Not for Sale at Any Price: How We Can Save America for Our Children

Overview
Ross Perot’s 1993 book Not for Sale at Any Price: How We Can Save America for Our Children distills the message of his 1992 independent presidential run into a concentrated agenda of fiscal sobriety, political reform, and citizen activism. Speaking in the plain, chart-driven voice that made him a household name, Perot frames the early 1990s as a hinge moment: either the country confronts its structural problems with discipline and common sense, or it leaves its children a weaker, indebted America. The book serves both as a diagnosis of national drift and a call for a pragmatic turnaround built on accountability and shared sacrifice.

Diagnosing the Problem
Perot argues that Washington’s culture, dominated by career politicians, lobbyists, and entrenched special interests, has produced chronic deficits, mounting debt, and bureaucratic waste. He tracks the erosion of the middle class through stagnant wages, job loss in manufacturing, and rising costs for health care and education. Trade and tax policies, he claims, have favored financial gamesmanship over productive investment, while short-term political incentives have crowded out long-term planning. The common thread is a breach of stewardship: decisions that benefit the present officeholders at the expense of future generations.

Fiscal Blueprint
The heart of the book is a plan to restore fiscal balance. Perot calls for a credible, time-bound path to eliminate deficits and stabilize the national debt, combining disciplined spending cuts with revenue measures where necessary. He emphasizes transparent budgeting, zero tolerance for gimmicks, and management tools borrowed from high-performing businesses: clear goals, rigorous measurement, and accountability for results. He supports tools that enhance executive and congressional restraint, and he urges both parties to forgo partisan point scoring in favor of an honest, shared ledger that the public can track.

Trade, Jobs, and Competitiveness
Perot’s most vivid warnings target trade policy and the loss of middle-class jobs. He argues that poorly structured agreements and lax enforcement create a “race to the bottom,” moving factories to low-wage environments and hollowing out communities. He presses for trade rules that include labor, environmental, and enforcement standards, paired with a domestic strategy to rebuild competitiveness: modern infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, research and development, and worker training. Productivity, quality, and continuous improvement, practices he championed in business, are presented as the keys to securing good jobs at home.

Political Reform and Citizen Power
Perot proposes changes to reduce the sway of money and special interests, including restrictions on lobbying influence and stronger transparency in campaign finance. He advocates term limits to refresh Congress and restore a citizen-legislator ethos. He champions direct citizen engagement through town halls and technology, inviting Americans to study the numbers and hold leaders to specific, measurable commitments. The animating idea is that problems this large cannot be left to professionals; citizens must become informed partners, not occasional spectators.

Human Capital: Education and Health
Sustained national strength, Perot argues, depends on world-class education and a cost-effective health system. Drawing on his experience pushing reforms in Texas schools, he calls for high standards, rigorous basics, teacher support, and parental responsibility. In health care, he targets waste, fraud, and opaque pricing, urging reforms that align incentives with outcomes and affordability. Both areas, he insists, are investments in children’s futures as much as they are budget items.

Tone and Legacy
The book blends urgency with optimism. Perot believes that with clear goals, straight talk, and shared effort, Americans can correct course quickly. His refrain, that the country is not for sale, signals a moral boundary against trading away the nation’s future for short-term convenience. As a compact manifesto, it coheres around stewardship: balance the books, rebuild productive capacity, clean up politics, and equip the next generation to thrive.