[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 51 (Monday, December 25, 1995)]
[Pages 2206-2208]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Remarks on Vetoing the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the
Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1996, and an
Exchange With Reporters
December 19, 1995
The President. Good afternoon. I'm delighted to be joined by these
police officers and by the Attorney General and Secretary Brown and the
mayors of Chicago and Philadelphia and representatives of law
enforcement who are here today.
For yet another day, the Republican Congress continues to keep our
Government closed. Shortly, I will meet with Senator Dole and Speaker
Gingrich. I hope we can resolve the situation and give the American
people their Government back by Christmas.
We also should give them a balanced budget that reflects our values
of opportunity for all, respecting our duty to our parents and our
children, building strong communities and a strong America.
There is no value more basic than keeping our children safe.
Unfortunately, the bill that the Congress passed to fund the Justice,
Commerce, and State Departments failed to fulfill that essential
obligation.
Last year, with the support of Members of both parties in Congress,
I signed a crime bill into law. The key to that crime bill was our
effort to put 100,000 new police officers on the street because we
knew--we had clear, hard evidence that more police officers in community
policing would actually lower the crime rate not only by catching more
criminals but by preventing crime. Today we are awarding 5,500 police
officers to communities all across America. That brings the grand total
in less than 15 months to 31,000 new police officers for America's
streets, almost a third of the 5-year total.
Everywhere I go, mayors and police chiefs and sheriffs tell me that
community policing is helping them to fight crime and lower the crime
rate. And the tide is turning. Yesterday, the FBI reported that the
murder rate has dropped 12 percent in the last year. That's the largest
decline in the murder rate since the FBI started keeping statistics 35
years ago. Violent crime is down 5 percent overall from last year's
rate. We are turning the tide. We are beginning to win the fight against
crime. This is no time to turn back the clock.
The crime bill is working because it provides funds for police
officers directly to police departments. Unfortunately, this bill
replaces this initiative which is guaranteed to put 100,000 police on
the street with a block grant that has no guarantees at all. The bill
that is before me does not guarantee that even one more police officer
will be put on our streets, not one.
I gave my word in 1992 that I would work for 100,000 more police
officers on the street. In 1994, when I signed that bill into law, it
represented a solemn commitment by the United States Government that we
would put 100,000 more police officers on the street. I intend to keep
my word.
That is not the only reason I am vetoing this bill. Looking out for
our families and our children is essential, and to do that, we have to
look out for our future. The dawn of the information age is no time to
turn out the lights on our research laboratories and our technology
centers. But the Republican budget could cut nondefense research and
development by as much as one-third over the next 7 years.
America thrives because we create opportunities for our children to
create a better future. In this era of rapid technological change, we
will only pass opportunity on to our children if we take advantage of
American ingenuity and innovation. No business in the world today facing
the pressures of the 21st century would gut its investment in research
and technology, and no country should either.
The Japanese are in the midst of a serious recession. Yet their
government just announced plans to double the Japanese re-
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search budget over the next 5 years. We have the lowest combined rates
of unemployment and inflation in 27 years, and I do not intend to
preside over a decision by Congress to cut our investment in research
and technology by a third.
Look at the people who are winning the Nobel Prizes and see how many
of them got Government-funded research. Look at the research that has
been funded by our Government agencies over the last several years in
new technologies, in new developments, and see the contribution that is
made here. America has the strongest economy in the world in large
measure because we are leading the race to the technology age. And I
don't believe we should drop out of the race on the edge of a new
century.
Of course, we have to balance the budget, but we don't need to do it
by cutting back on police officers and risking our safety. We don't need
to do it by slashing our research in science and technology and risking
our future. Remember, balancing the budget is more important to our
children than anything else. It's lifting the burden of future debt off
our children. We don't want to impose on our children a restricted
future by making them less safe today and less secure in terms of
economic opportunity tomorrow.
There is one last thing I'd like to say. Eight months ago today
terror visited our children in Oklahoma City. The memory of that awful
tragedy will be with us forever. Just yesterday, law enforcement
officers found a bomb outside a Federal office building in Reno, Nevada.
In the weeks after Oklahoma City, I sent to the Congress a bill to give
law enforcement the tools they need to crack down on terrorism and to
protect our families, terrorism arising from within the United States,
terrorism coming from beyond our borders.
The Senate passed the bill last June with sweeping bipartisan
support. But a few people with extreme views have prevented the House of
Representatives from even considering the bill. They have held it up
long enough. Here in this time of peace for our country, I ask all
Americans to remember the victims of Oklahoma City, and I ask the
Congress to give law enforcement the tools they need to be truly peace
officers.
When they send me a bill that protects our families by keeping our
promise to put 100,000 police officers on the street, they should also
protect our families by keeping their promise to send us a strong
antiterrorism bill.
Thank you.
[At this point, the President signed the veto message.]
Budget Impasse
Q. Mr. President, are your numbers on Medicare and Medicaid savings
negotiable?
The President. You know what I said yesterday; I said--I carry this
little statement around with me. This is the agreement I made with the
Congress when we reopened the Government. The agreement says that we
will enact legislation to balance the budget in 7 years, protecting
Medicare, Medicaid, education, the environment, and other things and
that the agreement we finally make must be scored by the Congressional
Budget Office as bringing the budget into balance. What is not
negotiable with me is that we must protect these things.
I have proposed savings in Medicare and Medicaid that are
considerable but that will protect both the integrity of the programs
and the interest of the people who depend upon Medicare and Medicaid.
So what I said to the Speaker and to Senator Dole yesterday was if
they wanted me to put down a 7-year budget on the front end, I expected
them to respond to the second part of this resolution. This is not a
resolution about just any old 7-year budget. This 7-year budget has all
these things that we all agreed to, to protect, and Medicare and
Medicaid are at the top of that list.
Q. Can you protect Medicare and Medicaid with----
Q. ----seven years protecting all these things, including the things
the Republicans added to it?
The President. Well, it depends on a lot of other variables. That's
why--we were negotiating in good faith at the time they called the
negotiations off last week, apparently because of the group in the House
that has been controlling a lot of the decisions here for the last
several months. We have put forward more than twice as many policy
changes
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as they had in a good-faith effort to reach agreement.
The answer to your question is, yes, we could pass a 7-year budget
that protects Medicare and Medicaid, education, and the environment and
that does not--and our research and technology budget--and does not
raise taxes on working families and that has great credibility in the
financial markets. We can do that. If that is what the Congress wants to
do, we can do it.
If, instead, the balanced budget is a cover for making war on the
ability of the National Government to protect our common interest and to
move us ahead, then I can't go along with that. But of course we can do
it. And I hope that after this meeting I'm going to have in a few
minutes, we'll be closer to doing it.
Q. Do you expect to get an agreement to reopen the Government at
this meeting?
The President. I don't know. That's up to the Congress. Only the
Congress can shut the Government down, and only the Congress can reopen
it. But they can certainly reopen it, and I hope they will, particularly
this week. It's just wrong for the Federal employees and, even more, for
the American people, to have the Government close the week before
Christmas. It is a decision they made and they can undo it, and I hope
they will.
Q. Do you share the concerns, Mr. President, of the financial
markets that lack of a budget agreement may keep interest rates locked
in place or even turn them around and head them back upward?
The President. Well, let me say this. I think the action of the
Federal Reserve today--although I don't want to comment on the merits of
it one way or the other, but there's a general understanding that we
have a--first of all, back in '93, we made some very tough decisions
without any bipartisan support to bring the deficit down and to increase
investment in technology and research and education and the environment,
things that would grow the economy. Interest rates came down; billions
of dollars were invested; there was a homebuilding boon; we got the
economy going again.
The fundamentals of this economy were sound. There is good growth.
There is low inflation--I will say again, the lowest combined rates of
inflation and unemployment in 27 years. And we have to continue on that
track. I think the message ought to be to people who are concerned about
that is that this deficit is going to keep coming down, regardless.
There is too much determination for that. That is not what this debate
is all about. The deficit will keep coming down, regardless. The
leadership of both parties favors that.
But we must have a 7-year balanced budget plan that reflects our
other values. We are doing well in the world economy because the deficit
is coming down and because the other things that are being done in the
private sector are good and because the other things the Government is
doing are good things. So we have to keep doing all the right things if
we want to succeed. That's what the debate over the budget plan is
about.
If the markets are worried about whether the deficit is going to
keep coming down--they should forget about that. The deficit is going to
keep coming down, regardless.
Thank you.
Note: The President spoke at 2:34 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White
House.