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�...
January 23, 1995
Draft#_
STATB OF TBB UNIOB ADDRESS
To Be Delivered
January 24, 1115
Mr.
President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the 104th Congress·, my
fellow Americans.
Once again, our democracy has spoken.
has sent its message.
Congress.
In a loud clear voice, it
I congratulate the new members of
Now I k u n wyou felt when the American people voted
for change in 1992
/
I
In these two elections, America has not been singing, but
shouting, for a new course, beyond partisanship and pettiness.
Let us answer back: We get
are limitless.
i~We
hear you.
Our possibilities
But we've got to pull together, face our
challenges together, act together.
/
First, let's understand that while our nation is enjoying peace
and prosperi-ty, too many of our people are working harder and
harder for .less and less.
While our
busines~re
tide is not lifting all boats. )
- 1-
restructuring
L.--''
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
It is not just our material riches which are at issue, but things
far more precious: our children, our families, our values.
ime, violence and drugs.
welfare dependency.
From
From teen pregnancy and permanent
In 1992 and 1994, the people demanded action
We have made a beginning.
But there is much
ore to be done.
Let us rise to the occasion.
pettiness and anger.
Let us put aside partisanship,
As we embark on a new course, let us put
our country first, remembering Thomas Jefferson's famous
instruction: We are all Republicans; we are all Democrats.
We cannot ask Americans to be better citizens if we are not
better servants. We must stop exploiting the fear and
frustrations of our people, and build and unify our nation.
Here
in this House, the sanctuary of democracy, we are the keepers of
a~ trust.
1
<:;;;; ~ c._ lr'E c::Q
We must be faithful. to that trust.
?
In our own time, working with Congresses, in which their party
was not in the majority,·Harry Truman summoned us to build
prosperity at home and to defend freedom around the world.
And
Ronald Reagan exhorted us to carry on until the twilight struggle
against Communism was won.
-t$1
And I know I speak for all Americans when I wish President and
Mrs. Reagan strength and Godspeed tonight.
- 2-
-
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
Post-Cold War America is a very different place.
Its main
features are the global economy with new opportunities and new
pressures on jobs and incomes; the information revolution, with
its emphasis on learning, flexibility and communications; and the
profound challenges we face to our work, our families, and our
communities.
our mission is to preserve the American Dream and
to make sure that we move into the twenty-first century the
world's strongest force for freedom and democracy.
-----1
fJ L.UJ c c:nr .
T~achieve it, we must do three things: One, build a new economy
in which all Americans who work hard have a chance to live up to
their God-given potential.
Two, build a New covenant in which
opportunity and responsibility go hand-in-hand, and we all
understand we can't have one without the other.
Three, reduce
the size and scope of government and reshape it to meet the new
challenges, and to be more responsive to the will of the people.
Let's start with the need to reduce the size and burden of
government, to create a government that is smaller and smarter,
that earns the trust of the people, and that gives them the power
to meet the demands of this new era.
Two years ago, when I
became President, others had been saying they would cut
government, but not.much happened.
And there was no real
analysis of what was fat and what was meat.
change that.
spending.
We went to work to
cutting over a quarter of a trillion dollars in
Cutting more than 300 domestic programs.
- 3-
Eliminating
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
more than 100,000 from the federal qovernment in the last two
years alone -- with every penny of the cuts qoinq to pay for
puttinq 100,000 more police officers on the streets.
we will cut
a total of more than a quarter million positions in the next two
years.
By the time I address you next year -- .based on decisions
we have already made -- we will have made the qovernment the
(
smallest it has been in thirty years.
Under the leadership of Vice President Gore, we have stopped
doinq a lot of thinqs that cost you money.
Previous efforts
~(~
to/<~
streamline. qovernment simply qathered dust in·a warehouse, but we
put ours into action.
-
The aqe of the $500 hammer is qone.
qovernment's 10,000 paqe personnel manual is history.
loan form has been cut from O t o
Q.
The
The SBA
FEMA -- the federal
disaster aqency -- has qone from beinq a disaster to helpinq
people.
Victims of the Mississippi River floods qot their checks
in half the time it used to take.
Roads were rebuilt in record
time in California after the earthquake.
And because the federal
qovernment moved fast, all but 40 of the 5,600 schools damaqed in
~~)thquake
·
are back in business educatinq our children.
(ck]
~ re
qoinq to cut aqain this year. Wi~h I oand two ef
.
J"
1~ .. ..
Reinr.. Silting Gmrec *"" rt, t.We are qoinq to maK.ei our qovernment work
.
/L 7
better, and do less. One example: our country has 60 separate
federal proqrams to help find housinq for people who need help.
We're qoinq to turn those 60 into three -- and let communities
decide how best to spend the money.
- 4-
)
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
We'll cut a total of $20 billion from five federal departments,
including $11 billion from the Energy Department and $7 billion
from the Transportation Department.
We're going to extend our
freeze on all other domestic programs to the tune of $52 billion.
We're going to eliminate the Interstate Commerce Commission, the
federal government's helium program, and other wasteful programs.
The budget I am sending you cuts another $140 billion in
spending, line by line, without cuttings things that we shouldn't
cut: Social Security, Medicare, veterans programs, aid to
education -- from expanded Head Start to expanded college loans
for the middle class.
Besides cutting spending, we should also cut government
regulation and give more authority to and put less burden on
.state and local governments and the private sector.
In the last
two years, we have given more than two dozen states freedom from
federal regulations to pursue both welfare and health care
reform.
~ have reduced unnecessary banking and trucking
regulations, aavinq
(\)
billio~ ~
?
Let's slash and streamline all the regulations we can.
The Vice
(
President's Task Force is now taking a hard look at that for us.
While we're at it, let's not overlook the IRS.
it respects all the riqhts of every
- 5-
4ftWe
will make sure
taxpayer.~et•s. join
toqether
(<~
-
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
to stop passing programs we can't pay for and passing the cost on
to the states.A
DD
--
~
I'll work with you to cut government spending and regulation.
You work with me to clean it up.
just angry at government.
The American people are not
They are angry at Washington.
And it
is up to us to restore their trust.
You've made a good start by passing a law applying to Congress
the laws you apply to the priyate sector, which I signed
yesterday.
But we have a lot more to do.
The American people
look at their nation's capital, and they see a city of intrigue
where the well-connected and the well-protected milk the system,
and the interests of people are left out. Three times as many
lobbyists roam the streets and corridors of Washington as did 20
years ago.
As this new Congress was opening its doors, tobacco lobbyists
passed out invitations to members for an all-expenses paid golf
weekend in Florida. (ck]
gifts.
Fancy meals, free travel, expensive
Business as usual. Twice this month, you have voted to
keep them coming.
Tonight, I challenge you to stop taking them -
- now, without waiting for legislation to pass.
strongest possible bill, and I'll sign it.
- 6-
Then send me the
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
Pass a law to make the lobbyists tell the people who they work
for, what they're spending and what they want.
When Congress
killed that law last year, the lobbyists actually stood in the
halls and cheered.
But, I guarantee you, the people weren't
cheering at home.
Let's finally give tngm something to cheer
about.
Let's get at the role of big money in our elections.
cost of campaigns and put the PACs in their place.
Cap the
And let's
make the people's airwaves an instrument for democracy by giving
free TV time to candidates.
This, then, is an agenda of change for the kind of government the
American people want to make the most of their own lives.
Reform, real cuts, more authority to the states, deregulation.
But, when we cut, let's remember a few things.
Young children
hold our future in their hands; the elderly have made us what we
are; we owe a debt to our veterans.
Better education and medical
research are critical to our well-being and our economic strength
-- We shouldn't cut them.
When we qive more flexibility to the states, let's remember
certain fundamental national needs that must be addressed in
every state, north and south, east and west.
Think again of our
children. Every child should be immunized against childhood
- 7-
�January· 23, 1995
Draft#_
disease. Every child should get lunch at school. Head Start
should be there for pre-schoolers everywhere. Pregnant women
should get the medical care and food they need; and infants must
get milk everywhere -- it's in the national interest.
When we deregulate, let's remember that national action in the
national interest has made our food safer and its nutritional
content clear.
has improved the safety of our transportation
I~
system, protected children from child labor abuse, made the
workplace safer, provided for family leave time for people to
take care of newborn children and sick parents without losing
their jobs.
It has made our air and water cleaner. It has made
our nursing homes more humane.
Do we need more common sense and fairness in our regulations?
You bet we do.
Do we need to abandon nursing home standards or
workplace safety standards or environmental protection?
must not.
No.
We
We can have common sense and save drinking water.
We
can have fairness and clean up our toxiq dumps.
We cannot
abandon our obligation to safety in the air, on the highways, in
the workplace, or in our nursing homes.
"\ ,ft).fo,; If<- .
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'l'BB I1BW BCOBOXY
Ultimately, all we are doing in downsizing and changing the focus
of government is reflecting, in government, the changes already
taking place in our economy.
We.are moving from an industrial
-8-
L __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
age of hierarchy, bureaucracy, and conformity, to an information
age of flexibility, adaptability, and constant learning.
We must
have a government that can be a partner in making this new
economy work for all Americans.
We have two jobs: To expand the economy, and to make sure the
benefits of growth reach all who are willing to work for them.
For growth, we're on the right track.
Almost six million jobs in
two years. Exports booming. Inflation down. High wage jobs coming
back. A record number of American entrepreneurs living the
American dream.
But too many people are being left out.
If we don't act, our
economy will probably do what it's done since 1978: Provide high
income growth to the top 20 percent -- the top professional and
business people -- but give very little to the next 60 percent -the stagnant middle class -- and no growth -- even falling back - to the bottom 20 percent.
We cannot let that continue.
Too many people are working harder
with less security, less income, less certainty they can even
afford a vacation, much less college for their children or
retirement for themselves.
We cannot let this continue.
We are a middle class country.
and make us stronq.
Middle class values sustain us
We must [qrow] the middle class and shrink
-9-
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
the under class, while supporting those already successful in the
new economy.
America is once again the world's strongest economy.
If we want
it to stay that way, those who work and have lifted our nation
must have more of its benefits.
There are two ways to do this.
education.
The first is to improve
If you want to raise your income in the information
age, you've got to get an education and always be able to get
more.
That's why we worked so hard to increase educational
opportunity from Head Start, to public schools, to
apprenticeships, to job training, to making college loans
available and more affordable for 20 million people.
The second thing we can do to raise incomes is to lower taxes.
In 1993, we took the first step with a working family tax cut for
15 million families with incomes of under $26,000 and increased
cuts for those working in new businesses [fix later].
Before we
could do more than that, we first had to get the deficit we
inherited down. And we had to get economic growth up. We have
done both.
Now
we~
cut taxes more. But we should do it in a way.that
promotes and reinforces our first objective of improving
- 10-
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
education and empowerinq citizens to make the most of their own
lives.
The Middle Class Bill of Riqhts miqht well be called the Bill of
Riqhts and Responsibilities.
It will have four parts desiqned to
improve education and increase incomes for workinq families.
First, a tax deduction for all education and traininq after hiqh
school.. We already qive businesses the deduction for investments
in the future.
We already qive citizens the deduction for
mortqaqe interest. But education is even more important to the
economic health and well-beinq of America than either of these,
and we should allow a deduction for it, as well.
Second, a $500 tax credit for all children under thirteen in
middle class households.
Third, an individual retirement account with tax-free withdrawal
riqhts for the cost of education, health care, first-time home
buyinq, and care of a parent.
And fourth, a G.I. Bill for American workers.
co~solidate
We are qoinq to
fifty[?] federal proqrams and offer the money, not to
state qovernments, . but dir.ectly to eliqible American workers.
you are laid off, or eliqible for assistance because of a low
waqe, you will qet a voucher worth $2,600 a year for up to two
- 11-
If
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
years to go to your local community college or any other program
you choose.
This middle class tax relief and educational assistance goes to
those who need it to raise their income and their children.
It
goes to people who are doing everything possible to make the most
of their own lives. We must do what's p9ssible to provide it.
In the budget I will send you, the Middle Class Bill of Rights
will be paid for by budget cuts, cuts in bureaucracy, cuts in
programs, cuts in special interest subsidies.
And the cuts will
be moreJthan twice the cost of the Middle Class Bill of Rights,
leaving tens of billions for further deficit reduction, without
cutting Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits, education,
aid for mothers and children, and medical research.
The deficit is coming doWn three years in a row for the first
time since President Truman was in office, by more than $700
billion -- that's nearly $11,000 for every family of four in this
country.
we·can say that thanks to the courage of many people
here who made the tough choices -- and many who did not return in
part because of that courage.
Because of what you did, we can give needed tax relief, raise
incomes, grow the economy, And control the deficit, and that's
what we must do.
- 12-
�January23, 1995
Draft#_
I know a lot of you have your own
we can work together.
i~eas
about tax relief.
our test for any proposal should be: will
it create jobs and raise incomes for the middle class?
strengthen families and support children?
Will it
Will it (grow] the
middle class and shrink the under class?
support it.
I hope
If it does, we should
If it doesn't, we should oppose it.
There is one further issue we must discuss that affects the
incomes of lower income working people, people who are doing
their best, choosing work over welfare.
Two and a half million
Americans, often women with children, work full time for $4.25 an
hour (ck].
In terms of real buying power, that minimum waqe is
at a ___ year low.
I know a lot of conventional economists say
raisinq the minimum wage costs jobs, but if the raise is
moderate, the evidence points in the other direction.
raising it will make work more attractive.
In fact,
But the main point is
that people can't live on $4.25 an hour in 1995.
Freshman members of Congress have been on the job less than a
month. But by the close of business today, 24 days into the new
year, each has already earned as much in their Conqressional
salary as people who work under minimum waqe make in an entire
year.
- 13-
�January 23, 1995
Draft#_
In the past, the minimum waqe has been a bipartisan issue.
I
challenqe you to qet toqether and find a way to raise the minimum
waqe to a decent level without undue loss of jobs.
Last year, we almost came to blows over health care, but nothinq
was done.
But the hard, cold fact is that, since the last State
of the Union Address, we know that another 1.1 million Americans
in workinq families have lost their coveraqe. The hard, cold fact
is that millions more, mostly workers who are self-employed and
in small businesses, have had their premiums, co-payments, and
deductibles skyrocket.
And the hard, cold fact is that health
costs are still holdinq the federal deficit up -- even after we
cut defense and domestic spendinq for the first time in 25 years
last year.
Surely we can qet toqether and do somethinq constructive on this.
Let's at 'least pass insurance reform so that no American risks
losinq coveraqe or facinq skyrocketinq prices when they chanqe
jobs, or lose a job, or a family member falls ill.
Let's make
sure that every state has a voluntary pool so self-employed
people in small businesses can buy insurance at more affordable
rates.
Let's help families provide lonq-term care for a sick
parent or a disabled child.
Let's help workers who lose their
jobs keep health insurance coveraqe for a year while they look
for work.
And let's find a way to make sure our children have
health care.
Let's work toqether.
- 14-
�..
January 23, 1995
Draft#_
Last year, we bit off more than we could chew.
This year, we
have to deliver somethinq to the American people.
toqether, step by step, and qet somethinq done.
- 15 -
Let's work
�g8o
APPENDIX
a
FIBST INAUGUBAL ADDRESS
March 4, 1801
Friends and fellow-ciliBens:
/,Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avaU myself
of ~e presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled, to express my
grateful thanks for the favo~ with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a
sincere'consciousnen that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious
and awful presentiments which the greatness .of the charge and the weakness of my powers; so
justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land; tra"ersing all the seas
with the rich productions of {1,1eir industry; engaged in commerce with nations who feel rower
and forget right; advancing. ~pidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye,-wben contemplate these transcendent dbjects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this
beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the con~
templation, and humble myself before the magn.itude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should
I despair, did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high
authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal,
on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the
sovereign functions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement
for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we
are all embarked, amid the conflicting elements of a troubled world.
During the contest of opinion through which we .have passed, the animation of d.iscussion
and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on stran,ers, unused to think
freely, and to speak and to .write what they think; but, this being now dec1ded by the voice of
the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too,
will bear in mind this sacred principle, that, though the will of the majority is in all cases to
prevail, Jhat will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their eQuai
rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. Let us, then,
fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind; let us restore to social intercourse that
harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let
us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance
as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes
and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking
through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not w.onderful that the agitation of the
billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and
feared by some and less by others; that this should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
Dut every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different
names brethren of the same principle. Wo are all republicans; we are all federalists. If tliere
be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let
them stand, undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be
tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that
a republican government cannot be strong; that this Government is not strong enough. But
would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a Government
which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I
believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on .earth. I believe it is the only one
where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet
invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot
be trusted with the government of him'self. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of
others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer
this question.
Let us, then, with a courage and confidence, pursue our own federal and republican principles, our attachment to our Union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature
and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded
to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for~ our
de,~~cendants to the hundredth and thousandth generation ; entertaining a due sense of our ·equal
right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our industry, to honor and confidience
from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth but from our actions, and .their sense of them;
enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed. and practiced in various forms, yet all of
them inculcattng honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude. and the love of man; acknowledging'· and
adoring an. overruling Providence, which, by all its dispensations, proves that it delights in ·the
happiness of man here, and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these blessings, what riiore
is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens.a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall
leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement. and shall
not take from the mouth of labor the bread it bas earned. This is the sum of good government,
and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
About to enter, fellow-cit.izens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend every thing 'dear
and valuable to you, it is proper that you should understand what I deem the essential principles
of our Government, and, consequently, those which ought to shape its administration. ~· will
compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not
all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious
or political ; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with
none ; the support of the State governments in all their rights. as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies;
the preservation of the General Government. in its whole constitutional vigor. as the sheet-anchor
of our peace at home and safety abroad ; a jealous care of the right of election by the people,-
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�APPENDIX
a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution, where peaceable
remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority,- the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent
of despotism ; a well-disciplined militia,-our best reliance in peace and for the first moments
of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;
economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened ; the honest payment of our
debts and sacred preservation of the public faith ; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce
as •ts handmaid ; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public
reason ; freedom of religion ; freedom of the press ; freedom of person under the protection of the
habeas cortnu; and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and
reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their
attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the
touch-stone by which to try the services of those we trust ; and should we wander from them iq
moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road whicli
alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
·
I repair, then, fellow-c1tizens, to the post you have assigned me. With experience enough
in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of this, the greatest of all, I have learned to
expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the
reputation and the favor which bring him into it. Without pretensions to that high confidence
reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose pre-eminent services had entitled
him to the first place in his country's love, and destined for him the fairest page in the volume
of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal
administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong, through defect of judgment. When
right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the
whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional; and
your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all
1ts parts. The approbation implied by your suffraiJe is a consolation to me for the past; and
my future solicitude will be to retain the good opmion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all.
Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work,
ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your
power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe, lead
our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.vili, s. FoBD BD., viii, 1. (March 4, 18o1.)
..,
_;,,,
'.-.t•
�Date: 01/22/95
Time: 19:32
HYANNIS PORT, Mass. (AP)
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, matriarch of
HYANNIS PORT, Mass. (AP)
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, matriarch of
the Kennedy clan, whose faith and quiet strength saw one of
America's most prominent families through three generations of
political triumphs. and personal tragedies, died Sunday, a family
spokesman said. She was 104.
Mrs. Kennedy died from complications of pneumonia at 5:30 p.m.
at the family compound on Cape Cod, said Scott Farson, a spokesman
for her son Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
~~She was surrounded by family,'' Farson said.
,
She had used a wheelchair since suffering a stroke in April
1984.
Mrs. Kennedy lived her life in the public eye, always in a
supporting role: daughter of a congressman, wife of an ambassador,
mother of a president and two u.s. senators. For her, family was
all.
She once described her life as a series of ~ ~agonies and .~
ecstasies.'' The exhilaration of political success and the horror
of violent death ran like twin threads through her long life.
Four of her nine children were killed in their prime
two in
plane crashes, and two by assassins' bullets. One daughter was
retarded and a grandson died of a drug overdose.
She was a devout Roman Catholic, and her church helped her bear
her sorrows. After President John F. Kennedy's assassination in
1963, she said, ~~I've learned to be brave and put my faith in the
will of God.' '
·
~~No matter what, God wants us to be happy. He doesn't want us
to be sad. Birds sing after a storm. Why shouldn't we?'' she said
in a 1983 interview.
Mrs. Kennedy knew kings, queens, presidents and popes. She spent
her summers on Cape Cod and her winters in Palm Beach, Fla. She was
a tireless worker for her sons' election campaigns in her middle
years and continued to make public appearances until late in life
maintaining her erect bearing and careful grooming.
But she was rarely seen in public after April 1984, when she
suffered a stroke.
,. At celebrations marking her lOOth birthday, her only surviving
son, u.s. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, told a crowd of nearly 400
people, ~~In the chaos of our household, she was the quiet at the
center of the storm, the anchor of our family, the safe harbor to
which we always came.''
In her autobiography, ~~Times to Remember,'' she said: ~~what
greater aspiration and challenge are there for a mother than the
hope of raising a great son or daughter?'' She called child rearing
a ~~profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any
honorable profession.''
Mrs. Kennedy was born in Boston July 22, 1890, and tasted
politics early, parading through the streets with her father, John
F. --Honey Fitz'' Fitzgerald, a congressman, Boston mayor and
Democratic power.
Her wedding to Joseph P. Kennedy in 1914 was front-page news in
Boston.
Kennedy was a dynamo who amassed a fortune in banking, real
estate, liquor, films and Wall Street
holdings that grew to an
estimated $500 million by the 1980s. He held several federal jobs,
including u.s. ambassador to Britain, but prompted controversy
because of his wealth and isolationist views.
Years later, books about the family included reports Joseph was
�unfaithful to his wife, notably with actress Gloria Swanson. There
were also allegations that the parents' relationships with their
children were distant or worse.
But the senator and three of his sisters, in a 1992 opinion
. piece in The New York Times, said criticism of their parents in the
book ~~J.F.K.: Reckless Youth'' were ~~outrageous falsehoods.''
~~It is preposterous to call any of us ~abused' children~''
Joseph Kennedy suffered a stroke in 1961 that left him an
invalid. Two years later, John was assassinated in Dallas. In 1968,
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who was attorney general under his brother,
. was gunned down after winning the Democratic presidential primary
in California. And in 1969, a car driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy ran
off a bridge and a young aide, Mary Jo Kopechne, died. Later that
year, Joe Sr. died.
Among the other children, the Kennedys' first-born, Joseph Jr.,
died when his plane exploded on a World War II mission. One
daughter, Kathleen, died in a plane crash in 1948.
The others
Eunice, Patricia, Jean and Rosemary
largely
stayed out of public life, although Rosemary's retardation sparked
family efforts on behalf of the retarded. On Mrs. Kennedy's 93rd
birthday, the family presented a check for $1 million to the home
for the retarded in Wisconsin where Rosemary has lived for 40
years.
Eunice is married to Sargent Shriver, former director of the
Peace Corps and Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1972; Jean
was appointed ambassador to Ireland by President Clinton; Patricia
was divorced from the actor Peter Lawford, who died in 1984.
Mrs. Kennedy had 30 grandchildren and 41 great-grandchildren.
One of them, Bobby's son David, was found dead in a Florida hotel
room in 1985, and officials said he died of a drug overdose.
Another, President Kennedy's son Patrick, died shortly after birth.
Her grandchildren include the son and daughter of JFK, who have
been in the media eye ever since their father's funeral. John F.
Kennedy Jr. is a lawyer, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg has
played an active role in family interests, such as the John F.
Kennedy Library in Boston.
·
Another grandchild, William Kennedy Smith, made headlines of a
negative kind in 1991 when a Florida woman accused him of rape at
the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach. He was acquitted in December of
that year.
Mrs. Kennedy's former daughter-in-law, Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis, died of cancer May 19, and was buried next to President
Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetery.
Meanwhile, several of Mrs. Kennedy's grandchildren have followed
the family tradition and entered politics.
Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, Robert Kennedy's oldest son, became
the first of his generation to become elected to a major public
office when he won a congressional seat in Massachusetts in 1986,
replacing House Speaker Thomas P. ~~Tip'' O'Neill, who retired.
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Robert's oldest child, was elected
lieutenant governor in Maryland in 1994 after running on a ticket
with Gov. Parris Glendening.
Patrick Kennedy, one of Edward Kennedy's children, was elected
to Congress in 1994 after serving as a state representative in
Rhode Island.
Maria Shriver, Eunice Kennedy Shriver's daughter, is a reporter
with NBC News and is married to actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In 1985, the city of Boston dedicated a one-acre rose garden in
her honor.
~~She felt that everything is done in God's will and that one
has to go on as an example to other people,'' said daughter Jean in
1982. ~~She thought that if she ever cracked that everybody else
1
I
I
�would crack.''
Mrs. Kennedy insisted that she was ~~one of the most fortunate
!
people in the world.''
·
~~Even though my life has been scarred by tragedy, I have never
lost this feeling,'' she once said. ~~God has held us all in his
' hand.''
APNP-01-22-95 1933EST
�THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the· Press Secretary
For Immediate Release·
January 21, 1995
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE PLENARY SESSION
Hilton Hotel and Towers
Washington, D.C.
12:50 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: You remember what Mark Twain said: The ·reports
of our demise are premature.
(Applause.)
I could have listened to Al
Gore taik all day about that.
(Laughter.)
THE VICE PRESIDENT:
You thought you might have to.
(Laughter~)
THE PRESIDENT: Dp you k~ow what he said? He said, for a while
you thought you might have to.
(Laughter.)
He was waxing eloquent, you
know. He kept saying,-all that stuff, and I thought, well, why didn't we.
win last November?
(Laughter.)
I've got some ideas about that, too,
I'll share in a moment.
Let me begin by thanki~g all these people who are here on the
head table, and all of you.
It ~s wonderful, wonderful to see you, and
to see you in good spirits and with a strong heart.
(Applause.) And
let me also say a special word of thanks to Don Fowler and to Chris
Dodd.
I need one of 'those Don Fowler stickers.
I've known Oon Fo~ler
since 1972. You think we're i.n trouble now, you should have been there
then.
(Laughter.) And I owe Don Fowler a lot.
I mean, he ran that
convention in '88. He wrote the speech I gave in 1988.
(Laughter and
applause.)
I was supposed to talk about the future here today, but
instead I decided to finish that speech -- (laughter) -- so you all
relax and I will.
(Laughter and applause.)
I wish you hadn't laughed
so hard at that.
(Laughter.)
·I want to thank Chris Dodd, who has been my friend for,a long
time, almost that long.
I've known him about 15 years now·. And I
�remember when we were young men in public life back in 1980 when I went
to the Democratic Convention in Connecticut to give the keynote speech
and he was about to go to the Senate. And I have watched him, and I
wanted him to do this job because I don't think our country has a
stronger voice of the values, the ideas of the Democratic Party, and
because he's not afraid to fight.
(Applause.)
I wanted Don Fowler because I thought we ought to have somebody
in the leadership who does not have an accent ~- (laughter)
-- and
because, whether the South knows it or not, we're a lot better for most
of .them than the other guys are.
(Appl?-use. ) .
So I feel very good about this team. I thank Debbie DeLee for
all of her work and for her leadership. I thank David Wilhelm in his_
absence.
David and Dee Gee brought young Luke by to see me yesterday.
And I sat him on the desk in the Oval Office. And they're already
saving up for the inaugural gown for when Luke's inaugurated'in 40 or 50
years.
(Laughter.)
I'd like to say·a special word of thanks, too, and honor, in
homage -- I know there is something on the program about this later, but
I'd like to tell
you all personally how sad I am about the passing of
John White, and how much I appreciate him. He was the cochairman of our
campaign in 1972 in Texas,· and I've known him a very long time. He was
a great Democrat, a great leader for our party. And I know all of·ye,u
join me in wishing his wife, Nellie, well and in thanking him from the
bottom of our hearts for being such a l,oyal and effective ·leade_r for our
party for so very long. · (Applause.)
You know, I was listening to the Vice President talk -.I say first I need to t~ank all three of them who spoke. I t&ank Tipper
Gore ,for being basically, on many occasions, the continuing spark plug
of our team,· for fighting for the rights and the interests of people who
need better mental health opportunities in this country. I do believe
that Al Gore will go down _in history as the most effective Vice
President in the history of the Republic, and the person.who has
exercised the most responsibility.
(Applause.)
/
And I want to say this to my wife. I never really thought when
we started this she would become quite-the target she has been. It's
funny, when we lived in Arkansas, ·which is supposed to be more
conservative arid traditional than the country as.a whole, most people
thought it was a pretty good thing when the Governor's wife tried to get
kids in education-or make sure they didn't go to bed sick at night, if
it could be helped. And I'll tell you something else -- (applause.)
I'd like to say something else. When I look at her at night I think
there's a lot worse things that could happen to you in life than to get
�caught red-handed· trying to give health care to 4'0 million Americans who
don't have it.
(Applause.)
I come here'today in a curious role -- as the leader of the
party I love, but also·as the President of the country that includes
both Democrats and Republicans, a fair number of people that don't think
either party amounts to much and just kind of go with the flow of
election after election.
I do regret, in all candor, that any administration that could
have done as much as we have done, and. any group of members of Congress
that could have supported that, did not find greater favor in the
election of November. And I thought,· well, maybe there's a lot of
reasons for this. There are, objectively, a lot of rea~ons. Fi~st of
all, it takes a while for the laws you pass to be actually felt in the
lives of people. And secondly, there are all kinds of reasons today why
it's hard to get good news out; and it's almost harder if there's more
of it. And thirdly, there are a lot of .people in this country today
who, in the midst of this great recovery, don't feel more secure. And
they really don't;,and they're our friends. and we are their friends, but
they may not have known it· in the last election, given what they had to
listen to.
·
·
But the truth is that a whole bunch of folks in America, even in
spite of the fact that we've got over 5.5 million new jobs in the last
two years, are working harder for less money than they had 15 years ago.
Their wages have not kept up with inflation. Another 1.1. million
Americans lost their health care last year, and they were in working
families. They were not people on welfare.
I just signed a bill a few days ago, we celebrated it this week,
to try to stabilize the pensions of 40 million Americans who depend upon
the government guarantee system and who were in danger of being let down
-- 8.5 million of them were in trouble on their pensions. People know
that.
More and more workers feel like they're 'just sort of dispensable
products that can be throwri away in this new rapidly changing global
economy. And they feel great anxiety. And not ·all the problems of this
country are econo~ic. A lot of people feel insecure on th~ir streets.
And they don't like what they see happening to our families and our
communities. And they're vulnerable to the siren song they heard in the
last election: promise them anything; tell them what they want to hear;
tell them the government is their enemy.
But· let me tell you something else right on the front end,
folks. When people say change is hard and you have to be strong and you
have to be willing to take on popular positions, that isn't just
rhetoric, that's true. I used to carry a bunch of -- about nine rules
�of politics around in my billfold when I was Governor --Clinton's Rules
.of Politics.
And one of them was, everybody is for change in general,
but· against it in particular.
(Laughter.)
I remember a story our junior senator David Pryor told me one
time about going to a birthday party for a guy who turned 100. And he
said to this guy who had just passed a century of life -- he said, you
know, it's remarkable, you have all your faculties about you· .. You can
really -- you speak clearly, you hear me when I speak to you. He said,.
yeah. And he said, you're thinking just 'right. He said, that's right.
He s.aid, you must have· seen an amazing number of changes in your
lifet~me.
He said, yes, son, and I was agin'every one of them.
(Laughter.)
And that's wh~t I see sometimes -- you think about it.
(Laughter.)
The last time we had a period of really profound change
like this was ·at the end of the second world war. We had a president
named Harry Truman. He had an SO-percent approval rating on the day
that he dropped the bomb on Japan. Two years later, when he sent
national health insurance to the Congress for the second time, and he'd
gone through two years of reverse plastic surge:r'l{ from the organized
interest groups pounding against change, he was at 36 percent approval.
But he fought for change because it was necessary. And he reached out
and worked with the Republicans when he could to build a structure for
the post-Cold War world. .He did what was right, and eventually, they
were able to get it across.
·
So I say to you; the number one lesson is not to be cynical, not
to give up, not to turn back, but to bear down and go forward and do
what is right by the American people.
It will come out all right in the
end.if we stand up for what is right and do what is right. ·(Applause.)
•
I
You know, I have been very .interested in what the new Republican
leaders in Congress have said in the last few days. The Speaker quqting
Franklin Roosevelt at length, has basically said, well, the Democrats
did do almost every good thing that was done in the 20th. century. Give
them back, but in the Information Age, there irrelevant. We thank them.
They did a good job, give them a gold watch and send them home. And put
·us in in the Information Age. Because in the Information Age, well,
government is just intrinsically a part of the problem.
It is
intrinsically bad. And those Democrats, they think there's a program
for every problem. They think government can solve the problems. They
are wrong; they are irrelevant. Throw them away.
It's.a funny world, .that world they're sketching-- a world in
which Big Bird is an elitist and right-wing media magnates are ·
.populists.
(Laughter.)
It's an interesting world.
(Applause.)
I'm
still trying to get it, but I'm working at it real hard.
(Laughter.)
�But I say to you, my friends, we have an obligation that is more
than contesting the other party -- and certainly I do.
I do not believe
·there is a .program for every problem in the Information Age.
I do not
believe government can solve all the problems. But I do not believe
that government is inherently bad. Our founders created government at a
time of limited government. And I still think what they said it was for
is the best statement we could ever make: We hold these·truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienabl~ rights, and among the~e are life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness. And government was instituted to help the
American people pursue those ends. That is what I believe.
(Applause.)
And, you know, in times of sweeping change, times of great
uprooting, times which are uncertain and insecure for people, it is more ·
important than ever that we work hard not only to do the right specific
things, but to define that; to say what we believe~ So will we have a
different form of government in the 21st century? You bet we will. And
will it be less bureaucratic and more entrepreneurial and more creative?
You bet; it must be. But does it still need to be on the side of
average Americans to help empower them, to give them the tools, to give
them the means so that they can survive and do well·and have the
American Dream in their own lives and rid themselves of this gripp'ing
insecurity that still dominates the lives of so many American families?
·I say, yes, that is ou,r job.
(Applause.)
.
And so I challenge the leaders of the other.party: You won a
of responsibility; exercise it. Stop_ the politics of demonization
and division and let's think about exercising joint responsibility. You
say you want to restrain government spending; so do I. Without help
from them, we took $11,000 in debt off of every family in this country.
We reduced the size of government, as the Vice President said. We have
begun to reinvent it to make it work. Nobody looks the other way now
when there's an emergency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency
comes, like they did when the Republicans were in power. They now'say,
bring them on; they're our friends, they're our helpers; they get things
done.
·
~ieee
When California had their terrible earthquake, we got that
highway rebuilt in about half the time -- the busiest highway in America
--- they said they could do.
If you go into the Small Business
Administration now, you can fill out a one-page form for a loan, get an
answer in three days. You don't have to wait months, after going
through page after page.
I talked to university administrator after university
who tells me that they are saving weeks of time now incollege loari applications because they like our new college loan program
---our direct loan program that cuts costs to the taxpayers and cuts
costs to the students and gives people a better way to pay back their
administ~ator
�college loans and cut out bureaucracy. They say they want to help us.
I say, come on; we need the help; we'd like to have some support; we've
been carrying this burden for two years --.reducing the government,
reducing the bureaucracy, making it better; we would like to have a
partner; you are welcome; let's go, let's talk about positive ideas for
our future.
(Applause.)
They say we have to do something about immigration. They're
right -- there are too many .illegal immigrants in America.
But we have
increased the number of border guards. We have accelerated the
deportation of people convicted of crimes. We have faced these problems
after theywere ignored by the people who were here before.
If they
want to help in a responsible and fair way, I say, come on.
They say they're for welfare reform. Well, in the last two
years, we gave 24 states permission to get around federal rules and·
regulations to find new ways to pu~ people to work, to give them a
chance in life. So I say, okay, come on; help.
They say they want to be tough on crime. Most of them voted
against, the crime bill that put 100,000 police on the street, passed
three strikes and you're out, gave our people some prevention programs
and law enforcement community leaders to give kids something to say yes
to and a better future.
But we want help in these areas, and, I say,
come on.
They say they want to give tax relief to working people. So do
we.
In the last two years, as the Vice President said, we not only made
90 percent of the small businesses eligible for tax cuts, but for
working families under $26,000, their taxes this year will be, on the
average, $1,000 less than it would have been if this administration had
never come to office. That's under the laws that are already there. So
let's look at what we can do.
·
But let's look at what we should not do.
In the last two years,
a lot of the important things we did. were opposed by somewhere between a
majority and 100 percent of the members of ,the other party. Now they're
in the majority. But I don't think we should repeal the F~mily Leave
Law.
I don't think we should repeal the tax cuts for working families
on low income to keep them off welfare.
(Applause.)
I donit think we
should repeal the Brady Bill. And I don't think we should repeal -(applause.)
I know it may have cost us the House of Representatives, .
and most people who studied it closely believe it did -- I don't believe
we should appeal the assault weapons. You don't need them.
(Applause.)
I'm not sure about this; you may need assault weapons to hunt
giraffes, but you can go with ducks just fine with an ordinary shotgun.
(Laughter.)
�This is a serious thing.
Policemen lay down their lives every
day 'in this country because of the upsurge in assault weapons. Talk to
people who run the emergency rooms of our hospitals about the increasing
mortality rate of people with gunshot wounds, and you know what they'll
tell you -- it's happening because there's more bullets in pe6ple's
bodies who are shot with guns on average than they're used to be. A lot
of good Democrats laid down their careers to give our children a chance
to stay alive on the street, give our police officers a chance to stay
alive while they do their duty. We must not go back on that.
(Applause.)
I'll tell you something else. We shouldn't repeal the law that
will make it possible to immunize all the kids in this country against
serious diseases who are under two years old. We shouldn't repeal the
national service law. We should not do that.
(Applause.)
Do you know on Martin Luther King's birthday, those national
service volunteers were building houses in Atlanta, repairing tattered
housing in Chicago, and helping people fight the floods in California.
And they're earning money to go to college, which is important to their
future and ours. And we shouldn't repeal -- we shouldn't repeal it.
(Applause.)
I guess what I want to say to you is that I don't think the
government in any given time is intrinsically good or bad.
Is it
relevant? Is it working? Does it reflect our values and our interests?
That is the question. There. are many areas in which we can find
agreement,· and we must be big enough to seek those areas. Even though in
so many places they turned away from the same opportunity in the
previous two years, we have to let that go. Our job is to think about
the people out there in America -- those who are left behind in this
global economy who need help to work their way from the underclass to
the middle class. We need to think about people out there who are
working harder and falling further behind who deserve to have the
American Dream in a swelling opportunity middle class.
We need to be true to many of you in this room who are
successful people, who are winning in the global economy, but who know
that your ultimate success and that of your children and your
grandchildren depends on our ability to go forward together. And you
haven't left the Democratic Party because you believe that America is
one country and one community, and we're going forward together. We
have to be true to those people.
(Applause.)
And so we have to work together.
I hope that we will get
bipartisan support for the administration's Middle Class Bill of Rights,
which could just as well be called the Bill of Rights and
Responsibilities.
It reflects all three things that I sought to do from
�the day I came here: To create a new economic policy; a new way of
governing; and a new covenant of rights and responsibilities.·
If we give a tax deduction for education after high school, if
we let people withdraw tax free from an IRA for educational purposes, we
are helping to rebuild our economy; we're having a nonbureaucratic
governmental effort to help people grow; and we are establishing rights
and responsibilities because you cannot be given an education, all you
can be given is an opportunity to get an education -- you have to do
that for yourself.
(Applause.)
.
Anybody can offer a tax cut. We saw that for the 12 years·
before we showed up. You know, you can quadruple the debt of the
country, increase inequality and claim you gave everybody a tax cut,
even if it wasn't a fair one.
'
What we,ought to do is to give hardworking, middle-class
Americans the benefit of this economic recovery by having a tightly
disciplined tax relief focused.largely on middle-class Americans in ways.
that are paid for so that we do not explode the peficit. That should be.·
our goal, and that will be my goal.
(Applause.)
We're'gunning with another round of reinventing government.
proposals. We want there to be bipartisan support forithat.
We also
think there ought to be some more political reform.
I applaud the
Republicans for supporting the law applying to Congress the same laws
that are applied to the private sector.
I think that's a good idea.
And we should be for that; everybody should be for that.
(Applause.)
But we ought not stop there. We ought to also pass lobby reform and
require disclosure and ban the gifts and the trips, and let the American
people know that there is no special political class in this country
forgetting about them.
The Democrats ought to keep pushing until we get lobby reform
and responsible campaign finance reform and the things that will move us
forward as a people in increasing the trust of the voters in their
government. We ought to be doing that· and say, join hands with us and
do that, too; we like what you did, let's go further.
That's the
attitude that we ought to have.
And we ought to also be for more welfare reform.
But I want to
say something about this.
I may be the only President who ever actually
spent a lo.t of time talking to people in welfare.
I may be the only·
President who ever, when he was a governor, actually went into a welf~re
office -- not just one, but many -- and watched how they work. We need
to change this system. And our goal should be to move from welfare to
work, from dependence to independence, from just proving you can
biologically have children to responsible parenting. That ought to be
our goal.
�But our goal ought to be to liberate the energies and capacities
of people to be good parents and to be good workers, not to punish
people because they happen to be poor. And there will be some strong
differences that need to be debated here, because I believe the American
people desperately want a change in the welfare system.
I believe they
do not like the direction of our culture in terms of the break-up of
families and the rising number of our children born out of wedlock. But
I do not believe they want to punish parents and children just because
they're poor or because they've made some mistakes in their lives.
I think we ought to-require a system that promotes parenting,
that promotes education, that promotes work. And we can do it in a way
that builds people up, not tears them down. We can do it in a way that
unites this country, not divides it. And the Democrats ought to take it
as their solemn mission to make sure that that is exactly the kind of
welfare refo~m we have in this country when I sign a bill on it.
(Applause.)
Finally, let me make this point. Both parties and ~11
candidates bear some responsibility for ihe fact that our public life
has deteriorated in recent years, by treating the voters as if they were
purely consumers-- in two senses; First, consumers in the sense that·
all they
care about is economics. That's not true. There are oth~r
ways of defining our common security. And second and most importantly,
perhaps, for us as a party, that we would treat them as consumers of
politics, not .participants in it. Who's got the best 30-second add?
Who rushes most'quickly to define his or her opponent as.a bad person?
Who answers the add best? And the-American people become political
couch potatoes, very often no more involved in politics than they are in
the Super Bowl.
We've got an excuse -- I do -- for being a couch potato at the
Super Bowl; I'm not good enough to play. Or young enough, or strong
enough.
But we're all good enough to play in cit'izenship. And one of
the reasons that we were successful in 1992 is that we got rid of a
bunch of that. We did all those town meetings; we got on those buses
and rode across the country; we stopped in little crossroads where
nobody had ever been before.
(Applause.) And we treated people like
they -had good sense and could be involved in a dialogue about our
country~s future.
We must not draw the wrong lesson from the recent election. We
must not.think that the only answer is for us to have better negative
ads than they do. Because we have obligations to the people of this
country, as well as to the party we love. And I am telling you -- Andy
Jackson, one of the founders of our party, said that the answer to every
problem of democracy is more democracy. So we have to do a better job
of-reconnecting our citizens to our enterpri~e.
The people cannot
�respond to us just because we pass a lot of bills in Congress; they have·
to be a.part of that; . Their lives have to change.
You know, some of the happiest people I've seen in America since
I've had the honor of being your President -- people who are fighting
disasters..
I remember when that 500-year flood hit. the middle West.
I
met a little girl named Brianne Schwantes --(phonetic) --who had
brittle-bone disease, down in Iowa -- lived irt Wisconsin, came down to
Iowa -- the child had all kind of broken bones -- fighting the flood,
knowing that she could break a lot of her bones again, because it was a
great enterprise and it made her feel that she could give something.
And all the other people were just the sam~.
When I was in California last week, we were celebrating the oneyear anniversary of the earthquake. They had 5 1 600 damaged school
buildings a year ago; all but .40 are open today. And they are brimming
wi.th pride about what they did. They're dealing with the floods.
I
flew to Northern California -- I went to a little unincorporated town in
Congressman Fazio'.s district, Rio Linda, where Rush Limbaugh had his
·
first radio program. And I was in this little Methodist church with all
the volunteers in this flood.
And this lady comes up to me - we were
all standing around this circle, we were going to say a prayer -- and
she puts her arm around me and sh~ said, well, I'm a Republican, Mr.
President, but I think I'll stand here with you anyway. Why? Because
she w.as an American first.
She was proud of what she was doing.
She
was helping people in trouble. And she felt more like a person who
·mattered.
And whether it's right or wrong, whenever our party, that has
'labored so long and so hard to lift up, ordinary people and give them a
chance to live out their dreams, suffers a reversal, it's because a lot
of them don't think we think they matter. And what we have got to do,
.in addition to all these things we're doing here in Washington, is to
change the way we are conducting politics; to make citizenship matter
again; to let people become actors, not couch potatoes, in the great
drama that is unfolding.
"
I am telling you, the next century will be the most exciting
time this country ever had. Our best days are still ahead of us. We
will have opportunities for people .to move from total deprived
circumstances into real success because of the technological changes
that are occurring if we have the courage to make the right decision,
and if we do it together so that people feel they matter.
This party
would not be here after 200 years unless at every critical juncture in
our history, we had been able to do that.
So I tell you, when ! say our job is to create opportunity, but
to provide responsibility and an opportunity to exercise it, it begins
with the work of citizenship. When you go home, I want every one of you
�..
'
..
to think about thaf. What can you do with the state party? What ought'
you to do with the Republican Party in your state? What kind of debates
can you sponsor? What kind of ways can you reach out and touch people?
We must make people matter again.
You know, we'll win some
elections in the future if none of this happens.
We'll be smarter and
we'll get cleverer and the·next time this happens, we'll do better. But
what the country needs is to take these incredible technological changes
that are going on and use them to connect people together·again~ not
continue to drive them apart.
You j·u~t think about that.
Why do people t·hink they matter more in adversity than in
creating a future that we can all be a part of? Why does there have to
be a. flood or a tornado before everybody who walks the streets -without r~gard to their income, their education, their race,· their
backgrou~d or their politids -- feels like they are first and foremost
an American? That is what we have to give back to them. And if we do,
we'll be doing fine because we will remember that the most important
thing is whether the American people do fine.
·
Thank you and God bless you all.
(Applause. ) ·
END1:25 P.M. EST
�1
Statement by the.President After Taking the Oath of
Office. April 12, 1945
THE WORLD may be sure that we will prosecute the war on both
fronts, east and west, with all the vigor we possess to a successful .
conclusion. .
NOTE: The oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Harlan F ~ Stone
at 7:09p.m. in the Cabinet ~oom at the
White House. Shordy thereafter the
President announced through an .assistant that the United Nations Confer-
2
ence would be held in San Francisco on
April 25 as President Roosevelt had
directed.
The foregoing statement was r.eleased
at 8:10p.m.
Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress.
April 16, 1945
Mr: Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress:
.It is with a heavy heart that I stand before you, my friends and colleagues, in the Congress of the United States.
Only yesterday, we laid to rest the mortal remains of our beloved
President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At a time like this, words are
inadequate. The most eloquent tribute would be a reverent silence.
Yet, in this decisive hour, when·world events are moving so rapidly,
our silence. might be misunderstood and might give comfort to our
ene1n1es.
In His ~finite wisdom, Almighty God has seen fit t~ take from us a
great man who loved, and was beloved by, all humanity.
·No man could possibly fill the. tremendous void left by .the passing ·
· of that noble soul. No words can ease the aching hearts of untold millions of every race, creed and color. The world knows it has lost a
heroic champion of justice and freedom.
Tragic fate has thrust upon us grave responsibilities. We must carry
on. Our dep:irted leader never looked backward. He looked forward
1
�[2] Apr. 16
Public Papers of the Presidents
and moved forward. That is what he would want u~ to do. That is
what America· will do.
So much blood has already been shed for the ideals which we cherish,
and for which Franklin Delano Roosevelt lived and died, that we dare
not permit even a momentary pause in the hard fight for victory.
Today, the entire world is looking to America for enlightened leadership to p~ace and progress. Such a leadership requires vision, courage .
and tolerance. It can be provided only by a united nation deeply devoted to the highest ideals.'
. . With great humility I call upon all Americans to help me keep our
nation united in defense of those ideals which have been so eloquently
proclaimed by Franklin Roosevelt.
I want in turn to assure my fellow Americans and all of those who
love peace and liberty throughout the world that I will· support and
defend those ideals with all my strength and all my heart. That is my
duty and I shall not shirk it.·
So that there can be no possible misunderstanding, both Germany
and Japan can be certain, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that America
will continue the fight for freedom until no vestige of resistance remains I
We arc deeply conscious of the fact that much hard fighting is· still
ahead of us.·
Having to pay such a heavy price to make complete victory certain,
America will never become a party to any plan for partial victory I
To settle for merely another temporary respite would surely jeopardize
the future security of all the world.
Our demand has been, and it remains-Unconditional Surrender!
we wm not traffic with the breakers of the peace on the terms of the
peace.
The responsibility for making of the peace-and it is a very grave
responsibility-must rest with the defenders of the peace. We are not
unconscious of the dictates of humanity. We do not wish to see unnecessary or unjustified suffering. But the laws of-God ,and of _man have
been violated and the guilty must not go unpunished. Nothing shall
shake our determination to punish the war criminals even though we
must pursue them to the ends of the earth.
Lasting peace
ponents to plot
however distan
In this shiinl
b~riers. Real
Herein Arne
order worthy c
has been made
the forward-loc
in our efforts tc
· In the difficl
staggering pro
hearts, we do r
On the battl
and won! At:
We shall n
American wa~
At this mo1
. again a heavy
energy, we arc
the shackles o
All of us ar<
costs terrible
, I .
a
The armie1
ghastly threat
of our bombs.
The grand~
due in no sm
-Chief. We a
able directior
General Arn'
· MacArthur.
I want the
remain-unc.
Our debt t
2
;
.,.
'.
�ri'dents
Ha"y S. Truman, 1945
d want us to do. That is
·.eideals which we cherish,
ed and died, that we dare
rd fight fo~ victory..
ica for enlightened leaderp requires vision, courage
united nation deeply de-:ans to help me keep our
1 have_ been so eloquently
ans and all of those who
that I will support and
til my·heart. That is my
;tanding, both Germany
of a poubt, that America
ige of resistance remains I
1ch hard fighting is still
:omplete victory certain,
tn for partial victory I
·: would surely jeopardize
011ditional Surrender I
•eace on the terms of the
I
-:-and it is a very grave
the peace. We are not
·not wish to see unneces-God and of man have
mished. Nothing shall
minals even though we
Apr. r6 [2]
Lasting peace can never be secured if we permit our dangerous opponents to p~ot future wars with impunity at any mountain retreathowever distant.
.
In this shrinking world, it is futile to seek safety behind geographical
barriers. Real security will be found only in law and in justice.
Here in America, we have labored long and hard to' achieve a social
order worthy of our great heritage. In our time, tremendous progress
has been made toward a really democratic way of life. Let me assure
the forward-looking people of America that there will be no relaxation
- in our efforts to improve the lot of the common people.
.
In the difficult. days ahead, unquestionably we shall face problems of
staggering proportions. However, with the faith of our fathers in our
· ·
hearts, we do not fear the ~uture.
On the battlefields,· we have frequently faced overwhelming oddsand won I At home, Americans will not be less resolute I
We shall never cease our struggle to _preserVe and maintain our·
Ame~ican way of life. ·
· ·
·
.
At this moment, America, along with her brave Allies, is paying
again a heavy. price for the defense of ou~ f!eedom. With characteristic
energy, we are assisting in the liberation of entire nations. Gradually,
the shackles of slavery are being broken by the forces of freedom.
All of us are praying for a speedy victory. Every day peace is delayed
costs a terrible toll.
.
,
The armies of liberation today are bringing to an . end Hitler's
ghastly threat to dominate the world. Tokyo rocks under the weight
of our bombs.'
The grand strategy of the United Nations' war has been determineddue in n~ small measure to the vision of our departed Commander in
Chief. We are now carrying out our part of that strategy under the
able direction of Admiral Leahy, General Marshall, Admiral King,
General Arnold, General Eisenhower, Admiral Nimitz and General
MacArthur.
I warit the entire world to know that this direction must and will
remain-unchanged and unhampered/
·
·
Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our
3
�[2] Apr. 16
· Public Papers of the Presidents
country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying grati-:
tude. America will never forget their sacrifices. · Because of these sacrifices, the dawn of justice and' freedom throughout the world slowly
casts its gleam across the horiz~n.
Our forefathers came to our rugged shores in search of religious tolerance, political fr~edom and economic opportunity. For those fundamental rights, th~y risked their lives. We well know today that such
rights can be preserved only by constant vigilance, the· eternal price of
liberty I
Within ari hour after I took the oath of office, I. announced that the
San Francisco Conference would proceed.1 We will face the problems
of peace with the same courage that we have faced and mastered the ,
problems of war.
In the memory of those who have made the supreme sacrific~in the
memory of otir fallen President-we shall not fail/
It is not enough to yearn for peace. We must work, and if necessary,
fight for it. The task of creating a sound international organization is
complicated and difficult. - Yet,· without such organization, the rights
of man on earth cannqt be protected. Machinery for the just settlement
of international differences must be found. Without such machinery,
the entire world will have to remain an armed camp. · The world will
be doomed to deadly conflict, devoid of hope for real peace.
Fortunately, people have retained hope for a durable peace. Thoughtful people have always had faith that ultimately justice must triumph.
P:!.st experience surely indicates that, without justice, an enduring peace
becomes impossible.
Ir1 bitter despair; some people have come to b~lieve that wars are inevitable. With ~agic fatalism, they· insist that wars have always been,
of nec~ssity, and of necessity wars always will be. To such defeatism,
men and women of good will must not and can not yield. The outlook
for humanity is: not so hopeless.
During the dark hours of this horrible war, entire natio~s were kept
going by something intangible-hope! When warned that abject sub• See note to Item 1.
4
.,'
.....
'!,_,•.
I
'
mission offered the 01
showed the way to viet•
Hope has become tl
Aggressors could n<
remains, the spirit of n
But hope alone was
not only have hope b\l
peace-loving nations t,
. beat back the aggresso.
ing to come to each o
only when the peace-1
If wars, in the futur
in their determination
Nothing is more eSl
tinued cooperation of
sary to defeat the ·cc
world.
While t4ese .great !
peace, their responsibi
states, large and small
in. the defense of law
. and not to dominate tl
To build a foundat
· harmo~y with our frit
of our own people. ·
Even the most exJ
harbor, unless he has
of all, every individual
I appeal to every A
to support our effor1
-Organization;
You, the Members
with your help can l
assigned to a public s
�dents
Ha"y S. Truman, 1945
rned our undying grati;, Because of these sacrighout the world slowly
-Apr. 16 [2]
.. mission offered the only salvation against overwhelming power, hope ·
showed the way to victory.
·
Hope has become the secret weapon of the forces of liberation I
·Aggressors could not dominate the human mind. ' As long as hope
remains, the spirit of man
never be crushed.
·But hope alone was not and is not sufficient to avert war. We must
not only have hope but we must have faith enough to work with other
peace-loving nations. to maintain the peace. ·Hope was not enough to
. beat back(the ·aggressors as long as the peace-loving nations were unwillhtg 'to come to each other's defense. The aggressors were beaten back
only ·when the peace-loving nations united to defend themselves...
If wars in the future are to be prevented the nations must be united
. .
in their determination to keep the peace under law.
Nothing is more essential to the future peace of the world th~ continued cooperation of the nations which had to muster the· force necessary to defeat the conspiracy of the Axis .powers to dominate the
wodd.
While these great states have a ·special responsibility to enforce the
peace, their responsibility is based upon the obligations resting upon all
states, large and s111:al~ not to use force in international relations except
in the defense of law. The responsibility of the great states is to serve
and not to dominate the world ..
To build a foundation of enduring peace we must not only work in
harmony with our friends abroad, but we must have the united support
of our own people.
Even· the most experienced pilot cannot bring a ship safely into
harbor, unless he has the full cooperation of the crew. ·For the benefit
of all, every individual must do his duty.
I appeal to every American, regardless of party, race, creed, or color,
to support our efforts to build a strong and lasting United Nations
Organization.
You, the Members of the Congress, surely know how I feel. Only
with your help can I hope to complete one of the. greatest tasks ever
assigned to a public servant. With Divme guidance, and your help, we
will
n search of religious talunity. For those fundall know today that such
nee, the eternal price of
:e, I announced that the
e will face the· problems
faced and mastered· the
1
upreme sacrifice-in the
:u
work, and if necessary,
national organization is
Jrganization, the rights
-y for the just settlement
"ithout such machinery,
camp. The world will
t
:-eal peace.
Jrable peace.. Thoughty justice must triumph ..
;tice, an enduring peace ·
•elieve that wars are inovars have always been,
>e. To such defeatism,
·not yield. The outlook
ntire ~ations were kept
qarned that abject sub-
5
...
�··..
[2] Apr. 16
Public Papers of the Presidents
will. find the new passage to a far better world, a kindly and friendly
world, with just and lasting peace.
With confidence, I am depending upon all of you.
To· destroy greedy tyrants with dreams of world domination, we
cannot continue in successive generations to sacrifice our finest youth.
In. the name of human decency and civilization, a more rational
method of deciding national differences must and will be found 1·
America must assist suffering humanity back along the path of peaceful progress. This will require time and tolerance. We shall need also
.an abiding faith .i_n the people, the kind of faith and courage which
Franklin Delano Roosevelt always had I
.Today, America has hecome one of the most powerful forces for good
on earth. We must keep it so. We have achieved a world leadership
which does not depend solely upon our military and naval might.
, We have learned to fight with other nations in common defense of
. our freedom. We must now learn to live with other nations for our
mutual good. We must learn to trade more with other nations so that
there may be-for our m¥tual advantage-increased ·production, increased employment and better standards of living throughout the
wqrld.
May we Americans all live up to our glorious heritage.
In that way, America may well lead the world to peace and prosperity.
At this moment, I have in my heart a prayer. As I have assumed
my heavy duties, I humbly pray Almighty God, in the words of King
Solomon:·
"Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy
people, that I may discern between good and bad; for who is able to .
judge this thy' so great a people?''
I ask only to be a good and faithful servant of my Lord and my, people.
NOTE: The President spoke in the House
chamber_ shortly after 1 p.i:n. The ad-
6
dress was broadcast over the major radio
networks.
l.
3 Statement by the 1
the Lend-~ase A•
THIS IS the third time
the Congress-each time
This mighty insttUID·
ments to the boldness,
Franklin Roosevelt.
At a ~ritical time in t1
for aiding those who we
sion all over the world.
The wisdom and die
day on the battlefronts a
On the Western Euro
the Belgians and other
lend-lease guns and otl
our men are fighting tl
, In: Italy....;..American, 1
forces are joined_in a coi
On the eastern frontare striking blows whk
In the Far East-the
Zealanders, the Dutch ·
in a combined attack "
Lend-lease has been a·
United Nations victor)
lives:
Lend-lease will be ~
complete defeat of Gern
NoTE: As enacted, the bil
Stat. 52.).
�~he preceding text has been professi6nall~ transcribed.
However, although the text has .been checked against an audio
.track, in order to meet rigid distributiqn and transmission
de~dlines, it h~s not yet been proofread against videotape.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISli
. LOAD-DATE-MDC: July 16, 1992
�Copyright 1992 Information Access Co., a division of Ziff
Communications Co.;
Copyright The New Republic Inc. 1992
The New Republic
November 16, 1992
. SECTION: Vol. 207 ; No. 21 ; Pg. 16; ISSN: 0028-6583
LENGTH: 1238 words
HEADLINE: The big House: an alternative to term limits; Congress
BYLINE: Merrill, Michael ; Wilentz, Sean
BODY:
As we write this, a week before the electiori, it seems
ptobable that severalstates will pass propositions favoring
congressional term limits •• That will be a shame, for term
limits'will do little to cure what ails Congress and could easily
make matters worse. (See "Over the Hill"by Sean Wilentz, TNR,
October 12~) The courts may well rule such state-imposed
limitations unconstitutional. Whether they do or not, however,
there is a far surer, less mischievous, and wholly constitutional
proposal for congressional reform: enlarging the membership of
the House of Representatives. ·
"Enlarge the House!" is, we admit, a less thrilling battle
cry than "Throwthe Bums Out!" And at first glance it might seem
·to defy common sense. Isn't Congress already trapped in endemic
inefficiency and gridlock? Aren't there~ as it is, too many
self-important, perk-drunk careerists on Capitol Hill who labor
slavishly for_the corporate special interests while bribing the
electorate with pork? And if so, won't a bigger Congress simply
bring more-arrogance, more bureaucracy, and less democracy? No.
Enlargement cannot guarantee-good government. No reform can. But·
enlargement is needed to prevent things from getting worse. It
will make Congress more efficient, less reliant on the work of
upelected staffers, and less vulnerable to national lobbies and
PACs.
At th~ heart of the current congressional mess is an
alarming, little--knownfact: with respect to representation, the
U.S. House of Representatives has become the least democratic
body of its kind among the major nations of the developed world.
When the Framers designed the Constitution in 1787, they allowed
for no more than one representative for every 30,000 inhabitants(with each slave counted as three-fifths of a person, and with
all untaxed Indians excluded). This meant sending sixty-five men
.to the first House of.Repres~ntatives. The Anti-Federalists
complained that such a small ratio of representatives to
�residents would render the House an oligarchy, out of touch with
the sentiments of the citizenry;.the victorious Federalists
buried these arguments with the claim (advanced by James :t-tadison.
in Federalist No. 55) that the proposed House was large enough to
legislate virtuously and thwart corruption.
What neither side of the Constitution debate could foresee
was how rapidlythe country would grow over the next two
centuries. Although subsequent generations periodically incr~ased
the numbers of representatives as new states were admitted, the
House has remained stuck-at 435 members since the 63rd Congress,
.back in 1913. (The number was fixed by law at 435 in 1929.)
Consequently, in 1992 each member of the House represents on
average about 600,000 persons-.-a figure that would have staggered
Madison, let alone the Anti-Federalists. The ratio looks nearly
as scary when compared with today's figures for the analogous
legislative bodies of Japan (1:238,600), Germany (1:120,000),
France (1:96,300), and Great Britain (1:87,500) •
. No wonder ordinary Americans feel out of touch with Congress;
and no wondermembers have increasingly fallen victim to careerism
and burnout. Co~pounding the problem has been the astounding
growth in the size and power of congressional staffs. Between
1929. and the late 1980s, the numbers of personal, committee, and
leadership staff members rose more than tenfold. The figure
dropped slightly at the ve~y end of the 19805. Still, in 1989
there was a grand total of. 11,187 House staffers, an average of
nearly twenty-six staffers per elected member. Overburdened by
the demands of legislative business~ constituent service, and
fund-raising for the next election, members have delegated much
.of the work they were elected to do to their hirelings, further
weakening accountable representative government and heightening
congressional cynicism and public alienation. ,
As Michael Lind (a fellow Enlarger) has pointed out, it would
be difficultto return immediately to the Framers' original ratio,
which would create a body of more than 8,000 members-- under
current conditions, a congressional circus. Yet we might easily
return to 1929 as a baseline. Since that year, the American
population has roughly doubled •. Let us therefore consider
doubling the House to 870 members. As an all-important corollary,
let the overall outlay for congressio'nal staffs be frozen. This
would raise the.Americanratio of members to constituents to
1:300,000-..:.still low, but a big step toward making Congress more
representative~ It would also leave each member with half the
staff he or she currently employs, to match their diminished
individual responsibilities.
For citizens, the new, smaller congressional districts would
encouragegreater political intimacy at the.local .level,
.
. counteract the trend toward expensive, media-driven politics,
make members more directly accountable (shorn of their large,
protective staffs),· and thus curtail the advantages of incumbency
without punishing worthy representatives (as term limits would
�do) . The riew districts would also bring politics more closely in
line with the life of actual communities and promote a genuinely
democratic social and intellectual diversity among candidates and
elected officials.
Enlargement would'do even more to improve the functioning of
Congress.Smaller districts would reduce the crushing load of
constituent service for each member, encourage less expensive
campaigns, and mitigate the distracting and corrupting-pursuit of
PAC financing. Doubling the. membership would make life· all the
more difficult (and costly) for special interests that lack a
significant popular base among the citizenry. In the new
Congress, it would be harder for individual members to vie for
the plum committee, assigiU'(lents that, under the current regime,
have become the foundations for personal fiefdoms and a lure for
moni.ed lobbyists. By thus removing some of the opportunities for
personal careerism, .enlargement would help channel congressional
ambitions and individual self-interest toward effective
deliberation and legislation on national iss·ues.
A House of 870 members would at
although it wouldremain of an order
of national legislatures elsewhere.
British' House of Commons; Germany's
first be more cumbersome,
of magnitude similar to that
(There are 651 M.P.s in-the
Bundestag has 662 member~.).
Enlargement is not a panacea. Its success would depend on
mastering somedifficult and crpcial details. But its logic runs
entirely to the good, .with none of the drawbacks of term
limitation. It is. ~m eminently conservative reform, returning
Congress to. the pre-New Deal representative ratio of 1929 without
resorting, to _Q_QJ1stJt_ution_a_l__ tAI!\Re_~ing._r-And- it wisely approaches
-"CongfEfss-,-8 problems in the spirit once proclaimed by Andrew
.
·Jackson as the essence of American reform: that the best--cure- fordemocracy-1-s--ills~is_ m9r~e d~mocracy ~ -· . -- -- .
'
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__ -'
MICHAEL MERRIL is an assistant professor in the Labo~
Education Departmentat Rutgers University. SEAN WILENTZ is
professor of history at Princeton University.
lAC-NUMBER:
I~C
12838747
lAC-CLASS: Magazine
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD~DATE-MDC:
October 10, 1994
�•
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press secretary
(Santa Monica, California)
January 17, 1995
For Immediate Release
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE NORTHRIDGE COMMUNITY
TO MARK ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1994 EARTHQUAKE
Northridge Oviatt Library
California state University
santa Monica, california
lO:OOA.M. PST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. What a great day. Thank
you very much. (Applause.) Thank you so much, Mayor Riordan.
Thank you for your outstanding leadership, for being such a good
working partner, for putting the interest of all the people of
this community first.
Thank you, Dr. Wilson, for your leadership and for
hosting this wonderful event on this beautiful campus with its
beautiful buildings, all standing -- thank goodness. I'm glad to
see you all here. (Applause.)
I thank congressman Berman and congressman McKeon,
Lt. Governor Davis, supervisor Yaroslavsky, and of course, the·
people who are here with me.today. I'd like to introduce them
all. The secretary of Transp~rtation Frederico Pena; the
secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros; and
the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency James Lee
Witt. They have done a great job for you. (Applause.)
Ladies and gentlemen, even as we recall the
devastation here today, we know that nature has struck again here
at home in california with the floods, and with the extraordinary
fury in the earthquake in Japan. I know all of you join with me
in extending our profound condolences to the families of those in
the osaka-Kobe area of Japan who have suffered such a tremendous
loss in the last day.
We have spoken with the Japanese government and,
with their agreement, based on our experiences here, I have
ordered a high-level team that includes representatives of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of
Transportation to leave for Japan shortly to see if anything we
learned here can be helpful to them there. (Applause.)
The Chairman of the Joint Chi~fs of staff, General
John Shalikashvili, is in Japan now and he has already stated
that our military forces there are also available to help them in
any appropriate way. You know what they're going through.
so I'd like to ask before I begin my remarks, if we
could just have a moment of silence for the victims of the flood
here in.california and the victims of the earthquake in Japan.
(A moment of silence is observed.)
Thank you.
(Applause.)
I am so glad to be here at cal state Northridge.
(Applause.) This is-- you are now the symbol of the ability of
the people of this state to keep coming back after adversity upon
adversity, as well as the symbol of California and America's
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future, because of the educational opportunities open to all
kinds of people from all walks of life, and all different
backgrounds here at this fine institution.
The most damaging earthquake ever recorded on our
continent destroyed a great deal here when it hit a year ago.
But, as the Mayor said, even though it shook you, it didn't break
you. It didn't break your faith in the future. How else can you
explain the fact that here there is a baseball team known as the
Earthquake Kids? (Applause.) I want to ask them to be
recognized here in a minute, but I do want to note, as the spring
slowly approaches, that they did something the pros couldn't -they kept baseball going. (Applause.) And they won the national
championship in the Little League world series. Let's give them
a hand. would the team stand please? (Applause.)
You know, you might think that californians have had
too many opportunities to show heart. (Laughter.) The wonderful
sainted Mother Teresa once said that she knew God wouldn't give
her any more than she could bear; she just wished God didn't have
such confidence in her sometimes. (Laughter.) That's the way I
feel about you from time to time. (Laughter.) I told the Mayor
last night that I hope that there would be no simmering volcano
uncovered around here -- (laughter) -- anytime in the future.
Fires, earthquakes and devastating floods are quite enough.
But in these disasters where lives are lost and
others are shattered I know it's not easy to keep going and to
keep your heart. A year ago I said that we would not leave you
to pick up the pieces alone, that we would stay on until the job
was done. we have kept that pledge today, and today I renew that
pledge into the future. (Applause.)
Since the flooding began a few days ago, I have been
working closely with Governor Wilson and senator Boxer and
senator Feinstein and your other officials to help fight the
flooding. The disaster I declared across california and the work
of FEMA and other agencies are already helping to move on the
road to recovery.
This afternoon, I'll have a chance to go to Northern
california to view some of the damaged areas there. But I say
again to the victims of this disaster: You are not alone. we
will work with you to help you reclaim your lives, as the
earthquake victims have been reclaiming theirs.
Who would have thought a year ago that the highways
and bridges could be rebuilt and reinforced in just a fraction of
th& time the experts have predicted, and the time the law allowed
until we changed the way things worked. (Applause.) The santa
Monica Freeway was reopened on April the 11th, the Golden state
Freeway on May the 17th, the Simi Valley Freeway partly opened in
February, and fully opened in september. I could go on and on.
Who would have thought this campus would reconvene classes in one
month? The main section of the library behind me was reopened in
64 days, a job that would normally have taken a year -- a great
tribute to your president and to all of the leaders· of this f.ine
institution. (Applause~.) ..
-----·---
,/~I just ·verified with James Lee Witt what strikes me
·as an astounding statistic -- there were 5, 600 school buildings
damaged a year ago, and today all but 40 are open, doing
business,
educating our children and giving them something to
(
~.~~k forward to.
(Applause. )
This happened because we put aside politics and
worked on being partners -- partners as citizens, as businesses,
as government, partners in the person of people like Ramona
Sanches vega, a volunteer who sought out families living in their
~ars because their homes were too damaged; she helped them to get
~ousing.
People like your own college president, ','lho did make
~he impossible, ~ossible on this campus.
?~ople like so many of
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you in this audience who did countless things for your friends
and for t·otal strangers that will never be recorded anywhere
except in the minds and hearts of those whom your touched.
For government's part, 27 federal departments and
agencies worked with state and local officials in unprecedented
ways to produce, as Mayor Riordan said, the most efficient and
effective disaster operation in American history. (Applause.)
so far, over $11.5 billion in aid has come to California to help
to deal with the aftermath of the earthquake. But in addition to
that, the whole system was literally reinvented, with new
technologies, ways found to cut business as usual and the
bureaucracy that too often goes with government assistance.
Decisions were based on need, not paperwork and rules. More than
270,000 homeowners received federal grants to help repair their
homes. More than half a million people were given grants or lowinterest loans for disaster housing.
I know there are those today who say that government
is inherently bad, always gets in the way and never amounts to
anything. Well, I say, look at the difference it made in dealing··
with the disaster. It can work if we put people first and think
about how to make it work. (Applause.)
But this institution is another example of how
government can work. we can't wait for disaster to strike to
deal with our long-term challenges. Every day millions upon
millions of Americans fight other kinds of struggles -- to get
and keep new jobs, to provide health care for their families, to
deal with the struggles of modern life and to strengthen the ties
of community when there are so many pressures that divide us one
from another. And anytime an American loses one of those fights,
it's a disaster for our future as well.
Everyone knows that we live in an era of enormous
change, a time of great uprooting of things both good and bad.
As we change from what is popularly been called the Industrial
Age to the Information Age, from the cold war of global division
to a globe united in economic cooperation and one which must
unite to deal with the common threats to all of us in terrorism
and ecological destruction -- in this era of change, our biggest
challenge is to simply keep alive the American Dream for all of
our people; to m&ke sure that we go into the next century just
five years away still the strongest country in the world, the
most profound force for peace and freedom, and still with the
American Dream alive for all people, regardless of their race,
their region, their religion, their background, the capacities
they came into this world with. (Applause.)
My simple belief is that in this time, we know that
the government cannot really solve problems for people, but I
think we knowth~t the government cannot walk away, either. The
role of government in this age is to be a partner; to help give
people the tQo.l~. 'they need to solve their own problems, to
fulfill their.· c~ ·dreams, to make their own future. And I am
determined to see that the rest of 10U~ gove~ent works as well
as the disaster team did in the california earthquake. That is a
good standard for all of us to meet. (Applause.)
I believe, my fellow Americans, that we need to do
three things: we need a new economic strategy that I have fought
for, for two years, appropriate to the new world we're all going
to live and compete in. we need a new form of government that is
smaller, less bureaucratic, more creative,. more oriented toward
flexibility in solving people's problems, but one that is an
effective partner, not a disabled or a mean participant on the
sidelines, just telling people what to do instead of helping
people to do it. (Applause.)
And, third, and most important, I think we need what
call, and have for three years now, called my contract with
America a New covenant, one that says here are certain
I
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~s and here are your responsibilities.
How are we
)Uild the American community to look like this crowd
we all have opportunity and we all assume
Lty? If there is all -- (applause) -- if all you do
Lghts and there are no responsibilities, pretty soon
i happens.
If all people do is go around being
and they're never rewarded for it, pretty soon they
: it. we need both -- more opportunity and more
l ty in this country.
And that's how we're going to "'::_,
~ica and keep the American Dream alive.
(Applause. ) :,
we have made a good beginning. We have 5.6 million
We have a lower federal deficit. We've taken $11,000
of every family in America, and that means a brighter
have the smallest federal.government we've had in
·s, but we're doing things more effectively. We're
Lg opportunities to people that demand that they
responsibility -- from expanding Head start to making
ts more affordable for more people. (Applause. )
But we all know that there is a lot more to be done.
1lf the adult work force in America is working harder
>Wer wages than they were making 10 years ago.
million Americans in working families lost their
·ance last year. Millions of American workers wonder
irement is secure, and we're working hard on that.
We see a lot of upheaval. There are still a lot of
.on' t feel safe on their streets, in their
.s, in their schools. Even though the crime rate is
where people have done what has been done here in Los
o put more police on the street and to work on
e the community Build project that we supported that
d I visited yesterday, where ex-gang members are
er kids to lead the gangs to turn away from violence,
cation and work and away from things that are
We have a long way to go. (Applause.)
That's why I so strongly hope that we can, together,
to party, make a commitment that, in this year, we
when the congress is in full session and working,
at I call the Middle Class Bill of Rights. Let's
ave indiscriminate tax cuts, let's control the
Eocus tax relief on the people who need it most, on
~ families and making education more available to all
ple. That will get us into the next century.
~d
I think we should lower taxes in families with young
think we should make all Americans able to save
CRA and then withdraw it, tax-free, to pay for their
1 or health care, or to help them care for their
lplause.) I think we should give people who need
1 because they're unemployed the right not just to
l government program, but to get a check which says,
tn be spent at the educational institution of your
.se your income. That's what I think we should do.
But more important than anything else, in the next
te Information Age, having an education will have
.th income and options and choices than ever before .
.eve that we should finally -- and we should have
ago -- we ought to make all educational expenses
hool tax deductible. (Applause.) That's important.
We made interest paid on horne mortgages tax
cades ago. Why? Because owning a horne was
the idea of the American Dream. In the 21st century
t to horneownership if we don't have an education.
at tax deductible. That's important to our future.
�- 5 -
And I might say, that is the essence of what we
Jht to be about, because you ·cannot take advantage of that
lortunity without being responsible. People can offer you an
tcation, but you have to get it. That is what we ought to be
Lng -- giving opportunity in return for responsibility.
The New covenant comes down to this: we deserve
:l
>ortunity, but we have to earn success. And that is what the i
>ple of California have shown over and over and over again.
;
Let me close with this. The great writer, Wallace
!gner, called this part of America "hope's native home." It
: built by people he called, and I quote, "The stickers, not
:t those who pillage and run, but those who settle and love the
~e they have made and the place they have made it in."
Today, we salute all of you, the stickers, the
:tlers, the rebuilders of this great state. Let us take what
t have done here and use it as a model for our entire beloved
tntry into the 21st century. (Applause.)
Thank you, and God bless you all.
END
. I
(Applause.)
10:18 A.M. PST
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�THE i'iHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
Internal Transcript
January 20, 1995
INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT
BY U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT
The oval Office
2:15 P.M. EST
Q
What do you think are the most likely prospects for
progress on your agenda -- and where are you going to have to draw
some battle lines to make clear that you're not going to accept some
more extreme Republican positions?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first, I think there are some real
opportunities for working together, particularly in light of some of
the things the Republicans -- the last couple of weeks. They say
that they want tax relief for Americans, but they don't want to
explode the deficit. That's my position.
I will give them a budget which provides for the funding
of the Middle Class Bill of Rights that I've outlined, which is
focused heavily on tax relief to the broad middle class -- broadly
defined -- concentrating on education and child-bearing and families,
and fully paid for.
So we may have differences there. I want to have,
probably, a stronger middle class focus and they'll want to give, I
think, one hundred percent of the people some tax relief. But that's
a framework in which we can work. So I'm encouraged by that. And I
very much hope that they will agree to incorporate into their plans,
and share the credit for it, the essential elements of the Bill of
Rights, especially the education tax reduction, which I think is very
important for our future.
I think that, obviously, we can cooperate on some of the
reform measures like the line-item veto. I would hope that they
would go forward and embrace the lobby reform, the gift and travel
ban and the disclosure provisions in campaign finance reform. But at
least we know we're going to have some agreement on the line-item
veto.
I'm more hopeful than I was a couple of months ago that
we'll be cooperating on welfare reform. We still have some
differences on our approach, but there js a common desire to move
from a system of dependence to one of ir1ependence: one from just
child-bearing to one of responsible parenting. And so I'm hopeful
that we can find common ground there.
And based on what Senator Dole and some others said last
time, I think we can make some progress on health care reform in a
step-by-step fashion. I am looking at now -- I've been working very
hard on this for the last several days -- what kinds of things we
could do where we could move together on. So those are some of the
areas where I think we've got a real shr.t.
Q
Any specifics -- if I ::auld stay with welfare for a
moment -- I mean, does the idea of movir.g responsibility back to the
states and giving them more authority, is that where the areas of
agreement might be?
HORE
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THE PRESIDEtrT: Yes. We can certainly get a lot of
agreement on that. I have always been for that. When I was working
on this bill, the family support act, the first welfare reform act
back in 1987, when then governor, now Congressman Castle and I were
doing that and we were working with the Reagan White House and with
the Democrats in the Congress and with some Republicans in the
Congress -- I wanted then more state flexibility. When I became
President I just did it by executive order, in effect, and we have
given 24 states now freedom from federal rules and regulations to
pursue their own welfare reforms. So I would be in favor of a lot of
state flexibility in a lot of these matters.
I do think we ought to make sure that young children are
taken care of, and I do think we ought to have some baseline
requirements for welfare recipients. But I think there can be a lot
of flexibility for the states. As long as we're interested in
independence, work and responsible parenting, I think we can go a
long way.
Q
On health care, any specifics on where you think
the most likely areas of progress will be?
THE PRESIDENT: I have some ideas that I'm still working
on, but I think we could begin with some of the things that senator
Dole proposed last time -- the,insurance reforms; that's a good place
to begin. I think there may be some other areas that we could
cooperate on if we could find a way to finance them without a tax
increase. And I'm working on that now.
Q
one related theme -- the Congress is getting off to
a rather rancorous beginning. You have a lot of attacks on Speaker
THE PRESIDENT:
It's the Congress.
(Laughter.)
Q
Right -- attacks on Speaker Gingrich over the book
deal, and then an effort to tie the attacks on him and the book deal
to the Mexico assistance package. Are you concerned'that the
atmosphere is already becoming contaminated and that extraneous
issues are interfering with real substantive decisions on important
issues?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't think that can be allowed
to happen. This country is -- \ve've got a lot of things going on, a
lot of challenges facing us. \~e have this unusual situation where
the -- in the aggregate statistics the economy is booming, the Misery
Index, so-called -- the combination of unemployment and inflation -is the lowest it's been since 1968, almost 30 years. But unlike the
1960s, an awful lot of people are still more unsettled, more
insecure, and not getting any economic benefit from this recovery.
We have a lot of social problems we have to deal with. We just
talked about welfare reform.
We've got to work through this. And so, I think the
congress -- they've always had differences about their own rules and
regulations, differences between the parties. There's always been
some rancor there. But it must not be allowed to interfere with the
business of the country. I think the Mexican debt crisis is a
classic example. I don't believe it will be permitted to interfere.
I think the Congress will do its duty, and I think that they will do
it in a prompt fashion. I'm optimistic and hopeful.
Q
Do you have any advice for Democrats in dealing
with Gingrich's book deal? I mean, is i~ time to sort of cool it on
that or is it --
THE PRESIDENT: No, I don't. want to get into -- my
advice is say whatever -- there's a lot Jf pent-up feelings, I think,
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maybe based on what's happened in years past. But my advice would be
organize the affairs of the Congress so that whatever legitimate
differences exist over the rules of Congress, rules of ethics and
other matters can be properly aired in a way that does not interfere
with doing the business of the country. We've got to keep going
forward. The country plainly wants us to work together on these big
issues.
One other thing I think -- I think there's a plain -there's a real basis for cooperation in the desire to reduce the size
and regulatory reach of the federal government. I think we can
cooperate there.
Now, there will be areas where we don't agree within
each of these categories, but I think that we've already taken this
government down in size by over 100,000 now. And we've got a -- the
budget in place would take it down by 270,000. And the proposals I
will make in our second round of reinventing government that the Vice
President and I have been working on for months and months now -since long before the election -- will take it down some more. And
we're working on the regulatory issue as well. So I think there will
be real opportunities to cooperate there.
There will be differences, and we will state them firmly
and strongly, and I hope and believe that I can persuade the American
people that the position that I will take is in the best interest of
our people and our future. But I will do it all within the context
of trying to work with them and to get something done and to move
forward, and then to be very clear where there are differences.
One of the things that I think I can say with a great
deal of confidence that bothered me about the last two years is that
very often when we were moving forward, our difference would be in 10
percent of the area, and it would become 90 percent of what people
thought was happening, so that we find the voters are absolutely
astonished in any of these -- I see these surveys, in the two years
previous, it was only the third Congress since World War II where
more than so percent of a President's initiatives were adopted, or we
put out our report yesterday on the first two years.
I think somehow I have to find a way to communicate with
the citizens of our country. And so do the members of Congress in
both parties, so that they understand both where we disagree and what
the nature of those disagreements are, because that's healthy and
good for a democracy; and where we agree and what we're doing to move
the country forward, because that's the pivotal, critical, essential
thing. And then a judgment can be made at the appropriate time about
all of us -- and will be made -- by our bosses, by the people of this
country. But I think that we have to keep in mind our job is to move
forward, to work together when we can, and then when we disagree, to
be as clear and specific and forceful as we can so that there can be
a judgment made there. That's what I'm really going to work on.
Q
We've got a big story in this week's u.s. News
about lawyers. We took a survey, and, not surprisingly,. found
something like 70 percent of people think the system is unfair,
rigged to the rich. I wanted to ask you
THE PRESIDENT:
Too many of them.
Q
Too many of them. I wanted to ask you a couple of
things about that. one is, as an attorney yourself, an attorney
general as well, what the legal profession can do to kind of restore
more faith out there itself? And also, about the tort reform
provisions in the contract, what you'd be willing to sign in terms of
plaintiff damages or any kind of loser pay mechanism.
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THE PRESIDENT: First of all -- let me answer the first
question. First of all, I think that people have kind of mixed
feelings about lawyers and the legal system. On the one hand, they
must feel that it's a little rigged in favor of people who have more
money and more influence. On the other, they don't like the system
itself, and so they may want reforms which would further erode the
position of just individuals of modest means in the legal system.
If I were practicing member of the bar today, I'd be out
there working on ways to make the society less lawsuit-dominated,
more ways to solve problems without ultimately going to court and
trying a case in full, more ways to give people a very modest means
of access to some way of resolving their disputes.
And I would be looking at ways to reduce the overall
cost of the legal system to society in ways that still left people
free to pursue their claims. I mean, I think that's really what
we've got to do. And in the tort reform debate or the legal reform
debates that may come in the Congress this year, I hope that that
will be the focus.
And, again, there's a lot of emotion about this issue,
but we really need to minimize the emotion and look at the facts: How
does this system work? How will the changes affect it? Who will
benefit? Who will be disadvantaged? Does it matter? Lawyers should
see themselves primarily as facilitators and advocates of other
people's interests.
And our legal system does have some problems, but it's
served us pretty well over more than 200 years. And I think that
nearly every American knows that we have a higher percentage of
lawyers in our country than our competing countries; that we've
resolved more of our disputes in court than other countries do; that
a lot of people pay very high rates for insurance to protect
themselves against the possibility of various kinds of lawsuits.
They know we don't live in a risk-free world. But on the other hand,
people -- if somebody's got a legitimate claim, I think every
American lives with the idea that if you can get there, you can have
your day in court.
So I think this could be a very useful debate for us,
but I think the main thing I would say is that the lawyers of the
country themselves are in the best position, if they'll do it, to
come out with a whole series of initiatives to promote reform. And
whatever we do here, we need to do it with great care because we
don't want to capitalize on the public frustration with the problems
of the legal system in ways that ultimately deny people their day in
court.
Q
I want to ask you a question, it sort of relates to
that, about the death penalty. I mean, a lot of people have been
focused on the O.J. trial and the susan Smith case that's coming to
court. Prosecutors asked for the death penalty in Susan Smith's
case, not in O.J 1 s. I'm wondering -- obviously, you support the
death penalty, but I'm wondering whether you're comfortable that's
it's being fairly applied around the country, and if you're not, if
you think there's anything that can be done about it at the federal
level.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't think you can do anything
about the obligation that a prosecutor has to make a judgment. If
the deliberate killing of another person, based on the facts of the
case as evaluated by a jury of 12 ordinary Americans, can result
either in capital punishment or life imprisonment, but the prosecutor
has a right not to ask for capital punishment -- the only way you
could change that is if you said that the jury should always have
that option on the table. No matter how much you try to standardize
the system, the facts of every case will be different, and also, the
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evidence and the strength of it in different cases will be different
And the prosecutor has to make those judgments. You know, if I ask
for the death penalty, I'm sure this person is guilty, but does that
make it harder to get a conviction in the first place? I mean, ther£
are all these things t at are there, these judgments.
that -- the thing that I would like that
maybe the prosecutors' group could do is to try to set some -- in
working with others -- some sort of general standards by which these
judgments should be m
The most disturbing thing about the death
penalty in America tha I've seen in the last several years -- and
I've been dealing with this as a law professor, an attorney general
and a governor, as wel as president, for a long, long time now -the most disturbing th ng that I have seen was the evidence submittec
to the Supreme Court a few years ago indicating that the request by
prosecutors for the de h penalty and the imposition of it by juries
tend to vary rather dr
tically not by the race of the defendant,
but by the race of the ictim. That's the sort of thing that could
be easily dealt with,
at least much more easily -- more easily
dealt with if there we
some standards that the National Association
of Prosecutors or the j
es or some other appropriate group said.
ought to be adhered to n making these judgments.
Q
I mea , you obviously dealt with those decisions
with enormous gravity i it. As I recall, you always went back to
the state -- I mean, yo always in the state when there was an
execution.
THE PRESID
Never out of the state when there was -when I ordered -- had p rmitted an execution. And I always very
carefully reviewed the
cord of all those cases. I mean, that's one
of the things I could t 11 you, you can't -- you just can't escape -in a case in a matter o life and death, if you believe in capital
punishment, you cannot
cape becoming immersed in the facts of the
case. And you make the est judgment you can. And I've dealt with
some very difficult
s in a couple of my cases.
Q
I
affirmative action, gend
California initiative
You have moves on the Hi
rules. I wonder, your s
affirmative action has
much affirmative action
concerned that the debat
as immigration has bee
I
I
~
to ask you about the unfolding debate on
and racial preferences. We have a
probably will be on the ballot in '96.
1 to roll back some affirmative action
rt of guidelines on whether you think
tlived its usefulness, how you judge how
s appropriate these days, and if you're
on this might become a very divisive debate
in some places?
THE PRESIDE
I'm certainly concerned that it could
become divisive. On the other hand, it need not be a bad debate. I
think that what we ought to ask ourselves is, number one, how can we
achieve the two objecti
to be working for every day here;
how can we open more opp
all Americans; and how can we
bring the country togeth
so on the there are many different kinds of
affirmative action p~~~~~~
We're litigating one before the Supreme
Court and how it goes ba
to President Nixon's administration. So
the views on this also ha
been different over time in terms of what
Republicans and Democrats thought.
But if the
and to bring the country
does it work; what are
it will be interesting -what I hope they don't ha
structured in such a way
to be winners and losers
considered.
offer more opportunity to everyone
ogether, then you have to ask, is it fair:
costs; and are there other options? And
so that what I hope we don't have here, and
e in California, is a vote that's
s to be highly divisive, where there have
nd no alternatives can reasonably be
JIORE
�-
6 -
So that's
expect to spend -- I e
we'll spend a lot oft
standard's going to be
opportunity and to bri
useful debate, but if
spirit of coming out o
find a political issue
can further divide us.
have to say about it right now.
all other Americans in public life,
1t over the next year. But my
is necessary to give all Americans more
g our country together. And this can be a
t is ·-- it needs to be entered into in the
it with those things intact, not trying to
that at a time of high anxiety for Americans
I think that would be a big mistake.
It's not
to reexamine. I've h
wanting to talk about
just in the last month
perspective.
bad thing to discuss and to work through and
a lot of people, different kinds of people,
to me, just spontaneously as I've -- and
so. But we ought to keep it in the right
about all
I
~ike
Q
I thi
the core of the California initiative is
banning discrimination ased on race, gender, national origin. so as
a blanket premise, is
at going too far?
THE PRES!
Nixon plan is constitut
scholarships, were con
constitutional problem
this the right policy;
alternative. I think
have been helped by it.
degree of their harm?
discussion we ought to
One thing
zone legislation that
that it was focused on
designation of certain a
people together across
more opportunity to bri
be doing. In the conte
first proposed, and in
they often did that. So
about it, and there will
should not let this deba
division of the American
and to deal with it that
together. That's what I
Well, we have argued in court that the
anal, and that the scholarships, minority
itutional. So I don't think there is a
ith it. I think the real question is, is
oes it work; is it fair; what's the
at there's no question that a lot of people
Have others been hurt by it? What is the
t are the alternatives? That's a
liked about -- so much about the empowerment
passed in the economic program last year is
ear need. It used the government's
eas that were economically deprived to get
cial lines and across income lines, to bring
people together. That's what we ought to
in which affirmative action programs were
ich they have largely operated, I think that
I think that if there's going to be a debate
be, we ought to just keep that in mind. We
e become a political exercise in the further
people. There are ways to talk about this
will increase opportunity and bring us
rn going to work on.
want to ask you -- I just wanted to do one on
health care real quickly
You had mentioned that some of the start
-- one starting point mi t be insurance reforms that Senator Dole
suggested. Is that -- I mean, are you looking now in moving the
health care debate based n what has been out there from the Hill
that the Republicans hav suggested as the starting point, or in a
process sense, how will
issue be joined from your point of view?
Q
I
THE PRES!
will be advocating certa
beyond, and I will be wil
going to be up to the c
affirmative action by Con.
Congress to assume that b
in a highly political a
American people don't wan
Well, I think -- well, first of all, I
things both in the State of the Union and
ing to work with them on it. But it's
ss to pass it. That is, this requires
ress. I think it would be an error for the
use the program was defeated last year,
sphere and from intense lobbying, that the
us to move on this. I think they do.
We have anot
lost their health insura
thanks to a lot of increa
some of things that I thi
costs are going up by mo
er 1,100,000 Americans in working families
e last year. The inflation rate is down
ed competition and economic forces, and
k we did, but it's still going up. Medical
than the rate of inflation. There are·
HORE
�- 7 -
millions and millions f small business people, self-employed people,
farmers who have healt insurance that, in effect, is just insurance
that says if you get r al sick, you don't lose your home and your
business, because the eductibles and the co-pays are so high.
So this i a very big issue
American people though I probably tried
that it's such a compl cated thing. But
people think that we s ouldn't deal with
very disappointed if t is Congress and I
out something and
real headway
in America. And I think the
to do too much at once, that
I don't think the American
it. I think they will be
don't get together and work
on this.
Q
ask you about the '60s. Speaker Gingrich
and Bill Bennett and o hers -- other conservatives, have sort of
pointed to the 1 60s as the beginning of the long, steep morale
decline for the countr • And I'm just wondering, how should
Americans think about he '60s: its good, its bad sides --how
should be regard that period?
THE PRESID NT: Well, I think -- first of all, I think
it is easy to oversimpl'fy all these decades. You could also take a
hard shot at the '70s a d a hard shot at the '80s and say that they
all -- that in their di ferent ways, they aggravated the dilemmas
that we face today. I on't think there's any question about that.
I think th t the good -- let's start with the good
things about the '60s. The good thing about the '60s were that there
was a time of strong ec nomic opportunity, where the middle class was
growing, the under clas was shrinking, America was robust and selfconfident. It was a ti e we faced with real courage our long-delayed
obligations to equal op ortunity. It was a time when young people
believed that they coul make a differen=e as citizens in -- whether
it was active participa ts in an election, or contributing in the
military service, or en aging in peaceful and lawful protests. It
was a time when things seemed possible, and when people cared and
believed, and there was a -- and weren't cynical, and when we were
really trying to march o our common problems. And I think that none
of that should be denigr ted.
It was also
I think, of some excess. A time
when we became so fixate on the need to extend certain rights to
people who didn't have t em, mostly racial minorities, mostly blac ·,
and a time when we wante so much to hav€ individual expressions df~
political opinions, or 1 festyles, or whatever, that there might ~~ 1e
been too m~deemphasis on responsibilities, which are the flip sl e
of rights. You can't have a successful democracy without both;
\ )
without bo h the opportu ity to do what you wish to do, and the
L
responsibility to do it n a way that is appropria:ej
1
But on the
a shrinking away from a
a lot of personal excess
kind of a radical indivi
many ways by many people
as people who weren't.
ther hand, in the '70s, t ere was a sort of
ot of public engagement and citizenship, and
s in the '70s. And in the '80s, there was a
ualism that had even more personal excess in
who were in positions of privilege as well
so I think hat the '60s in some ways have gotten a bum
rap. There is no question, however, that the decline in the
coherence of our family s~ructures has been going on for about 30
years. But it's not -- a~ain, it's not just in America. These
things are happening ever¥wher7 else. s~ I would ~a¥ that the great
thing about the 1 60s was that ~twas a t~me of opt1m1sm of hope. And
when we had tough things like the racial problems, the controversy of
the war in Vietnam, most everybody thought that they could make a
difference and that they mattered and their opinion mattered and they
were engaged in the action and passion of their time, to use Justice
Holmes' famous phrase.
I-!
ORE
�-
8 -
But I think that there was a -- that people and the
collective obsession with our public matters, maybe we underestimatec
our private responsibilities. That's my take on it. I don't agree
with Speaker Gingrich's idea that the '60s were the source of all the
evils that society is facing today. Hell*, some of our problems
started then; some of them were made much worse.
And a lot of the problems we have today basically
occurred in the last 20 years. our economic standing, relative to
the rest of the world, peaked in about '73 and since then, a lot of
middle-class Americans have worked harder and harder and harder as
the social contract has broken down; as they weren't rewarded for
working hard and playing by the rules. And then the response in the
'80s was to say that government was the problem and so we would go to
kind of the trickle-down economics and walk away from the social
problems approach. And that didn't work very well, either.
So I think in each decade there were great strengths and
' significant problems. So I just don't buy that. I think the problem
/i'bf American today is that the world we're living in is not working
/ v/ery well for a lot of people. So it's a good new-bad news story.
· for those who are able to compete and wia in the global economy, for
f/ ~hose who are fortunate enough to have coherent families and live in
/lfgood communities, this is an exciting time to be alive, with a very
f/lbright future. For others, even though we're in the middle of.an
1
/./ economic recovery and our country is at peace and we are the leading
~ force for peace and prosperity around the world, the social contract
I has broken down. And for others, the very basic conditions for human
\ civilized life are not possible because uf the level of violence and
social breakdown they deal with.
~
And I think we have to look at America in that way.
What we have to do is to try to make more good news stories and fewer
bad news stories. We have to try to grow the middle class, shrink
the underclass and bring the country together to reinforce family and
community. And we have to acknowledge that there were problems in
each of those three decades that we still are living with the
consequences of today. But there were also great achievements in
those three decades, which helped us to get to where we are today.
And so I think to put that
'60s, in my judgement, is a mistake.
~ind
of negative spin on the
Q
You've talked about Mrs. Clinton as such an
important advisor. I wonder if you can tell us what you feel she's
going to be doing to help you and to help the administration and to
deal with the problems of the country in the next two years.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think I should let her talk
about that. She can speak for herself. But we have always had a
kind of a wonderful way of working and talking together and mostly
she would, for almost all of our married life and long before I was
even an elected official and even when we were just going together,
we did a lot of things together, we talked a lot about a lot of
different things.
What she did on the health care project was unusual,
really, and had only one precedent in our relationship; and that was
when she headed an education task force for me when I was governor.
But she'd always, before, when she was cut working, when I was
governor, she'd always pick one or two things a year that she tried
to do to make a contribution. And I expect she will continue to do
that; and that's what I hope she'll do.
Q
a few licks
Okay.
We wanted to ask you put your hat on as a
THE PRESIDENT: I will say this, I know that she's taken
the health care issue, too. But there are worse
c~
HORE
�- 9 -
things to do than to get caught red-handed trying to give health carf.
to 40 million Americans who don't have it, almost all of whom live ir
working families. And I still think that she's a person of great
Energy and she can make a real contribution to ·the things that she
cares about.
She's always -- she's a project-oriented person. She's
never wanted, for example, to be involved in how the system operates
-- how the White House operates, how the governor's office operated.
She never was -- she was always somewhat involved in my campaigns
more or less at the end, more at the end than at the beginning,
except to make appearances and make talks.
But as long as I've known her, she's always tried to
focus on one or two things that were problems that she deeply cared
about, where she thought she could help people, and she tried to make
a difference. And I think she'll continue to do that.
Q
As we approach the end of our time here, we wanted
to ask you to put your sort of sports and movie fan hat on. Who do
you like in the super Bowl, and what do you make of this tremendous
cultural experience that Super Bowls have become? I mean, does that
tell us something about what the country is all about, or sort of the
need for some kind of rights or something of that kind?
MR. MCCURRY:
Q
Seventeen electoral votes.
(Laughter.)
I know your team isn't in the Super Bowl.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think I should be picking Super
Bowl winners. I think it's rather interesting how these teams got
there, though. on the cultural significance of it, I think American
people -- they like football, they like excellence, and they like
drama. And the Super Bowl has football, excellence and drama. I
think it's not very complicated. And I'm one of them; I'm always
there.
I think that-- you know, I'm not one of these people
that thinks that our joy in spectator spJrts is a bad thing. I was
watching the basketball game last night, late while I was working.
My eyes were burning out working on the State of the Union address,
so I watched California and Stanford play basketball real late last
night. But I think the trick is not to let your -- the spectators
part of our life take over the active part of our life. Because I
think it's really quite a great thing that we can all participate in
these spectator sports, especially with cable TV and satellite and
all this stuff. I think it's wonderful. I just think -- we have to
also be more active citizens. That's one of the things that I worry
about all of the time, is that none of us can afford to define our
lives so much -- totally as consumers; we have to also be actors.
l' \.
. /
I like it when a business considers their customers not
only their consumers, but their partners, sort of. I like it
when -- when I talk to the American people, that's why I try to
stress this responsibility thing. People can be consumers of the
policies that I advocate or that the Republicans advocate, but in the
end, the strength of our country is the active work of citizenship.
That's what really makes the thing go.
Q
I understand you talked about this over the weekend
with a group of academics and philosophers and so on about this idea
of participation, and if we're too isolated, sort of solitary in the
culture these days.
THE PRESIDENT: That was one of the things we talked
about. Because I've been very concerned about it. And I've been a
participant in it. I've been in all th8se campaigns. I've been
running for office. I'm not blameless; none of us are, who hold
MORE
�- 10 -
public office. But there has been this tendency with the
overreliance on polls to try -- that's why I answered you the way I
did on the affirmative action question, to try to segment the
electorate and then segment issues, and then segment the policies yo~
advocate, and usually with the best of motives.
___
_..,._./----\~
.
1 - -------Most politicians, contrary to public belief, are honest
1
~
eople and most of them try to do what they say they're going to do,
:~~-~nd most of them believe what they say. I know that's not the
1·,· perception, but that's true-- including my strongest opponents in
the Congress. Most of them are honest, ~ost of them believe what
' th~~ say and most of them try to do it.
But there is a tendency in the modern world to treat
citizens as if they are just consumers of our policies, you know?
They will consume, they will receive the benefits of economic reform
or political reform or whatever. But in a democracy, they're
partners. And the policies work unevenly throughout the country
based on how strong the civic life is in various places. And this is
not just by income. I was just in -- just to give you one example, I
was just in Los Angeles where I went on Martin Luther King Day to
this Community Build project which the federal government invested
some of our education and training money in, to try to make -- to. get
kids out of gangs and into successful lives, and to try to use former
gang members to help get present members out and to stop young people
from going into gangs.
Now, there has been a substantial decline in gangrelated homicides in Los Angeles in the last year. One reason is
that the community is beginning to come to grips with this itself.
Yes, they may have used some program I helped to create in one part
of what they did. But they were participants, they were actors, they
were alive to the possibility of it.
One of the reasons I like the way I formulated the
Middle Class Bill of Rights is, it ought to be called "Rights and
.L Responsibilities'," because if you give somebody an education tax
(\deduction, they can't get it unless they get an education. And if
', they get -- you still can't -- you can't force someone to learn .
1
It's about their active participation, their involvement, their doing
things. And I think that is really the great challEnge of our
country as we move into this new century.
,~
~
1
fJ
·~
.
There are all these pressur:s that will tend to let us
be alone more and isolate us more. A lot of it's exciting. You
know, we can be on the Internet and do E-Mail, and we can work at
home and we can do all these things. We can isolate ourselves from
( one another even more.
But in the end, unless we are citizens, unless we have
certain networks in our local community, unless there is a certain
level of trust we have with our neighbors, unless we're constantly
struggling to come in contact with people who are different from us
and listen to them and learn from them and make sure they understand
.us, it's going to be very difficult for what we do here in Washington
to explode in a positive way across the country.
So I've been very worried about that: I've been worried
about it for years. And I was so happy that, in 1 92, we got this
huge turnout in the election, reversing all of these historical
trends, in part because through the town meetings or whatever, we
were able to give people a sense that it was their deal, not our
deal. They were more than consumers of politics. And so I don't
want to denigrate the consumer movement, because to some extent they
have to consumer our politics. But the work of citizenship is more
than being consumers, and that's what I ~anted to talk to those folks
about. Because both parties now agree that the role of government,
that the size of government should be reiuced. Both parties agree
NORE
�-
11 -
that we have to devolve more responsibility to state and local
government, both parties agree that there needs to be less burdensomE
regulation.
·
I never did answer your question, but I will, and I'll
answer some of it during the State of the Union about where we
·~ disagree.
But what I think is most important to me is that I believf
·,\that individuals find their fullest expression as citizens by being
.\part of a community where the whole is greater than the sum of its
'parts. You see it in the saddest of times.
1
I
•
l
I went to Rio Linda, California, an unincorporated
community where Rush Limbaugh had his first radio show, right. And I
saw all of these -- a lot of folks there who were of very modest
means. And they were dealing with -- I went to a little Methodist
church where all the volunteers had been working on the flood. And
we were standing in a circle and they were taking a picture. And
this lady came up to me and hugged me, and she said, "I'm a
Republican." We were all standing here talking about this thing, you
know. It was like, yes, she's a Republican and she didn't vote for
me last time, probably won't vote for me next time, but we're both
Americans and we're here, and this flood has somehow bound us
together. All of a sudden, we're citizens, you know, we're united,
we're one. The celebration, the pride the people in California have
about the work they've done in the aftermath of that earthquake is
stunning.
Now, how do we recapture at least a smidgen of that,
enough of that on a daily basis to be united as a country and hopeful
as a people and alive to the pain and the frustration and the
difficulty of people who are different from us so that we've got
enough glue together to be real citizens, to generate energy, to do
things together so that we're more than just consumers. That's what
I wanted those people to talk about. Because I think that's the
great question facing us, really.
(
Q
Well, thank you.
THE PRESIDENT:
Thanks.
END
3:15 P.M. EST
�~Te~s~~!~!? ~fthe Losing Class
But the growing sense that people of different
levels of salary, education and skill may be victims of
the same economic forces Jacks two crucial elements pf
HEN Karl Marx described an increasingly
class consciousness as the term has historically ~n ·
miserable and exploited working class, he • used: a class vocabula~ and a class enerm'. The
never imagined that his oppressed workers ( traditional adversaries-- ig business, owners of capimight someday include Ivy League M.B.A's
tal, managers -are no longer viewed that way.
sed out of $200,000-a-year jobs.
Instead, businasr is seoR as aJsg a victim, cayG~Jt in
But a changing economy is gradually linking highly
a global competition that forces cost-e ·
1cated managers and technicians with high-schoolat sort o t inking showed up in focus group
ined assembly-line workers and office clerks. The
sessions and follow-up Interviews .with 2,400 workers of
:is in their common place in an increasingly co~t
various levels of income .and skill for a soon-to-be
e economy !hat no longer ya lues workers as muCh as
released study directed by Richard Freeman, a Har•
w:e...did. What they share, public opinion polls show,
vard labor economist, and Joel Rogers, a professor of
feelings of uncertainty. insecurity and anxiety
Jaw and sociology at the University of Wisconsin.
ut their jobs and tbejr jncomes.
·
A class consciousness may be emerging from this
'My Boss Is Trying'
red anxiety - an awareness among millions of
ericans that they occupy the same unsteady boat,
.
"They tell us, 'My boss is trying hard, but there Is
11 if they are doing well in high-paying jobs. Labor
nothing he can do, either,' " Mr. Rogers said. "That
retary Robert B. Reich, giving the phenomenon a
does not mean they don't see their employer as· often
te, describes "the anxious class" as "consistinuf
unfair and cruel. But then they say he does not have the
4911& ef AmeriCans who no longer can count on
ability to protect them, which is much different than
ing their jobs next year, or next month, and.whose
saying, 'He could protect me if he wanted to but he
.es havestagnated or lost ground to infla_lli)n."
chooses not to.' "
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
•
D"££
•
d"ff
1 erent Incomes, 1 erent
•
•
d"££
•
eC~UCatlODS, 1 erent JObS,
b
h
Ut t e Same anxiety.
It is this forgiving attitude toward management
that distinguishes today's unhappy workers from their
forebears. If the boss were the target, it would be easier
to know what to do: People might take action in groups.
But public opinion polls stiow that while Americans are
increasingly angry about their economic Insecurity,
neither business nor the forces that make companies so
hard on workers are the targets of this anger.,•.It_is
directed jnsread ar government. Immigrants and !!Je
pngr among othtrs.
·.fbe 1994 electoral uprising suggested that if there
is a class enemy it Is an ill-defined Jitical class a
<··••v
lt.tll~et'll
.IWpulace. But this modern populism, unlikl' the 19thcentm'Y movement that provided the name, sidesteps
the main source or discontent: the economic changes
that define America's new anxious dass.
"You would think that in a free enterprise system,
there would be more criticism of its warts," said
Florence Skelly, vice chairman cof DYG Inc., a polling
company founded by Daniel Yankelovich. "Instead, we
say that government should be run more like a business. And we deal with the hoss by ousting the Congressman."
Thljanxiety, uncertainty and insecurity that characterize the new class consdottsness show up in different ways in public opinion polls. All hough the economy
is growing briskly and unemployment is down, only 31
percent of those surveyed this month by Louis Harris &
Associates see this improvtoment. "Over and over,
people tell us they are conccrrwd about their jobs, that
they don't feel secure, that the (!t:nnomy is doing badly,"
Humphrey Taylor, Harris's chairman, said. "For most
people, if the economy is not synonymous with jobs, it is
at least highly coordinated with juhs."
Secretary Reich, who has argued that education
Coni imwcl on puge 5
�The Emergence
Of the Losing Class
Continued from page I
and training provide the best assurance of
job security, contends that most members
of the anxious class have only high-school
educations. But he, too, now acknowledges
that education is less and less of a buffer
l\&ainst the joblessness and stagnant incomes that are drawmg people into a sense
of shared uncertainty.
A variety of statistics shows that the
incomes of college-educated people have
been failing in recent years to keep pace
with inflation · Men in their eariy 50's with
Jour years of college for example. ha.ve
been stuck for 10 years at the same ins;ome,
adjusted for intlation, according to the findings of Frank Levy, a labor economist at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"In the old days, in the 1950's and 1960's, if
In the new order,
managers are not the
enemy. 'We deal with
the boss by ousting the
Congressman.'
,
you lost a job, you could get a!lother, paying
less, and within a few years your rising
income would soon get you back to your old
level," Mr. Levy said. "It was a safety net."
Two major polling operations - the University of Michigan's Consumer Surveys
and the University of Chicago's National
Opinion Research Center - de.scrlbe the
anxiety and insecurity that emerge from
life without this safety net, even among
people with good jobs at good pay. Ask such
people about their current economic circumstances, and many reply positively. But
ask them what they think the future holds
for them or their children, and the anxiety
surfaces.
~he Fearsome Future
~-~For the first time in 50 years, we are
·
·
le's execta·
io s" said Richard T. Curtin, director of
e Umversity of Michigan's Consumer Surveys. "And their uncertainty and anxiety
grow the farther you ask them to look Into
the future."
The source of these feelings, and the nascent class consciousness, appears to be
rooted ma!nl;y jn Jnooffs both real and expected. Over the last decade or so, layoffs
have spread from blue-collar workers and
...
•.
the less educated across the income and
education spectrum.
"Every day people open the newspaper
and see that some major company has laid
off workers," Mr. Taylor said. "I am sure·
that downsizing is now seen as a permanent
function of management, and that is new."
Americans in the past dealt with labor
problems differently than they do today,
reflecting a different class structure. During the Depression, the thousands laid off at
Ford Motor Company, for example, saw
Henry Ford as the enemy and the source of
a solution. They agitated for relief pay .from
Ford or shorter hours for those still working, to make room for those laid off.
Sense of Entitlement
"People thought of themselves as having
rights from companies," said Joshua Ft.eer
man, a labor historian at Columbia Univ~t
sity. That sense of entitlement grew .even
stronger in the early decades after WoCQ
War 11, and collective bargaining- or simply bargaining with management. in the
case of nonunion companies - became )he
arena for arguing out wages,, pensi<\"s,
health insurance, vacations, hours and -JOb
security.
:
That system is disappearing today. Ca·
reer-long attachments to one employei,. a
notion born in the 1920's, are no longer ltle
norm. The new class consciousness malres
less distinction between workers and managers. Rights are relative, at best. An'21!·
creasingly conservative electorate has ~
duced government's role in regulating 1he
economy. Unions have lost influence aJi11
membership.
__.
And against a background of rising competition, c,;_orporate ,'\merica ha~,.d. jJl1
~:~Jo reprganize and relocate and down&
Lmost at will leaymg. as Mr.Jn.e:
man put it, "no structure to deal with XII
new anxiety and uncertainty."
What people do is try to cope, by the=
selves, said Ms. Skelly, of DGY. Self-emp~
mentis one solution, DGY's polls show, an~
that is a rising trend. "They try, on the fObt
to hide any chinks in their performam~::
she said. "They work longer hours and tak1
work home, without letting the boss kno~ll•
give the impression that they can do dlfm
cult tasks quickly. There is nothing like, ·~~
are all In this together.' There is too m~
competition. People talk of their vulnerabtJll
ty to friends and spouses, but not to 1fiJ
workers.''
:
And many Americans feel in their hearl
that the layoffs might be justified. "There 1
a sense among people that we are inefficterii
and bloated," Ms. Skelly said. "And uataZ
they feel that is no longer true, they ~
reluctant to criticize the forces that are
cutting out tt~ fat and the inefficiens:ies."
...
�and adviser of Olngrich 's. Weber. who bar, • which focused on adjustments to
represents major health-care interests tax legislation, and "the Dingell bar,"
and is close 10 several potential presiden· which revolved around enefgy and
tial candidates, has opted to expand his telecommunications. Emerging now are
own small firm rather than join a larger a Bill Archef bar. tied to the new chairone. disappointing his many suitors.
man or Ways and Means, and a Thomas
Partnerships closely identified with Bliley bar, pluggeli into the new chair·
the Democrats are particularly desperate man of the Commerce Committee.
to cover their right nan u. The liberal Numerous sub-specialties are emerging
APCO Associates has, for instance. just as well. Lobbyist Jay Stone has been dinsigned Dave Ourenberger, the ethi.cally ing out on his relationship to Bob Livchallenged former senator from Min· ingston, the Loui!riana congressman who
nesota. Tom Downey, a former New now chairs the Appropriations Commit·
York congtessman who made his name tee. Stone brags that he and Livingston
as a young reformer and served on Ways were classmates at Tulane. Only after
and Mems, has hooked up with Rod being pressed does he admit they didn't
Chandler, a Republican alumnus of the actually know each other there.
committee. Larger Democratic concems, Nonetheless, he calls himself a "close
like Patton Boggs & Blow, Ron Brown's friend" of Livingston's, having worked
old outfit, and Cassidy & Associates, are on the congteasman's staff and dealt
contemplating mergers with Republican with him when Stone was an official in
finns. AI for Democrats entering the the Reagan Energy Department.
Buslnenes like to hire lobbyists who
market, they're out of luck. Akin, Gump,
the law firm of old-time fixer Bob have worked in govemment because they
Strauss, has been talk.ing to Tom Foley know the revolving door keeps revolVing,
but is reportedly concerned that Foley and their hires may someday return to
might be a liability rather than an asset powef. Charles "Chipn Kahn Ill, who
in the present climate. Meanwhile, it has until recently was a lobbyist (or the
hired Frank Donatelli, former political Health Insurance A$sociation of America
(sponsor of the Hany-and-Louise ads),
directOr of the Reagan White House.
Bidding by lobbying firms reportedly has been appointed staff director of the
became frenzied when William Pitts, the House Ways and Means health subcomtop aide to former House minority leader mittee. The insurance industry's money
Bob Michel, came on the market. Seri· has been well spent; The man it was pay·
ous interest began at aro\lnd $500,000 a ing until a Few weeks ag~ is likely
year, according to one lobbyist. This lob- to pay again when he leaves governbyist says he gave up trying to get his ment-is now the chief congressional
finn to compete because Pitts "had so staff member regulating that industry.
many offers I didn't think it was worth The ethical problem here is so familiar as
it." In the end, Pitts opted to becoine to be almost tedious. In a democracy,
head of the Washington office of Capital access to government shouldn't depend
Cities/ABC. Another industry source on campaign cash, free trips, or favors.
who asks to remain nameless calls this a Nor should it hinge on expensively purclassy thing to do, since Pitts is selling chased personal cormections. Influence
his status to a single company rather peddling-the trade in inside relationthan sleeping around.
ships-is a big reason why legislators
In the White House, such a free-for-all have such a hard time cutting the deficit.
is no longer possible. Upon taking off'1ee, The whole spectacle of selling resumes
Clinton instituted a lifetime ban on for- on the open market tends to t"Bduce the
mer officials' lobbying the executive respect level of public servants as a class
branch on behalf of fot"Bign govenunents, to that of, say. telemarketerS.
and a five-year ban on lobbying the office
Pefhaps it isn't surprising that Ginof the president on behalf of anyone. grich hasn't challenged this culture, since
Remarkably. these rules have been largely Republicans are historically its greatest
successful, preventing folks like Howard beneficiaries; in the last election cycle.
Paster:. Clinton's former congressionalliai· they received four times more soft-money
son. from lobbying ex-colleagues. Con- contributions than did the Democrats.
gressnlen and their aides, however, face But it is amazing that Gingrich fails to
only a one-year cooling-off period before understand the populist appeal of drainthey can work their old conunittees or ing the moral swamp of Washington.
offices. And evm then. there U; nothing to Outrage at the I'¢VOlving door was one
srop someone like Durenberger from reason Ross Perot was so popular in
usin$ his knowledge of the Senate to 1992-t"Bmember those cracks about lobdirect lobbying by others at his new firm. byists tn alligator shoes and. $1,000 suits?
Nothing really changes. Until a few As a presidential prospect, Perot has
months 8$0. lobbyists flourished on the looked feeble (or a while now. But by resbasis of their proximity to the Democrat- urrecting Michael Deaver and smiling OTI
ic barons on Capitol Hill. There existed the rest of the muck, Newt may be hand·
what was known as "the Rostenkowsld ing him a sword.
~4
;1/F.W YORK
JASUARY Z.)•
t995
-----------------------------------------------
�Who 1J Michael Deaver calling now? Newt Gingrich, it seems. For all the talk
of reforming Congress, the influence·peddling industry is healthier than ever.
nus
ILL CLINTON CAME
to town two years
ago promising to
"change the way
business is done
in Washington."
In characteristic
fashion, he has
gotten less c-redit Cor this
project than he deservesbut also deserves less credit
than he wants. Clinton has
made it harder for his
appointees to cash in on
their connections once they
leave offlce. He also made
strong statements in favor
of campaign-finance and
lobbying reform. But he
undermined his ethical
stance from the outset by
ii'POinting lobbyists like Ron Brown to
his Cabinet, and by taking Tom Foley's
advice that he not put new campaignfinance·~form legislation high on his
agenda. Now that Foley is gone and Clinton has suddenly started pushing the
issue apin, many have-no surprisecalled his sincerity into q,uestion.
Newt, on the other hand, is no hypoc:rite. Thou~ disgust with the ways of
Washington as the lighter fluid at his bar·
becue, the Speaker of the House has
shown little interest in unmaking- the
access indu$try, in which former officials
eam huge sums hawkin~ their inside
relationships to corporations, trade
associations, and foreign countries. At
the end of the last session of Congress.
Gingrich nixed a bill that would have
banned lobbyist gifts to legislators and
their staffs, along with another that
would have ticbtened the notoriously lax
disclosure requirements (lobbyists who
happen to be lawyers, for example, are
exempt). Campaign-finance reform,
which could £undamemally transform
the lobbying culture, plays no part in the
Contract With Amenca. And at a personal level, Newt refuses. even under
-pressure of a lawsuit brought by rhe Federal Election Commission. to disclose
the names of past donors to COPAC, the
most important or his front groups.
At the symbolic level, Newt's behavior
is even more blithe. He has turned a
blind eye to the many Republicans trying
U
NltW YORK
JANTJA.R.Y 3J 1
199)
ro profit by their connections to him.
And he has thrown a lifeline to the
Chost of Republican Sleaze Past, Oberlobbyist Michael Deaver. ln a famous
signpost of the Reagan era, Time in 1986
ieatured the president's fonner imagemeister on its cover. He was shown talk·
ing on a phone from the backseat of his
limousine under the headline WHO'S THIS
MAN CALLING? Deaver's influence-peddling business boomed, but soon afterward, he was indicted for perjury,
convicted, and. sentenced. After performing community service and paying a
$100,000 fine, he quietly returned. to the
lobbying business, joining Edelman Pub·
lie Relations, a finn whose political profile i:S mostly Democratic. And now,
thanks to the Speaker. Deaver's persona
is non trata no more. In recent weeks,
Deaver says, he has ··met with various
people around Newt on a number of
occasions." as he put it, ·~to strate!Jize."
He refused to elaborate.
Gingrich's soigne spokesman Tony
Blankley confirms that he has invited
Oeaver, a ftiena from the Reagan years,
to advise the Speaker's staff on commu~
nications. This should t"aise an eyebrow,
at the very least. Deaver has recently rep·
resented British Airways, the American
Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Prudenrinl, and the governments of India
and Portugal, among others. Will he now
try to exploit the coMection on behalf of
his clients? Oinsrlch himself once raised
a
about James Carville
and other ·Clinton advisers'
having the run of the White
House-Newt complained
that they weren't bound by
all the limitations and regulations that 10 with an actu·
al government job. But
Carville and the others
aren't lobbyists. More
important, they're not
felons. Yet Blankley profess·
es surprise at the suggestion
that there's. a problem.
"Mike Deaver is a fine rnan
who understands the way
the media works in Wash·
ington," he says. Has Deaver
been rehabilitated? "He
didn't need rehabilitating."
Given that attitude, it's lit·
tle wonder that the Republican side of
"rhe influence community." as it has been
called, is flourishing as seldom before.
When Clinton was first elected president,
there was talk of a bidding war for Oemo·
cratic hustlers ~ former Arkansas repre·
sentative Beryl A:lthony Jr. and fonner
Ways and Means Com.Jllittee memb~1
Dennis Eckart of Ohio (who retired from
Congress, he said, out of disgust with "the
system" and then became the mast brazen
of access salesmen). But with the Republi·
can ascendancy on the Hill. Democratic
lobbyists are suddenly obsolete.
Best positioned now are those with
personal ties to the leadership, like the
Senate majority leaders daughter, Robin
Dole. You can't hire her for a one-off
job-she lobbies exclusively on behalf of
Century 21 real estate. But you can retain
Tony Roda, who was a legislative strategist for Gingrich until 1992 and now represents Texaco and Cigna, among others.
(Roda says ·his . bustness is booming.)
Steve Stockmeyer, who describes himself
as an "informal" Gingrich adviser of
rwenry years' standing, is thriving as well.
He says he has resisted offers from lob·
bying "finns that would like to showcase
me," prefening to remain in solo practice. Stoclantyer says with self-mocking
facetiousness that he will work "for anybody who walks through the door who
has a problem I don't gag on.,. But the
biggest kahuna of all is former congressman Vin Weber, a close friend, disciple,
�THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
Internal Transcript
January 13, 1995
INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT
BY THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER EDITORIAL BOARD
Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport
Cleveland, Ohio
2:33 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Anyway, one of the things we're trying
to figure out how in this difficult budget environment, to do it -the Republican Congress like the empowerment zone idea. You know,
Jack Kemp advocated it for years. We modified it some. And I think
our proposal was better, but -- and we did it based on -- partly on
the experience that I've had trying to do the same thing at home as a
governor. But it's the sort of thing that all the economists
basically don't like and they're all wrong; because it's like they
don't -- come back to the IRA, the same thing the IRA -- you know,
they'll say, well, we're just not sure it will make all that much
difference and all that, but what you can't put in an economic model
is when you have a contest for these kind of things, the enerqy that
it brings to a city and the way people work together and they way
they come together across all kinds of lines, and they start to talk
together and work together. It's a stunning thing what it can do for
a community. So I'm going to do my best to get some more of them out
there. We're working on it.
You asked what we could do to monitor it. The whole
purpose of doing it the way we did was to create a partnership that
would be a long-term one. And we have this community empowerment
operation in the White House that the Vice President and Henry
Cisneros chair and work through with all of our other departments.
So we actually have an organized way of trying to keep all of our
federal resources together to try to work with and evaluate what's
going on year by year.
Because, I mean, I really do believe that at some point
if you could demonstrate that the results were far greater than the
investment, that it ought to be made available quite widely to areas
that meet certain criteria, that are in economic distress.
Q
Your goal of trying to get more funds to create
more of these empowerment zones would seem to imply that you don't
anticipate with the change in congress that anyone's going to try to
make moves to rescind what's been put in place or to dismantle it.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I think they'll go after a number of
the things we've done, and they might based on the campaign rhetoric.
But I don't think this will be one of them. I mean, the -- this is
not bureaucratic·, basically local empowerment. It is a tax cut or a
spending program that is targeted only to places where the public
sector and the private sector are cooperating to try to help people
succeed. I mean, it's -- it's a classic example of local
responsibility and the federal government helping people to do what
they have decided to do for themselves. So I'm -- I would be
surprised if they come after this program. Maybe they'll come after
everything, but I think they'll come after some of the, but I'll be
surprised if this doesn't do fine, because it's consistent with at
least what a lot of the future-oriented Republicans have said for
years that they wanted to do.
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�-
2 -
Q
Your effort with the White House Conference on
Trade here and elsewhere underscores your strong interest in
encouraging foreign trade and encouraging exports. Your effort on
NAFTA which the Plain Dealer supported strongly, I might add --
THE PRESIDENT:
heat in Ohio for that.
Q
Thank you for that.
We took some, too.
THE PRESIDENT:
I took a lot of
(Laughter.)
I still think we were right.
Q
On NAFTA, would you give us a little of how you see
what's happening in Mexico impacting on NAFTA?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it could slow down, it could slow
down the benefits of NAFTA a little bit, but it could -- you know,
we've had a great year. We've had a better year than they have with
NAFTA, you know. We are well-positioned, and we've increased by 500
percent auto exports to Mexico, for example. It's been a terrific
year.
Now, I'd like -- maybe I should explain what's happened
in Mexico so you'll understand what's happened and what we're trying
to do. Mexico has a -- our gross domestic product every year is in
the neighborhood of $6 trillion. There's is in the neighborhood of
-- it's actually more than that. There's is in the neighborhood of
$300 billion, or about five percent of our gross domestic product.
And their population is about -- a little under 40 percent of ours,
right at 40 percent of ours.
so you get an idea of -- they're trying to modernize and
grow quickly. They were spending -- their government was spending
more than they were taking in. Their deficit was about eight percent
of their income. To give you an idea of what that is, in the really
bad years in America, it was about five percent, 5.2 percent.
So when a developing country gets a deficit that big, it
has to make some sort of correction, and normally, part of the
correction is they devalue their currency. When they devalue their
currency, their goods get cheaper for foreigners to buy and foreign
goods get more expensive for them to buy. But it basically forces
them to tighten up a little bit and get their budget in order.
Some correction in their currency was in order. But
what happens is now that so much of the -- the world financial
markets now are not just a few banks. There's 100,000 people out
there moving money around like crazy. So what often happens is,
either an upward or a downward trend will get exaggerated by people
speculating about when it will stop instead of making some academic
judgment about what is enough. And that's what happened.
so they basically have a strong democracy. They've got
a good market-oriented economic program. They had to make a modest
correction. They couldn't keep growing quite as fast as they were
growing because too much of it was being financed by debt. But they
took a bigger hit than they should have based on any reasonable
evaluation of their economic condition.
So what we're trying to do is to just help them
stabilize the situation. I think it may slow for a year or two the
rate at which we reap benefits from NAFTA so that we may not be able
to keep going at rip tide like we were in this last year, which was
an unbelievable year for us.
But I still believe there's no
it will be good for us
in every year we're doing it. And over the long run of our
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�- 3 -
relationships with Mexico and Latin America, it's a huge positive
thing.
Q
Besides, Wal-Mart wouldn't want to go into Mexico
because it's a bad deal?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. They don't make many bad deals.
They're pretty smart. (Laughter.)
There's lots of folks down there, you know. It's also
going to -- a stable growing Mexico helps us to deal with our
immigration problem which is a difficult problem for America. It
helps us to deal with our drug problem which is a difficult problem
for us and for them. The stronger they are politically and
economically, the more capable they'll be of helping us to deal with
that problem on their end.
So we're still doing the right thing, and nothing that
has happened in the last few days has shakened my absolute conviction
about that.
You know, when you're -- all these countries struqqling
to reach a level of prosperity that we have taken for granted for
decades and decades, you have to expect some trips alonq the way.
There's not an unbroken line of (inaudible). Nothinq is free of
difficulty. Even our own situation in the last 30 years, you see all
the ups and downs we've been through, and we started with a much
stronger system than a lot of these nations (inaudible).
Q
Mr. President, you've shifted your focus from
health care reform to a middle class tax.cut. How do you-(inaudible) -- such a major shift --
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I disagree with the
question. I mean, I have -- my focus is what I came into the White
House to do. And I expect to have a health care reform proposal to
the congress, and I hope it's one we can pass. I think that there
are two major challenges facing the United States at the close of
this century. And I think the two are related. The first is to
restore the American Dream, not only economically but emotionally, t
restore a sense of real possibility to the American people, to make
everybody in this country believe that we can move forward and that
they can do well if they work hard and really try to do what's
required of them in this new age.
I
The second is to make sure that our country remains the ( }[
strongest country in the world and a real force for peace and
1
prosperity and democracy. Now, to do that, I have worked on three
things -- the same things I talked about when I campaigned. I want
,
to -- I have worked for a new economic policy. I have worked for
what I call the "new covenant," my contract with America, a new
social policy, which would offer more opportunity to people who don't
have it but require more responsibility of them. And I've worked for
a different way of government. I don't agree with the Republicans
that the government's inherently bad and always makes things worse.
But I do agree that we have too much of yesterday's government and we
don't have enough resources focused on what we're going to do
tomorrow.
In 1993, when we were developing the health care
proposal, I sent a budget to the Congress and I told the American
people at the time that I could not grant tax relief to the entire
American middle class because the deficit was bigger than I thought
and because it was important to get it down. So we focused on
providing tax relief to working people with children with incomes
under $25,000. This year it will go to $26,000. By the year 2000 it
will be at $32,000. This year, because of the tax cuts we adopted in
'93, the average family with an income of $26,000 a year or less will
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�- 4 -
have $1,000 lower tax bill. One of the women I had lunch with today
was -- worked at your local hospital and was a single mother
supporting her child, said that her tax bill has been lowered because
of the program. So we did that.
Then last year, we focused on health care because -- and
crime. We passed a crime bill, health care and GATT last year and
all of our education bills but one. So it was a very good year
legislatively even though health care didn't pass.
Now, it's obvious to me that this new Congress is not
going to pass the health care proposal I made last time and that the
people who are doing well in the present system could run up another
$200 or $300 million to reform -- perform reverse plastic surgery on
it and convince people that, you know, I was trying to have the
government take over their health care and all that, which wasn't
true.
So what I want to do with health care this time is to
take it step by step, to start with the thing that Senator Dole said
that he agreed, we agreed on last time -- changes in insurance -- and
then go piece by piece until we achieve what we had to achieve. I
can't walk away from health care because -- for several reasons.
Number one, even though all these changes in the system, including
the reform efforts we made have slowed the rate of inflation in
health care, it's still running at about twice the rate of inflation
for everything else.
Secondly, last year another million Americans in working
families lost their health insurance. This is the only advanced
country in the world where there's a smaller percentage of people
under 65 with health insurance today than there were 10 years ago.
Not something to be very proud of.
And maybe even more fundamental in that there are
millions and millions of people who have health insurance but really
all it means is they're small businesspeople or employees in small
businesses, or they're self-employed people. And what their health
insurance means is if they get sick they won't lose their house.
That's about all it means, because the deductibles and the copays are
so high. So I'm going to stay at it.
We looked at the budget this year -- and we were working
on this budget for months before the election and before I could have
known what it was going to do. And we decided -- I decided, based on
what the numbers were showing me and the cuts we planned to make that
we had an opportunity here to keep control of the deficit, keep the
economic recovery going and give some more relief to working families
and higher income levels.
But I also felt that we shouldn't just throw a tax cut
out there, because it might not have any enduring benefit and that
the tax cuts that we would offer should be d-irected toward the two
most important things from my point of view of restoring the American
Dream, which is middle class incomes and strengthening families,
which is why our program starts with a tax deduction for education
expenses after high school, makes the IRA more widely available to
all of you and says you can with draw it tax-free for education or
health care expenses or care of a parent, and provides extra help for
people with children who are at the age where they -- either need
child care or before/after school care. That's how we focus this.
When I send my budget to the Congress, they will all be
paid for. And I'm going to do my dead-level best in this coming
Congress to get the Congress to focus on not just throwing tax cuts
out there, but controlling the deficit, keeping the recovery going,
and targeting the tax relief to our economic future and to
strengthening our families.
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�- 5 -
So I think all this is perfectly consistent. But I
certainly intend to go forward with health care. I wrote a letter,
by the way, before the first of the year, to Senator Dole and Speaker
Gingrich and to Senator Daschle and Congressman Gephardt and urged
them to work with me to do some more on health.
The last point I didn't make on health care is it's
still the biggest -- the only reason we've got an exploding deficit
still today or any kind of a deficit problem is the way health care
costs have gone up over the last 12 years and the interest we're
paying on the debt we accumulated in the '80s. Otherwise we'd have a
surplus --. If health care had gone up at the rate of inflation plus
population, and the deficit had grown in the '80s at the same rate it
had grown in the '50s and '60s and '70s, we'd have a surplus in the
budget. We wouldn't have a deficit.
Q
Mr. President, some of us sat down with you prior
to becoming President when you were here for the DLC.
THE PRESIDENT:
I remember that.
Q
And we discussed then sort of a more conservative
mood in the Democratic Party. And you were, of course, being -- as a
leader of (inaudible). And I know you have been criticized since
then for kind of losing your way and taking up more liberal causes
and moving more to the left.
And you were seen as a new leader of
the DLC.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it's a bum rap. But I think
they -- that's what they tried to do, and that's what the
I
think there are basically three things that gave rise to that, maybe
more. One was reverse plastic surgery done on the health care bill.
I would remind you that in 1994 -- by the way, the same thing
happened to Harry Truman, who was at 80 percent approval when the
bomb was dropped on Japan, and two years later when he sent health
reform to the congress, the second time was at 36 percent. Exactly
the same thing -- they spent $60 million to convince -- (inaudible)
-- trying to take their doctors away from them and take their quality
of care away. It was all a bunch of bull then, it's a bunch of bull
now, but that happens.
I would remind you on health care, when I started, our
policy was the moderate one. And it was right in the middle of the
three -- there were three proposals for health care reform. There
was a single payer reform, right -- abolish private health insurance,
substitute a tax for it, a payroll tax: and pay for all health care
the way we pay for Medicare. Simple, direct and puts the insurance
industry out of business. And everybody said it was too liberal to
do.
Then there was the Republican plan on which there were a
majority of Republican House -- senators -- a majority of Republican
senators were for universal coverage with a mandate on individual
citizens to buy their own health insurance, like you buy automobile
liability insurance. A majority of the Republicans were for it.
Then there was our plan, which basically says, extend the employerbased plan. But don't take all choices away from employees. Let
them have at least three choices of health care.
And in April of last year, April, the now-chairman of
the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Packwood, said that he and
Senator Moynihan were going to take some of the details and
bureaucracy out of our plan, but they were going to adopt the
employer mandate and cover everybody and it was going to be fine. By
late spring or early summer, not only had they abandoned that
position but the Republican senators had abandoned their own bill.
There were no Republican senators left on their own bill.
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�- 6 -
So what happened was they all moved to the right and got
all the people who wanted and had a vested interest in the status quo
to spend tens of millions of dollars to convince people that my plan
was going to have a -- be a government takeover of health care. So I
can see that my image was thrown out of whack, and which it made me
look like an old Democrat, big government solution, but that wasn't
the reality.
The second problem was the fact that the Republicans
were able to convince large amounts of the American people when they
voted unanimously against the deficit reduction program that their
taxes, their incomes taxes, had gone up, when in fact they hadn't.
And basically they were brilliant at it. All they did was talk about
it, and we worked and passed the bill, then we went onto another
bill. We went onto NAFTA, whereas, you know, what we probably should
have done is taken $30, $40 million and advertised to the American
people what was in the budget so they would have known.
And the third problem was the controversy over the gays
in the military issue and the fact that it came up early in my term.
And what made people mad -- I mean, my position was clear all during
the election, so I don't think it was -- mostly people that were, why
is he bringing that up first? But I didn't bring it up first, they
did. And they were politically smart to do it, but they brought it
up first. It was -- you know, there was a Republican legislative
initiative in the Senate.
And so we had to respond to it, and then that's all
anybody wrote about, even though it was taking about two percent of
our time in the White House. And those three things put me out of
position with millions of Americans who thought I was a mainstream
Democrat. But I would remind you that it's all peanuts compared to
the fact that we have done virtually everything we said we'd do,
except what I couldn't pass through Congress.
We did reduce the deficit. We did eliminate 100
programs. There are 100,000 fewer people working for the federal
government than there were before. We have reinvented the government
in many ways. We do have all these jobs. We do have -- I do have
government in partnership.
These people that are over here at this economic
program today for Central Europe were clapping when I said that the
economic team we put together with the Commerce Department, at the
Import-Export Bank and at the overseas Investment Corporation was the
best economic team that's done more for American business than any
one in history. And they all roared because they know it's true.
It's a -- that, you know, I think we have proved that you can be proworker and pro-business.
so we passed family leave. We passed the Brady bill.
We passed the assault weapons ban. Thomas Patterson, a presidental
scholar from Syracuse, says that I've kept a higher percentage of my
c~nmitments than the last five presidents.
So I think I have done
just what I said I'd do.
Now, you know, I may have been better at governing than
I was at politics the last two years, but I think that we can't lose
sight of the fact that if even if there's a gap between image and
reality, reality counts, too.
about -that you
election
national
Q
Mr. President, in light of what you just talked
the things that are important to you and that you've proven
want to go on, given this last, the results of this last
-- what do you do to try to reestablish control of the
debate over national priorities in politics?
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THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that we're doing right
well at that, you know. Reality, first of all, it's intruding. And
that's a great help. Reality is on my side now.
I mean, we had -- let me give you an example. We had -our administration testified on welfare reform last week before the
House Ways and Means Committee. And they said, you know -- and there
basically are two Republican plans and our plan on welfare reform.
And our plan requires young people -- particularly
young, single people receiving welfare -- to stay in school, live at
home and move toward work in return for the benefits; and ends -within two years after the education is over, says you've got to be
in the work force and terminates benefits if there's a job available
and you don't take it; and provides some help to get those jobs
available; and also gives wide latitude to the states to pursue their
own reforms. We've already given 24 states permission to pursue
their own welfare reform.
They have two plans. one of their plans ends welfare
for two years whether you've got a job or not, and, in the most
extreme form, doesn't' give any benefits to people who are under 18
who have children and their children -- ever, until they're 18. Then
their less extreme plan puts welfare and food stamps in a block
grant, gives it to the states and caps it for five years so it can't
increase.
Well, it turns out, last week when we did the hearing
that a lot of the members of Congress decided the more they learned
about this program, the more they liked our program better. I'm not
saying they'll adopt my plan; they'll never do that. They'll have to
say it's theirs. (Laughter.)
I think we'll have -- I'm saying what I think you'll
have is a -- a lot of these folks will be quite responsible, and they
will be dealing with -- a lot of them are new, and they're dealing
with things that they have talked about but may not know everything
about they'd like to know. And the more they learn, the more I think
that the debate will come together, and I hope will become more
substantive and less political.
on the question of the balanced budget amendment, you
see now it's slowed up in the House. Why? Because the Democrats
took the position that the state legislatures of America were
entitled to know what would happen to their states if they voted for
the balanced budget amendment and what would happen if they voted for
the balanced budget amendment and they got the tax cuts in the
contract with America -- a simple little right-to-know bill. But
it's gotten the debate -- there's a debate going now. We're really
discussing this in a serious way.
When I went to Galesburg, Illinois, the other day -that's a town with a Republican mayor -- and talked about my Middle
Class Bill of Rights, I found a lot of interest in it. One of the
first bills introduced in this session of Congress was our bill to
collapse all the job training programs the federal government has and
make workers eligible when they're unemployed just to get a chit from
the federal government worth up to, worth $2,600 at least, two years,
and take it to the training institution of their choice.
So a lot of the things that I'm working for are moving
back into the national debate. And then we'll have the State of the
Union and I'll have a chance to have my say, and then the bill
passing will start. And, you know, we're in a pretty strong position
in the Congress, particularly in the Senate. We're in a better
position in the Senate now than the Republicans were last time, and
we have the White House.
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And my position, of course, will be different than the
Democratic Congress on some things, but I feel -- you know, I've
worked on this welfare issue for 15 years. I care a lot about it. I
have no problem with being part of the national debate. I think our
health care bill, our welfare bill, our Middle Class Bill of Rights,
and our budget will all be a major part of the national agenda.
Now, in previous years, presidents' budgets -- except in
'91 with President Reagan's budget -- were always dead on arrival in
congress because Congress was Democratic and the president was
Republican, but also because the budgets were political documents.
The numbers didn't add up. Our numbers will add up.
So they will pass a different budget. They'll use a lot
of the work we've done. They'll take a lot of the budget cuts we've
taken. I'll be able to argue to them that you can cut the budget and
still increase education, and in a global society where what you know
and what you can learn determines your capacity to earn and to grow,
it's crazy to cut education funding. And I think, you know, we'll
have a good argument about that. I think we'll have a real debate
about it.
So I'm not worried about being left out of the debate.
I'm kind of looking forward to having other people have to take a
little responsibility, too.
Q
Mr. President, there seems to be a growing
consensus from both inside and outside Russia that Boris Yeltsin
might not be the right person to lead the nation at this time. Are
you concerned that the united States may have aligned itself too
closely with Yeltsin himself as president?
THE PRESIDENT: No, No, for two reasons. One is all
settled democracies deal with the leaders chosen by the people of
other countries. You know, we'll have a new president of France
soon. I'll deal with the new president of France as I have the old
president of France. Boris Yeltsin was elected by the people of
Russia to a term of office. And there is no other person with whom
the United States could properly deal as the leader of Russia. He is
the President of Russia.
Secondly, we have no evidence, in spite of all of the
things that are going on there, that would indicate that he's not
still in control of the policy of the executive branch. And thirdly,
of all the realistically available alternatives at each turn in the
road, at least since I've been President, he still has been the
strongest supporter of democracy and the strongest supporter of
reform.
So I do not believe that we have erred in our support
for him. We have -- differed from him and we have criticized him
from time to time, our government has and I have. And he has
criticized us from time to time when we've differed. But I think we
followed the proper policy there.
I think, you know, this is the first -- the year we just
passed is the first holiday season since the.dawn of the nuclear age
when there were no Russian missiles pointed at America. And we have
made a lot of progress in denuclearizing our relationship and trying
to privatize their economy and trying to get the nuclear weapons out
of the other former Soviet republics. And we have cooperated on a
lot of fronts. So I think on balance, even though we have our
differences, the policy has clearly been the correct one.
They'll have another election in the course of time.
And if their democracy keeps going, and they elect another president,
and whoever is president of United states when they elect another
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president will deal with their president.
operate.
That's the way countries
Q
Mr. President, there has been and there's likely to
be some more debate on the role of the United Nations. What mission
do you see for the United Nations in this new world order, as it's
been called? And to what extent are you willing to commit the United
States to carry out those missions?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the United States has strongly
supported the United Nations and has led certain United Nations
operations from time to time. I think inevitably the U.N. will be
used more and more to try to avert all the wars or limit their reach
or be involved in peacekeeping or be involved in humanitarian
missions. Some will work and some won't. And if you make enough
decisions in that area, just like every other area, there will be
some errors made. some will be good decisions.
Our role will be different from place to place. For
example, in the case of Bosnia, where in 1991 before I became
president, a decision was made that the Europeans would take the
lead, a decision that I supported and that the Europeans wanted.
They took the lead in the U.N. mission there, but the u.s. provides
an enormous amount of support for the U.N. mission in Bosnia. We
have several hundred troops in Macedonia. We have enormous amount of
naval power committed to that. We run a hospital in Zagreb. We are
supporting the U.N. mission there.
We were actively involved -- we went into Somalia and
then handed it over to the U.N. We went into Haiti, and we're going
to hand it over to the U.N., but we'll still be a major part of that
one and will have an American commander there.
So I think there will be differences from time to time.
In that last Congress, and I presume in the coming Congress, we'll
have trouble getting congressional support to fund our portion of the
peacekeeping obligation. But I think it's a good deal for us. I
mean, we are the only superpower in the world, but we need to be
careful. We need to husband our power as well as to use it in the
appropriate way. And when we contribute to U.N. peacekeeping and
when others share these things with us, they lower the cost of the
operations dramatically to the United States, and they enable us to
share the burden of dealing with the world's problems with other
countries that are willing to assume some of those burdens.
So I think on balance we should continue to support the
United Nations and the United Nations peacekeeping functions, which
is not to say that I think there shouldn't be plenty of times when we
say no we can't do this, no we can't do that; we'll only do this if
the troops are under American command. You know, there will be
things we'll say from time to time. But on balance, we should want a
more vigorous and more effective United Nations. And we should
support that.
Q
Mr. President, by controlling the governors'
offices, the Democrats over the years have been able to control key
states.
And now that Republican governors have taken over some of
those key states, like Texas and New York, and the Ohio Democratic
Party is in shambles, especially after the last election, how do you
hope to overcome those obstacles, to bring your party to victory in
1 96.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, in 1 96 -- we lost Texas and Florida
where we had Democratic governors and we won Michigan and Ohio, where
we had very popular Republican governors. And so I think the voters
-- I think what you have to have in every state is a group of
enthusiastic supporters who will work in an organized and disciplined
fashion to try to get the maximum number of your voters out. But be
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sure it matters who the governor is, it always matters. But
basically people are pretty independent in their judgments about who
should be president. And a president is hurt most only if there's no
strong support for him. And I remember one time in 1984, I think it
was, President Reagan was running for reelection and I was up for
reelection in Arkansas. He got 59 percent and I got 62 percent. A
lot of the same people were voting for both of us. And I think it -you know, what happens to our administration depends more than
anything else on what I do and what we do.
How do you expect -- I mean, you won Ohio narrowly
in the last election. There really is not much of an organization,
as Evelyn pointed out, left in Ohio. You have to, a, rebuild some
sort of a party organization clearly in this state, but you also have
to somehow appeal again to Ohio voters. What kind of strategy do you
have?
Q
THE PRESIDENT: Again, I think, you know, my feeling is
that I'll have a better shot at that now because instead of just
throwing rocks from the peanut gallery, the Republicans now have to
assume some responsibility for making these decisions they spent all
their time talking about. And I have offered to work with them. A
lot of the things they say they're for I have offered to support and
that I was supporting. You know, a lot of the things they say
they're for I'm sort of welcoming them to the club. I mean, we
started the reduction of government. We started the reduction in the
deficit with no help from them, I might add. We -- I have always
been for a line-item veto. There are some things they say they're
for that I couldn't get through the Democratic Congress. So I'm just
going to keep working with them, and we'll see what happens.
But I think it is fruitless right now to worry about the
next election. I'm just going to do what I think is the right thing
for the country and see what happens.
I know one thing -- Ohio's in a lot better shape today
than it was the day I became President. And the decisions I have
made as President have had some impact on that. The lion's share of
the credit goes to the people of Ohio and to the work they've done to
be competitive in a global economy. But we've made good decisions.
And this state is better off because our administration's been there
for the last two years as compared with what their alternatives were.
And if that is still the truth in 1996, chances are
they'll decide that. I'm just not going to worry about it. I've
just got to keep working doing my job.
Q
Mr. President, the things that you do need to -(inaudible) -- what are the items in the Republican contract for
America that if they pass that you're willing, or think that you
would be willing to veto?
·
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't want to get to the
specific items. Let me just walk through the -- let me walk through
wnat my principles are. First of all, in evaluating all these
proposals, not only those proposals but others from -- and from the
Democrats as well, does it advance the incomes and the values and the
interests of the vast majority of the American people? Does it help
to restore the American Dream? Does it help to guarantee that our
country's going to be the strongest country in the world moving into
the next century?
If the answer is yes, then I'll try to find a way to be
for it. If the answer -- if they're moving in a direction that I
think is generally right but I think the policy is wrong and the
details, I'll do my best to work it out with them.
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11 -
Like on welfare reform, we need to change the welfare
system, but I don't necessarily agree with the specifics of what they
propose. But I think -- I will work with them, and I hope they'll
work with me.
As I said, there are a lot of intelligent people of
goodwill who are in this Congress and the Republican Party. And if
they really will govern, if they will use their power with some
humility, just as I will try to use mine, we can work together and do
some things.
The things that I don't think are acceptable I'll just
say -- I'll give you three. I think it would be a big mistake to run
the risk of messing up the recovery by letting the deficit get out of
hand to pay for a tax cut-- tax cuts that aren't paid for. I.think
that's a mistake. I think it would be a mistake to reverse the
things that the Democrats did that the Republicans opposed last time
that are critical to our recovery.
I'll just mention some that either a majority or all of
them voted against. I think it would be a mistake to repeal the
Brady Bill. I think it would be a mistake to repeal the assault
weapons ban. I think it would be a mistake to repeal the family
leave bill. I think it would be a mistake to repeal the college loan
program that will enable us over a period of just a few years to
offer 20 million Americans lower cost college loans on better
repayment terms. I think it would be a mistake to repeal those, to
reverse the increases we made in Head Start funding, in the
apprenticeship programs for non-college bound young people. I think
it would be a mistake to reverse those things.
And I think it would be -- the third category is, I
would think, I believe -- again, in the category of "I'll work with
you, but we've got to be careful," --I strongly believe that we need
to take another look at government regulation in this country and
that we need some relief from regulatory burdens in some areas. But
I think that the statements in the Republican Contract go way too
far. So I hope we can work on that, but it's going to depend on the
details.
We've had -- again, we've been working for months, since
long before the election on this whole issue of government
regulation. And in the last two years, we've deregulated intrastate
trucking and banking and -- but not the insurance. We didn't make
the mistake they did with the S&Ls. We deregulated a lot of banking,
but not the accountability that goes with having government-insured
accounts.
And we deregulated the states to a large extent. Like I
said, we gave 24 states permission to pursue their own welfare
reform. We gave nine states permission to pursue comprehensive
health care reform. And I think there ar~ a lot of other regulations
that we should change.
We turned the Small Business Administration loan
application from 22 pages to one, I think. Now you get an answer
within three days instead of several months. We stripped down a lot
of government regulations, and we ought to do some more. And this is
an area where the Republicans with good business backgrounds could
work with us, and we could make some real positive headway that would
be good for America.
But I do not believe that the specifics outlined in the
Contract on regulation would find favor with the American people.
And I certainly couldn't go along with a lot of it.
Q
Speaking of the contract, there's a lot of
increased speculation that the Speaker of the House may indeed run
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for president.
1 96?
How would you rate him as a potential adversary in
THE PRESIDENT: I think we ought to give him a chance to
do his job and just show -- see how he does his job. You know, I -like I said, I ran with a certain set of commitments on behalf of the
American people. I'll be able to go out and say, if nothing else
happens, according to -- as I said, according to people who've looked
at it, that I've kept a higher percentage of my commitments than the
last several presidents.
What's going to be in the balanced budget amendment?
Will the people be told what's in it? Are they going to pass term
limits, and if they are, are they going to say we need term limits
desperately now so we're only going to apply them in the future and
not to ourselves? I mean, are they going -- there are a lot of
issues they have to deal with, you know. We're going to govern
together now.
By the way, I was told yesterday -- this surprised me
that I will now become the 26th of our 42 presidents, beginning with
George Washington, to be president with a congress with the majority
the other party. It's amazing, isn't it?
I saw a survey about a month after I became president
which said almost 60 percent of the American people thought that in
general the President and the Congress should always be of opposite
parties. We're about to figure out if they're right or not.
(Laughter.) But I'm going to do my best to work with them and to
help the Speaker succeed as Speaker. I think that's what the
American people want us to do. And I'm going to do my best to do it.
Q
What role is Mrs. Clinton going to play? In health
-- will she have a role in health care or in any other issue? She's
been a controversial figure the first two years.
THE PRESIDENT: I think only because of the health care
thing, you know. She became kind of a lightning rod because of what
happened in health care. And I think took a lot of unfair criticisms
and got -- you know, I thought my state was more conservative than
the country as a whole was, and I still think it is substantively.
The problem is, when you're in Washington, people don't
really get to know you or see you, and it's easy to turn you into a
cardboard cutout of a person. And I think a part of the strategy of
the forces that wanted to keep the health care system just the way it
is -- which is in a mess financially -- was, you know, to kind of
raise questions about her and her role and how she did it.
My own view is that there are a lot worse things to fail
at doing than trying to make sure every kid in this country has got
health care. And I'm really proud of what she tried to do, and I
think she did it pretty well. The same thing happened to her and to
me that happened to Harry Truman. That's all I can tell you. We
went up against the same forces four decades later, except then it
was the AMA, and this time it's most of the insurance industry. We
had more than half the physician groups for,us this time.
But I would hope that she will continue to be very
active. That's in part up to her. But we've talked about a number
of things that she might do, and I think that's up to her. This was
up to her. She agreed to take this on, and didn't much want to do
it.
Q
Do you think that Mrs. Gingrich owes her an
apology?
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THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I've said enough about that. You
know what? They're up there -- they're in the White House together
today, meeting his mama at the White House today while we're here.
(Laughter.) Do you think they're having more fun than we are?
(Laughter.)
Q
Are missing that you're not there?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I kind of wish I were there. You
know, there is a way in which you can overdo this compulsion to
abolish the line between what people say and do in public and what
they might say in private. I mean, I've said everything I had to say
about that.
You know, we live these lives under great stress. You
get great combat. And your mother -- if your mother's not on your
side, who is? (Laughter.) If you can't depend on your mother to get
in the foxhole with you, and make your enemies, you know, not the
best. I mean, who can you depend on? I just think it's -Q
You've made the case, and Ron Brown was making the
case that you've got an economy that by many measurements is growing.
You've got -- some 6 million new jobs have been created. You've got
the unemployment down and you've, as you point out, trimmed about
$700 billion from the budget deficit. And yet, a number of people
talk about people not feeling like things are better. What do you
attribute that to?
THE PRESIDENT: I think there are several reasons. And
I think this is a part -- not all -- but a part of the story for the
last election. And we not only need a different -- you know, some
changes in government, we've got to figure out -- we have to
determine how we really speak to people about the economy and what
. their expectations are and how people like me can level with them
about what we can do and what they have to do and what the time lag
is.
But I would say, first and foremost, there are two big
factors at work here. One is that the same pressures that have given
us the first investment-led recovery with no inflation in 30 years -we've got the lowest inflation in 30 years, adding almost 6 million
jobs, is unheard of. And those same pressures that are keeping
inflation down are keeping wages down.
And they are essentially two. One is dramatic increases
in productivity. I was talking to the leader of the good Ohio
company, the Dana (phonetic) Corporation the other day who told me -I hope I'm not speaking out of school -- he just signed a major
contract with one of his major business partners to sell them their
product by reducing the price of the product every year for the next
three years. That is, they know that productivity is going up so
much that they can lower the price and still maintain or increase
their profit margin. Well, if you're doing.that, if you're producing
more with the same labor, that holds price down, and it also holds
wages down.
The second thing is that there is. enormous pressure from
competition, both within the United States and from foreign
competitors. And many of them live in countries where they can work
-- where people work for wages we can't live on. And that also has a
deterring impact on prices •. But it doesn't even matter if it's for
low wages. Let me just give you one example. In late '93 we began
this huge housing boon, you know, because interest rates got way
down. And people started building houses all over America like
crazy. So the lumber markets got tight, and the price of lumber
started going up. And arguably, you know, the profit margins had
gotten big enough and all those people in that business would turn
around and give their workers a healthy pay raise.
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Well, immediately, more Canadian imports starting coming
in. Well, the good news was everybody that buys houses instead of
builds them were able to go on and buy houses at a lower price. The
bad news was that the people in that particular business didn't get
the profit margins they might have had to pay wage increases. So
that's the first thing.
The second thing-- (inaudible) --is that there is.a
bigger education premium in jobs than ever before, because so many
more jobs are information-based, and not just people in the
information business. I just went duck hunting with a bunch of
farmers who have been friends of mine for 20 years. Every one of
them knows more about computers than I do. Every one of them is more
computer literate than I am. They use computers and software. They
decide when to plant, when to spray, when to harvest, what's going to
happen -- information. And so they -- there's a education premium
there. And as a result they have -- as a result, for the millions
and millions of Americans who work hard and don't have a college
degree, in the competitive environment I just -- it's harder for them
to get a pay raise.
so you know, you read -- in the last election there was
this -- this so-called phenomenon of the angry white male. Well,
there's an objective reason for that. The average male without a
college degree is working a longer work week for a lower wage,
adjusted for inflation, than he was making 15 years ago. More likely
to be without health insurance, paying more, if he's got it, for
health care and for housing and education. Much less disposable
income. And on top of that, most American adults, according to the
survey I read last week, are sleeping about an hour a night less than
they were 20 years ago. If that's not enough to make you mad, I
don't know what-- (laughter).
I mean, there's a real -- in other words, there's a
great -- and times have changed. It's exhilarating if you're riding
-- (inaudible) -- wave. If you're riding the wave of change, it's
exhilarating. You look out to the future and all things seem
possible and your life is more exciting because it's changing, you
know. But if you're in the undertow, then all you see is all the
underpinnings of your life coming out from under you.
I mean, we just passed a bill that nobody in America
knows about but I'm going to try to get some publicity next week,
along with GATT, to try to fix the pension system so 8.5 million
Americans whose pensions are at risk. And like I said, we're losing
about million Americans every year. from the health insurance pool. A
lot of Americans can't imagine how they're going to send their
children to college, which is why I put so much emphasis on it.
So that's what's going on now in America. There's
always some good stuff and all this scary st'lff. And then there are
all the people that are behind the wake all together, which is why I
did this. I believe in the empowerment zone. I mean, the
fundamental problem in all these big urban areas and in the poor
rural areas -- the Mississippi Delta between Memphis and New Orleans,
including my state, is still the poorest place in America; and it's
the same thing you find in the inner cities -- is there are people
who basically have -- don't feel like they have much hope or much
future, can't imagine how they're either going to get out or bring
something good in.
And what this empowerment zone idea is is just -- my
passionate effort to try to bring something good in. I mean, you
know, we've had a caribbean Basin Initiative, we've had NAFTA, we've
had this, that and the other thing. We say it's good for us if
Mexico does well. One of our biggest markets is all around America,
it's all these poor people who ought to be working, who ought to be
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getting education, who ought to be more successful in raising their
children, who ought to be looking at books instead of doing drugs -all this stuff that's happening in America. That's our biggest block
of human potential, people that aren't on the upside, and people that
don't even feel the wave change because they weren't in it in the
first place.
And I think, you know -- so, again, what we need in this
country is not a bunch of rhetoric about just bad-mouthing the
government or bad-mouthing our opponents, we need to take a hard
look. We've got all these people in this country. We have the
strongest economy in the world. We're in the best defense posture
we've been in since the second world war. We have more opportunity
to create a more peaceful world.
But the props are coming out from under a lot of
Americans. And then there are a lot of others that are still left
behind. And the business of government in a time when government
needs to -- is more limited, is still to be strong and effective in
trying to create the conditions in which people can change their own
lives. And whether we've got a Republican Congress or a Democratic,
people can change their own lives.
And whether we've got a Republican Congress or a
Democratic Congress, or whatever words we're using, that's still just
a plain fact. That's the great challenge for this country. And I
think the federal government has a significant role to play in that,
and my job is to try to play it. I'm doing the best I can.
Q
Mr. President, you've been very generous with your
time. Maybe from our group if there's one more question. Anybody
got a final question?
Q
Cleveland a lot.
Mr. President, we can't help but notice you come to
(Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: As much as I love to come here, I came
twice more than I thought I would this year. I mean, unrelated to
what I normally do, we picked Cleveland for this conference because
more than any other -- presidents have meetings like this, you know.
All presidents do.
I try to have my meetings outside of Washington. I've
tried -- like I had the Summit of the Americas in Miami because that
was the city in America that had the highest percentage of people
from the most different kinds of Caribbean and Latin American
countries. And we had this meeting here because you've got all these
folks here from Central and Eastern European countries. So, anyway,
go ahead.
Q
I was just wondering, maybe, does it seem to do you
some good to get outside of Washington?
THE PRESIDENT: Lots of good. (Laughter.) Lots of
good. I told somebody the other day, if all I knew about me was what
I heard on the radio or saw in the evening news, I might not support
me either. (Laughter.)
No, it does -- you know, it does you a lot of good to do
what I did today, just go out and having lunch with those folks.
Today at lunch I met a young man who was an immigrant from Britain to
work for a company that is a diversified company, that's been a
defense contractor, but changing; and another young man who was with
him, and they worked on manufacturing equipment. And I met two
wonderful women who work at your local hospital here, that big
hospital that's partly county and partly -Q
Metro.
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�- 16 -
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. They were fascinating. And one of
them worked treating people with child abuse. And I met a 70-yearold man that had retired and went back in business for himself, at
the age of 70, opened a bakery. And I just sat there and had lunch
with them, you know. It was unbelievable. It was wonderful.
When I was a governor, I did that kind of stuff all the
time. And one of the biggest challenges of the presidency is to
avoid becoming isolated. It's a challenge for me. The American
people also have new challenges, interestingly enough, in the
information age. I was telling -- we were talking about it around
the table, you know, because this guy said, well, you don't seem
anything like what you're-- (laughter.) I was laughing with him.
But if you think about -- that's one reason newspapers
are so important, by the way. You think about this. Think about how
most people who live in Cleveland or Ohio get their political
information. I mean, I was raised -- you know, my mother raised me
to say, you've got to vote, you've got to be a good citizen, you've
got to be informed. As soon as I was old enough to read, they put a
paper in front of me when I was a little boy. You know, the idea
was, go get information. You've got to get information.
Now the problem most voters have is they have too much
information. And it's coming at them nine ways from Sunday, you
know, all different directions. And out of all this blizzard of
stuff they're hearing, they've got to decide what's true, what's
false, what's fair, what's twisted, what's important, what's not
important.
It's not easy to be an effective citizen today, not
because you don't have information but because you've got too much.
And the one thing about the written word is, it forces you to
organize it in ways that people can digest. I mean, it's going to be
real interesting to me to see what happens to newspapers 10 years
from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, as this whole
information explosion continues.
What were you going to give, one more question?
Q
We just spent $200 million that it's going to be
around for quite a while. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: I'll make a prediction. I mean, I think
you've got to be careful because newspapers -- you have decisions to
make about how editorial, how straight the news stories be. You have
the
all kinds of judgment calls to make. But keep in mind
fundamental problem that your readers have as citizens is how to
organize the information they have.
How should it -- how to put it into context. First you
need truth in it, true facts; then you need the proper context; then
you need some way of -- (gap in feed) -- importance of things.
That's really hard stuff to do, and that's why I think newspapers .
will be important forever now because -- (gap in feed) -- think the
reverse reason. They're important now -- (gap in feed) -- because
people had too little.
Anyway, go ahead.
Q
What would you change if you look back at the last
two years?
THE PRESIDENT:
Q
What would I change?
Yes, in terms of your actions?
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�- 17 -
THE PRESIDENT: I would spend much more -- well, first
of all, I think, there are some substantive things I would change.
You know, I would -- but on balance, I think our economic policy's
been good for the country and our foreign policy's been good for the
country.
And the fights that I fought, bloody though they were,
and they cost a lot, the fight for the assault weapons ban caused 20
members their seat in Congress. It is the -- the NRA is the reason
the Republicans control the House today. I can't believe nobody's
written a story, but it is; partly because our guys didn't know how
to fight it. If they'd all done what Bob Kerrey did, almost all of
them would have survived.
But, nonetheless, we -- and we all say we want the tough
decisions to be made, but sometimes we're kidding. Like deficit
reduction, like that first economic package -- you know that if you
took a poll, everybody would say they're for it. But if you took a
poll with people -- (gap in feed) -- they thought everybody ought to
go to the dentist, they'd be for that, too. (Laughter.) And then if
you told them, well, you've got an appointment at 7:00 tomorrow
morning, they'd have a totally different view of it. (Laughter.)
So I think that -- I mean I would make some changes in
the economic program. I would make some changes, you know, I would
make some changes. But the thing I think that I have learned the
most about is that a president must give much greater care to the
presentation of all things to the people.
·
And I don't -- and this is more than just saying
communications or bad press -- I'm talking about me now. I'm not
blaming anybody else for this. I'm talking about -- people are busy.
Their lives are crowded. They are subject to all kinds of competing
forces. And they are the ultimate arbiters and deciders of what
happens in this country.
And the presentation of the presidency to them and the
communication link that exists between the president and the people
is a precious thing. And it is much more difficult to develop and
maintain and much more easy to distort than I had imagined so that a
mistake that I make -- which may be small in terms of. its actual
impact on people -- might loom larger than doing 100 things right
that will actually do more good for people over the long run.
And the most important thing that I have is not to be
popular or not to have everybody with me, but it is to try to
understand the American people first, and then to be understood by
them so that there is a connection so that people, when they are
making judgments, they at least are making good judgments and so am
I. So I think that there are some specific things that I would do
differently.
But the most important thing I think is, I would give
much greater care to how I handle things when I think that something
is out there in the atmosphere that's going to throw me all out of
harmony with the American people and make it harder for me to
communicate with them. Because I think that when the president gives
up his ability to reach people that he's fighting for, then you give
up something really precious. And I think I let that happen too
often in the last two years.
Again, I'm not blaming anybody else for that. I'm
saying that's a mistake I made, and I think that was more important
than any specific error of judgment I might have made on any
particular issue. Because I think most Americans are smart enough to
figure out that I have to make so many decisions on so many different
things, I can't be right all the time. And at least I'm up there
going to bat every day and I'm trying to take on the tough issues and
I'm trying to get it done.
�- 18 -
But I have learned a great deal about the difference in
communicating with people across the vast expanse and with all the
intermediaries that are between me and the people in a country of 260
million as opposed to a small state of 2.5 million. It's a huge
difference. And I knew it intellectually, but I didn't feel it. It
wasn't in my bones like it is now.
And I can now look back on the last two years and see
time after time after time when I let things happen that I should
have known, that I would know now, would reverberate in a way that
or I'd say something or do something or I would be accused of saying
or doing something I didn't do -- and it would just go out there and
it would reverberate in a way that would just get in the way of my
being president in a personal way to all those people, like those
folks that I had lunch with today.
And I think I'll -- I just decided after the election
I went off and gave a lot of thought to it and really sat alone for a
long time and read a lot of things about it -- and I decided the best
thing for me to do was just to relax, do what I thought was right and
try to make sure that at least I was connecting with the American
people so that if they if they didn't agree with me, that would be
fine, but at least they would know. I think I missed that a little
bit the first two years.
Q
American people?
How do you do that?
How do you connect with the
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you have to -- it's not
necessarily by working harder or traveling more. one thing you have
to do is make fewer mistakes. You've got to be sensitive to how
things come across, you know. I mean, we don't have time for me to
go into it, but you just -- little things.
Sometimes when you're a long way from folks, little
things can get big and big things can get little, and things can get
all turned upside down. And the president -- if you want the
president to be -- not me, not just me, anybody -- you've got to
somehow keep enough of a connection between people so at least
they'll -- they won't think that, they won't have kind of a warped
view of you and what you're trying to do, and they'll know what's
going on -- at least on the big stuff.
year.
And I think there are -- we'll see if I do better this
You'll be able to make a judgment on that. I'll do my best.
THE PRESS:
Thank you.
END
3 : 3 2 P • M.
EST
�-
..
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
Embargoed for Release
Until 10:06 A.M. EST
Saturday, January 14, 1995
RADIO ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE NATION
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Let me begin by saying
that Hillary and I send our prayers and our good wishes to all the
families who are suffering in the terrible California floods. our
administration is doing everything in our power to make sure you get
the relief you need. And I pledge to you that the American people
will stand by you in this time of crisis as they have in the past.
On Monday, we'll all celebrate the life of Dr. Martin
Luther King on what would have been his 66th birthday. Dr. King was
one of the great moral prophets of our time. He never held public
office, but no one ever did more to redeem the promise of American
life or stir the soul of our nation.
cine of Martin Luther King's greatest lessons was that
every American deserves a piece of the American Dream, the chance the
pull ourselves up and work our way into the middle class. He taught Jl
\} us that we have more uniting us than dividing us; that no matter our I
race, our religion, our income, we all share the same hope of
building better lives for ourselves and ~ur children.
The most important civil right is the right to dream the
American Dream and to have the opportunity to live it. I ran for
president because I feared we were in danger of losing that right.
At a moment of great change in our history, as we move from the
Industrial Age i~to the Information Age, as we end the Cold War and
move into the global economy of the 21st century, I believe our
purpose has to be to keep the American Dream alive for all Americans.
To do that, I have fought for three things. First, a
new economic strategy to·help our people compete and win in the new
global economy; second, a new covenant with the American people that
offers more opportunity to everyone willing to assume personal
responsibility for their own lives; and third, a new kind of
government -- a leaner, but not a meaner government that cuts
yesterday's programs and bureaucracy to make room for tomorrow's
solutions, rooted in responsibility, empowerment of our citizens, the
strength of our communities.
In two years we've made a good start. We have a strong
economy with 5.6 million new jobs. We've made historic cuts in the
deficit, enough to.take $11,000 in debt off of every family's future.
We've cut the size of government. There are 100,000 fewer people
working for the federal government than there were on the day I
became President. And we've made lots of programs more efficient and
more effective. And we've offered the American people new
opportunities that demand more responsibility, from more affordable
college loans, to the family leave program, to giving our local
communities the resources they need to lower the crime rate.
But despite this progress, too many Americans are still
working harder for less. They don't have the security they need and
deserve because they work hard and play by the rules. As we face the
challenges of the 21st century, too many Americans remain in danger
of falling behind or fear that they will still be left behind as they
have been in years past.
"'·
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- 2 -
That's why I proposed the Middle Class Bill of Rights,
which might be better called the Middle Class Bill of Rights and
Responsibilities. It gives Americans the chance to arm themselves
for the new economy and to lift their incomes. It gives middleclass families the opportunities they need to raise their childran,
pay for college, save money for the things families need, and get the
training and skills they need to prosper.
It offers a tax deduction for all education after high
school. It offers lower taxes for families with young children. It
offers an individual retirement account with tax-free withdrawals for
costs other than retirement that are devoted to the future -- costs
for education, for health care, for care of an elderly parent, for
buying a first home. And it offers a training account of over $2,600
for those who are unemployed or who are lower-wage workers who want
to get more skills to improve their own futures.
This program furthers all three of my objectives. It
helps all of us to meet the challenges of the new economy. It helps
us to build that new covenant of opportunity in return for
responsibility. And it cuts government and changes the way it works
to make it more modern, less bureaucratic, more flexible, more
focused on personal empowerment. I hope the new Congress will pass
the Middle Class Bill of Rights, and I welcome anyone else's ideas
that advance these same goals.
In the new Congress, my test will be: Does an idea·
expand middle class incomes and opportunities? Does it promote
values like family and work, responsibility and community? Does it
contribute to strengthening the new economy and to building a better
future for all of us? If it does, I'll be for it, no matter who
proposes it. And if it doesn't, I'll oppose it.
One of the best examples of what we're trying to do is
something we've already begun to do -- our national service program,
AmeriCorps. It helps those who helps themselves and America. It
says, take responsibility to serve your country at the grass-roots
level, and we'll give you the opportunity to get the education you·
need to build a better future for yourself. Already there are 20,000
Americorps volunteers serving their communities while earning money
for college. There are more people now in AmeriCorps in this year
than ever served in the Peace corps in a single year.
on Monday, Martin Luther King Day, I've called for a
National Day of Service. And AmeriCorps volunteers will be hard at
work all across our country rebuilding a school in Atlanta,
rebuilding housing in Memphis, helping the flood victims in Los
Angeles. I hope you will join them because the idea and the ideal of
service -- service to country, service to community, service to our
fellow citizens -- is central to our nation's future.
Dr. King's most profound lesson was that in America,
"me" depends on "we." As he said, "We are all caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality tied into a single garment-of
destiny." In the end, we will rise or fall together. Martin Luther
King knew that we all have to do our part. What he wanted was for
all Americans to have not a hand-out, but a hand-up. That's what the
National Day of Service is all about.
Of course, there are no guarantees that the future will
be easy for all of us. We will face great challenges. But if we'll
all join together and do our part as citizens, we can -- we can
receive the American Dream that Martin Luther King envisioned.
Thanks for listening.
END
�PAGE
1ST STORY of Level
l.
2
printed in FULL format.
Copyright 1994 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
August 28, 1994, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 1; Page 1; Column 3; National Desk
LENGTH: 1974 words
HEADLINE: THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE: WASHINGTON POSTMORTEM;
With Health Overhaul Dead, A Search for Minor Repairs
BYLINE:
By ADAM CLYMER,
Special to The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Aug. 27
BODY:
After a year of arguing that making incremental changes in the health care
system would make a bad situation worse, the Clinton Administration and its
allies are now scrambling to contradict themselves.
They have to, since they acknowledge that Congress will not pass a bill
providing health insurance for all Americans by a specified date, which used to
be what President Clinton said he had to have.
But it is now clear that if anything is to pass, it will be less than that:
a bill that tries to fix, not overhaul, the present system, by banning the most
objectionable practices of the insurance industry, like refusing to cover sick
people, and by scraping together some money to help pay for insurance for people
who need it most.
Even that will not be easy in the time remaining before Congress adjourns for
the elections.
All year, the energies of Congressional committees have been focused on ways
to attain universal coverage, not the best way to do less. And so today, a huge
obstacle to action is the cogent, logical case the Administration made against
partial change while it was trying to get Congress to do the whole thing.
The argument was that the skyrocketing costs of care could be controlled only
in a system in which every American had health insurance. Tinkering with parts
of the existing insurance system might just make other problems worse. For
example, helping the sick get coverage could raise rates and drive healthy
customers away. That kind of thing happened when New York tried this approach.
Without universal coverage encouraging preventive care, the system would
continue to concentrate on later, more expensive intervention, like taking a
baby to an emergency room for a bad cough.
But as Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, once said in explaining
why he had reversed a position on health care, "That was then and this is now."
The other piece of the argument against small steps was that this was a
moment in history when the public wanted universal care and that it would be a
fatal mistake to let Congress off the hook, claiming to have done something vast
when it had only niggled.
�..
PAGE
3
The New York Times, August 28, 1994
But the mood now, as Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut,
put it: "Most people want to be a part of starting something. If we start
something, there will never be another Congress that does not address health
care."
S'enator::-:-Harr~is·-~woff_ord, the Pennsylvania Democrat who put this issue on the
national agenda when he won an upset victory in 1991, now often reminds his
colleagues that the 1:957--=.civil-Rights~Act~,-_-a-_ modest_ Federal entry -:.·into...the
prob1em.-:of-.-:di_§Sc;:::t"i:_mination i~-_v~:rt-i.J1g_,_ -wClSJ ~s.S~~n_-j~y:-ma_ny~Jt.t::-_ tne_time__as_ woef\ll,ly
dnadequat!a, :_ \.).ndes~rvincf of -support. (B.\lt--it PI'9V~d- to pave the _w_ay to.-- a-_sl ight ly
more confident--step-in--1960 and then to the historic-l-aws -of 1964 and_1965~ The1
rfgh\:~~:~~!"~~-_steps -nO\tj' 1 - ll~ CQI11;~nqs,_coulf;l })~gi_!l_cl __similar _j?~rn~y •7
Some Good, Some Bad
In one sense, of course, almost every proposal, starting with President
Clinton's, has been incremental, setting out series of advances toward universal
coverage over several years. But most were incremental toward something they
defined as universal coverage. Now, what it is being discussed are increments
toward hope.
And after the speeches against incrementalism, new definitions are required.
Today, incrementalism is seen like cholesterol: some is bad but some is good.
Everyone's favorite example of bad incrementalism is New York State's
experience with community rating, a system of charging everyone in one area the
same insurance rate. The idea of ending rate variations by age is a traditional
element of reformist thinking.
But Albany's decision to do that in 1993 led to half a million people
dropping their insurance. While rates went down for people in their 60's, they
jumped for the young and healthy, so many of them dropped out. That, in turn,
raised rates for those who kept their policies, because the pool covered by
insurance was now, on the average, sicker.
Everyone's favorite example of good incrementalism is giving the poor,
especially the working poor whose incomes are too high for Medicaid, subsidies
to help them buy health insurance. Almost every bill before Congress has some
plan for subsidies.
But even this idea causes worries. Subsidies for small employers, tried
experimentally here and there, have not produced much additional insurance. And
if the Government helps the working poor buy their own insurance, which might
cost $6,000 a year for a family policy, some employers may stop covering them.
Even opponents of requiring employers to insure their workers agree that
anything that works against employer-based insurance makes the whole system less
efficient.
INSURANCE REGULATION Subsidies cost money, so the area on which there seems
to be the most agreement is changing the laws governing insurance.
Dr. Drew Altman, the president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, said
the reason for something approaching consensus "is not that it is the most
important thing to do, but that it is the only thing for the congress to do that
is free."
�PAGE
4
The New York Times, August 28, 1994
Perhaps the broadest agreement, at least generally, is that it would be smart
to make it easier for small businesses to band together and get better rates
with bigger purchasing power.
Then, there are relatively easy moves, which would solve enormous problems
for a small number of people, like forbidding insurance companies from rejecting
customers because they are sick and severely limiting how long they can refuse
to pay for existing health problems of new customers. Requiring companies to
renew policies and not exclude individuals from group policies would also be
relatively simple.
Then, there is portability, the term for giving people the right to take
their insurance with them when they switch jobs. Despite the glib claims of
Republican National Committee advertisements, there is no way to make health
insurance truly portable unless all jobs come with health insurance. But
Congress may well forbid the kind of six-month waiting periods not uncommon (or
people who have left their old insurance behind and are not immediately eligible
at the new job.
The insurance industry generally supports these changes, although it argues
for longer waiting periods before coverage takes effect.
STANDARD BENEFITS Another big idea on the table is establishing a standard
benefits package, so that customers can more easily compare insurance policies
on the basis of price and quality of service. That idea is central to managed
competition, the concept that making the medical industry more of an informed
marketplace can curb inflation, as it already has for employers and insurance
companies with vast purchasing power. It is a part of the proposals of Senator
George J. Mitchell, Democrat of Maine and the majority leader, and the
mainstream coalition with which he is negotiating.
conservative Republicans have denounced the idea as evidence of a "government
knows best attitude." Edward F. Howard, executive vice president of the Alliance
for Health Reform, said the argument might be defused if insurers were required
to offer the standard policy but allowed to offer others if they wished.
SUBSIDIES Then there are subsidies. The mainstream coalition's plan aims to
provide full subsidies to buy insurance for people at the Federal poverty level,
now $14,764 for a family of four, and gradually phase out the subsidies up to
twice that income. Many Democrats fear that the subsidies, when combined with a
series of tax proposals, will in fact encourage employers to stop insuring their
workers.
A newly assembled group of Democratic liberals, suggests doing considerably
less than that, taking "a minimalist kind of approach," as Senator Tom Harkin of
Iowa puts it, involving subsidies for children, 100 percent tax deductibility
for the self-employed and a substantial fund to provide community-based
long-term care for the elderly and disabled.
The last item, a part of the Mitchell proposal and most Democratic plans
(which would also add prescription drug coverage to Medicare benefits), is
politically important, because every single plan proposes financing itself
substantially through cuts in the rate of growth of Medicare, the Government
health plan for the elderly. Its omission from the mainstream plan enraged
advocates for the elderly and disabled, who saw cuts but no compensating
�PAGE
5
The New York Times, August 28, 1994
benefits.
But there seems to be little appetite in Congress to raise taxes to pay for
subsidies. (The prospective limits on Medicare spending are a kind of tax on
doctors and hospitals, who will be paid less, or on patients, who will be
treated less, but the tax is less obvious.)
STATE EXPERIMENTS A final big issue on the agenda is what to do about state
experimentation. Those who want greater freedom for states to experiment, like
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the dean of national health insurance advocates in
the Senate, argue that if the Federal Government is not ready to lead the way to
universal coverage, it ought to get out of the way of states that want to try.
Opponents, led by senator Dave Durenberger, a Minnesota Republican who
dominates the mainstream group on this issue, contend that varying state rules
make it impossible for interstate corporations to provide the kind of health
care he sees as the wave of the future. The mainstream proposal offers states
very limited room to experiment.
One developing consensus, which will be
not to boast too much about achieving this
"Modest is fulsome praise describing these
of the Alliance for Health Reform. Senator
health care reform."
hard for politicians to
kind of agenda, if they
kinds of reforms," said
Harkin said, "Let's not
maintain, is
can pass it.
Mr. Howard,
pretend it's
Leon E. Panetta, the White House chief of staff, said, "What the President is
not prepared to do, is sign a bill that comes to him under the guise of health
care reform but does not meet the needs that he laid out."
That could allow him to sign a bill that does more good than harm, even if it
does not do a great deal -- so long as it did not pretend to do a great deal.
Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton University, said the other day
at a conference at the Capitol that it would be worth taking incremental steps:
"Let's do this. It's a very imperfect fit. It's like fixing a car, and in some
ways this car is going to get worse, but it will carry you some miles. It does
do something. It does make health insurance affordable to chronically ill people
and we will lose some healthier young people, who will be moochers. That's not
nice, but I think that is the kind of redistribution that might please God, so
let's go with that.
"One should not belittle any subsidies that you can tease out of the American
upper-income classes and funnel down to the lower income classes. You should
take what you can get. If that is all you can get out of this Congress, my
advice would be take it, don't pout, take it •. It will help at least some
people."
'Wait and See' on Health
EDGARTOWN, Mass., Aug. 27 (Reuters) --President Clinton will wait to see
what Congress produces on health care before deciding whether to veto anything
less than universal insurance coverage, the White House said today.
�PAGE
6
The New York Times, August 28, 1994
The White House spokeswoman, Dee Dee Myers, said Mr. Clinton would await the
outcome of talks in the Senate, where a bipartisan group backing moderate
changes has been negotiating with Senator Mitchell.
She spoke a day after the White House chief of staff, Leon E. Panetgta, told
reporters that Mr. Clinton might support modest changes in insurance if Congress
could not produce the kinds of sweeping changes the President proposed eight
months ago.
GRAPHIC: Chart: "Highlights: Small Steps on Health care"
With sweeping proposals for reshaping the health care system all but dead for
this year, attention has shifted to more limited measures. Here are some of the
major components of what has been called an incremental approach:
COMMUNITY RATING
Insurers currently charge different segments of the population, like young
and old people, different rates according to how sick they expect each group to
be. Under community rating, premiums would be evened out to reflect the average
cost of insuring the entire community. Opponents argue that this would unfairly
penalize young people and lead many to drop insurance entirely.
INSURANCE REGULATIONS
There is broad support for requ1r1ng insurers to cover people for illnesses
they already have, called pre-existing conditions, and for making insurance
"portable," i.e., easy to take from job to job.
STANDARD BENEFITS
Many incremental bills would require insurers to offer a guaranteed minimum
of benefits, thereby reducing the number of people who are underinsured.
Opponents resist this as Government intrusion into a question that should be
left to the market to decide.
STATE EXPERIMENTS
Health care change is already under way at the state level, but has been
limited by a variety of Federal regulations. Some members of Congress want to
waive these to encourage innovation; others warn of a patchwork nightmare of
laws for businesses that operate across the country.
SUBSIDIES
One way to increase coverage is by giving people who now can't afford
insurance enough money to buy it. Critics worry that this would create
incentives for employers to cut back on coverage, knowing the Government would
bail their workers out. The amount of money available is also limited. (pg. 22)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: August 28, 1994
�PAGE
1
LEVEL 1 - 3 OF 7 STORIES
Copyright 1994 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
August 30, 1994, Tuesday, Final Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; PAGE A21
LENGTH: 1056 words
HEADLINE: Start With Kidcare
SERIES: Occasional
BYLINE: E. J. Dionne Jr.
BODY:
Winning a political battle is better than losing, but there are also good and
bad ways to lose. The key is to lose today's skirmish in a way that sets up the
possibility of victory later. So it is, alas, with the battle for health care
reform.
Advocates of sweeping change, most notably the president, have lost. They
lost not only in the lobbies and in the counting houses where campaign cash is
collected. Most importantly, they lost the argument with the voters. over the
past several months, a majority of Americans has come to view large-scale
health care reform with more uneasiness than hope. That has made the job of
those who favor even popular reforms -- such as requiring employers to insure
their employees -- nearly impossible.
But that does not mean either that (1) nothing can be done now, or (2)
health care reform is a cause doomed forever to fail. The issue for reformers
now is to win changes in the health system that can lay the basis for further
improvements later. At the same time, they must pick some public fights which,
even if lost, will help shape the debate in their favor over the next few years.
It is no accident that one of the leading advocates of the long view of
reform is a man who owes his job in part to the health care issue, Democratic
Sen. Harris Wofford. Wofford's victory in a 1991 special election in
Pennsylvania helped spark the latest health care reform effort. one of his
signature campaign appeals asserted that "if criminals have the right to a
lawyer, I think working Americans should have the right to a doctor."
But there was a catch: It turns out to be easier to provide lawyers for
than to create a consensus on how to bring health care to everybody.
Y~~~inals
:'/~%;f-~-r~T=~~~e~~~~~a~=-~t~!t~~:~i~~~~~~~~=~~~i~ a~~~!~o~ t~ 0hf~i6~-f~!:!~:~, ~~oi~~;(fC?_f'
\ \ ar~-u~d. that t:he movement..:.was~rlght~to accept~~~he;weak~~cb..r~l:::-_Rights-=-~Act--of T957J
\ as~a -fJ:re;~-:--e;t_ep;=-:-"Fr~!Jl his~ .p7rch::-a-s::_ :S~nat~ ..:.DI.a)orJ:ty~ leadeZ",-1l-' Wofford wrote,
1
1
\'tJ.:.Y_D~~l"': ~~~n~~n- ~a~9!J.ed t!Iat __ ]._~= :!.E7_ got _that -::first- bi~ 1 -through, -there~ ~would- be
1
, p~ess~t;~_~l1d_:_ ~~p~c~a1::ic::>I!_-·()t:t~ every Congress-thereafter to t~~e fJirther .stees
unttT the goals were- reached.'-"'
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The~~key-- on -healtlr care, Woff-ord said in an interview-,- is- "llow 9-o you __ define,
tolngs :-that=~ you- oa~ -:.nuTld on-- ·and f:ight~: fOP-?" The point would be to a-ccomp·ltsh-·:::o
s(>~~:-gooa-things:-- an-a--·the:fe15y build -publlc~-conflaence· ~that- govgrl:lment..lee!
�I
-
PAGE
2
The Washington Post, August 30, 1994
n~~-::lth:.::f'efornr
is-_ a practical undertakfng.
The most logical place for incrementalists to start is to offer health
coverage for every child in America -- call the revised program Kidcare. The
federal government estimates that some 8 million Americans under 18 lack health
insurance, and the country's pediatricians figure that about 4 million more have
substantially less than full coverage. Coverage of virtually all children could
be accomplished at relatively modest cost through a combination of subsidies and
requirements that employer-paid policies cover kids. It is cheaper to cover
children than anyone else, since children get sick less than older folks. The
argument for kids is hard to resist: If the country can cover all of the
elderly, ought it not do the same for children? I can't think of a single
grandmother who wants her grandchild to go without health care.
The bill proposed by Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and the
"mainstream" plan being pushed by Sens. John Chafee and John Breaux already tilt
in favor of covering children and pregnant women. That tilt could be
strengthened. At the same time, both Chafee and Mitchell can keep looking for
money to phase in subsidies for entire families among the working poor and the
lower middle class, where most of the uncovered children are found.
Wofford and a group of senators trying to salvage health reform -- among them
Carl Levin, Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin -- have other possible planks for a
successful incremental plan. One might involve opening up the Federal Employees
Health Benefits Program to small businesses so they could take advantage of the
lower prices provided by the plan's enormous purchasing power. Another is to
give health care tax breaks to some of the self-employed, which would be
particularly helpful to farmers and might win favor from key farm state
moderates such as Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kan.). Since so much of the financing
for health care reform will come from cuts in Medicare, the elderly might be
brought on board with the beginnings of a community and home-based long-term
care program, which helps the elderly and very sick children alike.
At the same time, advocates of reform should force a vote on the employer
mandate even if they are going to lose it. The proposal might involve a
requirement that employers pay 72 percent of the costs of their employees'
health insurance, which just happens to match the share that taxpayers pick up
for members of Congress. The only way to push this debate forward is to force
those who want to kill the mandate to kill it outright and then defend their
position at election time. Supporters of a mandate could make it an issue and
give voters a chance to join the debate. This huge battle will have been
pointless if there is not even a vote on the central issue at stake.
Some of Clinton's aides are inclined to kill incremental efforts before they
bear fruit, on the theory that the president should not face the embarrassment
of reneging on his threat to veto any bill that provided less than universal
coverage. But there is a shocking, Machiavellian strategy available to the
president on this matter: He could simply tell the truth.
The truth is that in January, he thought the choice at the end would come
down to full coverage or piecemeal reform and he wanted to do everything he
could to create pressure for a universal program. That calculation turned out to
be wrong. He could then argue that if the cost of extending health coverage to
American's children and improving it for others is to face endless re-runs of
his waving that veto pen, so be it. What Clinton should not do is look for
�PAGE
3
The Washington Post, August 30, 1994
lawyerly technicalities to get around the fact that he was forced by defeat to
change his approach. By being upfront and unbowed, he can then declare credibly,
remembering LBJ, that this fight isn't over.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE-MDC: August 30, 1994
�OU~
G~~
commitment to the longterm interests of this nation and
our working families also require that we renew our commitment to
protecting what is right and fixing what is wrong with our health
care system.
Two years ago, when I spoke here to this chamber and this
nation, I stated the need to provide fiscal security for our
nation and health security for every American.
Whatever differences we may have had in the past about how
to achieve this goal -- whatever mistakes were made by any and
all of us -- that goal was right then and it is right now
[ because the problem was real then and it is even worse now.]
The hard cold fact is that as we gather here tonight, we know
that there are 1.1 million more families without health insurance
than what we knew when I spoke here a year ago. The hard cold
facts are that up to 30% of workers are still afraid to change
jobs. for fear of losing their health insurance: that costs per
American worker are supposed to go up 60% by the year 2000, and
that most Americans still fear that they are only one pink slip
and one illness away from financial devastation, and that·health
care costs are still the main factor driving up our federal
deficit in the coming years.
Those of us here tonight may disagree on the pace we travel
to that goal or the exact road-map that guides us, but certainly
we have an obligation to overcome our differences and the special
interests to take the steps that I believe we all can agree are
in the national interest. Those steps include, reforming health
insurance so that no American will risk losing coverage or having
their prices skyrocket because they change jobs, or because a
family member falls. ill, or because they work for a small
business that lacks the bargaining power of major corporations.
Another step we can all agree on is a private market solution
that would allow us to say that while we work on covering all
Americans, we can at least say that no longer in America, will
any child go without health coverage. Finally we should be able
to agree on a solution that provides workers who lose jobs
protection against losing their health insurance as well. And
certainly, I believe most people in this chamber know that we can
do more to help hard-working American families who are taking
care of their parents as well as their children, afford long-term
care. We have spent too much time on what we disagree on. Now
it is time for us to take the steps we can agree on and start on
the road to health security for all Americans.
�E X E C U T I V E
0 F F I C E
0 F
T H E
P R E S I D E N T
13-Jan-1995 09:08am
TO:
TO:
Jodie R. Torkelson
Nancy v. Hernreich
FROM:
David Dreyer
Office of Communications
CC:
Kelly A. Crawford
SUBJECT:
Family Theatre
To: Jodie/Nancy
I think it would be worthwhile to plan by Monday or Tuesday of
next week the set-up of the family theatre for the state of the
union rehearsal schedule.
We are going to need (in terms of equipment and people) the
following:
Stenographers
TelePrompTer
Computer with printer
Xerox machine
On the equipment side, we could use this stuff nearby or in the
theatre itself.
We also need to block out a rehearsal schedule leading up to the
delivery of the speech.
[Jodie. once we have a viable text, the best way to get the
PResident into the speech is to have him read it out loud with a
small group. He begins insinuiting himself into the text,
substituing his own words for our words, and asking for more
ideas, numbers, new arguments, etc. Once this occurs, he begins
"owning" the speech. To facilitate the production of the revised
text, we need the theatre equipped with the right people and
equipment to speed this process along. Otherwise we have the
chaos of revised text being shipped back and forth among the
Theatre, the West Wing (where computers and xerox are), the
stenographers' office, etc. We have never quite gotten this
right and, with some advance planning, we can do so this time.)
�Withdrawal/Redaction Marker
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
AND TYPE
001. letter
SUBJECTffiTLE
DATE
Buck; RE: Home address (partial) (1 page)
12/06/1994
RESTRICTION
P6/b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Communications
DonBaer
OA/Box Number:
10131
FOLDER TITLE:
SOTU - Background Articles (3]
2006-0458-F
db1140
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act- [44 U.S.C. 2204(a)[
Freedom of Information Ad- [5 U.S.C. 552(b)]
Pl National Security Classified Information [(a)(l) ofthe PRA]
P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRA]
P3 Release would violate a Federal statute [(a)(3) of the PRA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
financial information [(a)(4) of the PRA[
PS Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(S) ofthe PRA]
P6 Release would constitute a dearly unwarranted Invasion of
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA]
b(l) National security classified Information [(b)(l) of the FOIA)
b(2) Release would disclose Internal personnel rules and practices of
an agency [(b)(2) ofthe F,OIA]
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
Information [(b)(4) ofthe FOIA]
b(6) Release would constitute a dearly unwarranted Invasion of
personal privacy [(b)(6) ofthe FOIA)
b(7) Release would disclose Information complied for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA)
b(8) Release would disclose Information concerning the regulation of
financial Institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA)
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical Information
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA[
C. Closed In accordance with restrictions contained In donor's deed
of gift.
PRM. Personal record misfile defined In accordance with 44 U.S.C.
2201(3).
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
�From CBUCK@aol.com Tue Dec 6 22:55:15 1994
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Date: TUe, 6 Dec 1994 22:54:46 -0500
From: CBUCK@aol.com
Message-Id: <941206225408 7554987@aol.com>
To: president
Subject: White House Forum E-Mail
·
L
1
~ ~ Cbrla_B
..
. (b)(6)
'
.
Field 4 = Dear President Clinton,
I just listened to your speech to the DLC on c span. As the man said, "That
is the Clinton we've been waiting for!"
Now you must define your administration to the rest of the world. Don't look
for us to do it. You are. president. _The job naturaly fall on your shoulders.
When you speak in public, you do not speak with the same emotion. Don't get
caught up in technical language • Speak simply and with force. Keep up the
theme of "we started the parade and now its time for the Republicans to
follow." .Keep talking·about education. Then do something about it. Don't
waste money with new educational programs or better salaries for teachers.
Work up a program to build better facilities for students to learn in. Set
conditions for school districts so the money is spent on rebUilding and not
patronage as it is in Chicago.
Continue rebuilding and redefining the Federal Government.
And if the Republicans balk or try to take a step back, call them on it.
Don't yell, don't whine, but speak with authority, with a put up or shut up
attitude.
Answer policy criticisms with confidence and clear thought.
Ta~e a BIG step forward and be the first leader in a long time to use trade
negotiation as a means to improve our standard of living, not as foreign
policy! The majority of the American public will slide to your side of the
table.
Remember, no president is remembered by America for his foreign policy or
stand on perephrial social issues. He's remembered for trying to create
favorable conditions for employment and increasing living standards. Jobs and
money! Jobs and money come from education, which helps self respect(not self
esteem). And a lower crime rate comes from jobs and money.
·
Once again, a great speech. Now its time to stop preaching to the choir.
Sincerely,
Chris Buck
�
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Don Baer
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Office of Communications
Don Baer
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1994-1997
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<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36008" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
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2006-0458-F
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Donald Baer was Assistant to the President and Director of Communications in the White House Communications Office. The records in this collection contain copies of speeches, speech drafts, talking points, letters, notes, memoranda, background material, correspondence, reports, excerpts from manuscripts and books, news articles, presidential schedules, telephone message forms, and telephone call lists.
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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537 folders in 34 boxes
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SOTU [State of the Union] - Background Articles [3]
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Office of Communications
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<a href="http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/2006/2006-0458-F.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431981" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
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7431981