[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
[August 6, 1994]
[Pages 1442-1444]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Upon Arrival in Detroit, Michigan
August 6, 1994

    Hello. Thank you for waiting while I visited with one of your fellow 
citizens over there and her two children. I want to just get out and 
shake hands, so I won't make a long speech. But I would like to say, 
first, be supportive of the new candidate for the United States Senate, 
Congressman Bob Carr, and our new candidate for Governor, former 
Congressman Howard Wolpe. I'm glad to be here with Congressman Dingell 
and Congressman Conyers and Senator Levin and with your State officials 
and a lot of my friends in Michigan.
    I just want to make a comment or two. The lady to my left is Linda 
Clark. You may have read about her in the Michigan press, she and her 
two children. In 1993, her husband was killed in his business by five 
young people with previous criminal records. After he died, she received 
a $24,000 bill from the hospital for his medical care, even though she 
didn't have health insurance. Since then, she has become a crusader for 
health care for all Americans and for a sensible policy on crime and, 
specifically, a supporter of our crime and health care initiatives. I 
read her letter again coming in today, and I asked her and her children 
to come here and be with me today because in Washington, very often what 
we do gets all caught up in partisan political rhetoric and name-calling 
and stuff that is very hard for ordinary citizens to understand. And I 
just want to make two or three points here today.
    When I went to Washington as your President, I understood well that 
there would be forces there who would do anything, anything to fight 
change, to keep the established order of things, to stop us in our 
determination to give the American people their Government back again, 
to make it work for ordinary citizens, and to reawaken the American 
dream. But I want to ask you to look at the record, not the hype.
    When I became President, the deficit was going up, and the economy 
was going down. By the narrowest of margins, we passed our national 
economic strategy. It cut $255 billion worth of spending. It raised 
taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of Americans, and all their money 
went to pay down the deficit. It gave a tax break to 15 million American 
working families. In Michigan that means 392,000 families got a tax cut; 
41,000 got a tax increase. Ninety-one percent of the American small 
businesses were made eligible for a tax cut. We

[[Page 1443]]

shrunk the Federal Government to its smallest size since Kennedy was 
President, produced 3 years of deficit reduction in a row for the first 
time since Harry Truman was President, and you've got 4.1 million new 
jobs in the United States since our administration took office.
    And since our administration took office, job growth in Michigan has 
been 3\1/2\ times what it was before. It is no wonder that the other 
party would rather not talk about economics or crime or health care and 
instead are interested in other things and division and always saying 
no. We did not have a single, solitary vote, not one, for that economic 
strategy from the opposition party. And I have done everything I could 
to reach out to people without regard to their party and ask for a 
bipartisan consensus to govern America.
    You just remember that, folks, when Bob Carr is up here asking for 
your vote for the United States Senate. If it hadn't been for him, there 
would have been no deficit reduction, there would have been no economic 
recovery fueled by the first sensible economic plan we've had in more 
than 12 years. They want to go back; we're trying to go forward. And I 
appreciate your coming out here today saying you don't want to go back, 
you'd rather go forward, you'd rather create jobs, you'd rather grow the 
economy, you'd rather keep the American dream alive.
    Now, let me just make two other points. There's hardly a family in 
America that has not been affected by crime. And the Congress has passed 
the toughest, smartest crime bill in history in each House, but they 
haven't passed the same bill. There are things in that bill that are 
controversial. There are people who don't support the capital punishment 
provisions of the bill. There are people who don't support the fact that 
the bill bans 19 assault weapons, which are so often used by criminal 
gangs, even though it protects 650 hunting and sporting weapons from 
being banned. There are people who think we should not spend a lot of 
money on prevention programs to give our young people something to say 
yes to, instead of something to say no to. There are people who don't 
think it's important, but that crime bill gives 100,000 police to the 
streets of this country, a 20 percent increase. It makes our streets 
safer; it bans handgun ownership by minors; it has programs for safe 
schools; it has programs that will build more prisons and have ``three 
strikes and you're out'' for serious offenders and do more to help kids 
stay out of trouble. It is a good bill, and it should pass the United 
States Congress next week. We should stop fooling around with it. There 
are other families like Linda's family who deserve to have their streets 
safer and their futures better and brighter, and we ought to quit 
fooling around with it.
    And finally, let me say something about health care. You know, I get 
tickled at all these people who say that this health care bill is some 
big Government socialist scheme, that it's some horrible idea to take 
over a big part of our economy.
    Let me ask you something, folks. Here's a few questions, and I'd say 
the folks that aren't with us owe us some answers. Which country spends 
the most on health care? The United States. Which advanced country is 
the only one that doesn't provide health care coverage for everybody? 
The United States. Which is the only advanced country in the world where 
we're going in reverse, we're losing ground in health care coverage? The 
United States. Ten years ago, we had 88 percent of the people with 
insurance; now it's 83 percent. Today in America, there are 5 million, 5 
million Americans, almost all of them working people and their children, 
who don't have insurance today who had it 5 years ago. Now, until we 
provide affordable private health insurance for all Americans, we are 
not going to be able to have a secure, stable family environment, work 
environment, offer people the chance to grow.
    What do they say about this health care plan? They say it's bad for 
small business. Well, let me ask you this--this is an interesting 
thing--why, if it's bad for small business, have 600,000 small 
businesses signed up to support our plan to require everybody to cover 
their employees and split the difference on the insurance premium? I'll 
tell you why, because most small businesses do provide health insurance 
to their employees, and they're getting ripped off today, they're paying 
too much for it.
    I met a farm family from western Oklahoma a couple of days ago when 
I gave their daughter an award. She's a young teenager who had a car 
wreck in 1990, paralyzed her from the chest down. She's spent the last 4 
years trying to encourage people not to drink and drive, not to ride 
with drunk drivers, and always to put their seatbelts on--a marvelous 
girl. But the story this family told me was interesting: a Re-


[[Page 1444]]

publican farmer from western Oklahoma, his wife, and their two beautiful 
daughters, one confined to a wheelchair. They've had almost no medical 
bills in the last 2 years. But they just got notice that in August, 
their health insurance premiums are going from $3,400 a year to $9,600 a 
year. And they are going to have to drop their health insurance.
    Now, this is not a partisan political issue. Anybody working that 
hard with two kids to educate, one of them with a serious illness--
injury in the past, deserves affordable health insurance.
    The only State that has ever provided health care to all its 
citizens is Hawaii. For 20 years, employers and employees have had to 
provide health care. And you know what? Insurance premiums in Hawaii are 
30 percent lower than they are in the rest of the country.
    We can do this. I am tired of people saying, we cannot do this, we 
cannot do that, we cannot do the other thing. The violent, extremist 
interests in this country that are trying to keep health care out of the 
reach of ordinary American working people are a disgrace to the American 
dream. Most of them have health care, and most of them have parents on 
Medicare. Why do they not want you to have the same thing that they 
have? Why? Why don't they want you to have what they can? Let them give 
up their health care and see how they like it.
    Now, folks, we're going to have to make some tough decisions here. I 
don't mind being a controversial figure. You didn't invite me to go to 
Washington to sit in the White House and warm the chair. We are changing 
this country. We are rebuilding the economy, we're taking on crime, 
we're taking on welfare reform, we're taking on health care, we're 
taking on the tough issues. But I cannot do it alone; you have to help. 
Support the Members of Congress. Tell them you want them to move on the 
crime bill. Tell them you want them to move on health care. Tell them a 
simple message: We are coming to the end of this century; we have got to 
keep the American dream alive. The only way to do it is to restore the 
economy, empower individuals to take advantage of it, and rebuild our 
communities and families.
    Let's make Government work for ordinary citizens again. That's what 
I'm fighting for. Thank you for being here to help me make the fight.
    God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 5 p.m. at Selfridge Air National Guard 
Base.