[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
[August 2, 1994]
[Pages 1407-1409]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Announcing United States Shipbuilding Industry Initiatives
August 2, 1994

    Thank you. Secretary Pena, Secretary Brown, Ambassador Kantor, 
Admiral Herberger, John Dane, and Doug Ballis. Thanks for saving the 
sign.
    I'd like to introduce the Members of the House who are here who 
supported this initiative and who have made a major contribution to what 
we're doing and obviously will be needed in the months and years ahead 
and whose districts will be affected by the announcements we make today: 
Congressman Gene Taylor from Mississippi, Congressman Billy Tauzin from 
Louisiana, Congressman Bobby Scott from Virginia, and Congresswoman Lynn 
Schenk and Congressman Bob Filner from California. Thank you for your 
help. Would you stand? [Applause]
    I'd like to begin by thanking Doug and Richard Vortman, NASSCO's 
CEO, who is also here, because they gave me one of those seminal 
experiences you have once in a while in life that takes an idea from 
your head to your heart. When you know something and you know you ought 
to do it, that's one thing. But when you feel it, it's another thing 
altogether.
    They stopped work one day in May of 1992, before I was even the 
nominee of my party for President, so that I could speak to nearly 4,000 
of their people and so that I could listen to them. I could see them 
working together, struggling together, trying to compete in the global 
economy, building the only commercial ship then being built anywhere in 
the United States of America. They made me feel welcome, but they also 
made sure I was aware of what the stakes were and what the issue was and 
how this was yet one more example of how we could compete and win in an 
area critical to our future if only we had the policies, the tools, and 
the drive to do it.
    I wish all the people that I met that day could be in this room 
today. I'm afraid the fire marshal would evict us all if I had tried to 
achieve that. But they are the people who really taught me about this 
issue, and they are the people, they and the millions like them, for 
whom I fought both before I got here and for whom I try to fight every 
day in this office.
    This is a great day for our American jobs, for our economy, for our 
shipbuilding industry. It's a great day for the idea that if we all work 
together we can figure out how to solve our problems even in difficult 
budgetary times.
    Two years ago, every ship in America under construction except one 
was destined for defense, every one. And now we know that while our 
United States naval power is still unsurpassed in the world and must 
remain so, we cannot allow that one commercial vessel I saw under 
construction in San Diego become a symbol of the past.
    We know that one of the things that we needed most in 1992 and one 
of the things we're trying most to do today is to have a strategy for 
restructuring our defense industries so that they can fulfill a dual 
purpose, let me say, not so they can get out of defense work, because we 
will continue to need major investments in defense technologies for the 
foreseeable future, but so that with defense being scaled back, those 
kinds of folks can stay in business by being successful commercially as 
well.
    When I ran for this job, when the economy was going down and the 
deficit was going up, it was obvious to me that there were many reasons 
for that, but one of them was that the Government had no strategy. What 
was our strategy to preserve aerospace, our biggest export? What was our 
strategy when it came to the shipbuilding industry? What was our 
strategy to help support our automakers when they had made radical 
changes all through the 1980's so

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that they could be more competitive again? What was our strategy?
    And the truth is, we didn't have one. Well, now we do have one. We 
have strategies for those industries and for others and for our economy. 
We've concluded trade agreements that expanded the barriers of world 
trade and enabled us to do more: NAFTA, the GATT we're trying to pass in 
Congress now, all designed to help hard-working middle class Americans 
get ahead because they'll have the economic opportunities to do it.
    I've said this many times, but I want to repeat it again: The 
mission of the United States at the close of the 20th century must be to 
keep the American dream alive in the 21st century. And to do it, we have 
to restore the economy, rebuild our communities at home, empower 
individuals to take responsibilities for themselves, put Government back 
on the side of ordinary people, create a world of greater peace and 
prosperity. That is what we must do.
    And that is exactly what we are celebrating here today, not just 
four projects for four worthy companies with several thousand worthy 
American workers. In the last 19 months, we have dramatically reduced 
the deficit. We're on the verge of getting 3 years of deficit reduction 
in a row for the first time since Truman was President. We have seen 3.8 
million new jobs come into this economy, even as we are scaling back the 
Federal work force so that by the end of this budget cycle it will be 
the smallest it's been since President Kennedy was here in the White 
House. The unemployment rate has gone down by 1\1/2\ percent, and we are 
making real progress in bringing manufacturing back. Between 1989 and 
1992, we lost 1.4 million manufacturing jobs. Now we have 104,000 more 
than we had on the day I was inaugurated.
    I am proud of these accomplishments of the American people, getting 
the American economy in order by getting our economic house in order, by 
instituting lifetime education and training programs that will have to 
embrace all of our people from the first day of preschool to the last 
day they work.
    Two years ago, Doug and a lot of other people in NASSCO said, ``This 
has been a great day, but don't forget us if you're elected.'' And we 
haven't forgotten them, but we've got to keep following through. And we 
have to think of this as a permanent partnership. I believe that if you 
look at the America that we're moving toward, the Government will adopt 
a less regulatory role, the Government will become a smaller percentage 
of our gross national product in the amount of money we spend. But the 
Government will have to be there in the competition in the global 
economy of the 21st century in partnership with the private sector to 
make sure that our people, when they're doing the right things, have a 
chance to compete and win and have a chance to seize the technologies of 
the 21st century.
    Let me just make a couple of other remarks about that. Secretary 
Perry could not be here today with our other Cabinet members. But I do 
want to say that the Defense Department, I think, has done an exemplary 
job in promoting defense conversion. Secretary Perry has recently 
awarded the first $30 million in matching grants out of a total of $220 
million we'll invest over the next 5 years to apply advanced 
technologies to make our shipbuilding industry even more competitive. 
We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars more in other areas to 
promote defense conversion as well.
    I also want to join Secretary Pena in complimenting our Trade 
Representative, our Ambassador, Mickey Kantor, for the work he did in 
the OECD negotiations with the European countries on shipbuilding 
subsidies. They dragged on for 5 years, and his work will bring an end 
to unfair foreign shipbuilding subsidies that has kept us out of world 
markets too long. He did a good job with that; he did a good job with 
the GATT; he did a superb job with NAFTA. And we're selling rice to 
Japan for the first time--[laughter]--which makes my people happy back 
home in Arkansas. And I thank you, sir.
    I also want to say a special word of thanks to the Secretary of 
Commerce. He was here not very long ago when we announced $6 billion in 
aircraft exports. We had an announcement the other day of $4 billion in 
telecommunications exports, and there are more in other high-wage 
manufacturing industries.
    The next step, as Secretary Pena said, in our comprehensive maritime 
reform is to sustain the U.S. flag merchant fleet. And this week, as the 
House considers that maritime and security and trade act, I hope that 
you all will help us see that the Congress passes a bill similar to the 
one the administration has proposed.
    Let me say again, this is a partnership, and this is a good 
beginning. And we're going in

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the right direction with the economy as a whole and with shipbuilding in 
particular, with Government and business and workers walking hand in 
hand into the 21st century. But we have to make this a part of the 
permanent process of doing business for America. I ask all of you to 
support that, to rededicate yourself to these objectives. This is a good 
day. As my daughter says, this is a big deal. [Laughter] But it is just 
a beginning. Let's keep it going.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:36 a.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the 
White House. In his remarks, he referred to Adm. Albert Herberger, 
Administrator, Maritime Administration; John Dane III, president, 
Trinity Shipyards; and Doug Ballis, National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. 
(NASSCO) employee.