    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [February 18, 1993]
    [Pages 122-125]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the Economic Program in St. Louis, Missouri
    February 18, 1993

        Thank you. I love these signs: ``Our children's future starts
    today.'' ``Health care for all.'' ``No guts, no glory: Stop gridlock.''
    ``The Devil's in the details.'' That's right, too. [Laughter] ``Divided
    we'll go down the tubes.'' ``We want real recovery.'' I love these
    signs, and I thank you all for being here today.
        Let me begin by saying how much I enjoyed flying down here with
    Congressman Clay and Congressman Gephardt and with Congressman Volkmer
    and Congresswoman Danner; they're here, too. They are part of the engine
    for change that you're going to see move through our Congress. I thank
    Bill Clay for hosting us in his district, and I want to congratulate him
    on the passage and this time the signing, not the veto, of the Family
    and Medical Leave Act.
        I want to say how glad I am to be back in St. Louis with your
    Governor, my longtime friend and early supporter. And I know that he
    will be a great success, and I'm going to do what I can to be his
    partner in Washington. I know from clear experience that we don't have
    all the answers, and I'll do what I can to see that we make as many
    decisions as possible out here in the Governor's offices where the
    rubber meets the road. And I thank him for being here.
        I want to recognize two of the groups that performed, the Fox High
    School Band and Harris-Stowe College Choir.
        Let me say a word if I might about our majority leader, Dick
    Gephardt. There is no way that I can convey to the people of St. Louis
    and Missouri how important he is to the Nation. But I can tell you this:
    I'm not sure we could do any of the things we have to do if it were not
    for his leadership. If you knew all the times that he had brought
    together the other Members of the House of Representatives on the
    Democratic side and told them they were going to have to cut spending as
    well as raise money, told them we were going to have to change our
    priorities, told them we were going to have to stick together to turn
    this country around, and been a force for moral leadership within the
    United States Congress, the heart of every person not just in his
    district but this whole State would swell with pride to know that you're
    represented by somebody like that.
        If you knew all the times that I heard him stick up in private for
    the men and women who build the cars and build the airplanes and brew
    the beer and provide the backbone of America, you would know that he
    doesn't just say things in public and then behave differently in
    private. He is the same everywhere. And I am very glad that he is my
    full partner in this crusade to change our country.
        You know, St. Louis is a special place for me. It's here where we
    ended the first of our wonderful bus trips across America and where we
    had a rally of about 40,000 people. It was the biggest crowd we'd had at
    that time in the campaign. And we started our second bus trip over in
    east St. Louis. And then we had the first Presidential debate here. So I
    think it's only fitting that I would come to my neighboring State in the
    heartland of America to start day one of America's new direction.
        I was in Missouri on the other side of the State on Labor Day, and I
    went to Harry Truman's home town. I guess in some ways the talk I gave
    to Congress last night was like one of President Truman's talks. Some of
    it was just off the top of my head and from the bottom of my heart. It
    was sort of plain spoken, and I couldn't figure out how else to say what
    I think is the plain truth about where we are.
        This is a country of enormous promise, of unlimited potential, of a
    great future burdened by big problems. I think everybody knows that. And
    we also know, I think, that some mistakes have been made in the course
    we have taken. The fundamental problems we have are because of big,
    sweeping changes in history: America being pushed into a global economy,
    all of us being subject to changes at a far more rapid

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    rate than ever before.
        But we know that the responses we have taken have not worked. There
    are too many people who are unemployed. There are too many people who
    are underemployed. There are too many people who have lost good jobs,
    that cannot get jobs at that income left. There are too many people with
    no health insurance and too many others terrified of losing it. There
    are too many people who don't have access to the education over a
    lifetime that they need to continually be retrained. There are too many
    places where we are not investing in the future. There are too many
    industries, like the aerospace industry in Missouri and throughout the
    country, that we know will produce a huge portion of the high-wage jobs
    of the future all over the world, and yet, they're dying on the vine
    here in America. These things don't make sense.
        What we have been doing has not worked. We need to take a new
    direction that will build a high-wage, high-growth, secure future where
    people can be educated, where there is affordable health care for all,
    and where Americans have a fair chance to compete and win. That's what
    this is all about.
        I want to repeat to you what I said to the Congress last night. I
    remember in 1981 when President Reagan said if you stacked 1,000-dollar
    bills on top of each other, our national debt would go 67 miles into the
    sky. If you did it today, it would go 267 miles into the sky. I say that
    not to blame him, not to blame my predecessor, not to blame anybody.
    Goodness knows, there's enough blame to go around, both parties and the
    Presidency and the Congress, but what good is it going to do us? Let us
    forget about blame and take responsibility for our future. Let's do it
    together. I don't care who gets the credit, I just want us to go
    forward.
        There are already people who are saying that we really can't make
    fundamental changes. There are people who are saying, ``Well, you can't
    bring the deficit down,'' or ``Well, nobody will hang in there and make
    these tough budget cuts the President's proposing,'' or ``Well, you
    can't really reform the health care system,'' even though we're paying
    more and getting less for ours than any country on the face of the
    Earth. I'm tired of all the nay-sayers. I think we can make some
    changes. But we need your help.
        We need your help in two ways: Number one, we need you to show up
    like this, and we need you to tell your Members of Congress that we will
    support you if you make the honest, tough, hard decisions. We know we
    didn't get into this mess overnight. We're not going to get out of it
    overnight. But we cannot keep doing the same old thing. The price of
    doing the same thing is higher than the price of change.
        The second thing you can do is to support your Members of Congress
    by demanding real political reform that will protect them in making
    courageous changes. Tell them you want a campaign finance reform bill
    that will limit the cost of congressional campaigns, limit the influence
    of special interests, and open this process to all people.
        Tell them you want something done to make sure all of the lobbyists
    in Washington have to register and report on their activities; two-
    thirds of them don't. Tell them you support our bill to remove the tax
    deduction for lobbying activities. You are subsidizing interests that
    together undermine your future. Individually they've all got a good
    story to tell, but collectively they help to paralyze the political
    process. And you, at least, should not subsidize it with your tax
    dollars because you don't have comparable deductions.
        My fellow Americans, last night I tried to lay out to the Congress
    and to the American people a plan that will change the direction of this
    country and give us a genuine economic strategy, a plan to produce more
    jobs, higher income, deal with the health care crisis, provide a
    lifetime system of education, and reduce the national debt. We have to
    begin with the Government, and at the top with the President.
        So I have tried to set an example. I have cut the White House staff
    by 25 percent. That will be in my budget for the White House. I have cut
    the administrative costs of the executive branch in my budget 14 percent
    over the next 4 years, over and above the cuts in the White House, and
    we'll reduce employment, not by firing people but by attrition, by
    100,000 over the next 4 years. That will save $9 billion. And yesterday
    the leaders of the House and the Senate announced that the Congress
    would follow our lead and cut their budgets by that much, which I think
    is good.
        There are 150 other specific cuts in this budget, including some
    that were very tough for me to recommend, some in programs that don't
    make any sense anymore. For example, do you remember when we had the
    Bicentennial cele-

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    bration in 1976? There is still a Bicentennial Commission. Our
    Government's great at starting things and not very good at stopping
    things. So we eliminated a lot of things that ought to be stopped.
        The second thing we did was to reduce our investment in programs
    that have done a lot of good, but where the amount you're spending can't
    be justified anymore, including one that was really close to my heart.
    We recommended a reduction in the Federal subsidy to the Rural Electric
    Administration, something that serves a lot of people in my State and
    yours. But America is 100 percent electrified now, and we ought not to
    have the full subsidy continued from all of the rest of the people who
    get their electricity from someplace else.
        We recommended some unwarranted subsidies be eliminated because the
    need for the work is much less or nonexistent anymore. For example, we
    recommended a big cutback in a lot of programs related to the nuclear
    industry and the elimination of a nuclear research program that is
    inconsistent with our new energy future.
        We recommended some big changes in the environmental Superfund
    program: one, to make the polluters pay more and the taxpayers pay less
    and the second, to get the money freed up so that we can use the money
    to clean up pollution. It's all going to lawyer fees now, because people
    don't want anything to happen. We're going to try to make it work.
        Finally, I recommended--and this was difficult for me because I
    can't do anything as your President in the end without the support of
    the fine people in the Federal work force--but we recommended a freeze
    on Federal pay raises for a year and modest pay raises for the next 3,
    because that saves billions of dollars that we don't have to take out of
    the rest of the people in taxes to reduce the deficit.
        So there are 150 tough cuts. Now, let me say I've already heard some
    people on the other side of the aisle say, ``Well, he should have cut
    more.'' And my answer is: Show me where, but be specific. No hot air.
    Show me where, and be specific.
        And since I am here in Missouri, I think I will repeat that. Show
    me. And I say that not in the spirit of partisanship but in the spirit
    of genuine challenge. I know there is more that we can eliminate. I am
    honestly looking. I've just been there 4 weeks and a day, and I'm
    nowhere near through. And I want you to help me, and I want them to help
    me.
        Let me say also, the burdens in terms of taxes I think are imposed
    in a fair way. The rates of 98.9 percent of Americans will not be
    raised. Late in the last election, the New York Times carried a front-
    page story showing that 70 percent of the gains of the 1980's had been
    reaped by the top one percent of the people. This plan asked the top 1.2
    percent of the people to have an income tax increase. This plan asked
    companies with incomes of over $10 million to match that income tax
    increase.
        This plan raises over 70 percent of the funds from people with
    incomes above $100,000. This plan raises no money from people with
    incomes below $30,000. And indeed, because we increased the refundable
    income tax credit, this plan, if it passes, will enable us to do
    something I would think every American would be proud of. For the first
    time ever, if this plan passes, we can say to the people of this
    country: Look, we are rewarding work and family. If you work full-time
    and you've got a kid in your house, you won't live in poverty because of
    the changes we're going to have in the tax system.
        People making $40,000, $50,000, in that range, will pay about $17 a
    month under this plan. But let me tell you, a lot of those people, many
    of whom are in this station today, may wind up not being out any more
    money for this reason: Just since the election, since I said we're going
    to have a tough plan to reduce this debt, long-term interest rates have
    gone down. If you take only the reduction in interest rates which have
    occurred from the election day until this day, for everybody who gets
    the benefit of those lower interest rates in a home mortgage, a car
    payment, consumer credit, you will make more in lower interest rates
    than you'll pay in the energy tax if we can show that we're serious
    about cutting spending and cutting this deficit. We've got to do it.
        One final thing which you'll also hear about from people who oppose
    this plan: I do propose to spend some more money, but not in the old
    way. Look at what we spend it for. We have reduced Government
    consumption. We have reduced inessential programs. But we increase
    spending on jobs: a jobs program to create a half a million jobs
    starting right now in building roads, repairing streets, fixing
    airports, cleaning up the environment with water systems and sewer
    systems; a million summer jobs for

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    young people, if I could get the private sector to contribute to the
    700,000 we're going to create in the Government.
        This program invests in opening the doors of college education to
    all people and giving them a chance to pay the loan back on favorable
    terms or to pay it back with service to our country. This plan will put
    100,000 police officers on the streets of America over the next 4 years.
    This plan will give us a chance to invest in the new technologies that
    will create jobs for the people who have lost their jobs in the defense
    industries and in other big industries that have been downscaling.
        We have got to create some new jobs in this country, for goodness
    sakes. You can have all the other programs in the world, and unless we
    do it, we're going to be in trouble.
        And this plan will reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of
    dollars over the next 5 years. And I ask you, I ask you to support it
    not just for you but for us, not just for narrow interest but for the
    national interest. I believe it will be good for virtually every
    American.
        Today as we speak, a lot of big corporate executives are endorsing
    this plan, even though their income tax bills will go up, their
    companies' bills will go up, because they want a healthy, strong, well-
    educated, vibrant America with an investment climate that's good, with
    stable interest rates, with a declining deficit, with a health care
    issue addressed, and with a country that can grow into the 21st century.
    So a lot of the people who are paying this bill are going to support it
    because they trust us.
        And let me say this: We need you to hold our feet to the fire. No
    raising taxes unless we cut spending.
        We've got to do this in a package, and we've got to do it together.
    I need your help. I'm delighted to see you here today. With your help we
    can make the spirit of St. Louis the spirit of America.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:59 p.m. at Union Station. In his remarks,
    he referred to Gov. Mel Carnahan of Missouri.