    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 32 (Monday, August 16, 1993)]
    [Pages 1592-1596]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks to the Community in Charleston, West Virginia

     August 9, 1993

        Thank you very much. And hello, West Virginia, it's good to be back
    again.
        I want to thank my longtime friend, Senator Jay Rockefeller, for
    that wonderful introduction. And I want to thank Jay and Sharon for the
    work they have done for the people of West Virginia and the people of
    our country. I thank my friend Governor Caperton for being here and
    Mayor Hall and Congressman Rahall and Congressman Wise. I'd like to
    thank Congressman Mollohan and your fine Senator Robert Byrd in their
    absence for their support of our program.
        I learned something about West Virginia that I already knew, but I
    saw it writ large in the last few days of the debate in the Congress
    when we really had to make tough decisions, when people who talked tough
    and they talked about talking tough, and they talked about talking about
    talking tough, finally had to act tough. West Virginia was there. And
    there was no wiggle or wobble or waffle or wonder. They were just there.
    They said, ``This is good for America. I know it's tough. I know we'll
    be criticized. I know there are people who will find fault, but we're
    going to do what is right for the people of West Virginia, right for the
    people of America. Sign us up. We're moving toward the future.'' And I
    appreciate that.
        I want to thank all the people who made this rally possible today.
    And I want to thank you and the people of this great country, who have
    endured hard times with hope, for helping us to break the gridlock in
    Washington. Now we can truly say change has come to America.
        Last week Congress voted for the values of the American heartland,
    the values of the middle class, the values of the small business
    economy, the values of the small towns in the hills and hollows of West
    Virginia and my native State. They voted for work and family, for
    reducing our deficit and increasing our investment in our people and
    their future, for jobs and growth for those who work hard and play by
    the rules.
        After 20 long years of stagnant incomes, after 12 years of exploding
    deficits and reducing investment in our people, after 12 years of
    partisan gridlock and talking tough and acting soft, we reversed the
    direction. Now there is a new direction in America: opportunity for
    those who are responsible; no more something for nothing; a sense of
    community again. We're all in this together, and everyone must do his or
    her part.

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        And again I say to you, I am very grateful to the West Virginia
    delegation and to all the others who voted for this program because they
    remembered amidst the withering fog of misinformation that surrounded it
    that, after all, none of us were sent to Washington to keep our jobs; we
    were sent to Washington to help you keep your jobs.
        And so we have taken, my fellow Americans, a first but major step to
    regain control of our economic destiny. We cut the deficit. We cut
    spending. We reward work. We ask those who can pay more to pay their
    fair share. We give the private sector incentives to grow jobs and
    invest in the future of our people. This is a good beginning.
        This plan will help our Nation's economy to create 8 million new
    jobs over the next 4 years. Just last month in calendar year 1993 we saw
    the one millionth job come into the American economy. That's about as
    many as were created in the previous 4 years. We are beginning.
        Is it enough? Of course it isn't. West Virginia still has the
    highest unemployment rate in the Nation, although you may have the
    highest percentage of willing workers in the Nation. If ever there was a
    place where people wanted to go to work, this is it.
        We cannot turn this around overnight, but we can never turn it
    around unless we show a willingness to change, and that is what last
    week was all about. In the last 12 years we added $3 trillion to our
    national debt. That's right. From the beginning of our Nation until
    1980, we had a $1 trillion national debt. By 1992 it was $4 trillion. We
    were running annual deficits in the range of $300 billion a year over 5
    percent of our annual income going to Government deficits.
        When that happens, interest rates are too high, businesses cannot
    expand, and we cannot spend the money we need to spend to educate
    people; to create jobs; to deal with all the military cutbacks from
    California to Connecticut, and help those people start a new life; to
    deal with the declines in mining and manufacturing in a State like West
    Virginia. It takes more money. And if you're up to your ears in debt
    paying more every year on interest in the debt, more for the same health
    care with an out-of-control budget, it cannot be done.
        This plan cuts the deficit more than ever before by about $500
    billion. There are $255 billion in specific spending cuts--no rhetoric,
    no hot air, no plugs, no ``we'll think about it later''--specific cuts.
    And by the Executive order that I have signed, we will lock both the new
    taxes and the spending cuts away in a deficit reduction trust fund, an
    idea so long championed by Congressman Bob Wise. And when the Congress
    returns in September, with the help of Nick and Bob and Jay, I hope we
    will be able to persuade the entire Congress to create that trust fund
    in law.
        The rest of the deficit reduction comes largely from asking those
    who received most of the economic gains in the 1980's to pay their fair
    share. Every serious economic analysis shows that the top 1 percent of
    our earners got over half the economic benefits of the last decade and a
    tax cut as well. We asked them to pay more not because we wish to punish
    success but because in America people who work hard deserve to be
    treated fairly, and we have to have a fair burden.
        Eighty percent of these new revenues will come from those with
    incomes over $200,000 a year. Families with incomes of under $180,000,
    including 99 percent of all West Virginians, will not pay more in income
    taxes. For the first time in the history of this country, people who
    work 40 hours a week and have children in their homes will be lifted,
    not by a Government program but by the tax system, out of poverty--no
    bureaucracy, but a tax refund for people who do it.
        I have heard for years and years and years the politicians make
    pious speeches about how bad welfare is and how we ought to move people
    from welfare to work. But if people with low education who can only get
    low-wage jobs can stay on welfare and have health care for their kids
    and they don't have to come up with child care, is it any wonder that
    some do? Now we say, ``Go to work and we'll spend tax money lifting you
    out of poverty because you work.'' That is what we ought to be doing.
        I want to say to all of you that this idea of the earned-income tax
    credit being expanded to lifting the working poor and their children out
    of poverty was first championed by the National Commission on Children
    chaired by Jay Rockefeller. It was a good idea

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    then, and it's a good idea now. Just think of it, 105,000 West Virginia
    working families being eligible to get some help to clothe their
    children and feed them and pay the medical bills and reinforce the
    values of work and family. It is one thing to talk about these things,
    my fellow Americans, and quite another to do it. This does it.

        There's another very important part of this plan I want to emphasize
    here today because of your high unemployment rate. For the last 12 years
    most of the new jobs in America have been created by smaller businesses.
    And yet, very little attention has been given to what policies might
    help them. In fact, more and more, laws may be passed which affect them
    adversely whether in terms of more regulation or more taxes, without any
    thought being given to how we can create more jobs. This is the most
    pro-small business economic plan adopted in many a year in Washington,
    DC.

        Over 90 percent of the small businesses in this country will get a
    tax break under this plan if they invest more in their businesses. There
    is a 75 percent increase in the expensing provision in the Tax Code for
    small businesses to reinvest in their own businesses, the biggest
    incentive for people in 1-, 2-, 5-, 10-, 20-, 25-employee operations to
    reinvest in making their businesses more modern that I have seen in the
    last 12 or 15 years. It is a good provision. It will help everybody in
    Charleston, West Virginia, and Casper, Wyoming, and throughout this
    country.

        There is another provision in this code which enables people here in
    West Virginia to take a bigger chance to start new businesses. It says
    if you invest your money, however modest, in a new business that is
    capitalized up to $15 million and you hold that investment for 5 years,
    you will get a 50 percent cut in the tax you owe from the gain you earn.
    Now, that's how to get a tax cut, invest and put people to work. That's
    when we should lower people's taxes, when they're putting the rest of
    America to work to move this economy forward.

        The last thing I want to say is that we do our best in this plan to
    invest in our people. I was attacked during the course of this budget
    debate because there was some new spending in this program. And I plead
    guilty: There's a lot more spending cuts than spending, but there is
    some new spending. In every area I challenge you to prove that it
    doesn't make sense.

        We spend some more money on the Head Start program to get poor
    children off to a good start in school; to help poor pregnant mothers
    while they are carrying their children to be well-nourished so their
    children are born at normal birth weight in good condition, to save the
    taxpayers money, not to cost them money; to immunize our children
    against serious childhood diseases. You tell me why the United States of
    America has the third worst record of all the countries in the Western
    Hemisphere in immunizing children against diseases. You are all paying
    for it in higher medical bills for everybody else because we don't
    immunize the kids. It's a good investment. It pays off. And yes, we
    spent some money to do it.

        We spend a modest amount of money in this plan to provide more
    apprenticeship training programs for young people who don't go on to
    college but need a skill so they can earn a decent income. That will pay
    itself back, and you know it. And this plan makes it much, much easier
    for young people from working families to finance a college education:
    lower interest college loans, better repayment terms. You can pay it
    back based on a percentage of your income even if you borrow a lot of
    money, but you must pay the loan back now. It is a good change. It will
    educate more people.

        My fellow Americans, Friday night we began to put our economic house
    in order. The specifics of the day may soon fade from our memories; even
    the closeness of the vote will someday fade. But what will endure is
    that it was at this moment that we finally decided that change had to
    come, that we must finally face our problems, meet our challenges, build
    a better future, and stop just talking about it.

        Now, last week was more partisan than I had hoped. And as I say, I'm
    very deeply grateful to the West Virginia delegation and to many others
    who put the national interest ahead of their personal interest. There
    were

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    some Democrats, because of the partisan nature of the debate, who came
    from districts where the people were not nearly so personally
    advantaged, who voted for it anyway even though they put their own
    political futures on the line. I think of Congresswoman Marjorie
    Margolies-Mezvinsky from Pennsylvania, for example, from one of the most
    prosperous congressional districts in America, who voted yes and said
    this is in the national interest. And even people who pay higher income
    taxes will benefit if we have lower interest rates. If their interest
    payments go down more than their taxes go up, they'll still create more
    jobs, and America will go forward. There were people like that in this
    Congress who literally put their necks on the line. But I say to you, we
    have to do better. We have to do better.

        We cannot have every great issue of the day decided on the basis of
    partisanship, scheduled around the next trip to New Hampshire for a
    primary still 4 years away. We have got to do some of these things
    together.

        This administration is devoted to change. But I don't care if it's
    called liberal or conservative or Democratic or Republican. I'm
    interested in tomorrow versus yesterday in solving the real problems of
    the country. You can see what we can do when we work together. Just last
    week with bipartisan support, the Family Leave Act became effective so
    that people now don't have to lose their jobs if they go home and take
    care of a sick child or a sick parent. We can do more of that.

        And I challenge the Congress when they return to pass with
    bipartisan support the national service act to give so many tens of
    thousands of our young people a chance to work off their college loans
    through serving their communities. Jay Rockefeller came here through
    national service. This is very, very important. It can open up a whole
    new area of solving our problems at the grassroots level. And we ought
    to do it without regard to partisanship.

        But finally, we have to deal with the greatest continuing threat to
    our economic security and to the personal security of most American
    families--an issue that your Governor has dealt with; an issue that
    Senator Rockefeller has dealt with; an issue that your Congressmen have
    dealt with, particularly as it affects the coal miners here--and that is
    the question of health care.

        Unless we reform the health care system of this country, we can
    never take the deficit down to zero. We can never assure that millions
    of working families will have their health insurance even if someone in
    their family gets sick and they have to change jobs. We can never assure
    that a small business will be able to continue to afford to cover its
    employees and never have to choose between going broke or going without
    health insurance. We can stop, if we do it, the pattern of the last 12
    years where in workplace after workplace after workplace American
    working men and women had to give up their wage increases because of the
    increased cost of the health care package. We have got to do something
    to provide health security to all Americans in a way that is good for
    the private sector, good for our employers, and controls the cost
    without sacrificing quality. Can we do it? Of course we can.

        And there is more to do. The Vice President will have a report next
    month on reinventing our National Government to further eliminate
    unnecessary Government wasteful spending. We will have a plan to
    continue our efforts to end welfare as we know it. We will have a crime
    bill to put more police officers on the street, not only to catch
    criminals but to prevent crime from happening. All of these things must
    be done in a different way, and we need bipartisan support. We need to
    put an end to the partisan rancor and put the American people first
    again.

        My fellow Americans, when I got off at the airport, someone gave me
    this, a picture of President Kennedy when he was here 30 years ago in
    the rain in this spot in which he said, ``The sun does not always shine
    in West Virginia, but the people always do.'' Well, today the sun shone,
    and so did you, and I am very grateful. If it hadn't been for West
    Virginia, John Kennedy probably would not have been elected President of
    the United States. When he was here 30 years ago on his last visit, he
    reflected the eternal opti-

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    mism, the unbending confidence that we could solve our problems that is
    his enduring legacy and his enduring lesson to those of us who come
    behind.
        I tell you, throughout all the difficulties we have, the biggest
    problems we have are those that are inside our minds: the limitation on
    our vision, our will, and our heart and our willingness to put aside the
    old divisions and work together to build a better America. There is
    nothing before us that cannot be cured if we have the willingness to
    open our ears, lower our voices, roll up our sleeves, and make our words
    speak through our deeds. That is what we must do from now on.

        Thank you for giving me a warm welcome. Change has come to America.
    Let's keep it going. God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:15 p.m. at the State Capitol. In his
    remarks, he referred to Mayor Kent Strange Hall of Charleston.