[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

[[Page 906]]

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

[[Page 907]]

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

[[Page 908]]

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.