    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [July 16, 1996]
    [Pages 1130-1136]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the United States Agricultural Communicators Congress
    July 16, 1996

        Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you
    for that warm welcome. And I was listening to Dan Glickman say all those
    outrageously positive things, and it reminded me that that was a living
    example of Clinton's third law of politics, which is, whenever possible,
    be introduced by someone you've appointed to high position. [Laughter]
        Steve and I were talking up here; he said, ``You know, the last time
    I was on a platform with you, you fell through a hole in it.'' And it's
    really true. It was--what was it--a soybean

    [[Page 1131]]

    meeting in Arkansas when I was Governor, and he and I were on the
    platform together and there was a crack in the platform. My chair fell
    through it. [Laughter] It really did a lot for my confidence right
    before I got up here to speak that he reminded me of that. [Laughter] As
    far as I know, we're all right.
        I'm delighted to be here. I want to begin by thanking all of you for
    the work that you do every day to keep in touch with people in rural
    America. I want to thank Secretary Glickman who I believe has done a
    magnificent job as Secretary of Agriculture, and I thank him for that.
        It is true that both the Vice President and I come out of small
    towns and have some more than passing acquaintance with agriculture. And
    one of the most enjoyable days of my Presidency was the National Rural
    Conference we had in Ames, Iowa, not very long ago, that Secretary
    Glickman did such a fine job on.
        And it is also true that I always believed that we could not bring
    the American economy back unless we brought rural America back. One of
    the things that was most disturbing to me about the economic recovery of
    the 1980's was that it seemed to sweep the coast and leave the heartland
    behind. And we've worked very, very hard in this administration to
    fashion an economic policy that would not only make the overall economic
    numbers look hopeful but would actually benefit every region and every
    State in our country. And I think that is very, very important.
        Even if a small percentage of our people live in rural America, and
    I'm happy that more and more people are going back there, a lot of what
    makes America special is alive and well there and is embodied in our
    farming communities. I'm glad to see some population movement back, and
    I'm glad to see family farming once again becoming a career choice for
    young people. If we are going to meet the challenges of the 21st
    century, we all have to meet them together and there has to be a role, a
    vital role for people living in rural America.
        When I sought the Presidency, I did it because I was concerned that
    our country was drifting into the next century instead of charging
    toward it and that we were coming apart instead of growing together. It
    seemed to me that there were three straightforward things that we had to
    do, at least from my point of view, to have the vision of America in the
    21st century become real. One is to guarantee opportunity to every
    American without regard to his or her station in life who is willing to
    work for it. The second is to receive more responsibility from all of
    our citizens, taking more initiative for their own lives and their
    families and their communities. And the third was to see that we come
    together as a community.
        So that--and this is very important--this is the most diverse big
    country in the world, the most racially and ethnically diverse, the most
    religiously diverse now. And yet we are bound together by a written
    Constitution that's 220 years old, going back to the Declaration of
    Independence. The Constitution was ratified a little more than 10 years
    after that. And those ideas are just as vital today and just as relevant
    today as they were over 200 years ago. They are the framework which
    enables us to come together and share this land with people who are very
    different than we are, as long as we all play by the same rules.
        I say that; it seems so simple maybe, but when you look at how the
    world's being torn apart because of the differences that we take for
    granted, that we can live with, it's very important to understand how
    much we have to be grateful for, with our whole history of
    constitutional government, a government of laws, a Bill of Rights which
    gives everybody some elbow room and yet requires all of us not to abuse
    one another.
        I mean, look at Bosnia, a tiny country where you'd think the people
    would want to be pulling together to try to make the most of their very,
    very ancient heritage. And it took an international effort of herculean
    proportions to stop people who were biologically indistinguishable from
    one another but had different religions and had grown into different
    ethnic categories.
        Look at this heartbreaking development in Northern Ireland, where
    people were getting along. They had the lowest unemployment rate, the
    highest growth rate they'd had in 15 years. When I went there last year,
    people lined the streets, the Catholic and the Protestant together, to
    say, ``We don't want any more war. We love our peace.'' A lot of the
    younger people could hardly remember what they were fighting about. But
    just the failure of leadership, by people in a position to abuse their
    positions, in a moment can drive people back into that kind of division.

    [[Page 1132]]

        So when you think about the spirit of cooperation and hard work and
    family that pervades rural America, let me tell you that it's something
    we take for granted, but when you look at our largest county, Los
    Angeles County, and you realize we have 150 different racial and ethnic
    groups in one county, and yet they're still basically getting along
    reasonably well. Yes, we have problems from time to time there. But if
    you look at the schools that have people from 70 different linguistic
    backgrounds in some of our public schools, it's astonishing to see that
    we've done as well as we have. And it's a great tribute to the endurance
    of our fundamental values.
        And if we're going to keep this whole world together and get these
    countries to working together to fight our common problems, like
    terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and
    diseases that cross national lines, we're going to have to remember
    these basic values.
        And so I wanted to say that at the very outset of my remarks because
    I think in some ways it's more important than anything else. I'd be
    perfectly content as somebody from Arkansas to talk about the fact that
    soybeans are over $8, and I wasn't sure I'd see that again in my
    lifetime. But I think it's important to note that sometime in our
    lifetime they will probably be less than $7 again or $6 or--I hope not
    lower than that. It's liable--but these things endure. And we need to
    hang on to them.
        And as we look ahead and we try to imagine what the world's going to
    look like 20, 30, 40 years from now for our children and our
    grandchildren, it's very important to know that America has something
    that has kept us together and strong for over 200 years, that will take
    us into this new world.
        The other thing I'd like to say is that it's very important that we
    meet our challenges at home and abroad and that we see them together. I
    think farmers, in a funny way, because we've exported farm products for
    so long, may have a little more of a global perspective than a lot of
    other citizens do. But when people say, well, what's your vision for
    America in the 21st century, I say I want the American dream alive for
    everybody; I want us coming together, not drifting apart; and I want us
    still to be the world's strongest force for peace and freedom and
    prosperity, which means we have to be involved in the world as well as
    here at home.
        I think you understand that instinctively. But I think it's very
    important that all of our citizens understand that. It requires me from
    time to time to do things that I know are wildly unpopular. I realize
    that what I did in Haiti wasn't popular, but I think it's the right
    thing to do. And we've got a democracy restored there, and we don't have
    to worry about large numbers of illegal immigrants risking their lives
    to come from Haiti to the United States. I think trying to help a new
    and responsible government in Mexico avoid bankruptcy was the
    responsible thing to do. It reduced illegal immigration and kept Mexico
    as a responsible trade partner instead of having it collapse on us. I
    think we did what we had to do in Bosnia. But the most important thing
    is I think we also put that into a context of 200 more trade agreements,
    including a lot of things that specifically affected agriculture.
        So, if I could ask you to do something when you go home, I hope that
    you will take every opportunity to talk to people that you live and work
    with who don't know anything about farming about how it's very hard in
    the world we're living in--it will be impossible in the world we're
    moving to--to have a clear dividing line between our domestic economic
    affairs and our international economic affairs, that to be an American
    in the 21st century will mean to be a citizen of the world. Even if you
    live in a completely landlocked State like Arkansas or Iowa or Missouri,
    if you're a farmer, you know that instinctively. And all of our people
    have to embrace that.
        Four years ago I embarked upon an economic strategy that I thought
    would work. I wanted to cut the deficit, expand trade, and continue to
    invest in people, in technology, and in research and in infrastructure,
    the things that would cause our economy to grow. Now, 3\1/2\ years
    later, the results are beginning to come in. I said in 1993 that if
    Congress adopted our economic plan, I thought we would cut the deficit
    in half in 4 years and that 8 million jobs would be produced for the
    American people. Well, in 3\1/2\ years, the American people have
    produced over 10 million jobs, 3.7 million new homeowners, 3 years in a
    row of record new small business starts, the lowest combined rates of
    unemployment and inflation in 27 years. And we learned today that the
    deficit, which was

    [[Page 1133]]

    $290 billion when I took office, will fall this year to $117 billion. As
    a percentage of our income, it's the smallest it's been since 1974. And
    the only debt we have in America today comes from the interest payments
    we pay on--the only deficit we have comes from the interest payments we
    have on the 12 years before I became President. In those 12 years we
    quadrupled the debt. We've now cut the deficit from 290 to 117. We would
    be running a substantial surplus this year in the Government budget but
    for the interest payments on that debt.
        So this whole thing is turned around. And that's kept interest rates
    down, and that's permitted this economy to grow. I think it is very
    important that we keep on until we balance the budget in a responsible
    way. But it's important that you know that that's a huge drop. There is
    no other country in the world with an advanced economy where the
    Government deficit is so small a percentage of its income every year.
        So we're moving in the right direction. And it's some evidence, too,
    I might add, that if we work together, we can continue to make progress.
        Let me mention just one other word on the trade issue. I was
    convinced when I came here that we could not afford to take a
    protectionist approach but that we had to be more aggressive and open
    markets to American products and services around the world. We have
    concluded now over 200 specific trade agreements as well as the big,
    sweeping agreements like NAFTA and GATT. We've opened foreign markets to
    American beef and rice and apples and agricultural products. We've got a
    long way to go, but it's important to point out that our exports,
    including our agricultural exports, are at all-time highs. Our exports
    this year will be about $60 billion, and our surplus in agriculture will
    be $30 billion this year, we believe. And that will, obviously, make it
    number one among American export industries.
        So when you--people talk to you about the trade deficit, remind them
    that it's--there is no trade deficit in agriculture, there's a huge
    surplus. And we're going to keep working to open more markets and keep
    pushing in the right direction there. We've got farm income up and farm
    asset values up. And the value of assets are growing faster than the
    debt, which means that the equity positions of farmers are improving.
        We've got prices on average that are 20 percent higher than a year
    ago. I wish I could promise you that we'd have $5 corn and $5.50 wheat
    and $8 soybeans forever, but I can't do that. But it is encouraging that
    a lot of farmers are able to finally earn some money, do some
    improvements that are needed on the farm, save some money for the years
    that may not be so good, and improve the overall economic position of
    family farmers throughout this country. I am very encouraged by it. And
    what we can do in this administration is to continue to work to open
    those export markets, and we will.
        We've also tried to help deal with some serious problems. The most
    serious one recently, obviously aggravated by the drought, has been the
    low cattle prices with the high feed prices. We opened a conservation
    reserve for emergency grazing. We accelerated the purchase of beef by
    the School Lunch Program. We worked to remove some more export barriers.
    And the prices are up modestly, about 10 percent. They're still in
    trouble, but at least there's been some movement in the last few weeks
    for which I am very grateful.
        I also want to thank the Secretary of Agriculture for the work that
    he and all of us did on the farm bill. To be perfectly candid--and I've
    said this in public, so there's no point in not saying it again--but I
    had and still have some reservations about whether this new farm bill is
    going to work structurally over the long-term as we go through the ups
    and downs. It looks great right now because we've got high prices. And I
    hope that the theory of it will work over a period of years. But I did
    work in good faith with the leadership of the new Congress to try to
    pass a farm bill. And I was pleased that we passed some--excuse me--we
    kept some provisions in this farm bill, especially relating to rural
    development and to the conservation programs that I thought were quite
    important. And I was pleased that we were able to preserve them, and I
    hope we can continue to preserve them in the future.
        I'd just like to mention a couple of other issues, if I might. I
    have been very pleased on balance by the response in the country to the
    administration's efforts to update meat and poultry inspection. I know
    this was somewhat controversial. We worked through a lot of difficult
    issues, but we had to stop using 70- and 80-year-old methods of testing
    meat when we knew that we had kids out there getting sick,

    [[Page 1134]]

    when there were no bad people involved. Nobody was out there trying to
    be negligent. We just were simply not using the best available
    technology. And I know it will cause some economic difficulties for some
    people, but we simply had to do it.
        And I never will forget as long as I live dealing with those
    families of those kids that ate the contaminated meat with the E. coli
    from the Pacific Northwest or the agony that the people felt who sold
    them the hamburgers. Their pain was also very real, and they felt
    desperate about it. They never meant to do any such thing. And that was
    just a case where we'd simply walked away from available technology. So
    we had to do it. And I hope that you all support the steps we're taking.
    We've tried to listen as well as we could to everybody. We tried to make
    the fairest decisions we could. But I think that decision had to be
    made.
        There's one other thing that we're doing that I want to mention that
    you may know about already, but this week Secretary Glickman is
    announcing that we're devoting $70 million to several communities in a
    total of 35 States to help them get safe running water for their people
    by the year 2000. Interestingly enough, the number one health problem in
    the developing world is still the absence of clean, safe water. If we
    could just get clean water to everybody in these poor countries, we
    could save more children's lives in less time than any other single
    thing we could do. And yet there are still places in the United States
    of America in rural areas where people do not have access to safe
    drinking water. And we are determined to correct that problem. So we
    will keep working on that as well.
        And now there's a lot more to do. And I guess I could keep you here
    all day, but I'd like to mention one or two things that I think would
    affect farm families especially. Number one, this Kassebaum-Kennedy
    health care reform bill would make several million people a year
    eligible to either get or keep health insurance who can't now by simply
    saying that people don't automatically lose their health insurance when
    they change jobs, and their health insurance can't be taken away from
    them because somebody in their family gets sick. That's why you have
    insurance in the first place. Now, this is very important for people who
    are not insured in large units. If you're insured in a large unit, the
    size of the unit which insures you often protects you from these sorts
    of problems. But it is terribly important to pass this legislation.
        Secondly, in the minimum wage legislation, in the same bill, there
    are provisions which could be very important to farmers, including an
    increase in the expensing provision. It was $10,000 when I became
    President; in '93 we kicked it up to $17,000 or $17,500; this takes it
    up to $25,000, which is quite important. And secondly, the package of
    retirement reforms that came out of the White House Conference on Small
    Business which would help a lot of farmers is in it. They're making it
    easier for people to access 401(k) plans, making it easier for people to
    move the plans, making it easier for people to maintain them if they hit
    a rough spot and they can't continue the contributions. There are
    several other things which strengthen the ability of people who do not
    work for large employment units to get and keep retirement plans over a
    lifetime and through the ups and downs that could happen to them.
        So these are two things that--there's been almost no--I don't know
    why exactly, but there's been almost no publicity about the other things
    that are in that minimum wage bill. But those are two things that are in
    there.
        Now, there are two other provisions that are of interest to you that
    are not in there but that were part of our discussions when we were
    talking about how we get a final balanced budget agreement. One was a
    modification of the estate loss, which has not been changed in a long
    time, which affects farmers in particular with high asset values and low
    cash income and not a lot of money in the bank to pay estate taxes--
    which we had reached agreement on in our budget negotiations about how
    to change. And the other was an increase in the deduction of health care
    premiums for self-employed people, including farmers, which has been
    kicked up to about 50 percent. We were going to take it higher, and we
    reached agreement on that.
        So, in the event--I still think there is some chance we will get an
    agreement in the Congress on a budget bill this year. No one else
    believes this, but I'm always--but I would remind you, for all of the
    fights we've had, we have this year passed a very tough antiterrorism
    bill. We've passed a telecommunications bill that I believe will create
    hundreds of thousands of high-wage jobs in America within the very near
    future by getting both the benefits of more competition and the
    requirement to adequately serve

    [[Page 1135]]

    schools and hospitals and places in rural America as well as urban
    America. All that's in that telecom bill that we passed. We passed lobby
    reform legislation that I've tried for 3 years to pass; we finally
    passed that.
        So we have done some quite important things in this year in the
    Congress. And if we pass this minimum wage small business bill that I
    just mentioned--and we might pass a welfare reform bill because we're
    getting closer on that--then who knows, we might get lucky and pass the
    Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, which we're getting close to. Then we might be
    able to pass this balanced budget bill. It will be a great thing for
    America if we do it. But if we do it, those other provisions, when we
    stopped our budget negotiations when the Presidential primary season
    started, did contain those two things that I know are of great interest
    in rural America. So anyway, that's kind of where we are with the issues
    in Washington.
        Let me just mention one other thing before I close. It doesn't apply
    just to rural America, it applies to all Americans. If you look at
    what's happened in the last 4 years, I think you can make a compelling
    case that America has gotten its economic house in order, that we've
    walked away from these permanent big deficits forever. We've reduced the
    size of the Federal Government; it's about 240,000 people smaller than
    it was the day I took office. We've abolished a couple hundred
    Government programs outright. We have taken 16,000 pages of regulation
    out of the Federal rulebooks. We tried to improve the quality of
    Government services and keep interest rates down and let the economy
    grow.
        But there's still a big challenge out there, which is that not
    everybody is benefiting from this new economy. It's not like it was in
    the eighties where whole States were left behind. My State didn't have
    an unemployment rate below the national average until 1992. A lot of
    rural areas were that way. This is different. In every State, what you
    see is a division of opportunity based more than anything else on the
    level of education. And it is a function of the fact that this modern
    economy is being driven by information and technology and rewards people
    who not only know a lot but can absorb a lot of new things and learn new
    things and are very flexible.
        So we have got to take a hard look at what it's going to take to get
    America growing together again. We can change the job mix, as we are,
    but that takes some time. For example, two-thirds of the new jobs that
    have been created in America since January of '93 have been in higher
    wage occupations. And more trade has a lot to do with that because it
    tends to create higher wage jobs. And that's good, but that's only a
    small percentage of the total jobs Americans hold.
        And if you look at it, what we still have in America is, we have
    some people who are downsized and have a hard time getting themselves
    repositioned. We have some people who never feel the recovery because
    they're in isolated rural areas or isolated inner-city areas. And the
    largest group of people that are still having a tough time are people
    that just can't ever get a raise because they have to work harder for
    less in a competitive economy with low skill levels.
        So the best thing we can do--there are lots of things we can do, but
    the best thing we can do is to raise the level of education and training
    of every American, including making more educational opportunities
    available to adult Americans right now. And I have three proposals there
    that I just want to mention in closing that I think are very important.
        First of all, I proposed a ``GI bill'' for American workers. There
    are 70 different Government programs for training people who are
    unemployed or underemployed, and I would give $5 to everybody in this
    audience that could name more than 5 of them. How about four? [Laughter]
    There are 70 of them.
        So what I propose to do is to take the 70 programs and get rid of
    all of them, put the money in the bank and give a skill grant to every
    adult in America who is unemployed or underemployed to take to the local
    community college or some other institution of your choice. But nearly
    every American is within driving distance of a community college, and
    nearly every community college has almost 100 percent placement for
    people who get educated there into jobs in their community.
        We do not need yesterday's splitup training system. We ought to just
    give people a skill grant and say, you've got enough sense to figure out
    where to get the training; go get it. So, that's the first proposal.
        The second proposal is to make college education more affordable by
    letting people deduct

    [[Page 1136]]

    up to $10,000 of the cost of tuition for the cost of all post-high
    school education.
        The third proposal, building on that, is to make at least 2 years of
    college after high school just as universal as high school is today. If
    you look at the last census, you will see how people's incomes start to
    split apart based on whether they stopped at high school or whether they
    got at least 2 years more. People that have at least a community college
    diploma tend to have jobs which are stable, which pay decent incomes,
    and where they can get a raise over time. People that don't, depending
    on where they live and what they do--obviously they're exceptions to
    this, but the odds are that you're likely to have a job where you can't
    get a raise, and therefore, you lose ground over time.
        So my objective will be to make 2 more years of education just as
    universal as a high school education is today. So what I propose to do
    there is to give families who choose this instead of the tax deduction a
    credit, a credit of $1,500 for the first year of a community college and
    a credit of $1,500 for the second year for everybody that keeps a B
    average in the first year. That would literally open community college
    to virtually everyone in America. That $1,500 or less is the tuition
    cost for community colleges in almost every State. There's a few where
    they're a little bit higher, but still, the $1,500 credit would have a
    big impact.
        And if we can do those things, then we can work with the private
    sector to try to raise the skill levels of the adults that are already
    out there and get the young people that are coming out of high school
    into college and at least to 2 more years of education so their
    prospects will be better. That will enable the American economy to grow
    but also to grow together. And that's what keeps the American dream
    alive, the idea that if you're working hard and you're doing your part,
    you've got your chance at the brass ring. And that's what I believe we
    need to really focus on now.
        And I might say in closing that every advanced country is dealing
    with this challenge. The United States has done a much better job than
    most of our competitors in creating new jobs. But no country has solved
    the increasing inequality problem. And it is clearly related to the
    breathtaking degree to which change has overtaken the world and rewarded
    education, knowledge, and skills. So anything you can do to make this a
    nonpolitical, nonpartisan issue, the idea that we're going to lift up
    opportunities for all of our people, I think would very much advance the
    United States as well as, obviously, life in rural America.
        Well, I've talked a little more than I meant to, but I had a lot of
    things I wanted to talk about. Besides that, I don't see you very often,
    and I might fall through a crack on the way off the stand. [Laughter]
        Thank you very much. It's good to be with you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:32 p.m. at the J.W. Marriott Hotel. In
    his remarks, he referred to Steve Drake, president, Agricultural
    Relations Council.