As the presidential candidate for the reform party, Ross Perot, and his running mate, Pat Choate, believe in high ethical standards for the White House and Congress, balancing the budget and creating a new tax system.

Perot was born in Texas in 1930. He entered the United States Naval Academy in 1949 and graduated in 1953. After he graduated, Perot served at sea for four years on a destroyer and an aircraft carrier.

After getting married, Perot went to work for IBM’s data processing division as a salesman. He later started a one-man data processing company, which he named Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Today, EDS is a multi-million dollar corporation which employs nearly 70,000 people.

In 1984, Perot sold EDS to General Motors for $2.5 billion. The ownership he retained in the company made him GM’s largest individual stockholder and a member of the board of directors.

Perot resigned from the board in 1986 after disagreements over the quality of GM vehicles.

In 1988, Perot started a new computer service company, which is called Perot Systems. Today, the company operates in both the U.S. and Europe.

Pat Choate, the reform party’s vice presidential candidate, served as research director for economic development in the Ford Administration’s Commerce Department. He also served as top public policy adviser for TRW, a multinational corporation.

In the area of tax reform, Perot and Choate want to end the Internal Revenue Service and develop a more fair and simple tax system.

If elected president, Perot says he will get rid of the IRS and the tax code and replace them with a modern system, which will raise revenues needed to operate the country.

Perot and Choate believe in focusing on every aspect of drug control. They think the first step in controlling illegal drugs should be to increase spending on addiction and education programs.

They say the next step is to punish those who try to sell illegal drugs. Strict sentences without parole should be mandatory for drug dealers.

The final step should be to get as many agencies involved as possible. For instance, the Coast Guard, the military, Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI.

Information used in this article was found on the Internet under the Ross Perot Homepage. The address for the page is: http://www.perot.org/