    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [January 31, 1995]
    [Pages 126-130]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the National Governors' Association Conference
    January 31, 1995

        Thank you very much, Governor Dean, Governor Thompson, fellow
    Governors, and ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure for me to be back
    here. I have enjoyed our visits in this meeting. I was delighted to have
    you at the White House on Sunday evening, and I have very, very much
    enjoyed our discussion yesterday, our discussions of welfare reform and
    a whole range of other issues.
        Last year, you may remember, when I was here, Governor Carroll
    Campbell and I both lost our voices before our talks, making
    collectively millions of people in both parties happy. [Laughter]
    Unfortunately for you, I am fully recovered this year, and I would like
    to begin, if I might, by thanking you for your vote just a few moments
    ago on the Mexico stabilization package. I want to underline the
    critical nature of the financial problem in Mexico. All of you
    understand it, and I applaud your vote across party and especially
    across regional lines, be-

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    cause a number of you are not in the moment as directly affected as
    others are.
        This crisis poses, however, great risks to our workers, to our
    economy, and to the global economy, and it poses these risks now. We
    must act now. It has gotten worse day by day since I asked for
    legislative action about 2 weeks ago. Rather than face further delay, I
    met with the congressional leadership this morning and told them that I
    will act under my executive authority, and I have asked for their full
    support. We cannot risk further delay, and I tell you today, frankly,
    that your strong support is very, very helpful and very welcome.
        The situation in Mexico continues to worsen. But the leadership
    advised me that while they believe Congress will or, at least, might
    well eventually act, it will not do so immediately. And therefore, it
    will not do so in time. Because Congress cannot act now, I have worked
    with other countries to prepare a new package. As proposed now, it will
    consist of a $20 billion share from the United States Exchange
    Stabilization Fund, which we can authorize by executive action without a
    new act of Congress; $17.5 billion from the International Monetary Fund;
    and in addition to that, there will be a short-term lending facility of
    $10 billion from the Bank of International Settlements. That means that
    in the aggregate we will be able to have an action that is potentially
    even more aggressive than the $40 billion one I originally proposed,
    with more of the load being taken by international institutions and our
    trading partners around the world, which I applaud, but with a
    significant part of the burden still being borne by the United States.
        This is in the interest of America, contrary to what some have said,
    not because there are large financial interests at stake but because
    there are thousands of jobs, billions of dollars of American exports at
    stake, the potential of an even more serious illegal immigration
    problem, the spread of financial instability to other countries in our
    hemisphere and indeed to other developing countries throughout the
    world, and the potential of a more serious narcotics trafficking
    problem. All these things are at stake in the Mexican crisis, and
    therefore, I will act to protect our interests. I have asked the
    bipartisan leadership of Congress to support these actions, and I hope
    and believe they will at some later point today.
        The risks of inaction are greater than the risks of decisive action.
    Do I know for sure that this action will solve all the problems? I do
    not. Do I believe it will? I do. Am I virtually certain that if we do
    nothing, it will get much, much worse in a hurry? I am. This is the
    right thing to do. You have understood it, and I thank you very, very
    much for your vote a few moments ago.
        Since our first meeting 2 years ago, we have enjoyed unprecedented
    cooperation, which have included 7 major waivers in the health care
    reform area and 24 in the welfare reform area, a partnership and a
    successful fight for the crime bill last year which, as you know,
    reduces the Federal Government and gives all the money back to State and
    local communities to fight crime at the grassroots level. We have had
    innovative and more comprehensive agreements with the States of West
    Virginia and Indiana in the area of children and families and the
    remarkable agreement that we signed recently with the State of Oregon
    and seven of our Cabinet Secretaries, ending Federal micromanagement
    across a whole range of areas in return for the statement by the State
    of Oregon of clear goals and performance measures for the future.
        This is the kind of thing that we need to be doing more of. It is
    the kind of thing that I believe we are in the process of doing on
    welfare reform. I was informed of the Speaker's remarks just a few
    moments before I came here, and I applaud them, and I think we have a
    real chance now to have a partnership between the White House and the
    Congress, the Governors, and others who care deeply about this issue.
        Our next goal must be to dramatically restructure the relationship
    between the Federal Government and the States, to create a stronger
    partnership on behalf of our people that goes to the heart of what I
    have called the New Covenant of opportunity and responsibility. I
    believe the Federal Government's job is to expand opportunity and shrink
    bureaucracy. And therefore, I think it is clearly the thing for us to do
    to try to shift more responsibility to the States, to the localities,
    and where appropriate, to the private sector and therefore give you the
    opportunity to solve problems, working with your people, that have
    eluded all of us for too long.

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        The system we inherited was based, fundamentally, on a kind of a
    benign distrust, from an era when, let's face it, in decades past,
    States might not have always done what they should have done to protect
    their citizens. As a Southerner, I can tell you that I don't know what
    we'd have done if the Federal Government hadn't been willing to take
    some of the actions that it took in civil rights and in some other areas
    to help poor children in my State and others.
        So we cannot and we need not condemn the past to say that the whole
    nature and character of State government, the expertise that's there,
    the knowledge that's there, the connections that are there with
    volunteer groups, with community groups, with the nonprofit groups, is
    totally different than it used to be. And the nature of the work to be
    done and the problems to be solved are different than they used to be.
    Therefore, the system we have inherited needs a searching re-
    examination, and where it is yesterday's Government and not tomorrow's,
    it ought to be changed.
        We have tackled this problem with energy and with some success. We
    have done it with real support from the Cabinet and some opposition from
    some within the bureaucracy that have been there through Republican and
    Democratic administrations alike and some in our Congress who have
    questions about what we are doing.
        But I have spent too many years of my life around this table to have
    forgotten what I learned there. I think I came to this office with a
    profound understanding of the challenges that you have faced in working
    with the Federal Government. To build on that understanding is part of
    the reinventing Government initiative. The Vice President, who came with
    me here today for this announcement because he's worked so hard to make
    it possible, has talked literally to thousands of State and local
    government workers, and they have been among the most helpful in shaping
    our reinvention blueprint.
        The message is loud and clear: They want us to stop the
    micromanagement, trust them to do their jobs, hold them accountable for
    results where Federal money and national interests are involved. That's
    why we wish to create a new Federal Government and a new partnership,
    based on trust and accountability. You know better than anyone that a
    great deal of what our National Government does is already carried out
    by States, by counties, by cities. That's why we must change the
    relationship and trust them more. I believe we should ship
    decisionmaking, responsibility, and resources from bureaucracies in
    Washington to communities, to States, and where we can, directly to
    individuals.
        Part of my job is to keep pushing the focus of the National
    Government back to grassroots America, where we can solve so many of our
    problems more effectively. We have begun that work first by cutting the
    size of the Federal Government. We have already cut over a quarter of a
    trillion dollars in spending, more than 300 domestic programs, more than
    100,000 positions from the Federal bureaucracy. Those cuts will
    ultimately total, if no more laws or budgets are passed, more than
    270,000, making, when the process is finished, your Federal Government
    the smallest it has been since the Kennedy administration.
        But cutting Government isn't enough. We also have to make it work
    better, and we've done that too, in many ways. We streamlined the
    Agriculture Department, closing 1,200 field offices. We've moved FEMA
    from being a disaster to helping people in disasters. The Department of
    Transportation worked with private businesses and helped to rebuild
    southern California's fractured freeways in record time and under
    budget, also with a partnership from the State, by changing the laws and
    the procedures and making it work. We've cut an SBA loan form from an
    inch thick to a single page. We've cut the time it takes to get an FHA
    loan endorsement from 4 to 6 weeks to 3 to 5 days. We've reformed the
    procurement system of the Government so that Governments can buy the way
    businesses do, putting an end to the Vice President's opportunity to go
    on the Letterman show and break $10 ashtrays that ought to cost a dollar
    and a half. [Laughter] We have reformed the college loan system. The
    direct loan program will literally save the taxpayers billions of
    dollars, lower interest rates and fees, and improve repayment schedules
    for students, and lower paperwork, bureaucratic time for our
    institutions of higher education.
        Much of this work is simple common sense. The Bureau of Reclamation
    used to require 20 people to sign off on building special fish ladders
    in northern California, taking 3\1/2\ years. The fish were dead by then.
    But at least the ladder was approved. Well, we removed 18 approval
    layers and cut the time down to 6

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    months, in time for the fish to spawn, to their great relief. [Laughter]
    I say this to make the point that a lot of this is common sense and an
    enormous amount of this still remains to be done.
        I suppose I have gotten more comments from you in these last 2 days,
    pro and con, about the process of Federal regulation than anything else.
    Some of you have said, ``Well, I'm getting better cooperation from the
    EPA than ever before. Thank you very much.'' Others have said, ``What
    the policy is sounds good, but there's nothing happening in our State to
    make it better.'' And we have a long way to go, but we can do this. And
    we ought to do it not simply with general rhetoric but also taking these
    issues one by one by one, until we make it right.
        I've asked the Vice President in phase two of his review to continue
    to shrink Federal departments, and we're making sure that the remaining
    Government will be more economical, more entrepreneurial, less
    bureaucratic, and less dictatorial.
        A year ago I signed an Executive order to encourage creative
    partnerships with the private sector in the ownership, financing, and
    construction of infrastructure, responding to your insistence that you
    needed the same kind of flexibility the private sector has when you
    raise funds for major infrastructure projects. Today I'm happy to say
    that Secretary Pena is announcing a series of 35 new infrastructure
    projects in 21 States that will mobilize almost $2 billion in investment
    capital to build roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, relying on
    trust and accountability, not rules and bureaucracy.
        Tens of thousands of new jobs will be created this year, not by
    rocket science but by simply adopting the financing techniques the
    private sector uses all the time. We wouldn't have any of these projects
    if we followed the old rules and allowed them to get in the way of
    innovation. In the budget I'm submitting to Congress, I will propose
    turning this approach into national policy by building performance
    partnerships with State and local governments. We want to consolidate
    categorical funding and call on you to take responsibility for meeting
    the performance standards. Trust and accountability are the foundation
    of these new partnerships. We have to trust you, our partners, to make
    the right choices in spending public funds. And even though you'll have
    more flexibility to solve your problems, you must be held accountable
    for how you spend the Federal money.
        I'm excited because this approach gives us a new opportunity to work
    together, to move forward. On Saturday, Governor Engler captivated the
    Nation by rolling out a list of 335 programs on parchment, sacred
    programs he wanted to put in the block grant, that he could write on a
    piece of notepaper. He didn't know it, but next week, we want to
    announce plans that we've worked on for months to consolidate 271
    programs into 27 performance partnerships. And a lot of those were on
    Governor Engler's list. I'd like to help him cut it shorter. [Applause]
    Thank you.
        One of those I've already announced is the new performance
    partnership for education and job training, part of our middle class
    bill of rights. We propose to collapse 70 separate programs to make them
    more efficient and effective, a ``GI bill'' for America's workers, who
    need new skills to meet the demands of changing times. State and local
    governments will have broad flexibility to help meet those needs, but we
    propose not just to give this money back to State training programs but
    instead to let the workers themselves get a voucher and choose where
    they want to go. Almost every American is now within driving distance of
    a community college or some other kind of high training program with a
    proven rate of success far better than anything we need to design. So we
    ought to put more power not only back to the local level but also
    directly into the hands of citizens for the purposes that are plainly in
    the national interest.
        In public health, we want to consolidate 108 programs into 16
    performance partnerships, to abolish a dozen environmental grants and
    give you more power to achieve environmental goals. And I guess in
    parenthesis, I thank Governor Carper for his repeated lectures to me on
    that subject, citing the Delaware example. We want to continue to
    combine the 60 HUD programs into 3. The Federal Government has worked in
    one way for decades. Now it is time to try a new way, a way that is
    proven in its performance in the private sector. It's time for these and
    other changes, and many of them are drawn directly from your own
    experience in your own laboratories of democracy.
        When our country was founded, the Founders rejected Government based
    on central control and distrust of people. Our Constitution pro-

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    vides a few profound guiding principles. It puts deep trust in the
    American people to use their common sense to create a shared vision, not
    a centralized vision, and to give life to those ideals. We have to take
    advantage of this rare moment to renew that idea, to reshape the
    relationship between the National Government and the States. The
    American people have voted twice in the last two elections for dramatic
    change in the way our country works. They want more for their money:
    better schools, safer streets, better roads, a clean environment. But
    they want a greater say in how this work is done, and they don't want
    the Federal Government to do what can better be done by private citizens
    themselves or by government that is closer to them.
        They also have a deep feeling about our national commitment and our
    national responsibilities and our national interest, the things like the
    welfare of our children, the future of our economy, our obligations to
    our seniors. They know that we can meet these national obligations and
    pursue our national interest with a dramatic devolution of power and
    responsibility and opportunity to the State governments of this land. I
    look forward to making all this happen with you.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:15 a.m. at the J.W. Marriot Hotel. In
    his remarks, he referred to Governors Howard Dean of Vermont, Tommy G.
    Thompson of Wisconsin, Carroll W. Campbell of South Carolina, John
    Engler of Michigan, and Tom Carper of Delaware.