    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [May 28, 1993]
    [Pages 767-770]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at City Hall in Philadelphia
    May 28, 1993

        Thank you very much, Rosemary Greco. You know, she's the sort of
    person that I ran for President to support, a person who started out as
    a bank teller and became the president of a bank. That's the American
    dream.
        I want to say how glad I am to be here, back in Philadelphia, a city
    that has been so good to me for so long now, with your Mayor and with
    Senator Wofford and with the members of the House delegation who are up
    here on the platform with me and with your State treasurer, Catherine
    Baker Knoll. I'm glad to be here with all of them. Give them a hand,
    will you?
        My fellow Americans, since I became President I have been working to
    break the gridlock in Washington, to prove that Government could work
    for you again. And there have been some impressive examples of success
    in that regard. The Congress, after 8 years of rankling with the
    President and two vetoes, voted to pass the Family and Medical Leave Act
    to guarantee working people a little time off when the baby was born or
    a parent was sick, and eventually, after years of haggling, voted to
    pass the motor voter bill to open up the voter registration rolls to
    millions of Americans and bring them into the political process.
        But the real issue was whether we had the courage to come to grips
    with the economic problems which have paralyzed this country. After
    years and years and years of gridlock, after years of leaders talking
    about economic problems and not doing much about them, after years in
    which we ran our national debt from $1 trillion to $4 trillion and
    reduced our investment in our people, their jobs, and their future at
    the same time, last night the House of Representatives gave the American
    people a victory for economic growth over gridlock.
        The plan cuts the deficit by $500 billion, cuts a quarter of a
    trillion dollars in Government spending, asks the wealthy who can best
    afford to pay their fair share, invests in education and jobs, and
    rewards work instead of welfare.

    [At this point, audience members interrupted the President's remarks.]

        Let me tell you something--wait a minute. You know one thing that's
    wrong with this country? Everybody gets a chance to have their fair say.
    My budget did more to fight AIDS than any in history, and we're having
    to put up with this. Tell them to let me talk. If you want to give a
    speech, go out there and raise your own crowd. We'll be glad to listen
    to you.
        So there were those--I'll make you a deal. I'll ignore them if you
    will.
        There were a lot of people who said we could never change the way
    things were in Washington, the same sort of people who picked the
    Phillies to finish last this year. By the way, I think the Phillies are
    looking pretty good, even that big fellow, Kruk, you know, is a big bat.
    I wonder who cuts his hair? [Laughter]
        Let me tell you something, folks, make no

    [[Page 768]]

    mistake about it, this National Capital of yours is beginning to change.
    After years in which our house was coming apart with higher deficits and
    less investment, a Government by special interests instead of the
    national interests, middle class working harder for less, things are
    really beginning to change.
        After years of a lot of hot air and no responsibility and no
    willingness to take the tough decisions, yesterday the House began to
    throw out the economic program that ran our debt to $4 trillion, ran the
    middle class into the ground, created a new class of poverty, and robbed
    our country of opportunity and any sense of community. We are now moving
    forward with a plan that reduces the deficit, asks the wealthy who can
    pay their fair share, gives the middle class the chance of having a
    future with real economic growth, and provides profound incentives to
    prefer work over welfare. These are the kinds of things you elected me
    to do.
        And I want to say one of the most rewarding things is the people who
    supported this program. I mean, after all, this is a program which asks
    that 75 percent of the money raised in taxes be paid for by people with
    incomes above $100,000. And yet, among the strongest supporters were
    people who had that income who believe their country was more important
    than their own pocketbook. And we ought to reward that. We had not just
    labor leaders and small business people and mayors of small and big
    cities and Governors for this program. There were people who lead some
    of the biggest companies in this country out there working to give our
    country a better chance and a brighter future, because they know that we
    have to stop reducing our investment and running up our debt. We need to
    reverse our priorities, and now we're on the way to doing it.
        A lot of these decisions were not easy, but they had to be made. I
    tried to set a good example. I reduced my own staff. We've had a
    reduction in this budget in the Federal work force by attrition, not by
    laying people off, but we're going to reduce the Federal Government by
    150,000 over the next 4 years. That's a lot. That's a lot of Government
    spending cuts. We cut more than 200 specific programs. We cut $2 in
    spending for every $1 in new investments and education and jobs and
    technology.
        There were things that had never been really seriously dealt with
    before, the budget's sacred cows: everything from agricultural subsidies
    to the REA to other problems that affect the cities; demonstration
    projects that had never been seriously reviewed; cuts in the Medicare
    program that couldn't be justified; and the Federal employees perhaps
    took the biggest hit of all, forgoing a pay raise and having a budget
    that lowers their raises below the cost of living for 4 years, because
    most of them agreed that they couldn't ask any of you to pay more, even
    the wealthiest Americans, unless they took less. That's the kind of
    spirit it's going to take to turn this country around and move the
    country forward.
        I'll tell you something else. Every dollar in taxes and all the
    budget cuts have to go into a deficit reduction trust fund. There will
    be no taxes without the budget cuts, and all the money will go to
    bringing the debt down. And we will have some left over to do things
    that need to be done. Here in Philadelphia, you know, because of defense
    cuts, we need to invest some money to help move our country from a
    defense to a domestic economy, new technologies for new jobs and new
    opportunities in the future. Because this debt turned out to be bigger
    even than we knew before the election, I did ask the Congress to adopt
    an energy tax, some of which will be paid by middle class Americans. But
    I want you to know exactly how it works, and you've got to decide
    whether you think it's worth it.
        First of all, we have income tax reductions to protect family
    incomes below $30,000 from the impact of the energy tax. For people
    above $30,000 up to $100,000, here's what it costs: $1 a month next
    year; $7 a month the year after; and if you've got a family of four, $17
    a month after that. But consider this: Look how much interest rates have
    gone down. If we keep interest rates down and people can refinance their
    homes, get car loans at lower rates, get consumer loans at lower rates,
    get lower business loans from good bankers like Rosemary, you will save
    more in interest rates than you'll ever pay in the energy tax, and
    you'll have a healthier economy and a lower deficit.
        Just for example, if someone had a $100,000 home mortgage that was
    financed at 10 percent, and they refinanced it at 7.5 percent, they'd
    save $175 a month, a month, not a year. This is going to be good
    economics. If we can keep interest rates down by bringing the debt down,
    that will release another $100 billion into this economy this year to
    put the American people

    [[Page 769]]

    back to work.
        Yesterday was a historic day, but it was just the beginning. Now the
    bill goes on to the Senate. And we must work to pass the bill that meets
    these principles: The wealthy must pay their fair share; we have to
    reduce the deficit by $500 billion; we have to keep the incentives for
    people to invest in our jobs and in our cities; and we've got to give
    people incentives to move from welfare to work, not the other way
    around. That's the kind of bill that needs to come to my desk.
        There are 80,000 lobbyists in Washington. Many of them don't want
    Washington to change. Think of that. Maybe some of you all are in the
    wrong line of work--80,000. Special interests that work in the Senate
    who have now proposed that we cut Social Security and put more of a
    burden on the middle class in order to relieve the burden on the
    wealthiest Americans, when many of them are leading the crusade for
    change. I think we can do better. I think we can do better. And we're
    going to do better in the United States Senate with your help.
        The process of changing is not easy, not even, and not quick. But we
    are moving in the right direction. The budget is on the way to being
    realized. There is a program now in the United States Congress with
    broad bipartisan support to fulfill the commitment I made to you to open
    the doors of college education to all Americans and give our young
    people a chance to pay off their college through national service
    through their communities here at home.
        Very soon the national commission on health care which my wife has
    chaired will present their plan to provide affordable health care to all
    Americans and bring down the cost of health care that threatens our
    economic stability. How many millions of Americans not only lack health
    insurance but have it and are terrified of losing it because somebody in
    their family has been sick, and they think they'll never be able to
    change jobs. We can do better, and we will with your support.
        Finally, there are bills in the Congress which will help to change
    the very way your National Government works: A bill that will require
    every lobbyist to register and to say how much money they spend lobbying
    all the rest of us and report it to you--I think that would be a good
    thing--already passed the Senate; can pass the House. And Mayor Rendell
    was talking about the campaign finance reform bill, which at long last
    will lower the cost of congressional campaigns, limit the influence of
    political action committees, and open the airwaves to candidates so they
    can have an honest debate. That bill is in the Congress, and we ought to
    pass it this year.
        When I was running for President, I was profoundly influenced by the
    series in the Philadelphia Inquirer by Donald Bartlett and James Steele,
    the stories they made into a book called ``America, What Went Wrong?''
    They said that after 50 years, the middle class and small business had
    been helped for 50 years, but things began to change about a dozen years
    ago. About a dozen years ago, the National Government adopted tax
    policies and economic policies that rewarded those who shut jobs down in
    America and sent them somewhere else; rewarded those who laid their
    workers off and bailed out with golden parachutes to better lives. We
    stopped rewarding responsibility and work and rigged the game of
    economic life against the broad American middle class. They were right,
    but we're fighting to change that.
        And Americans from all walks of life are helping. I will say again,
    to me the most moving thing of all has been how many genuinely
    successful Americans, people this country has been good to, people who
    have made a lot of money, have come forward and said, ``Go ahead and
    raise my taxes if it will bring the deficit down and put the American
    people back to work and get this country going again.'' That's the kind
    of statesmanship we need everywhere in this country.
        Yesterday we began the process of saying no to gridlock, no to
    special interests, no to the spiraling deficit, no to increased
    unemployment, no to the conditions which lead so many of you to work
    harder for lower wages every year. We said yes to a brighter future to
    America, yes to lower deficits, yes to more jobs, yes to higher incomes,
    yes to a future in which we have a real chance to compete and win.
        Things are going in the right direction. Stay with us. Fight with
    us. Help to lift this country up, and believe in its future. And we can
    do it.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    [[Page 770]]

    Note: The President spoke at 12:19 p.m. in the courtyard. In his
    remarks, he referred to Edward G. Rendell, Mayor of Philadelphia, and
    Rosemary Greco, president and CEO, CoreStates Bank.