[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 18 (Monday, May 9, 1994)]
[Pages 962-963]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters on Departure From the CNN 
International Studio in Atlanta

May 3, 1994

Congressional Elections

    The President. [Inaudible]--the elections will help, because the 
elections will give an opportunity for the facts to come out. The 
Georgia economy's doing well. It's done much better since I've been 
elected President. The economic program, which we passed--a lot of the 
Republicans, including some of the prominent Republicans in Georgia, 
accused us of raising income taxes on everybody. Now they know, the 
American people know, only 1.2 percent of the American people paid 
higher income taxes. And this year, one in six working families will get 
a tax cut. We're reducing the deficit. And under our administration, 
we'll have 3 years of declining deficits for the first time since 
Truman.
    So the economy's doing better. We passed sweeping education and 
training reforms. We're passing the toughest crime bill in American 
history. We're going to pass welfare reform. We're dealing with the 
problems of America. And I think by election time that should be very 
helpful. That'll be a good environment in which Democrats can run. We 
Democrats don't have the kind of machine, in a way--media machine--that 
the Republicans do, sort of spewing out all this venom and all this 
labeling and name-calling all the time. So we get down sometimes, but 
we'll get back up.
    Georgia--Atlanta has benefited greatly from the trade initiatives of 
this administration, from the North American Free Trade Agreement, from 
the worldwide trade agreement, from our outreach to Asia. So I think the 
record--the economic benefits and the fact that we reflect middle class 
values and welfare reform, the crime initiative, and other things, all 
those things will help the Democrats by November.
    Q. Do you take a fairly relaxed attitude about the fact that some 
Members of the Georgia delegation, congressional delegation, would just 
as soon stay in Washington and not right now come down and be with you?
    The President. Sure, I take a fairly relaxed attitude about whatever 
they want to do. But I think the--you've got to understand, in the rural 
South where you've got Rush Limbaugh and all this right-wing extremist 
media just pouring venom at us every day and nothing to counter that, we 
need an election to get the facts out. So I really--I welcome the 
election--American people find out the

[[Page 963]]

truth, they're going to support people who didn't say no every time.
    Essentially these Democrats, most of them have said yes to America. 
They've said yes on crime, yes on getting the deficit down, yes on 
getting the economy going, yes on moving the country forward. We have 
ended gridlock. It took us years and years and years to pass some of 
this anticrime initiatives and other things that we're doing now. And 
when the American people see the facts, even in the places which were 
tough for us, I think that the Democrats will do very, very well, 
because they'll have their own record to run on. So I'm kind of looking 
forward to it.

Note: The President spoke at approximately 3 p.m. at the studio. A tape 
was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.