    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [October 7, 1995]
    [Pages 1553-1554]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    October 7, 1995

        Good morning. As you know, we're working in Washington to try to
    balance the budget. But we're working on two very different approaches.
    I want to balance the budget because if it's done right, it will help us
    to restore the American dream and to keep America the strongest nation
    in the world. It will help to improve our economy, create jobs, raise
    incomes, and take debt off our children.
        That's why we've worked so hard in our administration to bring the
    deficit down from $290 billion a year when I took office to $160 billion
    this year, to expand our exports, and to increase investment in
    education. That's helped to give us 7\1/2\ million new jobs, a record
    number of new small businesses. And just last week, the Census Bureau
    announced that the poverty rate has dropped in America for the first
    time in 5 years, as more families are sticking together and doing
    better.
        Still, we all know that many working families are finding it harder
    than ever to live the American dream. And that's why we have to do even
    more to ensure opportunity for all working people, to grow the middle
    class and to shrink our under class. Above all, as we balance the
    Federal budget, we must make sure we don't make it harder for people to
    educate their children, care for their parents, strengthen their
    families. That would defeat the very purpose of balancing the budget.
        Yet that's exactly what the budget proposals of the Republican
    majority in Congress would do. At a time when we're growing the middle
    class, they would make it harder for poor people to work their way into
    the middle class. They'd even kick a lot of American families out of the
    middle class and hurt families, for many of their so-called cuts are in
    fact hidden direct and indirect tax increases.
        The congressional leadership says they want to cut taxes. Well, I
    do, too. I think we should have a tax cut targeted at working families
    to help them with childrearing and to permit families to deduct the cost
    of college education. But we can do that without the back-door tax
    increases on millions of American families the Republican leaders claim
    to be cutting taxes on.
        You see, buried deep within their plan is a vast collection of tax
    increases and other costs on working people, $148 billion worth of
    direct and indirect hidden taxes that hit working families in America
    hard. Some will claim these tax hikes aren't really taxes. They'll
    search the dictionary to find every possible way to avoid using that
    ``T'' word. Well, in Washington they may not call it a tax increase, but
    when the Government makes a working family pay more, it sure feels like
    a tax to them.
        Here are the facts. You can decide for yourself. We want parents to
    care for their children. But under the Republican plan, single mothers
    struggling to preserve their families will have to pay $4 billion in
    fees for the Government's help in collecting child support they're
    legally due. That's a tax hike on responsible mothers and their children
    which will lower their already modest incomes.
        The elderly, who have a right to expect that we will do our duty to
    them so they can live their lives in dignity, will be asked to pay
    thousands of dollars more per couple in extra premiums, extra
    copayments, extra deductibles for Medicare over the next 7 years. People
    who are old and sick and poor, regardless of how hard they've worked in
    their lives, will have to

    [[Page 1554]]

    pay $10 billion more for their Medicare because the Republican budget
    proposes to repeal the extra help now given to the elderly poor with
    their Medicare bills. Experts say up to a million seniors could be
    driven out of Medicare.
        And the Republican Congress proposes to do away with the law that
    now prevents States from forcing seniors whose spouses have to go into
    nursing homes to sell their cars, their homes, even empty their bank
    accounts before their husbands and wives can get the Government help for
    the care they need.
        Young people and their families who are seeking to secure America's
    promise of opportunity could wind up paying thousands of dollars more in
    additional fees and interest to get student loans. That's a tax hike on
    middle class families and students that we can't afford for our future.
        Most unbelievably of all, 17 million working families who seek to
    share in the American dream will have to pay $42 billion more in income
    taxes through reductions in the earned-income tax credit for working
    families. In 1993, I worked hard to expand this working family tax
    credit so that we in America could say that anybody who works full-time
    with children in their homes will not be in poverty. Now what the
    Congress wants to do is to roll back that working families' tax credit
    in a way that will impose a tax increase averaging $500 a family on
    families least able to pay it. This is a tax hike that literally will
    push many working families back into poverty.
        All told, there are about $148 billion of these hidden taxes and
    fees. They represent a cynical assault on America's values by targeting
    working families, the elderly, poor people who work hard at their jobs,
    mothers seeking child support, young people struggling their way through
    college. These are the very people we should be helping. I want to
    reward responsibility, not punish it; to increase opportunity, not
    shrink it; to strengthen our families, not weaken them. That's why my
    budget plan includes none of these new taxes.
        The taxes imposed by the Republican budget are deceptive and unfair.
    I urge Congress to defeat them. We don't need to raise taxes on working
    people and lower their incomes to balance the budget. We have enough
    income inequality in America as it is.
        I've proposed a balanced budget that reflects our fundamental
    values, that eliminates the deficit without undermining education or
    weakening our environment or violating our commitments to working
    families, seniors, and poor children. It secures Medicare and the Trust
    Fund without imposing big new costs on seniors, threatening their
    independence, or destroying their dignity. And it gives a tax cut
    targeted to education and childrearing, the very things that working
    families need. And they're helping the very working families who are hit
    with the tax increases under the Republican budget.
        I'm deeply committed to balancing the Federal budget. But we have to
    do it in a way that is consistent with our values and our vision for our
    future, to give our people the chance to make the most of their own
    lives, to strengthen our families and protect our children and honor our
    parents, to grow the middle class and shrink the under class, and to
    preserve our Nation as the world's strongest. Let's all keep those
    values fixed firmly in our sight in the weeks ahead as we work toward a
    balanced budget that advances the American dream.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 8:49 a.m. in the Old Whaling Church,
    Edgartown, MA, for broadcast at 10:06 a.m.