[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992, Book I)]
[June 20, 1992]
[Pages 989-993]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in Universal City, 
California

June 20, 1992
    Thank you very much. And Pete, thank you, Governor Wilson, for that 
introduction. And let me just say at the outset of these remarks how 
much I respect Pete Wilson. Here he is, with the economy obviously not 
doing well in California, but taking a tremendously courageous position, 
trying to whip that legislature in line and saying the way to solve our 
fiscal problems is by getting spending down, not taxes up. And we all 
deserve a big vote of thanks for him.
    Let me also extend a thank you to our host--he and the directors and 
others here--but to our host today, Joel Fox, who is the president of 
the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. If you want a good leader, get 
a strong man, get somebody in there that's going to take the positions 
he did and has taken. We respect him, and I thank him for this morning's 
hospitality.
    And to each and every one of you, I apologize for being a little 
late. The weather got us, and we've been orbiting around out there. 
We've just landed, but we landed in an alternative air zone.
    May I congratulate, on his primary win, one who really stands with 
you on principle, Bruce Herschensohn, who will make a great United 
States Senator. Speaking of Bruce and what he stands for, I will simply 
say it's a shame that I don't have time to tour the Universal Studio. 
But if I want to see behind-the-scenes tricks or outrageous fantasy, I 
don't have to visit Hollywood--[laughter]--I can watch the Congress try 
to deal with the budget of the United States of America.
    And may I say, on a very sincere personal note, what a pleasure it 
is to see Estelle Jarvis. It's a special privilege to be with you and 
the members of the association. And Estelle, your late husband really 
was a true pioneer. In the Utah mining town where he grew up, he learned 
from his parents to love freedom, to take on responsibility, to dream 
dreams as big as the desert horizon. His political credo was simple and 
yet pro-

[[Page 990]]

found. He said, ``Our freedom depends on four words: Government must be 
limited.''
    Here in California 14 years ago, Howard Jarvis won that famous 
victory, obviously assisted and helped by everybody here, that tax 
limitation plan called Proposition 13. He fired the first shot in what 
later became known as the Reagan revolution. And we're still feeling the 
reverberations today as we fight to expand freedom and hold back 
unnecessary burdens of Government. And it couldn't be more fitting that 
we meet this week, as Joel pointed out, just 2 days after the historic 
United States Supreme Court decision upholding Proposition 13. This was 
another tremendous victory for the rights of the taxpayer and the legacy 
of the late, great Howard Jarvis.
    Our revolution isn't the work of a single Presidency; it's the 
mission for a whole generation of reform. Since President Reagan and I 
went to Washington in 1981, tax rates have been cut across the board. We 
made them flatter; we made them fairer. We've cut the top rate from 70 
percent to 31 percent. We've raised the standard deduction. We've taken 
millions of low-to-moderate-income people off the tax rolls altogether. 
And we've made landmark reforms to get big Government regulation off the 
backs of our families and our businesses.
    But we have much more to do. With the tax-and-spend liberals still 
in charge of the Congress, Government keeps growing. And Congress now 
spends nearly a quarter of what people in this country work to produce; 
that's right, almost 25 percent of the gross domestic product of the 
United States of America. The habit of deficit spending has brought us 
to the point that the national debt now equals about $65,000 for every 
family of four in the United States of America. And that is a mortgage 
on our kids' future. And it says we're not really as free a society as 
we should be. And why? Because Government is just too big, and it spends 
too much.
    Again and again and again, the liberals in Congress have said no to 
spending reform. And it's no wonder that Americans keep clamoring for 
stricter limits on the power and the cost of Government. From coast to 
coast, people are mobilizing for change. The air is crackling with the 
feeling that Howard Jarvis made his battle cry: I am mad as hell.
    Maybe you're like millions of other Americans. You shop at K-Mart. 
You go to Carl's Jr. You work to get your kids through school and pay 
off a mortgage. And you know it's not only your right, it is your duty 
to your family to fight high taxes and Government waste. And when 
liberal elitists ridicule you and say we have social problems because of 
you, because you're greedy, well, naturally, you stand up and fight 
back.
    Our fighting spirit has brought us to a turning point. We're on the 
threshold of something big. And already we're rolling back needless 
restrictions on innovation and job creation through my moratorium on new 
Federal regulations. Here's a small but symbolic example: A construction 
project, oddly enough an expansion--it's quite ironic here--an expansion 
of a homeless shelter, was being delayed by the bureaucracy because it 
was counter to a rule regarding wetlands. But what no one quite could 
understand was that this project was on a developed downtown city block, 
totally surrounded by concrete and pavement. Something was all wet all 
right, but it certainly wasn't the building site. The project is now 
underway. We're going to keep it up. For businesses, for charities, for 
homeowners, we're getting unreasonable regulation off of their backs. 
And I am pledged to continue that program of regulatory relief.
    And I'm pushing hard to reform our civil justice system. We are 
simply suing each other too much and caring for each other too little. 
Americans want to stop nuisance lawsuits. Someone asked me the other 
day, if an apple a day keeps the doctor away, what works for lawyers? 
[Laughter] Let me add, parenthetically, I will continue to appoint well-
qualified judges to our Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, who 
will interpret our Constitution and not legislate from the Federal 
Bench.
    And I'm committed as strongly as ever to win more tax relief and 
reform. We need to lift the dead weight that punishes homeowners and 
prevents more investment and job creation, those sky-high taxes on 
capital gains. Get people back to work in this country. Frankly, I wish 
Congress would move

[[Page 991]]

on our other growth incentives. We need to enact another proposal to 
ease tax burdens on families and homeowners, like a $5,000 tax credit 
for that first-time homebuyer. I want those young families to 
participate in the American dream by owning their own homes.
    As you may know, we are fighting for fundamental change in our 
education and welfare systems. It's time for parents to have the freedom 
to choose their kids' schools, public, private, and religious. That's 
how we'll give parents the muscle to change our schools and make them 
the best in the entire world.
    And here, with Pete Wilson sitting here, we're preaching to the 
choir a little bit. But right now we have a welfare system designed by 
the liberal politicians and these social theorists. It's a burden on 
taxpayers, but that's not the worst of it. That's not my major concern, 
even. Much of the time, this system hurts the very people that it claims 
to help. The system discourages single mothers from getting married. It 
leaves too many young women and children without the stability of a 
home, two-parent home. And let's face it, the welfare state system traps 
too many people in a cycle of dependency, destroying dignity, telling 
the little guy who wants to pick himself up that he really doesn't have 
much of a chance. And I am determined to change that.
    I'm working to transform this failed welfare system into something 
that makes sense, something that gives people a shot at dignity. Right 
now, I'm working with tough-minded, creative Governors like Pete Wilson, 
like Tommy Thompson--some of you may have read about his reforms, the 
Governor of Wisconsin--to give them flexibility under the Federal laws 
to try out new ideas and to turn around their State welfare programs. 
And with Governors in all 50 States like Pete and Tommy, we'd soon be 
making major progress fostering dignity and the rewards of work. We'll 
make more headway in connecting welfare with requirements for work, 
training, education. We'll get more deadbeat dads to pay the child 
support they owe. And we'd help a lot more families come together and 
stay together.
    My proposal--another area--for health insurance reform is a model of 
the new way of thinking about social programs. You probably haven't 
heard much about it. It's before the Congress now. The liberal Democrats 
that hold control of Congress are too busy beating the drum for that 
stale idea of a Ted Kennedy-style system of nationalized health care. 
And I am going to veto anything that makes socialized medicine for 
America. We are not going to have that.
    The plan I have makes good sense. It would help working people and 
needy people with vouchers and tax credits. It would provide access to 
insurance, make that available to everybody. And it would provide 
Americans like yourselves with quality care, care you can afford, while 
wringing out the excesses and the waste. That's because it uses old-
fashioned American ideas: free markets and choice.
    In the long run, reforming education and welfare could make a major 
contribution to increasing productivity and solving fiscal crisis. And 
health care reform can make a major contribution to improving and, put 
it this way, to getting rid of the worry that so many American families 
have. And we can make these reforms without raising taxes and without 
piling new burdens onto State and local taxpayers.
    Hand-in-hand with these reforms goes the crusade to enforce fiscal 
discipline. This is absolutely essential to make these reforms work. Our 
burden of debt and uncontrolled spending results from almost four 
decades of liberal Democratic control of the United States House of 
Representatives. Time and again, Ronald Reagan and I have pushed for 
popular reforms. And I believe the American people want the President to 
have in law what 43 Governors have, that line-item veto. And I believe 
and I know the American people believe the only way to discipline both 
the Congress and the executive branch is through a constitutional 
amendment to balance the budget.
    I hope you followed that debate. If you did, you'll know that 
standing in our way is the liberal hardcore of the Democratic Congress, 
barely more than one-third of the membership. Read the rollcall. Just 
take a look at it. Go back and look at the papers

[[Page 992]]

and read the rollcall from last week's vote in the House on the balanced 
budget amendment, and you'll see who I'm talking about. And pay 
attention to the Democrats who belong in a special Hall of Shame. I'm 
talking here about the 12 Democrats, two from California, who listed 
themselves as sponsors, as sponsors of the balanced budget amendment. 
They did that to look good and talk good to the people back home. And 
then these 12 switched sides and voted to kill the very amendment that 
they had sponsored. They did that to curry favor with those liberal 
party bosses that control the House of Representatives, and we'd better 
change that in this election coming up in the fall.
    We know better than to expect these people to discipline themselves. 
This is the same crowd we've seen for decades, in charge, unchallenged, 
and out of control. Let me remind you: For the last 30 years, make that 
35, I think, the Democrats have controlled the House of Representatives. 
For 24 out of the last 30 years, they've controlled the United States 
Senate. And the Congress appropriates--and people forget this, but let 
me say it--the Congress appropriates every single dime and tells the 
President how to spend every single dime.
    Unlike one of my opponents for President, I don't believe the only 
way to confront a massive deficit is with a ``massive tax increase,'' 
and that's in quotes because that's what he said. I know we can do it 
without raising taxes, and I have a detailed plan. This isn't just 
election year rhetoric. We have a detailed plan sitting up there before 
the United States Congress right now. It controls the growth of 
mandatory programs. It doesn't cut them; it permits the growth in 
inflation and in population. Doesn't touch Social Security. It doesn't 
raise taxes. And here it is.
    So when the election rolls around, let's get some of these people 
who are saying they're going to change things to talk some specifics and 
to say how it's going to be done. Here it is. And we need again, though, 
the discipline and the sense of urgency that that balanced budget 
amendment will bring. And while I'm at it, I'd like the President to 
again have what 43 Governors have, let me repeat it, the line-item veto.
    It is time for change. Somebody says, ``You're for enterprise zones 
for the cities. That's not a new idea.'' I said, ``Yes, it is; it has 
never been tried.'' And isn't it better to try something new, try what 
hasn't been tried: a Republican House, a Republican Senate, a Republican 
Congress. That has not been tried in 35 years, and it's time to make 
that kind of significant change.
    In my introduction by our wonderful Governor and my friend, Pete 
mentioned something about international affairs. You listen to this 
debate for who should be President, and you might think foreign affairs 
don't exist, that we aren't really the only undisputed leader of the 
world today, which we are. So before I finish, I want to say a word 
about the summit meeting that Boris Yeltsin and I just completed in 
Washington, where we reached historic agreements for peace and for 
security. Thousands of visitors joined Barbara and me on the White House 
lawn to welcome the first democratically elected President of Russia. 
And I just wish, really, that each one of you could have been there with 
us to share in that very special moment. That's because it is patriotic 
people like you who helped make that moment possible.
    Now the Russian people can worship freely. They can compete in free 
markets. They can choose their own government. And our children, our 
precious kids and grandkids, will no longer live in that same shadow of 
nuclear war that has haunted us for 40 years. And that is big, and that 
is important. And your support made that possible. And today, ordinary 
Russians thank God that ordinary Americans stood fast against the 
Communist dictatorship that threatened us and oppressed them.
    I think what this shows is that if you have the will, the 
perseverance, there's always a chance to make a difference. Howard 
Jarvis spent 16 years fighting for tax limitation. He was 76 years old 
when at last he won, when he shook the establishment of this entire 
country. I've highlighted for you important proposals for the future, 
with a new Congress: Revolutionize our schools; put parents and kids 
ahead of bureaucrats. Reform our system of health care. Overhaul

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the welfare system; give needy people opportunity instead of dependency. 
Adopt a balanced budget amendment. And hold the line against excessive 
spending, taxes, and regulation. With a new Congress that shares our 
values, we can use the next 4 years to set our country on the right 
track for the next 40 years. And with your help, I know we can.
    Thank you all very, very much, and may God bless the United States 
of America. Thank you all.

                    Note: The President spoke at 9:30 a.m. at the 
                        Universal City Hilton.