[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 39 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[Pages 1896-1899]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching 
Efficiency Act of 1994

September 29, 1994

    Thank you very much, Dick Kovacevich, for your fine words and your 
strong support of this endeavor. Thank you, Tom Labrecque, for what you 
said. Thank you, as always, Secretary Bentsen, for your remarks and your 
stellar leadership. I thank all the Members of Congress for coming and 
the Members of the House who are out voting; you were all introduced by 
name in absentia. [Laughter] But I do want to say a special word of 
thanks to retiring Congressman Steve Neal for his wonderful leadership 
bill, and I thank him. I thank the Senators, those who are here 
especially, Senator Dodd, Senator Sarbanes, Senator Bennett, and of 
course, Senator Riegle. We will miss you, and we thank you for this very 
important part of your legacy. I thank Chairman Greenspan and Mr. 
Blinder and Chairman Levitt for coming and for their role in stabilizing 
and strengthening our economy. I never comment on these things, but I'm 
awfully glad this bill is taking effect at a time when banks will still 
be able to make loans at reasonable interest rates. [Laughter] There are 
a lot of other people here--I'll live to regret--[laughter]--a lot of 
other people here that could be introduced, but I think I would be 
remiss if I did not say something about someone who fought for this 
issue when he was in Congress and is now the distinguished Governor of 
the State of Connecticut, Lowell Weicker. We're delighted to see you 
here, sir. Thank you for coming. We're delighted to see Sarge and Eunice 
Shriver here; thank you for coming.
    Now, there are two other people I would be personally remiss if I 
did not introduce because they had a lot to do with my interest in this 
issue. The thing that sparked my interest in this issue, first of all, 
was being Governor of a State when banks were dropping like flies all 
around the country and we were determined to protect ours. And I began 
then to seriously think what was structurally wrong with the financial 
system in this country. There is a gentleman here from my home State who 
has been my banker, my adviser, my supporter, and was the last person 
who served as my chief of staff as Governor of Arkansas. I'd like to ask 
him to stand up, Mr. Bill Bowen, former chairman of the Commercial 
National Bank. [Applause] And the other person here who stayed up with 
me half the night once. You may think you can't stay up half a night 
talking about interstate banking. [Laughter] You may think it would put 
you to sleep even though--but you have never heard Hugh McColl talk 
about it. Will you please stand up? Thank you so much. [Applause] I 
figured if he could be rhapsodic about this at 2 a.m., I ought to be for 
it, strong for it. [Laughter]
    You've already heard how important this legislation is and what it 
will do for the banking industry. I'd like to just take a few moments to 
describe to you from my point of view as President how this fits into 
our comprehensive economic strategy. You've already heard people say it 
will make us stronger economically; it will be better for consumers; it 
will make us more efficient. It represents another example of our intent 
to reinvent Government by making it less regulatory and less 
overreaching and by shrinking it where it ought to be shrunk and 
reshaping it where it ought to be reshaped.
    The people who are here up on this stage with me represent the 
economic team who worked with me to try to develop a strategy that would 
put the American people first and enable us to compete and win in the 
21st century and enable us to stay together and go forward in spite of 
all of our differences, to restore prosperity and to renew the American 
dream.
    The economic strategy we have crafted, while it may have critics in 
every corner from point to point, still should be recognized for what it 
is: a serious attempt by the national administration to systematically 
address the problems of the American economy and the opportunities of 
the American economy that enable us to increase our capacity to work 
together for opportunity for all.

[[Page 1897]]

    Secretary Bentsen has been my wise counsel and strong leader. 
Secretary Brown is with President Yeltsin in Seattle today, probably 
still trying to make another sale. [Laughter] As all of you know, he's 
traveled from South America to South Africa to promote American 
businesses and exports and has been the most active Commerce Secretary 
certainly in my lifetime. Secretary Reich has been tireless in his 
advocacy for a skilled work force and for changing our whole 
unemployment system into a reemployment system. Alice Rivlin and before 
her Leon Panetta have played a central role in shaping tough and 
responsible budgets and in giving us 3 years of declining deficits for 
the first time since Mr. Truman was the President of the United States. 
Ambassador Kantor has given us more leadership on trade in the last 20 
months than in any comparable period in the last 35 years. Erskine 
Bowles is not here, but the Acting Administrator of SBA is here, Sandra 
Pulley. And let me say, among other things, they have proved that if you 
put people in charge of the Small Business Administration whose job it 
is or has been in the past to create and expand small businesses, it 
makes a remarkable difference. The agency is less political but more 
effective than it has ever been. One of the things they did was to take 
the small business loan form, which was that thick, and cut it to one 
page and give you a decision in 3 days, yes or no, which is something 
that interstate banking will probably make possible for every bank in 
America to do, before you know it. I want to thank Laura Tyson, the 
Chair of our Council of Economic Advisers, who has done so much to help 
us analyze the economy and strategize long-term. But most important of 
all, I want to thank the most self-effacing but talented person I've 
ever had the privilege to work with in the area of the economy, Bob 
Rubin, for coordinating this entire team. And I'd like for him to stand 
up, because he never gets any recognition. [Applause]
    Our strategy was pretty simple: Get our fiscal house in order; bring 
the deficit down; do it and find a way to invest more in the skills of 
our people, the technologies of the future, defense conversion; expand 
trade; open markets; be more aggressive in appropriate ways in having a 
partnership outside our borders between the United States Government and 
our economic interests; and work to find ways to make the Government 
more efficient.
    We have committed ourselves to that. And among other things, the 
budget we are about to adopt--we're in the process of adopting now--
combined with the budget last year, represent only the first time in 17 
years when a President's had two budgets in a row adopted by Congress 
substantially intact. They will give us 3 years of deficit reduction in 
a row for the first time since the Truman Presidency. But also somewhat 
less known, they will over this 6-year period, because we adopt 5-year 
budgets, reduce the size of the Federal Government by 270,000 to its 
smallest size since Mr. Kennedy was President. All of that money is 
being given to the American people in their own communities to fight 
crime. That's how the crime bill was funded. This is a remarkable 
change. We have already reduced the size of the Federal Government in 20 
months by more than 70,000 people. And so I thank all of them for that.
    The result of these comprehensive efforts and our disciplined 
coordination with other aspects of the public and private sector is that 
our economy is healthy and growing, inflation is moderate, trade is 
expanding, the deficit is dropping, and the Government is shrinking. 
There have been 4.3 million new jobs. And in contrast to the pattern of 
the eighties, when much of the job growth in times that were slow was in 
State and local government, 93 percent of the new jobs for the last 20 
months have been in the private sector.
    According to a recent annual survey by international economists, 
America has now been ranked the most productive economy in the world for 
the first time in 9 years. We've also had 8 months in a row of 
manufacturing job growth, something others had all but given up on for 
the first time in 10 years.
    Our challenge now is to keep moving in the right direction, to keep 
creating new partnerships between business, Government, and citizens. 
And this legislation is a good step in that direction.
    Under this law, as you've already heard, banks will be able to 
operate in more States

[[Page 1898]]

with less trouble. We wipe away obsolete Government-created 
restrictions, something I'm determined to do in many other areas. And 
you'd be amazed how many areas these exist in.
    Just for example, in the last year and a half, we have given 17 
States permission to try new ways to move people from welfare to work. 
In every case, we had to wipe away Federal restrictions to allow States 
to do things that nearly 100 percent of the American people without 
regard to race or income want done to find a way to put people in the 
work force and take them off the dole. So we are working hard. We know 
we can save billions of dollars if we do that. Some estimates suggest 
the efficiencies in this bill alone in reducing paperwork and regulation 
will save this industry about $1 billion a year.
    We know this bill is good for consumers for reasons that have 
already been stated. I wish I had thought of Tom's line myself: It's 
easier for a New York bank to expand in Kuala Lumpur than Jersey City. 
So, since he's already said that, I won't give you what they wrote for 
me, which is longer and not nearly as graphic. [Laughter]
    I also want to thank the Congress for working on this bill in a 
bipartisan spirit. You know, I get very frustrated, as all of you know, 
that it takes so long to do big things around here. I went back and read 
``The Federalist Papers'' the other night, I was so frustrated by it. 
And then, lo and behold, some of our brilliant framers organized this 
Government to slow things down. Even they couldn't be right about 
everything, but anyway, we took our time on this bill.
    And there are so many things that we've been able to do in the last 
year and a half that were just sort of hanging around for 6, 7, or 8 
years. But when the bill did pass, when we had the confluence of forces 
and energy and vision to pass it, it passed with overwhelming bipartisan 
support, which should increase the confidence of the American people 
that this is a good thing for our country and that it will help all of 
us to do better.
    Let us all acknowledge that this work is far from over. You've 
already heard the previous speaker say there was more to be done in the 
banking area, even though we have had a very good year and a half with 
trade. And NAFTA, by the way, is having a very positive effect on our 
economy. We've had a 19 percent increase in exports to Mexico, a 600 
percent increase in the exports of automobiles and trucks to Mexico 
since NAFTA passed. Jobs are up to both Canada and Mexico because 
exports are up. Still, the really important thing to do is to pass the 
GATT.
    I am going in November to Indonesia to meet with the leaders of the 
big Asian economies. I will then go back to Florida in December to have 
all the leaders of the democratic governments in the Caribbean and Latin 
America there at the Summit of the Americas that Mr. McLarty, who is 
here, is coordinating for us. We need to be able to continue to be the 
leader in opening up the global economy to efficiency and to competition 
and to expansion.
    This is not a zero-sum game, this economy. But the only way it 
cannot be that is to keep pushing back the limits of the possible. And 
the only way you can do that is to have global economic growth. So we 
will keep hoping and working for GATT. I think we need to create it and 
pass it as quickly as we can. The American people will be a winner 
there.
    All of you know that every serious economic study of the GATT has 
estimated that it will create hundreds of thousands of high-paying 
American jobs over the next decade and ultimately add between $100 
billion and $200 billion to our GDP every single year. It will cut 
foreign tariffs by a third. It will provide a global tax cut of $744 
billion. So I hope that the bipartisan support the GATT has will result 
in the same thing that happened with the banking bill, that we will pass 
it and pass it in a prompt way.
    Yesterday the House Ways and Means Committee approved the GATT by a 
vote of 35 to 3. This morning the Senate Finance Committee approved it 
by a vote of 19 to 0. The fact is, these folks have figured out that 
this is good for our economy, good for our country, good for our global 
leadership to continue to be pointing the way for other countries, to 
keep them looking upward and outward and reaching out to each other 
instead of drawing inward and giving in to the difficult pressures that 
all of us face.

[[Page 1899]]

    I want Congress to pass the GATT this year. If it passes the House 
but not the Senate, I'll urge the Senate to return after the election 
recess and pass it then. We have come too far on this journey, making 
our Government more efficient, our economy more productive, and working 
together, to back off now.
    You know, this week I've had the honor to represent you at the U.N. 
and to meet with President Yeltsin here in Washington and to watch as 
our courageous soldiers are working to bring democracy back to Haiti in 
a peaceful fashion. I am reminded that the world, with all of its 
difficulties, has never really had greater opportunities and that our 
very existence now is not threatened, as it once was, because of the 
progress we have made in trying to learn to live together.
    People everywhere who yearn for political freedom and for economic 
opportunity are having more chances to realize both than ever before. We 
have a chance to help them. Sometimes we are called upon to help them in 
definite and specific ways, as we were early in the process of Russian 
reform or as we have been in Haiti. But I always believe that the most 
powerful way we help is by setting the right example.
    We have set a good example today. Passing the GATT is setting a good 
example. Reaching out to the rest of the world, being unafraid to 
compete and determined to contact people and to work with them and to 
keep doing what we do better is the best way to set that kind of 
example. To me, that's what this bill represents, and I'm honored to be 
here to sign it today.
    Thank you very much.
    We don't have enough room on the dais for every Member of Congress 
who's here, but I would like to ask at least Mr. Neal to come up here. 
He and Senator Riegle should be in this picture. It may get them so many 
write-in votes, they won't be able to retire.

Note: The President spoke at 3:05 p.m. at the U.S. Treasury Building. In 
his remarks, he referred to Richard Kovacevich, president and chief 
executive officer, Norwest Corp. of Minneapolis; Tom Labrecque, chairman 
and chief executive officer, Chase Manhattan Bank; Alan S. Blinder, 
member, Council of Economic Advisers; Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., first 
director of the Peace Corps; Eunice Shriver, director, Special Olympics; 
and Hugh McColl, Jr., chairman of the board, NationsBank Corp. H.R. 
3841, approved September 29, was assigned Public Law No. 103-328. A tape 
was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.