The political conventions are over. The balloons have drifted away. The delegates have come home. The stage has been carefully set. It’s time for voters to make a critical decision about the future of this country.
We’ve heard the promises. Let’s look at the performance.
Let’s look at where we are in Texas and where we need to go. For most of us, the last few years haven’t been good. Our oil and gas industry has been devastated and the impact ricocheted through our economy. Manufacturing foundered. Real estate prices dropped. Major retailers closed their doors. Our farmers were hurt by low farm prices, and just when the export market was recovering, by a serious drought. The peso went south and hurt the economy of South Texas as far north as San Antonio and Houston. All of this damaged our banks and financial institutions.
All of these things are beyond Texas’ control, and while we don’t expect much help from Washington, we deserved better treatment than we got.
During the past eight years, there has been no energy policy in this country. The Reagan-Bush administration failed to anticipate the stranglehold the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries held on the price of oil. It failed to plan for the oil glut that has irreparably harmed our ability to produce petroleum in this country.
The Reagan-Bush administration did nothing to prevent the virtual destruction of one of our most valuable basic industries.
This nation desperately needed a trade policy that would make our industry competitive, that would keep our workers on the job and preserve our self-sufficiency in basic goods.
We needed a trade policy that would not exaggerate our trillion-and-a-half dollar deficit, would not cause the hemorrhaging of dollars from our shores. That didn’t happen.
These failures occurred while George Bush was vice president. That is disappointing, because he should understand the problems of the oil industry and the problems of Texas. We have to hope that President Reagan wasn’t being advised by George Bush when he made the decisions that made it harder for Texans to make a living.
During that time, the greatest hope Texans had was Senator Lloyd Bentsen. For 18 years, he has shaped much of the major economic legislation that passed the Senate.
He has struggled repeatedly for a national energy policy, for repeal of the windfall-profits tax and for curbs on oil imports.
Lloyd Bentsen led the fight for a strong trade bill, one that gives the next president the tools to force our trading partners to play fair. This bill would allow American goods into foreign markets on the same terms as those foreign goods coming into America.
President Reagan vetoes that bill because of the requirement that American workers be given 60 days’ notice before a plant is closed.
Lloyd Bentsen fought to keep our space program strong, so we wouldn’t shamefully trail the Soviet Union. When Governor Michael is president, he will reinstate the National Aeronautics and Space Council and appoint Bentsen as chairman so we need not fear that America will forfeit its position. His amendment to the federal highway bill last year meant $2.1 billion in additional dollars for Texas highways because Bentsen discovered that our state was shortchanged by the federal formula. He saw to it that the University of Texas and Texas A&M University rank among the top 20 universities in the amount of federal research grants that come our way.
Lloyd Bentsen led the fight for pension reform, saving the retirement income of millions of working Americans. He won the fight in the Senate to provide catastrophic health care for millions of uninsured Americans who cannot afford a family medical catastrophe.
Lloyd Bentsen cares about the problems of average Americans. He is a leader in solving them. His effectiveness in the Senate is unquestioned. I can’t say the same for his opponent. Dan Quayle opposed drought aid for farmers, Head Start and school lunches, and voted for a freeze on Social Security spending.
Governor Michael Dukakis chose Bentsen as his running mate, a man with legislative skills to match his own executive skills.
Governor Dukakis has a solid record of leadership, competence and results. He has a proven record on economic development. There are disagreements on some issues, but there is not disagreement on the issue most important to Texas. Mike Dukakis has economic development at the front of his mind.
He turned a basket-case economy into one that created over 400,000 new jobs in the last five years, with the lowest unemployment rate of any industrial state. He didn’t just talk about the need to balance the budget. He balanced 10 budgets in a row. We understand that in Texas because this is a pay-as-you-go state. They don’t seem to understand it in the Reagan-Bush administration.
Many of us have been preaching the Massachusetts Miracle in Texas for years because this is the model for Texas’ recovery. Governor Dukakis increased dollars for real priorities – education and law enforcement – and saw them returned manifold in the renewed vitality of his state.
With his leadership in Washington, we will make that happen in Texas.
Mike Dukakis wants good jobs at good wages; not low-wage, no-benefit jobs. He cares about the people who are having a harder and harder time making ends meet while the cost of health care and a college education is rising. We don’t have blinders on. There’s something wrong with our economy and Texans know it.
Texans know that this election is about leadership and competence, not rhetoric and resumes. They’ll be thinking about that when they make their decision November 8.
