    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 11 (Monday, March 22, 1993)]
    [Pages 448-451]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks to Treasury Department Employees

     March 18, 1993

        Thank you very much. Secretary Bentsen and ladies and gentlemen,
    thank you for that wonderful reception.
        I have looked forward to this day when I might come to the Treasury
    for some time, and with somewhat mixed feelings. I read about this
    building since I was a boy. I remember, in the periods of my life when I
    was absolutely absorbed in the Civil War, reading about the trips that
    President Lincoln used to make across the street to come to the Treasury
    Department. I learned today from the Secretary that in 1830 the
    employees burned this building down. You know, I've done a lot to
    increase people's sense of empowerment, but I hope I didn't overdo it.
    [Laughter] I've also, quite frankly, heard that I would be humbled to
    the point of embarrassment if I walked into the offices of either the
    Secretary or the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, that they would make
    the White House look like public housing. [Laughter] So I thought I'd
    show up and see.
        Years ago, the whole Government used to be within walking distance
    of the White House, and I'm glad the Treasury still is. I'm glad that so
    many of you have worked so hard to help to put together the economic
    program that is now making its way through the Congress. And I want to
    thank you for that, and to echo what Secretary Bentsen said: that most
    Americans literally would have no idea, they would be staggered to know
    the hours that were put in by public servants in the preparation of this
    program and in the historic speed with which it was put together. I hope
    that you did it not only because you were here and it was your job but
    because you know what Americans feel, and that is that our national
    security today is tied as never before to our economic security, and
    that if we do not regain control of our economic destiny, we will soon
    lose the ability not only to provide for a future for our children but
    to lead the world that has come to look to us. That's why I asked the
    Secretary of the Treasury to serve on the National Security Council as
    well as on the National Economic Council; and why, when he met to meet
    with the leaders of the other G-7 nations and found himself treated with
    such respect, he helped us in the conduct of American foreign policy as
    much as in the conduct of American domestic economic policy.
        Our policy is a team effort. I tried to convince the White House
    staff and all of my Cabinet of that, and I say that to you. In Lloyd
    Bentsen, I think we have a Secretary of the Treasury with the unique
    capacity to command respect, not only in the halls of this building and
    among the financial leaders of the country but also in the Congress and
    in the world's financial and political capitals. And that is an
    invaluable asset. He's been my neighbor for a long time. I've known him
    for nearly 20 years and admired him for a long time. And when we were
    riding the bus on one of my numerous bus trips, this one across Texas, I
    made up my mind then that if the people elected me President of the
    United States that I would ask him to become Secretary of the Treasury.
    I think it's been a pretty good decision.
        He has sought here in Deputy Secretary Altman, an old and trusted
    friend of mine of many, many years. We went to college together. He made
    money; I went into politics. [Laughter] Until I was elected President,
    my mother was absolutely convinced he had made the right decision.
    [Laughter] In Under Secretary-Designate Newman and Under Secretary-
    Designate Summers, and so many others, I think we have a rare
    combination of intellect and experience, of people who are committed to
    making this country into the high-wage, high-growth nation that it ought
    to be.
        In all the employees of the Treasury Department I have seen, I've
    noticed a rare commitment to serve this Nation conscientiously. And I
    must say, with the recent tragedies freshly in our minds, I think that
    we

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    should all once again honor the plaque on the 4th floor of this building
    that notes more than 160 Treasury agents who have been killed in the
    line of duty in our Nation's history. From the Secret Service agents who
    protect our Presidents and who have a particular chore in me because I
    like to get out and see the people who put me in this job, to Customs
    agents who wage war on drugs, to the agents of the Bureau of Alcohol,
    Tobacco, and Firearms, many of the employees of this Department risk
    their lives to protect the lives of the rest of us. My prayers and I'm
    sure yours are still with the families of all four of the Alcohol,
    Tobacco, and Firearms agents who were killed in Waco: Todd McKeehan and
    Conway Le Bleu of New Orleans, Steve Willis of Houston, and Robert
    Williams from my hometown of Little Rock. Three of those four were
    assigned to my security during the course of the primary or the general
    election. My gratitude is also with the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
    agents who helped to evacuate the World Trade Center in New York in the
    aftermath of the explosion and later, who helped to find the
    identification number of the van that led to the arrest of the first
    suspect in the bombing. I know that all of you join with me in praying
    for a peaceful and sure and quick conclusion to the events in Waco.
        Here in this building, Treasury employees made extraordinary
    efforts--this has already been noted--in the preparation of the economic
    plan. And you are continuing to tackle some of the most important issues
    facing our country. I want to reemphasize what Secretary Bentsen said:
    The agenda that I have laid before the American people cannot be
    effective without the confident, committed, intense, consistent, and
    long-lasting efforts of the employees of the Department of the Treasury.
    From our efforts to find ways to control health care costs and provide
    coverage for every family, to our plan to ease the credit crunch on
    small businesses, to the plan to extend the earned income tax credit to
    lift every working family out of poverty, to the proposal to create
    community development banks in the communities of this country where the
    poor are willing to work if they can access the free enterprise system,
    to our efforts to negotiate Russian debt relief and promote free
    institutions and free markets there and around the world, and to our
    effort to create a comprehensive strategy for global economic growth;
    all these things depend upon you and the employees of the Department of
    the Treasury. And every one of you, whether you consider your job large
    or small, is making an inestimable contribution to our efforts to adjust
    to the changes in the world that have dealt so much grief to the
    American people over the last several years that can bring so much hope
    and prosperity to the American people in the years ahead, if we can find
    a way to make these changes our friends and not our enemies. Indeed, I
    think you could make a very compelling case that the central challenge
    of this time is the challenge of making the changes that we cannot
    control, that are inevitably going to come anyway, the friends of the
    average American people instead of their enemy.
        Even as we speak, the Congress is debating and deciding on the
    economic program, especially on the immediate jobs package. This
    economic stimulus will create a half a million jobs. It will create some
    jobs immediately that will build a foundation for more prosperity in the
    future. We have to start immediately investing in our children's
    schools, our workers' skills, our families' health, the transportation
    and communications networks that will make our communities more
    productive, our companies more profitable, and our people more secure
    over the long run. If we make these investments, we will create more
    jobs today and have a stronger economy tomorrow. Every element of this
    plan is designed to help Americans do better, to get the economy moving
    whether by generating jobs or increasing income, investing in the future
    or reducing the deficit that has so paralyzed our ability to control our
    own destiny. If we give the plan's elements a chance to work all
    together, we can make the changes we need. We can create a half a
    million new jobs in the short run, eight million during the term of this
    economic program, and make our next 20 years, most important of all, the
    best in our history.
        There are those who still resist these changes, who prefer the
    status quo. They say we don't have to change anything. I say, just look
    around the world. Look at what hap-

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    pened in Europe for the last decade when they had two major economic
    recoveries that generated no new jobs. Look at what happened just last
    month, where our trade deficit went up, even though the American dollar
    went down because our trading partners, gripped in recession and without
    any new jobs and any incomes, couldn't buy any more of our products.
    Look at what has happened in this country, where the unemployment rate
    is higher today than it was at the depths of the recession, even though
    we just reported the biggest increase in productivity in 20 years in
    this country. It is clear that there needs to be a partnership between
    the private sector and the Government to get the economy going again in
    ways that generate incomes and jobs as well as show good economic
    statistics at the end of every month.
        There are some who say, well, this program's all right, but we ought
    to do a little less of it. They are known affectionately as the ``status
    quo lite'' crowd over at the White House. [Laughter] Frankly, I think
    that if we do a little less of everything, we have a little less deficit
    reduction, a little less spending cuts, a little less tax increase, a
    little less investment, we'll get a lot less in results.
        It is clear that the time has come to make a fundamental change in
    policy and direction in this country. We know that the things that we're
    doing will work. This plan contains an enormous incentive to increase
    private investment in the near-term in ways that will generate jobs. We
    know it contains a permanent investment incentive for small business,
    which until just a couple of years ago, had been the main generator of
    new jobs in this economy.
        Indeed, you can make a compelling case that the recession we have
    endured in jobs is almost totally tied to the fact that the small
    business engine, that created more jobs than big business lost in the
    1980's, came to a screeching halt in the last 2 years in the face of a
    recession, a credit crunch, the incredible burden of health care costs,
    and other costs on small business in adding new employees to their
    enterprises. We also have proposed some special incentives for new
    companies in high technology areas that will create the high-wage jobs
    of the future. All of these things should not be compromised. If you
    just take the last issue alone, the economist Lester Thurow has written
    a book called, ``Head to Head,'' which estimates that most of the new
    high-wage jobs in the future will be created in seven areas of high
    technology, and that there is a limit to the total number of jobs the
    world can absorb in those areas, and that many of our competitors have
    planned for what will happen 10 years from now much better than we have.

        We are playing catch-up in some areas where we appear to enjoy the
    lead. This program is designed to insure that we can keep that lead for
    10 or 20 years, and that our economy and your future as public employees
    will be supported by that kind of technologically based job growth in
    the future. I believe that these things are critically important to our
    future. And I hope that the United States House of Representatives will
    vote today for new jobs and deficit reduction.

        Let me also say that there are a lot of people programs that some
    question the value here of. But look at the plan for immunization. We
    know that if we immunize all children against the preventable childhood
    diseases, we would save over the course of their lives $10 in health
    care and lost economic benefits for every $1 we spend on immunization
    today. It works. We know that if we expand college opportunities to
    families of middle class people and low income people who otherwise
    couldn't afford to go to college or stay in college, we'll get more
    money back because of the earning power of college graduates and how
    much greater it is than the earning power of college dropouts or high
    school dropouts. We know that. And so when we invest in people in a
    world where what you earn depends so much on what you can learn, we know
    there will be a direct return to the taxpayers and to the rest of the
    people in this country.

        These things are unobjectionable, but we've always found excuses not
    to make a full commitment. The toughest thing about this economic
    program is it requires so many difficult decisions, if you want to
    increase investment and reduce the deficit at the same time. That's
    never been done. We've reduced the deficit in times past, we've
    increased in-

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    vestment in times past, and we've had years where all we did was just
    let the present spending patterns spiral out of control, but we have
    never had a disciplined plan to reduce the debt and increase investment
    at the same time.

        Look what this plan has produced in the markets. Look how much lower
    interest rates are just since the last election. I bet there are people
    in this room today who have refinanced a house or gotten the benefit of
    a variable interest rate on a credit card or gone out and bought a car
    at a lower interest rate because of the interest rates going down. There
    are Americans who have literally already gotten as much back in lower
    home mortgage payments, already, than they're going to pay in the energy
    tax for the next year or two. Because if you make real changes that are
    tangible, that people can see, they have real results.

        So many times our Government has been burdened by blurring
    everything around the edges. I hope that today the House will make a
    clear statement to the American people that we're not going to blur this
    around the edges. We're going to have 150 and now, more cuts in specific
    spending programs. We're going to raise some taxes, even though they're
    tough, and make over half of the money come from people who benefited
    most in the 1980's, those with incomes above $200,000. We're going to
    have a balanced program that also increases investment. And we're going
    to say there really is a difference in Government spending, that
    immunizing a child or sending somebody to college is not the same thing
    as spending more money every year on the same health care. There is a
    real difference. There is a difference, and it matters.

        Let me say, finally, that I appreciate, more than I can say, the
    work that you have done and the sacrifices that you will have to make to
    make this economic program work. The Vice President has been asked by me
    to head a program on reviewing the entire performance of the Federal
    Government, trying to find ways to, in effect, reinvent the way
    Government operates. And he told me right before I came over here that
    he was well aware that Treasury had been among the leading Departments
    in installing quality management techniques and doing other things that
    would modernize the operations of Government. We have some money in the
    stimulus package that will help you to modernize the operations of
    Government further. And when he comes back I hope you will be willing to
    meet with him and work with him and, in the meanwhile, remember we have
    6 months to try to get the best ideas we can from all the Federal
    employees in the country about how to save more money and increase our
    ability to serve our customers, the American people. So if you have
    those ideas I ask you to give them to the Vice President.

        Finally, let me say that the end result of all of this has to be to
    help our country work better, has to be to improve the lives of the
    American people. I hope that by my coming here today millions of
    Americans who never thought about the Treasury Department will know that
    you're here working for them. And I hope you will know how very grateful
    I am for all you have done and all you must do if this program to turn
    America around is to succeed.

        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:48 a.m. in the Cash Room at the Treasury
    Department.