    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [September 6, 1995]
    [Pages 1310-1312]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Mayors and County Officials and an
    Exchange With Reporters
    September 6, 1995

        The President. Good morning. We're about to start a meeting with a
    bipartisan group of mayors and county officials who represent a much
    larger number of their counterparts all across America and who are quite
    concerned about the consequences of the proposed budget and the budget
    cuts to the people they represent.
        They have declared September 7th a national day for budget
    awareness, and they're going back to the people they represent to
    explain to them exactly what the consequences will be in terms of either
    human harm or lost services or higher taxes at the local level. They
    will be joining to educate their citizens about the potential damage
    that could be done to our country's future if the particulars of the
    budgets now being debated in the House and Senate are adopted pretty
    much as they have passed, especially in the House.
        Later today I will meet with a group of CEO's who are concerned
    about what these cuts will mean to our educational improvement programs
    and especially to Goals 2000, which has helped us to help States and
    local school districts throughout the country to improve the quality of
    education, to bring more technology into the classroom, to get smaller
    class sizes, to promote education reforms.
        Business executives all across America, especially in a bipartisan
    way, both Republicans and Democrats, have supported Goals 2000 very
    strongly, and so they'll be coming in to discuss this. This is back-to-
    school time in our country, and it seems to me that we need to focus on
    the values of education and the values of our community and on what we
    really mean by America's family values.
        It seems to me that we are departing from what has been the
    experience of our country now for many years in terms of having a
    bipartisan commitment to a lot of the things that now some in Congress
    seem more than willing to abandon, including our commitment to
    education. As I said yesterday in California, there is an alternative, a
    way to balance this budget. It's not that we shouldn't balance the
    budget; we should balance the budget. I strongly support it. We ought to
    do that, I believe we're going to do that, but we don't have to do it in
    a Draconian way that hurts the American people.
        If you just take the education issue, for example, the proposed
    budget in Congress by the Republican majority would cut education by $36
    billion. It means more overcrowded classrooms. It means fewer teachers.
    It means fewer computers for the students. It means 45,000 kids cut off
    of Head Start by 1996. It means the elimination of the Goals 2000
    program. It means cutting over a million of our poorest children off
    from extra educational help. It means cutting 23 million students out of
    the safe and drug-free schools program, something that clearly ought to
    be at the forefront of any family values agenda in our country. It means
    taking 50,000 young Americans out of national service, out of the
    AmeriCorps program and other service programs that help them to pay
    their way to college. It means denying millions of students access to
    college educations because of weakening of the Pell grant program and
    the elimination of the direct loan program or the severe limitation of
    it.
        So I would say that what we need to do now at back-to-school time is
    to get educated; all Americans need to be educated about the details of
    the budget debate. The question is

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    not whether we're going to balance the budget. I have a plan to balance
    the budget, but it doesn't cut education by $36 billion. There are ways
    to balance the budget and still permit these local officials to do the
    work that they have to do and maintain a partnership. And the ways are
    fairly clear, and we can achieve it.
        I know there are those who say that we ought to just shut the
    Government down and that there is a mandate essentially to dismantle the
    partnership that has existed between our National Government and local
    government and the citizens of this country. I don't agree with that. I
    think we need common sense, common ground. I think we need to appeal to
    our better instincts. And I think it would be a great mistake for the
    people of our country to miss this back-to-school opportunity to become
    educated about what's really at stake here and to be involved in it. And
    I thank these mayors and county officials for showing up here today and
    for the work they're about to do in this next week.

    Budget Debate

        Q. Mr. President, what are you going to do about Senator Dole saying
    that this is going to be the autumn of discontent, of no compromises?
        The President. Well, I am going to stick with my position. Now, it's
    been several months since I offered an----
        Come on in, Mayor Rendell. Sit down. [Laughter]
        Mayor Edward Rendell. Sorry. Blame it on Amtrak, although Amtrak
    usually does a great job. [Laughter] And we shouldn't be cutting its
    funding. But they were late today.
        The Vice President. We know a cameo entrance when we--[Laughter]
        The President. That's right. Actually he arrived at 6:30 this
    morning and was--[Laughter].
        There will be a lot of things said and a lot of maneuvers made, I
    suppose, in the next 90 days. I think the important thing is that we
    balance the budget without destroying our commitment to education,
    without wrecking Medicare and Medicaid and undermining the security and
    stability that our elderly people are entitled to have, and without
    undermining the fabric of the country and the strength of the economy.
        I mean, you know, we even have one economic study claiming that the
    congressional majority's budget would provoke a long-term recession. I
    mean, presumably, we are balancing the budget to help the American
    economy, to take the burden of debt off of our children and our
    grandchildren. That's why I want to do it. I want to do it because I
    think it'll help the economy, not to give the American people a low-
    grade infection for 7 years. And so I believe that we need to look at
    the facts. And I'm going to do my best to avoid a lot of this political
    rhetoric and a lot of these charges back and forth.
        And the thing that has impressed me about the mayors and the county
    officials that are here is that they really are going to spend a week
    looking at the facts, trying to make sure that their citizens look at
    the facts. That's what I want the American people to do. But I'm going
    to bend over backwards not to get into a lot of political word wars and
    just keep looking at the facts. And we can----
        Q. Lots of luck. [Laughter]
        The President. Yeah? Thank you. Thank you. [Laughter] Let me just
    say this. I will--I like that so much I will never again criticize
    editorializing by news--[laughter]--that was a wonderful comment.
    [Laughter]
        Q. Mr. President, will you be able to avoid this train wreck,
    however, that you've been talking about, and how can you do that?
        The President. Well, I hope so. But I mean, I think, frankly, that's
    up to Congress. I have been--it's up to the leaders of Congress whether
    we have a train wreck. I have now had my position out there clear and
    crystal clear and in great detail for months. That's what they said they
    wanted me to do, and I did it. I offered them an alternative balanced
    budget. I offered the opportunity of negotiations. I said what I thought
    we had to do, that we shouldn't wreck the fabric of health care for
    seniors. We shouldn't wreck the educational commitments of our country.
    We shouldn't totally overlook the impact of these budget cuts on the
    people who actually had to do the work of America, the mayors, the
    county officials, the Governors of our country, and that we could do
    this. And I committed to a balanced budget, and I offered it.
        So I have done all I can do now. The rest of it is largely up to
    them, but we should not have a train wreck. There's no reason for a
    train wreck. You know, we've already done a lot of their work for them.
    When I became President, we had a $290 billion deficit. Now

    [[Page 1312]]

    it's down to $160 billion. We've cut it nearly in half in 3 years, and
    we did it without any train wrecks. We did it in a more rapid way in the
    last Congress than had been the case for the previous 10 or 12 years, so
    we can get a lot of this work done if we'll just do it. There just needs
    to be a little less talk and a little more action, a little more common
    sense, a little more working together.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:15 a.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White
    House. Edward Rendell was mayor of Philadelphia, PA.