    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [June 20, 1995]
    [Pages 904-910]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Teleconference Remarks With the U.S. Conference of Mayors
    June 20, 1995

        The President. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mayor Rice. And I
    want to begin by congratulating Mayor Ashe on a great year as president.
    I have enjoyed working with you very much. And I look forward to working
    with you, Norm, in the year ahead. I also want to say hello to some of
    my old friends in Miami. I see Mayor Daley and Mayor Clark are there. I
    understand that Secretary Brown and Secretary Cisneros are also both
    with you today.
        Let me say before I go forward that I noticed in one of the previous
    sessions you had that it was suggested that we don't need the Department
    of Housing and Urban Development anymore. Let me say that I think Henry
    Cisneros and his whole team have done a magnificent job, and I don't
    think we want to send Andrew Cuomo to the beach just yet. I hope you
    agree.
        I also want to thank all of you for giving me this chance to speak
    with you today. I'm very proud that our administration has worked in an
    unprecedented partnership with our cities, our communities, and
    especially our mayors. You make real budgets. You deal with real
    problems. You know the real concerns of our people as we try to restore
    the American dream. I'm look-

    [[Page 905]]

    ing forward to our continued cooperation. And I want to keep focused on
    the real problems our country faces.
        You have heard, in the previous speakers who have appeared before
    you, strands of the great debates now going on in Washington and
    throughout our country. There are those who say that our primary
    problems are personal and cultural, not economic and political. There
    are those who say that the biggest problems we face are due to the fact
    that the Federal Government has too much authority and more ought to be
    given to the State and local level.
        Well, I have to say to you that I'm glad to have these debates. I
    was making these arguments long before this Presidential election
    season, indeed, long before I became a candidate for President in 1992,
    when I was a Governor, working on the values problems we face, like teen
    pregnancy and youth violence and all kinds of personal irresponsibility
    in our society. You and I know that unless people do the right things
    themselves, that we can't solve the problems of our society. And I was
    calling for a devolution of responsibility back to local and State
    governments long before I ever ran for President. So these are not just
    issues of a political season for me.
        But let's keep our eyes on what we have to do in terms of the real
    problems that you deal with every day. We do have a values crisis in
    this country. We need to exalt responsibility and work and family and
    community. We need to be less violent, less irresponsible, and less
    divisive.
        We do have an economic problem in this country. We've got years of
    stagnant wages and people who are working hard and being punished for
    it. We need to grow the middle class and shrink the under class and
    empower people to make the most of their own lives.
        We've got a governmental problem in this country. We need a
    Government for the 21st century that is less bureaucratic and more
    entrepreneurial and more oriented toward partnerships where more is done
    at the grassroots level.
        Now, I believe all that. But the question is, what are we going to
    do about it? And if we use a lot of rhetoric to divide the American
    people again and to divide the problems we face in terms of values as
    against economics and national as against local, instead of recognizing
    that what we need is to face these issues and all their aspects and we
    need a real hard-nosed partnership, then we'll be in trouble. After all,
    the problems that you face every day are the very reasons I ran for
    President. I believed we had to empower our people and our communities
    to meet the demands of change at the grassroots level where people live.
        Now, there are some in Washington who believe we can make Government
    work just by juggling programs from the Federal bureaucracies to the
    State bureaucracies. You and I know that the right way is to give local
    governments, community organizations, and individual citizens and their
    neighborhoods the tools they need, the resources they need to improve
    their own lives.
        In 1992, I laid out an agenda to send power, capital, and, most
    important of all, hope to the people who are working hard to make the
    most of their communities and their own lives. We still have a good ways
    to go, but I am proud that we have kept that commitment.
        Look at what we have already achieved together: We created the
    empowerment zones and the enterprise communities, awarding tax
    incentives and grants to spur economic growth in 105 communities that
    also supports good values. We're creating a network of community
    development banks and financial institutions to lend, invest, provide
    basic banking services in places that need the most to the people who
    can do the most to change the social conditions we all want to change.
    We passed final regulations for the Community Reinvestment Act to help
    our banks and thrifts make good loans and investments, to help people
    rebuild our troubled communities. The SBA established one-stop capital
    shops to distribute $3 billion in loans and investments for small and
    minority businesses over the next 5 years. We fought to save the
    community development block grants and our economic plan in the face of
    huge opposition.
        Now, those are the things that we have done together--just some of
    the things we've done together. Now it's up to us to continue a
    partnership to create jobs, raise incomes, lift living standards, and
    improve the values and the strength of our communities. We can do that,
    and we have done that, working with the new Congress.
        I have supported and signed into law, for example, the bill to
    minimize the unfunded mandates that tell you what to do without giving
    you the resources to do it. I was proud to do that. But I also want you
    to know that I vetoed

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    the rescission bill in part because of the cuts that affect you
    directly. For example, the Congress in this rescission bill would cut
    grants to cities that have already been obligated to make our water
    safer. These grants were already committed; the letters had gone out. To
    cut them now would be worse than an unfunded mandate; it would be a
    defunded mandate. And I don't intend to let that happen.
        Another reason I vetoed the rescission bill is because the Congress
    had cut the community development financial institutions and added
    language which made it almost impossible for them to operate. I am proud
    that we've already awarded one large bank in Los Angeles, and we've got
    more work to do on that front. We shouldn't turn back now from a proven
    commitment that will bring free enterprise to the most distressed areas
    of our country.
        Now we have to approach a new budget. And as we do it, I want to
    continue to work together with you to seize this opportunity to build a
    stronger future for all of our people, to do it in a way that supports
    our economic interests and our values and works to reform the Government
    and give you more responsibility.
        For the first time in a long, long time, the leaders of both
    political parties now share the will to balance the Federal budget.
    That's an important issue, and I want to talk about it just a moment. We
    know that that requires some tough calls. But if we can balance the
    budget, it will mean in the years ahead there'll be more money to invest
    in our people, in our cities, and in our future, and less money that has
    to be spent just paying interest on yesterday's debt. The difficult task
    ahead is for us to have the will necessary to do it and to cast
    partisanship aside so that we can get the job done in a way that helps
    instead of hurts the long-term prospects of our people. We need a budget
    that balances debts and credits but also keeps our values in balance.
    That's what our responsibility as leaders demands.
        We faced that challenge together in the first 2 years of our
    administration when we cut the deficit by $1 trillion in 7 years and
    still were able to invest in the tools that our communities and our
    people have to have to compete and win in the global economy. The work
    now has to go on.
        Now, with that in mind, last week I outlined my plan to eliminate
    the deficit in 10 years. My plan cuts Federal spending by $1.1 trillion,
    on top of the $1 trillion in deficit reduction enacted in our '93 budget
    plan. This new budget does not raise taxes. It is disciplined, it is
    comprehensive, and it is serious. It won't be easy, but we need to do
    it, and we can. Our plan proves that you can balance the budget and
    still invest in things that will keep America strong and growing, like
    education, health care, research, and technology.
        To accomplish these goals we have to focus on five basic priorities.
    First, we've got to help people make the most of their own lives. That
    means, while we cut the deficit, we should increase investment in
    education, not cut it.
        Second, we have to control health care costs, but we should do it by
    strengthening Medicare, saving Medicaid, reforming them, not by slashing
    services for the elderly. We can maintain benefits by cutting costs
    through genuine reform, including cracking down on the substantial
    amount of Medicaid fraud and abuse and giving more incentives for more
    efficient and cost-effective ways of delivering care.
        Third, we need to cut taxes, but for the middle class, not for the
    wealthiest Americans who don't really need it.
        Fourth, we can save money by cutting welfare, but we have to do it
    in a way that saves enough for investment to move people to work. The
    congressional proposals are too tough on children and too weak on work.
    We need to be tough on work and supportive of children.
        And in that regard, I want to thank all of you there who, in the
    spirit of bipartisanship, have come out in support of our efforts to
    achieve real welfare reform that moves people from welfare to work. The
    bill that was recently introduced in the Senate by Senators Daschle and
    others achieves that objective. And those of you who are supporting it,
    I am very grateful for that. We can save funds, but we have to save
    enough to invest in people, to empower them to end welfare as we know
    it, not just to cut people off and not worry about the consequence to
    the children.
        The fifth principle is to balance the budget in 10 years, not 7.
    Now, we could do it in 7 as some in Congress want, but there's no reason
    to inflict the amount of pain that would cause or to run the risk of
    recession. A highly respected economic group out of the Wharton Business
    School recently estimated that one of the Republican budgets would
    actually cause a recession, driving unemployment to 8.6 percent

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    and delaying balancing the budget by 2 years anyway.
        Now in spite of all this, don't let anybody fool you. Balancing the
    budget in 10 years will require real cuts; it will cause real pain. We
    can and we should discuss where those savings should be found. We have
    to decide about whether the savings should come out of programs like the
    community development block grants, which I know are very important to
    you and which I have strongly supported. I still believe in them very
    strongly. But let me be straight with you. If we don't cut the community
    development block grant, then there will have to be some cuts in some
    other programs that you and I care about.
        We have to do that if we're going to bring the budget into balance.
    But let me say again, we should do this. We should do this. We never had
    a huge structural deficit before the 12 years before I became President,
    before the years between 1981 and 1993. And I'll tell you how big the
    problem is. Right now, today, our budget would be in balance today if it
    were not for the interest we have to pay on the deficit run up between
    1981 and 1993 in January. So we have got to turn this around. We cannot
    continue something that we only started 12 years ago.
        But I want to remind you there is a big difference between my plan
    and the congressional plans. It's the difference between necessary cuts
    and unacceptable pain. It's the difference between a deficit reduction
    plan that goes to balance budgets and still invest in our future and one
    that cuts off our future. It's the difference between one that will
    reduce the deficit in ways that will promote long-term growth and one
    that will reduce the deficit in ways that risk a severe, near-term
    recession.
        I am going to fight to avoid cutting education, hurting people on
    Medicare, undermining critical investments in our communities. It would
    be wrong to sacrifice those investments just to meet a 7-year deadline
    when we can get the job in 10 years. It would be wrong to cut in those
    areas that will help our people restore the American dream, raise our
    incomes, so that we can give a tax cut to people who don't really need
    it.
        One of our most important challenges is to make sure that the
    American people feel more secure in their homes and neighborhoods as
    well. And therefore, I thank you again for joining me in the fight
    against crime and the fight for the crime bill last year. Without your
    support, we could not have possibly passed it, especially given the
    bitter opposition of some Members of Congress to the assault weapons ban
    and to giving cities the flexibility that you need in the prevention
    funds.
        I know some of you had conflicting opinions and different needs when
    it came to our plan to provide 100,000 new police officers. But I
    believe we have a national crisis on crime because we don't have enough
    police officers on the street. Over 30 years we watched as the violent
    crime rate tripled and our police departments only increased by 10
    percent. Now we've found the funds to pay for police in the right way.
    We cut unnecessary Government at the national level and sent the savings
    to our communities for more police officers. That is the kind of bargain
    the American people deserve. The philosophy behind that was to do what
    could be done to reduce crime.
        But I would also remind you, under our plan, we gave localities
    enormous flexibility in spending the prevention funds because you know
    what works at the local level. It is ironic today that there are those
    who are trying to dismantle our national commitment to put 100,000
    police on the street in the name of giving you more flexibility when
    less than a year ago they were saying that giving you more flexibility
    would lead to widespread abuse in the spending of Federal money.
        The truth is that a lot of these programs to give you more
    flexibility, from welfare to crime, are really just ways to cut spending
    that invests in our future and our economy and our security. If we'll
    adopt my budget plan, we can give you more flexibility and still do
    those things and balance the budget. Behind all of these initiatives are
    not just shuffling from Federal to State bureaucracy, but trying to
    empower our people directly--is the philosophy that we are using to help
    our people meet the demands of the global economy in their own lives.
        Some still say, as I said--let me just give you one example,
    finally--that we ought to trust the Federal Government to train our
    workers. We've got about 70 or 80 different training programs. Then
    there are some that say, ``No, let's give all these programs to State
    government.'' But I say, we shouldn't empower one bureaucracy over
    another. In the future, in every one of your cities, the ability of the
    American people

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    who live there to do well in the global economy will depend upon our
    ability to directly empower individual Americans, to directly empower
    them to make the most of their own lives, including having a lifetime
    right to constant reeducation and training.
        So let me talk with you, finally, today about an effort that we're
    making now that would give people those most important tools they need
    to build better lives. It is central to the rebirth of your cities. If
    you have more people who can get good jobs and who can earn higher
    incomes, then so many of the problems that you face, so many of the
    problems you face will be lessened.
        So here's how I want our people to get those jobs and to keep them
    in this global economy that is always demanding more and more of them. I
    want to do something that's modeled on the GI bill. Fifty years ago, as
    World War II was coming to an end, our country created the GI bill that
    gave a whole generation of Americans the education to create an
    unprecedented prosperity. What I have proposed today is a ``GI bill''
    for America's workers, to help a whole new generation of Americans
    secure decent lives and decent incomes for themselves and their
    families.
        The principle is simple: Education and training can no longer stop
    at high school. We've all got to keep on learning to keep pace with the
    dynamic global economy. And the best way to make it happen is to put the
    power directly in the hands of individual Americans who have to do the
    learning. Today there is a confusing maze of 70--at least 70--job
    training programs sponsored by the Federal Government. What we want to
    do is to consolidate them into a single grant, and that grant will have
    but one purpose, to put money directly into the hands of people who need
    it.
        Through our school-to-work initiative, we'll continue to help high
    school students or graduates who want further training get that in order
    to compete. Through our skilled grants, we'll help the worker who has
    lost a job, who is grossly underpaid and underemployed to take the
    responsibility to get a new leg up in the global economy. We also want
    to make it easier and cheaper for workers to get loans to build on their
    education. That means expanding, not cutting, Pell grants and direct
    student loans. And it means the right kind of tax cuts, not tax cuts for
    people who don't need them but tax cuts for middle income Americans who
    can use the money to invest in their training and their children's
    education. We propose a tax cut for the cost of all post-high-school
    education.
        Now, these things will make opportunity real for more Americans and
    make opportunity real for more of your cities. The ``GI bill'' for
    America's workers will make it possible for more and better jobs for
    people who live in your communities and will help attract jobs and
    expand your economic base.
        You think about it: If everyone considering investing in your
    communities knew that every person who wanted a job could get the job
    training in a direct voucher from the Federal Government which could go
    to your community colleges, to get the kind of training they need, that
    would help us to do what you need to do. We want to make you a full
    partner in designing a system of adult education and job placement. That
    will mean that community colleges, which are the new lifeblood for so
    many of your citizens, will be even stronger and, more importantly, will
    mean that you will be able to use this as a tool to develop your own
    economies.
        I believe this approach will play a major role in our goal, our
    common goal to restore the American dream. I'm pleased that this morning
    in the Los Angeles Times there was an article that I hope you've all had
    a chance to read, written by Al From, the president of the Democratic
    Leadership Council, a Democrat, and by Jack Kemp, the former Secretary
    of Housing and Urban Development, a Republican. Here's what they say
    about our ``GI bill.'' They say, quote, it ``offers an all-too-rare
    opportunity for Members of Congress of both parties to discard partisan
    squabbling and cooperate on a measure that can help hard-working
    Americans acquire the skills they need to lift their incomes.  .  .  .
    The needs of this great country of ours demand that all of us, Democrats
    and Republicans alike, ask ourselves the question: `Can we make it
    work?' The correct answer is: We must.''
        I could not have said it better. Al From and Jack Kemp, the
    Republicans and the Democratic mayors out there who are listening to me
    today, just remember, as we balance the Federal budget, as we help all
    Americans prepare for a bright future, we have got to seize this moment
    of great opportunity. We've got to put our national priorities above
    party politics and put the American people first. That's what I was
    trying to

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    do when I had that conversation in New Hampshire with the Speaker of the
    House the other day.
        This is a moment of immense promise. We can renew the American
    dream. But we have to work together, and we have to avoid trying to
    divide our people by false choices. Good economics, sound values, strong
    communities, a Government that works: That's what we really need, and I
    will work with you to achieve it.
        Thank you very much.

    [At this point, Mayor Norman Rice of Seattle, WA, president, U.S.
    Conference of Mayors, thanked the President and asked about welfare
    reform.]

        The President. I think the prospects for real welfare reform really
    depend upon whether the Senate Republicans, or at least the block of
    moderate Republicans who understand these issues, will work with the
    Democrats on something like the Daschle bill.
        You know, there is a hard core in the Senate who are demanding that
    there be no welfare reform bill unless all aid is cut off to unmarried
    mothers and their children born out of wedlock, even though the Catholic
    Church, the National Governors' Association, your group, everybody I
    know says that that would be unfair to children.
        If the rest of the Republicans will leave that block and join with
    Senators Daschle and Breaux and Mikulski and the others who are on this
    bill, we could work out a bill that would make a real difference.
        And let me say, one of the important things, I think, about the
    Daschle bill is that it really heavily emphasizes the importance of
    child care. As I look back over the time that has elapsed since, as a
    Governor, I worked on the welfare reform bill of 1988, if you ask me
    what its single biggest shortcoming was, I would say that we should have
    done more in child care.
        And if we do what I have suggested here--and I think a lot of the
    Republicans want to do this--and we take all these various training
    programs and put them into a big block and let unemployed workers access
    them, then that could help to provide the training money for an awful
    lot of people on welfare who want to move to work, so that if the
    Daschle bill itself or any future amplification of it that could have
    bipartisan support in the Senate, could really focus on child care, I
    think we could get a welfare reform bill that is tough on work and good
    for children, instead of the other way around.
        So I would urge all of you--especially the Republican mayors; you
    have a lot of allies in the Republican Party in the Senate--welfare
    reform ought to be a bipartisan issue. If we could get a good bill out
    of the Senate, I feel confident that we could have a bipartisan majority
    in the House that would vote for it as well if we could get it out of
    the conference committee.
        So that is what I would implore you all to do. This is a huge deal
    for the United States. And the Daschle bill is an opening, an outreach
    for a genuine bipartisan compromise that doesn't just dump a lot of
    money back on the States and localities--excuse me, a lot less than you
    used to have, in a way that would lead to people being cut off with
    nothing good happening.

    [Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago, IL, vice president, U.S. Conference
    of Mayors, asked what the mayors could do to ensure continued funding
    for policing and other crime prevention efforts.]

        The President.  I think, Mayor, what you have to do is to, again,
    emphasize in the Senate where this is being debated and ultimately in
    the conference committee that we need to have more flexibility for the
    cities but that it is unacceptable, at least for me and I hope for many
    of you, to come off of our commitment on 100,000 police.
        I have watched many panels, and I've seen a lot of your mayors on C-
    Span. You know, I actually get to watch you as well as you watching me,
    and I know that some of the mayors believe that we've been too firm on
    the police requirements, because some cities have already increased
    their police forces and can't take maximum advantage of this. But I have
    to tell you, I think there is a national interest in increasing the
    police forces of this country by about 20 percent. And after all, this
    crime bill was funded by a reduction in the national employment of
    people in the Federal Government.
        On the other hand, I have been strongly in favor of absolutely
    maximum flexibility for you in other aspects of the crime bill and would
    be in favor of even more flexibility in other aspects of the crime bill
    as long as we don't undermine our commitment to 100,000 police. If we
    can get more flexibility in the other areas

    [[Page 910]]

    of prevention and imprisonment, I would be in favor of it. I will work
    with you to do anything I can in that regard.
        Mayor Rice. Thank you, Mr. President. The next questioner is Paul
    Helmke, mayor of Fort Wayne.
        Mayor Helmke. It's good to have the opportunity to talk to you
    again, Mr. President.
        The President. Thank you.

    [Mayor Helmke, chair of the advisory board, U.S. Conference of Mayors,
    asked the President what could be done to ensure that Federal funds to
    cities remain flexible so mayors can meet the needs of their citizens.]

        The President. First of all, Paul, let me say that I think that we
    have to do this. I didn't give you any specific numbers in my remarks,
    but let me tell you that even with a 10-year balanced budget plan, if
    you don't cut education and if you have a tax cut much smaller than the
    ones contemplated by either the Senate or the House, it would still
    require about a 20-percent overall cut in other discretionary spending
    because we're all at about the same place on where we think defense
    ought to be.
        Now, that's over a 10-year period--for my budget at least. What I
    think we need to do here is, before this budget is actually passed in
    the fall or in late summer, but probably be in the fall, we need to know
    before the budget is passed what the new arrangements with our cities
    will be.
        Let me just give you one example. I would like to preserve the
    community development block grant program, if we can. I have proposed it
    to be continued at the present level of funding in 1996. The Senate
    budget resolution proposes to cut it in half. What I think we ought to
    do--and I know--by the way, I wanted to compliment Secretary Cisneros.
    He has been waging a very strong fight within our administration to try
    to make sure that the cuts come in other areas and the community
    development block grant program is preserved at its present level. We
    could do that. You might argue that we could even increase it if some of
    the other categorical programs were folded into it so that if we are
    going to go forward here, maybe some new purposes should be added to it.
        I am open to all that. I want to reduce regulation. I want to
    increase your flexibility, not just for the cities but for all local
    units. We just announced a 40-percent cut in the regulations of the
    Department of Education, for example. Most of you don't run your own
    school districts, but some of you do, and that will be important to you.
        We are moving in the right direction here. But I think we have got
    to be willing, before this budget is passed, to sit down with the cities
    and, in fairness, also with the States and the counties, and try to
    design what the new agreement will be about this money and how it's
    going to be funded. And I think there are great opportunities for you to
    get some more flexibility and for you to determine how we ought to do
    it. And I am more than willing to go forward with you on that basis.
        Mayor Rice. Mr. President, we thank you very much for giving us this
    opportunity, and we will take the challenge to respond and open up a
    dialog that really moves this country forward in the interest of cities
    and the people that we represent.
        The President. Thank you. Mayor Rice, Mayor Daley, Mayor Helmke,
    thank you all. I appreciate your good work.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:15 a.m. from Room 459 of the Old
    Executive Office Building to the meeting in Miami, FL. In his remarks,
    he referred to Mayor Victor Ashe of Knoxville, TN, immediate past
    president, U.S. Conference of Mayors, and Mayor Steve Clark of Miami,
    FL.