[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 40 (Monday, October 11, 1993)]
[Pages 1960-1965]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Community in Sacramento, California

 October 3, 1993

    Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. Thank you for being here. 
Thank you for doing what you have done for the United States. It's 
wonderful to be here. It's wonderful to be in Sacramento, and it's great 
to be at McClellan, and I thank you for all being here with me today.

[[Page 1961]]

    I'd like to say a special word of thanks to General Phillips and the 
people at this base for the work they have done and the work they did 
with your Mayor and others to keep this base alive. You are a good 
testimony to the wisdom of that decision, and I thank you for that.
    I also want to thank General Yates, the Commander of the Air Force 
Materiel Division, for flying all the way across the country to be with 
us today. And I want to tell you one thing, he made a real sacrifice 
because this is his birthday, and I thank him for spending it with us 
today.
    I want to say, also, a special word of thanks to Congressman 
Hamburg, Congressman Matsui, and Congressman Fazio----

[At this point, audience members interrupted the President's remarks.]

    You all ignore them. They don't want you to hear, but you want to 
hear it. Just come on. Most people in this country still believe in free 
speech. That's one of the things worth fighting for. I also want to say 
a very special word of thanks to these Members of Congress who have 
supported our efforts to deal with the problems of America.
    I got interested in making that long and challenging race for 
President because I was worried about three things: I thought this 
country was coming apart when it ought to be coming together; I thought 
we were going in the wrong direction economically and we risked losing 
the American dream for millions of young people; and I thought that 
politics had become a sideshow of shouting words, instead of an 
instrument by which the American people could forthrightly face their 
problems and do something about it.
    I am reminded, too, on this day, because of the events in Moscow and 
in Somalia, that we still live in a dangerous world. And I ask you to 
take just a few moments, once again, to quietly express your support for 
the people who are fighting for freedom in Russia and for the brave men 
and women in our Armed Forces, including those in Somalia today who lost 
their lives in a very successful mission against brutality and anarchy. 
My deepest condolences go to the families and the friends of those brave 
young Americans, and I know that all of you support them, as well.
    One of the hardest things we have had to learn as a people, in the 
last few years, is that there is now no longer an easy division between 
our national security at the end of the cold war abroad and our economic 
and social security here at home. There's no longer an easy division 
between foreign policy and domestic policy, and it is perfectly clear to 
everyone now that if we are not strong at home, we cannot continue to 
lead the world. And so I have done what I could to help us to become 
stronger at home.
    That means, as much as anything else, as we attempt to revive this 
economy, we have got to focus on the economy of California, the State 
which has 12 percent of our Nation's people but 25 percent of our 
Nation's unemployed. It is clear to me that we must take this problem 
which has developed for you over a period of years and go after it with 
a vengeance, step by step, with discipline and concentration.
    This last week, in Washington, we made several announcements which 
mean more jobs and a brighter future for California. Last week, the Vice 
President and I announced that the United States, in recognition of the 
end of the cold war, would remove export controls on 70 percent of the 
computers and supercomputers made in the United States. That will 
increase exports by billions and tens of billions of dollars. It means 
more jobs for California. In this State, that order frees up $30 billion 
of exports in computers, $2 billion in telecommunications, and $5 
billion in supercomputers. In a State where one in 10 jobs depends on 
exports, that is very good news, indeed.
    Last week, I also announced a plan to help our shipbuilders to be 
more competitive in the global economy. There are 124,000 Americans 
employed in shipbuilding, many of them in California, in places like the 
Nasco plant in San Diego. This plan will help them get access to foreign 
markets which they deserve and which they have been denied for too long.
    And last week, with so many people in this country desperate for 
work and knowing we have to find a way to help create jobs through 
supporting the environment, something you've done here, we announced a 
ground-breaking research plan involving our defense

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labs, our military facilities, and the Big Three automakers to triple 
the fuel efficiency of our automobiles within a decade, creating tens of 
thousands of new jobs for Americans.
    Earlier this year we announced a project very important to the 
future of this area, a technology reinvestment program to convert 
defense technology either to dual uses, defense and commercial, or 
purely commercial uses, something you are doing here. We have received, 
in return for what will soon be about $1 billion in Federal matching 
money, over 2,800 proposals. And guess what? Twenty-five percent of them 
came from the State of California. That means more jobs for California.
    Tomorrow I know that Congressman Fazio and others will release the 
details of a new joint partnership between the Government and automakers 
to develop and produce electric cars, taking advantage of dual-use 
technology right here at McClellan. That means more jobs for California 
and a brighter future for America.
    And let me thank you, especially here at McClellan, for the 
partnership you have formed with the Environmental Protection Agency and 
the California EPA. By streamlining Government and working together, you 
have performed a cleanup that, under the old rules, would have taken 6 
years and $10 million. You did it in 8 weeks at a fifth of the cost. And 
we intend to do that all over America, copying your leadership.
    Let me say to you, my fellow Americans, my biggest task as your 
President is to try to clearly define the time in which we live, point 
the way to positive change, and give the American people the security 
they need to make those changes. We cannot, any of us in our personal 
lives, in our family lives, and in our communities, make changes we need 
to make unless we are personally secure enough to make them. But we 
cannot deny the changes that are abroad in the world and pretend that 
they're not there.
    When I leave you and walk back into this hangar, I will see some of 
the work that is being done here in McClellan to develop dual-use 
technologies. That means that the people here have decided that change 
will be our friend and not our enemy. When faced with a time of profound 
change, we can take one of two courses. We can hunker down, turn away, 
and pretend it's not there, and that works about one time in 100. Most 
of the time, you know as well as I do, when you see profound change and 
you want to preserve what is most important in your values, your family, 
your community, you have to find a way to make that change your friend. 
That is what this administration is dedicated to doing, both in trying 
to change the rules of the economic game and in trying to open up a new 
era of time when Americans who work hard and play by the rules have a 
certain basic security.
    Yes, I think we ought to change our economic policies. We are giving 
this country the toughest trade policy it's had in years and years, 
demanding access to our markets. Yes, we cannot continue to have massive 
trade deficits with the Far East, where 40 percent of our exports are 
going. And yes, I favor opening up trade to Mexico and ultimately to 
Latin America because we have a trade surplus there and its means more 
jobs for Americans. I do favor it.
    But let me say something. If you listen to the people who are 
opposed to the trade agreement, they have some very good arguments, but 
they're arguing against things that happened for the last 12 years. 
They're arguing against the insecurity of the times our people have 
faced and the fact that our Government has not responded to them. And so 
we have sought to give the American people more security by bringing 
this deficit down, which threatens our children and grandchildren; by 
changing the tax laws so that working families with children in the 
home, without regard to their incomes, will be lifted above poverty so 
there will never be an excuse to stay on welfare because work will be 
rewarded for people; but by reforming the student loan program so that 
we lower the interest rates and string out the repayment terms and make 
college available to every American for the first time; by giving tens 
of thousands of our young people the chance to serve their country in 
their community through a program of national service that will also 
enable them to earn credit against a college education or other 
education and training.

[[Page 1963]]

    Yes, security is important, and we have other challenges before us, 
as well. If you look at the number of people who have been killed in 
this country just in the last month in drive-by shootings and mindless 
acts of violence, and you consider the fact that this is the only 
advanced country in the world where children can be in cities with no 
supervision, no support, roaming the streets, better armed than the 
police because we refuse to take automatic weapons out of their hands or 
pass the Brady bill, or check on it, that is wrong, and we must change 
that. We must change that.
    But, my fellow Americans, at the root of so much of our security is 
the fact that we are living in a changing economy where the average 
young worker will change jobs eight times in a lifetime; where more and 
more, when people lose their jobs and they go on unemployment--it's not 
the way it was when I was young, where people would go on unemployment 
for 4 weeks or 8 weeks and then they'd get their old job back. Now most 
people get another job, but it's a different job. So we don't need an 
unemployment system anymore, we need a reemployment system to retrain 
our workers for the jobs that are there and for the future.
    More than anything else, if you look to the heart now of our Federal 
budget deficit, if you look to the heart now of the economic problems of 
many of our leading exporters, and if you look to the heart of the 
gnawing insecurity that grips hardworking American families, you will 
find lurking behind it all the most expensive, least efficient health 
care system in the entire Western world.
    Only in America--only in America do we spend over 14 percent of our 
income on health care--Canada's at 10, Germany and Japan below 9--going 
up more rapidly than any other country; going up twice as fast as 
inflation. And we still leave 35 million people, 35 million permanently 
without health insurance, 2 million more every month, another 100,000 
every month permanently losing their health insurance.
    Only in America do we have 1,500 separate insurance companies 
writing thousands of different policies, creating mountains of different 
paperwork and always, always looking for ways not to cover the people 
who bought their insurance. That only happens in this country.
    Only in America are the doctors who hired out to keep people well 
and help people who are sick spending more and more countless hours, 
some of them as much as 25 hours a week now, filling out forms and 
paperwork. Only in America has that happened. Only in America have, in 
the last 10 years, we seen the work of clerical workers in the hospitals 
grow at 4 times the rate of new doctors and health care providers. That 
is not happening anywhere else.
    Why? Because while we have the finest doctors and nurses and 
technology and research in the world, we have a system of financing and 
delivering health care that is a nightmare. It is a nightmare for people 
who have lost their health insurance. It is a nightmare for people who 
don't get it. It's a nightmare for people who have to depend on the 
Government to get theirs, when not all the providers will cover 
Medicaid. It has been bad. And guess what? It is the primary cause of 
the exploding Federal deficit. It is the primary cause of many of our 
biggest companies' inability to compete more overseas. It is the primary 
cause that millions of American workers will not get a raise between now 
and the end of the decade because all the new profits of the companies 
that are trying to cover their health care will go into the exploding 
cost of premiums. And only in America do we spend 10 cents on the dollar 
in a $900 billion health care bill on paperwork that no other country 
has.
    I say to you, my fellow Americans, it's time to give the American 
people health care that is always there, health care that can never be 
taken away, health care that is simpler and better.
    Now, you know, since we're here at this magnificent air base, let me 
just ask you something: Can you think of a single institution in this 
country in the last 10 years, in the midst of all the chaos and social 
breakdown and violence and family troubles in America, is there any 
institution that has worked better than the United States military to 
train and educate people to perform missions, to continually give people 
new skills, and to provide the coherence that we need? And is there any 
institution that's done a bet- 

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ter job of opening opportunities to people without regard to race or 
gender? No. Why? One reason is, there is order, security, and support. 
Could the military have done its mission if they had the same health 
care system the rest of the American people have and half the people in 
the service could lose their health care on a given day by some accident 
or because a wife or a husband or a child turned out to have an illness 
that wasn't covered in the fine print of some policy? You know it 
couldn't have happened. We owe the rest of the American people that 
security in the face of the changing times in which we live.
    Let me say, people say to me, oh, you can't slow the growth of 
health care costs. I say to them, look at California. I want to thank 
your insurance commissioner for the work he's done with my wife's Health 
Care Task Force to develop a health care system. You look at the 
California experience. Look at what happened to the health care costs of 
the people who had the benefit of being in the California public 
employee system, when the people who were providing it knew that the 
State was broke and didn't have a lot of money and when there were 
enough people there that they had bargaining power to get high-quality 
health care at an affordable price. What happened? The inflation rate 
and the premiums was less than one-third the national inflation rate in 
health care.
    And let me say some other things about this health care system, 
because there's been a lot of misinformation put out there. I see all 
these children here. One of the things that is killing this health care 
system of ours is that so many people have no coverage, that when they 
get health care, it's when they're real sick, and it's real expensive, 
and they show up at the emergency room. Under this plan, for the first 
time in history, there will be a comprehensive package of benefits which 
will guarantee preventive and primary health care services to pregnant 
mothers, to little children, to women who need mammograms, to men who 
need cholesterol tests. Those are the things that will lower the cost of 
health care and strengthen the fabric of our economy.
    Look at the burden that California alone pays because of the 
uninsured cost of caring for AIDS patients. Look at that. Under this 
system, when everybody gets covered and all people are in big pools so 
that one high-risk patient's cost is spread across a lot of folks, we 
will have coverage in the regular system and you will not have 
particular States going broke because they have disproportionate burdens 
of immigrants, of AIDS patients, or anything else. This is another 
important feature of this.
    But finally, let me say two other things. Under this system the 
American people will have more choice than most Americans do now. If you 
have a health care plan that's better than the one we're writing into 
law, your company can keep giving it to you, and the cost of it won't go 
up as rapidly. But there's a limit for the first time to what can be 
taken away. If you don't have one, you will get one. And you'll have 
more choices today. Only one in three workers in a plant with a health 
insurance plan has any choice in the way they get their health care. 
Every American worker will be guaranteed at least three different 
options in the health care plan. And that's a plus for America, to give 
the consumers of this country more choices.
    And finally, I want to say a special word of thanks to the thousands 
of Americans from all across this country who helped us to put this plan 
together and especially to the literally hundreds and hundreds of 
doctors and nurses and others who told us their stories, so that we 
found, unbelievably, we had doctors who were miserable, nurses who were 
unhappy, and the people who lost their insurance in the 11th hour when 
they didn't know what was going to hit them. So for the first time in 
the history, we are going to have a health care plan that has 
significant input on the front end from the people who provide the 
health care because they know, the ones who've been involved in this 
process, that we cannot go on.
    And finally, let me just make this point: At some point in life when 
you have a problem, whatever it is, you have to ask yourself a pretty 
simple question, because every change involves taking a chance, you have 
to ask yourself which is greater: the cost of change or the cost of 
staying the same? It is clear that the greater cost is to keep on doing 
what we're doing and letting America

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go bankrupt and breaking the hearts of millions of American families.
    And so I say to you, we've got a lot of work to do to turn the 
California economy around. But we've taken important steps that were not 
taken before, and there's more to come. We've got a lot of work to do to 
work through all the complexities of the health care issue. We've got a 
lot of work to do to convince Americans to have the courage and to give 
Americans the security they need to change. But I am telling you, folks, 
if we do what we ought to do, California and this country will walk into 
the 21st century with their heads held high, with the American dream 
still alive for our children, with our diversity a strength, not a 
weakness, in a nation that is still leading the world, if we have the 
courage to change and the will to give our people the security they 
deserve.
    That is what I'm dedicated to. And I thank you for being here today 
to support that. God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:04 p.m. at McClellan Air Force Base.