[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992, Book I)]
[March 20, 1992]
[Pages 477-481]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to Republican Members of Congress and Presidential Appointees

March 20, 1992
    Welcome to the White House. Fifty-two days ago in my State of the 
Union Address, I asked Congress to act on my agenda for economic growth. 
And I asked for immediate action by March 20th on a series of proposals 
to help rekindle the economic recovery. And I asked the Democratic 
leadership to put partisanship aside, pledging to do the same, in order 
to enact seven sensible steps to increase investment, strengthen the 
value of American homes, and create jobs. Well, March 20th has arrived, 
and no recovery bill of any kind has come to the White House as of now.
    This morning the congressional conferees finished work on a tax 
bill. It would increase taxes and harm the economy. And so, today I am 
doing three things. First, I have just signed the veto message to stop 
the Democrats' tax increase. And second, I am taking several additional 
steps on my own to help the recovery with or without action by Congress. 
And third, while the Democratic leadership in Congress is in disarray, I 
am proposing action on the real challenges facing America, on my long-
term plans to help America compete in the global economy of the future.
    Now is the time for real, significant change. And I am disappointed 
in Congress. In fairness, some Democrats did not want to put a tax 
increase in the bill. And I salute them for courageously standing up 
against more taxes. But politics prevailed. A slim majority passed the 
bill in the face of a certain veto. But they aren't blocking my economic 
recovery plan because they're afraid it won't work; they're blocking it 
because they're afraid it will work.
    I do not take this step lightly. No President has vetoed a major tax 
bill since Harry Truman did it in 1948. But I submitted an economic 
growth plan to Congress for a reason: to promote a recovery in which 
every American has an interest. The package I proposed was carefully 
tailored. It was paid for without raising taxes. It was designed to 
encourage and strengthen the positive economic signs we're beginning to 
see: home sales and housing starts up as interest rates stay down; 
retail sales improving; 164,000 new jobs last month alone.
    In response, the Democratic Congress has returned to form. It's 
produced a bill that will not strengthen the economy; it will weaken it. 
It's produced a bill that will not stimulate growth; it will stifle it. 
As if by reflex, the Democrats in Congress could not

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resist their natural impulse to raise taxes. But I assure you of this: I 
simply will not let them do it.
    So, moments ago I signed the veto message for the Democrats' tax 
increase because raising taxes will not help create jobs. And the bill 
is not yet here, but the conference report tells me all I need to know. 
And when the bill is sent down tonight, this signed message will be 
waiting for it, and my veto will go back to the Hill the minute the bill 
arrives. And needless to say, I will not send it back via the House post 
office. [Laughter] The message is clear: My veto, and a block of votes 
ready to sustain it, stands ready to stop any tax increase on the 
American people.
    With that clear, I ask the Democratic leadership to put aside once 
and for all the idea of a tax increase. And I ask the Congress again: 
Pass the seven commonsense measures that I have proposed to help the 
economy now. Do so without raising taxes, and I'll sign it. And then 
let's get on to the long-term agenda. But stop holding the American 
economy hostage in a partisan game.
    Passing a tax increase is bad enough, but here's what really 
troubles me. The irresponsibility of Congress on this plan, it's a part 
of a pattern. It reflects a more serious problem, a deeper, systemic 
problem that is gnawing at the strength of our Nation. It is no wonder 
that Americans are angry. Today, looking at the accumulated evidence of 
several years, it must be said: Our congressional system is broken.
     We have a long tradition in this country of pulling together when 
national need demands that we do so. And over the years, many 
accomplishments, large and small, have been truly bipartisan. But 
Congress today is different. It's more partisan. Its campaigns are 
financed by special interests. It's grown out of control. It's lost the 
ability to police itself. And perhaps most importantly, it is no longer 
accountable to individual American citizens and voters. And this must 
change.
    One party has controlled the House of Representatives for almost 
four decades. Staff has become institutionalized. In 1950, there were 
about 2,000 personal staff in Congress. Today, there are almost 12,000 
staff for Members of Congress themselves and almost 40,000 if you 
include the entire legislative branch. The number of committees and 
subcommittees has quadrupled.
    And for this, we get a Congress incapable of passing the simple plan 
that I presented almost 2 months ago, a Congress controlled by the 
Democratic caucus which cannot manage a tiny bank or a tiny post office.
    In the 1990 elections, special interest political action committees, 
PAC's, gave almost $117 million to incumbent Congressmen and Senators. 
Only about $15 million were donated to challengers. With this eight-to-
one spending advantage, obvious voter discontent was buried in a wave of 
PAC-financed television advertising. And so, nearly every incumbent won.
    The time has come for change because when the system is broken, you 
do have to fix it. And I have proposed to eliminate the PAC's which are 
poisoning our system. The time has come to eliminate these political 
action committees in their entirety.
    I propose also to increase accountability. I'm ordering several 
steps to implement promptly the Supreme Court's Beck decision. No worker 
should be forced to have money taken out of his or her paycheck to fund 
politicians that he or she disagrees with. We should apply to Congress 
the same laws, from employment practices to civil rights to the Freedom 
of Information Act, which it imposes on everyone else.
    And I believe the time has come to limit the terms of Congressmen. 
The terms of Presidents are limited. It's time for the terms of 
Congressmen to be limited.
    The bottom line is that we all need a new Congress, one that can and 
will work with me for constructive change. And in the meantime, I will 
take additional actions on my own with every legal means at my disposal 
to keep the economy moving up. And I will do so in spite of the 
hopelessly tangled congressional web of PAC's, perks, privileges, 
partnership, and paralysis. There is, of course, a serious limit on what 
a President can do without Congress. But I am determined to do all I can 
to effect change.
    First, I want to underline a fundamental point: Government is too 
big, and it spends too much. I have already proposed to

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freeze domestic discretionary spending in Federal employment next year. 
And I've also proposed to curb the growth of mandatory programs without 
touching Social Security. Mandatory spending, spending on programs that 
need no annual congressional action to keep growing, consumes almost 
two-thirds of the entire Federal budget. Over the next decade, this 
spending, if left unchecked, will grow by $2 trillion more than is 
needed for inflation and new beneficiaries. Currently, most of these 
programs grow automatically without congressional review or even a 
chance for a Presidential veto.
    My proposal, which is before Congress now, would permit these 
programs to grow for inflation and new beneficiaries and, where 
necessary, some amount above that. But we need some ceiling to keep 
their growth within reasonable bounds. Uncontrollable spending is a 
major cause of the Federal deficit that I'm working to contain, and it 
must be addressed.
    Today I am sending to Capitol Hill the first of a series of 
additional measures to cut Federal spending now, this year. I have also 
directed all Agency heads to look for further areas where spending cuts 
can be made now. The line-item rescissions identified so far, in total, 
will cancel out about $4 billion in unnecessary spending: funds for 
local parking garages, $100,000 for asparagus yield declines, mink 
research, prickly pear research. The examples would be funny if the 
effect weren't so serious. And this kind of wasteful spending destroys 
public confidence in the integrity of the Government. And Americans have 
every right to be outraged and disgusted. It's their money.
    I will work with the Republicans in the House to bring these items 
to a vote individually. Forcing the Democratic leadership to allow line-
by-line votes on items of pork will bring us a step closer to the 
accountability and the power that 43 Governors have, the line-item veto.
    Some argue that the President already has that authority, the line-
item veto authority, but our able Attorney General, in whom I have full 
confidence, and my trusted White House Counsel, backed up by legal 
opinions from most of the legal scholars, feel that I do not have that 
line-item veto authority. And this opinion was shared by the Attorney 
General in the previous administration.
    I ask the American people, then, to demand that a President be given 
line-item veto authority legislatively or, if necessary, by changing the 
Constitution. The line-item veto is essential, and I need it now.
    Secondly, I've directed the Vice President to step up the assault on 
unnecessary regulation and paperwork. Let me give you a progress report 
that he gave to me, and he's doing a superb job on this. Though some in 
Congress oppose regulatory relief, I've already taken specific steps to 
remove the regulatory roadblocks to growth. We've implemented plans to 
promote biotechnology, to lower construction costs, help small business, 
ease the credit crunch, help clean up the air, reduce costs in 
transportation, and cut through the morass of regulation and 
agriculture.
    And today, we're launching a new public-private partnership to 
promote research and development by bringing the good ideas from our 
Federal labs into the marketplace. Over the coming months, we will be 
announcing many more such steps to chop away at needless regulation and 
paperwork wherever we can. Too much regulation smothers innovation, 
eliminates jobs, and makes America less competitive.
    I realize that these are only modest steps, but they reflect a 
fundamental attitude. And if the Democratic leadership that runs the 
status quo Congress will not help us change America, we have to change 
it without them. And if the Democratic leadership that runs the status 
quo Congress will not help us reform Government, we must reform it 
without them.
    You see, change is nothing to fear. For more than two centuries, 
America has been a force for change. Our restlessness is legendary. Our 
energy is boundless. Because of this, today America, even given our 
economic problems, is the most productive Nation on the face of the 
Earth, with the highest standard of living. We have only one-twentieth 
of the world's population. But we produce one-fourth of the world's 
output, twice that of Japan, 4 times that of

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Germany.
    Today America's credibility and prestige in the world, not to 
mention our strength, have never been greater. But we didn't get where 
we are by standing still. We got where we are by always striving to do 
better. And that's why the current paralysis of the Congress, controlled 
over and over again by that liberal Democratic majority, is so 
troubling. It's caused too many Americans, at the exact moment of 
triumph for American values around the world, to lose confidence.
    Americans are understandably worried about their future, not only 
about the economy right now, although that is a key problem, but about 
the economic competition of the future, about the central question that 
lies at the heart of the American dream: Will our children have a better 
life than we do?
    Make no mistake: We will compete and win in the global economy. In 
the last 10 years we've become more productive. Our exports have more 
than doubled. Manufacturing productivity has increased. And we are 
capturing new markets around the world from Europe to Africa to Latin 
America. But in order to keep succeeding in this global economic 
competition we've got to change America in five key ways. We need a 
strategy that is confident, forward-looking, future-oriented, and we 
need to be willing to change.
    First, we must expand markets for American products. So, I will 
continue to pursue a GATT agreement to open markets further. I will push 
for a North American free trade agreement to unlock the potential of 
markets in Mexico and Canada. And I will work for bilateral agreements 
to knock down barriers to American exports.
    To win these markets we must guarantee that America will lead the 
world in knowledge, in new ideas, in making products of the highest 
quality. And that requires specific investments today. I've proposed to 
invest more in basic R&D, research and development, and in key 
technologies like high-performance computing, new and advanced materials 
in biotechnology. Congress should approve these investments. And not 
only the Government must invest more in the future. To maintain our edge 
by increasing private sector investment, Congress should pass the 
capital gains tax cut and make the R&D tax credit permanent.
    And second, we must prepare our work force to compete, through 
better education, better training. And I've proposed a set of dramatic 
reforms in education called America 2000 and a new approach to job 
training, Job Training 2000. The idea of America 2000 is simple, to 
revolutionize American education. And that means creating new kinds of 
schools with new technology and new ways of learning. It means measuring 
progress and holding schools accountable for their performance. And it 
means giving all families, including low- and middle-income families, 
choice in picking their children's schools.
    We've put the resources behind our efforts. Although budget dollars 
are very tight, education is so important to me that I've increased 
funding, funding for education, by 42 percent just since 1989 and gave 
it the biggest increase this year. I put in place a new program to help 
train teachers in math and science and increased funding for math and 
science education by over 69 percent. But more money alone won't do it. 
We need reform.
    And thirdly, we must reform health care. America has provided the 
best quality health care in the entire world. But we are plagued by two 
problems: Too many Americans are not covered by health insurance, and 
health care costs too much. And I have proposed a comprehensive plan to 
make health care more affordable, more available, more sensible. It 
guarantees access for affordable health care, affordable health 
insurance for all Americans. Congress should pass it, and that will help 
our competitiveness all around the world.
    Fourth, we've got to fix our legal system. America is drowning in a 
sea of litigation. Too many lawsuits means higher prices for consumers 
and reduced competitiveness for all America. It is estimated that fear 
of 
medical practice alone generates up to 
about $20 billion per year in increased health costs. This must change. 
In some cases we should require the loser to pay the winner's legal 
fees, and that would stop

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some of these frivolous lawsuits. You know the problem. When parents 
won't coach Little League teams, when obstetricians won't deliver 
babies, and when community pools are closed in the summertime, all 
because of the fear of liability, we know that something is wrong. And 
now is the time for Congress to pass my legislation to fix it.
    And fifth, we must tackle each of these challenges without higher 
taxes or more Government spending. America doesn't need bigger 
Government; it needs better Government. On every one of these issues the 
Democrats in Congress are standing in the way of reform. They've cut my 
budgets for R&D and investing in the future and then voted instead for 
pork.
    They've stripped choice and accountability out of the education 
bill. They are working on a Government takeover as a solution to our 
health care program, to be financed by a massive tax increase. And the 
special interests have made them afraid of legal reform. Well, it is 
time for Congress to either lead, to follow, or simply get out of the 
way.
    On every one of these challenges there are two very different ways 
of looking at the world, one is reformist and the other protects the 
status quo. And that difference is driven by values. The special 
interests and the foot-draggers do not believe in the kind of change 
that we seek, change which respects markets more than Government 
dictates, which recognizes fundamental American values and the 
difference between right and wrong, which rewards excellence and 
punishes wrong-doing.
    They do not believe that actions should have consequences. Well, one 
set of actions should have consequences. The failure of Congress to move 
on our program of change means only one thing: It is time for a new 
Congress. Give others a chance to control the United States Congress. 
You give me the right lawmakers, and I'll give you the right laws.
    Over the coming weeks I'll be speaking more about these changes, and 
I'll be laying out further specific plans that I have for each. And I 
ask the American people to compare those plans to the response of the 
Democratic-led status quo Congress and the do-nothing caucus that has 
dominated that Democratic Party for too long.
    Patrick Henry said, ``I like the dreams of the future better than 
the history of the past.'' Well, Patrick Henry was right. Imagine the 
irony, as the world is beating a path to freedom's door, if we, 
ourselves, were to turn back now. If we carry the change forward, we can 
have a nation of productive workers and competitive companies, of 
healthy and secure communities, of schools that are the best in the 
entire world. And America can remain a nation whose exuberant confidence 
and commitment to freedom are admired worldwide.
    I am ready to build such an America. Because if we can change the 
world, we can change America.
    Thank you all. And may God bless the United States of America. Thank 
you very much.

                    Note: The President spoke at 4:04 p.m. in the East 
                        Room at the White House.