    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [December 4, 1993]
    [Pages 2119-2123]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to Employees at Rockwell International in Canoga Park
    December 4, 1993

        Thank you very much, Mr. Beall, Mr. Paster, ladies and gentlemen of
    Rockwell and Rocketdyne. I am very glad to be here. I want to thank all
    of you for coming, the workers in this great facility. And some of my
    workers in the last campaign from the Inland Empire I know came here.
    They're here somewhere over there. I thank you for coming.
        I also want you to know that we're all a little embarrassed to be so
    late here, but if you got to watch the meeting that just occurred, you
    know that there were so many people with so many ideas about what we
    could do together to rebuild the California economy. Having asked them
    there, I could hardly walk away and not listen to them. I was so moved
    by the people who came and what they said and how very specific they
    were. It made me really have greater faith than ever before that
    together we can turn this economy around and get things going

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    again for California and for the entire country.
        I also want to say a special word of thanks to you for the sign that
    I walked under coming out here that said, ``Thank you, Mr. President,
    for the space station.'' We worked hard to save it. We're going to work
    hard to keep it. It's an important part of our future, and so are you.
        I ran for President, my fellow Americans, because I thought this
    country had two great problems: I thought we had to restore the American
    economy so that it worked again for middle class Americans and gave all
    Americans a chance to work their way into the middle class, and I
    thought we had to pull this country together again and make a strength
    out of our diversity, so that we can go into the 21st century as the
    greatest country in the world and so that every person can live up to
    the fullest of their ability.

    [At this point, the President was interrupted by a noise in the
    factory.]

        What is that? That's not my hot air for a change. [Laughter] If you
    can hear me, I'll talk over it unless we're in some kind of danger.
        When I came to the White House in January, I had an economic
    strategy that I wanted to implement for all the country. And I knew
    there was a special problem here in California, the State that is not
    only our biggest State with our strongest economy but the State that by
    January was the most economically hurt because of a combination of
    factors: the decline in defense spending, the collapse of real estate,
    the stagnation of the economies to the East, which trade with California
    and which were not buying as many of our exports. All these problems
    combined at once to give terrible, terrible burdens to the people of
    California, much higher than average unemployment rates and an attitude
    that was dragging the whole country down. And it became clear to me that
    unless we could turn the economy of California around, we would never
    fully be able to lift the economy of America.
        I came here today, a year after I held a national economic summit in
    my home State to get the best ideas I could about implementing our
    national economic strategy, to have an economic meeting here in
    California to assess what we have done in the last year and what we need
    to do in the years ahead.
        I want to tell you first that I am convinced that this economy can
    recover for four reasons: first, because the national economy is now
    experiencing clear and consistent signs of recovery; second, because
    many of the things that we have done for the national economy will have
    a particular impact in California; third, because we are targeting
    resources to this State in programs that will help the economy, not by
    hurting other States but by giving California its fair consideration;
    and finally, fourthly, and most importantly of all for all of you,
    because we have committed ourselves in this administration to fight for
    a 5-year, $20 billion program of defense conversion so that we don't
    leave the people who won the cold war out in the cold, we invest in
    technologies for a commercial peacetime economy that can create jobs in
    California and jobs in this company.
        Let me take these issues one by one. When I became President, I
    committed to bring the deficit down, to get interest rates down, to keep
    inflation down, to get investment up, and to give people incentives to
    invest in this economy. The Congress after a lot of struggling, adopted
    an economic plan, which I had pushed very hard. And here's what the plan
    does. It does raise taxes on somewhat less than 2 percent of our people,
    the wealthiest Americans whose incomes went up while their taxes went
    down in the 1980's. It also cuts taxes on 15 to 16 million working
    families who work 40 hours a week, have kids in their house, and are
    barely above the poverty line, so they'll be working and not on welfare.
    It gives the potential of a tax break to 90 percent of the small
    businesses in this country if they'll invest more money in their
    businesses. It increases the research and development tax credit to help
    companies like this one. It changes the rules to help people restore the
    real estate economy in States like California.
        And in a year, look what's happened, look what's happened. We have
    historically low interest rates. Over 5 million Americans have
    refinanced their homes. We have low inflation rates. We have investment
    up. Housing sales were at a 14-year high last month. And we've had more
    jobs come in the private sector in the last 10 months than in the
    previous 4 years. We are moving in the right direction. Most Americans
    have not felt it yet, but you can't ignore the facts. The direction of
    the economy is good, not bad. We are coming back, and that will benefit
    the State of California and the people who live here.

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        The second thing I want to say is, there are a lot of things we're
    doing that will really help California just because of how the economy
    is organized here. We are focusing on new markets. We are focusing on
    new products. We are focusing on new opportunities for the American
    economy. Not very long ago, we removed from export controls $37 billion
    worth of high-tech products and computers and telecommunications, one-
    third of which are manufactured in this State. That will create tens of
    thousands of new jobs by permitting us to sell things abroad that we
    couldn't sell during the cold war. It will make a huge difference.
        We're helping to build a national information superhighway to
    computerize all kinds of information to facilitate economic transfers.
    California is in a remarkable position to take advantage of that. We
    have a whole new technology initiative that will enable us to do things
    that will benefit this State disproportionately.
        And finally, let me say, I know this is one of the more
    controversial things I've been involved in, but I have strongly
    supported efforts to increase trade, like NAFTA, because you can't keep
    and generate more high-tech jobs unless you have more customers. You
    know in this plant, don't you, that the American worker, under all the
    economic pressures of the 1980's, the American worker once again has
    become by far the most productive worker in the world. Now, we all know
    that.
        But what else do we know? You know it here. What does productivity
    mean? That means fewer people can produce more goods and services. That
    means you have to have more customers for your goods and services if you
    want more jobs and higher incomes. So productivity is good. It is a
    precondition of having a strong economy. But it is not enough. It is not
    enough unless the world economy is growing. Unless we are experiencing
    an opportunity to increase the sales of our products and services, we
    can't have more jobs and higher incomes, not in California, not in the
    United States. So, you betcha, I want to sell more to Mexico and the
    rest of Latin America. I want to sell more to Asia. That's why I invited
    the heads of 15 Asian nations to come to the United States to meet with
    me. I want to sell more around the world. That's why we're working hard
    to reach agreement by December 15th on a new worldwide trade agreement,
    because I know that's the only way in the long run I can protect good
    jobs and high incomes and create more jobs. And I hope you'll support
    that.
        We've also really tried to invest money in this economy. The most
    important thing we've done is to give American companies the chance to
    be partners with the United States Government in converting from a
    defense to a domestic economy in the technology reinvestment project,
    which this year alone awarded over $420 million in grants for new
    technologies for the future. Yes, the things we've done specifically for
    California are important, $300 million more to deal with the problems of
    education caused by the influx of immigration, another $500 million to
    help offset the health care costs of the State because of immigration, a
    $1.3 billion for an infrastructure project to extend that Red Line and
    create new jobs. Those things are important.
        But you know as well as I do, most of the new jobs in this country
    have to be created by people like you in the private sector. That's why
    the most important thing we can do is to help build new partnerships to
    take advantage of this wonderful technological wizardry that came out of
    all our defense investment and put it to work in the domestic economy,
    building a 21st century economy on high-tech commercial purposes based
    on the investments we've made in the cold war technology instead of
    letting them go to waste. We let that happen for too long. We started
    cutting defense in 1987. We didn't start rebuilding our economic base
    until 1993, but we're not going to let another year go by without doing
    it. I know that you know as part of this technology reinvestment
    project, Rocketdyne received an award for several million dollars to
    design and develop a portable environmental monitor to identify low
    concentrations of hazardous chemicals.
        This is a big deal. We will be able to assess the impact of toxic
    spills and auto emissions, chemical warfare agents on the battlefield.
    We'll be able to do something that is good for defense and something
    that is good for our domestic economy. We'll be able to do something we
    have all known for years we ought to be able to do, which is to create
    an enormous number of high-wage, high-tech jobs by cleaning up the
    environment and developing technologies we can then sell to other
    countries to create jobs in America cleaning up their environment.
        Rockwell also led two other winning teams, announced yesterday, one
    to improve the fuel efficiency of automobiles and heavy construction

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    equipment, at a potential fuel savings--listen to this--by as much as a
    billion dollars a year by the year 2000, another to allow medical
    personnel to monitor and diagnose trauma patients remotely, whether
    they're in rural clinics or far-off battlefields. Again, this is a huge
    deal. In America, rural health care is confronted with certain
    inevitable limits, whether it's in California or my home State of
    Arkansas or anywhere else. You cannot put all the high-tech equipment in
    the world in every rural area, but accidents occur there. If technology
    that has been developed to help people on the battlefields deal with the
    wounded, when only a medic is there and they need some high-tech
    connection, can be applied to rural health situations in America, it
    means again more jobs for Rockwell, a stronger economy for America, and
    a better quality of life. That is the sort of thing that this National
    Government should be doing to rebuild the economy of California and the
    United States and to move us forward.
        Let me just say in closing, I know it gets frustrating to see how
    long it takes to make these changes be felt in your lives. I know that,
    but just remember, just remember if you look at our two biggest
    problems--the economy, working Americans have been working harder for
    stagnant wages for 20 years now. We cannot turn it around overnight, but
    we can turn it around. If you look at what's happening to our society,
    the rising rate of crime, the continued breakdown of the family unit,
    the increasing number of children being born to children out of wedlock,
    all these things that are disintegrating our society, that has been
    going on for 30 years. It did not start overnight. We can turn it around
    if we begin now. It won't happen overnight, but we can do it.
        I just ask you to remember what can happen in a year. One year ago,
    the deficit was going up, not down, and interest rates were not dropping
    as they are now. A year ago, we didn't have the kind of bipartisan
    coalition passing bills like the Brady bill and a crime bill to put
    100,000 police on the street. This Congress, in a bill almost nobody
    knows about, revolutionized the student loan problem to lower interest
    rates on college loans, make the repayment terms easier. And they passed
    the national service bill which will enable 20,000 people this year and
    100,000 people 3 years from now to serve their community at the
    grassroots level solving problems and to earn their way through college.
    These are big changes that didn't happen a year ago.
        A year ago, we did not have a strategy to increase the exports of
    this country. We did not have the North American Free Trade Agreement, a
    new dialog with Japan, a real, intense effort to turn this whole trading
    situation around. If we can pass, by December 15th, if we can get the
    trading nations of the world to agree on a dramatic reduction of tariffs
    everywhere, what that means is that American manufacturing products will
    lead to creation of over a million new jobs in this country in the next
    10 years. We did not have that, and I hope we can get it in the next 10
    days. That is the kind of difference you can make in just a year. And
    it's just the beginning.
        These grants that were just announced to Rockwell--the idea was
    approved by the Congress a year ago, but there was opposition in the
    Pentagon and in the previous administration. They did not believe this
    Government had an obligation to help you convert from a defense to a
    domestic economy. I know we do, and I believe this money--10 years from
    now, 20 years from now you will look back on this and say this is the
    best money we ever spent. And next year there will be more of it. We are
    just getting warmed up. You are our partners in building an America for
    the 21st century.
        A lot of this may sound real detailed and complicated, but to me
    it's very simple. I think my job, as your President, is to get this
    country into the next century as the strongest nation in the world. I
    think my job, as your President, is to do everything I can to see that
    you have the opportunity and are challenged to assume the responsibility
    to build a community in this country that will enable every man and
    woman, every boy and girl to live to the fullest of their God-given
    capacities. That's my job. To do it, we're going to have to compete and
    win the global economy; we're going to have to educate and train our
    people; we're going to have to invest in those things that will produce
    jobs and incomes and opportunities; and we're going to have to take our
    streets, our communities, our families, and our neighborhoods back and
    do something about the terrible ravages of crime and violence that are
    consuming this country. But we can do it. We can do it.
        I ask you always to be impatient with me and with this country. Push
    us to do better. Push us to keep making progress. But also rec-

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    ognize we got in the fix we're in--20 years in the decline of wages, 12
    years in the explosion of the deficit, 30 years in the social problems
    we've got. We can turn it around. It won't happen in a day. But if we
    work together and we work hard, every year we can see progress. We can
    see progress. And we will look ahead to the 21st century as the best
    years our country ever had because we did our job now to rebuild
    America.
        Thank you for what you're doing. I'll stay with you. God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:50 p.m. on the main factory floor. In his
    remarks, he referred to Donald Beall, chairman, Rockwell International,
    and Robert Paster, president, Rocketdyne Division.