a result of traffic delays each year in the
nation's eight most congested urban centers.
3. A FISSION/FUSION-POWERED RECOVERY [title]
ANNOUNCER: Lyndon LaRouche is known by many as America's most
vociferous advocate of nuclear power, both fission and fusion.
For twenty years, LaRouche has called for the brute-force
development of fusion power; and he was the driving force behind
the creation of the Fusion Energy Foundation, the nation's
leading scientific association in support of fusion power
research--until that association was illegally shut down by the
federal government in 1986. LaRouche led the way in exposing the
unscientific fears of the environmentalists, who ignorantly
claimed that all science was suspect.
The mass media supported the environmentalists; and too many
of you, the American voter, once again, believed the mass media.
Since 1974, orders for new nuclear power plants have dropped,
while cancellations have soared. We now have a huge power
deficit. The only reason we do not have constant blackouts, is
that we no longer have industry.
Lyndon LaRouche's energy program is essentially the same one
detailed in 1979, when he began his candidacy for the 1980
election:
LAROUCHE: Now is the time to mobilize the nation's resources to
move our society rapidly toward a fully nuclear-based economy,
and also to make this nation again the principal exporter of
nuclear plants and technology throughout the world. The
ultimate goal of this effort must be a crash program for
thermonuclear fusion power development to guarantee the vast
energy and raw materials supplies needed for the next century.
[from "America Must Go Nuclear" Special Report]
4. HEALTH CARE...THE REAL PROBLEM [title]
ANNOUNCER: Adequate health care is becoming a major issue of the
1992 campaign. However, none of the candidates besides Lyndon
LaRouche has identified the largest problem in American health
care: hospitals. What is the sense of a fully-funded health
insurance program, if there are no hostpials or clinics to
provide the care you need?
LAROUCHE: Following World War II, America operated under the
Hill-Burton Hospital Construction Act of 1946. This bill,
Hill-Burton, mandated unprecedented hospital construction, plus
constant improvement in services to veterans, and in medical
education.
Through the 1940s, into the fifties and sixties, the U.S.
economy was expanding fast enough for wages to keep pace, almost,
with the cost of one week's stay in a hospital. Then, in the
1970s, the costs started to jump; and then zoomed to the
astronomical levels of today, from 1981 on.
Until the Bush-Reagan era in 1981, the United States was
able to steadily increase hospital beds, and stayed near the
postwar standard of 4.5 beds per one thousand citizens. During
the 1980s, the number of hospital beds dropped to 3.75 per
thousand; and many of those beds became poorly staffed. During
the 1980s, we shut 761 hospitals, and 65 major trauma units.
I shall return to the old combination of public and
voluntary hospitals and clinics. These will be integrated with
the private medical profession. The entire system, public and
private, will be organized to provide adequate health care, by
type of anticipated need, for every community in this nation.
Legislation which is comparable to, and modeled upon, the
Hill-Burton Bill of 1946, will be passed, overseeing the
construction and upgrading of facilities. These facilities may be
run either by federal or state governments, or run like public
utilities by private organizations.
Even if George Bush sometimes thinks that the President of
the United States should become a Japan automobile parts
salesman, I am not selling insurance. My campaign is not offering
any new health insurance plan as such; what we are doing is
simply offering to secure enough high-quality medical care, to
ensure that the needs of all Americans are met.
We assume that any American who has the need, must be given
adequate treatment regardless; and we will worry about who pays
for that treatment, once we have the person under care.
As America begins to pull out of the Bush depression through
an industrial recovery, more employers and employees will be able
to afford adequate helath insuracne. At the same time, the
increasing tax base at the local and state level will allow us,
once agian, to maintain a public hospital system which will treat
citizens without first asking for their credit card before
deciding whether to let them live or die.
Until wages and the local tax base reaches those levels, the
federal government must supply a `safety net'--through Medicare,
Medicaid, and a catstrophic health care plan--ensuring adequate
care for every citizen.
5. EDUCATION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY [title]
ANNOUNCER: Education, as a component of industrial
infrastructure, is every bit as important as water, or
transportation. Without an educated workforce, no sustained
recovery is possible.
LAROUCHE: To understand what educational policy will be under my
Presidency, it is perhaps enough to say, that I despise that
dog-and-pony show training act called rehearsing our children to
pass multiple-choice, questionnaire tests.
We must return to the principles of sound education, those
of classical education on the model, for example, of the
educational reforms of Humbodlt in the middle of the 19th
century.
Classical education means creating in the child's mind a
general foundation upon which the development of knowledge is
based. In this way, the elementary and seconary school education
prepares the student, the child and the youth, for any area of
specialization which he chooses.
This means: to include education in languages, and an
emphasis upon geometry. That means instruction in Euclidean and
more-advanced synthetic geometry. This education in geometry,
which has been lacking increasingly in our schools for the past
20 years, is key to understanding why our scientific and
technological competence has been collapsing relative to Japan
and, to some degree, Western Europe.
The most improtant ``classroom,'' however, of the 1990s will
be the infrastrucutre projects that we have just outlined. We
should re-institute a version of the Civilian Conservation Corps
from the 1930s. This must not be a program simply to get millions
of unemployed youths off the street and out digging ditches--this
is no election gimmick that I'm talking about.
This new youth employment program in large-scale projects
will be a work-education experience, including exposure to the
most-advanced technologies used in the national and state
infrastructure projects which I mentioned. In this way, the new
version of the CCC will habilitate young people to become
full-fledged, independent, self-sufficient citizens of our
republic, with the skills, practical knowledge, and learning
ability needed to meet the tasks of the 21st century.
6. A SCIENCE DRIVER FOR GROWTH [title]
ANNOUNCER: The five areas of infrastrucutral development which we
have just described must be done under any circumstances; they
are long overdue, and, without them, there will be no sustained
industrial recovery.
LAROUCHE: On the day on which I am inaugurated the President of
the United States in Janaury 1993, I will send a bill to the
Congress, accompanying my declaration of a national economic
emergency, and the existence of a world depression.
That bill will feature asking the Congress, under Article 1
of the U.S. Constitution, to recognize the fact that I have
nationalized the Federal Reserve System, converting it into a
National Bank; and requesting the Congress to give me the
authorization to issue more than a trillion dollars in U.S.
currency notes from the Treasury, to be deposited with the new
Federal Reserve System, as a national bank, to be loaned at low
interest for the purpose of getting the economy moving.
Approximately half of this money will go into public works,
as I've indicated. And much of the rest will go to private sector
vendors working in these five areas--that is, supplying these
state and federal projects. And, the rest will go to promote
high-technology investments--long-term investments, in
particular--in the private sector.
To have a healthy and growing economy, we will need
something more than these things. We will need a science driver,
very much like, in prinicple, President Kennedy's Apollo program.
The most efficient means of increasing industrial productivity
is, purely and simply, applying scientific discovery.
This is what we saw in the Kennedy Apollo Project--a project
which, for every dollar we put into it in government funds, we
got back ten to fourteen dollars in benefits from the spinoffs in
the private sector. This was the last time--under Kennedy, into
the early Johnson years--that the United Staets had a true
science driver; it was the last time the United States, to now,
had a healthy economy.
It was the combination of President Kennedy's crash
aerospace program, together with his intelligent investment tax
credit plan, which poured both public credit and private
investment into the sectors of the economy to carry us through
the 1960s.
Today we need desperately a program which is similar to the
Apollo Project in principle. The available best such choice of
program will be a long-range buildup toward the colonization of
Mars.
A detailed plan for Mars colonization was presented in my
television broadcast during the 1988 campaign. ["The Woman
on Mars" national broadcast]
At an international conference held in Virginia during the
summer of 1985, I submitted a paper outlining a 40-year project
for establishing a permanent colony on Mars. ["The Science
and Technology Necessary to Colonize Mars']
ANNOUNCER: Mars colonization is not ``pie in the sky.'' It, or
something like it, is necessary for continuing industrial growth.
It will give us the means of creating a new industrial base,
combining the automobile sector with the aerospace sector--two
industries with compatible engineering. This integrated
aerospace-auto sector will become the leading section of our
revived economy, and will lead the way to America once again
becoming the world's leading industrial power.
LAROUCHE: The United States is in a depression. In fact, as we
are discovering form experience itself, this is becoming the
worst economic depression to hit the United Staets during the
20th century. Only if we admit that fact, and use that word, is
there likely to be any improvement.
What I hear from most of the other candidates, is totally
irrelevant. So far, none of them in my hearing have used the word
depression, in a simple and clear way. They are not addressing
the problem, because they refuse to admit it exists.
What we need is a minimum of 6 to 8 million jobs. We have,
for example, an operating deficit of the combined federal and
state governments in the year 1992, of somewhere between a
half-trillion and three-quarters of a trillion dollars. Unless
you create enough employement and related activity--productive
activity--to increase the tax revenues of combined federal and
state governments, without increasing tax rates, by between a
half- and three-quarters of a trillion dollars, you really are
not going to move anything, to get us out of this continuing,
downward spiralling depression.
I've indicated the solution. Nothing less than what I've
proposed will work.
Whether we have a recovery, or a continuing depression: the
choice is now up to you.
For further information, write
LaRouche in '92
P.O. Box 690
Leesburg, VA 22075
The proceding was authorized and paid for by
Democrats for Economic Recovery -- LaRouche in '92
