[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 18 (Monday, May 6, 1996)]
[Pages 738-739]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

April 27, 1996

    Good morning. This has been a very good week for America. On Friday 
I signed a bipartisan budget to keep the Government operating for the 
rest of the year. After a year of intense and sometimes heated debate, 
Republicans and Democrats in Congress came together and worked with us 
to craft an agreement that is good for the American people.
    First of all, it keeps the deficit on the downward path we started 
in 1993. This budget cuts billions of dollars in spending. At the same 
time, the budget upholds America's most basic values, as I have pledged 
to do, by honoring our commitment to our elderly, to our children, and 
to our future by protecting Medicare and Medicaid, preserving our fight 
against crime, investing in education and in the protection of the 
environment.
    Look how far we've come. A year ago, many in Congress insisted we 
could only move toward a balanced budget by imposing extreme measures 
and walking away from those commitments. I knew that wasn't true, and I 
was determined to hold the line. So now we aren't going to break our 
promise to put 100,000 new police officers on the street. We aren't 
going to stop enforcing antipollution laws and risk severe damage to our 
environment. We aren't going to abandon our effort to shrink class size 
and raise teachers' standards, to keep kids in school safe and make 
college more affordable. We aren't going to abandon our commitment to 
AmeriCorps, our national service program, which also helps young people 
pay for college as they serve in their communities.
    But here's what we are going to do: We are going to cut the deficit 
for the 4th year in a row. This is the first time that has happened in 
almost 50 years, since Harry Truman was President. We're on the way to a 
balanced budget. The deficit this year will be less than half of what it 
was when I took office. And now we've got to finish the job.
    Earlier this year I proposed a plan to balance the budget, and 
Congress' own economists have certified that plan will balance the 
budget in 7 years. Republicans in Congress have their own balanced 
budget plan. If you laid my plan and their plan side by side, you would 
find enough cuts in common to both plans to balance the budget and 
provide a tax cut for working families. So the ingredients for a 
balanced budget are clearly at hand. All we have to do is sit down 
together and assemble a final agreement based on the things we already 
agree on.
    But that's the problem. I have made it clear that I want to meet 
with Congress and work this out as soon as possible. I said this week 
I'm willing to meet with a large group of lawmakers or a small group of 
Republican and Democratic leaders. When Senator Dole said that maybe the 
two of us ought to get together and work it out, I told Senator Dole I'd 
be more than happy to meet with him alone. I don't care how we do it. My 
singular goal is to work together with the Republicans to craft a 
bipartisan plan to balance the budget in 7 years while upholding our 
values and our commitment to the future.
    I'd like to take a minute to speak directly to the Republicans in 
Congress. I know some people in your party are urging you to reject 
bipartisan negotiation in favor of more partisan confrontation. That 
would be a terrible mistake. Let me be blunt. I refused to accept 
extreme proposals for the last year and a half, and I will not accept 
extreme proposals for the future. If it is your political strategy to

[[Page 739]]

concoct a budget that you hope I will not sign, you ought to think 
again. If you torpedo these negotiations today, after so much progress 
has been made on a balanced budget, simply to create a campaign issue 
for later, the American people will see through that with their eyes 
closed.
    So I urge you this morning to take the high road to progress. Do 
what we did with this year's budget, with the antiterrorism bill, with 
the telecommunications bill, with the lobby reform bill. Come meet with 
me and let's finish this job together. This is an historic chance to 
balance the budget. We're within inches of agreement, and nothing--not 
politics, not partisanship, not Presidential campaigns--nothing should 
be allowed to stop us.
    Just about a year ago I gave a speech to the American Society of 
Newspaper Editors. I told them then I did not want a pile of vetoes. I 
told them I wanted to work with Congress and get things done for the 
American people. But I also said I'd never accept extreme and 
unnecessary measures that would jeopardize our ability to care for our 
elderly, educate our children, and protect our environment. 
Unfortunately, a lot of Republicans in Congress didn't believe me. They 
shut the Government down. They refused to cooperate. But look what 
happened. When they tried to impose these drastic measures I was forced 
to stop them, just as I said I would. But then last week we worked 
together, and we quickly agreed on a budget plan that accomplishes what 
I said could be done all along: The deficit is going down, and our 
commitments are secure.
    Today the Republican leaders in Congress face a similar choice. They 
can go it alone and we will end up going nowhere, or they can come on 
down to the White House and we will get a good job done for the American 
people together. That's how our system works best. That's how we should 
reform health care and help working families.
    Every United States Senator, for example, every single one, 100 of 
them, voted to pass the bipartisan Kennedy-Kassebaum health care reform 
bill. Now, Republicans can work with us to make that health care more 
available to 43 million Americans by passing a bill that says that you 
ought to be able to keep your health insurance if you change jobs or 
lose a job, and you ought not to be denied health insurance just because 
somebody in your family has been sick. We can agree on that, or the 
Republicans can send me a more partisan bill that has special provisions 
for special interests.
    The Republican leadership can work with us to raise the minimum 
wage, or they can go on ignoring working families and moderates in their 
very own party, and do their best to obstruct even a vote on the minimum 
wage.
    Now, if you look at what's been done that is good in the last year 
and 4 months--this year's budget, the antiterrorism bill, the 
telecommunications bill, the lobby reform--every single good thing has 
been done because Democrats and Republicans in Congress worked together 
and worked with me. That's how to get things done.
    The only way for us to move forward is to do it together. That's the 
right thing to do on balancing the budget; the right thing to do on 
health care reform; the right thing to do on the minimum wage. That is 
what we are here for: to move America forward. So let's get together, 
and let's get to work.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 5:21 p.m. on April 26 at the DuPont 
Hotel in Wilmington, DE, for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on April 27.