From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:jcma@REAGAN.AI.MIT.EDU Sat Apr 17 18:01:05 1993
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1993 17:12-0400
From: The White House <75300.3115@compuserve.com>
Subject: President's Remarks to the People of Pittsburgh  4.17.93
To: Clinton-Speeches-Distribution@campaign92.org
Status: OR

                         THE WHITE HOUSE

                  Office of the Press Secretary
                    (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                         April 17, 1993     

	     
                     REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                   TO THE PEOPLE OF PITTSBURGH
                                 
	     
                 Pittsburgh International Airport
                     Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 
                                 

11:16 A.M. EDT
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  Thank you so much.  
Senator Wofford, Governor Casey, Commissioner Foerster -- happy 
birthday -- and Commissioner Flaherty -- I am so glad to be back 
in Pittsburgh in Allegheny County.  (Applause.)

	     Now, where's the band who played for us -- up there?  
(Applause.)  The Richland High Marching Band -- thank you very 
much.
	     
	     I want to say, Mayor, it's always good to be with 
you and be in your city.  I want to also acknowledge the presence 
here today of Congressmen Coyne, Klink, Murphy and Murtha, all of 
whom have supported this economic program to get our country 
moving again.  (Applause.)  And a person who has made some 
decisions that are very good for Pittsburgh and U.S. Air, and I 
think for the future of the country, the Transportation 
Secretary, Federico Pena, who is here with us.  (Applause.)
	     
	     I want to say a lot of things about the economic 
program, but before I do, let me say what -- since all of you 
heard the radio address and the interview, you know that this 
morning the jury in Los Angeles handed down a verdict in the 
Rodney King case.  You don't know that?  I thought you heard it.  
Well, let me say that they did.  And the jury found two of the 
defendants guilty and two of the defendants not guilty.  
(Applause.)  The jury convicted the officer, Officer Powell, who 
was shown on the film -- (applause) -- who did most of the 
beating, and the Sergeant who was in charge of the group of 
police officers who were there.  (Applause.)  
	     
	     The jury acquitted two of the other officers, 
including the one who was a rookie and the one who was on the 
film and, in part, trying to deflect some blows from Rodney King.
	     
	     Now, I want to say just a few words about that, 
because I think, frankly, our attitude about each other may have 
as much to do with the progress we need to make in the future as 
any specific law we can pass.  This verdict was a tribute to the 
work and the judgment of the jury and the efforts of the federal 
government in putting the case together.  It was, once again, a 
reminder that our courts are the proper forum for the resolution 
of even our deepest legal disputes.  And it did establish what a 
lot of people have felt in their hearts for two years, that the 
civil rights of Rodney King were violated.
	     
	     But I ask you to think about the deeper meaning of 
this whole issue.  All across the world today people are fighting 
with each other and killing each other because of their racial 
and religious differences.  In Eastern Bosnia, in the town of 
Srebrenica, Muslims and Serbs that lived together for centuries, 
and tens of thousands of the Muslims are now about to be forced 
from their homes through a process called ethnic cleansing, and 
because the Serbs had decided that they just can't live unless 
they can live alone and without others who are different from 
them.
	     
	     Our country has always been about something 
different from that.  We see these kinds of racial and ethnic 
conflicts on every continent all across the globe.  But we've 
always been about something different from that.  I once gave a 
speech to a university in Los Angeles County where there were 
students from 122 different countries.  There are now people from 
150 different racial and ethnic groups in that county alone.  And 
I say to you, my fellow Americans, unless we really do believe 
that underneath the differences of race and religion and 
ethnicity, underneath the differences of political party and 
political opinion, there is a core in each one of us given us by 
God in which we share in common which obliges us to respect one 
another and to wish to live together in harmony and peace, none 
of the other things I came to talk to you about today can come to 
pass.  (Applause.)
	     
	     For the people of Los Angeles and the people of this 
country -- all around the country who need more opportunity, the 
time has come to go forward, to rededicate ourselves to the civil 
rights of all Americans, to rededicate ourselves to the fight 
against crime and drugs and violence -- (applause) -- to put 
100,000 more police officers on the street, to pass the Brady 
Bill and try to reduce the vulnerability to violence and crimes 
by people -- (applause) -- to commit ourselves to a new agenda of 
expanding opportunity and empowerment.  But, in the beginning, 
must be the willingness of every American to assume a personal 
responsibility to respect the differences of his or her fellow 
Americans and rejoice in what unites us as human beings.  
(Applause.)
	     
	     Surely the lasting legacy of the Rodney King trial 
ought to be that -- a determination to reaffirm our common 
humanity and to make a strength of our diversity.  And if we can 
do that, then we can get on about the business of this great 
land.
	     
	     I want to -- before I talk a little bit about the 
stimulus program -- also say a special word about the gentleman 
who introduced me, and those of you who sent him to the Senate.  
When Pennsylvania elected Harris Wofford against all the odds 
less than two years ago, you started a movement not just that led 
to a change in presidents, but that led to a change in America. 
I'm here to tell you today that Pennsylvania sent shock waves to 
the country by electing Harris Wofford because Pennsylvania was 
saying we expect our government to solve the health care crisis.  
(Applause.)  We expect our government to solve the jobs crisis.  
(Applause.)  
	     
	     I wonder how many people would have even taken 
seriously the campaign that I undertook to try to break the 
gridlock and change the whole way Washington works, to reduce the 
influence of special interest and put the American people --their 
jobs, their health care, their education -- first, to try to 
change the welfare system and start a system of national service 
so people could earn their way through college -- I wonder if any 
of that could have happened if Pennsylvania hadn't said in a 
loud, screaming, clear voice by electing Harris Wofford, the time 
has come to change the direction of this country.  (Applause.)
	     
	     I also want to ask you for your understanding and 
your patience.  Senator Wofford has been working hard on this 
health care issue ever since he got to the Senate, but you can't 
change the health care system unless the White House and the 
Congress are in harness.  And I, my wife, and our administration 
are working on this health care issue to put the White House and 
the Congress in harness to ensure affordable health care to all 
Americans.  (Applause.)  
	     
	     I also want to say, again, how much I appreciate 
U.S. Air and the employees for giving us this wonderful terminal 
to meet in today.  (Applause.)  
	     
	     And now let me talk about what Governor Casey spoke 
about.  When I became President, I promised a long-term economic 
plan -- no short-term miracles, but a real effort to turn this 
country around.  And I presented that plan to the Congress.  They 
have to vote on it twice -- first in broad outlines, and then in 
the details.  They adopted the outlines, the so-called budget 
resolution, in record time.  They have never moved so rapidly. 
	     
	     It changes the whole way the federal government 
takes care of your money and has your priorities at stake.  It 
emphasizes a dramatic reduction in the federal deficit, and at 
the same time, increasing investment in jobs, in education and 
health care and communities and the things that will make the 
country grow, over a five-year period -- not a one-shot deal, 
over five years.  It does it by a combination of strict budget 
cuts, and raising some more money -- 70 percent of it comes from 
people with incomes over $100,000 a year to try to restore some 
fairness to this tax code that has gotten so unfair  in the last 
12 years.  (Applause.)  This program is a good program.  It is 
what I campaigned on.  
	     
	     Then I asked the Congress to do something I didn't 
really campaign on, but that I decided was important -- to adopt 
a short-term jobs program to immediately create a half a million 
jobs in this economy.  And I'll tell you why I did it, even 
though we never talked about it in these rallies when I came 
here.  Because I looked around the world and I saw that every 
advanced economy in the world is having trouble creating jobs.  
Everyone.  And then I looked at America and I saw that the 
economists were saying that we have been in an economic recovery 
for a year.  And the unemployment rate is higher now than it was 
when we were in the depths of the recession.
	     
	     So America is like a lot of these other countries.  
If you look at the overall figures -- a lot of you are 
responsible for this, by the way -- productivity, our output per 
working person, is up.  Some profits of our corporations are up.  
Stock market at record-high levels.  Now interest rates are going 
down because we're committed to reducing the deficit.  And a lot 
of you, as a result, have refinanced your homes or gotten a lower 
mortgage on a -- or interest rate on a car, or other consumer 
interest rates.  People have been able to get business loans or 
refinance them.
	     
	     That's all good.  But where are the jobs?  This is a 
sweeping, worldwide problem for wealthier countries.  But it is 
your problem and your community's problem if you or your 
neighbors don't have one.  And as a result of the incredible 
pressures on business today, we see that even in this so-called 
recovery, we're having no new jobs created and we're having 
100,000 Americans a month lose their health insurance.  I say we 
can do better and we have to try to do better.  (Applause.)
	     
	     And so we came up with the idea of not having the 
government create a job for everybody that's unemployed -- you 
know we don't have enough money to do that with the deficit as 
high as it is -- but of having a very carefully targeted jobs 
plan to create a half a million jobs and hope it would operate 
like striking a match, and then that would get the economy 
spurred and other new jobs would be created.  It was a 
disciplined, limited, targeted plan, clearly designed to get this 
economy going again in the short run. 
	     
	     And that is what I've asked the House and the Senate 
to adopt.  The House adopted the plan right away.  A majority of 
the Senate is for it.  All the Republicans are filibustering it, 
which means they know it will pass, so they won't let it come to 
a vote.
	     
	     Now, let me tell you what it will do.  It will give 
communities a lift by putting thousands of police officers on the 
street to try to make the streets safer.  (Applause.)  It will 
invest in roads and streets and bridges and cleaner water and 
sewer systems and put people to work in construction work.  That 
is important.  It will give cities -- (applause) -- and counties 
and states some discretionary money to support projects like this 
one.  It will create 700,000 jobs for young people who otherwise 
wouldn't have any work this summer to get them off the streets.  
(Applause.)
	     
	     After trying for a long time to pass this program 
and getting no help from any of the Republican senators, because 
it takes -- we have to have at least three or four of them to 
help because it takes 60 people to shut off debate in the Senate 
-- not a majority -- 60 percent.  I offered a compromise.  Well, 
you've heard that old saying, it takes two to tango?  It also 
takes two to untangle the gridlock in Washington.  And I came 
here today asking you to ask Senator Specter to help me untangle 
this gridlock.  (Applause.)
	     
	     The Republicans say, well, maybe we ought to pay 
money to extend the unemployment benefits of people who are 
unemployed, but not a dime to create any jobs.  We tried that for 
12 years -- pay people to be unemployed; don't pay them to work.  
I say we should do both -- take care of the unemployed, but 
reduce the unemployed -- put people to work.  (Applause.)
	     
	     There are those who say, everything's fine, we don't 
need this.  Everybody who says that has got a job.  (Laughter.)  
Everybody who says that has got health insurance.  Everybody who 
says that has a good education and is going to do fine almost no 
matter what happens.  They can take care of themselves.  The 
people who know how many vulnerable people there are in America 
know that we've got to try to do something to put the people to 
work.  If it doesn't work, we'll do something else.  But let's 
try this.  It can work.  (Applause.)
	     
	     Let me say, in fairness to my opponents -- I want 
you to know what their argument is.  They say if the Congress 
passes an emergency jobs bill, that adds to the deficit, and we 
shouldn't do anything to make the deficit bigger.  Nothing.  
Except maybe unemployment benefits.  Now, that has a lot of 
appeal.  Here's what they don't tell you.  We could pass every 
dollar I've asked for in this jobs plan and still be below the 
total spending targets that this Congress established before I 
ever became President -- for how much money was going to be spent 
this year, right, Congressmen?   Number one.
	     
	     Number two, we have cut and cut and cut spending in 
this budget -- over 200 specific spending cuts over the next five 
years that will blow away this extra spending.  This spending is 
more than covered by budget cuts.
	     
	     And third -- and the most important thing of all you 
need to know is that before I became President, just in the last 
four years, a lot of these same people voted for the same kind of 
emergency spending -- billions and billions and billions of 
dollars of it.  A lot of it for overseas spending or other things 
that didn't have anything to do with putting the people of 
Pennsylvania to work.  So they did this before, let's do it for 
the American people this time.  (Applause.)
	     
	     What's amazing to me -- they also say, well, you 
can't trust the cities and counties with the money.  You give 
these community development block grants to the cities, you can't 
ever tell -- well, they'll fool around a build a swimming pool 
with it.  (Laughter.)  I have a couple of things to say about 
that.  First of all, it was the Republicans in Washington that 
once championed these community development grants.  Your late 
Senator from this state, John Heinz, was a great champion of the 
very thing I'm trying to -- increasing community development 
block grants.  (Applause.)
	     
	     Before I became President, I heard speech after 
speech out of the Republicans in Washington -- that I agreed with 
-- saying that people at the local level have better sense than 
we do about how to spend this money.  How many times did the 
Congress get that speech from the Republicans -- let the mayors, 
let the governors, let the county officials spend this money.  
They know how to do it.  Well, funny enough, I propose to expand 
that program, and all of a sudden they said, why, you can't trust 
those people, they'll squander the money.  (Laughter.)  They 
might build a swimming pool.  (Laughter.)  
	     
	     Let me tell you something.  I don't know how you 
feel, but in a lot of these cities and small towns and country 
places, I'd a lot rather those kids be at swimming pools this 
summer than some of the places they're going to be.  (Applause.)
	     
	     You go to Washington -- the President's got a 
swimming pool.  The Senate has a swimming pool.  Why shouldn't 
the people have a swimming pool?  (Applause.)
	     
	     And what about all those people who are going to 
work building those kinds of things in our cities?  I'm tell you, 
folks, every argument they've got still comes back to gridlock. 
	     
	      Now, again, I'm going to tell you, this is not the 
end of the world, but we need to keep this country moving.  And 
we need to create some jobs now.  And we need to stop making 
excuses.  We need to pull together.  I have reached out the hand 
of compromise to the Republicans in the Senate.  I did it all by 
myself.  I didn't have any kind of deal from them.  I just 
listened to them.  I listened to all those speeches about how bad 
these programs were.  So I said, okay, here's a different deal; 
and by the way, how about spending $200 million more to put 
police on the street?  Why don't you do that?  Let's hear what 
their answer is.  Why shouldn't we have police on the street 
where we need it in the cities, where we've have to cut back on 
law enforcement coverage?  Why shouldn't we have more people 
working in this country?  (Applause.)
	     
	     I want to ask you to help us put America back to 
work.  I want to ask you to help keep the movement going.  I have 
been very honest with you.  We don't have any magic bullets.  We 
know there won't be any overnight successes.  But we know that 
this economy, like so many countries in the world, is not 
creating jobs.  And if people were working -- you just think 
about it -- if everybody in this country who wanted a job had 
one, we wouldn't have half the problems we've got now.  Let's try 
to put America back to work.  (Applause.)
	     
	     By the end of this month -- let me give you one more 
example -- if we don't fund this program, the main loan program 
of the Small Business Administration will be shut down.  The 
opposite party for years paraded as the champion of the small 
businesses of this country.  That program can help start 25,000 
small businesses.  Small business is generating most of the new 
jobs in America today.  That is the kind of thing we have done 
here.  
	     
	     I ask you, please, not in a spirit of partisanship, 
not in an atmosphere of hostility, not with political rhetoric, 
just for the benefit of the people of Pittsburgh and Allegheny 
County and Pennsylvania and the United States of America, ask 
your senator and the senators in the United States Senate to give 
us a chance to put this country back to work -- starting Monday.  
(Applause.)
	     
	     Thank you, and God bless you all.

                               END11:30 A.M. EDT