    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [July 17, 1993]
    [Pages 1093-1095]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    July 17, 1993

        Good morning. These past 2 weeks as I've traveled across our Nation
    and our world, I've been reminded that Americans can rise to any
    challenge. The Vice President and I have visited communities in the
    Midwest where floodwaters have destroyed farms and businesses and homes,
    reaching historic levels. We've seen much that is heartbreaking but also
    a lot that is heartlifting.
        The natural disaster is bringing out the best in our people. I saw
    that when I visited Des Moines on Wednesday. People there have been
    going without tapwater, but they still remember what it means to be
    Americans. Volunteers from all over the State and around the country are
    there distributing food and water, filling sandbags, and helping older
    people, the sick, and neighbors whose livelihoods have been washed away.
        Already I've declared disaster areas in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri,
    Wisconsin, and Minnesota. And Federal officials are now in South Dakota,
    North Dakota, Kansas, and Nebraska, reviewing the extensive flood damage
    in those States. I've directed all the appropriate Federal agencies to
    work together as a team to help the victims of these floods. And I've
    been especially pleased with the work of Secretary Espy and the
    Agriculture Department and the sterling efforts of the Federal Emergency
    Management Agency and its Director, James Lee Witt.
        Now I'm asking Congress to approve emergency assistance to help the
    families, farmers, businesses, and communities who've been hurt. And
    today I'll be heading back to St. Louis to meet with Governors from the
    Midwest and several Members of the Congress to plan short-term disaster
    relief and long-term economic recovery. At a time like this, people who
    have worked hard all of their lives deserve a helping hand. With that
    helping hand, the people of the Midwest will get back on their feet.
    After all, they're Americans. They're facing this crisis with grit and
    courage and generosity.
        That indomitable American spirit is recognized as far away as Tokyo
    and Korea. In Tokyo, I attended a summit of the world's seven leading
    industrial nations. In Korea, I visited our service men and women
    serving along the Demilitarized Zone and standing up to the nuclear
    threats that the North Koreans have presented to us in the last several
    weeks.
        In Tokyo, at the economic summit, my hand was strengthened because
    of everything the American people have been doing, working to change our
    economic policies and pushing to cut our deficit and increase investment
    in American jobs. For the first time in more than a dozen years, an
    American President was able to go to one of these summits and look at
    the leaders of the other great economic powers and say, ``We are putting
    our own house in order.'' Your commitment to change has helped me to
    come home with job-creating agreements to lower trade barriers worldwide
    and to reduce our trade deficit with Japan. These agreements will make
    life better for America's workers,

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    America's businesses, and our families.
        After years of deadlocked talks with the world's leading trading
    powers, we negotiated a plan that will dramatically reduce tariffs on
    manufactured products, from chemicals to electronics, from
    pharmaceuticals to farm equipment. When other countries lower their
    tariffs, more consumers all across the world will buy our products. That
    means more manufacturing jobs here in America, high-skill, high-wage
    jobs with a future, and jobs that create other jobs back home.
        I could not have persuaded our trading partners to reach these
    agreements without having made the progress we've made at home on our
    economic plan. For years other nations have come to these meetings and
    said the same things to an American President: We can't have a healthy
    economy in the United States or the world until America cuts the
    deficit, invests in education and technology, and is able to compete and
    win again.
        Well, from the bargaining table at Tokyo to our factory floors here
    at home, we are on the move again, stepping up to the plate, taking
    responsibility, making the tough choices, and building our economic
    strength, not borrowing from it. America is now the high-quality, low-
    cost producer of many products and services that can compete in any
    market in the world.
        And our economic plan answers the call that other world leaders have
    made for years, and now that the American people are making, for
    historic change. It has the largest deficit reduction in history, $500
    billion over 5 years. It has historic spending cuts, more than 200
    specific cuts that save more than $250 billion from this budget. And it
    makes an historic shift from trickle-down economics, where taxes were
    lowered on the wealthy and raised on the middle class, because more than
    three-quarters of the new taxes in this plan will be paid by the
    wealthiest 6 percent of Americans. In fact, for every $10 that we cut
    the deficit, $5 comes from spending cuts, $4 comes from taxes on the
    wealthiest 6 percent, and only a dollar comes from the middle class.
    Working families with incomes under $30,000 are held harmless. The
    working poor, those who work 40 hours a week, have children in the home,
    and are still in poverty, will get tax relief so that no American who's
    working full time with children in the home will live in poverty.
        A majority of our small businesses, where the jobs are mostly
    created in America these days, will actually get a tax cut because of
    the job-creating incentives in this plan. The plan is fair, it's
    balanced, and it will create new jobs, permanent, productive, private-
    sector jobs. With this plan in place, the American economy can produce 8
    million jobs over the next 4 years, 8 million new jobs.
        As the economic plan has progressed through Congress, the financial
    markets where long-term interest rates are set have responded. Long-term
    interest rates have declined to historic lows; mortgage rates are at 20-
    year lows. Now, if we can keep interest rates at this low level for the
    rest of the year, people refinancing their home loans or taking out new
    business loans will pump $100 billion of new capital back into the
    economy, because they'll have lower interest payments and then they'll
    have money to consume or to invest.
        On top of that, the new business incentives, especially those for
    small businesses, will create new jobs. There will be new incentives for
    people to move from welfare rolls to payrolls. That means more jobs and
    new opportunities for young people to serve their communities while they
    finance their college education and become more employable in a tough
    global economy.
        The House and the Senate have both passed versions of this plan, and
    now they're meeting to write a final proposal. With your help we can
    make sure that Congress says no to gridlock and yes to growth, yes to
    change, and yes to what is best in the American spirit.
        Throughout the natural disaster in the Midwest I've been profoundly
    impressed by how our people have pulled together as a family. From the
    Congress to the Governors, to the community leaders in our cities and
    towns, to the volunteers, and to the people who have been dispossessed,
    Americans have risen above their divisions and their personal concerns
    to help people in trouble. In times of crisis we're not Democrats or
    Republicans, we are Americans.
        Today I ask all of you to show that same spirit in responding to our
    economic problems. To those who would do nothing or slide back into the
    status quo of the last several years, I say we must go forward with a
    plan that grows the economy, reduces the deficit, creates jobs, and
    restores fairness.
        I say to my friends in the other party in Congress, just as you have
    worked with me and the people of the Midwest together to help the

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    people dig themselves out of a natural disaster, so should you join us
    in digging America out of the legacy of two decades of declining growth,
    declining productivity, growing deficits, and economic crisis. We are
    Americans; we can pull together. And together we can make the historic
    decisions to build a new generation of prosperity for ourselves, our
    children, and our children's children.
        Thank you for listening.

    Note: This address was recorded at 5:27 p.m. on July 16 in the Roosevelt
    Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on July 17.