    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [November 3, 1994]
    [Pages 1976-1978]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Interview With Mike Siegel of KVI Radio, Seattle, Washington
    November 3, 1994

        Mr. Siegel. Very good to talk to you today. You sound a little
    hoarse.
        The President. I'm a little hoarse, but I'm feeling great.

    Role of Government

        Q. All right. Let's go right to it then. One thing that crosses my
    mind is something that you were in fact one of the creators of, back in
    the mid-eighties, the Democratic Leadership Council, and talked a great
    deal about bringing the party back to a centrist kind of position. And
    now we see today that there is--according to the New York Times today, a
    two-to-one margin of the people in this country believe Government
    should be less involved in solving national problems, which would be
    consistent with what the Democratic Leadership Council said, as you were
    one of those who were the inspiration to create it. And then there are
    those who now criticize what you have done because of the health care
    and the crime bill and the environmental proposals and the very large
    budget proposals that you've made. Are you creating big Government
    again, in contradiction to what you wanted to do with the Democratic
    Leadership Council?
        The President. Absolutely not. The people wouldn't feel that way if
    they were given the facts. This year, for the first time in 25 years,
    the Congress adopted a budget that I recommended that reduced both
    defense and domestic spending--this year, for the first time in 25
    years. The only thing that increased this year was health care costs
    because we refused to act, Medicare and Medicaid. We reduced domestic
    spending. We reduced defense spending. We have reduced the size of the
    Federal Government. There are 70,000 fewer people working for the
    Government than there were on the day I was elected. There will be a
    reduction of 270,000 people in the life of my budgets.
        And the crime bill was a bill that empowered local governments. I
    don't understand where people get off saying that's the National
    Government interfering in crime. What we did with the crime bill was to
    reduce the size of the Federal Government by 270,000 and give it to
    local communities to hire police, to build prisons, to have the
    resources in the courts for tougher punishment and alternatives to
    imprisonment for first offenders, and to have prevention programs.
    That's what we did with the money. So the crime bill is evidence of
    reducing the size of the Federal Government to empower people at the
    local level to reduce the crime rate.

    [[Page 1977]]

        If you look at the initiatives we have taken, basically all the
    major initiatives we have taken are designed to empower individuals to
    assume greater responsibility for themselves: the Family and Medical
    Leave Act, the expansion of Head Start, the apprenticeship programs for
    young people who don't go to college, the better repayment terms for
    college loans. Basically, I have implemented, chapter and verse, the
    agenda of the Democratic Leadership Council.
        Now what is the problem? There are three problems. One is that
    Republicans tried to kill all the major initiatives that we passed. They
    were against deficit reduction, against the middle class college loans,
    against the crime bill, against everything. And they characterized it as
    big Government and taxes because they had to find some way to cover up
    their opposition.
        And secondly, on the health care debate, I was not for a big
    Government health care plan. My plan provided private health insurance
    for small business people and self-employed people on the same terms
    that those of us who work for Government and big companies got it. It
    wasn't presented to the American people that way because the special
    interest groups who were going to lose money in it spent $200 million or
    more to tell the American people something different. And one of the
    things that we have learned in this information age is if you have
    enough money, you can just buy your message, and it's very hard for
    people to know whether it's accurate or not.
        But if you look at where we are today compared to where we were when
    I took office, we've got more jobs, we've got a lower deficit. We've got
    more high-wage jobs. We've got a smaller Federal Government. We've taken
    a serious approach to crime. We've done things to help working families,
    to expand education, to have more trade and a smaller threat to our
    national security abroad. The country is in better shape than it was 21
    months ago. We've moving in the right direction.

    The Economy

        Mr. Siegel. Let me give you a couple of other quick questions
    because your time is short; your office is telling us that. In the poll
    that came out in the Times, CBS-New York Times poll, 27 percent of the
    people believe the country is going in the right direction, and 56
    percent disapprove of your handling of the economy. There's something in
    the perception of the American people that says we're not doing the
    right thing. You're the CEO of the country; why do the people feel that
    way?
        The President. Well, I have very little control from time to time
    over how they feel. What is the information they get? What are the
    facts? I deal in the facts. The facts are, job growth is very fast in
    the first 2 years of my administration, after the worst job growth since
    the Depression, under the Bush administration. The fact is that the
    deficit went up under the previous administrations until they quadrupled
    the debt. We're bringing it down. The fact is we're getting more high-
    wage jobs into the country. If the American people don't know it, they
    obviously can't act on it.
        Now, what are the problems the American people have? We have 20
    years of accumulated insecurity in our work force, people not getting a
    wage increase, people losing their health insurance, people changing
    jobs rapidly. I can't stop them from having to change jobs rapidly, so
    I'm trying to institute a system of lifetime education and training.
        I tried to make sure that working people wouldn't lose their health
    insurance. The Republicans and the special interest groups stopped me.
    But I tried to deal with that. But by every objective measure, the
    economy is in better shape and the country is in better shape.
        I would also have to say, as you well know and as studies have
    documented, the way people get their information today in America is
    overwhelmingly skewed to negative information, to conflict, to failure,
    to negativism. And that's just a matter of fact. I am doing my best to
    shed some light on this, to get the truth out to the American people.
    But every day, they're told bad things, bad things, bad things. The
    truth is very different.
        When I travel abroad on behalf of our country, world leaders ask me,
    what is going on in the United States? How could people possibly be
    pessimistic when our economy is so much stronger than theirs, when we
    are doing so much better, when we are doing so much better than we were?
    The answer is, the people don't know. I am doing my very best to cut
    through the fog and shine some daylight and tell the truth. It's a
    daunting challenge, but I'm doing the best I can.
        Mr. Siegel. Mr. President, I don't mean to interrupt you, I want to
    keep you, but your office is telling us you have to go. I'm going

    [[Page 1978]]

    to be in DC November 14th for that week, broadcasting this program. I
    hope we can get more time to talk during that week.
        The President. Well, I hope we can. And I'm looking forward to being
    there on Sunday. I'm going to do a rally there on Sunday at 12:30 at the
    Pikes Peak----
        Mr. Siegel. Pike Place Market, yes. You'll have a lot of people out
    here then.
        The President. I hope they will. And I'm going to be putting this
    message out there. You can't blame the people for this; they can only
    act on what they know. But if they had--it's a very strange situation.
    We have never had an election in which the information the people had
    was so at variance with the facts. And if they have the facts, they're
    going to vote to keep on going the way we are.
        It's an amazing thing where the 1980's and trickle-down economics
    and explosion of the debt and shipping our jobs overseas--that's what
    got us in the trouble we're in.
        Look at Washington State. Since I've been President, we're selling
    Washington apples in Asia for the first time. We're selling these Boeing
    airplanes around the world and doing everything we can to keep those
    jobs at Boeing. The economy has done much, much better.
        And you started with this DLC thing. I have absolutely kept the
    commitments I made in the DLC credo, to move this country to the center
    and push it forward. The people just need to have the evidence and the
    facts; then they need to feel it.
        Mr. Siegel. Well, Mr. President, I thank you again. I'm sorry we
    don't have more time, but I hope we will get time during that week I'm
    in DC in November.
        The President. Yes, well, check in with us. I'd love to do the
    interview.
        Mr. Siegel. Thank you very much. Good to talk to you, and have a
    good week if you would.
        The President. Goodbye.

    Note: The interview began at 5:25 p.m. The President spoke by telephone
    from the Hotel Savery in Des Moines, IA.