[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
[December 19, 1994]
[Pages 2186-2188]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on the Middle Class Bill of Rights and North Korea
December 19, 1994

    The President. Last week, I outlined my proposal for a middle class 
bill of rights to help the American people restore the American dream. 
The GI bill after World War II gave a generation of Americans a chance 
to build their own lives and their own dreams. Now we can help a new 
generation of hardworking people get the right education and skills, 
raise their children, and keep their families strong so that they can 
get ahead in the new American economy.
    I want to take just a moment to remind you of the four features in 
that bill of rights. First, for a family making less than $120,000, the 
tuition they pay for postsecondary education, training, and retraining 
would be fully deductible from a taxable income, phased up to $10,000 a 
year; second, for a family with an income of $75,000 a year or less, a 
tax cut phased up to $500 a year for every child under the age of 13; 
third, for families with incomes under $100,000 a year, the ability to 
put away $2,000 tax-free into an IRA and then withdraw that money tax-
free for costs of education, health care, first-time home, or the care 
of an elderly parent. Finally, we will make billions of dollars 
available that the Government normally spends itself, through separate 
job-training programs, directly to workers who can decide on how best to 
use the money to learn new skills.
    There's only one reason we can afford to do this at this time. We 
have worked very hard to cut Government spending and to bring the 
deficit under control. The Government debt increased by 4 times during 
the 12 years before I took office. I want to remind you what that burden 
means. It means that this April when people make out their checks to the 
Government, 28 cents of every dollar of Federal income tax will be 
necessary to pay interest on the debt accumulated between 1981 and the 
day I was inaugurated. It is our responsibility to turn that

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around, and we have been working to fulfill it. We have already passed 
budgets that cut the deficit by $700 billion, eliminate 100 Government 
programs, and cut over 300 others.
    A major part of this endeavor has been the reinventing Government 
initiative led by the Vice President. I have worked hard to reduce and 
to redirect governments for many years, since my early days as Governor 
of my State, when we were one of the first States in the country to 
adopt a statewide total quality management program, which resulted in 
cutting regulation and paperwork, eliminating agencies and departments 
and programs that were unnecessary. Now we are cutting things that can 
be cut. We propose to stop doing things that Government doesn't do very 
well and that don't need to be done by Government. And we believe we 
should increase our efforts where Government can make a real, positive 
difference in the lives of ordinary Americans. We have to change 
yesterday's Government and make it work for the America of today and 
tomorrow.
    In the last 2 years, we have made a good beginning. We have begun to 
shrink the Federal Government's bureaucracy to its smallest size in 30 
years. The work force of the Federal Government is already almost 
100,000 below where it was on the day we were inaugurated. We are on the 
way to a reduction of 272,000 positions, cuts that are freeing up money 
to invest in our people. For example, every dollar that goes to fund the 
crime bill, which is a direct transfer of investment to our local 
communities at the grassroots level, comes from the cuts we are making.
    Later today at the Justice Department, I will announce new efforts 
under the crime bill to finish our commitment of putting 100,000 more 
police officers on the street and stop the crime that punishes so many 
American families.
    We have to continue to meet our responsibilities to the next 
generation. We must pay, therefore, for the middle class bill of rights 
with new reductions in Government spending, dollar for dollar, spending 
cuts to pay for tax cuts, with no new cuts in Medicare and Social 
Security. I call on Congress to meet that same responsibility in their 
deliberations.
    Our administration has just completed a review in which we have 
identified $24 billion in cuts in bureaucracy, redtape, and outmoded 
programs to help to do this. And we are committed to continuing the 
freeze on discretionary spending, which will save another $52 billion in 
the next 5-year budget cycle.
    We will do even more to shrink yesterday's Government. I have called 
on the Vice President to review every single Government program and 
department for further possible reductions. He's also going to review 
the Federal regulatory process, and we have spent a good deal of time on 
that already, so that we can get better results for the public with less 
interference in their lives.
    Vice President Gore is here to discuss the details of our next round 
of proposals in reinventing Government, along with Director Alice Rivlin 
and the heads or representatives of five agencies in which we are 
proposing reductions now, including Secretary Cisneros, Secretary Pena, 
Deputy Secretary White, General Services Administration Director Roger 
Johnson, and Office of Personnel Management Director Jim King. I want to 
thank them and our entire economic team for their hard work in the last 
few weeks.
    I also want to say a special word of thanks to people who often get 
overlooked in this, and that is the employees of the United States 
Government. The work they have done in the last 2 years to help us to 
reduce the size of the Federal work force by 100,000 already, to 
implement plans to take it down to a total of 272,000, and even more 
with the announcements we are making today, that work is truly 
exemplary. It would be envied by many of our biggest corporations in 
this country. They have rolled up their sleeves; they have been 
creative; they have found ways for us to save taxpayer money and 
redirect that into the middle class bill of rights and to investing in 
our future.
    This has been--I want to emphasize--a very disciplined, well-
organized process. We have not let rhetoric and recklessness dominate 
it. This has been about reality. And again, as we go into the New Year, 
that ought to be our motto, as I said the other night: Country first, 
politics-as-usual dead last; focus on reality, not rhetoric and not 
recklessness.
    It is not enough to cut Government just for the sake of cutting it. 
Government is not inherently good or bad. In a new time, with a new 
economy, with new demands on ordinary American families, we need a 
leaner but not a meaner Government. We need to put Government back on 
the side of hardworking Americans. That means I will oppose certain cuts 
if they under-


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mine our economic recovery, undermine middle class living standards, 
undermine our attempts to support poor people who are doing their best 
to raise their children and want to work their way into the middle 
class, undermine our attempts to improve education, protect our 
environment, and move us into the future with a high-wage, high-growth 
economy.
    As I said last Thursday night, what we really need is a new American 
Government for this new American economy in the 21st century, one that 
is creative and flexible, that's a high-quality, low-cost producer of 
services that the American people need and that can best be provided at 
the national level. The best thing we can do in this process is to 
follow the model that smart companies have done, which is to develop a 
good plan, put good people in charge, and pursue the goal with vigor.
    I am confident that I chose the right person to lead the reinventing 
Government effort. I want to thank the Vice President and all of his 
team. They have done wonderful work. And I'd like now to turn the podium 
over to Vice President Gore.

[At this point, the Vice President outlined the reinventing Government 
plan and introduced the agency officials who presented the new 
proposals.]

North Korea

    Q. Can we ask the President a question?
    The President. Let me just--let me make a brief statement. I want to 
say just two things about the North Korean situation. First of all, I 
called the families of the two soldiers involved today to express my 
concern, and in the case of the gentleman who was killed, my 
condolences, to the family. And I told them what I can tell you. I've 
worked on this all weekend. I'm going to keep working on it, and we're 
working on an early resolution of it. We're doing the very best we can. 
I don't have any details to tell you now.
    As you know, I think, Congressman Richardson is in North Korea, and 
he is working with us and also doing a very fine job. I have nothing 
else to say at this time, except it's a high priority, we're working on 
it, and we're going to do our best to resolve it.

Note: The President spoke at 12:13 p.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building.