[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
[August 3, 1993]
[Pages 1312-1314]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks With Supreme Court Associate-Justice-Designate Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg and an Exchange With Reporters
August 3, 1993

    The President. Good afternoon. My fellow Americans, today we heard 
the sound of gridlock breaking in Washington, and I liked what I heard. 
Today the Senate passed our national service program, one of my top 
legislative priorities. Within months, thousands of young people will be 
at work in their communities helping our country and helping to pay for 
their own education. And middle class students everywhere will have an 
easier time affording college.
    Also today, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to 
confirm Judge Louis Freeh to be Director of the FBI. This support for a 
crime fighter of iron will and unshakable integrity affirms that he is 
clearly the right person for the job.
    But I am most gratified today by the overwhelming vote in the United 
States Senate to confirm Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be Associate 
Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Too often in the past, 
judicial nominations have prompted a partisan brawl and generated more 
heat than light. Today we've put aside partisanship, and the national 
interest won out.
    I have no doubt that Ruth Ginsburg will be a great Justice. She has 
the opportunity to move the Court not left or right but forward. Her 
legal brilliance, wisdom, and deep devotion to justice has brought our 
Nation together around her nomination. When I announced her appointment, 
she spoke about her grandchildren. Someday, I believe my grandchildren 
will benefit from and learn from the contributions she is about to make.
    We've done some good work today, but there's more to do. Tonight I 
will address the Nation about my plans to put our economic house in 
order. I hope that my remarks will be persuasive. But this afternoon, I 
just wanted to take a few moments to congratulate now Justice Ginsburg 
and to give her a chance just to say a sentence or two about this very 
important day in her life and the life of our Nation.
    Judge Ginsburg. I am so glad to be part of what has been a very good 
day for the country. And last time I was here I don't think there was an 
opportunity for any questions. So if one of you has a question, I'll do 
my best to respond.
    Q. Justice Ginsburg, what do you think that you'll bring to the 
Court that has not been present before in the Court? What insights, what 
experience, what background?
    Judge Ginsburg. I think you must reserve judgment. I'll do the very 
best I can in this job, and then you can write a review of my 
performance in a year or so from now.
    Q. You've been called a liberal; you've been called a conservative; 
you've been called a moderate. What are you?
    Judge Ginsburg. I think you could report on

[[Page 1313]]

that, too. But I don't believe that every child that's born alive is 
either a little liberal or else a little conservative, except in Gilbert 
and Sullivan.
    Q. But you're not a child.
    Judge Ginsburg. That's every child that grows to become a woman or a 
man, yes.

Economic Program

    Q. Mr. President, even though this is Justice Ginsburg's moment, 
could we ask you what you hope to accomplish with your speech tonight? 
What persuading do you need to do? What misperceptions perhaps are 
there?
    The President. Well, I think there is still a continuing job to do 
to make sure the American people know again exactly what is in this 
program and why I think it is good for the country, and what it means in 
terms of our long-term economic health and well-being to regain control 
over our economic destiny; to keep interest rates down; to have these 
economic incentives to create jobs; to lift the working poor out of 
poverty; to enable us to move on to deal with health care, with welfare 
reform, with an important crime bill. All these things will help to 
strengthen our efforts at economic recovery. And therefore, this moment 
in this debate is very, very important because it's decisionmaking time, 
not delay time. And I hope that I can persuade the American people that 
that time has come.
    Q. Mr. President, throughout the budget process, people have seemed 
to be able to roll you and get away scot-free. Senator Boren, the prime 
example, got you to back away from the broad-based energy tax and now 
says he won't support the deal. That begs the question, sir, how can you 
expect people to support a very--or take a very politically difficult 
vote when there doesn't seem to be any penalty for those who won't?
    The President. How can you expect me to answer a question which is 
not credibly put? He had a veto on the Senate Finance Committee, didn't 
he, because the Republicans refused to engage in responsible budgetary 
discussions? So I didn't agree to do anything. He didn't roll anybody. 
He exercised his vote, and his vote was enough. And that's the way the 
legislative process works, near as I can tell, from the beginning of the 
country. Now, perhaps you know more than I do.
    You know, I saw a lot of people talking about Lyndon Johnson. When 
Lyndon Johnson was the Senate majority leader, a Senator could not 
introduce a bill unless he signed off on it. Would you like to return to 
that system? Would the press favor that? That would give us a little 
more party discipline around here if no Republican or Democrat should 
introduce a bill unless they signed off on it. I've done the best I can. 
I think we've got a very good program.
    Look at the principles that we've got. Look what we started with. 
We've got $500 billion in deficit reduction. We've got a very 
progressive tax program that asks, now, 80 percent of the money will 
come from people with incomes above $200,000. The middle class, that is, 
couples with incomes of under $180,000 down to $30,000, will be asked to 
pay this gas tax. It's about $33 a year. Families with under $30,000 of 
income will be held harmless.
    We have the economic incentives that we have long asked for: for 
small business, over 90 percent of them getting a tax break; the working 
poor lifted out of poverty; new investments for children and for 
families. This is a very good program very much like what I recommended 
and very different from what we've been doing for the last 12 years. And 
if it passes, I will be very glad. And to do it with no help from the 
opposition party will be remarkable.
    Q. Do you have the votes yet for this plan? And you've been waging 
this full-court press now for several weeks, and it doesn't seem to have 
persuaded any Senators to come to your side. Do----
    The President. We'll wait--watch and see. See if we win.
    Q. Why do you think you've had such a hard time persuading the 
Democrats in your own party?
    The President. Well, I think for one thing, I think we've shown a 
lot more party cohesion than the Republicans have. You know, more 
Republicans voted against the House Republican budget than Democrats 
voted against mine. And last year, 75 percent of the Republicans voted 
against President Bush's budget. So I think we've done pretty well. And 
also they've had to do it against a withering barrage of misinformation 
from the Republicans, trying to convince people there were no budget 
cuts, no deficit reduction, all the taxes on the middle class, all 
things that were totally untrue that they just kept saying. I think that 
the Democrats that are with us have shown a remarkable amount of 
political courage.

[[Page 1314]]

    It's hard to get people to be brave when they see for 12 years we 
took the debt from $1 to $4 trillion and reduced investment in our 
future. And people made those decisions and were rewarded by them by 
just always taking the easy way out. I'm not asking them to do something 
easy. I'm asking them to do something hard. And I'm proud of the ones 
that are doing it. And I think when they vote, there will be a majority. 
I feel very good about it.

Partisanship

    Q. Mr. President, I don't want to detract from your beautiful day, 
but you said that partisanship had been set aside; but almost 
unprecedented is the way the Republican Party in both Houses has united 
against you on this bill. Do you think it's personal? Do you think that 
there is some--over and beyond the political implications?
    The President. No, I think it's all politics. I think that the 
guiding spirit there is incredible partisanship. I think they think 
their job is to hurt the Democrats in Congress politically and hurt the 
President politically on this bill. I don't think it has anything to do 
with principle, and I don't think it's personal.
    But I'll tell you this: I don't think it will happen again. I think 
if you look at Judge Ginsburg's vote; if you look at the national 
service vote and the fact that they didn't sustain the filibuster all 
the way through until we voted on the economic program; if you look at 
the genuine dialog that's occurred on health care; if you look at the 
bipartisanship we'll have on trade issues, on the crime bill, on welfare 
reform, and I think on future budgets; if we prove we can take the tough 
decisions now and we're rewarded for it by resuming control of our own 
destiny, I don't think we'll have this level of partisanship on any 
other issue.
    Q. Why not?
    The President. Because there will be no incentive for them to do it. 
The only way they can win with this strategy is if the Democrats don't 
adopt the program. Once this is done, all the rhetoric goes away and the 
reality takes place. People will see that the middle class are not 
burdened, that they're benefited by the program. They'll see that the 
wealthiest Americans who can afford to pay are carrying the lion's 
share. They'll see the spending cuts. They'll see the working poor 
rewarded. They will see the reality.
    The only thing that benefits them now is delay and denial and more 
of what we've had for too long. And I think if we move tonight and move 
tomorrow and move the next day and move this week on this program, then 
we'll get this country back on a forward movement. The momentum will be 
there to face the health care crisis, to face the welfare crisis, to 
face these other problems. And I believe we will do it in a bipartisan 
manner. I'm very, very hopeful about it.
    Thank you.

Address to the Nation

    Q. So have you finished the speech already? Are you still writing or 
is it done?
    The President. I'll fool with it some more, but I'm done.
    Q. Is it a good speech, sir?
    The President. I'll give the Judge Ginsburg answer: That's for you 
to determine. It's what I believe.

Note: The President spoke at 4:44 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House.