[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 1 (Monday, January 9, 1995)]
[Pages 23-24]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Economy Prior to a Meeting With Congressional Leaders

January 6, 1995

    The President. Good morning, everyone. We are here and anxious to 
get to work, but I wanted to make an announcement this morning and chart 
our course for the year ahead.
    Two years ago, I formed a partnership for prosperity and opportunity 
with the Democratic leadership in Congress. Along with then Speaker 
Foley and Majority Leader Mitchell, the Democrats put together 
majorities that we needed in both the House and the Senate to make the 
hardest choices Washington has made in over a generation: to cut Federal 
spending deeply; to raise revenues, largely from income tax increases on 
the top 1\1/2\ percent of our people and corporations with incomes of 
over $10 million; to reinvent and restructure the Government so that it 
would be much smaller and still work better; and to invest in education, 
research, and technology, and tax relief for working families of modest 
incomes.
    Most important of all, the Congress chose to do the right thing, 
rather than the political thing, because they believed it was more 
important to make real life easier for Americans than it was to make 
political life more comfortable for people here in Washington. As a 
result, there was a huge increase in investment and economic growth, 
building on the productivity of American workers and American 
businesses.
    This morning I am pleased to announce that the recovery of which our 
economic plan was such a large part has brought paychecks to more than a 
quarter million more Americans in December alone. And compared with an 
unemployment rate of over 7 percent when I took office, we now see an 
unemployment rate in December of 5.4 percent. We have grown the private 
economy as we have cut Government. That's a real recovery and a real 
bargain for the American people.
    A real recovery means that in 1994 alone our economy created 3.5 
million new jobs, the most created in one year by the private sector in 
a decade. In '93 and '94 combined, our economy has produced 5.6 million 
new jobs. A real recovery means that after losing 2 million 
manufacturing jobs in the previous 12 years, in 1994 alone 292,000 
manufacturing jobs were added to the economy, and manufacturing jobs 
grew in every month of last year for the first time since the 1970's. It 
means working people can look to the future with more hope and more 
optimism now, especially if we move to protect the economic expansion 
and to get to work to match the expansion with income growth increases 
for ordinary American working people.
    We're ready to build on the progress we've made in cutting spending 
and the size of the Federal work force. As I announced last year, the 
reduction and reinvention of Government will continue with the budget I 
will submit next month. But I will stand against any effort to roll back 
or to rock the foundations of the recovery by proposals that explode the 
deficit or gimmicks that undermine the integrity of the budget we have 
worked so hard to put in place. And to ensure that incomes grow, which 
is, after all, the most important thing to ordinary American working 
families, we have to pair that with the economic growth by arming 
America's families with the tools they need to increase their own 
prosperity.
    Our middle class bill of rights will do just that by ensuring more 
investments in better education and more disposable income for 
hardworking families who deserve some benefits from this recovery. We 
will do it by rewarding investments in education; in the rearing of 
children; in paying for education, health care, retirement costs; paying 
for

[[Page 24]]

training. These are things that will generate economic opportunity as 
well as tax fairness. They will ensure that the work ethics and the work 
efforts of the middle class are rewarded with growing incomes.
    We've had a good first 2 years. It's time now to make a commitment 
to keep it going. We, the Democrats, stand ready to work in partnership 
with the Republicans. We want to make sure that we can do as well in the 
next 2 years as we have in the first 2. And I think that they will have 
the same attitude.
    Thank you very much.
    Q. Mr. President, can you tell us what your message to Boris Yeltsin 
is?
    The President. I want to talk about jobs today. I already discussed 
that----

Note: The President spoke at 10:20 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House.