[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
[June 19, 1993]
[Pages 888-892]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the Community in Portland, Maine
June 19, 1993

    Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator Mitchell. Thank you, 
Congressman Andrews. Thank you, Mayor Pringle. Thank you, ladies and 
gentlemen, for coming out today in such

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large numbers. It's good to be back in Maine, and I want you to know I 
walked down this park in a pair of Dexter shoes made in Maine. I enjoyed 
it. I also want you to know that Senator Mitchell caught me playing golf 
in a pair of shoes not made in Maine, and now I have Dexter golf shoes 
that I wear every time I play golf.
    I want to thank the convention and visitors bureau. I want to thank 
the parks department for hanging the American flag so high today. I want 
to thank the fire department, and I want to thank all the people who 
performed before I got here. I'm sorry I didn't hear the Maine humor. 
I'm sorry I missed the country music. I'm sorry I missed the jazz music. 
I'm glad I didn't miss you.
    I also want to say that behind us there are students from the Reiche 
School, who won one of our blue ribbon excellence awards. Hear them 
cheering? Their representatives were in the Rose Garden a few days ago 
with me and representatives of other distinguished schools all across 
America. But I know you're proud of your schools and your students, and 
I did want to say a special word of hello to them because they were with 
me not very long ago down in Washington.
    It is wonderful to be back in Maine. I've been here when it's hot; 
I've been here when it's cold. This is just about perfect today, and I'm 
glad to be back.
    I want to say a special word of thanks to your Senator, the Senate 
majority leader and a genuine national treasure, George Mitchell. You 
know, he said all that about the election being about change and the 
fact that you gave me your votes in the last election. I'm very grateful 
for that. But it is hard for a President to make change alone. Some 
things have to come with the support of Congress. And thanks to the 
leadership of George Mitchell, just this week the American people had a 
good week.
    First, the Senate passed a campaign finance reform bill that lowers 
the cost of campaigns, reduces the influence of special interests, and 
when the campaign limits are broken, helps people who are outspent to 
get their access to the airwaves, too. It is a good bill, and it's a 
real advance. And not very long before that, the Senate passed a bill, 
finally, to require all the lobbyists in Washington to register and say 
who they are, what they're lobbying for, and to report any money they 
spend lobbying the rest of us, which I think is a very good thing to do. 
That's a message you sent in November. But I can't wave a magic wand and 
do that. The Congress has to go along. And the Senate has, thanks to 
Senator Mitchell.
    The second thing that happened this week was that the Senate and the 
House, by significant bipartisan margins, voted out of committee the 
bills that I have been proposing to open the doors of college education 
to all Americans. And I want you to know how that will work. We're going 
to be able to save money by changing the way college loans are given out 
and provide them to students, without regard to income, at lower 
interest rates and then give students the chance to pay it back as a 
percentage of their income, so nobody will ever be discouraged from 
borrowing money for fear that they'll go broke when they get out of 
college. And as George Mitchell said, tens of thousands of them will be 
able to pay it back with service to their communities, whether in big 
cities or small towns or rural areas, through national service, 
rebuilding America from the grassroots here at home, a domestic peace 
corps. That's going to be the best money we ever spent to educate 
America to compete in the 21st century.
    The third thing that happened is that the Senate Finance Committee 
took action on the economic program that succeeded in passing through 
the House, thanks to the leadership of the chairman, Senator Moynihan 
from New York, and Senator Mitchell, who besides being the majority 
leader is also on the Finance Committee. And next week the Senate will 
have a chance to vote on this economic program, send it to the House so 
they can agree on a bill that I think is critical to this country's 
future.
    Now, there's been a lot of talk about this in the last few weeks, 
and our opponents have said a lot of things about my plan that aren't 
true. So I want to say to you who gave me a chance to be President, 
here's my report on what's really in that plan.
    First of all, let me tell you, I didn't live in Washington before 
January, and I didn't take the debt from $1 trillion to $4 trillion or 
the annual deficit from $74 billion to $300 billion. I was a Governor in 
a State not very different from Maine, working hard within a balanced 
budget to provide good educations to our people and good jobs to our 
people. And I never had

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to raise any money to pay down a deficit. But the plain fact is that 
this country is awash in debt. And one of the reasons it is, is that no 
President's budget has been taken seriously in more than a decade. It's 
all been political rhetoric.
    Last year, my predecessor's budget was voted against by 75 percent 
of the members of his own party in the House of Representatives. Our 
party passed the budget in the House, and we're going to do it in the 
Senate. And we're going to have a comprehensive economic plan to get 
this country moving again, thanks in no small measure to George 
Mitchell. And I want you to know what is in it.
    First, this plan reduces our deficit by $500 billion over the next 5 
years. It begins with $250 billion in spending cuts in everything, in 
defense, in foreign aid, in veterans benefits, in Medicare. In 
everything you can conceive of, we have cut across the board, and it is 
not very easy. But the Democrats have taken the lead in cutting 
spending. Ask Senator Mitchell how many Republican amendments there were 
to cut spending in the Senate Finance Committee last week. I'll tell you 
how many: zero. We cut the spending--we did it--$250 billion.
    Do we raise taxes? Yes, we do. But how is it raised? I'll tell you 
how. Seventy-five percent of the tax money we propose to raise comes 
from the upper 6 percent of income earners in this country. Over two-
thirds of the money comes from people with incomes above $200,000 a 
year, because their taxes went down and their incomes went up in the 
1980's when we gave 70 percent of the gains to the top 1 percent of the 
population. They can pay now, and they should.
    Now, does this plan ask anything of the middle class? Yes, it does. 
If your income is above $30,000 but below $100,000, we ask for a 
contribution. Why? Because after the election, lo and behold, the 
Government says the deficit's going to be $165 billion bigger in the 
next 5 years than it was going to be before the election, and because if 
we don't gain our economic destiny back, if we don't get control of our 
future, if we don't do something about this debt, we're not going to be 
able to go on to the other challenges facing us. But you have to decide 
if it's a good deal.
    Working families with incomes of under $30,000 are held harmless in 
this program. And I'll tell you something else that's awfully good about 
it. For the first time in history, if this program passes, we'll be able 
to say that people who work for a living and still live in poverty--and 
there are millions of them in America--will be lifted out of poverty by 
the tax system. If you work 40 hours a week and you've got a child in 
the house, you can get out of poverty if this economic program passes 
because of the changes in the tax system.
    Let me put it to you another way. For every $10 in deficit reduction 
in this plan, $5 comes from spending cuts, $3.75 comes from the upper 6 
percent, $1.25 comes from the middle class with family incomes above 
$30,000. I think that is fair. I think that is balanced. It will work. 
And let me tell you why it's important. Why is it important? It's 
important because when we start to bring down the deficit--and we've 
been working on this since right after the election--interest rates come 
down. And when interest rates come down, it puts money back in your 
pocket, and it puts money back into the economy.
    Look what's happened now. We have a 20-year low in mortgage rates, a 
7-year high in housing sales, 755,000 new jobs in the economy just since 
January 20th, 130,000 new construction jobs. That is a 9-year high in 
construction job growth because of these low-interest rates. And 
eventually, that's going to help the people making a living out of the 
wood in Maine and in Arkansas, because they depend upon people building 
things to make a living. That's why this is important.
    Now, do we spend some money in this budget? Yes, we do. You can 
decide whether you think it's worth doing. This budget increases, for 
example, the amount of money a small business man or woman can expense 
every year on the tax return from $10,000 to $25,000. I think it's a 
great idea. Why? Because small business is the backbone of this economy. 
Because small business is providing most of the jobs. Because small 
business stopped providing new jobs to this economy a couple of years 
ago, and if you take that right off from 10 to 25 grand, a lot of those 
small business people are going to be able to hire one more person. And 
if millions and millions of them do it, it will be an awful boon for 
this economy, and we can get going again. I think it's worth spending 
that money.
    It costs some money to change the Tax Code so that people who work 
for a living and are

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still in poverty are lifted above poverty. But I think it is worth it to 
say it is never a good thing to be on welfare. If you can work, here's 
an incentive to move from welfare to work and to reward the dignity of 
work. We're not going to have a tax program grind you into poverty; 
we're going to have it lift you out of poverty if you're working for a 
living. It costs some money, but I think it's worth doing.
    Maine and Arkansas have some of the poorest rural areas and small 
towns in the country. I'll tell you something else in this program that 
costs money. We have some enterprise or empowerment zones in this 
program that will give real incentives in big cities and in small rural 
areas for private sector people to come in and invest money to start 
businesses and put people to work. I've heard Republicans and Democrats 
talk for 10 years about why we shouldn't give people extra incentives to 
put private funds into depressed areas, both rural and urban. But 
nobody's ever tried it. So we're going to try it. There's not enough 
Government money to rescue the poor and depressed areas in this country. 
Let's see if we can get the private sector to do it. We've got to give 
them some incentives. It costs some money, but I think it's worth it. 
And I think we ought to try it.
    And let me say this: Even though overall there's a 5-year freeze on 
what's called discretionary spending at home, we do spend some more 
money on Head Start, on education and training, on dealing with the 
people who have lost their jobs because of defense cutbacks, on trying 
to develop new technologies so that we can compete and win in this 
global economy and so that people who lose manufacturing jobs can get 
them back in a different way, by getting ahead of the curve instead of 
being behind like we have for the last 12 years. It costs some money. 
Our competitors are doing it. I think it is worth the money. We can't 
walk away from what is plainly needed to move this economy forward. 
We're not in the business of liquidating America; we're in the business 
of growing America. And we better get about it.
    Let me just give you one example that Congressman Andrews has talked 
to me about. In the last 10 years more than 120,000 American 
shipbuilders and shipyard suppliers have lost their jobs to foreign 
competition and cuts in defense spending. And believe me, our 
competitors subsidize their businesses. Now, our Government didn't do 
much to help our folks compete in that global economy. And we started 
cutting defense spending way back in '86 and went for years and never 
did anything to help the workers and the communities adjust or the 
businesses get into new lines of production. And we want to change all 
that. Your Congressman, Tom Andrews, got a bill passed last year--I want 
to get the formal title here--called the Shipbuilding Promotion Act of 
1992, ordering the Federal Government to establish a group to look at 
threats to shipbuilding jobs. Well, we're doing that. And we're going to 
do that. And we're going to come back and report and see what we can do 
about it.
    Last year when I was running for President, the Congress passed a 
bill to appropriate $500 billion to communities that were hurt by 
defense cutbacks to help the businesses learn to produce new things, to 
help the workers be trained to do new work, to help the communities 
redevelop themselves. And when I became President, not one red cent of 
that money had been released, because they did not believe, the people 
who were there before, in investing to help people to deal with defense 
cutbacks. So you had whole areas of State after State after State in 
terrible economic trouble. Well, we're moving that money.
    The Secretary of Labor, Bob Reich, another New Englander, I might 
add, has approved $3 million for two defense conversion grants just to 
the State of Maine, $2 million to assist workers at the Loring Air Force 
Base and $900,000 to assist those being laid off from the Bath Iron 
Works. And that is a good beginning. But believe me, folks, it is just 
the beginning of what we have to do.
    Now, our opponents chant like a mantra; they say, ``Less tax, more 
cuts; less tax, more cuts.'' How in the world could anybody be against 
that? It sounds great, except guess what? There's only been two versions 
put forward. In the House of Representatives--unlike the Senate, at 
least the House put a plan out there. And guess what? The House 
Republican plan, because it was more unfair to the middle class, to the 
elderly, to the working poor, and to the economic climate of the 
country, lost more Republican votes than my plan lost Democratic votes. 
So it sounds great, but when the Republicans looked at it, they didn't 
like it very well either. And then there was this plan floated in the 
Senate a few days ago which lowered taxes on upper income people and cut 
more out of Medi-


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care and did other things that would weaken our economy and be unfair to 
the elderly and to working people just above the poverty line.
    So I say to people: Where is your idea? Senator Mitchell will tell 
you, this week when the Senate Finance Committee voted that economic 
plan out, our opponents on the other side, many of whom ought to be 
helping us, had all kinds of amendments saying let's cut this tax, let's 
cut this tax, let's cut this tax. Guess what? How many amendments did 
they offer to cut spending? Zero. And when they were asked, where are 
your amendments to cut spending, you know what they said? ``We don't 
want to take any politically unpopular votes on spending cuts.'' Folks, 
we are telling you the truth for a change. We are telling you the truth. 
We had 12 years where people said, ``We're going to cut your taxes, and 
we're going to cut somebody else's spending.'' And what they did was to 
increase spending, cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans, have back-door 
tax increases on the middle class, and let the economy go down the 
tubes. We can do better. And I need your help and support, and so does 
George Mitchell, in making sure we do better.
    And let me tell you, there is more to do. I want to reemphasize, we 
are not trying to deal with these tough issues just to reduce the debt. 
When you reduce the debt, you free up money to invest, to create jobs. 
You think about it. There are people in this audience today who have 
refinanced their homes since interest rates started dropping so much 
last November. That's happening to millions of people all across 
America, and that frees up money. People are getting lower business 
loans. People are getting lower consumer loans and lower car loans. And 
over the next year and a half, it will help this economy. It helps the 
economy if you invest in giving kids a head start, if you retrain 
workers, if you invest in helping companies produce things for the 
civilian market if they don't have a defense contract anymore. It helps 
the economy if you do what it takes to compete with our foreign 
competitors everywhere. That's what helps the economy. And that's what 
we are committed to doing.
    And let me say this: After this budget fight is over, as Senator 
Mitchell just said, I want us to begin in earnest, and we can do it this 
year if we'll get after it, to provide the security that will come to 
millions of Americans if we provide affordable, quality health care to 
every American family. And we can do that, too.
    We can pass the national service bill and open the doors of college 
education to all. We can pass a welfare reform bill that puts people to 
work instead of maintains them in dependency. We can change the nature 
of politics. But you have to stay with us. You have to say: We want the 
House of Representatives to pass campaign finance reform. We want the 
House of Representatives to tell us where all the lobbyists are and who 
they're giving money to. We want the whole Congress to pass an economic 
plan, and we don't want you to stop.
    Change is hard and difficult. And it's not easy to get 218 votes in 
the House and 51 Senators to agree on anything. They all come from 
different places with different interests. And my job as President is to 
try to make sure that the national interest overrides the particular 
interest of anybody and any group in any State, including yours and 
mine. We have got to pull this country together again and be a family 
again so we can move forward again.
    Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 6 p.m. at Deering Oaks Park.