[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

[[Page 356]]

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

[[Page 357]]

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

[[Page 358]]

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.

[[Page 359]]

    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.