[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 21 (Monday, May 31, 1993)]
[Pages 943-946]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Older Americans Month Proclamation

 May 25, 1993

    Thank you very much, Senator Pryor and Secretary Shalala. Let me 
also acknowledge in the audience the presence of Senator Bill Cohen from 
Maine, Congressman Marty Martinez, and Congressman William Hughes. We're 
glad to see them. And I also want to pay a special word of respect to my 
good friend, our Vice President's mother, Mrs. Pauline Gore. She's a 
little too young to be here, but I'm glad to see her here anyway.

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    You know, Senator Pryor told that story about the 100-year-old man 
who had been against all the changes he'd seen. One of the things I 
think that age does for all of us is it gives us the ability to laugh at 
things that once we would have cried about, something I've needed more 
and more as I've taken this job. [Laughter]
    But David told this story. It reminded me, there's a town in 
Arkansas that has my name, called Clinton, and I was invited there once 
to a nursing home to celebrate the 107th birthday of this lovely woman. 
And I showed up, and she had a beautiful pink dress on. And I said, 
``Gosh, you're pretty today.'' And she said, ``Don't you go flirting 
with me. I'm not looking for a husband.'' [Laughter] And so I said, 
``Well, I appreciate that.'' I said, ``You know, I already have one 
wife. Don't you think that's enough?'' And she said, ``I guess so, hard 
as times are.'' [Laughter] Sometimes I think about that.
    This is the 30th anniversary of Older Americans Month. And I can't 
think of anybody I'd rather be up here with than Secretary Shalala or 
with Senator Pryor. When I was attorney general and David Pryor was 
Governor, I just reminded him up here, 18 years ago we sponsored our 
State's first conference on long-term care and how to provide long-term 
care for senior citizens. Well, we're still chipping away at it, but I 
just want you to know at least we've got some credentials for being in 
the vineyards.
    We are committed to keeping faith with the senior citizens of this 
country, and we are trying to fulfill that commitment in two very 
important ways that are specific to our senior citizens and one that is 
very important for the responsibility we all seem to feel for the 
future. The first is the White House Conference on Aging to discuss 
providing for older Americans and also for making better use of the time 
and talents of our senior citizens. I feel very strongly that both those 
things are important. Most people I know who are in their later years 
want to be challenged to do more, to bring to bear their energy, their 
experience, their judgment, and their perspective on a lot of the very 
thorny problems and challenges we face today. And I hope our 
administration can do that not only here in Washington but all across 
America.
    I am, in that regard, proud that we have for the first time an 
Assistant Secretary for Aging in the Department of Health and Human 
Services, and I'm proud of Dr. Fernando Torres-Gil who was introduced 
and who received such a warm reception from you.
    The second thing that we hope to do is to deal with some of the 
terrific health care challenges facing our senior citizens while keeping 
faith with the obligations we now have to maintain the integrity of 
Social Security. The fastest growing group of Americans are people over 
80. The largest number of people I met on the campaign trail last year 
with really heartbreaking stories were elderly people just above the 
Medicaid eligibility line who had massive drug bills every month. And 
literally, I met people in State after State after State that made the 
weekly choice between food and medicine because they were just above 
that Medicaid eligibility line and had no way in the wide world to pay 
for medicine that was absolutely necessary to maintain their health.
    So in this health program--I know a lot of you have already heard a 
speech about this from my wife, and she's gotten a whole lot better on 
this subject than I have--but we are committed to a health care plan 
which will provide coverage for all Americans, which will lower the cost 
of health care, which will lower the cost of health care for our country 
in the years ahead--we're already spotting our competitors 35 percent of 
every dollar spent on health care--and which, at the same time, will 
begin to address the problems that I saw out there for a wider range of 
long-term care services and for dealing with the drug problem that our 
elderly people have who are not Medicaid-eligible. These are the things 
that we must have in a comprehensive, long-term care package.
    I also want to say to you that I believe any responsible health care 
plan must encourage and indeed have incentives for health care 
maintenance and for the prevention of bad things happening. With the 
fastest growing group of people being people over 80, with more and more 
senior citizens coming into really dominant positions in our

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country, with the Social Security system starting in a few years to 
raise the retirement eligibility limit by a month a year, as all of you 
know, as a part of the 1983 resolution to resolve the crisis that then 
existed, it is absolutely imperative that we not only think about giving 
health care services but maintaining strong, healthy people. And that 
has got to be a critical part of our health care plan, and I know all of 
you will be out there lobbying for that. We so often strain at a gnat 
and swallow a camel when we don't have enough prevention and maintenance 
of healthy people in our health care plans and even in our own daily 
habits. And so I hope you will all support that.
    The last thing I'd like to say is that it seems to me that those of 
you who represent older Americans are in a unique position, being able 
to have the benefit of memory, to know what is going to happen to us in 
the years ahead if we do not move now and move aggressively to get 
control of this Government deficit, to bring down our interest rates, to 
enable our economy to grow, to give us some more elbow room. Year-in and 
year-out for the last several years, my heart has gone out to Members of 
the Congress in both parties who have struggled to find funds for things 
they think needed to be funded or to just keep things going along as 
they are, as we become more and more consumed by an ever-growing 
deficit, going from $1 trillion to $4 trillion in just 12 years.
    I believe, as all of you now know, that we need to have both 
spending cuts and tax increases to close this deficit and to bring it 
down. We could all argue until the cows come home about whether every 
last decision has been perfectly right, but it is perfectly clear that 
if you don't do both, you can't get where we're going. And it is 
absolutely imperative that we send a clear signal not only to the 
financial markets but to our children and our grandchildren that we are 
thinking about their future, that we are not going to saddle them with 
so much debt that we won't be able to finance education and economic 
growth and the kinds of things that every generation of Americans must 
be free to spend money on, both private money and public funds. If we 
don't take that opportunity now, we will have squandered our 
responsibilities to those who come behind us.
    You know, I think more about it with each succeeding year that my 
daughter grows older. I think about how it won't be so long before she 
and her generation will be making decisions that now we're wrestling 
over. We owe it to those kids and to the ones who will follow behind 
them to provide the freedom of movement that any great society needs to 
reach the challenges of that time. We today, and this Congress, every 
Member will tell you, those people who occupy Washington today are 
hamstrung by a lack of freedom of movement because we have permitted 
paralysis to drive this deficit up, because we have refused to deal with 
the health care crisis, we have refused to deal with automatic 
explosions and things that we could have dealt with. And the time has 
come to face it and face it squarely. And I hope and pray, for the sake 
of our children and grandchildren, we are about to do just that in the 
next few days in the United States of America.
    I want to say one thing finally. On the tax side of this plan, 74 
percent of the burden falls on the top 6 percent of income earners in 
America, and a lot of the rest falls on the top 20 percent of Social 
Security recipients whom we have asked to subject more of their income 
to taxation so as to avoid reducing cost of living allowances to all the 
Social Security recipients in the land who need that.
    One of the things I think we have not said enough, and I believe 
most people in the Congress would admit this: We have heard very little 
opposition from upper income Americans to paying their fair share of 
taxes as long as they believe we're going to cut spending, bring the 
deficit down, and provide for the basic needs of this country. And to 
me, that's been one of the most rewarding things out there. A lot of the 
opposition is coming from middle class people who think they're going to 
pay a lot more than they are. But the people who are really going to pay 
and who know it, by and large, have been immensely patriotic in this 
last 2- or 3-month period, knowing that they have to make a contribution 
to securing the future.
    All of you here who represent the elderly people of our country, you 
can reach out and

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embrace this effort in a way that no other generation of Americans can. 
This is a difficult time for the Congress, a difficult time for the 
country. The worst thing we can do is to walk away and do nothing and 
continue the perilous paralysis of the last few years. So I implore you 
to shoulder this. Think of our kids and grandkids. Let's move this 
country forward in a bipartisan and open manner.
    Thank you. God bless you. And let's get on with the signing.

Note: The President spoke at 5:30 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House.