[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
[September 27, 1995]
[Pages 1502-1506]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1502]]


Remarks to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute
September 27, 1995

    Thank you all. Please be seated. It is wonderful to be here, 
wonderful to be back. I thank Congressman and Mrs. Pastor for coming out 
here with me, and I thank Ed for that fine introduction. To your 
mistress of ceremonies, Giselle Fernandez; members of the Congressional 
Hispanic Caucus; the Institute Board; your executive director, Rita 
Elizondo; and Secretary Cisneros and Mary Alice; Secretary Pena and 
Ellen; Secretary Riley and Tunky; Attorney General Reno; and all your 
honored guests: I thank you for inviting me to come again this year.
    For 18 years you have held this event, and it's become a part of our 
Nation's important Hispanic Heritage Month. I have been here for 3 years 
running, and during these 3 years my daughter has been studying Spanish. 
So I hope you'll keep inviting me back; it's getting a little better 
each year. How's this? Y me gusta hablar Espanol. Is that okay? 
[Applause]
    I was thinking tonight coming over here--it's not in my prepared 
remarks, but I was thinking of two connected events that shape what I 
wish to say to you tonight. The first was the honor I had to be a part 
of the premiere here a few months ago of that wonderful movie ``Mi 
Familia.'' And the second was the experience I had just today to be with 
the Governor of the State of Oklahoma and Mrs. Keating, and the Mayor of 
Oklahoma City and Mrs. Norick, and a group from Oklahoma as they came 
here on their national tour, thanking all the volunteer workers who went 
to Oklahoma City in the aftermath of the horrible bombing of the Federal 
building. And what I thought and said there was that in that moment we 
all became a family, the whole country.
    In Florida last week, Governor Lawton Chiles said that the central 
question of our time was whether we were going to be a community or a 
crowd. The Hispanic community in America has always been a community, 
always tried to live by family values, not just talk about them. Now, a 
crowd is a group that occupies the same piece of land but really has no 
particular connection to one another. And so they elbow and shove and go 
to and fro until the strongest win and others are left behind. A 
community is a group of people who occupy the same piece of land and 
recognize their obligations to one another, people who believe they're 
going up or down together, people who believe they should help protect 
children and do honor to the elderly and help people make the most of 
their own lives, people who believe in freedom and responsibility, 
people who believe that we have an obligation to find common ground and 
sometimes to do the right thing because it's right, even if it's 
unpopular in the short run.
    And in this period of change, as we move out of an industrial to an 
information society, out of the cold war into the global economy, that 
is what we need more than ever before, the values of your family and 
your community and your work.
    The work of the Hispanic Caucus has never been more important than 
it is today, because you have stood for the values that are the very 
heart of the Latino culture and the very best of America. Some seek to 
divide us by spreading fear and laying blame. But the Hispanic Caucus 
has always sought to unite us all in America. I have counted on your 
support, literally from everything from A to Z, from affirmative action 
to zero tolerance gun policies in our schools.
    The Hispanic Caucus has been my partner in 3 years of hard-won 
progress. When I became President, we had a stagnant and suffering 
economy. When I proposed a remedy to drive down this terrible deficit 
and increase investment in our people and in our economy and in our 
future, the naysayers who turned away said it would wreck the economy. 
But with the help of the Hispanic Caucus we passed an economic policy, 
and after 3 years, they were wrong and we were right.
    We have 7.3 million new jobs, 2\1/2\ million new homeowners. 
Secretary Cisneros has a plan that will take home ownership above two-
thirds of the American people by the year 2000 for the first time in 
American history. We have the largest number of new small businesses 
incorporated in any 2\1/2\-year period in American history, about 2 
million. We have the largest number of new self-made millionaires in any 
2\1/2\-year period in American history, and we have

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the lowest combined rate of unemployment and inflation in nearly three 
decades.
    The Hispanic Caucus helped this administration to tackle the problem 
of crime. When I showed up here, for 6 years Washington rhetoric had 
paralyzed the crime bill while everybody made speeches about it. We 
broke through that rhetoric and the partisan discord and passed a crime 
bill at a time when most Americans believed that nothing, nothing, could 
really be done about the crime problem. Our crime bill put more police 
officers on our street. It did punish serious criminals more, but it 
also gave our young people something to say yes to. And in every State 
in the country now, in virtually every urban area, the crime rate is 
down, the murder rate is down.
    I was in Jacksonville, Florida, last week, and I saw that for the 
first time, people really believed that crime could go down in their 
neighborhoods, as they saw these police officers that we have put on the 
street. Again, we did it in the face of intense partisan opposition, but 
you were right, and I thank you. And America is a safer place tonight 
because of the leadership of the Hispanic Caucus.
    Last year at the Summit of the Americas, we saw what a vital role 
Hispanic-Americans can play as we expand trade with all of Latin 
America, through NAFTA and the free trade area we agreed on by the year 
2005. When Mexico got in trouble, so many of you stood by my side in 
what had the least popular support of anything I think I've done since 
I've been President.
    But think what would have happened if we had not gone to Mexico's 
aid. Look what was happening in Mexico. Look what was happening in 
Argentina. Look what was happening in Brazil. Look what would have 
happened in terms of illegal immigration, in terms of political discord, 
in terms of economic dislocation. Maybe those of you who stood with me 
were part of only 15 percent approval of the policy at the time, but 
when the President of Mexico gets here in the next week or in the next 
couple of weeks for his state visit, we will see a Mexico coming back in 
the right direction, moving toward constructive partnership with the 
United States, with a future that we can be hopeful about, instead of 
one we can rue, because of you and your leadership. And I thank you for 
that.
    I also thank you for your support for our policies designed to 
improve the security and prosperity and advance the values of the 
American people around the world. It is no longer possible in this 
global society to talk about domestic and foreign policy; they're all 
blurred. And I thank you for your support in policies that have led us 
to the point where I can say that for the first time since the dawn of 
the nuclear age there are now no foreign missiles pointed at the people 
of the United States of America.
    I thank you for our efforts to make peace in Haiti and Northern 
Ireland and for the celebration we will have tomorrow on the next step 
on the road to peace in the Middle East. I thank you for the work we 
have done to bring a genuine peace in Bosnia. And one of your members, 
of course, I must thank specifically, because through his combination of 
energy and imagination, heart and diplomacy, he has helped time and time 
again to make the world a safer place, Congressman Bill Richardson. 
Thank you.
    On Friday, I will have the honor of acknowledging the work of 
another great American when I present the family of Willie Velasquez 
with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in 
the land. I wish he could be here tonight to see how much he has helped 
citizenship to bloom among Hispanic-Americans throughout this country.
    I also want to say a special word of thanks to the Hispanic-
Americans who have helped to enrich the work of our administration. 
Beginning with Henry Cisneros and Federico Pena and the Latinos who have 
been appointed to the Federal District and Circuit Court of Appeals, 
those who occupy senior levels in Government in both categories, 
considerably more than any previous administration. You have proved, as 
I said in my speech on affirmative action, that excellence and diversity 
can go hand in hand; they must go hand in hand. And if they do, that is 
our ticket to a very, very bright future.
    I thank those from my administration who are here tonight, including 
Gil Casellas, Norma Cantu, Maria Echaveste, Nelson Diaz, George Munoz, 
Aida Alvarez, Fernando Torres-Gil, Katherine Archuleta, Jack Otero; the 
people from the White House who have been wonderful to be part of my 
family, Janet Murguia, Suzanna Valdez, Carolyn Curiel, Ray Martinez, 
Alfred Ramirez, Liz Montoya, and Grace Garcia, my advance person who got 
me in here tonight.

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I couldn't get around without her anymore. I thank her. I also want to 
thank someone who recently left the White House, Isabelle Rodriguez 
Tapia, who was the Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of 
Advance for both the First Lady and for me. All of these people and so 
many others are a part of what America is in its Government. And this is 
terribly important.
    As we look at this balanced budget, I ask you to think about the 
people, the values, the vision you have for the future. It's really 
about values. Should we balance the budget? Of course, we should. Of 
course, we should. We never had a permanent deficit, never, until the 12 
years before I come to Washington. We never had one before. And lest 
anyone blame any one party or the other, I would remind you that in 11 
of those 12 years, the Congress appropriated less money, not more, than 
the President asked for. This was not a partisan thing, but Presidents 
have a responsibility to lead. And thanks to the efforts of many of you 
here, we reduced our Government deficit from $290 billion to $160 
billion, a 40 percent reduction in 3 years, the first time since 
President Truman that had been done.
    So, should we balance the budget? Of course, we should. Otherwise we 
will spend more and more of your money on paying interest on the debt, 
and we'll have less to spend on the things that make us strong and good 
and give us a better future. Otherwise we will take too much money at 
interest rates that are too high away from the business community in 
America that needs to borrow that money to generate jobs in the private 
sector, which is where we're trying to grow our future.
    But the question is, how should we do this, and don't we have to do 
it in a way that is consistent with our most fundamental values, with 
work and family, with responsibility, with our obligations to the 
elderly and to our children, with our obligations to help those who 
cannot help themselves through no fault of their own, and perhaps to 
stop helping those who can help themselves just as well without it? What 
are we going to do? How are we going to do this?
    Let me just offer a few observations. I don't think it is consistent 
with our values to balance the budget by reducing the number of college 
scholarships and more affordable college loans or by depriving hundreds 
of thousands of little children who happen to be poor the chance to get 
off to a good start in school or by depriving schools of the chance to 
have smaller classes and computers in the classroom and meet the higher 
standards that we're holding out for them, just because the districts 
happen to be poor.
    Why are we trying to balance the budget to strengthen America's 
future? We cannot strengthen America's future in a global economy, where 
what we earn depends on what we can learn, by weakening our commitment 
to education at the moment we should be strengthening that commitment to 
education. And let me say this as an aside: neither should we use the 
balanced budget as an excuse just to go after things that we do not like 
and cannot find a more open way to deal with.
    And I want to just say a word in that context about bilingual 
education. Of course, English is the language of the United States. Of 
course, it is. That is not the issue. The issue is whether children who 
come here, while they are learning English, should also be able to learn 
other things. The issue is whether American citizens who work hard and 
pay taxes and are older and haven't mastered English yet should be able 
to vote like other citizens. The issue, in short, is not whether English 
is our language; it is. The issue is whether or not we're going to value 
the culture, the traditions of everybody and also recognize that we have 
a solemn obligation every day in every way to let these children live up 
to the fullest of their God-given capacities. That's what this is about.
    Look at the balanced budget on the tax issue. Can we afford to 
reduce taxes and balance the budget? I believe we can. But we should do 
it consistent with our values. We should not cut taxes more than we can 
afford to do and provide our other obligations and meet them. And we 
should focus tax relief on the most important and most stressed things 
in our society, the need that middle class families have to get help 
with raising their children and to get help with financing the cost of 
education after high school. That's what we ought to do.
     And the last thing we ought to do is what is now proposed, 
unbelievably, by the congressional majority. They want to raise the 
family tax credit by $40 billion. One of the most important things we 
did in 1993 with our economic proposal was to give over 14 million 
working families who lived on modest incomes a reduc-


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tion in their income taxes to send out two very important messages: 
Number one, this country should never favor welfare over work. And 
number two, if someone is working 40 hours a week and they have children 
in their home, they should not live in poverty because of a tax system. 
We must not reverse that. How in the world--how in the world anyone 
could justify cutting the taxes of someone in my income group and 
raising the taxes on working mothers with children who have an income of 
$11,500 a year is beyond me. It is wrong, and we must stop it. We must 
not permit it to be done.
    And let me say this: There's a lot of budget balancing to be done in 
the name of welfare reform. This administration has given 35 States the 
right to get out from under various Federal rules and regulations, to do 
more to move people from welfare to work. But what is our objective with 
welfare reform? It is to see people who are poor who may have made some 
mistakes in their lives have the chance to live good, strong, pro-work, 
pro-family lives. Our objective is to look at the reality of America 
where most parents work and most parents have to work and to say what we 
want is for everybody who can work to work, but we also want people to 
succeed as parents, for that is still our most important job.
    And we must do both those things with welfare reform. Therefore, I 
say to you, it's all right to be very tough in child support 
enforcement. The Congress has adopted my provisions because there aren't 
any that are tougher. It is all right to be strong in saying you must, 
if you can, be in school or be in a training program or take a job when 
it is offered. And it is good that the Congress seems to be willing now 
to give some funds for child support so that you don't have to neglect 
your children if you go to work and you're poor. But it is wrong to use 
this as an excuse to punish people just because they're poor or they 
made a mistake or they happen to be children who, through no fault of 
their own, are in the family they're in.
    Democratic, Republican Governors, the Catholic Church, they've all 
helped us to try to take some of these extreme provisions out of the 
welfare reform debate. And I say we have to keep them out. And let's 
remember, what we want is for people to be able to work and raise their 
children with dignity in this country. That is the purpose of welfare 
reform.
    Finally, let me just give you one last example. There's a lot of 
talk about Medicare and Medicaid. We have to slow the rate of inflation 
in those programs. If we don't, they will soon be taking virtually all 
the discretionary money of the Government. We won't have money to invest 
in education or Secretary Pena's infrastructure programs that can put 
people back to work and rebuild communities. So we do have to do that.
    It is true that the Medicare Trust Fund needs help. But the trustees 
that are so often cited by the congressional majority say that it costs 
$90 billion to fix the Medicare Trust Fund for more than a decade. That 
money comes from slowing the reimbursement rates to medical providers. 
Their proposal to double the premiums, double the deductibles, stop 
giving Medicare to anybody under 67 years old, to raise 3 times as much 
as it takes to bail out the Trust Fund has nothing to do with saving 
Medicare; it has everything to do with funding their budget priorities.
    My priorities say, we owe it to the elderly not to do that to them. 
Most of them have very limited incomes. The average senior lady in the 
country, a woman over 65 living alone, is living on less than $9,000 a 
year average. In many States, 75 percent of those folks are living on 
less than $7,500 a year. They cannot afford to have their premiums and 
deductibles doubled. It is wrong. It is not necessary. And we should not 
do it.
    And finally, let me say just a word about the Medicaid program. It's 
not popular to stand up for poor children anymore, but the Medicaid 
program, two-thirds of that money in Medicaid goes to the elderly and 
the disabled Americans of this country. It pays for their nursing home 
care, for in-home care to avoid the costs of going to nursing homes, and 
for hospital care. About a third of the money goes to the poor children 
of America to pay for their medical bills. And a lot of that money goes 
to hospitals in big cities and isolated rural areas.
    And if you take a third of that money away over the next 7 years, 3 
times as much as I have recommended in my balanced budget plan, there is 
no way you will not do grievous harm to the elderly, the disabled, and 
the poorest, most vulnerable children in America. And to all those who 
say, ``Well, I'd rather have mine now; I don't care about them,'' just 
remember, those children will be, will be, the adults of

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the future. And we--those in my age group--will be depending on those 
kids to take care of us when we are retired. We are a family. We better 
act like a family. We cannot afford to do these things that violate our 
family values.
    Lastly, let me say how very proud I am that the Hispanic Caucus 
mirrors these values every day in their work. And let me encourage all 
of you who may be discouraged by what I have just said--and I left a lot 
of things out. They also have proposed, for example, that if an elderly 
couple has one of--the husband or the wife needs to go into the nursing 
home, they've proposed letting States require the one that's not in a 
nursing home to have to sell their house, their car, and clean out their 
bank accounts before the one who's in the nursing home can get any kind 
of help. I don't think that's right, either.
    My idea of the America of the 21st century is a high-opportunity 
country where everybody has a chance to live up to the fullest of their 
ability. I do not want my child to get ahead by driving elderly people 
into poverty. That is not my idea of family values. That is not the 
right thing to do.
    Now, I want to ask all of you, without regard to your political 
party or where you live or what your income is, in these next few weeks 
to urge the Congress to live by the values of Hispanic America, to 
decide by the values of Hispanic America, to lift up work and family, to 
work for more freedom and responsibility, to remember our obligations to 
our children and to our parents, and to remember the future belongs to 
the United States if we can just remember that we're a community, not a 
crowd.
    Look at America and imagine what the world's going to be like in 20 
or 25 years, the global economy, people moving around, technology, 
ideas, information moving around. There is no country in this world as 
well-suited to seize the 21st century as the United States, if we will 
just remember how we got to where we are: by being a community, not a 
crowd.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 7:50 p.m. at the Washington Hilton Hotel. 
In his remarks, he referred to Giselle Fernandez, NBC News 
correspondent, and the late Willie Velasquez, founder, Southwest Voter 
Registration Education Project.