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Early Clinton 1992-1996 · Saberian History Lectures

0:00
So, today, so we left off talking about the end
0:05
of the Cold War and the rise of Bill Clinton
0:11
as president and as this ushers into the 21st
0:13
century. Now, what's kind of interesting about
0:15
the text, and I'm going to go back a little bit,
0:17
they actually go, chapter 30... is 21st Century
0:21
America, 1993 to present. Now, present for when
0:24
the book came out was 2014. Probably with our
0:27
special topics, I intend to talk into 2016, so
0:30
I'll probably end special topics with the election
0:33
of Trump. But when I look at the period of 1993
0:38
on, what is the defining... moment or feature
0:45
that kind of signals an end from one transition
0:48
to another. 1991. What is the earth -shattering
0:52
event that changes both American politics at
0:56
home and America's relationship to the world?
0:58
1991. What happened? The end of the Soviet Union.
1:03
The fall or the collapse of the Soviet Union.
1:05
So 1991. Cold War is over. Think about this for
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a moment. How long had the Cold War been a defining
1:20
feature of American political life? Almost 50
1:27
years. Going back to the end of the Second World
1:31
War. Going back... to Richard Nixon on the House
1:35
Un -American Activities Committee interrogating
1:38
Alger Hiss and Whitaker Chambers. Are you now
1:40
or have you ever been a member of the Communist
1:42
Party? Now, here's the other thing you need to
1:44
keep in mind. That didn't just guide American
1:49
foreign policy, it also guided American domestic
1:51
policy. If you look at the policies... of Eisenhower,
1:57
if you look at the policies of Truman, if you
1:59
look at the policies even of Kennedy, of LBJ,
2:02
of Nixon, of Reagan, the accusation was always
2:06
made by the opposition party, this person is
2:09
soft on communism. So, always in the calculus
2:15
of the American election was, how is this person
2:20
going to function as commander -in -chief of
2:23
the United States Armed Forces? And it is worth
2:26
noting that Bill Clinton, not only is he the
2:31
first baby boomer president, is he is one of
2:35
the few presidents of the 20th century who had
2:38
no involvement in the military -industrial complex
2:41
of the United States. So, for example, Bush the
2:45
Elder was a fighter pilot during World War II.
2:48
Reagan, who was considered to, his vision was
2:52
too poor to actually serve. he shot safety videos
2:56
for the Navy during World War II. Carter was
3:00
a graduate of the Naval Academy. Ford, I want
3:03
to say, was a member of the, was in the Army
3:06
during World War II. Nixon was a veteran of the
3:10
U .S. Navy. Kennedy was a veteran of the Navy.
3:12
I want to say LBJ was in the Army or he might
3:15
have been in the Navy. I don't recall. And then
3:18
even, of course, Eisenhower was the commanding
3:20
general during World War II. And even Truman
3:23
was, a captain in the army in World War I. So,
3:27
one of the things that you have after the end
3:32
of the Cold War is a shift in American politics.
3:37
from the external taking priority to a more domestic
3:42
consideration of voting. And so, one of the key
3:47
campaign slogans of Bill Clinton when he ran
3:51
against George Bush the Elder was, it's the economy,
3:54
stupid. Now, it kind of makes sense what had
4:00
been the major credences of George Bush the Elder.
4:03
George Bush the Elder was... former director
4:05
of the CIA. He had served in the House Intelligence
4:09
and Foreign Affairs Committee. He was a man of
4:17
the world. So, there's that shift there. That...
4:27
period of only domestic concern and domestic
4:30
tranquility was, as I would call it, the Pax
4:33
Americana, which lasts from 1991 to 2001. There
4:37
was in that period no popularly known enemy of
4:45
the United States. Now, what do I mean when I
4:46
say there was no popularly known enemy of the
4:49
United States? That the American people were
4:55
aware of. Well, not just unanimous. Think about
5:00
this for a moment. Okay, so what happens in 2001?
5:03
What's the popularly known threat that we now
5:05
know about? Terrorism. 9 -11 is not the first
5:11
major terrorist attack against U .S. interests.
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It is only the most apparent. In 1993, in 1995,
5:23
in 1998, you actually have a series of terrorist
5:26
attacks, some sponsored by domestics, others
5:30
sponsored by foreign terrorists. Al -Qaeda, as
5:34
we know it, actually starts doing a lot of different
5:37
dirty work in the 90s. But again, those were
5:41
treated more as law enforcement terrorism because
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at this point, it's seen as an existential threat
5:48
to the United States. And also, previously in
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American society, what was our way of looking
5:56
at war? When you make war, you don't just make
5:59
war on a people, you make war on a government.
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The United States had declared war on Germany,
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a nation state. The United States was at war
6:06
in Korea, a nation state. The United States was
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in a state of Cold War against the Soviet Union,
6:12
which was a government, government to government.
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What is the peculiar thing about terrorists?
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They're not a state. They're not a government.
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You're fighting a war against an idea. And as
6:25
one author once said, do you know what's so terrifying
6:28
about an idea? It has no body to kill. But for
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the period of ten years, if I can quote Sylvester
6:39
Stallone in Rambo 3, there's no one left to fight.
6:45
Now think about that for a moment. For the premier
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military power of the world with no one left
6:51
to fight. That sort of changes things. So in
6:57
1992 you have a couple of things in place. So
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let me do the election of 1992. Election 1992.
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A couple of things. You have the recession that
7:09
was going on really from about 1987 into 1993.
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So you have a recession. You have under Bush
7:24
the Elder the passage of tax increases. George
7:28
Bush the Elder reneges on one of his major 1988
7:31
campaign promises and actually increases taxes
7:33
to the chagrin of many people. But the other
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thing you have coming up, and I'm going to address
7:40
the demographic things that the book talks about,
7:42
but I don't want to do it now. I kind of want
7:43
to do it later. So let me... Switch over because
7:48
I want to show you that. So let me show you the
7:53
map and then I'm going to show you the math.
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Okay. You have an unpopular sitting president
8:02
after how many years of Republican rule? Bush
8:04
is a Republican. Who was the president who had
8:07
preceded him? Reagan, who was wildly popular.
8:10
So you think about it. The Republicans had been
8:12
in the office for 12 years. There was an element
8:14
of party fatigue. But, so you also have a new
8:21
political force hitting the scene. And one of
8:25
the things, and I say this kind of as a critique
8:27
of the person who wrote the text, it's kind of
8:28
obvious that this guy is kind of a fan of Bill
8:30
Clinton, and it's not that Bill Clinton isn't
8:32
fan -worthy, but the book omits the peculiarities
8:36
of the election of 1992, because 1992 is a major
8:41
third -party run that actually changes the environment.
8:47
So, Bush is not entirely popular at home, and
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you have Bill Clinton, who is young, who is charismatic,
8:56
who is a southern Democrat. He is the governor
8:59
of Arkansas. He gains popularity in the Democratic
9:03
Party. He's actually probably one of the last
9:06
classically trained orators that we've had in
9:09
the White House. Comes to prominence in the Democratic
9:13
Party, The idea of, and again at the risk of
9:18
sounding like Barack Obama's old tired montage,
9:20
still believing in the place called hope. Okay,
9:24
so again that sort of southern, rural, hope for
9:27
the working man type of thing. But there's one
9:30
other party interrupter in play. And that is
9:33
Ross Perot. Now, I'm going to show you some video
9:40
of Ross Perot, and then I'm going to try and
9:42
explain the Perot phenomenon. Now, let me show
9:46
you Ross Perot in 1992. Ross Perot is an independently
9:52
wealthy man. He creates a company called EDS,
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Electronic Data Services. Electronic Data Services,
10:00
and Perot, interesting figure, from Texas originally,
10:05
goes to the Naval Academy, serves in the Navy
10:07
with, I mean, not some distinction. In other
10:10
words, he was not old enough to serve in the
10:13
Navy during World War II, but that period of
10:16
time after Korea, before Vietnam. After leaving
10:19
the Navy, he works for IBM, International Business
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Machines, as they're beginning to make that transition
10:24
from typewriters to computers. After he leaves
10:27
IBM, he creates his own company called EDS, Electronic
10:30
Data Services. What they would actually do is
10:32
this is the beginning of transferring payroll
10:36
and service records and customer information
10:39
from index cards to database. So this process,
10:45
and he creates EDS in 1983. Okay, so I know you
10:49
all take it for granted that now, okay, computers
10:51
have information on everything. Back in the 1980s,
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computers were much slower, much more primitive,
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and the data storage was much less reliable.
10:59
And so he kind of was the leading edge of that
11:03
transition of business records from paper to
11:05
computer. So he's a billionaire when most rich
11:09
men are only millionaires. has an interest in
11:13
politics, some would say, although previously
11:16
had not intervened in politics. He had thought
11:18
that the recession of 1987 to 1993 was something
11:22
that warranted his attention. So, this man buys
11:26
his own, like, 30 -minute infomercial slots out
11:32
of his own pocket. And I'm going to show you
11:35
a little bit of it, alright? Let me actually
11:40
run the audio cable through. Sorry about that.
11:49
Alright, here we go. Let me go back. ... The
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arrogance of public officials should be controlled.
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These are not new words. Cicero said these words
12:11
over 2 ,000 years ago, but certainly they apply
12:14
to our country today. Now, if I'm watching this,
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what does this almost look like? It's something
12:22
between an infomercial and a televangelist, isn't
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it? A southern man in a suit telling us about
12:31
how to make a better world. And he does. He has
12:34
this wonderful accent that you can cut with a
12:37
knife. And Dana Carvey does some really great
12:39
impersonations. And these things, you watch them
12:42
and they were in strange... And these were prime
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time television slots. This was not cheap. And
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so this was kind of somewhere between infomercial
12:50
and megachurch in a way. But if you look at what
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he was advocating, balancing the budget... Limiting
13:05
elected officials. What does that sound like?
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What party does that sound like? Does that sound
13:20
like something that you would hear from a Republican
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or from a Democrat? It sounds like a business
13:27
conservative principle. And so now... He enters
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the race in 1992. Early polling had him going
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at 80%. Now when you're early polling at 80%,
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what might happen? You might win. And so for
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some reason, in the middle of the race, he gets
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out when he was winning. What was even more crazy
13:57
was he got back in. Now, This is where I bust
14:02
out with the tinfoil hat. There was one other
14:10
time. 1302 guy. Wait. I don't remember. Wait,
14:18
wait. I didn't edit it. The government took it
14:21
out of the tape. Alright, so here's my... This
14:29
has been rather abused. There were a lot of cosmic
14:32
rays that it had to protect me from. No, the
14:37
tinfoil hat theory is that he got in and out
14:39
of the race to basically mess up the Bush campaign.
14:44
because there are some rather interesting dealings
14:47
that Perot had with Bush back when Bush was vice
14:50
president and when Perot had taken an interest
14:52
in addressing the possibility of missing American
14:57
personnel and corpses left in Vietnam. But anyway,
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let's go to the math and the map. So if I look
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at this map for a moment, What do you notice
15:13
about the map? It's weird. What's weird about
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the map? Geographically, it's kind of balanced,
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but what do you notice is odd? Well, not yet.
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Think about this for a moment. More importantly,
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the South doesn't vote as a bloc. Georgia usually
15:44
votes the same way Alabama and Mississippi does.
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And North Carolina, South Carolina usually vote
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the same way as Georgia and Tennessee. Usually
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when you look at Wallace, when you look at Nixon,
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when you look at LBJ, when you look at American
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electoral politics for the past 50 years, the
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South votes for who they're going to vote for
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as a bloc. But this time they didn't. Now here's
16:10
why. This is what the numbers belie. William
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Jefferson Clinton got 370 electoral votes to
16:22
George Bush the Elder's 168. Ross Perot got no
16:29
electors. But now look at the popular vote. Clinton
16:34
got 40. almost 45 million, to George Bush the
16:39
Elder's 39 million. But look at how many votes
16:42
Perot got. Almost 20 million. So, in the actual
16:48
percentages, it breaks down something like this.
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Clinton got about 43%. Bush got about 37%. And
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Perot got 20%. Now, if I listen to Perot and
17:07
what he advocated, who did he take votes from?
17:11
From the Republicans. He breaks the Republican
17:16
coalition. If you can hold your coalition together,
17:19
you win. If your coalition breaks, you lose.
17:23
Now, does Clinton win? Yes. But in this three
17:27
-man race, as I look at it, did the majority
17:30
of people sign on for the Clinton program? No.
17:36
So, when I look at the Clinton administration,
17:43
you have a liberal president of a center -right
17:49
country. Now, let's get to why. Okay, so, can
17:58
I erase this bit? Yes? Okay, so, here's where
18:04
life gets interesting. So, 1993, Bill Clinton
18:07
is inaugurated. Bill Clinton is the first baby
18:09
boomer president. First president born after
18:11
World War II. He is relatively speaking young.
18:15
He's in his 40s. Actually, I was going to say,
18:19
in all likelihood, Bill Clinton is the first
18:22
baby boomer president, and I suspect, I mean,
18:25
unless Hillary goes for another run in two and
18:27
four or eight years, Trump will probably be the
18:30
last baby boomer president. After that, it falls
18:35
to whom? Generation X. Oh, God help us all. I
18:40
know those people. I am the tail end of those
18:42
people. No, I'm not running next time. No. I
18:49
have far too many interesting skeletons that
18:51
I should like to keep safely in the closet. Next
18:55
to Jimmy Hoffa's body. And my Atari. And my 8
19:05
-bit Super Mario Brothers. But anyway. My secret
19:09
gaming addiction, it's out. Okay, so let's get
19:13
back to the bit. All right, so... You made references
19:16
to Metal Gear. Metal Gear. All right, the whole
19:20
David Hayter voice. David Hayter's voice is very
19:22
simply Clint Eastwood with a little bit more
19:24
wrath. You know, the whole, I'm no hero, never
19:27
was, never will be. Anyway, all right, so let's
19:31
get to... Alright, so let's do this. So, if I
19:36
can divide the Clinton administration into two
19:40
or three acts, it would be this. You have the
19:43
early administration, which is the period of
19:45
1993 to 1995. In that early period, you have
19:53
the presidency is controlled by the Democrat,
19:56
William Jefferson Clinton, the House of Representatives
19:59
is controlled by the Democrats, and the Senate
20:02
is controlled by the Democrats. You have one
20:04
party rule, a royal flush, if you will. Now,
20:09
the reason I say 93 to 95, the elections are
20:11
92 and 94, but the new Congress and the inaugurations
20:15
are in January of the following year. So this
20:17
is why I have odd numbers. Then, of course, 1995
20:20
to 1997, and I call this the middle period because
20:28
you have, the president is still Democratic.
20:36
But the House and the Senate go over to the Republican
20:40
Party for the first time in two generations.
20:45
Then you have the period of 1997 to 2001, which
20:53
is the late period. The late period is the period
20:57
that is dogged by the scandals that most people
20:59
come to mind. I'm going to do the early and the
21:02
middle period today, and then we'll address the
21:04
scandals. Now, the scandals had actually, many
21:06
of the instances had actually, the events that
21:09
led up to the impeachment, many of those events
21:11
occurred in the early and the middle period,
21:13
but they come to a fruition and they come into
21:15
the public eye in 1997 -98 into 2000. Does that
21:19
make sense? Okay. So, early period, you have
21:24
a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, so if
21:26
you're the Democrats, what do you do? Even though
21:30
most of the people didn't vote for your person.
21:32
You do everything you possibly can in the two
21:36
years that you have the majority. So, a couple
21:39
of things come down the pipe. First thing they
21:43
get passed is a stimulus package that actually
21:45
raises taxes. That was past straight party lines
21:56
upset a lot of people. Second thing they did,
21:59
which was actually bipartisan, was they passed
22:03
NAFTA. The North American Free Trade Agreement.
22:07
Basically prior to NAFTA, prior to the 1990s.
22:11
And what's interesting about NAFTA is NAFTA was
22:13
one of those things, it was truly bipartisan.
22:15
The process of negotiating NAFTA began under
22:19
George H .W. Bush and then was signed and approved
22:22
by Congress under Bill Clinton. But Clinton...
22:26
cobbled together a bipartisan coalition of some
22:29
Democrats and some Republicans to get that free
22:31
trade deal through. There were a lot of people
22:34
in Clinton's party that were upset by the free
22:37
trade deal. Not the least of which was a lot
22:39
of the union workers in the North. Okay. The
22:44
third thing, and this is kind of interesting,
22:47
and again, this might sound like it's perfect
22:49
for the tinfoil hat. I'm going to get there.
22:52
This is the Brady Law. And the fourth thing was
22:58
they tried healthcare. Because the Democrats
23:04
had been trying to reform healthcare in this
23:06
country going back to Harry Truman. I'm not saying
23:08
that they've run out of ideas, but you know,
23:12
you just keep trying, you'll get it one of these
23:13
days. That's what happens when people believe
23:15
in the inevitable idea of linear progress. But
23:18
anyway. NAFTA, we have some familiarity with.
23:23
By the way, NAFTA, not a big win for people in
23:26
the industrial base of the American South, nor
23:28
in the industrial base of the American North.
23:29
By the way, who got a really great win out of
23:32
NAFTA? Detroit. No, you're living in it. Texas.
23:37
Because all the stuff going to and from Mexico
23:40
has to go through what? Texas. And what are the
23:45
two ways that you transport product from Mexico
23:48
to any other part of the United States? Even
23:52
if you're smuggling, even if you're not, legal
23:56
or illegal, you have to move on what highway
23:59
to go north from Mexico? Not 281. I -35. I -35.
24:08
I -35 connects, goes as far north as Canada and
24:13
goes as far south as Laredo. And in Canada, it
24:16
connects with a highway in Canada. And in Laredo,
24:19
it meets up with a highway in Mexico. There is
24:21
actually a spine to this continent. And I -35
24:26
is most of it. And if you're going up I -35 and
24:29
you want to move product east and west, what
24:31
major highway goes east and west? I -10. NAFTA
24:36
makes San Antonio, as I have called it before,
24:40
the center of the world. And that's why Toyota's
24:44
here. And that's why Amazon's here. And that's
24:47
why your parents' property tax is becoming obscenely
24:50
high. There will be a metroplex that goes from
24:53
San Antonio to Austin. And the country will fade
24:57
away. NAFTA has passed. Let me get into the Brady
25:02
Law and the healthcare thing. Because the Brady
25:03
Law in and of itself doesn't make... Doesn't
25:07
seem so terrible. Okay, kind of interesting getting
25:10
to the point. Something else involving Texas?
25:15
Alright, so let's get to it. So, January 93,
25:20
Clinton is inaugurated. I'll just say in aug.
25:27
There was no actual animal sacrifice involved.
25:29
For those of you who don't speak Latin, an inauguration
25:31
is when you sacrifice an animal and look at the
25:33
entrails to see if the gods are happy. They didn't
25:38
do any major animal... There was no evisceration
25:41
of animals in any of the inaugurations since
25:43
my lifetime, and I did ask somebody to tweet
25:47
someone in the Trump campaign, make inaugurations
25:49
great again, bring back the animal sacrifice,
25:51
but no. Again, nobody wants to do live eviscerations
25:55
on national television. They just want to do
25:58
it in the movies. All right. So, February 1993.
26:06
Waco, February to March of 1993. Waco, how many
26:15
of you were told the tale of the Branch Davidians
26:19
in Waco? Branch Davidians are a breakaway sect
26:25
of the Seventh -day Adventist Church. A breakaway
26:30
of the breakaway of... The Seventh -day Adventist
26:34
Church had set up a community in Waco, Texas.
26:39
They kind of tended to themselves. of various,
26:43
shall we say, things that people might have looked
26:45
at them askance for, I mean besides child bride
26:48
weddings, which again most people have an issue
26:50
with, that was not what brought the attention
26:53
of the federal government. What brought the attention
26:55
of the federal government is the Branch Davidians
26:58
were modifying firearms that they had purchased
27:01
legally and making automatic weapons. So, when
27:05
you have a group of people making automatic weapons,
27:07
who are you going to call? Ghostbusters. No.
27:11
Nice try. Not yet. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
27:18
and Firearms tries to serve a warrant on the
27:25
Branch Davidian cult compound to confiscate their
27:28
weapons. They had assumed that they were dealing
27:30
with multiple hostiles. They had done a couple
27:32
of... Yes? Did the FBI get involved in that?
27:36
Yes, but the people serving the warrants, the
27:38
ATF. Right, but the FBI didn't get involved.
27:40
Right, for the investigation part, yes. But for
27:43
the weapons charges, you rely on the ATF. Anyway,
27:45
February to March, basically, the ATF goes after
27:49
a group of religious dissidents over guns. Now,
27:54
there is another case in the same year. I know
27:58
it's later, and I just don't remember the month.
28:02
It was called the Ruby Ridge incident. Once again,
28:05
the government... Oh, let me... Actually, before
28:10
I get to Ruby Ridge, let me finish up with Waco.
28:12
So, raid goes south. Agents get killed. Now,
28:18
you can't just have a bunch of cult people pecking
28:20
off federal agents and having them get away with
28:22
it. So, they bust out with the National Guard,
28:25
surround the place for 40 days, and it's on the
28:29
news every day. Day whatever of the Branch Davidian
28:33
standoff. And, I mean, they're trying to get
28:35
him to come out. Finally, they send the tanks
28:37
in to actually put tear gas in the compound to
28:42
drive them out. The Branch Davidians elect, rather
28:45
than come out, to set the entire place with them
28:48
in it on fire. Which, a couple of things I wanted
28:53
to point out. Kind of a backstory. The guy who
28:58
was the... Too soon. But yeah. And a lot of the
29:07
people from the Clinton Justice Department were
29:09
part of the Obama Justice Department. I'm like,
29:11
man, after Waco, I'm surprised that any of them
29:13
had a job. But anyway. Anyway, so National Guard,
29:19
big fiery mess. Ruby Ridge, a former Green Beret
29:27
veteran, tries to set up a little community of
29:31
his own. Him and his family are out in the wilderness
29:33
trying to get away from it all. He too is being
29:36
prosecuted for a weapons charge in the standoff.
29:40
His wife gets killed. They kill his dogs. I mean,
29:43
it's one of those, again, police, law enforcement
29:45
overreaction bits. But again, if I'm watching
29:51
the news and I already don't trust this guy,
29:53
what do I think? That the government is after
29:58
my guns. And then you have... The Clinton machine,
30:06
for lack of a better word, the Democrats in Congress,
30:08
trying to pass gun control. Now, the two aspects
30:15
of the gun control were actually kind of interesting.
30:17
One was the assault weapons ban, which there
30:22
are still vestiges of. I will talk to you about
30:25
those in a moment. The other was the Brady Law.
30:30
Now, I'm going to talk to you about the Brady
30:31
Law. First, Brady Law, Jim Brady, who was a press
30:37
aide of Ronald Reagan, had a traumatic brain
30:41
injury when that assassin tried to assassinate
30:45
Reagan using a handgun. And so what the Brady
30:48
Law aspired to have was to have a background
30:51
check system to make sure that crazy people and
30:54
criminals don't get their hands on guns. That
30:59
law passes and is still in effect today. Now,
31:03
on the whole, it seems rather reasonable that
31:05
you wouldn't want crazy people and criminals
31:06
to have guns. Yes? Now, here's the thing. How
31:09
many of you have been with a parent when they
31:11
bought a gun? Or how many of you have seen somebody
31:13
buy a gun? Okay. Olivia? What's up? Dad? Gun
31:21
store? Academy, Cabela's, or a small one? Okay,
31:27
here in Texas? Yes. Okay, so dad picks out the
31:30
gun, points to the cashier, has the money ready
31:33
to go. Dad have a concealed handgun license or
31:36
no? Yes. Okay, so he showed the clerk the concealed
31:40
handgun license, got his gun, and everything
31:43
was copacetic. Okay, 1993, there is no concealed
31:48
handgun statute in Texas. If you do not have
31:52
a concealed handgun license and you want to buy
31:54
a gun in the United States, you go to the place,
31:57
you pick out the gun, you have to fill out a
31:58
form. They key it into the background check system.
32:02
That sends it to a computer. The computer sends
32:04
back an answer, yes or no. It takes about 20
32:06
minutes. Why does it take about 20 minutes? Because
32:09
it's in a computer. 1993, what don't you have
32:13
everywhere? Computers. So one of the things about
32:17
the Brady Law and the background check system
32:18
was you had to fill out paperwork that had to
32:21
be sent to Quantico, Virginia to be checked by
32:24
the FBI. That took anywhere from five to ten
32:27
days. And also, it now means there is a record
32:32
at the FBI that you tried to buy a gun. Do you
32:40
see how this fit into a wider narrative? Now,
32:43
the other thing that they passed as part of this
32:46
crime control law was the assault weapons ban,
32:48
which prohibited a certain, what they call, military
32:51
-style assault weapons. And I find this law absolutely
32:54
comical. Here's why. What's the difference between
32:58
a gun and an assault rifle? An assault rifle
33:03
is a freaking assault rifle. Bayonet lug! Pistol
33:09
grip. Threaded barrel. Collapsible stock. If
33:26
I misspelled that, I'm sorry. Collapsible stock
33:28
and carrying handle. If your firearm has any
33:42
two of those features, that's what it legally
33:44
meant to be an assault weapon. Do any of those
33:48
features have anything to do with how that weapon
33:50
puts rounds on the target? And so, Brant, you've
33:56
shot ARs. Do the ARs that you've seen have a
34:01
bayonet lug? Do the ARs you've seen have a carrying
34:05
handle? Some of them do, but a lot of them don't.
34:11
So if you're Bushmaster, if you're Colt, and
34:14
you want to sell AR -15s after the ban, you take
34:18
off the threaded barrel, you take off the bayonet
34:20
lug, you take off the handle, you sell it with
34:22
a fixed stock, and you're done. No, it didn't.
34:29
And actually it was set to sunset back in 2004,
34:32
and it was not reauthorized because in 2004 the
34:35
Republicans controlled Congress, and at that
34:37
time that was only three years after the greatest
34:39
single... terrorist attack in the United States
34:42
that involved box cutters. But, anyway, now,
34:47
so you have misgivings about the government here,
34:51
and then you have the First Lady, Hillary Clinton,
34:54
having secret meetings to try and come up with
34:57
a new health care system. So you have a center
35:01
-right country with a leftist president who pushes
35:04
the envelope, and so in 1994, the election of
35:08
1994, the Republicans win a majority in the House
35:11
and in the Senate, largely as a repudiation of
35:15
the Clinton leftist agenda. Now, part of that
35:18
win was their contract with America. which was
35:22
a promise not to engage in the type of corrupt
35:25
practices that had plagued the Democratic majority
35:27
in the House and the Senate for two generations.
35:32
So, and many of the things in the contract with
35:36
America included auditing congressional staff,
35:40
limiting chair terms, How long a person could
35:51
chair a committee? Requiring a three -fifths
35:59
majority to pass a tax increase. What type of
36:06
voters is this trying to get? Not just Republicans,
36:12
but the people who voted for Perot. Now, A couple
36:17
other things you've got going on with the Republicans'
36:19
rise to power. It is also in the 90s that the
36:22
transition of the Southern Conservative Democrats,
36:25
who start voting Republican for their presidential
36:27
offices with Barry Goldwater, who continue to
36:30
vote Republican in 1972, who voted for Reagan,
36:33
who voted for Bush the Elder in 92. This is when
36:37
they finally go from being Southern Conservative
36:39
Democrats to being Republicans. This is when
36:43
Texas goes from being a one -party Democratic
36:45
state to being a one -party Republican state.
36:48
Does that make sense? So, Republicans take the
36:52
House and take the Senate in a landslide victory.
36:56
So, a couple of things happen. Clinton, to his
37:03
credit, adjusts. So they pass welfare to work.
37:13
The Republican Congress cuts spending and they
37:17
balance the budget. Now, a couple other things
37:24
that happen, and this also makes the balanced
37:27
budget possible, is you have a very robust economic
37:32
boom in the United States during the 1990s. Now,
37:36
this is the part that most historians omit, not
37:40
because of partisanship, but rather out of ignorance.
37:44
And this is because most historians aren't that
37:46
good at math. So, we have talked about this.
37:54
Can I erase this? Yes. We had talked about this
37:57
before. What does, what do you need to have economic
38:04
growth? Typically, most of your periods of economic
38:07
growth are made possible by access to Capital.
38:15
Capital can be in the form of commodities, as
38:18
it was in the gold and silver conflicts of the
38:21
1890s. Capital can be new lines of belief, new
38:26
lines of credit, right? So, a couple of things
38:32
happen. So, 1990s, boom. And I say this because...
38:40
One of the ethoses of the Clinton campaign in
38:43
2016 was vote for me and we'll have it the way
38:45
we did under Bill. That illustrates a profound
38:51
lack of economic understanding by the part of
38:54
people who looked at the 1990s. If I look at
38:57
the 1990s economic boom, I've got two things
38:59
in play. One, I've got NAFTA. NAFTA eliminated
39:03
tariffs on goods traded between the U .S., Mexico,
39:07
and Canada. If I'm not imposing a tariff, what
39:10
is a tariff in the end? A tax. So really I can
39:14
look at NAFTA as an international tax cut. Then
39:19
we look at new sources of credit. Now this is
39:22
one that, again, most historians overlook it
39:24
and it's very counterintuitive. Alright, you
39:26
have two sources of credit going to Americans
39:29
increasing consumer spending. The first is changes
39:33
in the way credit cards do business and the second
39:36
is the creation of home equity loans. So I'm
39:40
going to address the credit cards first. Okay.
39:44
How many of you know your parents have a credit
39:46
card? Okay. Let's go back. Alright, you walk
39:52
into a store. Somebody here works at the Whataburger,
39:58
right? Alright, you work at Sonic. On the door
40:02
of the Sonic and on the menu, it shows what credit
40:06
cards they accept. Yes? Yes. Every time you go
40:09
into a store, usually on the menu on the door,
40:11
it says what credit cards they accept. Because
40:13
you don't want to have the awkward moment where
40:15
they give you one card and they don't accept
40:16
it, right? What don't they accept? It's like
40:20
one person a month. You're like, I'm sorry, it's
40:24
not taking your card. Oh no, I'm talking about...
40:27
Okay, so most of them, they take Visa, they take
40:29
MasterCard. Not all of them take American Express
40:32
and not all of them take Discover. Here's why.
40:36
So, prior to 1994, so before 1994, credit cards
40:46
got most of their money from vendor fees. What
40:50
it is, is a vendor fee is the credit card company
40:53
would charge the store for the use of the card.
40:57
It was called the vendor fee. This is why, like,
40:58
you go to some stores, they'll charge you more
41:00
if you use credit versus whether you pay cash.
41:03
That's why. Okay, now, They got most of their
41:07
money from the vendor fees because the minimum
41:09
payments were 20 % of the balance. Now, here's
41:17
the thing. Why would you charge 20 % of the balance?
41:20
Because you had an interest in whether or not
41:22
they paid you back. 20 % is one -fifth. Okay,
41:26
after 1994, the minimum payment goes from 20
41:34
% to 2%. So think about this for a moment. If
41:41
you were carrying a $1 ,000 balance, you had
41:44
a minimum payment of $200. Now that number goes
41:47
from $200 to $20. So if you only have to make
41:53
a 2 % payment, what happens to your balance?
41:56
You can carry a what? You can carry a much larger
41:59
balance. And so what happens is you have a lot
42:02
of people spending a lot of money on credit because
42:07
of that shift in the model. Now, the credit card
42:09
company, they're making money off the interest
42:12
of these larger balances. Basically, they found
42:14
they would make more money off the interest than
42:16
they would off the vendor fees. And so this is
42:18
why in the 1990s you see a lot more places taking
42:21
a lot more cards. Now, just to give you a clue.
42:26
How many credit cards does the average American
42:28
have? 16. In the 1990s, in the late 1990s, you
42:36
had the average American carrying 16 credit accounts.
42:41
Multiple visas, multiple MasterCards, store credit,
42:44
and whatnot. That is a lot of debt that pumped
42:48
a lot of money into the economy. Also home equity
42:52
loans, you hear about them on the radio. What
42:54
a home equity loan is, if your house is valued
42:57
more than your mortgage, you can take out a loan
43:01
against that difference. There were a lot of
43:04
states where you could not take out a home equity
43:07
loan because, again, a lot of Depression era
43:10
laws where they didn't want people losing their
43:12
homes the way they did back in the 30s. A lot
43:15
of states, including Texas, passed laws, or in
43:18
the state of Texas, a constitutional amendment
43:20
allowing people to take out... against the value
43:25
of their home. So between the home equity market
43:27
and the increase in credit card debt, you have
43:30
a massive influx of capital precipitating economic
43:33
growth. Now here's the thing. That economic growth
43:37
will sustain the Clinton administration through
43:41
the 1996 election and through the impeachment
43:45
trial of 1998. Questions, problems, concerns?
43:49
All right.