The Dollar Crisis: A Blueprint to Help Rebuild the American Dream

Overview
Ross Perot’s The Dollar Crisis: A Blueprint to Help Rebuild the American Dream argues that the United States had wandered into a dangerous economic and political rut by the mid-1990s, driven by persistent federal deficits, a growing national debt, and widening trade imbalances. Perot ties these macro trends to bread‑and‑butter concerns, stagnant wages, factory closures, rising health costs, and contends that restoring the “American Dream” requires disciplined fiscal policy, fairer trade, and a political system unshackled from special interests. Written in a brisk, plainspoken style and supported by charts and statistics, the book blends diagnosis with a reform agenda aimed at mobilizing voters to demand accountability.

The Central Problem: A Weakening Dollar Ecosystem
Perot frames the dollar crisis as the cumulative effect of chronic overspending at home and structural trade deficits abroad. Persistent federal borrowing, he argues, crowds out private investment and diverts tax dollars to interest payments rather than productive priorities. At the same time, trade policies that prize unfettered access over reciprocity accelerate offshoring, hollow out manufacturing communities, and undermine the tax base. The health of the dollar, in his view, cannot be separated from industrial strength, national savings, and public trust in government.

Fiscal Discipline and Accountability
A major strand of the book calls for balancing the budget through a mix of spending restraint, targeted efficiencies, and tax reform that broadens the base by closing loopholes. Perot favors tools that force clarity, such as multi‑year budgeting, zero‑based reviews, and honest accounting of long‑term obligations, so that elected officials cannot hide the true costs of programs. He warns that without discipline, compounding interest on the debt becomes a stealth tax on future generations and a strategic vulnerability.

Trade, Jobs, and the Social Fabric
Perot contends that the promise of free trade had outpaced the reality of fair trade enforcement. He revisits his well‑known critique of NAFTA-era dynamics, arguing that wage arbitrage, lax labor and environmental standards, and currency practices create an uneven playing field. The result, he says, is a “sucking sound” of jobs and know‑how leaving the country, which ripples into lower community wealth, strained schools, and social dislocation. He does not advocate isolationism; rather, he presses for enforceable rules, rapid-response remedies to unfair practices, and policies that rebuild domestic capacity in critical industries.

Rewiring Government
Political reform is presented as a precondition to economic renewal. Perot highlights how campaign finance structures and lobbying skew policy toward narrow interests, producing tax code complexity, regulatory capture, and spending that survives by inertia. He champions term limits, tighter ethics rules, and simplified, transparent tax provisions. He also argues for citizen engagement, using technology for “electronic town halls”, to keep leaders accountable and to break the cycle of polarization and gridlock.

Investing in Productive Capacity
While frugal on borrowing, the book supports investment that raises long-term productivity: modern infrastructure, quality K‑12 and vocational education, and targeted research and development. Perot ties education directly to competitiveness, pushing for measurable results, stronger math and science curricula, and pathways that elevate skilled trades alongside college degrees. For health care, he focuses on cost control through fraud reduction, better data, and incentives that reward outcomes over volume.

A Culture of Savings and Shared Responsibility
Perot argues that rebuilding household savings and encouraging prudent corporate reinvestment are essential complements to public reform. He favors tax-neutral treatment that rewards genuine saving and capital formation over speculative churn. Throughout, he calls for shared sacrifice: government must cut waste, businesses must compete on productivity rather than regulatory arbitrage, and citizens must demand results rather than promises.

Enduring Message
The Dollar Crisis blends alarm bell and owner’s manual. Perot’s core message is that the nation’s economic strength, currency credibility, and democratic health rise or fall together. By restoring fiscal integrity, insisting on fair terms of trade, investing in people and infrastructure, and cleaning up politics, he argues the United States can secure broadly shared prosperity and keep the American Dream within reach.