    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [February 25, 1993]
    [Pages 202-205]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to Business and Labor Leaders and an Exchange With Reporters on
    the Economic Program
    February 25, 1993

        The President. Thank you very much. To all the business and the
    labor leaders who are here, and to Representative Clayton and the many
    Members of the House whom she represents so ably. Let me begin with a
    simple thank you to all of you for your support of our common efforts to
    turn our country around and put our Nation on the right track.

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        For too long we have seen business and labor divided over more
    issues than we see them united on. Part of that has been occasioned by
    the incredible difficulties of our economy. When people believe there is
    a shrinking pie, they're more likely to be fighting over that. Part of
    that has been occasioned by the fact that we have not been on a great
    national journey together in which we could all feel that we were a
    part, making our equal contributions, reaping our equal rewards.
        I'm very encouraged by the business-labor partnership that we see
    manifested here today, by the fact that it represents a commitment to
    ending gridlock and to beginning change, and deeply impressed by the
    letter which Representative Clayton has brought here today by the people
    whom I think in many ways are most representatives of the American
    people: this new big class of freshmen Congress men and women who are
    out there, just as Vice President Gore and I were last year, criss-
    crossing the country in a beginning effort, listening to people and
    their concerns and their hopes. So I'm very, very happy about that.
        If I might, I'd like to close just by emphasizing three or four of
    the critical elements of this economic plan and why I think they are
    worthy of the support of this distinguished group of Americans. Everyone
    knows we have to bring the deficit down; it has become the dominant fact
    of all the budgeting of the Federal Government. But there are those who
    say, ``Well, how can you do that. You're just coming out of a recession,
    and traditional economic theory holds that the last thing you want to do
    is to slow down a recovery by closing a deficit.''
        That is, ever since the Depression, our country has operated on an
    economic theory that said when times were slow, there should be more
    Government spending; when times were great, then you could bring our
    accounts into balance. The problem is that for more than 20 years we
    have been building in a structural deficit into our Government, one that
    robbed the National Government of that flexibility, the flexibility to
    tighten up in good times to slow down inflation, and to invest more in
    bad times to put people back to work.
        And our strategy now, I think, is actually supporting an economic
    recovery in bringing this deficit down because you can see the decline
    in long-term interest rates which means that borrowing is cheaper and
    which means that millions of Americans in their personal capacities and
    as business persons are going to refinance their debt which will free up
    cash to be reinvested in economic growth. So I believe this strategy is
    expansionary.
        I also would make a couple of other points if I might. We are
    changing fundamentally the direction of Government spending itself,
    moving away from spending for consumption towards spending a higher
    percentage of the people's tax dollars on investment. It is simply not
    true that all Government spending is equal. Some investment will have a
    much bigger reward in terms of jobs and incomes than spending more money
    on the same program.
        Finally, we are looking at ways to basically make the Government
    itself work in a very different and more efficient way. One of them has
    already been alluded to by Kathryn Thompson. We will be announcing in
    the near future some efforts by this administration to ease the credit
    crunch on small business. We are also trying to change the way the
    Government itself operates and the regulatory framework to do things
    that will achieve objectives in a better way.
        We believe we can promote a clean environment and economic growth
    with the right kind of regulatory and investment climate. We believe by
    changing the way the Government itself does business, we can give the
    American people a much leaner Government. We think that the White House
    staff cuts and the reorganization are simply an example of what we can
    do throughout the Government, given time.
        So I appreciate the support for this program. And let me reiterate,
    I am not simply interested in raising more revenues. I don't want new
    taxes unless we're going to have spending cuts, unless we are going to
    change the nature of Government spending toward more investment, and
    unless we're going to change the way the Government itself operates.
        This is a whole program that will fundamentally give us an end to
    gridlock and the change we need. And I thank these people who are here.
    They are reflective of the kind of unity we need in America to move this
    country forward. Thank you very much.
        Q. How committed, sir, are you to the stimulus part of your package?
    It's now been delayed another month, perhaps; your budget is not even
    going up until April 5th. A lot of economists say that if it gets
    delayed much longer, it won't

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    even help the economy. Only one of the preceding speakers even mentioned
    this stimulus package. Just how important is this?
        The President. Yes, that's not true. At least one of them did
    mention it first. And secondly, I think it is quite important. I think
    it would be a big mistake--let me just give you--it will do what it's
    designed to do later in time for everything except those things that
    have to be in place this summer. And I'm hoping that we can get the kind
    of--a lot of the Members of Congress are looking for a way to
    demonstrate to the country that they don't want to raise more taxes
    without cutting spending. And we're working on giving them an
    opportunity to do that. I agree with that. I think that's fine.
        But there are some things that are time-sensitive in this stimulus
    package. The most obvious and apparent one is the summer jobs program.
    Nearly every person I know, including an enormous number of business
    people who are in and around cities like Los Angeles or Chicago or New
    York or other cities, believe that the prospect of being able to provide
    nearly 700,000 summer jobs in a framework in which we can then get
    business people together to work to provide more jobs--and one of the
    people here on this platform today has already told me that he wanted to
    get involved in that--could be a major statement this summer that we are
    trying to turn some things around in the more depressed areas of our
    country.
        There are some other things that are somewhat time sensitive, but
    the main thing is we need to be investing more money at the same time
    that we are bringing down this deficit so that we'll be creating some
    jobs. The traditional economic theory is that if you reduce the deficit,
    you're going to slow down the economy and undermine the ability to
    create jobs. I just can convince--that's wrong now because of the vast
    accumulated debt. If you can keep interest rates down, you're going to
    speed up the economy by putting more money out there.
        But I think the stimulus is important, and I intend to continue to
    support it.
        Q. Mr. President, I was struck by the fact that of all your speakers
    here, they all said, ``We support the package, but we'd like changes in
    the area that affects us.'' Isn't that what you've been warning against?
    That the tax increase----
        The President. That's not what they said. That's not what--only one
    of them said that, I think. And I think that, for one thing, the very
    fact that they're here supporting it, knowing that they'd all like
    changes in something that affects them, is the very point I've been
    trying to make to the American people.
        If you look at this, if you look at this, if every person looks at
    this through the mirror of what is best for you today, there will always
    be something in here that doesn't quite work. The thing that makes this
    work is that it is a package in which everybody forgoes something they
    would like and gets something that they would like, but that in the main
    it moves the country in the right direction.
        The Vice President. Could I add something to that?
        The President. Yes.
        The Vice President. You know, Lod Cook started off by singling out
    the two provisions which you would expect him to oppose in the old
    model. And he singled those out as things that he supported. And many of
    the others have said, privately and publicly, that they strongly support
    the package in spite of the fact that it contains elements that they
    would not like to necessarily single out by themselves but as part of a
    package it makes sense for the country.
        Q. Would you be willing to put forth more spending cuts before your
    budget goes up? I know you called for the Republicans----
        The President. Like what? Like what? I mean, unlike a lot of these
    other people, I worked for weeks and weeks and weeks on this budget.
    What I said was, if they had more spending cuts they thought were good
    ideas, I'd be happy to embrace them, that I intended for the entire
    duration of my term here to continue to look for more spending cuts. If
    I find more that I think are worthy, I'll be glad to incorporate them.
        But let me just say, I have a difficult time taking these people
    seriously, who say we should have more spending cuts, who were here for
    the last 12 years. Where were they? I don't mind; anybody can say
    whatever they want about more spending cuts, but why are you asking me?
    Why don't you ask them? They're going around saying, ``I have the list
    of spending cuts that I will discuss with somebody at some later date.''
        Q. They're saying that you're suggesting many spending cuts which
    have been up on the Hill for years and that these aren't any new cuts
    and these are----

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        The President. If we pass them, it will be new. [Laughter] They've
    been up there. If we pass them, they will be new.
        Q. You said earlier you obviously don't like to raise taxes. Are you
    ready to acknowledge at this point that you will have to go back to
    Congress and ask for more tax increases for the health care reform
    package? And would you also comment on a report that you've dropped the
    idea of taxing benefits?
        The President. I haven't picked any tax up, so how could I drop--you
    can't drop something you didn't pick up. So I won't comment on
    something--if I pick something, I'll tell you.
        I can say this: I'm not ready to admit that I think that the people
    who have paid the bill for health care in the 1980's should turn around
    and pay more right now. We're spending 14 percent of gross national
    product. You do have to find some way to recover some revenues to cover
    people who now don't have coverage, if the Government pays for the
    coverage. And that's an important part of stopping the cost shifting,
    which has led to so much increase in private insurance.
        But there are lots of options we are looking at now which wouldn't
    necessarily increase middle class tax burdens. There are a whole range
    of options for dealing with this, which is why I asked you to let us
    finish this process of review before we try to pick it apart.
        There was a huge transfer of wealth in America in the 1980's away
    from everything else to health care, to pay more for the same health
    care. Most of it went into paperwork, insurance costs, extra procedures
    by providers, and duplication of expensive equipment, and emergency
    care, partly due to the absence of primary and preventive care. If you
    correct all those things and you don't change the present spending
    patterns, that will create a huge windfall to people whose pricing
    structures have all that built in. There are all kinds of things that we
    might be able to do to solve this problem, short of having health care
    become even more expensive for people who are paying 30 percent more for
    it than anybody else on Earth.
        Q. [Inaudible]--that burden middle class. Does that rule out sin
    taxes then?
        The President. I think health-related taxes are different. I think
    cigarette taxes, for example, are different.
        Q. Why?
        The President. Why? Because I think that we are spending a ton of
    money in private insurance and in Government tax payments to deal with
    the health care problems occasioned by bad health habits, and
    particularly smoking, which is costing us a lot of money.
        Q. [Inaudible]--you stand on the cuts? What kind of cuts would be
    considered? I know you're hearing a lot of input. You stressed the
    importance of input. In that input----
        The President. I haven't really been getting a lot of input. That's
    the thing. A lot of people keep talking about it; I haven't been getting
    a lot of specific input. A lot of folks say they want overall caps.
    Overall caps are another way of saying, let's take Social Security
    benefits away from people even though Social Security is producing a $70
    billion--$60 billion-plus surplus in taxes. Or let's take Medicare
    benefits away from middle class Medicare beneficiaries instead of
    reforming the health care system.
        That's basically the only things I've heard since then. If somebody
    wants to come forward with something else specific--now, there are some
    people who--let me just be also fair. Some of the people in my party
    have been somewhat more specific about some of the cuts they want that I
    honestly disagree with, and there ought to be a debate on that in
    Congress. Some of them want me to cut defense more. I've already had to
    cut defense more than I pledged to do in the campaign because it appears
    that the last budget which was adopted by Congress had defense cuts in
    it which weren't real. So I don't think I can cut any more right now.
    The Congress will be free to debate that.
        Some people think that we should abolish the superconducting super
    collider or end the space station program, but I honestly don't agree
    with that. I thought about those programs and I debated them, but at
    least those are specific, and they can be debated on the floor of
    Congress. But these general ``cap this, blanket that,'' I think people
    ought to say what the cut is and who will be affected by it and be very
    specific.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:02 a.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive
    Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to Representative Eva M.
    Clayton, who represented the newly elected Democratic Representatives,
    and Kathryn G. Thompson, chairman and chief executive officer, Kathryn
    G. Thompson Development Co.