    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [August 27, 1996]
    [Pages 1373-1378]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to Employees at the Chrysler Jeep Plant in Toledo
    August 27, 1996

        The President. Thank you. I'm glad to see you, and I'm glad to be
    here.
        Audience member. Put the hat back on!
        The President. I can't talk with a hat on. [Laughter] My brain's not
    working. It's only--it's early, you know. [Laughter] But you'll see me
    with this on again. I'll run in it, play golf in it.
        I want to thank Dennis Pawley for what he said out here a few
    minutes ago and for the leadership that he's given to Chrysler and our
    partnership. I want to thank your plant manager for showing me around
    and bragging on you. I thank my old friend Rob Liberatore for coming
    from Washington for Chrysler, and Lloyd Mahaffey and Bruce Baumhower,
    and Ron Conrad and all the people from the UAW. And one of your members
    behind me gave me this very old UAW pin, and I'll collect it and it will
    have a prominent place in the White House in my collection. So I'm glad
    to have that.
        I'll tell you, I was listening to the mayor talk, listening to Marcy
    talk, and I thought there's more energy in Toledo than any other place
    in America. I never heard such--[applause]. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for
    what you said and for the partnerships we've had both in building up the
    economy and trying to tear down crime. And in both places you've worked
    hard when we've worked together, and I thank you for that. Thank you,
    Marcy Kaptur, for being perhaps the most ferocious defender of middle
    class economics and middle class values in the Congress of the United
    States. Thank you, John Glenn, for all you have done for this State and
    this country, for your partnership with me in helping to rebuild our
    economy and helping to make this a safer world.
        You know, I've heard Senator Glenn introduced a lot, and two things
    I rarely ever hear--one I want to tell you is that he said we have
    downsized the Government. We had to. We wanted to put 100,000 more
    police on your streets, and we had a big Government, and we had a huge
    deficit. We had to find some way to pay for it. We couldn't just pay for
    it with a tax increase, so we reduced the size of Government. But you
    never hear about it in America, and I'm proud of that because we did it
    in a good way.
        Of the 250,000 fewer people that are working for the Federal
    Government today, fewer than 1,800 were involuntarily separated. We gave
    those folks early retirement. We helped them find other jobs. They went
    on to other careers in dignity, so they could support their families and
    go forward into the future. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of that.
    And John Glenn was one of the people who found ways for us to save money
    and to do things so we could do that and treat people humanely. He
    played a major role in that, especially in the first 2 years of my
    administration. And there are families out there who can thank God that
    he found ways to save money, for example, in the way the Pentagon bought
    their purchases and deal with the personnel systems. All that's real
    people, and it matters.
        And speaking of real people, I hope you were proud of Todd last
    night. He was great at the

    [[Page 1374]]

    Democratic Convention. I've been asked several times by the press, why
    do we have Todd Clancy? Why do we have Mike Robbins, the Chicago police
    officer who was riddled with bullets in an assault weapons hail on the
    street of Chicago after serving our country in Vietnam and Desert Storm
    and never being wounded? Why did we have that young Puerto Rican
    American woman who was an AmeriCorps volunteer and is now going to go on
    and be a doctor after being a high school dropout? Why do we have these
    people talk? Why do we have the superintendent of schools in Seattle,
    Washington, who is an Army General?

    [At this point, an audience member required medical attention.]

        The President. We need a doctor here. My doctor is here--can we get
    somebody over here?
        And I want you to--we're okay; we've got somebody here now. I want
    you to know why we asked citizens to go to a political convention and
    kick it off. Why do we have Jim and Sarah Brady, lifelong Republicans,
    come and talk? Why do we ask Christopher Reeve, a man who's not
    particularly political but is a shining example of the kind of courage
    never to give up, to talk about the importance of Government research
    and the importance of continuing the Medicaid program so we don't cut
    off middle class families who don't have a lot of money to deal with
    disabled people in their family and keep guaranteeing them their health
    care so they can keep their good jobs? Why did we do all that? Because
    people lose the connection between what is done in Government and what
    happens in your daily lives. It's easy to lose that connection. It meant
    an awful lot to me when Dennis Pawley talked about how I asked to meet
    with the representatives of the auto industry soon after my election as
    President, and I said we'd put a premium on that. I knew that America
    could not lose its auto industry. I knew we could be number one again.
    And I think the best way to say that and to show the connection between
    what we do in Washington and what you do in Toledo is to have a person
    like Todd Clancy tell a personal story that shows how America's life can
    be changed if we work together and do the rights things. And I know you
    are proud of him, and so am I.
        And I was proud to be here today to see the 2 millionth Jeep roll
    off the assembly line. I love that. You proved one more time that
    whenever we're given a chance to compete, we can be the best in the
    world. We can be the best in the world. And you have made us proud. That
    was true in World War II when that old Jeep was made.
        And I want to just tell you, I'm getting a little sensitive about my
    age. I just became eligible for my AARP card. [Laughter] But I am so old
    that when I was a little boy, 6 years old, the first time I ever crawled
    under a car, my stepfather owned a little Buick dealership in a little
    town in Arkansas where he came from, but we also owned a Henry J--an old
    Henry J Kaiser--and we owned a late 1940's model Jeep. And back then,
    the civilian Jeeps looked just like the military Jeeps. Just think how
    rich I'd be if I'd saved that thing. I wish we had never gotten rid of
    it.
        But I feel real nostalgic here today, and I thank you. But I also
    want to thank you for what you're doing because I had the privilege to
    do something I wish every one of you could do. I went in to the showroom
    of an auto dealership in Japan where they were selling the Jeeps that
    you made here in Toledo. And I was swelling with pride. And I spoke to a
    Japanese family who told me how grateful they were that they had a
    chance to look around for what they thought was the very best vehicle
    for their family. And believe me, these people had looked around; they
    knew more about that Jeep than some of us do. [Laughter] It was amazing.
    And they said they were grateful to have a chance to buy the product of
    your hard, productive labor. I wish every one of you could have that
    experience. You would have been so proud. And I was swelling with pride
    for you and for our country because of what you did. And I thank you for
    that as well.
        But you know, Marcy had it right, the purpose of politics and the
    purpose of work is to enable people to live out their dreams, to enable
    them to raise strong families and build strong communities and advance
    the cause of freedom. That's the purpose of all this. And that's what
    we're trying to do. We've had a pretty good week, and as I've been
    saying on this train, we're not only on the right track to Chicago,
    we're on the right track to the 21st century. And we need to stay right
    on it.
        Before I got on this train, last week I signed a bill that raised
    the minimum wage for 10 million Americans, people that are working hard

    [[Page 1375]]

    and deserve it. And while I'm at it, I'd like to pay another compliment
    to the labor movement, not just to the UAW but to the whole labor
    movement. Organized labor worked as hard as any group in America to
    raise the minimum wage. There are very few labor union members in any
    union that make the minimum wage or anything real close to it. But the
    laboring people of this country, through their organized leadership,
    labored for the minimum wage because they want all people who work for a
    living to have the dignity and the reward of work. And I think Americans
    should be grateful to the labor movement for standing up for the minimum
    wage.
        That bill, by the way, also made it easier for people who work in
    small businesses to do something that you can do. We made it a lot
    easier for small businesses to take out a retirement plan and for people
    who work for small businesses to keep that retirement when they move
    from job to job. We made it easier for families to adopt children,
    offering a $5,000 tax credit to anybody who would adopt a child, an even
    bigger one if the child has a disability. We removed the barriers to
    cross-racial adoption. That bill was pro-business, pro-labor, and pro-
    family. It was a good day for America when it became the law of the
    land. And I thank Congresswoman Kaptur and Senator Glenn for their
    strong support of it.
        I signed the Kennedy-Kassebaum health care bill, a bill that we've
    needed a long time, a bill that says to 25 million Americans who'll be
    affected by it, ``Nobody can deny you insurance anymore if somebody in
    your family's been sick, and it can't be taken away from you if you have
    to change jobs.'' That is a very, very important advance for America.
        So I feel good about what's been happening.
        Audience member. We feel good, too!
        The President. And I thank you.
        This global market is a tough thing to operate in. When I became
    President, I decided that we didn't have an option to walk away from the
    trading world, and we got some benefits from it. But if we were going to
    have free trade, it had to be fair. It had to be fair to our workers,
    fair to our environment, fair to our children, fair to our future. I was
    prepared to have us compete on a fair and equal footing with anybody,
    anywhere. But it had to be that way. And we worked very, very hard to
    enable you to reap the benefits of becoming the most productive auto
    industry in the world again.
        You know, just 4 years ago, this plant exported 17,500 Cherokees
    and, this year, 41,500. That's what you did. That means 700 more good
    middle class jobs and strong families, 700 more Americans with a success
    story to tell. And that's why Todd Clancy went to Chicago to talk to
    America, to remind America that there is a connection between what we do
    or fail to do in Washington and how you live in Toledo and all across
    the United States.
        Now, let me say just one or two other things. John Glenn talked
    about what was said or not said by our friends in San Diego. Well,
    that's politics; you can't expect them to be out there promoting us.
    [Laughter] I mean, I didn't hold it against them. But on the other hand,
    it is a fact that today the unemployment rate in Ohio is under 5
    percent. It is a fact that America has more than 10 million more jobs.
    It is a fact that we've got 900,000 new construction jobs. It's a fact
    that 4.4 million Americans have become homeowners for the first time and
    10 million more have refinanced their mortgages at lower interest rates
    because of what has been done.
        It is a fact that we have negotiated 200 new trade agreements to
    open new markets and give American workers a fair break. It is a fact
    that for the first time in history we're also exporting, in addition to
    autos and auto parts to Japan, things like rice--which I never thought
    I'd live to see, coming from the largest rice-producing State in the
    world--and cellular telephones, and all manner of other things. And in
    the 21 areas covered by our Japanese trade agreements, exports are up a
    total of 85 percent in just 4 years. America can compete.
        And what has happened is that, thanks to you and people like you all
    over this country, and especially--it's already been noted we have
    Senator Riegle, Governor Blanchard, a lot of very distinguished citizens
    from Michigan here. They know a little something about cars, too.
    [Laughter] And thanks to the people of Ohio and Michigan and the other
    places where automobiles are produced, for the first time since the
    1970's, America--America--is the number one producer and seller of
    automobiles again in the entire world.
        Now, I want to say to you, we need to focus on what we're going to
    do to keep this going. We can't backslide; we have to go forward. It

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    means that this trade work has got to continue. We have got--we have
    got--to do what brought you to this point. We have to keep opening more
    markets. We have to watch it that markets don't get closed. We do have
    to be prepared to impose sanctions if people don't treat our workers and
    their families fairly. We have to be prepared to be firm in this, to
    keep trying to build an open trading system that is both open and fair,
    not only to us but to other wealthier countries as well.
        We want to lift countries up to our level. We don't want to see
    people dragged down to the lowest level in the global economy. We want
    it to lead to growth everywhere. The more other people do well, the more
    they will be able to buy our products, and other countries and their
    leaders need to know that. There is nothing in it for them to try to
    force down the American standard of living. They should be trying to
    lift the standard of living of the people in their own countries. And we
    will help if they will do that.
        Let me say this is not a particularly stimulating issue, I know, but
    that's why it's so important that we keep bringing this deficit down to
    balance the budget. You need to know that its not just a question of the
    debt we would leave to your children; it's a question of how you live
    right now.
        Why? Because from the moment I announced after I was elected
    President that we were going to have a serious attempt to get rid of
    this deficit after our national debt had gone up by 4 times in only 12
    years, interest rates started to fall. In addition to the trade
    agreements and your efforts, it was those falling interest rates that
    have helped the American economy come back. When the interest rates go
    down, what does that mean? That means your home mortgage payment goes
    down. That means your credit card payment goes down. That means people's
    monthly car payment goes down. That means more people buy cars, more
    people buy homes, more people buy other things. And they are more
    stable. Their income goes further.
        Most important, it means that interest rates for companies like
    Chrysler go down, and companies big and small can borrow money, invest
    it, build new businesses, hire new people, and keep this economy going.
    We've got average wages finally going up in this country for the first
    time in a decade in the last year or so. We've got to keep it going. We
    can't turn that around. We can't turn that around.
        Now, that's why every middle class American working family should
    care about financial responsibility. And that's why if we stay on a path
    and we balance this budget in the right way--I say the right way--we can
    have a growing economy. The right way is to do it without having
    crippling cuts in the things that are important to our future and
    important to our obligations. That means we have to balance the budget
    without cutting back on education, from college loans to Head Start,
    without eroding our protection for the environment, without eroding our
    obligations to people who need help, families with disabilities, poor
    children, the elderly in nursing homes through the Medicaid program, and
    without doing more to Medicare than is necessary to balance the budget
    and stabilize the Medicare program. I don't support those excessive
    cuts, and we don't have to have them.
        It also means that we can have tax cuts for working families, but
    they need to be tax cuts we can afford. Because if you have one that's
    more than you can afford, your interest rates will go up and it will
    turn right back around and take away from you what you were going to get
    in a tax cut.
        So, yes, we should give people tax relief, for children under 13 a
    tax credit. We should give people like you greater access to an IRA and
    let you withdraw from it with no penalty to buy that first home or
    educate your kids or deal with a medical emergency.
        We should allow you--I have proposed a tax credit that will make
    community college as universal as a high school education is today, a
    $1,500 tax credit a family for the first 2 years of education after high
    school, a $10,000 deduction for the cost of all college tuition--$10,000
    a year. That will help a lot of you send your kids to college. Now, we
    can afford that. We can afford that. But even though it's election year,
    I'm not going to stand up and tell you that you can have something that
    I don't think we can afford. You wouldn't go to the bank and borrow
    money to give yourself a tax cut, and you shouldn't ask me to do the
    same thing. [Laughter] I am going to do what I think is right to keep
    this economy going. I want more stories like Toledo. I want more stories
    like Toledo.
        And let me say that for all of our talk about the role of Government
    and my administration

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    and my personal commitment, the real credit for this today goes to you,
    to you and the American people who are supporting you. But you can have
    the best government policies in the world, but if the workers aren't
    productive, it doesn't work. You can have the best policies in the
    world, but if labor and management fight all the time instead of working
    together, it doesn't work.
        You're sitting here in the oldest automobile plant in the world--I
    mean, in this country. More than one story, I noted. [Laughter] And the
    first question I asked your folks here in management, I said, ``How in
    the wide world can you make this plant with''--what do you have, 4\1/2\
    million square feet in more than one floor--I said, ``How can these
    people do this? How can you sell these Jeeps all over the world?'' And
    they said, ``The workers did it. They did it. They overcame the
    adversity. They did the production.''
        That's another thing. All that Government can do--and this is the
    role of the Government--the role of the Government is to create the
    conditions and give you the tools to make the most of your own life. Not
    a guarantee but a chance--there are no guarantees. That's what the
    Communist system found out. That's why it collapsed. Not a guarantee but
    a chance. You seized the chance. And the company deserves a lot of
    credit.
        I have challenged other companies to follow this lead--70 percent of
    you in continuing education courses, a generous bonus program, sharing
    the profits. Every company ought to share the fruits of its progress
    with the workers who make that progress possible. And I honor that. I
    honor that. I want everyone in America today who works hard for a living
    to see the example of what happened in Toledo. Because if every company
    worked in partnership with its workers, if every company made it
    possible for its workers to continue their education and become more
    productive, if every company were committed to sharing a fair share of
    the profits with labor as well as management and shareholders, this
    country would be even stronger, we would be growing even faster, we
    would be going into the future in even better shape. I think that's what
    we have to do.
        The last thing I want to say is, we have to face our common
    challenges together. Government can't solve a lot of these problems
    alone. We have had a remarkable partnership on the environment. I
    believe we can grow the economy and protect the environment. I think
    we've proved that. We've improved the quality of our drinking water.
    Fifty million people are breathing cleaner air. We have cleaned up more
    toxic waste dumps in 3 years than were cleaned up in the previous 12.
    We've revolutionized the meat standards so you can have safer meat. We
    just decided--we just overhauled the standards for pesticides going into
    your food so your children will have safer food.
        We can do things to grow the economy and protect the environment,
    and we have to work together. And we can find ways, actually, to create
    jobs. One of the things that Marcy Kaptur said today that struck home
    with me the most was that we deserve--our people deserve in these city
    areas, with their ethnic diversity, their religious diversity, all their
    diversity, where so much industry has moved out, they deserve the chance
    to make a living. And we have got to find ways to give them that chance.
        As hard-working Americans, I want to leave you with two thoughts
    about that. Number one, if we do it right, the environment gives us a
    chance to do that. The biggest new investment in manufacturing in New
    York City in the last several years is a company making recycled paper
    products in the Bronx. What did we do for that company? The main thing
    we did was just--I signed an Executive order directing the Federal
    Government to buy a certain percentage of its products in recycled
    paper. Now a lot of those urban folks are working on a way to help the
    environment, and they've got manufacturing jobs. That's an important
    thing.
        The second thing I want to tell you is this. As hard-working people,
    I know that all of you support the idea that we ought to reform welfare
    in a way that enables poor folks to go to work and raise their kids,
    just like you're trying to do. Now, we have reduced the welfare rolls by
    a million and a half in 4 years--and I'm proud of that--by moving people
    from welfare to work and requiring people who can work to go to work.
        Now, I just signed a bill that changes structurally the way welfare
    works. It says at the national level we're going to guarantee poor
    families the health care that they need. We're going to guarantee poor
    children the nutrition they need. We're going to guarantee that there
    will be more money put into child care for working poor people, because
    they can't afford

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    to pay it. But we're going to take what used to be the welfare check
    itself, the Federal portion and the State portion, we're going to let
    the State decide how to spend that money to try to spend it in a way
    that will move more people from welfare to work and put strict time
    limits on the limit of time that able-bodied people can stay on welfare.
        Now, that's good, but if they're going to do that, if you're going
    to require people to go to work, they have to have work. They have to
    have a job to go to. So I want you, just the way you fought for the
    minimum wage, to say what we want for poor families in this country is
    what we want for ourselves. We want people to have the dignity of work
    and the success of raising their kids, and we are committed to real
    welfare reform. Yes, require people to work, but make sure you require
    them to do work because the work is there.
        If we will continue to work together to create an America where
    everybody has a chance to live up to their God-given capacities and live
    out their dreams, this country's best days are still ahead. If you ever
    doubt that this country's days are still ahead, think about your story.
    Think about your 2 millionth Jeep. Think about all the right-hand drive
    vehicles you're selling all over the world. Think about how far you've
    come. Think about the success stories that you represent. Any one of you
    could have done what Todd did last night, and we want every American to
    be able to tell that same story.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 10 a.m. in the courtyard. In his remarks,
    he referred to Dennis Pawley, executive vice president, manufacturing,
    and Rob Liberatore, vice president, Washington affairs, Chrysler Corp.;
    Lloyd Mahaffey, region 2B assistant director, United Auto Workers; Bruce
    Baumhower, president, and Ron Conrad, chairman, Jeep unit, UAW Local 12;
    and James J. Blanchard, former Governor of Michigan.