Slade Gorton interview part 4

By Luke Freedman in Sydney, Australia

8 August 2012

Part 4: Why 2012 Matters

This is the fourth and final installment of my interview with the former US senator. You can the other parts, here, here and here.

Why should persons living outside of the US care about the 2012 elections?

"I can analogize the United States to a huge bus carrying all of us Americans driven by Barack Obama at the speed limit down a road the only destination of which is Greece. He is utterly indifferent to the overwhelming damage that a $1.5 trillion deficit everyear is going to do to us. I’m disappointed so far in Governor Romney’s seeming unwillingness to take the issue much more decisively than he has. I think if he’s elected he will, but I think he should make the contrast between himself and the president much starker than it is. But, another four years another 6 trillion in deficit, we will be at Greece."

For many Republicans any new taxes is a nonstarter and I asked Gorton whether he would accept a budget deal that included revenue increases.

"Everything should be on the table. But from the point of the view of the economy; the economy works much better when the great bulk of the changes would be spending cuts. Even the Ryan Plan is inadequate, not Simpson-Bowles, not even the Ryan Plan gets us to the balance we need to reach. But each of them would be an immense improvement over where we are now."

And of course I had to know what it was like to sit at the candy desk. Since 1968, one Republican senator has kept their desk stocked with treats and Gorton was twice-tasked with this essential duty..

"It was cool in one respect because everyone was your friend, everyone stopped by your desk, and it was a hell of annoyance for another one. You had to keep it going keep it filled one of the customs was when you took the candy you would threw in some coins or a dollar, I’m pretty sure you’d run a deficit much like the US."