[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.