[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
[July 19, 1993]
[Pages 1104-1109]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1104]]


Teleconference Remarks to the National Association of County Officials
July 19, 1993

    The President. Good morning. I'm honored to address the National 
Association of County Officials today and very, very grateful for the 
strong support you've given to our economic plan. It's good for the 
counties of this country; it's good for America; it's good for the 
working people of this country.
    I very much appreciate that nice introduction by your president and 
my long-time friend, John Stroger. He's been a valuable part of our team 
and a very effective advocate for county government. As Cook County 
Commissioner, he also represents one of the legendary counties in 
America. That was true even before my wife was born there. [Laughter]
    Let me say just a few words about the terrible flooding throughout 
the Midwest. There's been extraordinary damage done to crops and homes 
and businesses, but not to the spirit of our people or to our commitment 
to join them as neighbors to help them to rebuild each of those 
communities.
    As county leaders, you know more than most about the hopes and 
problems of families. For many, the efforts of local government 
represent the best ideals of America. But for too many years, since 
Washington has spent too much and invested too little and refused to 
make the tough decisions necessary to keep our economy healthy, the only 
clear message local leaders got from Washington was, ``You're on your 
own. And by the way, here are a few more burdens.'' Washington gave you 
make-believe budgets and mandates with no money. They drove up the debt 
from $1 trillion to $4 trillion and still invested less in the things 
that make our communities stronger.
    Well, you've been at the forefront of trying to change this. You 
know that we must create high-wage, high-skill jobs again so there will 
be less crime, fewer transfer payments, and more revenues to support 
businesses and institutions that are the foundation of all stable 
communities.
    I wish I could be with you in person today, and I'm looking forward 
to doing so when you have future meetings. But as you know, my first 
obligation to you and to our Nation is to keep fighting for change right 
here in Washington and for an economic plan that creates jobs and raises 
incomes, that invests in a stronger tomorrow and brings this terrible 
deficit down.
    This economic plan is good for the country and the economy and good 
for the forgotten middle class. It contains the largest Federal 
reduction of the deficit in history, with over $250 billion of dramatic 
cuts in spending. It finally begins paying down the deficit and shifting 
the budget away from waste and toward sound investments in job creation 
and entrepreneurship, in new technologies, and in the health and 
education of our people. There couldn't be a more profound change from 
the old ways and the failed policies of the past to a new direction that 
will make our economy work again.
    For starters, we make more than 200 specific cuts that slash over 
$250 billion from this budget. For the first time, we secure the savings 
from both tax increases and spending cuts in a trust fund so they can't 
be touched. While the old ways favor those at the very top income 
brackets, our plan asks the most from those who are most able to give. 
At least 70 percent of the new taxes in this plan will fall on those 
making over $200,000 a year, while millions of families earning below 
$30,000 will actually get a tax break. And those who work full-time and 
have children at home will be lifted out of poverty. Over 90 percent of 
the small business who are unincorporated will have the opportunity for 
a reduction in their taxes through increasing their expensing 
provisions. So working families and the middle class, after 12 long 
years of being ignored, win in our program.
    The old ways ignored the business incentives and the investments in 
technology and infrastructure that will allow our economy to create 
growth in a tough global economy. And while my plan does cut the deficit 
dramatically, it also empowers families and businesses to build better 
lives and stronger communities.
    This plan reforms the student loan program, saving billions of 
dollars and making it easier for millions of our young people to pay for 
college. It creates a program of national service to allow young people 
to pay for college by serving their Nation in communities like yours. 
And for the majority who don't attend college,

[[Page 1105]]

we've funded the boldest national apprenticeship program ever. Educating 
and training young people is the best investment we can make, and it's 
time we committed ourselves to doing that.
    We empower communities to protect themselves by providing more funds 
for police officers. It empowers creditworthy small businesses to a new 
network of community development banks and creates empowerment zones to 
bring to bear the full power of free enterprise on our poorest large and 
small areas. And because I believe new environmental technologies and 
improved water systems and better roads and incentives for the private 
sector will mean more jobs and more growth, our plan creates a greater 
commitment to each.
    I'm excited about our future. I know this plan will work. It's 
already beginning to work. In the last 5 months, as we have moved to 
reduce this deficit and to increase business incentives, interest rates 
have hit record lows. That will add billions to our economy as millions 
of Americans, including many in your audience, I bet, refinance their 
homes or their business loans or buy cars or borrow for college or 
consumer loans at much lower rates. In the last 5 months, the economy 
has been creating private sector jobs at 7 times the rate of the last 4 
years. And inflation is flat.
    Now, make no mistake about it, we still have a lot to do. Economic 
growth is still way too slow and too uneven. But putting our economic 
house in order is beginning to bring prosperity here at home and helping 
America to gain a new competitive edge in the global economy, as I 
learned at the Tokyo talks among the large seven industrial powers last 
week.
    Because the American people are having the courage to change and 
because Congress is really moving to reduce the deficit and to invest in 
jobs, my hand was greatly strengthened at that meeting in Tokyo. 
Negotiations that had gone extremely slowly for years suddenly opened 
up, and we struck a new agreement to dramatically lower and in some 
cases to completely eliminate tariffs on a variety of manufactured 
products. That can mean hundreds of thousands more jobs for American 
workers in manufacturing areas with high wages and more growth for 
American companies, if we can now move to get that agreement accepted by 
all the other countries in a general agreement before the end of the 
year. I'm very excited about the prospect.
    Our commitment to a balanced plan of deficit reduction and economic 
growth simply has raised our stature among the community of nations. 
This, combined with a pledge to fundamentally reform health care, which 
will be extremely significant for our counties in reducing our deficit 
and in helping our economy to recover, gave us the right to demand that 
the world's major trading countries take new steps themselves to create 
jobs and growth and to open their markets to our products.
    After the meeting in Tokyo I am more confident than ever that we can 
make the world's new economy work for us. But we can only enjoy the 
opportunities created in Tokyo if we follow through on our own 
responsibilities to bring our deficit down, to invest in our people, to 
be more competitive. There is still a lot of work ahead of us. This 
economy has been in the doldrums for years. We have been following the 
wrong policies for more than a decade. We have to have the patience and 
discipline and conviction it takes, all of us, to do our fair share to 
move this thing forward.
    If you haven't said anything to your Member of Congress to let them 
know how you feel, now is the time. Without regard to party, I ask for 
your help and your active involvement. There are some who are standing 
on the sidelines who must be convinced to join with us. This is bigger 
than party or politics. Bringing down America's deficit, investing in 
America's future, helping us to open new trade opportunities and new 
investment opportunities and new job-creating opportunities at home and 
abroad, these things should be beyond politics.
    So please pick up the phone and lend your voice to the call for 
change and jobs and growth that is beginning to make life better in 
America. Together we can build prosperity and hope again. Let's capture 
the spirit of our mighty Midwesterners, who for 2 weeks have refused to 
relinquish their dreams in the face of this terrible flooding and who 
have proven that nothing is impossible when we all pull together. In a 
few weeks, let's give ourselves a vote we can look back on with pride 
because together we helped to create a new era of American greatness.
    Thank you very much.

Asia-U.S. Trade

    Q. Good morning, Mr. President.
    The President. Good morning.

[[Page 1106]]

    Q. We're really glad that you could join us today. I'm from Florida, 
and we recently opened a trade office in Singapore, so I was 
particularly interested in your remarks relating to opportunities to 
participate aggressively in the global economy. What types of changes do 
you think we should have in our international policy so that we as a 
nation can expand our opportunities in all the countries in the Pacific 
Rim?
    The President. Let me, first of all, say to all of you present that 
your county has done a smart thing, and I think that other counties 
should consider following suit. Forty percent of American trade is now 
with the Pacific region. It's the fastest-growing part of the economy in 
the world. About 2.5 million American jobs now depend upon trade with 
the Pacific. It's very, very important.
    I would say there are three things that we should be doing at the 
national level. First, we need to complete an agreement before the end 
of the year on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the new world 
trade agreement. The meeting of the G-7 in Tokyo made that much more 
possible by having the big countries agree to reduce tariffs and to 
eliminate them entirely. A good study here in this country says that we 
could add $6 trillion to the world economy by the next decade if we 
would simply conclude this agreement. That will open a lot of new jobs 
for Americans in manufacturing and in agriculture and in services.
    The second thing we need to do is to build stronger ties to these 
countries. I'm very proud that in the fall of this year I will host a 
meeting in Seattle, Washington, for the Organization of Asian Pacific 
Economic Cooperation. All these nations are coming here, and after the 
ministers meet, the next day many heads of state will meet with me.
    The third thing we need to do is to redefine our trading 
relationship with Japan. And as I'm sure you know, at the very end of 
the G-7 meeting, the Prime Minister of Japan and I agreed to and 
announced a framework for a new trade relationship in which Japan 
pledged for the first time to substantially reduce its trade surplus 
with the United States and to have measurable objective measures of 
progress in several important areas of our trading relationship.
    Now, even if we do all that, we still need more local governmental 
units and especially more American business men and women who are 
willing to aggressively exploit opportunities in the Pacific area. 
Americans have got to be better traders and more interested in selling 
their products and their services around the world. Even small 
businesses have to do a better job of that.
    So we're going to do those big three things, but we need more folks 
like you who are interested in taking advantage of the global economy. 
Over half of our jobs in the last 5 years have been related in some way 
to trade and a lot of them to the Pacific. So that's what I think we 
should do in the Pacific region.

Unfunded Federal Mandates

    Q. [Inaudible]--Texas, one of the poorest counties in the Nation. I 
also am a member of NACO board of directors and serve as--[inaudible]. 
We need your help, Mr. President. Every year Congress passes new laws 
that require us to provide new services or to meet new standards. But 
rarely does Congress appropriate the dollars to meet this mandate. We 
have to raise our county local taxes to meet these costs and these new 
mandates. What can your administration do to help us?
    The President. Well, first of all, you've asked a great question. As 
a Governor for 12 years in one of the poorer States in America, I 
understood the burden of unfunded mandates very well. And I'm familiar 
with your county in Texas, and I hear your message loud and clear.
    The first thing we can do is to do no harm. The first thing we can 
do is to be the first administration in a long time not to load any more 
unfunded mandates on you. And that is a commitment I will do my best to 
keep. The second thing we can do is to review the present pattern of 
Federal regulation and requirements as it affects local government. Vice 
President Gore, at my request, is heading a commission on reinventing 
the role of the Federal Government and we are examining everything we do 
from top to bottom to see how we can better serve the American people, 
either with greater efficiency or with lower costs or both.
    And if there are some things that NACO specifically feels ought to 
be changed in terms of giving the counties greater flexibility in the 
way certain rules and regulations are applied, I want to invite you as 
an organization to make those recommendations known to the Vice 
President. I know you've been consulted on this. But those are the two 
things I think you can do and I

[[Page 1107]]

hope that we can do, and we're going to do our best to do them.

Health Care Reform

    Q. Mr. President, counties spend over $30 billion a year on health 
care. We own and operate more than 4,500 health facilities. We, in 
essence, take care of the uninsured in this country. What role do you 
see for county officials in your proposed health reform plan?
    The President. I think the counties that are providing health care 
services may well continue to do so and will do so much more happily 
than they do now if our health reform plan passes, for a couple of 
reasons. First of all, we are looking for ways now, and I think we've 
found some, to provide basic health insurance to the uninsured, 
unemployed. If we do that, then as you provide those health services to 
those folks, you'll get a more reliable stream of income. And the only 
monies that will have to be matched at the State and local level are 
those that are now matched under the Medicaid program.
    Secondly, the proposal that we will make will cut out a lot of the 
redtape, a lot of the regulation coming from the Government, coming from 
the way the insurance markets are now organized. And local public health 
units will be able to do much more with the money that they've got to 
serve people in ways that are more flexible and more creative.
    So I would think that you will like this very much. People will be 
able to do this. If any of the counties want to get out of the business 
because there won't be anybody without basic insurance and think they 
can be handled in some other way, the counties will also have that 
option. But the counties that want to stay in the business will be able 
to do it with a much more reliable funding stream, in more innovative 
and comprehensive ways.

Welfare Reform

    Q. Now Mr. President, when you've discussed the Nation's welfare 
system, you have pledged to end welfare as we know it. And as you know, 
many county governments contribute to AFDC programs, and many also 
administer their own general assistance programs. We have supported the 
welfare reform for years and actively supported the creation of the 1988 
Family Support Act. My question is, Mr. President, what guiding 
principles will your working group operate under to ensure the end to 
welfare as we know it, that reform will in fact achieve the desired 
results?
    The President. Thank you very much, Mr. Williams, and thank you, 
too, for the special leadership role that San Diego County has played 
for years in the whole area of welfare reform. As you know, San Diego is 
repeatedly cited in every study as one of the places that's proved that 
we can move people from welfare to work. So you have a lot of 
credentials to ask that question. And I also appreciate the support you 
gave to the Family Support Act of 1988, which I as a Governor had a big 
hand in trying to fashion.
    Let me tell you what the principles that animate us are and what 
we're doing about them. Number one, we need to make work pay. We need to 
make work pay. That means that as a starting point we should adopt the 
provision in the economic plan I presented to Congress which will use 
the earned-income tax credit to lift the working poor out of poverty if 
they have children in the home. Eighteen percent of America's workers 
today are working and still living below the Federal poverty line. An 
enormous number of working parents go home at night to children, having 
worked a full day and a full week, and still live below the poverty 
line. I believe we should change the tax system so that anybody who 
works 40 hours a week and has children in the home is lifted out of 
poverty. That rewards work and not welfare. It removes a dramatic 
incentive to stay on welfare and gives people an incentive to go to work 
and stay there.
    Second, we need to have tougher child support enforcement. We are 
losing billions of dollars a year because people who can afford to pay 
something for their children do not do it. And we need to have a much 
stronger system. We have proposed that, and some of that program is now 
working its way through Congress.
    Third, we need to fully implement the education and training aspects 
of the Family Support Act of 1988. As you know, that act has never been 
adequately funded in its education and training provisions so that we 
empower people to move off welfare.
    Fourth, we need to pass a health care reform bill so that people are 
not without health insurance when they lose their jobs, or if they take 
jobs where the employer presently doesn't provide health insurance. The 
welfare check itself

[[Page 1108]]

is no longer an incentive to stay on welfare. The real value of a 
welfare check in almost every place in America is far lower than it was 
20 years ago. What keeps people on welfare is the cost of health care 
and child care for their kids and the inability to get a good job 
because of a lack of education and training. So we've got to have health 
care reform.
    Finally, having put all that in place, I think we should move to a 
system in which if there's no incentive not to work, if people get 
education and training, if the children are covered with health 
insurance, if you have tough child support enforcement system, you 
shouldn't be able to stay on welfare without working for more than a 
couple of years. After that, you should have to work and earn income 
just like everybody else. And if you put the building blocks in, you can 
have a 2-year limit on welfare as we know it. You would end the system 
as it now exists. It would be temporary for everybody who is able-
bodied.

Improved FEMA Performance

    Q. First, on behalf of Iowans everywhere, I'd like to thank you for 
your efforts and your encouragement during the devastating floods that 
are occurring across Iowa and other midwestern States. The outpouring of 
help and support from our county colleagues and people throughout the 
U.S. is deeply appreciated, and we really do thank you.
    My question relates to one of prevention. In the past, NACO has 
called for increased professionalism at FEMA, making it comparable to 
other Federal public safety agencies such as the FAA and the Centers for 
Disease Control. Your new Director, Lee Witt, has acted quickly in this 
crisis. But I'm wondering if you are going to propose any statutory 
changes that would allow FEMA to become more proactive and to increase 
that level of service.
    The President. First, let me thank you for what you said about the 
work done by Mr. Witt and FEMA. And let me also say again how very sorry 
I am about what's happened and pledge our best efforts to stay in touch 
and keep working with you in the aftermath. As you know, Iowa's got a 
big clean-up job to do now. We still don't have--we don't have water 
back in Des Moines; we've got a lot of continuing problems.
    With regard to the specific question you asked, we're going to 
review FEMA's operations to see what needs to be done to strengthen 
them. From the point of view of the Governors and the people at the 
local level, one of the biggest criticisms has been that FEMA has to go 
through this long approval process with the Governor asking for 
emergency aid. And we're looking at what can be done to maybe pre-
position people and move this whole process faster.
    With regard to the question of the professionalization of the 
Agency, Senator Mikulski has a bill now in the Senate that she's been 
working on. We are discussing it with her, we are working with her, and 
I want to evaluate it as we go along, as I'm sure you do.
    This is very important to me. I live in a State, or I did before I 
became President, lived in a State that had the highest tornado 
occurrences per capita in America, that regularly had floods and ice 
storms and drought. I've been through a lot of experience with FEMA. And 
I think the American people are entitled to an emergency management 
agency that is as good and quick and competent and professional as 
possible.
    Let me just mention one other issue that we have to really think 
through, and that is that FEMA is essentially set up to act quickly with 
problems that are immediate. But these disasters often leave a long 
rebuilding period in their wake. You can't just turn these things around 
overnight. Now, one of the things that we've tried to do is to set up a 
set of de facto solutions to this. For example, when I became President, 
I asked Henry Cisneros, the HUD Secretary, to take over coordinating the 
long-term response to Hurricane Andrew in Florida. I have asked 
Secretary Espy, the Agriculture Secretary now, to take over the long-
term management of our commitment in the Midwest in the aftermath of the 
flood. But that also needs to be thought through because a lot of these 
problems we're going to be dealing with in the fall and the winter and 
next year as well. Senator Mikulski came to St. Louis with me last 
Saturday when we met with the Governors and other emergency personnel 
from all the States affected by the flood. And we're going to be talking 
about what else we need to do legally.
    Thank you.
    John Stroger. Thank you, Mr. President. And frankly, as a fellow 
Arkansan, I can't think of a better time to be president of the National 
Association of Counties and have this oppor-


[[Page 1109]]

tunity to work with you. And I know that you're very sensitive, 
concerned. You're imbued with a sense of fairness for all Americans. And 
working with us here at NACO and with other groups of Americans like us, 
you're going to help us make America really, really great. So we stand 
here with you ready to face the challenges together and build on 
America's already greatness. Thank you very much, and God bless you. And 
I hope he continues to allow you to be strong to carry forth your 
charge.
    The President. Thank you, John. God bless you. Thank you, ladies and 
gentlemen.

Note: The President spoke at 11:34 a.m. via satellite from Room 459 of 
the Old Executive Office Building. A tape was not available for 
verification of the content of these remarks.