Editing Ross Perot (section)

===Economic policy===
Perot believed taxes should be increased on the wealthy, while spending should be cut to help pay off the national debt. Perot also believed the capital gains tax should be increased, while giving tax breaks to those starting new businesses.
{{Blockquote | style=font-size:100% |text="We cut the capital gains tax rate from a maximum rate of 35% to a maximum rate that got as low as 20% during the 1980s. Who got the benefit? The rich did, of course, because that's who owns most of the capital assets."|source=''Not For Sale at Any Price''}}

Together with increased taxes on the wealthy, Perot also supported curbing entitlement payments and tax rebates to the affluent, and spoke in favor of eliminating the government's air fleet and other Washington perks for legislators, mocking the privileges that the US legislators enjoyed. He also argued that the government should protect the job base through intervention in the market. He spoke in support of creating a national industrial ministry based on the Japanese [[Ministry of International Trade and Industry]], which would increase state control over large businesses and direct their investment.<ref name="grant"/> Perot stressed that the government should ensure that both public and private investments would target the "industries of the future". When asked about objections to his plans from free-market advocates, Perot said: "Don’t they realize that the biogenetics industry is the result
of our federally funded research universities and the [[National Institutes of Health]]?"<ref name="judis_49"/>

Perot was strongly opposed to [[neoliberalism]], and was credited with marking the "first clear repudiation" of the neoliberal economic policies pursued by [[Ronald Reagan]]:<ref>{{cite book |title=The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics |first=John B. |last=Judis |author-link=John Judis |year=2016 |publisher=Columbia Global Reports |isbn=978-0997126440 |location=New York |page=51}}</ref> 
{{blockquote|style=font-size:100% |text="A disturbing trend has emerged from the decade of greed, the era of trickle-down economics and the period of capital gains tax manipulation. We are headed for a two-class society."|source=Pox Populi: Ross Perot and the corruption of populism. ''[[The New Republic]]''. [[Sean Wilentz]]. August 9, 1993. Retrieved August 14, 2024.}}

In his 1993 book ''Not For Sale at Any Price'',<ref>{{cite book |last1=Perot |first1=Ross |title=Not for Sale At Any Price: How We Can Save America for Our Children |url=https://archive.org/details/notforsaleatanyp00pero |url-access=registration |publisher=Hyperion |access-date=July 10, 2019|isbn=978-1-56282-723-6 |date=April 1993 }}</ref> Perot expressed support for giving tax cuts for [[small and medium-sized enterprises]], as opposed to larger corporations.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ontheissues.org/At_Any_Price.htm|title=''Not For Sale at Any Price'', by Ross Perot|website=ontheissues.org|access-date=June 16, 2017}}</ref> Additionally, Perot supported a [[balanced budget]] amendment, stating, "spending should not exceed revenue for 27 consecutive years." On trade, Perot stated that [[North American Free Trade Agreement|NAFTA]] caused the trade deficit between Mexico and the United States and a loss of manufacturing jobs.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Ross_Perot_Free_Trade.htm|title=Ross Perot on Free Trade|website=OnTheIssues}}</ref> His position on free trade and NAFTA became his defining campaign principle of both the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. Perot argued: "We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory south of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, ...&nbsp;have no health care—that's the most expensive single element in making a car—have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south."
{{Blockquote | style=font-size:100% |text=... when [Mexico's] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals.|source=The 1992 Campaign: Transcript of 2nd TV Debate Between Bush, Clinton and Perot". ''[[The New York Times]]''. New York Times Company. October 16, 1992. Retrieved May 16, 2016.}}

For the 1992 election, Perot unveiled an ambitious budget program that would balance the budget through redistributive policies. The most prominent element of the plan was Perot's proposal to raise the income tax bracket of 4% wealthiest households from 31 to 33 percent, and to raise it further to 35 percent in the future. Other points included increasing the taxable portion of Social Security benefits from 50 to 85 percent for recipients with income of $25,000 or more, as well as implementing a tax on hitherto tax-free employer-paid health insurance, with Perot arguing that a tax-free workplace insurance creates an unfair advantage for those who receive health insurance through their job. The plan also called for doubling cigarette tax and increasing gasoline tax by 50 cents a gallon; Perot explained that higher gasoline tax would help conserve energy and reduce pollution, but also advocated the creation of a special allowance for the workers disproportionately affected by the higher gasoline price. The plan also included massive cuts in military spending and scrapping the proposed space station project, which Perot derided as "a vacation home in space".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/26/us/1992-campaign-economy-perot-s-bitter-budget-pill-higher-taxes-cure-deficit.html |last=Greenhouse |first=Steven |date=26 July 1992 |title=The 1992 Campaign: The Economy; Perot's Bitter Budget Pill: Higher Taxes to Cure Deficit |website=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>