[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
[May 17, 1993]
[Pages 677-680]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Arrival in San Diego, California
May 17, 1993

    Thank you so much. Let me begin by thanking Lynn Schenk for that 
vigorous introduction and Bob Filner for what he said. I can tell you, 
if we had a whole Congress full of people like Lynn Schenk and Bob 
Filner, we could turn this country around a lot quicker. They have done 
a wonderful job up there.
    I'd also like to thank all the people who came out to see me today 
and to see my first visit in this county since the election. I want to 
thank the Mayor of Coronado, the Mayor of San Diego, the State officials 
who are here, the Lieutenant Governor, the secretary of State, the State 
comptroller. But mostly, I just want to thank all of you. It is 
wonderful to be back here again. And I'm happy.
    What did you say?

[At this point, students from Patrick Henry High School greeted the 
President.]

[[Page 678]]

    You know, I spent a lot of time here during the campaign. I watched 
people build ships. I listened to people who had lost their jobs. I 
listened to people who were starting new companies. I listened to people 
who were prepared to change but who did not understand why the National 
Government would turn its back on southern California, and on this State 
which carries with it so much of the hopes and dreams of all of America 
and so much of the economic future of our entire country.
    When I went to Washington, I was determined never to forget the 
faces that I saw and the stories that I heard and the lessons that I 
learned. I want you to know that in the last 3\1/2\ months we have made 
a real beginning toward turning this country around. And we are going to 
stay until the job is done.
    You heard Lynn talk about a little of it; you heard Bob talk about a 
little of it. But let me just repeat: for years and years and years we 
just saw the Congress and the President fighting against one another, 
decisions seemed not to be made, the veto pen was used more often, and 
people worked together. Seventeen days after I took office, I signed the 
Family and Medical Leave Act to guarantee that working people could have 
some time off when there's a sick parent or a sick child, without losing 
their job.
    For the first time in 17 years, the Congress passed a resolution on 
time to set the framework of the budget that we're now working on. And 
what that means is that we cannot raise your taxes unless we also cut 
spending, no tax increases without spending cuts to bring the deficit 
down.
    And to all the young people in the audience, we managed to win one 
for you, too, after years and years of trying. Just a few days ago, the 
United States Congress passed, and I am about to sign, the motor voter 
bill, to open up the voting rolls to millions of young people and make 
it easier for people to register and vote.
    But now we must focus on the hard part: How can we do the things 
that we have to do to turn this country around? How can we open the 
economy up and give people who are working hard and playing by the rules 
the chance to have a good future? How can we do these things? Here is 
what I think we have to do. The first thing we have to do is to pass a 
budget which does the right things with your money. We have seen the 
debt of this country go from $1 trillion to $4 trillion in 12 years. And 
what did you get out of it? We saw a decline in investment. We saw 
working people work harder for lower wages. We saw taxes on the middle 
class go up and taxes on the wealthy go down. Everything was turned 
around in opposite directions from where we ought to be going.
    We are beginning to change that. This budget contains over $250 
billion of hard budget cuts. This budget raises most of the money we 
raise in taxes from people with incomes above $100,000, over 74 percent 
of it. This budget give a tax break to working families with incomes of 
under $30,000, to protect them from the impact of the decisions we have 
to make. And we have proposed to put all the taxes and all the spending 
cuts into a legally separate trust fund so the money cannot be spent to 
do anything but bring the debt down. It is time we stopped talking about 
this and started doing something about it.
    And you know, when you hear people say ``no, no, no,'' ask them 
where they were the last 12 years. Most of the people who say that we 
don't have a good plan are the very people that drove this country in 
the ditch in the first place. They took that debt from $1 trillion to $4 
trillion. Where were they?
    But let me tell you some things you may not know about this bill. 
When I came here, I said that we had not only to reduce the deficit, we 
had to provide more incentives for people to invest to create jobs. So 
this tax bill also gives real incentives to get the real estate markets 
going here again. It gives small business people a $25,000-a-year 
expensing provision, 2\1/2\ times greater than the present law, so that 
there will be incentives for small business people to reinvest in their 
businesses, and put people to work. It gives a big incentive to larger 
companies located here and throughout the United States to increase in 
more plants and equipment, to modernize and create jobs, because they 
can write it off more rapidly. This bill is pro-investment, not 
consumption. This is a bill designed to create jobs, not take them away. 
I hope we can pass it in the United States Congress.
    And let me say this again: This bill provides for tax relief for the 
working poor, so that when this bill passes, every American will be able 
to say with some pride, we're rewarding work and not welfare in this 
country. Now if you work 40 hours a week and you've got a child in the

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house, you won't be in poverty anymore. I think that's something that's 
worth doing. It protects families with incomes of under $30,000 from the 
energy tax. And for families over $40,000 up to about $100,000, it 
minimizes the burdens of about $10 to $15 a month. And I think it's 
worth that to get our country back and get this deficit down and reclaim 
our financial future. We've got to put our house in order, folks. And if 
we don't do it, we're going to be paying for it from now on.
    But let me tell you what else we are trying to do. It is not just 
enough to deal with the budget. We have to do things that will create 
jobs. This county knows, as well as any in America, that it was wrong to 
cut defense spending as much as we did with no plan to reinvest in a 
domestic economy. We have in this budget over $1.7 billion this year and 
$20 billion in the next 4 years to convert from a defense to a domestic 
economy, to help it go--civilian jobs, commercial jobs, to retrain 
people, to rebuild communities, to get this country going again. And we 
must do that.
    I also recognize, and I'm sure many of you do, that the financial 
health of this country will never be assured until finally we join all 
the other advanced countries with which we're competing and provide 
health care security with a basic health care for all Americans at 
affordable cost. And we are coming with a health care plan to do just 
that. And I hope the American people will support it.
    Finally, let me say that California needs an economic strategy that 
will be built from the grassroots up but that will have a partner in the 
White House. I have delegated to Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, the 
responsibility of representing this administration in this State and 
developing a coordinated economic policy for the long-term health and 
welfare of the California economy. And we will not stop until we have 
turned this State around and moved this State forward.
    We have made a beginning in this budget. With all the budget cuts 
we've got, there is more money in this budget for California and the 
other States that are hit unfairly by the burdens of large immigration 
problems and all the costs that go into it. The Federal Government's 
going to pay more of our fair share in California now and ask you to pay 
less. We're going to invest more in environmental cleanup, in the kind 
of water problems that you have here. We're going to do our part, and 
we're going to do it right. And most importantly of all, we're going to 
continue to work on building an economic base that will replace the 
prosperity you enjoyed in times of high defense spending when the cold 
war was at its height. It is wrong to let the people who won the cold 
war lose the peace afterward. It is wrong to turn our backs on the State 
that moved this country so much in the 1980's. It is wrong not to have a 
strategy that will not work miracles but that will make progress day in 
and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out. And I want 
you to know that we are going to work our hearts out in Washington 
together in order to move this State forward, and move this country 
forward. And I want you to help us do it. Will you do it?
    Lynn Schenk said it better than I could, but I want to reiterate it: 
The country went in one direction for 12 years, and it was a popular 
direction. The most popular thing in the world to do, if you're in 
public life, is to cut people's taxes and spend more money. But sooner 
or later, your string runs out. Sooner or later, people look around and 
they say, ``How did we have a $4 trillion debt? How can we be spending 
over $300 million a year over and above what we're taking in? How can we 
be working harder for lower wages? Why are these other countries able to 
invest and create jobs and grow, and we don't have the money?'' The 
reason is because we stopped thinking about the future. We did what was 
popular in the short run. We took the easy way and the shortcut, and we 
are paying for it. But I'm telling you, this country is still the 
strongest country in the world economically, militarily, politically. 
The fabric of our people, the strength of our families, the will of 
individuals to succeed is as strong as it has ever been. All we have to 
do now is to have the courage to face these problems forthrightly. Let's 
pass a budget that puts our house in order. Let's invest in the 
education of our people and the new technologies of the future. Let's 
provide health care to our people. Together we can do it. We need your 
help. We need your support for people like Lynn and Bob who care about 
the future and are willing to make the tough decisions. Stay with us and 
we can turn the country around and

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California around together.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 4:55 p.m. at the North Island Naval Air 
Station.