    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [March 4, 1996]
    [Pages 354-359]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 354]]

    Remarks to the Community in Taylor, Michigan
    March 4, 1996

        Thank you very much. Thank you, John Dingell, for that wonderful
    introduction and for your great service to this district. Thank you,
    Senator Levin. Thank you, Mayor Priebe, for making me feel so welcome.
    To Congressmen Levin and Conyers and Congresswoman Rivers. I'd also like
    to say a special word of thanks to all the others who have come here
    with me, including my good friend, the Wayne County executive, Ed
    McNamara. But mostly, as a former musician, I want to thank the Taylor
    Central High Band, the Taylor Truman High Band, and the Kennedy High
    School Band for playing. Let's give them a big hand. [Applause]
        You know, the mayor said when we were walking in, ``You were
    supposed to be here last November, and we were going to dedicate the
    city hall. And then when you rescheduled, it was so cold we just built a
    new building for you to dedicate, so everybody could get in.'' And I'm
    glad to see all of you in this fine new building.
        Let me say, too, that I'm sure all of you know when I had intended
    to come here last November, I had to postpone it because of the tragic
    assassination of my friend Prime Minister Rabin of Israel. And as I'm
    sure many of you know, today there has been yet another terrible
    terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, the second in just a couple of days. Our
    prayers and thoughts are with the victims there. Our hearts are with
    those who fight for peace. It is truly ironic that the same forces that
    brought down the Israeli Prime Minister from within his own country and
    those who have killed the Israelis in the last couple of days have one
    clear thing in common: They both want to end the peace process. They
    live for division and conflict.
        And I ask all of you, my fellow Americans, to send a message to
    Israel: If you fight for peace, we will stand with you. That is the
    right, the noble, and the good thing to do.
        Let me say that I'm glad to be here with Senator and Mrs. Levin, and
    John and Debbie Dingell. And I want to say a special word of thanks to
    John Dingell here in his district. I have now worked with him for 3
    years. I've never met anybody who worked harder for the interests of
    ordinary Americans and working families than John Dingell, anybody who
    stood up more and more consistently.
        As you know, he has worked to clean up the Great Lakes. He played a
    key role in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. He has
    saved American taxpayers literally billions of dollars by investigating
    and exposing waste, fraud, and abuse. He hasn't just talked about it;
    he's done it. In large measure, John Dingell's work was the inspiration
    for the reinventing Government effort that I asked Vice President Gore
    to head, which has given us the smallest Federal Government we've had in
    30 years, enabled us to get rid of thousands of pages of wasteful
    regulation, reformed the entire way in which we purchase goods and
    services with your tax money, but is giving you a leaner and still a
    stronger Federal Government able to stand up for the interests of
    ordinary Americans. And John Dingell inspired that effort, and we thank
    him for that.
        And let me say, back in 1994, in one of the few efforts of this
    administration that did not succeed, John Dingell stood there with me
    and we got caught redhanded and we plead guilty to believing that we
    should try to make sure that every American working family should be
    able to afford health care and shouldn't lose it when they change jobs
    or something happens.
        Mayor Priebe has certainly left his mark on this city. This great
    new public works building is just one example of the revitalization
    taking place here. Since the mayor took office, he's built new roads.
    He's given you one of the finest courthouses in Michigan. You have a
    modern police station, which I might say also has some new community
    police officers in it, thanks to the crime bill of 1994, which is
    lowering the crime rate in America.
        Now, as you know, I was supposed to be here to dedicate the city
    hall, and as the mayor said, he just went on and built another new
    building so we could all meet inside in the wintertime. I have got a
    flag for the mayor that was flown over the Capitol. I hope he will
    accept it in the spirit in which it is given. And as far as I'm
    concerned, he can fly it over the city hall or any other building that
    he wants to fly it over here in Taylor.

    [[Page 355]]

        I was surprised when Congressman Dingell told me that I was the
    first President ever to visit this fine community, because I believe
    what you do here and the way you do it is really an example of what
    America at its best is and what America must do if we are going to move
    into the 21st century and meet the challenges that all these young
    people in this audience face for their future.
        When I became your President, I had a very clear vision for what I
    wanted America to be like in the 21st century. It's one I still hold
    today and one I think of every day when I go to work. I want our country
    to go into the next century as a Nation in which all Americans, every
    single one of us, all of us who are willing to work for it can have a
    shot at the American dream. I want our country to remain the world's
    strongest force for peace and freedom and prosperity and security. And
    above all, I want us to come together as a people, instead of being
    driven apart. I want us to unite around the basic values that made this
    country great: responsibility and opportunity, work and family and
    faith, and perhaps most important of all, the idea that we must go
    forward together. When we work together, America never loses.
        As I said in my State of the Union Address, and as people in
    Michigan demonstrate every day, this new and very different world we are
    moving into is an age of great possibility. With all my heart I believe
    as I look out in this sea of younger faces that are here and I think
    about what their future will be like, I believe the young people of our
    country will have more chances to live out their dreams than any
    generation of Americans ever has. But you and I know that this period of
    change is so profound that it also presents us with great challenges. We
    know that even as we create jobs, millions of people feel less secure in
    the job they have. We know that even as more and more people get higher
    wage jobs, many, many Americans are working harder for the same or lower
    wages than they were making 10 years ago. This is a curious time. We
    know that we are making progress and bringing the crime rate down but
    that violence is still too high. And we know--we know that it has
    something to do with this incredible range of change through which we
    are going.
        Let me say to you that we are moving into a period that, as you
    know, will be dominated by information and technology, out of a period
    that was dominated by manufacturing. We are moving into a period where
    work will have more mind and less muscle, even in our great factories.
    We are moving into a period where more and more workplaces will be
    dominated by the computer; they'll be less bureaucratic; they will tend
    to be smaller and more flexible. We are moving into a period where the
    markets for products and services and money are global. And we are
    moving into a period where more information can pass more quickly across
    the globe than ever before.
        The last time your country changed this much was 100 years ago, when
    most people moved from living in the country to the city and town, when
    most people moved from working on the farm to working in the factory.
    And many of the same things happened 100 years ago. There were people
    who made lots of money. There were people who found opportunities that
    they could not have dreamed of. And there were people who were severely
    dislocated and disturbed and whose pattern of life was unsettled.
        What did we do then? We kept moving until we worked through these
    changes and all Americans had a shot at the American dream. And it won't
    take as long this time if we keep moving in the right direction. That is
    what I ask you to support today and tomorrow and in the years ahead.
        We have great challenges, and we must meet them together. And if we
    are to meet them together, we know that our Government must play its
    role. For many years we had the wrong debate in America: Are we going to
    have big Government or no Government? The answer is neither. The era of
    big Government is over. We have the smallest Government in Washington we
    have had since 1965. By the end of this year, it will be the smallest it
    has been since John Kennedy was President of the United States. But that
    does not mean we should go back to the time when the American people
    were told, ``You're on your own; fend for yourself.'' That is not the
    way we can move into the future.
        We must have a partnership where everyone is challenged to do his or
    her part in the workplace, in the schools, in our houses of worship, in
    our unions, and yes, in our Government. The great lesson of democracy,
    let me say again--if you ask me, ``Mr. President, what is the most
    important lesson you have learned in 3 years?'' I would say, ``When this
    country is divided, we

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    defeat ourselves. When we are united, we never lose. That is the lesson
    of America.''
        Look what has happened just here in Michigan in the last 3 years:
    The unemployment rate has dropped to 5 percent; new businesses have
    increased by 10 percent; over 311,000 new private-sector jobs, 6\1/2\
    times in the last 3 years as in each of the previous 4 years before this
    administration took office and we began to change the economic direction
    of America. Our auto industry is back. The world's best workers are
    making the best cars. And once again, for the first time in 15 years,
    our auto industry is leading the world in sales and progress and
    profits.
        In the last 3 years, the auto industry has gained 75,000 jobs. In
    the 4 years before that, it lost 49,000 jobs. Just last week a study by
    the University of Michigan predicted that there would be 130,000 new
    hirings by Chrysler, Ford, and GM in Michigan alone in the next 7 years.
    That is good news.
        One of the reasons for that is we are finally beginning to crack
    open the markets of Japan, and I want to say a special word of thanks to
    Senator Levin for his work in supporting those efforts that we have
    made. This, too, is an important decision for America. When you hear the
    trade debate, normally you would think there are only two choices: We
    should just open our markets and let anybody sell here who wants to
    sell, giving us the benefit of the lowest prices and letting the
    consumers of America have their say; or we should say, ``No, that's not
    fair because so many markets are closed to us, that we will close our
    markets.'' But that is not the only choice. I think we should have free
    trade; I think we should have fair trade. That means we should open
    other markets to America's products, not close ours and deprive our
    people of the right to buy what they want.
        In the last 3 years, our administration has concluded 20 separate
    agreements with Japan alone, part of a total of 200 separate trade
    agreements in the last 3 years. What has been the result? An 80 percent
    increase in the sales of American products covered by those 20
    agreements in just 3 years. I think that's a pretty good record, and
    that's what this country ought to be doing.
        Listen to this. Just in the last year, in one year, our auto exports
    to Japan increased by 37 percent. That's good for Detroit, good for
    Taylor, good for Michigan, and good for America. We need more of it.
        All across the Nation, we see something that our friends in Europe
    and Japan have not enjoyed, jobs coming back into this economy. In the
    seven largest economies in the world, the European economies, Japan, and
    the United States and Canada, in the last 3 years, a total of 7.7
    million jobs have been created. In the United States, 7.7 million jobs
    have been created. We are growing jobs again in this economy, and that
    is the right direction for our country.
        Homeownership at a 15-year high; an all-time record for 3 years in a
    row in the number of new businesses started; in the last 3 years, almost
    800,000 new construction jobs alone, after losing 700,000 construction
    jobs in the 4 previous years; and for the first time in 10 years, slowly
    and too slowly, but at least for the first time in 10 years real hourly
    wages are starting to rise in the United States. It is about time, and
    not a moment too soon.
        Now, my fellow Americans, that is the good news, and it's all true.
    But as I said earlier, it's not the whole truth. The whole truth is
    we're going through a period of change that is still leaving some
    Americans behind. You know it, and I know it. Too many of our people are
    still working harder and harder for the same or lower wages. They wonder
    if they and their children will be able to prosper in this new era. Even
    with new jobs, with a booming, booming export market, with a huge
    increase in the stock market, with an increase in the productivity of
    American manufacturing, many of our people have not gotten a real wage
    increase in terms of what it will buy in almost 20 years. And we have to
    do something about that as well.
        We also know that even though small businesses are hiring people at
    record rate, many of our largest companies are laying off workers, some
    of them because they have to compete in the global economy. Some of them
    are doing it even when their profits are going up so that a lot of
    people are insecure even in an economy that is growing. And we have to
    do our best to do something about that.
        We have some serious challenges here if we want to make all
    Americans winners in this new economic era. We know that there are also
    challenges that go beyond the economic. Let me just remind you of the
    seven challenges I set

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    forth in the State of the Union Address if we want to see the American
    dream alive and well for all Americans. We have got to do more to
    strengthen our families and improve childhood. We've got to do more to
    take back our streets from crime and gangs and drugs. We've got to do
    more to leave our environment safe and clean for the next generation.
    We've got to do more to maintain our world leadership so that the world
    grows in peace and security. We've got to continue to work to give our
    people a Government that costs less but works better and is stronger.
    We've got to give every single American citizen the education that all
    of us need to compete and win in the new century. And we have got to
    give every American who is willing to work for it a chance to have a
    decent amount of security at work and at home by growing this economy.
    We have to keep doing it until the American dream is there for all
    Americans. Many are winning today. Our job will be done when everybody
    who is willing to work for it has a chance to compete and win in this
    global economy. That must be our mission as Americans.
        And let me say something that all of you know but we sometimes
    forget. Economic growth is about more than money. It is not just
    ensuring that people have a certain number of material possessions, that
    they can go out to a nice restaurant once a month or take a vacation
    every year. It is about the idea of America, the idea that this is a
    place where there is room for everyone to have a shot at the American
    dream. It is about the idea of fundamental fairness in this country,
    that we are not a people who object to others being successful, we do
    not resent people amassing their own wealth fairly won in a free
    enterprise system. The only thing we resent is when every American who
    is doing the right thing and working hard and playing by the rules
    doesn't have a chance to be treated fairly. That is what we want in this
    country.
        So I say to you, we have done step one. We are creating jobs. But we
    must do more. We have to have an economic growth that reaches all
    Americans, and that must be our goal in the next 4 years. We have been
    stagnant now for nearly 20 years in our wages. Now we can do better. And
    I ask you to join with me in ensuring that we do just that.
        Again I say to you, if we fail to grow together there will be more
    resentment, more frustration, and more division among the American
    people. When he signed the Declaration of Independence over 200 years
    ago, Benjamin Franklin said, ``We must all hang together, or we shall
    hang separately.'' Today we must grow together, or we will surely grow
    apart and grow weaker as a Nation.
        Now let me ask you to think about what we have done and what we
    should do and what you must do if we're going to grow together. We have
    cut the deficit in half. We have expanded our exports by being for free
    and fair trade. We have invested in education and training and
    technology. We have shrunk the Federal Government and cut regulation. We
    have tried to expand opportunities for our people. But we must do more
    if we're going to create jobs and raise incomes and give these people
    who are being downsized a chance to go right on with their lives and
    raise their children and live with hope and dignity, instead of
    frustration and a sense of failure. That is what we have to do, and we
    have to do more to get there.
        And let me say that there is a lot that we can do that does not
    require us to wait for the next election. As I remind all of my friends
    in Washington, Democrat and Republican alike, just because there is an
    election in November doesn't mean we should have a work stoppage in
    March. It is time to go back to work and get things done.
        So I want to challenge the Congress to join with me and pass a
    growth agenda for the American people in the next 60 days that will keep
    creating jobs and raise incomes. First, we should grow the economy by
    passing the right kind of balanced budget. It is wrong to leave our
    children a legacy of debt. And if we pass a balanced budget plan, it
    will lower interest rates, lower mortgage rates, lower credit card
    payments, lower car payments, increase business investment, increase
    jobs, and grow the economy.
        But we can do it and do it in the right way. We do not have to have
    unwarranted cuts in Medicare or Medicaid or education or environmental
    protection. We do not have to endanger--neither do we have to increase
    the tax burden on our hardest pressed working families. And we must not,
    just to make a little extra money, imperil the pensions of the American
    working people.
        We should grow the economy by targeting a tax cut to the people who
    need it, the working

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    families of America. I favor giving people help who are raising children
    out there and working for a living. Our tax relief for families with
    children has not kept up with inflation over the last 40 years. But the
    most important tax cut we could give--look at all the young people in
    the audience and look at yourself if you're still in the work force. I
    say, the most important tax cut we could give is to give families a tax
    deduction for the cost of college tuition and any other education after
    high school.
        We should grow the economy by passing an increase in the minimum
    wage. Let me say this to you: If you've got a good job, I want to you to
    think about this. If you've got a good job and you're raising kids, I
    want you to think about this. If we don't raise the minimum wage this
    year, it will fall to a 40-year low in terms of purchasing power. There
    are millions of Americans out there, real heroes in my book, who get up
    every day and work full time for $4.25 an hour and try to raise children
    on it. That is not an adequate rate to raise children. We can do this
    without hurting the economy, and we should raise the minimum wage.
        We should grow the economy by passing the right kind of welfare
    reform. Yes, be very tough in requiring people who can work to work, be
    tough in requiring people to move from welfare to work, but do not hurt
    the children. Invest in the children and protect them in their future
    while you move people from welfare to work.
        We should grow the economy by fully funding in this year all of our
    educational investments. We need the best schools, the best training,
    the besteducation we can. And one of the things we should fund is my
    proposal for a ``GI bill'' for America's workers. When a person loses a
    job they ought to get a voucher from the United States Government that
    says, ``Here's $2,600; take it where you want to take it, go there as
    quick as you can, get some new training, and go back to work.'' That's
    what we ought to do for the American people.
        And we should grow the American economy by giving people a greater
    sense of security. There is a bill now before the Congress that has
    passed out of the Senate committees unanimously, supported by almost 50
    Republicans and Democrats, and we cannot get it to a vote in the Senate
    because of the interest groups keeping it down, even though the National
    Association of Manufacturers and the AFL-CIO are for it.
        It's a simple little bill. Here's what it says. It says, you cannot
    be denied your health insurance because someone in your family has been
    sick, and you cannot lose your health insurance just because you change
    jobs. Let's pass that bill and pass it right away and give the American
    people some security.
        We should do this and do it now. Congress must do its part. It's a
    long way from now until the election, but every week between now and the
    election the American people will get up and go to work. They still have
    to pay their bills. They still have to educate their children. They
    still have to try to keep their dreams alive. We dare not have a work
    stoppage. Let's pass this growth agenda now for the American people.
        Let me say that while Congress and the President, we must do our
    part, we know that economic growth comes largely from the private sector
    and that fairness and decency in the workplace must be generated largely
    in the private sector. Every company in America must meet these
    challenges. I urge, I urge our employers in America to look at the
    things that make families strong, that help people to succeed at work
    and at home.
        I want to pass a bill that makes it easier for small-business people
    to take out pension plans for themselves and their employees, but then
    they have to make wider use of those 401(k) plans. We need increased day
    care. We need more flexible working hours. And we need people to really
    think about whether it's the fair and right thing to do when you see
    these downsizings. If they have to do it to keep the business afloat,
    every American can understand that. But no one should lose a job for
    short-term considerations that are not necessary for the long-term well-
    being of the profitable enterprise. We all need to do our part to keep
    America going and growing together.
        And every one of you must remember, no one can require you to get
    further education or training, no one can make you become more
    productive. This is going to require an effort on the behalf--on the
    part of every American if we are going to have sustained growth. But we
    will try to do our part, with access to health care, with welfare
    reform, with rising wages, with better education and training, with a
    strategy that will open markets for American products. We can do all
    these things, again I say, if we do them together.

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        This is a time when it is fashionable to say the American people are
    cynical and skeptical. Well, I know there are plenty of things to be
    skeptical about. But let me tell you something, my fellow Americans, I
    get to do something none of you get to do. Whenever I leave this
    country, I become the United States in the eyes of other people. And I
    can tell you, wherever I have been, people think this is still a very
    great country.
        I ask you to remember what President Kennedy said in the middle of
    the cold war when he went to Berlin. He said, ``Freedom has many
    difficulties, and our democracy is far from perfect. But we never had to
    put up a wall to keep our people in.'' People want to come to the United
    States because this is a great country.
        And when you hear your fellow citizens at work, at church, in the
    bowling alley on Thursday night, or anywhere else express cynicism about
    this country, you tell them that that is a poor excuse for inaction.
    Cynicism is just a cover for laying down and giving up and not going on.
    We have got to go on and go forward together.
        All my life I have been driven by the conviction that it is
    fundamentally wrong for any human being to be deprived of their God-
    given capacity to grow and to live out their dreams. That animates
    everything we try to do in Washington. But this country runs
    fundamentally on your pulse, on your heartbeat, on your conviction, and
    on your work. And I ask you, join me in this one simple resolve: We will
    not permit the American people to be divided in 1996. We are going
    forward together.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 11 a.m. at the Department of Public Works.
    In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Cameron G. Priebe of Taylor, MI. A
    portion of these remarks could not be verified because the tape was
    incomplete.