From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:hes@REAGAN.AI.MIT.EDU  Mon May 10 17:11:36 1993
Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 12:46-0400
From: The White House <75300.3115@compuserve.com>
To: Clinton-Speeches-Distribution@campaign92.org,
Subject: President's Remarks to the Citizens of Cleveland, Ohio

                         THE WHITE HOUSE

                  Office of the Press Secretary
                        (Cleveland, Ohio)
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                           May 10, 1993     

	     
                     REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                     TO CITIZENS OF CLEVELAND

                           The Galleria
                         Cleveland, Ohio    

11:10 A.M. EDT
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  
Thank you.  Thank you, Congressman Stokes, Senator Metzenbaum.  I 
want to thank Lou Stokes and Howard Metzenbaum for the support 
that they have given to this administration to making a new 
beginning for America, to putting the American people back to 
work and to giving Washington back to you.
	     
	     I also want to say a special word of thanks to my 
friend, Eric Fingerhut, for coming here -- the leader of the 
freshmen in Congress and a great representative.  (Applause.)  
Someone who believes in the cause of reform.  I want to thank 
your fine Mayor Mike White, who labored mightily to try to get 
some more money for jobs here in Cleveland.  (Applause.)
	     
	     I wish people all over America who think that our 
cities aren't working would come to Cleveland and see houses 
being built, the stadium going up, new malls being built, and 
things happening.  I think it is very, very impressive what is 
happening here under the leadership of Mike White.  And I 
appreciate him very much.  (Applause.)
	     
	     I also want to thank Congressman Hoke for coming 
here.  I'm glad to see a bipartisan representative.  I'm trying 
to govern in a bipartisan way and some of those fellows in the 
Senate don't want me to.  But if we get together on America's 
problems as America, we'd do a lot better than pointing partisan 
fingers.  (Applause.)
	     
	     Finally, I want to thank Attorney General Lee Fisher 
and your State Treasurer Mary Ellen Withrow.  And I want to say a 
special word of thanks to Lee for his leadership in our campaign 
last year. 
	     
	     I haven't been to Cleveland since the day before the 
election -- that's right, that's what Lou said.  I have been to 
Ohio once since I've been President.  I look forward to coming 
back.
	     
	     I want to talk to you a little today about why I 
came to the middle of the country in the middle of the day -- to 
reiterate what is at stake in Washington.  I just walked through 
the Galleria here.  I want to thank the people who opened it up 
to me and Mr. Cleary and Mr. Masters.  I want to thank all the 
store owners who came out to see me.  And some of them gave me 
some things and some of them sold me some things, which is, after 
all, the most important thing.  (Laughter.)  They did a good job.
	     
	     I wanted to come back here to remind you that the 
reason I did all that work last year and came here and asked the 
people of Ohio and Cleveland to vote for me was not so I could 
live in the White House, but so I could give the government back 
to you.  (Applause.)
	     
	     The struggles in which we are engaged now are very 
important ones.  It may seem strange to you, but there are really 
people in Washington who believe the most important thing we can 
do is to avoid change at all costs.  It may seem strange to you 
after years of living with a government where the debt of this 
country went from $1 trillion to $4 trillion between 1980 and 
1992, where unemployment went up and wages went down and we began 
to lose our competitive position, where we cut defense but had no 
plan to put our defense workers to work building the domestic 
economy -- with all the troubles we've got, where we've got 37 
million Americans with no health insurance and others in small 
businesses terrified they're going to lose it, and people who 
can't change jobs because they've had somebody in their family 
sick and they know they can't get health insurance in a new place 
-- it may seem strange to you, but there really are people in the 
Nation's Capital who say no more change.  
	     
	     Well, I think most of you want us to do something, 
and I think you want us to be bold, and I think you want us to 
try to turn this country around, and I think you would rather see 
us -- (applause) -- I believe you'd rather see us err on the side 
of effort than on the side of just preserving the status quo.  
(Applause.)  
	     
	     You look at these children here -- these 
schoolchildren, or those fine schoolchildren back there, or these 
young naval cadets. This whole deal is about whether they are 
going to have the American Dream, about whether people who work 
hard and play by the rules are going to wind up better off or 
worse off.  We've got a lot of complicated problems.  And I know 
-- I knew when I got there it wasn't going to happen overnight.  
I tried to make it happen overnight.  I've been criticized for 
doing more than one thing at once.  I've always felt -- can you 
do one thing at once?  Can you do -- wouldn't it be nice if all 
you had to do was go to work and not take care of your family?  
Would it be nice if you could pay your bills and not earn any 
money to pay them?  (Laughter.)  I don't understand this whole -- 
you can't do one thing at once.  But anyway, that's what they 
say.  
	     
	     We are trying to do a lot of things, but they all 
relate to restoring the economic vitality of this country and 
restoring the middle class and the values of the middle class to 
a central part in American life.  That is what this whole 
economic program is about and what I came to talk to you about 
again today.
	     
	     No one said it would be easy, but it has been 
immensely rewarding.  In about 110 days, after two vetoes, I can 
look back and say we signed the Family and Medical Leave Act to 
guarantee you don't lose your job if you've got somebody sick in 
your family.  (Applause.)
	     
	     We have put forward comprehensive plans to use 
technology to generate new jobs, comprehensive plans to help move 
people from defense jobs into domestic jobs and to make sure that 
our young people who come out of the service after serving this 
country are not just left out in the cold because of the 
cutbacks.  And we got a record approval of the outline of a 
budget that cuts the deficit of this country over $500 billion in 
the next five years with over 200 specific budget cuts and, yes, 
with some tax increases.  Seventy percent of them fall on the 
upper five percent of the American people whose taxes went down 
and whose incomes went up in the 1980s.  I think it's a good plan 
and it will restore hope for the American economy.  (Applause.)
	     
	     You know, we're trying to do something no generation 
of Americans has ever had to do.  I came into office with a 
record debt.  And then after the election I was told the deficit 
was really about $50 billion higher in three of the next four 
years than we'd been told before.  And, yet, we looked around and 
we saw we'd reduced our investment in education and training, 
reduced our investment in new technologies, had no plan to deal 
with people who lose their jobs because of defense cutbacks.  And 
so we had to do something nobody had ever done.  We had to try to 
find out how to bring the debt down and invest in our people, 
their job, and their future.  I think we have got to do that.  If 
we don't do both, we're going to be in big trouble.  (Applause.)
	     
	     Now, look at the result.  Since the election --since 
it became absolutely clear that this administration was dead 
serious about bringing this deficit down, interest rates in many 
areas have hit an all-time low, home mortgages at a 20-year low.  
I know there are people in this audience who have refinanced a 
home mortgage in the last five months.  I know there are people 
here who have lower credit card rates, lower business loan rates, 
lower other rates because of interest rates going down.  That's 
going to put $100 billion back into this economy to spur 
investment and growth and jobs and income if we bring the deficit 
down.
	     
	     Now, we're going to go into a fight where 
everybody's going to say cut more spending and raise fewer taxes. 
And you know, what that really says is cut somebody else's 
spending and raise somebody else's taxes.  I wish it were 
possible for us all to hide behind a tree and point at somebody 
else.  But let's face it, in the last 12 years we got into this 
mess overnight -- we got into this mess not overnight, and we're 
not going to get out of it overnight.  We also, whether we like 
it or not, got into it together.  We're all in it together and 
we'd better get out of it together.  We're going to have to climb 
out of it together, march out of it together and walk out of it 
together.  (Applause.)
	     
	     But this plan is fair.  This plan has a big increase 
in the earned income tax credit -- to try to relieve families 
with income of under $30,000 of the burden of the energy tax I 
propose, which will raise money and help to clean up the 
environment.  This plan has an increase in this earned income tax 
credit so much that if you work 40 hours a week and you've got a 
child in the home, if you will apply for the tax credit you will 
be lifted out of poverty.  That is an elemental principle and a 
fundamental departure in America.
	     
	     We're going to reward work and not welfare for a 
change.  If you work and you've got kids, we're going to lift you 
out of poverty.  (Applause.)
	     
	     This will work.  It will bring the deficit down.  It 
will be fairer to working families.  It will help us to keep 
interest rates down.  It will help us to grow the economy.  And 
over the next five years, we'll have some money to invest in 
education and training and new technologies and jobs, and trying 
to help all those people in those high-tech jobs that are losing 
them because of defense cutbacks -- they can make us strong here 
at home if we do it right.  But we've got to do it as a package. 
	     
	     If everybody goes around saying what's in it for me, 
instead of what's in it for us, the thing will come apart.  
That's what paralyzes America -- every time we've got to make a 
tough decision, somebody says, let somebody else do it.  There's 
nobody else to do it but us.  We're going to have to lift our 
country up and we're going to have to do it together.  
(Applause.)
	     
	     One of the things that I do want to do is to repeal 
the tax breaks that lobbyists get.  (Applause.)  There are 80,000 
lobbyists in Washington making sure that I can't take care of 
your interests.  
	     
	     One of the things that we also have to do I think is 
to reform the political system.  I told you if you would elect me 
President, I'd do my best to reduce the influence of lobbyists 
and special interest groups, to increase your influence; to make 
it possible for all of the members of Congress, without regard to 
party, at least to feel freer, to follow their conscience and 
their constituents, and to listen to them with an open ear and an 
open heart.
	     
	     Well, there are two bills moving through the 
Congress now that will do just that.  When I took office the 
first thing I did was to sign an executive order saying that 
people who had top jobs for me couldn't go back into lobbying for 
five years and could never lobby for a foreign government.  
(Applause.)  Then a bill was introduced into the Congress that 
just passed the United states Senate which, for the first time, 
requires all the lobbyists to register and requires them to 
report all the gifts they give to members of Congress over a 
small amount.  So you'll know -- (applause.)  
	     
	     And at the end of last week, we announced a new 
campaign finance reform bill, which will do this:  it will reduce 
the influence of big money, it will reduce the influence of 
political action committees, it will reduce the influence of 
lobbyists, it will give political campaigns back to you.  It does 
it by limiting the amount of money that members of Congress can 
take from political action committees by reducing the maximum 
contribution in many areas.  It does it by saying that lobbyists 
cannot give money or raise money for members of Congress that 
they personally lobby.  And by repealing the tax exemption that 
lobbyists get, we're going to take that money and give it to 
members of Congress as communication vouchers so we can open the 
airwaves to honest debate, and nobody is denied the opportunity 
to be on the television or the radio just because they're not an 
incumbent or just because they're not wired to the lobbyists.  It 
is a good plan.  It will give the government back to you, the 
middle class of this country, and we ought to pass it.  
(Applause.)
	     
	     There are some other things that I think you need to 
know about that we're trying to do.  We've introduced our plans 
for national service and to make college available to all 
Americans, and here's how it works.  (Applause.)  But I need your 
help to pass it, because there are interest groups that are 
against it.  There are interest groups against everything.  
	     
	     This plan would say to every American family, you 
can borrow the money to go to college without fear of going 
bankrupt because you will not have to pay it back until you go to 
work.  And when you go to work, you can pay it back as a 
percentage of your income; so that no matter how much you borrow, 
you can't be required to pay more than a certain percentage of 
your income; you can't be bankrupted to secure your future.  
(Applause.)
	     
	     The bill also will give tens of thousands of young 
Americans the opportunity to pay their college loan, or a portion 
of it, off through service to our country -- as teachers, as 
police officers, working with kids in trouble.  They can earn it 
before they go to college, while they're in college, or after 
they get out.  But I think people ought to be able to work to 
make Cleveland and Ohio a better place and pay their college 
loans off.  (Applause.)
	     
	     And, believe it or not, if we just have the courage 
to change the way we're financing the college loan program, we 
can pay for most of this, particularly in the early years.  Why?  
Because the way the college loan programs works now, we are 
losing billions of dollars a year in huge transaction fees to 
banks and in loan defaults, because the government guarantees 90 
percent of every one of these loans.  So, what happens?  If 
somebody wants to default on the loan, what incentive does the 
bank have to go collect it?  It would cost you 10 percent to pay 
the lawyer.  So the taxpayers pay.  
	     
	     I say let's make the loans direct.  Let's cut out 
all the fat fees.  Let's make people pay them back at tax time so 
they can't beat the bill.  More responsibility and more 
opportunity for everybody.  (Applause.)
	     
	     Let me just make two other points.  First of all, 
while I have proposed over 200 specific budget cuts to take the 
lead in reducing this deficit by over $500 billion, I want you to 
know that nothing we can do will reduce this deficit over the 
long run to zero, which is what we want, until we finally face 
the fact that the biggest culprit in government spending today is 
the exploding cost of health care. 
	     
	     If we don't have the courage to try to provide a 
basic system of health coverage to all Americans, to try to give 
security to small businesses and working families who have health 
insurance but are terrified that they're going to lose it -- if 
we don't do that, then you will never get this deficit down to 
zero because the cost of government health care is going up by 12 
percent a year.  And 100,000 Americans a month are losing their 
health insurance.
	     
	     Now, there is no easy answer to this.  If it were 
easy, somebody else would have done it already.  It's hard.  Why?  
Because we're spending too much money on health care, but it's in 
all the wrong places.  And the question is, how are you going to 
move the money from where it shouldn't be -- in administrative 
costs and extra procedures and duplicated technologies and a lot 
of other things -- to where it should be, covering people who 
don't have health insurance, without bankrupting small business, 
without imposing undue financial burdens, without imposing new 
taxes on people that are already paying too much.  
	     
	     Can it be done?  You bet it can, but it won't be 
easy and it will require people who have been making a killing 
out of the present system to accept some change.  But I'm telling 
you, the worse thing we can do is to do nothing.  And everybody 
-- (applause) -- when we come out with this plan everybody will 
say, well, whatever we say to provide -- to get the money to 
people who don't have health insurance now or to provide health 
security to those who can't change jobs now, they'll call that a 
tax.  But when we lower by millions and millions and millions of 
dollars a year the health insurance premiums of people who are 
paying too much, or the paperwork burdens of the doctors and 
hospitals who are spending too much money filling out paper, they 
don't want to count that -- the defenders of the status quo -- as 
an offset.  We are going to have to change, folks, but most of 
what we have to do is to move the money from where it shouldn't 
be to where it should.  We're already spending plenty of money, 
but we've got to move it around.  (Applause.)  
	     
	     And you ought to be able to see that not only will 
it cost some people some more money to have health insurance, but 
a lot of people who are paying too much will save.  And that is 
what we have to do.  If we don't have the courage to change, we 
will not get the government budget under control.  But most 
important, working class families in this country and small 
business people will never have the health security without which 
it is virtually impossible to have a good life over the long run.  
We have got to do this.  And I am determined to see that we do.  
(Applause.)
	     
	     Let me just close by saying this:  This is a 
difficult time.  I told somebody the other day that I was 
absolutely convinced after 100 days as President that all the 
easy decisions had already been made by somebody else.  
(Laughter.)  Every day I meet with my staff and I say, send me 
just one easy one.  (Laughter.)  Let's declare a moratorium.  We 
won't talk about anything hard today.  Send me an easy one.  I'm 
still waiting.  (Laughter.)
	     
	     But I want you to know that we can turn this country 
around, we can secure our future.  It is in our power.  We can 
bring the deficit down.  We can increase our investment in 
education and jobs.  We can meet the competitive challenges ahead 
of us.  We can face the health care challenge.  But we have got 
to have the courage to change.  And we will win if we do that.  I 
wish to goodness I could just say to every one of you, you don't 
have to do any of this.  I'll just go to some other state and 
make them do it.  (Laughter.)  But I can't.
	     
	     Everybody will always be able to find some fault 
with every comprehensive proposal like this.  There's no such 
thing as a perfect proposal.  I don't like everything about 
everything that we have presented in the hope of passing and 
securing change.  But the test for this generation, the test for 
this whole generation is whether we are going to have the courage 
to make these changes, to rebuild the middle class, and to lift 
up the economy of this country, and to lift up all these children 
in this audience today.  I believe you have that courage, and 
together we're going to do it.
	     
	     Thank you, and God bless you all.  (Applause.) 

                               END11:30 A.M. EDT