    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [September 30, 1999]
    [Pages 1635-1640]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Signing the Continuing Resolution and an Exchange With
    Reporters
    September 30, 1999

        The President. Good afternoon. I wanted to talk to you before I
    leave for New York about two developments affecting our economy and the
    progress we are making to build a stronger one.
        Today we have further evidence that our economic strategy of fiscal
    discipline, investment in our people, and expanded trade is working. In
    the 12 years before I came to Washington, irresponsible policies here
    quadrupled our debt. That led us to high interest rates and high
    unemployment, stagnant wages, and low growth. The Vice President and I
    came here determined to change all that, to put the American people
    first and give them the tools to turn around the American economy.
        Over the last 6\1/2\ years, the results speak for themselves: the
    longest peacetime expansion in history, more than 19 million new jobs,
    the lowest unemployment in 29 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 32
    years, the first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years, the largest surplus
    and the highest homeownership in history.
        Today I am pleased to announce another economic milestone in the
    implementation of this strategy. In its annual study on income and
    poverty in America, the Census Bureau reports that a typical household
    income rose $1,304 in just one year, from $37,581 in 1997 to $38,885 in
    1998. That's a 3.5 percent increase in a year, tied for the largest
    since 1978, allowing American families more money for things that
    matter,

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    sending their children to college, buying a home, purchasing a car,
    saving for retirement.
        The report also shows that since we launched our economic plan in
    1993, median family income is the highest it has ever been, increasing
    from $41,691 in '93 to $46,737 in '98. That's over $5,000 more that
    hardworking families can put to good use. But the best news is that
    these gains finally are being shared with all groups in America, from
    the wealthiest to the poorest.
        In the 1980's, most working families saw their incomes stagnate,
    with the worst performance at the bottom of the economic scale. In the
    last 5 years, finally, we have stemmed the tide of rising inequality,
    and this new report documents the strong income growth among all groups
    of people.
        This broadbased growth has helped to lift millions of hardworking
    families out of poverty. The report shows that the poverty rate fell to
    12.7 percent. That is the lowest poverty rate since 1979, the lowest
    rate in 20 years.
        While we still have room for improvement, the African-American
    poverty rate is now at its lowest level on record; the Hispanic poverty
    rate its lowest level in 20 years. And we know that 4.3 million
    Americans were lifted out of poverty last year because of our expanded
    earned-income tax credit, which was a critical part of the economic
    reform plan in 1993. It is now, inexplicably to me, under attack by some
    in Congress.
        Our economy is now working for all the American people, and it has
    to continue. That brings me to my second point.
        Today is the last day of the current fiscal year. Because the
    Congress has not finished its work, it must send me a continuing
    resolution, a temporary spending measure to keep the Government working
    for 3 more weeks. But it should be sending me spending bills that meet
    the great challenges and opportunities before us, that protect and
    strengthen Social Security, that strengthen and modernize Medicare with
    prescription drug coverage, that make vital investments in education,
    national security, the environment, medical research, and other critical
    areas, and that enable us to pay down the American debt so that we can
    pay it off, for the first time since 1835, over the next 15 years.
        Now, a few minutes ago, just before I came out here, I signed that
    continuing spending bill, not because I wanted to, but because it was
    the only way to prevent another Government shutdown. Months ago I
    presented a responsible budget plan that pays for itself, invests in
    education, saves Social Security and Medicare, puts us on the path to
    paying America out of debt by 2015*. Regrettably, the majority in
    Congress, the Republican majority, has chosen to disregard the way I put
    this budget together and to disregard the path of fiscal discipline.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        *White House correction.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Instead of making the difficult choices to finish their work and
    crafting a responsible budget, they've resorted to gimmicks and
    gamesmanship, like using two sets of books and designating the fully
    predictable census, for example, as emergency spending.
        But they're doing something else that troubles me more. To disguise
    the fact that they're spending the Social Security surplus, the
    congressional majority wants to delay earned-income tax payments to
    nearly 20 million families. Now, the income and poverty figures I
    announced earlier show that 4.3 million Americans were lifted out of
    poverty last year, twice the number that were lifted out of poverty by
    the earned-income tax credit before we expanded it in 1993.
        We've worked hard to eliminate barriers to families who are working
    their way out of poverty. We've got record numbers of people moving from
    welfare to work, often at very modest wages, eligible for this earned-
    income tax credit. Delaying their EITC payments would put one more
    roadblock in their way.
        So let me be clear: I will not sign a bill that turns its back on
    these hardworking families. They're doing all they can to lift
    themselves out of poverty, to raise their children with dignity. I don't
    think we should be putting more roadblocks in their way. Delaying the
    earned-income tax credit payment is more than a gimmick. It is an
    effective tax increase on the most hard-pressed working Americans.
        Now, one of the most interesting developments of the last week in
    this budget fight, which as I said I was hoping would not be a fight and
    I still hope will be resolved, but one of the most interesting things to
    me about this last week is that the Republican majority actually
    launched an ad campaign that plays the worst kind of politics with this
    issue. Instead of spending their time creating an honest budget, they're
    spending millions of dollars creating phony ads to accuse the Democrats
    in Congress,

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    who are in the minority, of doing what the Congressional Budget Office,
    their own Congressional Budget Office, says they are doing: that is,
    spending the Social Security surplus.
        In fact, just yesterday, the very day they were announcing these
    misleading and unfair ads, their own Congressional Budget Office sent
    them a letter that shows they are spending $18 billion from the Social
    Security surplus. Now, I can't help noting that these are the same
    people who told us they could spend all this money and cut taxes $792
    billion and never touch the Social Security surplus.
        Let's back up and look at where we are here, really. I had a lot of
    difficult decisions in my budget. I had a cigarette tax; I had a tax on
    polluters to clean up toxic waste dumps. Why did I put that in there,
    knowing it would be controversial? Because there was a general consensus
    here that with the second year of a budget surplus, we ought to move as
    quickly as possible to divide the surpluses, if you will, the Social
    Security from the non-Social Security, and that we would move this year
    to try to stop spending Social Security funds that the Government had
    been spending since 1983, at least since 1983, when the revenues were
    raised.
        And so we all said, ``Okay, let's try to do it this year.'' And so,
    I knew it would be hard, but I said, ``Okay, I'll do my part. I'll try
    to do this. But we're going to have to make some tough decisions here if
    we're going to meet the need of people in both parties: the investment
    priorities.''
        Then they said, ``No, we don't want to do that.'' The Republican
    majority said, ``No, we don't want to do that. We don't want a cigarette
    tax, and we don't want to ask the polluters to pay more for the toxic
    waste.'' Once they said that, to be fair, there was no way they could
    avoid at least one more year of spending Social Security funds.
        Now, that's where we are on this. That's really what's going on. And
    there is another way. We don't have to do this. We don't have to get
    into an ad war where they accuse us of doing what they're doing, that
    their own Congressional Budget Office says they're doing. And they don't
    have to act like if they get caught doing it, they've, in effect,
    committed a felony.
        There was a decision they had to make. When we decided we were going
    to try to get out of spending Social Security funds this year, instead
    of next year, they had to make a decision. And the decision was to close
    corporate loopholes, deal with the toxic waste dumps by asking polluters
    to pay more, and raise the cigarette tax. If they weren't willing to
    make that decision, they were going to be in the pickle they're in now.
    Now, that's what happened.
        It doesn't have to be this way. We can work together. We can fashion
    a budget that builds on our economic prosperity and eliminates the
    public debt by the year 2015 and extends the life of the Social Security
    Trust Fund to 2050, past the life expectancy of the baby boomers,
    rendering this momentary debate completely irrelevant by dealing with
    the long-term security of the country. And that is what we ought to do.
        I also would say it is profoundly important that we fund the right
    kind of education budget that has 100,000 teachers, that supports our
    efforts to mentor poor kids and get them to college, that supports our
    efforts to help young people read, and that gives our kids access to
    after-school programs; that doesn't undercut our efforts to connect all
    the classrooms to the Internet next year, that helps us to build or
    modernize 6,000 schools, that helps us to have some real accountability
    so we get what works and we stop funding what doesn't.
        That's the other big, outstanding question in this budget debate
    that has nothing to do with what the ads are about: What kind of
    education policy we're going to have; what kind of future are we going
    to give our kids? Then there's the whole criminal justice issue which
    we've argued about since 1994, that we've got the lowest crime rate in
    26 years, but it's still too high, and I want to fund another 50,000
    police to go out there in the most dangerous neighborhoods to prevent
    crime from happening in the first place, through the community policing
    program.
        So that is what I wanted to say. We don't need gimmicks in the
    budget, and we don't need gimmicks on the airwaves. What we need to do
    is to roll up our sleeves and go to work together and make decisions and
    tell the American people why we made them and what they are and what the
    long-term consequences are.
        The Congress now has 3 weeks to finish the job the American people
    sent them to Washington to do. I will work with Congress on a budget
    that honors our commitments, that protects Social Security and Medicare.
    If we work together to meet these objectives--keep in

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    mind, if we work together to meet these objectives, we could pass a
    long-term budget that not only gets us out of debt by 2015 but actually
    has an affordable program for middle-class tax relief.
        But this argument that's being held now, and this sort of ad war is,
    I think, the worst kind of--first of all, it's misleading. And secondly,
    it's a waste of time and money. What we need to do is to roll up our
    sleeves and do the job the American people sent us here to do.
        So, thank you.

    Korean War Massacre

        Q. Mr. President, what's you're reaction to the Associated Press
    report of a massacre of hundreds of refugees by American servicemen
    during the Korean war? There is--a dozen veterans of that war are quoted
    as corroborating this account. Do you think there should be an
    investigation?
        The President. Yes. The most important thing you need to know about
    that is--I was briefed on it this morning--is that Secretary
    Cohen has said that he wants to look into
    this. He wants to get to the bottom of it. He wants to examine all the
    available information and evidence. And he has assured us that he will
    do that. And that was his immediate instinct, too. And I appreciated it.

    2000 Presidential Election

        Q. Mr. President, the Vice President seems to be in some political
    trouble, despite the good economic numbers that you cite. Mr. Bradley,
    former Senator Bradley, has out-raised him in the last quarter. I would
    like to know whether you counseled him to move his headquarters, whether
    you thought he panicked, and why you think that people like Senator
    Moynihan say that he can't be elected--Senator Moynihan who, of course,
    backs Mrs. Clinton?
        The President. I gave you enough time to put all of your little
    twists in there, didn't I? [Laughter]
        First of all, let me say I think it's a good decision, the decision
    he made to move his headquarters to
    Tennessee. I suppose I think that because I had such a good experience
    when I stayed home and close to my roots. We discussed it a long time
    ago. But I can tell you I'm absolutely--he called me yesterday morning,
    he said that he had made a decision to do this. And we had not discussed
    it in, I don't know, a good while. I'm absolutely--he told me a week or
    so ago that he was thinking about some things that he thought would help
    his campaign and make it more consistent with the kind of message that
    he wanted to convey to the American people and the kind of campaign he
    personally wanted to run. And he announced those three decisions
    yesterday, and I approve of all of them. I think they were good
    decisions. And I think they'll get good results. And the most important
    thing is, he made them, and he believes in them. And that's all you can
    do in one of these campaigns.
        Q. What's the problem? Has it been you? Has it been the record of
    the administration?
        The President. Well, first of all, I think he's, by all reports I get, he's personally doing quite well
    out there, and I think he will continue to do well. So I don't have the
    same take on it you do. I'm not a political analyst anymore. I have to
    stay here and do my job. But the only thing I would say is, when you run
    for President, you need to know what you want America to look like, and
    then you need to have good ideas, and you need to try to share them with
    people in a way they can relate to. And I believe he'll be--I believe
    he'll do quite well.
        Keep in mind, we're a long way from the end of the road here.

    Tax Policy and Federal Spending

        Q. On the budget, if the Republicans won't give you the taxes you
    want, what's the alternative? Cut back on the spending you want? How do
    you get out of this pickle?
        The President. Well, the alternative is, just mechanically--if they
    won't raise money, the alternative is, you either have to say--well, let
    me say what the alternative is not, first. The alternative is not their
    gimmicks, and then we'll come up with our gimmicks, and we'll all see
    who can out-gimmick someone else. That is not the alternative.
        The alternative should be that we decide we're going to cut back on
    the spending for a year. Or if it's too severe--and from what we hear
    out there in the country from--and what we know about the needs of
    education, what we know about what we both want to do to help restore
    our ability to recruit in the military and help our military families
    with a pay increase there, what we know in a number of other areas--if
    we decide to spend this

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    money together, if we jointly agree on it, and it won't allow us to have
    a divided surplus, which keep in mind, we want to do this year, then
    both parties need to agree on that.
        Now, I strongly prefer to go on and get out of the Social Security
    surplus this year. And what I proposed is not all that onerous--I mean,
    dealing with--the corporate loopholes I proposed to close, the cigarette
    tax, and the toxic waste dump fees. That's not all that bad. You could
    always compromise. You could raise less and spend a little less.
        But my point is, the most important thing is, we should be
    straightforward with the American people about this, and we shouldn't
    try to get them all tied up in knots and pretend that something is going
    on that isn't. We know we are going to now have, in the future years, a
    surplus that will--except when we have economic downturns--but on
    average, a surplus that will be large enough, projected, that we can
    meet the future needs of education, the environment, national security,
    out of non-Social Security revenues.
        Now, this is a--let me remind you all, this is a new development.
    When we were in the deficit spending mode all during the eighties--all
    of you know this; you wrote about it a lot--the deficits were made to
    seem smaller than they were because Social Security revenues were in
    surplus over Social Security payments. They are still in surplus over
    Social Security payments, but now other revenues are in surplus over
    other spending this year.
        But the '97 budget caps were very tight. They were for the teaching
    hospitals; they were for a lot of other things; they were--when it comes
    to continuing to improve education--and we do need to spend some more on
    national defense, as all of you know. At least I feel that way and the
    Republicans do, too, because of the problems for the military families
    and some modernization problems. So this whole question that there is
    just so much agitation on and all these ads filling the airwaves, it's
    really about the fact that when they started looking at their budget,
    they couldn't get out of the Social Security funds until next year
    either unless they were willing to raise some money this year from the
    cigarette tax, from closing corporate loopholes, or the toxic waste
    dumps.
        So all I'm suggesting is, we need to sort of stop misleading the
    American people--they need to--with their television ads; and we need to
    sit down and work this out and figure out what's right for the people,
    make the right disciplined choices and go forward.
        Q. Mr. President, you said you need to sit down and talk, and yet
    there are some Republicans on the Hill who make it clear that that's the
    last thing they want to do, is to sit down with the White House and
    start negotiating. What is the status----
        The President. That's the last thing they want to do.
        Q. Right.
        The President. Yes, that's right.
        Q. So what is the status of communication right now, and how can you
    get out of this if you all don't start communicating?
        The President. Well, I don't think we can if we don't start
    communicating. But all I'm telling you is they've had a debate,
    apparently, within their caucus in both Houses about whether we ought to
    join hands and do the, evidently, right thing for the American people
    and also be candid about this budget problem that they have, because
    they're philosophically opposed to raising the cigarette tax, and they
    don't want to close any corporate loopholes right now. We've just got to
    figure out if there is a resolution to that. And then there are those
    who believe that they can somehow create this whole other issue,
    spending the Social Security surplus, and then say that they're not
    doing it, we're doing it, even though they're in the majority and they
    approve all the money; or they can say, well, I made them do it somehow.
    That's what's going on here.
        So there are people who believe in their caucus that somehow they
    can make some big political issue out of this. And then there are those
    who want to get something done. I had a long talk with a committee
    chairman yesterday, and I won't identify him for fear of hurting him.
    But we talked a long time about how we need to make an honest effort to
    resolve the differences between where they are and where we are on the
    areas within his jurisdiction.
        So I think there is a difference of opinion. I think a lot of them
    would like to just show up for work tomorrow. And that's what I hope
    we'll do.

    Nuclear Accident in Japan

        Q. Has Japan asked for American help in dealing with its nuclear
    accident? And how would the United States treat such a request?

    [[Page 1640]]

        The President. Well, first of all--and I should have said this the
    very first thing--we are all very concerned, and our thoughts and
    prayers are with the people in Japan today because of this uranium plant
    accident. You can only imagine how difficult this must be for them,
    quite apart from whatever the facts are. This is going to be a very hard
    day for the people of Japan.
        And we are doing our best to determine what, in fact, has happened
    and what assistance we can give. And we will do whatever we possibly can
    that will be helpful to them. And we will try to be as comprehensive and
    prompt about it as possible.

    Mortgage for New York Residence

        Q. Mr. President, what about your mortgage, sir? Do you now
    understand why some people felt that it was improper for you to arrange
    a mortgage with a loan guarantee from Mr. McAuliffe? And are you now
    planning to get a different kind of mortgage?
        The President. Well, I will stay with what Mr. Lockhart has told you
    about that. We had just a day or two to get that house; a lot of people
    wanted it for the same reason we liked it. A lot of people like the
    house. It's a nice place. We liked it. So we did what was necessary to
    secure it.
        Now, we're going to close on it in a little more than a month. And
    if we change the financing between now and then, we'll let you know as
    soon as we do. But we did not do it before we got an opinion from the
    Office of Government Ethics about the mechanics of it, and that it did
    not constitute a gift under Federal law.
        Q. Why wouldn't Bowles and Rubin help?
        The President. They were--I don't have anything to say about that.
    McAuliffe called me the first thing when I
    was talking to him, and he said, ``Look, if you can get somebody else to
    do it, fine.'' I think because everybody thought it was a legitimate
    business arrangement. No one thought there was anything wrong with it,
    all the people I talked to about it and all the people anybody else
    talked to about it.
        I think some people didn't want to do it because they know they live
    in a world where they live in the Larry Klayman political press world in which what's true is not as
    important as whether you can be dragged around; you have to spend a lot
    of money you don't have or you'd rather not spend for reasons that have
    nothing to do with anything that's real.
        It's like this television ad campaign, to go back to the budget
    issue. There is the rest of the world and the way it works and the way
    people view things, and then there is the way a lot of things around
    here work. And so I don't--anybody that's ever been through it knows
    that's true.
        You're all smiling because you think, I wonder if the President made
    a mistake by committing the truth in that last remark. I can see you all
    smiling and thinking that. [Laughter] So all I can tell you is, I feel
    good about where we are on it. We're going to close on it in a month,
    and we're excited about it. And if we change the financing, we'll let
    you know.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:55 p.m. in the Briefing Room at the
    White House. In his remarks, he referred to Larry Klayman, chairman,
    Judicial Watch, Inc.; former Chief of Staff to the President Erskine B.
    Bowles; former Secretary of the Treasury Robert E. Rubin; and Terence
    McAuliffe, loan guarantor of the First Family's residence Chappaqua, NY.
    H.J. Res. 68, ``Making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year
    2000,'' approved September 30, was assigned Public Law No. 106-62.