    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [January 5, 1995]
    [Pages 18-19]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the Appointment of Michael D. McCurry as Assistant to the
    President and Press Secretary and an Exchange With Reporters
    January 5, 1995

        The President. This is a live event. Now listen, you all have to be
    respectful. I just saw CNN describe this as a live event. [Laughter]
        To none of your surprise, I am very pleased to announce the
    appointment of Mike McCurry as the Assistant to the President and the
    White House Press Secretary. He has done a very fine job representing
    our administration at the Department of State since I took office. He
    has dealt with the wide range of very sensitive, complicated, and
    difficult issues, and he's done it very well.
        He has almost two decades of experience here in Washington, but to
    give you an idea of the kind of person he is in spite of that, the only
    pictures on his wall are the pictures of his wife and his two children.
    And they have a third one on the way. Debra and Mike told me on the way
    out here that they were the embodiment of the family values of this
    administration. [Laughter] And let me say I appreciate the personal
    sacrifice that both of them are making for Mike to do this job.

    Legislative Agenda

        Before I turn the podium over to Mr. Panetta and officially welcome
    Mike McCurry, let me say that, as all of you know, I had my first
    meeting today with the new bipartisan leadership of the Congress. I was
    very pleased with it in terms of tone and substance. I congratulated
    them in the House on passing the bill that requires Congress to live
    under the laws it imposes on the private sector. That bill passed the
    House last year by a similar margin, but it didn't pass the Senate. I
    hope it will this time, and I pledge to sign it quickly.
        I'd also like to see further movement on political reform in areas
    where we clearly agree: the line-item veto, the unfunded mandates issue.
    We can do a lot of business together for the benefit of the country.
        The other thing that happened in the meeting today that really
    impressed me was an acknowledgement by the Members of the Congress who
    have been here for years and years in both parties that they made a
    mistake back in 1981 to adopt a bidding war in the tax cuts that gave us
    what became known as ``trickle-down economics'' and quadrupled the
    national debt. And they agreed that we ought to have a limit to how much
    we cut revenues, determined by how much we can pay for that with
    spending cuts, so that there is going to be, apparently, no attempt to
    go back to what I call trickle-down economics, to exploding the deficit
    and a ratification of the work of the last 2 years in reducing the
    deficit by $700 billion, which is about $11,000 a family in this
    country. I was happy with that result.
        I think there will be a lot of other things we can do, but I hope
    now that the House has taken one vote in the reform area, they will keep
    on going with the line-item veto, with the unfunded mandates
    legislation, and hopefully, too, with lobby reform and other reforms.
    I'm sorry the lobby reform legislation didn't pass yesterday, but it can
    pass on its own merits, and it's a very important part of what we need
    to do to restore the confidence of the American people in our Government
    here.
        Thank you very much.
        Q. President Clinton, it almost sounds as if you're saying that the
    country is better off because Republicans won the majority in Congress.
        The President. No. The country is better off because we reduced the
    deficit, produced 5 billion jobs, expanded trade by record amounts, and
    did some things to help ordinary people deal with their lives. But
    people are living through a time of great uprooting, with great changes
    in their lives. They voted to give the majority control in Congress to
    the Republicans.
        My job is not to do what they did. My job is not to stand in the way
    and be an obstructionist force. My job is not to practice the politics
    of personal destruction. My job is to work with them to try to help
    build this country. And that's what I'm going to do.
        If they want to keep bringing the deficit down, that's something we
    started. If they want to reduce the Government, that's something we
    began. If they want to pass welfare reform, if they want to deal with
    health care reform, if they want to deal with these governmental reform
    issues that I have supported for years, like

    [[Page 19]]

    the line-item veto, the country can be better off. Yes, the country can
    be better off if we work together than if we don't.
        But that should be taken in no way as a diminishing in my eyes of
    what happened in the last 2 years, which was terrific. Even if the
    voters didn't agree or didn't even know about it, it was good for the
    country, and the country's better off. So the country's better off today
    than it was 2 years ago.
        What our moral and legal obligation is, is to make sure that the
    country will be better off 2 years from now. I think the people are
    sick, literally sick of seeing all this partisan infighting up here. I
    just showed up here 2 years ago, and I was bewildered by it. I was
    astonished by it. And I was revolted by it. And I think the American
    people are, too.
        Now, the others who were in that room with me today, starting with
    Speaker Gingrich and Senator Dole, they've been part of the Washington
    scene for a lot longer than I have, for decades. And I understand that.
    But they said they wanted to see an end to the partisan infighting. The
    Democrats, to their everlasting credit, said that they had learned from
    the Republicans how to stop things, but they thought that was not their
    job. Their job was to make things happen. So that's what we're trying to
    do. And I'm going to do my best to make good things happen for America.
    I do not want to see a series of partisan battles.
        We need first to identify what we can agree on and move this country
    forward. And we ought to start with lobby reform and these other
    reforms. Then we ought to move on to responsible tax reform that I hope
    will focus on the middle class bill of rights and giving people
    education deductions because that will build the economy.
        This is Mike McCurry's press conference, and I've already said
    enough.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:46 p.m. in the Briefing Room at the White
    House.