From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:jcma@REAGAN.AI.MIT.EDU  Fri May 21 02:48:14 1993
Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 22:21-0400
From: The White House <75300.3115@compuserve.com>
To: Clinton-Speeches-Distribution@campaign92.org,
Subject: Remarks By The President At North Island Naval Air Station 

 Remarks By The President Upon Arrival At North Island Naval Air
Station In San Diego Monday
 to: National Desk
 Contact: The White House, Office of the Press Secretary,
          202-456-2100

   SAN DIEGO, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following are the remarks of
President Clinton upon arrival at North Island Naval Air Station in
San Diego Monday, May 17:

   4:55 p.m. CDT

   The President: Thank you so much. Let me begin by thanking Lynn
Schenk for that vigorous introduction; and Bob Filner for what he
said. I can tell you, if we had a whole Congress full of people like
Lynn Schenk and Bob Filner, we could turn this country around a lot
quicker. They have done a wonderful job up there. (Applause).
  I'd also like to thank all the people who came out to see me today
and to see -- (applause) -- my first visit in this county since the
election. I want to thank the Mayor of Coronado, the Mayor of San
Diego, the state officials who are here, the Lieutenant Governor, the
Secretary of State, the State Comptroller. But mostly, I just want to
thank all of you. It is wonderful to be back here again. (Applause.)
And I'm happy.
   What did you say?
   Audience: Patrick Henry (high school) says, "Hi Bill!"
   The President: Hi! (Laughter.) You know, I spent a lot of time
here during the campaign. I watched people build ships. I listened to
people who had lost their jobs. I listened to people who were
starting new companies. I listened to people who were prepared to
change, but who did not understand why the national government would
turn its back on Southern California and on this state which carries
with it so much of the hopes and dreams of all of America, and so
much of the economic future of our entire country.
   And when I went to Washington, I was determined never to forget
the faces that I saw and the stories that I heard and the lessons
that I learned. I want you to know that in the last three and a half
months, we have made a real beginning toward turning this country
around. And we are going to stay until the job is done. (Applause.)
   You heard Lynn talk about a little of it; you heard Bob talk about
a little of it. But let me just repeat, for year and years and years
we just saw the Congress and the President fighting against one
another, decisions seemed not to be made, the veto pen was used more
often and people worked together. Seventeen days after I took office,
I signed the Family and Medical Leave Act to guarantee that working
people could have some time off when there's a sick parent or a sick
child without losing their job. (Applause.)
   For the first time in 17 years, the Congress passed a resolution
on time to set the framework of the budget that we're now working on.
And what that means is that we cannot raise your taxes unless we also
cut spending.  No tax increases without spending cuts to bring
the deficit down (Applause.)
   And to all the young people in the audience -- (applause) -- we
managed to win one for you, too, after years and years of trying.
Just a few days ago, the United States Congress passed, and I am
about to sign, the Motor Voter bill to open up the voting rolls to
millions of young people and make it easier for people to register
and vote. (Applause.)
   But now we must focus on the hard part: How can we do the things
that we have to do to turn this country around?  How can we open the
economy up and give people who are working hard and playing by the
rules the chance to have a good future?  How can we do these things?
Here is what I think we have to do:
   The first thing we have to do is to pass a budget which does the
right things with your money.  We have seen the debt of this country
go from $1 trillion to $4 trillion in 12 years.  And what did you
get out of it?  We saw a decline in investment.  We saw working
people work harder for lower wages.  We saw taxes on the middle class
go up and taxes on the wealthy go down.  Everything was turned around
in opposite directions from where we ought to be going.
   We are beginning to change that.  This budget contains over $250
billion of hard budget cuts.  This budget raises most of the money we
raise in taxes from people with incomes above $100,000 -- over 74
percent of it.  This budget gives a tax break to working families
with incomes of under $30,000 to protect them from the impact of the
decisions we have to make.
   And we have proposed to put all the taxes and all the spending
cuts into a legally separate trust fund so the money cannot be spent
to do anything but bring the debt down.  It is time we stopped
talking about this and started doing something about it.  (Applause.)
   And, you know, when you hear people say no, no, no, ask them where
they were the last 12 years.  Most of the people who say that we
don't have a good plan are the very people that drove this country in
the ditch in the first place.  They took that debt from $1 trillion
to $4 trillion.  Where were they? (Applause.)
   But let me tell you some things you may not know about this bill.
When I came here, I said that we had not only to reduce the deficit,
we had to provide more incentives for people to invest to create
jobs.  So this tax bill also gives real incentives to get the real
estate markets going here again.  It gives small business people a
$25,000 a year expensing provision -- two-and-a-half times greater
than the present law, so that there will be incentives for small
businesspeople to reinvest in their businesses and put people to
work.  It gives a big incentive to larger companies located here and
throughout the United States to increase in more plant and equipment
to modernize and create jobs because they can write it off more
rapidly.  This bill is pro-investment, not consumption.  This is a
bill designed to create jobs, not take them away.  And I hope we can
pass it in the United States Congress. (Applause.)
   And let me say this again: This bill provides for tax relief for
the working poor so that when this bill passes, every American will
be able to say with some pride, we're rewarding work and not welfare
in this country; now, if you work 40 hours a week and you've got a
child in the house, you won't be in poverty anymore.  I think that's
something that's worth doing. (Applause.) It protects families with
incomes of under $30,000 from the energy tax.  And for families over
$40,000 up to about $100,000, it minimizes the burdens of about $10
to $15 a month.  And I think it's worth that to get our country back
and get this deficit down and reclaim our financial future.  We've
got to put our house in order, folks.  And if we don't do it, we're
going to be paying for it from now on. (Applause.)
   But let me tell you what else we are trying to do.  It is not just
enough to deal with the budget.  We have to do things that will
create jobs.  This county knows as well as well as any in America
that it was wrong to cut defense spending as much as we did with no
plan to reinvest in a domestic economy.  We have in this budget over
$1.7 billion this year and $20 billion in the next four years to
convert from a defense to a domestic economy, to help it go --
civilian jobs, commercial jobs, to retrain people, to rebuild
communities, to get this country going again (Applause.) And we must
do that. (Applause.)
   I also recognize, and I'm sure many of you do, that the financial
health of this country will never be assured until finally we join
all the other advanced countries with which we're competing and
provide health care security with a basic health care for all
Americans at affordable cost.  And we are coming with a health care
plan to do just that.  And I hope the American people will support it
(Applause.)
   Finally, let me say that California needs an economic strategy
that will be built from the grassroots up, but that will have a
partner in the White House.  I have delegated to Secretary of
Commerce Ron Brown the responsibility of representing this
administration in this state and developing a coordinated economic
policy for the long-term health and welfare of the California
economy.  And we will not stop until we have turned this state around
and moved this state forward (Applause.)
   We have made a beginning in this budget.  With all the budget cuts
we've got, there is more money in this budget for California and the
other states that are hit unfairly by the burdens of large
immigration problems and all the costs that go into it.  The federal
government's going to pay more of our fair share in California now
and ask you to pay less (Applause).
   We're going to invest more in environmental cleanup in the kind of
water problems that you have here.  We're going to do our part, and
we're going to do it right. (Applause.)
   And most importantly of all, we're going to continue to work on
building an economic base that will replace the prosperity you
enjoyed in times of high defense spending when the Cold War was at
its height.  It is wrong to let the people who won the Cold War lose
the peace afterward.  It is wrong to turn our backs on the state that
moved this country so much in the 1980s.  It is wrong not to have a
strategy that will not work miracles but that will make progress day
in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out.
   And I want you to know that we are going to work our hearts out in
Washington together in order to move this state forward and move this
country forward, and I want you to help us do it.
   Will you do it? (Applause.)
   Lynn Schenk said it better than I could, but I want to reiterate
it: The country went in one direction for 12 years, and it was a
popular direction.  The most popular thing in the world to do if
you're in public life is to cut people's taxes and spend more money.
But sooner or later, your string runs out.  Sooner or later, people
look around and they say, how did we have a $4 trillion debt?  How
can we be spending over $300 million a year over and above what we're
taking in?  How can we be working harder for lower wages?  Why are
these other countries able to invest and create jobs and grow, and we
don't have the money?
   The reason is because we stopped thinking about the future.  We
did what was popular in the short run.  We took the easy way and the
shortcut, and we are paying for it.  But I'm telling you, this
country is still the strongest country in the world economically,
militarily, politically, the fabric of our people, the strength of
our families, the will of individuals to succeed is as strong as it
has ever been.  All we have to do now is to have the courage to face
these problems forthrightly.  Let's pass a budget that puts our house
in order.  Let's invest in the education of our people and the new
technologies of the future.  (Applause) Let's provide health care to
our people.  Together we can do it.  We need your help.  We need your
support for people like Lynn and Bob who care about the future and
are willing to make the tough decisions.  Stay with us and we can
turn the country around and California around together.
   Thank you and God bless you all.  (Applause.)

   END 5:07 P.M. CDT

   -0-
   /U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/