[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 44 (Monday, November 6, 1995)]
[Pages 1952-1954]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
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The President's Radio Address
October 28, 1995
Good morning. I want to talk to you today about what's at stake for
the American people in the great budget debate now taking place in
Washington. But first, I've got some good news to report.
Our country is on the move. Our economy is the strongest in the
world, and it's growing. Yesterday, the official report on the economy
for the last 3 months showed continued strong economic growth with very
low inflation. And this week we also learned that we've cut the budget
deficit nearly in half since I became President. It has dropped for 3
years in a row for the first time since President Truman was in office.
The American
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people should be proud of their accomplishment.
Now it's time to finish the job and balance the budget, so that we
don't pass a mountain of debt on to our children and we free up more
funds to be invested in our economy. But we need to do it in a way that
reflects our core values: opportunity for all Americans to make the most
of their own lives; responsibility--we all must do our part, no more
something for nothing; and third, recognizing our community, our common
obligations to preserve and strengthen our families, to do our duty to
our parents, to fulfill our obligation to give our children the best
future possible with good schools and good health care and safe streets
and a clean environment; and finally, a determination to keep our Nation
the strongest in the world.
I have proposed a balanced budget that secures Medicare into the
future, that increases our investment in education and technology, that
protects the environment, that keeps our country the strongest in the
world. Because working people do deserve a tax break, it includes a tax
cut targeted at education and childrearing. My balanced budget reflects
our national values.
It's also in our national interest. We now have 3 years of evidence
that our economic strategy works. Reduce the deficit, sell more American
products around the world, invest in education and technology--it gives
you more jobs, more new businesses, more homeowners, a stronger future
for all Americans. But this week the Republican Congress voted to enact
an extreme budget that violates our values and I believe is bad for our
long-term interest.
All Americans believe in honoring our parents and keeping our pledge
that they'll live out their last years in dignity. But the Republican
budget cuts $450 billion out of the health care system, doubles premiums
for senior citizens. And the House budget actually repeals the rule
called spousal impoverishment. What this means is they would let a State
say to an elderly couple that if the husband or the wife has to go into
a nursing home, the other has to sell the house, the car, and clean out
the bank account before there can be any help from the Government. They
say, ``We'll then help you, and how you get along afterward is your own
problem.''
The Republicans say they support Medicare. They say they just want
to reform it. But just this week we learned that the Senate majority
leader is bragging that he opposed Medicare from the beginning, and the
Speaker of the House admitted that his goal is to have Medicare, quote,
``wither on the vine.'' When they say those things, it's clear that the
Republicans come not to praise Medicare but to bury it.
All Americans believe we have a fundamental duty to provide
opportunity for our young people and to protect the world that God gave
us. But the Republican budget singles out education and the environment
for deep and devastating cuts.
And it's a basic American value to honor hard work. But the
congressional Republicans impose billions of dollars in new taxes and
fees directly on working people. On average, families who earn less than
$30,000 a year get a tax hike, not a tax cut, under their plan. Let me
put it another way. They want to increase taxes on working families with
children living on $20,000 a year or less and give people in my income
group a tax cut. That is wrong. A country where Medicare withers on the
vine, where our children are denied educational opportunity, where
pollution worsens, where working people get a tax increase: That's not
the kind of America I want for the 21st century.
I want a nation that promotes opportunity and demands
responsibility; that preserves families, increases work; that recognizes
the duty we owe to each other; and that still is the strongest country
in the world.
The more the American people see of this budget the less they like
it. That's why the Republicans in Congress have resorted to
extraordinary blackmail tactics to try to ram their program through.
They have said they won't pass a bill letting the Government pay its
bills unless I accept their extreme and misguided budget priorities.
Well, for more than two centuries, through war and depression, the
United States has always paid its bills, always honored its obligations.
For all their loose talk, the congressional leaders know that a default
would have a severe impact on our country. By making
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it more expensive for the Government to raise money, it would expand the
deficit, unsettle financial markets, and increase interest rates. Higher
interest rates mean higher mortgage rates for homeowners, especially the
10 million of them whose mortgages are tied to Federal interest rates.
Higher interest rates means higher credit card rates for consumers and
bigger borrowing costs for businesses.
Now, I'm not about to give in to that kind of blackmail. So Congress
should simply stop playing political games with the full faith and
credit of the United States of America. They should send me the debt
limit bill to sign, as every Congress has done when necessary throughout
American history.
Just yesterday the Secretary of the Treasury once again asked
Congress to remove the debt limit from the budget bill or, at the very
least, to extend it through mid-January. That way we can resolve this
budget impasse without hurting our economy. Even this offer was brushed
aside.
I will not let anyone hold health care, education, or the
environment hostage. If they send me a budget bill that says simply,
``Take our cuts or we'll let the country go into default,'' I will still
veto it. And hear this: Before or after a veto, I am not prepared to
discuss the destruction of Medicare and Medicaid, the gutting of our
commitment to education, the ravaging of our environment, or raising
taxes on working people.
So I say to the Republican leaders: Back off your cuts in these
vital areas. Until you do, there's nothing for us to talk about. You say
your principles are a balanced budget, a tax cut, extending the life of
the Medicare Trust Fund. I want all those things. They're my principles,
too. But there are other important principles, the ones that I have
outlined. They are morally right for America, and they're good for our
economy.
This is a time of genuine promise for our country. We're on the
move. Our economy is the envy of the world. No nation on Earth is better
positioned for the new century than America because of the diversity of
our economy and our citizens, because of our commitment to excellence,
because of our technological advantages. The 21st century will be ours
if we make the right choices and do the right thing for the American
people.
Thanks for listening.
Note: The address was recorded at 5:25 p.m. on October 27 in the
Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on October
28.