ED MEESE: U.S. MUST FIND GOALS; REAGAN HAD REAL BLUEPRINT, HE SAYS

Edwin Meese III, former U.S. attorney general, told an audience at Southeast Missouri State University's Academic Hall Monday night that even though today is the tax filing deadline, most Americans will work nearly half a calendar year to pay what they owe the government.

"I think we're badly overtaxed in this country, and that in itself is an infringement upon freedom," Meese said. "When the government decides how to spend your money instead of you deciding, that's a considerable limitation of your liberty."

Ronald Reagan's attorney general from 1985 to 1988 said the United States needs to return to the blueprint Reagan began for the country during his presidency.

Meese said Reagan worked for smaller government that reduced the deficit and taxes. He said lowering taxes actually increased the amount of tax revenue coming into the federal government because of increased spending.

Meese said even though President Clinton's government is smaller than Reagan's, most of that reduction has been in the military. "I think 80 percent of those reductions have been in the defense department, and that's one of the problems," Meese said.

Meese met with reporters earlier Monday and said he has never seen such a lack of leadership or the number of scandals that typifies the Clinton administration.

"As an American citizen, I'm disappointed," Meese said. "We have probably the most serious situation we've been in for a long, long time internationally in terms of lack of leadership and lack of foreign policy."

Meese's presentation at the university was called "America at the Crossroads." He said Americans are going to have to make some decisions in the next few years about what kind of leaders they want in the White House and what they want those leaders to do.

He said the last presidential election demonstrated a lack of goals by either party that was reflected by subsequent voter apathy. Meese said Clinton was actually elected by less than one quarter of the voting public.

He said the government has to return to a system that promotes enhanced freedom, self government and a stable and peaceful world.

"This last election showed that at times we have lost track of those goals as a nation," Meese said. "The most recognizable blueprint for satisfying these goals and objectives was laid out by President Reagan."

Victor Gunn, state Sen. Peter Kinder's 1996 campaign manager, was in the audience at Academic Auditorium. He asked Meese what it would take for a conservative candidate to claim the White House.

Meese told him the Republicans need to back whoever wins the primary, they need to bring in some of their young candidates who have not run for president before, and they need to have better disbursement of conservative information.

John Keusenkothen of Jackson asked Meese what could be done about the prevalence of liberal teachings at the university level. Meese replied that he has never seen such growth in conservative students and faculty as he has seen in the last few years on college campuses. He sited the Young America's Foundation and the SEMO Conservative Club, two of the groups that brought him to the Southeast campus, as examples.

"They're still in the minority," he said. "It's not a bright picture right off the bat, but it is an improving picture."

Toby Johnson, a Southeast student, asked Meese to compare Reagan's policy with the former Soviet Union to Clinton's policy with China. Meese said Clinton has no policy and that's the problem.

He said Reagan won the Cold War because he had a plan and stuck to it. Clinton's administration has been "lurching" from one political stand to the next, he said. Clinton has to come up with a uniform way of handling China to be effective, said Meese.

He said the White House did not become "Motel 1600" until Clinton became president.

"I'll bet more people have slept in the Lincoln Bedroom in Clinton's White House in one month than in the entire eight years of President Reagan's administration," Meese said.