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