    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [December 6, 1995]
    [Pages 1851-1853]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Vetoing Budget Reconciliation Legislation
    December 6, 1995

        The President: Throughout our history, American Presidents have used
    the power of the veto to protect our values as a country. In that spirit
    today, I am acting to protect the values that bind us together in our
    national community.
        My goals as President have been to preserve the American dream for
    all of our people, to bring the American people together, and to keep
    America the world's strongest force for peace and freedom and
    prosperity. In pursuit of that strategy, I have sought to grow the
    economy, to shrink the Government but leave it strong enough to do the
    job, and most important, to elevate mainstream values that all Americans
    share: opportunity and responsibility, work and family, and bringing our
    community together so that we can be stronger.
        I have consistently said that if Congress sends me a budget that
    violates our values, I'll veto it. Three decades ago, this pen you see
    here was used to honor our values when President Johnson used it to sign
    Medicare into law. Today, I am vetoing the biggest Medicare and Medicaid
    cuts in history, deep cuts in education, a rollback in environmental
    protection, and a tax increase on working families. I am using this pen
    to preserve our commitment to our parents, to protect opportunity for
    our children, to defend the public health and our natural resources and
    natural beauty, and to stop a tax increase that actually undercuts the
    value of work.
        We must balance the budget, but we must do it in a way that honors
    the commitments

    [[Page 1852]]

    that we all have and that keeps our people together.
        Therefore, today, I am vetoing this Republican budget because it
    would break those commitments and would lead us toward weakness and
    division when we must move toward strength and unity.

    [At this point, the President signed the veto message.]

        Can you bring me some more ink, boys? Here, Todd, I knew you had
    some. It's a small well. Leave it here and see if I need it.
        Q. Mr. President, what happens next?
        The President. I'm about to say. As I have said repeatedly, America
    must balance its budget. It's wrong to pass a legacy of debt onto our
    children. Our long-term growth depends on it. But we must do it in a way
    that is good for economic growth and for our values.
        The budget I have vetoed in a very real sense, in very concrete
    ways, undermines our values and would restrict the future of families
    like the ones that are here with me today. American families want to
    make the most of their own lives and to pass opportunity onto their
    children. They deserve our respect and our support. Above all, we
    shouldn't make it harder for them to fulfill their dreams.
        When it comes to health care, we owe a duty to our parents. We have
    to secure Medicare, and I've spelled out how to do that. But the budget
    I just vetoed would turn Medicare into a second-class system. The
    Medicare system has served all senior citizens well for 30 years; it
    would be over.
        This budget would end Medicaid's guarantee that no senior citizen
    and no American in need would be denied medical care, including poor
    children and children with disabilities. It would deny care for hundreds
    of thousands of pregnant women and disabled children. It would repeal
    standards that ensure quality for nursing homes.
        Education means opportunity, and opportunity is the key to the
    American dream. But this budget cuts education by $30 billion, even in
    this high technology age when education is more important than ever
    before. It would essentially end the direct student loan program. It
    would deny college scholarships to 360,000 deserving students. It would
    deny preschool opportunities to 180,000 children in the Head Start
    program.
        We must protect the Earth that God gave us and guarantee our
    children safe food and clean water. This budget would give oil companies
    the right to drill in the last unspoiled arctic wilderness in Alaska.
    And it is loaded with special-interest provisions that squander our
    natural resources. Already, short-term budget cuts have forced us to
    pull back enforcement of clean air, clean water, even inspections of
    toxic waste sites in our neighborhoods.
        People who work hard and save for retirement ought to be able to
    retire with dignity. We worked hard last year to secure the pension
    benefits of 40 million Americans with landmark reform legislation. This
    bill would give companies the green light to raid pension funds and put
    those retirements at risk again.
        Americans know we have to reform the broken welfare system. But
    cutting child care that helps mothers move from welfare to work, cutting
    help for abused and disabled children, cutting school lunch, that's not
    welfare reform. Real welfare reform should be tough on work and tough on
    responsibility but not tough on children or tough on parents who are
    responsible and who want to work. We shouldn't lose this historic chance
    to end welfare as we know it by using the words welfare reform as just
    another cover to violate our values.
        No one who works hard should be taxed into poverty. In 1993, we
    nearly doubled the earned-income tax credits so that we could say, ``If
    you work 40 hours a week, you've got children in the home, you won't be
    taxed into poverty. The tax system will help lift you out of poverty.''
    But this budget raises taxes on our hardest pressed working people, even
    as it gives unnecessarily large income tax relief and other tax relief
    to those who need it least. Nearly 8 million working families would pay
    more in new taxes than they would receive from any tax cut in this bill.
        Beyond our principles, let me just say this budget is bad for the
    economy. No business on the edge of the 21st century would cut its
    investment in education and training, in research. No business would do
    that. No business would cut back on technology on the edge of the 21st
    century. The Japanese are in a recession, and they recently doubled
    their research budget. We are voting in this budget, if I were to allow
    it to become law, to cut our research budget by a year when we're in a
    period of economic growth, while another country, looking

    [[Page 1853]]

    to the future in a recession, is doubling theirs. So this not only
    violates our values, it is bad, bad economics.
        Now, with this veto, the extreme Republican effort to balance the
    budget through wrongheaded cuts and misplaced priorities is over. Now
    it's up to all of us to go back to work together to show we can balance
    the budget and be true to our values and our economic interests.
        Tomorrow, I will present to the congressional leadership a plan that
    does balance the budget in 7 years, but it also protects health care,
    education, and the environment, and it does not raise taxes on working
    families. It is up to the Republicans now to show that they, too, want
    to protect these principles, as they pledged to do.
        Let me say again, our country is on the move; our economy is
    growing. Many of our most difficult social problems are beginning to
    yield to the effort and commonsense values of the American people. We
    have proved again that we are a model for the entire world of peace and
    reconciliation. With all of our difficult problems, we are moving in the
    right direction. Now is not the time to derail this movement.
        I have vetoed the budget. Now, the question is, will we get together
    and balance the budget in a way that is consistent with our values? It's
    time to finish the job of balancing the budget and do it in the right
    way.
        Thank you.
        Q. Mr. President,--[inaudible]--Medicare and Medicaid, how are you
    going to--where are you going to find----
        The President. Tune in tomorrow.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:36 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to White House Staff Secretary Todd
    Stern.