[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992-1993, Book II)]
[August 6, 1992]
[Pages 1311-1315]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the American Legislative Exchange Council in Colorado 
Springs, Colorado
August 6, 1992

    Thank you for that wonderfully warm ALEC welcome. And Fred Noye, 
thank you for that generous introduction. I want to thank the official 
host, the Mayor, Mayor Isaac, for his hospitality; recognize Sam 
Brunelli, of course, an old friend with us here who feels very 
comfortable here; Holly Coors, so well-known to all in ALEC; my dear 
friend and respected leader of faith, Jim Dobson here. Let me just say, 
Fred, you have done a wonderful job as chairman. I'm not pronouncing you 
dead yet; you have a few more months. But you've done a great chairman 
job. And I know that your shoes will be ably filled by Bill Raggio, over 
here, from the State of Nevada.
    Bill flew in with us last night from Reno on Air Force One. And all 
the White House stationery and matchboxes from the plane are missing. 
But he swears there's no correlation whatsoever. [Laughter] But I was so 
honored that he came all the way up from the convention, took the 
puddle-jumpers all the way, to just represent ALEC on the ride down, 
fill me in on what a fantastic convention is underway right here in 
Colorado Springs.
    Twenty years ago, when ALEC started, I see it that you were a lone 
voice in the conservative wilderness. Now you gather in these marvelous 
Colorado mountains at a time when the endangered species list is topped 
by that creature rarely spotted outside of the 202 area code; I'm 
talking, of course, about the unabashed, unreconstructed liberal. 
[Laughter]
    But your energy and your ideas and your enthusiasm helped lead the 
ideological transformation of America. So it's an honor to be standing 
here as your guest, invited to speak to you today. I understand that, I 
think the figure is no fewer than six members of my Cabinet will speak 
here. I'm especially delighted that you've chosen to give the Thomas 
Jefferson Freedom Award, that coveted award, to the idea man of the 
conservative movement, Jack Kemp.
    As you know, so far this election has been a little one-sided. For 9 
months--and I'm not complaining; my day is coming--for 9 months, five 
other candidates, maybe it was six way back then, various sundry 
surrogates have aimed a firehose of criticism at me. I have been blamed 
for everything except that crazy scoring system that was used in the 
Olympic boxing competition. I shouldn't really go out on a limb like 
that because I haven't checked the AP wire and see how it went. 
[Laughter]
    But I admit I've been a little slow to fight back. My opponent has 
mentioned my name about once every 5 seconds, not always in the most 
flattering light. I still haven't even said his name in full. I've 
referred occasionally to ``my opponent,'' ``the other guy,'' and even 
``the Governor of a certain State with a profitable chicken industry on 
the Mississippi River, located somewhere between Texas and Oklahoma.'' 
[Laughter]
    Let me tell you why I have waited. As I listen to the American 
people, I get a sense of something you might pick up from your own 
constituents. People are sick of politics. I think they think this 
election year has gone on a little too long. You used to start on Labor 
Day. Labor Day isn't even at hand yet. They're tired of the charges and

[[Page 1312]]

the countercharges. They want ideas, and they want action. They want to 
trust their leaders to turn the first into the second.
    That's what I want to talk about this morning: ideas, action, and 
trust. Well, I don't want to get too partisan. I'm going to draw a few 
comparisons. Grant me a favor, though, and I'll save the ``C'' word for 
my convention in Houston. And then I'll just stick with the all-purpose 
title for today of ``my opponent.'' But let me guarantee you one thing: 
When our convention is over--I am tired of being slugged by these 
people, and I will fight back. I am going to win this election. I will 
fight tough, but I will fight fair.
    Which reminds me, remember the old story of the fierce gladiator? 
He'd killed every lion that they could throw up against him, every lion 
he'd faced. So one day the centurions went out, went to Carthage and 
found the meanest lion in the world. They'd buried the gladiator in the 
arena there in Rome, right up so just his head was sticking out, fill 
him with sand. The lion was released, charged him, making a deadly pass 
at the gladiator's head. And as he did, the gladiator reached up and 
took a very ferocious bite in a very sensitive place in the lion's 
anatomy. [Laughter] The lion howled in pain and ran for the exit, fled 
from the arena. And the lead centurion ran out, attacked the gladiator 
screaming, ``Fight fair, damn it! Fight fair!'' [Laughter]
    Now, every time I tiptoe into the water with this guy, they start 
yelling, ``Negative campaigning.'' I am going to fight back. And I will 
define his record as he's ill-defined mine. I will fight on the only 
battleground that really counts, and that is the battleground of ideas. 
And ideas matter.
    If ever there was an organization that understood it, ideas matter, 
and ALEC knows. They know that. When Americans choose their leadership, 
they're choosing a direction. They're choosing a set of beliefs.
    For the past quarter century, the tide has flowed our way for a very 
simple reason: The American people agree with our philosophy and with 
our ideas. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the whole 
world is wearing those red ALEC blankets that I saw last night. For 
years your members, working in both political parties, have been holding 
the line on Government spending. You've been resisting the Pavlovian 
impulse to raise taxes at every turn. And you're fighting to give 
parents the chance to choose their kids' schools and choose their day 
care. I am for this, and I hope you'll all support it.
    This is the wave of the future. It will make the public schools 
better, the private schools better, and the religious schools better. 
When I got out of the service nobody said to me, ``Here's the GI bill; 
you can only go to School A.'' They said, ``Go to the school of your 
choice.'' That enhanced the great State universities and the private 
universities and those based on religious faith.
    On many of the major issues of this campaign, my opponent and I have 
entirely different ideas. On education, on health care, on life, on 
defense, on prayer in school, for example, we are separated by a gulf as 
wide as the Grand Canyon. But on some issues, especially economic 
issues, I'm afraid we don't yet sound all that different.
    Of course, unlike my great predecessor, I will have to confess I am 
not known for threatening Daniel Webster's place in oratorical history. 
I will confess, there have been other greater speakers. But to me, real 
eloquence, real eloquence, lies in action. So when it comes to ideas for 
fixing our economy, I say, look not just at what we say; look at what we 
are trying to do and have done.
    Let me give you some examples. I firmly believe we must get a handle 
on this budget deficit before it strangles our future. My opponent 
supposedly agrees with me. He says in his speeches that Government takes 
too much of your money and gives you too little in return. And what do 
we do about it?
    Well, I have fought for a freeze on domestic discretionary spending. 
I have fought
for a cap, and this is the only way we're going to get the deficit down, 
a cap on mandatory Federal spending, with specific proposals for 
savings, and a responsible, I emphasize that word, a responsible 
reduction in defense spending consistent with our mission as the leader 
of the world and
consistent with my oath to be responsi-

[[Page 1313]]

ble for the national security. I am not going to cut into the muscle of 
our defense and go back to a hollow army. So let's be clear on that.
    I know everybody at ALEC likes light reading. Now here is a 
midsession review, and in it, it tells exactly and specifically how to 
get this budget deficit down. It's been sitting up and languishing in 
the Congress, who do not want to make the tough decisions that I have 
recommended year after year. I urge you all to go out to your nearest 
bookstore, hopefully getting it at a discount, and read this program. 
You'll be impressed because it is ALEC philosophy.
    Now, my opponent has taken a very different approach. He has 
proposed over $200 billion of new spending and at least $150 billion in 
new taxes. And when it comes to any concern about the Federal budget 
deficit, his action sounds like John McLaughlin's sign-off every week, 
``Bye-bye.'' [Laughter]
    Look, ultimately--you know this; the men and women of ALEC know 
this--I believe the only way to get the budget deficit under control, 
the major disciplinary tool, is a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution. You at ALEC have done for the amendment what Rush Limbaugh 
has done for the art of passionate communication.
    Let me just single out one person, probably embarrass the daylights 
out of him, but I know of what David Halbrook, a former ALEC chairman, 
had done. A most respected Democrat, he has taken the lead on the 
balanced budget amendment. He has taken your message and mine all across 
this country, and we owe him a vote of gratitude: Thank you very, very 
much. I knew he'd be embarrassed. There he is. Don't give him equal time 
or he'll tell you how his town in Mississippi is the center of the 
universe. I don't have time for that. [Laughter]
    No, but again, on this question of the balanced budget agreement, 
look at the rhetoric out there. My opponent agrees with me in principle. 
But at the moment of truth, when we finally got that amendment to the 
floor of the House this summer, he came out against it. The amendment 
fell short by 9 votes, after that liberal congressional leadership 
convinced 12 cosponsors, 12 people that had cosponsored the amendment, 
to change their position at the last minute and to vote no.
    Okay. We're going to keep fighting. But if we can't get a balanced 
budget amendment right now, at least give me a line-item veto like 
virtually every Governor in the United States has. But again, he says he 
favors the idea, this opponent, nameless opponent. But look at our 
actual proposals. In my budget this year--and again, I don't want to 
lift that heavy book up--I identified 246 Government programs--will you 
mind holding it up at the appropriate time? [Laughter] This is an all-
purpose book, I'll tell you--246 that I would end and another 4,000 
wasteful projects that I will also get rid of altogether. They're in 
there. They are defined.
    Now, this list includes some big-ticket items as well as some 
smaller things like a vitally important Federal research program into 
the mating habits of the mink. Again on this issue, my opponent is 
singing the same tune, but the dance steps are different. When he 
released his economic plan--look at it, don't take my word for it--he 
searched and searched through thousands of Government programs and found 
only one that he would eliminate, Federal subsidies for honeybee 
farmers.
    Now, I have gone head-to-head in this job day in and day out, 
regardless of the polls. And I'm going to continue to do what I think is 
right with some very powerful special interests: the NEA, the powerful 
teachers union; the labor bosses; the ACLU; the Ralph Naders of beltway 
fame. But I doubt anyone will get stung by taking on the honeybee 
industry. They're just not that tough. [Laughter]
    What about mandatory spending? It's devouring more and more of our 
budget every year. About two-thirds of the budget the President doesn't 
get a shot at, I think we all know that. I propose it's time to roll up 
our sleeves and go after it. No matter what the political price, we owe 
it to the young people here today. My opponent nods his head in 
agreement saying, and here's a quote, ``We need a Government that offers 
more empowerment and less entitlement.'' And all, again, I'm asking, and 
I'll be asking this all fall, is do the words

[[Page 1314]]

match the action?
    In my past three budgets, I have proposed the caps on mandatory 
spending, and I have submitted specific ideas for savings. The amounts 
aren't paltry: $72 billion in this year's budget, $47 billion last year, 
$119 billion in 1990. And what does the opposition offer? You can search 
the entire economic program and find one very tiny idea: reducing 
Medicare subsidies for the wealthy. That isn't a bad idea. In fact, I 
put it in my own budget. But keep in mind, it would reduce mandatory 
spending by one-tenth of one percent next year. This hardly qualifies as 
a profile in budget-cutting courage.
    Do you see a pattern? Do you see a pattern here? Look at our most 
pressing economic challenge: how to create more jobs now. I have 
proposed a package that includes incentives for investment to create 
jobs, many incentives that ALEC has been so forcefully advocating; that 
help, that credit, for the first-time homebuyer so that that homebuyer 
can participate in the American dream; tax savings through juggling 
around the IRA's for families that are trying in these tough times to 
save.
    My opponent copies you and me when he says that an expanding 
economy's the best policy of all. But first, he proposes the largest tax 
increase in American history, larger than what Mike Dukakis and Walter 
Mondale proposed together. Then he proposes at least a 7-percent payroll 
tax to finance a new Government-run health care scheme. Then his friends 
in the congressional leadership took my growth package and added a tax 
increase to it, and I took care of that with the veto pen. And as your 
able chairman said, that's the first time a President has done that.
    So you have every right to say, ``What's going on here? What's 
happening? What's really happening?''
    As I peel through the details of our economic plans, I can't help 
but think of the words of another George--I'm not used to quoting him--
George McGovern. George McGovern has never been what I would call a big 
friend or fan of mine. But you may recall during the New York 
convention, he called the other ticket, and I quote here, ``a Trojan 
horse.'' He said, here's the quote, exact quote, ``They are really much 
more liberal than they appear. And they'll show it after they are 
elected.'' Well, I don't know if I ever have told you this before, but 
George McGovern is a very smart man. He is very intelligent. [Laughter]
    But this is what worries me. As I compare the details of what we 
have to offer, the details, and I begin to wonder. Is all this talk of 
what they call a new covenant simply a coverup for some very old and 
tired ideas? The other side talks about changing the economy with new 
spending and taxes. But when they talk about change, that's all you're 
going to have left in your pockets when these guys get through with you. 
[Laughter] So please get the ALEC message around this country.
    There's one other thing--and I say this with respect for the 
conservatives on both parties that are here--my opponent talks about 
change, but he refuses to even mention the one thing that hasn't changed 
in 36 years. I'm talking about the liberal leadership in the United 
States Congress. It's about time we changed that if we want to move this 
leadership forward.
    So if you really want to clean out the deadlock in Washington, why 
not clean out that same liberal deadwood on that leadership that has 
fought me every inch of the way, scared to death that the American 
economy might just get a little bit better if they pass those incentives 
that I know would have helped this economy grow.
    Now I'm hoping, and I really do, this may be George McGovern's 
Trojan horse will be a tiger when it comes to holding the line on taxes 
and spending. But I doubt it. I believe the voters need more proof than 
mere words. So today I have an idea to propose to the American people, a 
way to move away even in this fiercely partisan election year, a way to 
move away from partisanship, a way to get some of the ideas you fought 
for off the drawing board and into action, a way to get our economy 
moving today and keep it growing tomorrow, and most important, a way to 
do what is right for our country.
    Today I issue a challenge to my opponent and to his close allies 
there in the congressional leadership: If you really agree with us

[[Page 1315]]

that these ideas are important, why hold them hostage to a political 
campaign? If you really believe that tax cuts can create jobs, pass my 
growth package now. If you want to get a handle on Government spending, 
put a line-item veto on my desk right now and give me a chance to get 
this deficit under control. I'll start cutting right away. If you want 
to control mandatory spending, convince the Congress to adopt this 
proposed savings plan just next week. They don't have to wait. If you 
really want to reform health care, bring it up. Our plan is up there. 
It's a good one. Bring it up, and vote on it. If you really believe in a 
balanced budget amendment, let's call it up and vote for it again. And 
leave the pressure off of these Members, and let them vote their 
consciences, and let them do what's right for the American people. Send 
it to your States right now for ratification.
    Now, the plan I've outlined today, a plan based on so many ideas 
that you've fit into the system, ALEC ideas, ALEC initiatives, is the 
strong, compelling action that our economy desperately needs. Quite 
frankly, I don't expect the other side to come forward and back their 
ideas, these pronouncements, back them with action. I think there's a 
Trojan horse lurking in the weeds, ready to pull a fast one on the 
American people, and I simply am not going to let that happen.
    In the next 4 months and for the next 4 years, I will accelerate our 
fight for these tax incentives and lowering the taxes, for budgetary 
discipline, for making the tough calls on runaway spending. I will put 
my case in words, but I will back my words with action. I will show the 
American people we must not return to a failed philosophy for America, 
no matter how neatly packaged it is today. It is time to continue moving 
forward, forward on a positive, conservative vision for our great 
Nation.
    May I thank each and every member of ALEC. And may God bless the 
greatest, freest, fairest country on the face of the Earth, the United 
States of America. Thank you all very, very much.

                    Note: The President spoke at 9:12 a.m. at the 
                        Broadmoor Hotel International Center. In his 
                        remarks, he referred to ALEC officers Fred C. 
                        Noye, national chairman, Sam Brunelli, executive 
                        director, and William Raggio, incoming national 
                        chairman; Bob Isaac, Mayor of Colorado Springs; 
                        Holland H. Coors, who gave opening remarks at 
                        the meeting; and James Dobson, president, Focus 
                        on the Family.