[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 32 (Monday, August 16, 1993)]
[Pages 1589-1591]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
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The President's Radio Address
August 7, 1993
It's a bright, sunny day in Washington in more ways than one. The
political fog that has surrounded this town for so long is at long last
lifting. For months we've all been working for this day, a day when we
can say to the American people that our Government is getting on with
the business of creating jobs, expanding the economy, and doing better
by all the American people.
Members of the House and the Senate showed our Nation how Government
for the people can actually work for the people. They took the
courageous step of breaking gridlock, passing my economic plan, and
putting our Nation on the road to long-term growth.
This plan plants us firmly on the path to getting so many good
things done for our people. For the first time in a long time, we'll be
making a meaningful downpayment on the massive Federal deficit, and as
we reduce that deficit by nearly $500 billion over 5 years, with more
spending cuts than tax increases, we'll be strengthening the foundation
for our future at home and our position in the world economy.
For the first time in a dozen years the weight of the tax burden
will be shifted so that it is borne more fairly. Middle class working
families will pay about a dime a day to bring the deficit down in the
form of a 4.3-cent gasoline tax--no hidden taxes, no games, no gimmicks.
But 80 percent of the new revenues will come from those who can best
afford to pay, with family incomes over $200,000 a year. Those people
got over half the economic gains, over half the economic gains of the
1980's and big tax breaks besides. We don't want to punish success. We
want to reward it. But in order for all Americans to have a chance to
succeed, we have to bring the deficit down, and it's only fair to ask
those best able to pay to do so. If family income is less than $200,000
a year, there will be no increase in income taxes.
For the first time in a decade, we're also making a serious effort
to invest in our children, to reward work over welfare, to strengthen
our families, and to give real incentives to businesses to grow new
jobs. Analysts project that our economy will create 8 million new jobs
now in the next 4 years. We're keeping interest rates down and giving
real, real incentives for people to invest in
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new business, research and development, and new plant and equipment.
For all these reasons this plan is an urgent step. But I want to
emphasize, it is only the first step. We're well on our way, but our
work is far from finished. We'll continue to look for ways to further
cut unnecessary spending and trim waste. On that front, we will remain
tireless, responsible, and accountable to you.
Soon we expect the Vice President's report on reinventing
Government. It will help make your Government leaner, smarter, more
efficient. It will show you that we're trying to have a Government here
that actually works for the people who pay the bills and takes how their
money is spent very seriously.
We want to end welfare as we know it and restore dignity to millions
of idle Americans who have been dependent too long. We'll do that by
changing the system so it's a path to a job, not a way of life. The
economic plan went a long way toward doing that by lifting all the
people in this country, millions of them, who work 40 hours a week and
have children in their homes, out of poverty, not through a Government
program but through the tax system, saying we won't tax people into
poverty, we'll use the tax system to lift those out of poverty who are
prowork, profamily, and doing their part.
And we cannot rest while millions of American do without affordable
health care and many, many millions more worry that they won't be able
to afford the cost of their health care policy or that they'll lose
their health care coverage if they lose their job or someone in their
family gets sick. It's not right. And until we give all Americans health
care that's always there and control the cost, the health care crisis
will continue to bankrupt our businesses, our families, and eventually
our Nation.
So we'll keep moving as fast as we have in these first 6 months of
the administration and keep taking new ideas to the American people for
making our country better and putting our people first. With your
support we've already moved on several fronts to ensure the principles
that I fought for during the last campaign: providing opportunity,
encouraging personal responsibility, and rebuilding our communities.
Just this week, our national service program cleared its final
hurdles and now will clearly become law. That means 100,000 young people
will have the chance to help America's communities while helping
themselves pay for a college education. Also this week the Family Leave
Act went into effect. And now millions of American workers will be able
to take some time off to care for their newborn children or an ill
family member without fearing loss of their jobs. In our Nation, where
most people have to work, we cannot force people to choose between being
a good parent and a good worker. Now millions more will be able to do
both.
We've also won passage of a new motor voter law to make voter
registration more easy, more open, more accessible. We've eased the
credit crunch for small businesses all across America, making student
loans easier to get and less costly to repay and working to open markets
overseas to create jobs here at home. We've also changed the
environmental policies of this administration so that once again America
is a leader, not a follower, in the effort to preserve the global
environment and our environmental issues here at home. We've made
medical research more sensitive to the needs of women and more helpful
to people with diabetes, Parkinson's, and other diseases where political
bias kept research that was very needed from going on for too many
years. We changed the ethics of the executive branch with the toughest
ethics restrictions in American history, restricting people from
lobbying for foreign governments or lobbying at all for years after they
leave top positions in our Government.
There is more political accountability and more political reform on
the way. Campaign finance reform, lobby reform, the line-item veto, all
three of these things have passed at least one House of Congress. We're
going to work hard to make them law. With these and other measures to
better the lives of our people, we're putting business-as-usual out of
business in Washington. That's what you ordered in the last election.
This week the majority of the lawmakers on Capitol Hill joined us to
break gridlock. They voted to move us forward together, to
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leave behind the shameful legacy of debt and deficits, and to give our
Nation control over our own economic destiny. I congratulate those
lawmakers for the courage they've shown in winning this tough fight in
the face of all kinds of charges and misinformation that fill the
airwaves. These people stood firm. They stood together. And they stood
for you.
As we fought for this plan, we brought together business and labor,
the cities and the heartland, Americans from every generation. Now, on
the threshold of a new era of growth and prosperity and a new direction
for our Nation, it's time for all of us to stand together. And that
includes those who opposed my plan on Capitol Hill.
To our critics there I say, all Americans, whatever their political
stripe, can reap the benefits of the change we can begin today. I say to
those critics, we must now put aside bitterness and rancor, move beyond
partisanship, and work together to give the country we all love the new
direction it needs. In the future, people will not ask whether we were
Democrats or Republicans, whether we were conservatives or liberals.
They will ask what we did to face our problems, meet our challenges,
seize our opportunities, and secure a better future for our children.
Let us begin that together.
Thanks for listening, and Godspeed.
Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White
House.