In the outside analysis that I saw, President Clinton is correct when he says that upper
income people are going to bear the greatest burden.
It sounds like for a typical middle income family, someone earning between $30,000 and
$100,000, they will pay about $10 to $12 more a month, and that will come mostly in the
form of higher energy taxes.
The changes in income tax are aimed at the highest levels, and that is to say that the
rate will change for the very highest earners.
And some of these numbers that I've seen running in, this is a complicated thing, the White
House embargoes all this information, then they give it to members of Congress, then
members of Congress give it to reporters, who then write the story about facts which
they already knew, but now they have them from another source, so that's where it's
coming from.
So now that it's 9 o'clock Eastern time, and the copies have been distributed in advance,
I guess now is the time for the speech.
We just heard Mr. Malloy, that's the voice we're listening for, he announced the members
of the Supreme Court who have filed in, they are sitting today on the floor of the Senate
and they are wearing their robes, sometimes they sit in the family gallery in ordinary
clothes, but this is apparently a grand occasion, sufficiently grand for the court to assemble
on the floor of the Senate, where they have reserved seats right down front.
I'm sorry, Dan, you were saying?
I was only saying that it's very hard for us to discuss any longer all the things that
have been leaked, because now that copies of the speech have been distributed with an
embargo until he speaks, it kind of puts an embargo on all the previous discussions, which
were fine until we knew what was in the speech.
The chamber, people are beginning to take their seats, there's a lot of milling and
drilling during the course of this preamble here.
Members of the Cabinet will also be announced and will come in, and senior members of the
Diplomatic Corps.
Mr. Speaker, the President's Cabinet!
And here they come.
This will be, many of these are familiar faces to the members of the House and Senate jointly
assembled, since they were members of the House and Senate very recently in many cases.
Dan, this speech, although it is not a State of the Union speech, does indicate what President
Clinton aims to do with the economy.
There's a lot riding on this speech.
Yes, this is certainly the defining early moment of the presidency.
There were two rather bad weeks with a great deal of trouble over matters of the days in
the military and the nomination of an Attorney General.
Now his third week, there's a buildup.
Just wait for February 17th, and finally February 17th has arrived.
Now he has to deliver on all the things he said that we would be waiting for.
If this speech works tonight, he's in good shape.
If it doesn't, then he will have a great deal of obstacles to overcome from here on.
And, Nina, the President, his Cabinet, and everybody who works for him hasn't been wasting
a moment.
His job has already begun.
We've seen the President go out to the public to sell his plan, too, but tonight I was up
at the Democratic National Committee, where David Wilhelm, the new Chairman, was holding
a rolling series of conference calls.
He first talked to about 60 state and local officials.
Then he talked to state party chairs.
Then he talked to Clinton Gore volunteers, and as I was leaving, he was about to talk
to the finance people, but basically giving them pep talks and talking points.
When the first bits of news about his plans to increase taxes began to leak out, the stock
market took a dive.
It has recovered somewhat today.
I think that's called bargain-taking, but he makes this speech in an atmosphere of anticipation
where Republicans have said lots of unfriendly things about it.
The stock market has fallen.
Speakers of the press are saying it's a big moment for him, as you just said, Dan.
This creates quite an atmosphere.
Well, through some happenstance, or maybe not happenstance, there have been more leaks
about his tax proposals than about his spending cut proposals, making it possible for the
Republicans to say that it's tax and spend and tax and spend.
Clearly he will offer some very important proposals for cutting spending as well, but
the early impression of what he was going to do has put them a little bit on the defensive.
Here we go.
Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States!
It must be a tremendous thrill for this young president from Hope, Arkansas, to hear his
name called in the chamber of the House.
Of course, it's a tremendously exciting thing for every president the first time it happens,
and I assume every other time.
Here he comes, down the center aisle, and he wouldn't be Bill Clinton if he didn't stop
and shake hands with just about everybody that he sees.
Ronald Reagan used to make a very slow progress down the aisles of the House and Senate because
there were so many members who were crowding forward to shake his hand and see him.
Of course, that happens here as well.
The President is followed down the aisle by the leaders of the Senate, Robert Byrd,
who is the senior member of the United States Senate, the President pro tempore, and George
Mitchell of Maine, who is the Senate Majority Leader.
He's reached nearly the front of the chamber.
He's passing members of his cabinet, greeting the Chief Justice of the United States, William
Rehnquist.
The Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, who's going to be leaving almost the moment
the speech is over on the Middle East tour.
Hopping the plane, hopping his own plane and heading for the Middle East.
This speech, like the speech that he gave at the convention, like the speech that he
gave at his inaugural, presidents in their first year of office, as they attempt to make
statements about what they're going to do, have a tremendous series of very important
utterances during the first few weeks.
The President will speak from a desk, and immediately behind him is the Speaker of the
House, Tom Foley of Washington, and the President of the Senate, Vice President of the United
States, Albert Gore.
We expect to hear a fair amount of cheering during the course of this speech, but if,
as we imagine, it contains a lot of calls for tax increases, I don't think those are
going to be applause lines, although everyone knows they're coming.
What will be interesting to see is how much applause he gets from the Republican side
of the aisle.
The big question tonight is whether he's going to have to carry out his plan with Democrats
alone, which he obviously can do, but then it will not be easy, or whether the plan
will also appeal to Republicans.
The impression this afternoon was that there was not much hope, much hope for a great bipartisan
effort here, but the first indications will come when we see whether Republicans simply
sit on their hands as he spells out his proposals one by one.
There certainly are some Republicans who have indicated that that's their plan, and then
there are others who are saying that they're anxious to cooperate, but they think that
the President has not asked them, and that they need to be invited into the process.
So we're hearing it both ways from the Republicans at this moment, so as you say, we'll watch
and we'll listen.
The President of the United States.
Members of the Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting
to you the President of the United States.
And here we go again on one of those double introductions, two standing ovations.
The President always gets at least two standing ovations at the beginning, as he first comes
in and then is introduced by the Speaker of the House.
Mrs. Clinton is in the Family Gallery, which is to the President's left and at the top
of the chamber.
The Speaker is attempting to gavel the crowd.
Here is the President.
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, members of the House and the Senate, distinguished Americans
here as visitors in this chamber, as am I, it is nice to have a fresh excuse for giving
a long speech.
When Presidents speak to Congress and the nation from this podium, typically they comment
on the full range of challenges and opportunities that face the United States.
But this is not an ordinary time, and for all the many tasks that require our attention,
I believe tonight one calls on us to focus, to unite, and to act, and that is our economy.
For more than anything else, our task tonight as Americans is to make our economy thrive
again.
Let me begin by saying that it has been too long, at least three decades since a President
has come and challenged Americans to join him on a great national journey, not merely
to consume the bounty of today, but to invest for a much greater one tomorrow.
Like individuals, nations must ultimately decide how they wish to conduct themselves,
how they wish to be thought of by those with whom they live, and later, how they wish to
be judged by history.
Like every individual man and woman, nations must decide whether they are prepared to rise
to the occasions history presents them.
We have always been a people of youthful energy and daring spirit, and at this historic moment
as communism has fallen, as freedom is spreading around the world, as a global economy is taking
shape before our eyes, Americans have called for change.
And now it is up to those of us in this room to deliver for them.
Our nation needs a new direction.
Tonight I present to you a comprehensive plan to set our nation on that new course.
I believe we will find our new direction in the basic old values that brought us here
over the last two centuries, a commitment to opportunity, to individual responsibility,
to community, to work, to family, and to faith.
We must now break the habits of both political parties and say there can be no more something
for nothing, and admit frankly that we are all in this together.
The conditions which brought us as a nation to this point are well known.
Two decades of low productivity growth and stagnant wages, persistent unemployment and
underemployment, years of huge government deficits and declining investment in our future,
exploding health care costs and lack of coverage for millions of Americans, legions of poor
children, education and job training opportunities inadequate to the demands of this tough global
economy.
For too long we have drifted without a strong sense of purpose or responsibility or community.
And our political system so often is seen paralyzed by special interest groups, by partisan
bickering and by the sheer complexity of our problems.
I believe we can do better.
Because we remain the greatest nation on earth, the world's strongest economy, the world's
only military superpower, if we have the vision, the will and the heart to make the changes
we must, we can still enter the 21st century with possibilities our parents could not even
have imagined and enter it having secured the American dream for ourselves and for future
generations.
I well remember 12 years ago, President Reagan stood at this very podium and told you and
people that if our national debt were stacked in thousand-dollar bills, the stack would
reach 67 miles into space. Well, today that stack would reach 267 miles. I tell you this
not to assign blame for this problem. There is plenty of blame to go around in both branches
of the government and both parties. The time has come for the blame to end.
Thank you.
I did not seek this office to place blame. I come here tonight to accept responsibility,
and I want you to accept responsibility with me. And if we do right by this country, I
do not care who gets the credit for it.
The plan I offer you has four fundamental components. First, it shifts our emphasis
in public and private spending from consumption to investment. Initially, by jump-starting
the economy in the short term and investing in our people the way we have done in the
past, we will be able to make a difference in the world.
Second, we will be able to make a difference in the world. We will be able to make a difference
by jump-starting the economy in the short term and investing in our people, their jobs
and their incomes over the long run.
Second, it changes the rhetoric of the past into the actions of the present by honoring
work and families in every part of our public decision-making.
Third, it substantially reduces the federal deficit honestly and credibly by using in
the beginning the most conservative estimates of government revenues, not, as the executive
branch has done so often in the past, using the most optimistic ones.
And finally, it seeks to earn the trust of the American people by paying for these plans
first with cuts in government waste and efficiency, second with cuts, not gimmicks, in government
spending, and by fairness for a change in the way additional burdens are born.
Tonight I want to talk with you about what government can do, because I believe government
must do more. But let me say first that the real engine of economic growth in this country
is the private sector. And second that each of us must be an engine of growth and change.
The truth is that as government creates more opportunity in this new and different time,
we must also demand more responsibility in turn.
Our immediate priority must be to create jobs, create jobs now. Some people say, well, we're
in a recovery and we don't have to do that. Well, we all hope we're in a recovery, but
we're sure not creating new jobs. And there's no recovery worth its salt that doesn't put
the American people back to work.
To create jobs and guarantee a strong recovery, I call on Congress to enact an immediate package
of jobs investments of over $30 billion, to put people to work now, to create a half a
million jobs, jobs to rebuild our highways and airports, to renovate housing, to bring
new life to rural communities and spread hope and opportunity among our nation's youth.
Especially I want to emphasize, after the events of last year in Los Angeles and the
countless stories of despair in our cities and in our poor rural communities, this proposal
will create almost 700,000 new summer jobs for displaced, unemployed young people alone
this summer.
And tonight, I invite America's business leaders to join us in this effort so that together
we can provide over 1 million summer jobs in cities and poor rural areas for our young
people.
Second, our plan looks beyond today's business cycle because our aspirations extend into
the next century. The heart of this plan deals with the long term. It is an investment program
designed to increase public and private investment in areas critical to our economic future.
And it has a deficit reduction program that will increase the savings available for the
private sector to invest, will lower interest rates, will decrease the percentage of the
federal budget claimed by interest payments, and decrease the risk of financial market
disruptions that could adversely affect our economy.
Over the long run, all this will bring us a higher rate of economic growth, improved
productivity, more high-quality jobs, and an improved economic competitive position
in the world. In order to accomplish both increased investment and deficit reduction,
something no American government has ever been called upon to do at the same time before,
spending must be cut and taxes must be raised.
The spending cuts I recommend were carefully thought through in a way to minimize any adverse
economic impact, to capture the peace dividend for investment purposes, and to switch the
balance in the budget from consumption to more investment. The tax increases and the
spending cuts were both designed to assure that the cost of this historic program to
face and deal with our problems will be borne by those who could readily afford it the most.
Our plan is designed, furthermore, and perhaps in some ways most importantly, to improve
the health of American business through lower interest rates, more incentives to invest,
and better-trained workers. Because small business has created such a high percentage
of all the new jobs in our nation over the last 10 or 15 years, our plan includes the
boldest targeted incentives for small business in history.
We propose a permanent investment tax credit for the smallest firms in this country with
revenues of under $5 million. That's about 90 percent of the firms in America employing
about 40 percent of the workforce, but creating a big majority of the net new jobs for more
than a decade.
And we propose new rewards for entrepreneurs who take new risks. We propose to give small
business access to all the new technologies of our time. And we propose to attack this
credit crunch, which has denied small business the credit they need to flourish and prosper.
With a new network of community development banks and $1 billion to make the dream of
enterprise zones real, we propose to bring new hope and new jobs to storefronts and factories
from South Boston to South Texas to South Central Los Angeles.
This plan invests in our roads, our bridges, our transit systems, and high-speed railways
and high-tech information systems. And it provides the most ambitious environmental
cleanup in partnership with state and local government of our time to put people to work
and to preserve the environment for our future.
Standing as we are on the edge of the new century, we know that economic growth depends
as never before on opening up new markets overseas and expanding the volume of world
trade. And so we will insist on fair trade rules and international markets as a part
of a national economic strategy to expand trade, including the successful completion
of the latest round of world trade talks and the successful completion of a North American
free trade agreement with appropriate safeguards for our workers and for the environment.
At the same time, and I say this to you in both parties and across America tonight, all
the people who are listening, it is not enough to pass a budget or even to have a trade agreement.
The world is changing so fast that we must have aggressive, targeted attempts to create
the high-wage jobs of the future. That's what all our competitors are doing. We must
give special attention to those critical industries that are going to explode in the 21st century
but that are in trouble in America today, like aerospace.
We must provide special assistance to areas and to workers displaced by cuts in the defense
budget and by other unavoidable economic dislocations. And again, I will say we must
do this together. I pledge to you that I will do my best to see that business and labor
and government work together for a change. But all of our efforts to strengthen the economy
will fail. Let me say this again. I feel so strongly about this. All of our efforts to
strengthen the economy will fail unless we also take, this year, not next year, not five
years from now, but this year, bold steps to reform our health care system.
In 1992, we spent 14 percent of our income on health care, more than 30 percent more
than any other country in the world, and yet we were the only advanced nation that did
not provide a basic package of health care benefits to all of its citizens. Unless we
change the present pattern, 50 percent of the growth in the deficit between now and
the year 2000 will be in health care costs. By the year 2000, almost 20 percent of our
income will be in health care. Our families will never be secure, our businesses will
never be strong, and our government will never again be fully solvent until we tackle the
health care crisis. We must do it this year.
The combination of the rising costs of care and the lack of care and the fear of losing
care are endangering the security and the very lives of millions of our people, and
they are weakening our economy every day. Reducing health care costs can liberate literally
hundreds of billions of dollars for new investment in growth and jobs. Bringing health costs
in line with inflation would do more for the private sector in this country than any tax
cut we could give and any spending program we could promote. Reforming health care over
the long run is critically essential to reducing not only our deficit but to expanding investment
in America.
Later this spring, after the First Lady and the many good people who are helping her all
across the country complete their work, I will deliver to Congress a comprehensive plan
for health care reform that finally will bring costs under control and provide security to
all of our families, so that no one will be denied the coverage they need, but so that
our economic future will not be compromised either. We will have to root out fraud and
overcharges and make sure that paperwork no longer chokes your doctor. We will have
to maintain the highest American standards and the right to choose in a system that is
the world's finest for all those who can access it.
But first, we must make choices. We must choose to give the American people the quality they
demand and deserve with a system that will not bankrupt the country or further drive
more Americans into agony.
Let me further say that I want to work with all of you on this. I realize this is a complicated
issue, but we must address it. And I believe if there is any chance that Republicans and
Democrats who disagree on taxes and spending or anything else could agree on one thing,
surely we can all look at these numbers and go home and tell our people the truth. We
cannot continue these spending patterns in public or private dollars for health care
for less and less and less every year. We can do better.
And now we have to do better.
Standing ovations, several times, led by the Speaker of the House and the Vice President who have been standing.
Perhaps the most fundamental change the new direction I propose offers is its focus on the future and its
investment, which I seek in our children.
Each day we delay really making a commitment to our children carries a dear cost.
Half of the two-year-olds in this country today don't receive the immunizations they need against
deadly diseases. Our plan will provide them for every eligible child.
And we know now that we will save $10 later for every $1 we spend by eliminating preventable
childhood diseases. That's a good investment, no matter how you measure it.
I recommend that the Women, Infants and Children's Nutrition Program be expanded so that every
expectant mother who needs the help gets it.
We all know that Head Start, a program that prepares children
to give our people the skills they need.
Lifelong learning must benefit not just young high school graduates, but workers, too,
throughout their career. The average 18-year-old today will change jobs seven times in a lifetime.
We have done a lot in this country on worker training in the last 20 years.
We have done a lot in this country on worker training in the last few years,
but the system is too fractured. We must develop a unified, simplified,
sensible, streamlined worker training program so that workers receive the training they need
regardless of why they lost their jobs or whether they simply need to learn something new to keep them.
We have got to do better on this.
Thank you.
Finally, I propose a program that got a great response from the American people
all across this country last year.
A program of national service to make college loans available to all Americans
and to challenge them at the same time to give something back to their country
as teachers or police officers or community service workers.
To give them the option to pay the loans back, but at tax time,
so they can't beat the bill, but to encourage them instead to pay it back
by making their country stronger and making their country better
and giving us the benefit of their time.
Thank you.
A generation ago, when President Kennedy proposed
and the United States Congress embraced the Peace Corps,
it defined the character of a whole generation of Americans
committed to serving people around the world.
In this national service program, we will provide more than twice as many slots
for people before they go to college to be in national service
than ever served in the Peace Corps.
This program could do for this generation of members of Congress
what the Land-Grant College Act did and what the GI Bill did for former congressmen.
In the future, historians who got their education through the national service loan
will look back on you and thank you for giving America a new lease on life
if you meet this challenge.
Thank you.
If we believe in jobs and we believe in learning,
we must believe in rewarding work.
If we believe in restoring the values that make America special,
we must believe that there is dignity in all work
and there must be dignity for all workers.
To those who care for our sick, who tend our children,
who do our most difficult and tiring jobs,
the new direction I propose will make this solemn, simple commitment.
By expanding the refundable earned income tax credit,
we will make history.
We will reward the work of millions of working poor Americans
by realizing the principle that if you work 40 hours a week
and you've got a child in the house, you will no longer be in poverty.
Thank you.
Later this year, we will offer a plan to end welfare as we know it.
I have worked on this issue for the better part of a decade.
And I know from personal conversations with many people
that no one, no one wants to change the welfare system
as badly as those who are trapped in it.
I want to offer the people on welfare the education, the training,
the child care, the health care they need to get back on their feet,
but say after two years, they must get back to work too,
in private business if possible, in public service if necessary.
We have to end welfare as a way of life
and make it a path to independence and dignity.
Thank you.
Our next great goal should be to strengthen our families.
I compliment the Congress for passing the Family and Medical Leave Act
as a good first step.
But it is time to do more.
This plan will give this country the toughest
child support enforcement system it has ever had.
It is time to demand that people take responsibility
for the children they bring into this world.
Thank you.
And I ask you to help to protect our families
against the violent crime which terrorizes our people
and which tears our communities apart.
We must pass a tough crime bill.
I support
not only the bill which didn't quite make it
to the President's desk last year,
but also an initiative to put 100,000 more
police officers on the street.
To provide boot camps for first-time nonviolent offenders
for more space for the hardened criminals in jail.
And I support an initiative
to do what we can to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
Let me say this.
I will make you this bargain.
If you will pass the Brady Bill, I'll sure sign it.
Thank you.
Let me say now
we should move to the harder parts.
I think
it is clear to every American,
including every member of Congress of both parties,
that the confidence of the people who pay our bills
in our institutions in Washington is not high.
We must restore it.
We must begin again to make government work
for ordinary taxpayers,
not simply for organized interest groups.
And that beginning must start
with real political reform.
I am
I am asking the United States Congress
to pass a real campaign finance reform bill this year.
I ask you to increase the participation
of the American people
by passing the Motor Voter Bill promptly.
I ask you to deal with the undue influence
of special interests
by passing a bill
to end the tax deduction for lobbying
and to act quickly
to require all the people who lobby you
to register as lobbyists
by passing the Lobbying Registration Bill.
by passing the Lobbying Registration Bill.
Believe me,
that last section at home. I believe lobby reform and campaign finance reform are a sure
path to increased popularity for Republicans and Democrats alike because it says to the
voters back home, this is your House, this is your Senate, we're your hired hands, and
every penny we draw is your money. Next, to revolutionize government, we have to ensure
that we live within our means, and that should start at the top and with the White House.
In the last few days, I have announced a cut in the White House staff of 25 percent, saving
approximately $10 million. I have ordered administrative cuts in budgets of agencies
and departments. I have cut the federal bureaucracy, or will over the next four years, by approximately
100,000 positions, for a combined savings of $9 billion. It is time for government to
demonstrate in the condition we're in that we can be as frugal as any household in America.
And that's why I also want to congratulate the Congress. I noticed the announcement of
the leadership today that Congress is taking similar steps to cut its cost. I think that
is important. I think it will send a very clear signal to the American people. But if
we really want to cut spending, we're going to have to do more, and some of it will be
difficult. Tonight, I call for an across-the-board freeze in federal government salaries for
one year. And thereafter, during this four-year period, I recommend that salaries rise at
one point lower than the cost-of-living allowance normally involved in federal pay increases.
Next, I recommend that we make 150 specific budget cuts, as you know, and that all those
who say we should cut more be as specific as I have been.
Finally, let me say to my friends on both sides of the aisle, it is not enough simply
to cut government. We have to rethink the whole way it works. When I became President,
I was amazed at just the way the White House worked in ways that added lots of money to
what taxpayers had to pay, outmoded ways that didn't take maximum advantage of technology
and didn't do things that any business would have done years ago to save taxpayers' money.
So I want to bring a new spirit of innovation into every government department. I want to
push education reform, as I said, not just to spend more money but to really improve
learning. Some things work and some things don't. We ought to be subsidizing the things
that work and discouraging the things that don't. I'd like to use that super fund to
to clean up pollution for a change and not just pay lawyers.
In the aftermath of all the difficulties with the savings and loans, we must use federal
bank regulators to protect the security and safety of our financial institutions, but
they should not be used to continue the credit crunch and to stop people from making sensible
loans.
I'd like for us to not only have welfare reform but to reexamine the whole focus of all of
our programs that help people, to shift them from entitlement programs to empowerment programs.
In the end, we want people not to need us anymore. I think that's important.
But in the end, we have to get back to the deficit. For years, there's been a lot of
talk about it but very few credible efforts to deal with it, and now I understand why,
having dealt with the real numbers for four weeks. But I believe this plan does. It tackles
the budget deficit seriously and over the long term. It puts in place one of the biggest
deficit reductions and one of the biggest changes in federal priorities from consumption
to investment in the history of this country at the same time over the next four years.
Let me say to all the people watching us tonight who will ask me these questions beginning
tomorrow as I go around the country and who've asked it in the past, we're not cutting the
deficit just because experts say it's the thing to do or because it has some intrinsic
merit. We have to cut the deficit because the more we spend paying off the debt, the
less tax dollars we have to invest in jobs and education and the future of this country.
And the more money we take out of the pool of available savings, the harder it is for
people in the private sector to borrow money at affordable interest rates for a college
loan for their children, for a home mortgage, or to start a new business. That's why we've
got to reduce the debt, because it is crowding out other activities that we ought to be engaged
in and that the American people ought to be engaged in.
And we cut the deficit so that our children will be able to buy a home, so that our companies
can invest in the future and in retraining their workers, so that our government can
make the kinds of investments we need to be a stronger and smarter and safer nation.
If we don't act now, you and I might not even recognize this government 10 years from now.
If we just stay with the same trends of the last four years, by the end of the decade
the deficit will be $635 billion a year, almost 80 percent of our gross domestic product.
And paying interest on that debt will be the costliest government program of all. We'll
still be the world's largest debtor. And when members of Congress come here, they'll be
devoting over 20 cents on the dollar to interest payments, more than half of the budget to
health care and to other entitlements. And you'll come here and deliberate and argue
over 6 or 7 cents on the dollar, no matter what America's problems are. We will not be
able to have the independence we need to chart the future that we must, and we'll be terribly
dependent on foreign funds for a large portion of our investment.
This budget plan, by contrast, will, by 1997, cut $140 billion in that year alone from the
deficit, a real spending cut, a real revenue increase, a real deficit reduction, using
the independent numbers of the Congressional Budget Office.
Well, you can laugh, my fellow Republicans, but I'll point out that the Congressional
Budget Office was normally more conservative in what was going to happen and closer to
right than previous Presidents have been.
I did this so that we could argue about priorities with the same set of numbers. I did this so
that no one could say I was estimating my way out of this difficulty. I did this because
if we can agree together on the most prudent revenues we're likely to get, if the recovery
stays and we do right things economically, then it'll turn out better for the American
people than we say in the last 12 years because there were differences over the revenue estimates
you and I know that both parties were given greater elbow room for irresponsibility.
This is tightening the rein on the Democrats as well as the Republicans. Let's at least
argue about the same set of numbers so the American people will think we're cheating
straight with them.
As I said earlier, my recommendation makes more than 150 difficult reductions to cut
the federal spending by a total of $246 billion. We're eliminating programs that are no longer
needed such as nuclear power research and development. We're slashing subsidies and
canceling wasteful projects. But many of these programs were justified in their time, and
a lot of them were difficult for me to recommend reductions in, some really tough ones for
me personally. I recommend that we reduce interest subsidies to the Rural Electric Administration.
That's a difficult thing for me to recommend. But I think that I cannot exempt the things
that exist in my state or in my experience if I ask you to deal with things that are
difficult for you to deal with. We're going to have to have no sacred cows except the
fundamental abiding interest of the American people.
I have to say that we all know our government has been just great at building programs.
The time has come to show the American people that we can limit them, too, that we can not
only start things, but we can actually stop things.
About the defense budget, I raise a hope and a caution. As we restructure our military
forces to meet the new threats of the post-Cold War world, it is true that we can responsibly
reduce our defense budget, and we may all doubt what that range of reductions is. But
let me say that as long as I am President, I will do everything I can to make sure that
the men and women who serve under the American flag will remain the best trained, the best
prepared, the best equipped fighting force in the world, and every one of you should
make that solemn pledge. We still have responsibilities around the world. We are the world's only
superpower. This is still a dangerous and uncertain time, and we owe it to the people
in uniform to make sure that we adequately provide for the national defense and for their
interests and needs.
Backed by an effective national defense and a stronger economy, our nation will be prepared
to lead a world challenged, as it is everywhere, by ethnic conflict, by the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, by the global democratic revolution, and by challenges to
the health of our global environment.
I know this economic plan is ambitious, but I honestly believe it is necessary for the
continued greatness of the United States. And I think it is paid for fairly, first by
cutting government, then by asking the most of those who benefited the most in the past,
and by asking more Americans to contribute today so that all of us can prosper tomorrow.
For the wealthiest, those earning more than $180,000 per year, I ask you all who are listening
tonight to support a raise in the top rate for federal income taxes from 31 to 36 percent.
We recommend a 10 percent surtax on incomes over $250,000 a year, and we recommend closing
some loopholes that let some people get away without paying any tax at all.
For businesses with taxable incomes in excess of $10 million, we recommend a raise in the
corporate tax rate, also to 36 percent, as well as a cut in the deduction for business
entertainment expenses.
Our plan seeks to attack tax subsidies that actually reward companies more for shutting
their operations down here and moving them overseas than for staying here and reinvesting
in America.
I say that as someone who believes that American companies should be free to invest around
the world and as a former governor who actively sought investment of foreign companies in
my state, but the tax code should not express a preference to American companies for moving
somewhere else, and it does in particular cases today.
We will seek to ensure that through effective tax enforcement, foreign corporations who
do make money in America simply pay the same taxes that American companies make on the
same income.
To middle-class Americans who have paid a great deal for the last 12 years and from
whom I ask a contribution tonight, I will say again, as I did on Monday night, you're
not going alone anymore, you're certainly not going first, and you're not going to pay
more for less as you have too often in the past.
I want to emphasize the facts about this plan.
Ninety-eight point eight percent of America's families will have no increase in their income
tax rates, only 1.2 percent at the top.
Let me be clear.
There will also be no new cuts in benefits from Medicare.
As we move toward the fourth year with the explosion in health care costs, as I said,
to account for 50 percent of the growth of the deficit between now and the year 2000.
There must be planned cuts in payments to providers, to doctors, to hospitals, to labs,
as a way of controlling health care costs, but I see these only as a stopgap until we
can reform the entire health care system.
If you'll help me do that, we can be fair to the providers and to the consumers of health
care.
Let me repeat this, because I know it matters to a lot of you on both sides of the aisle.
This plan does not make a recommendation for new cuts in benefits from Medicare, and secondly,
the only change we are making in Social Security is one that has already been publicized.
The plan does ask older Americans with higher incomes, who do not rely solely on Social
Security to get by, to contribute more.
This plan will not affect the 80 percent of Social Security recipients who do not pay
taxes on Social Security now.
Those who do not pay tax on Social Security now will not be affected by this plan.
Our plan does include a broad-based tax on energy, and I want to tell you why I selected
this and why I think it's a good idea.
I recommend that we adopt a BTU tax on the heat content of energy as the best way to
provide us with revenue to lower the deficit, because it also combats pollution, promotes
energy efficiency, promotes the independence economically of this country, as well as helping
to reduce the debt.
And because it does not discriminate against any area, unlike a carbon tax, it's not too
hard on the coal states.
Unlike a gas tax, it's not too tough on people who drive a long way to work.
Unlike an ad valorem tax, it doesn't increase just when the price of an energy source goes
up, and it is environmentally responsible.
It will help us in the future as well as in the present with the deficit.
Taken together, these measures will cost an American family with an income of about $40,000
a year less than $17 a month.
It will cost American families with incomes under $30,000 nothing because of other programs
we proposed, principally those raising the earned income tax credit.
Because of our publicly stated determination to reduce the deficit, if we do these things,
we will see the continuation of what's happened just since the election.
Just since the election, since the Secretary of the Treasury, the Director of the Office
of Management and Budget, and others have begun to speak out publicly in favor of a
tough deficit reduction plan.
Interest rates have continued to fall long term.
That means that for the middle class who will pay something more each month, if they have
any credit needs or demands, their increased energy costs will be more than offset by lower
interest costs for mortgages, consumer loans, credit cards.
This can be a wise investment for them and their country now.
I would also point out what the American people already know, and that is because we're a
big, vast country where we drive long distances, we have maintained far lower burdens on energy
than any other advanced country.
We will still have far lower burdens on energy than any other advanced country, and these
will be spread fairly with real attempts to make sure that no cost is imposed on families
with incomes under $30,000 and that the costs are very modest until you get into the higher
income groups where the income taxes trigger in.
Now I ask all of you to consider this.
Whatever you think of the tax program, whatever you think of the spending cuts, consider the
costs of not changing.
Remember the numbers that you all know.
If we just keep on doing what we're doing, by the end of the decade, we'll have a $650
billion a year deficit.
We just keep on doing what we're doing, by the end of the decade, 20 percent of our national
income will go to health care every year, twice as much as any other country on the
face of the globe.
We just keep on doing what we're doing.
Over 20 cents on the dollar will have to go to service the debt.
Unless we have the courage now to start building our future and stop borrowing from it, we're
condemning ourselves to years of stagnation, interrupted by occasional recessions, to slow
growth in jobs, to no more growth in incomes, to more debt, to more disappointment.
Worse less, unless we change, unless we increase investment and reduce the debt, to raise productivity
so that we can generate both jobs and incomes, we will be condemning our children and our
children's children to a lesser life than we enjoyed.
Once Americans look forward to doubling their living standards every 25 years, at present
productivity rates, it will take 100 years to double living standards until our grandchildren's
grandchildren are born.
I say that is too long to wait.
Tonight, the American people know we have to change.
But they're also likely to ask me tomorrow and all of you for the weeks and months ahead
whether we have the fortitude to make the changes happen in the right way.
They know that as soon as I leave this chamber and you go home, various interest groups will
be out in force lobbying against this or that piece of this plan, and that the forces
of conventional wisdom will offer a thousand reasons why we, well, ought to do this, but
we just can't do it.
Our people will be watching and wondering, not to see whether you disagree with me on
a particular issue, but just to see whether this is going to be business as usual or a
real new day, whether we're all going to conduct ourselves as if we know we're working for
them.
We must scale the walls of the people's skepticisms, not with our words, but with our deeds.
After so many years of gridlock and indecisions, after so many hopeful beginnings and so few
promising results, the American people are going to be harsh in their judgments of all
of us if we fail to seize this moment.
This economic plan can't please everybody.
If the package is picked apart, there will be something that will anger each of us.
It won't please anybody.
But if it is taken as a whole, it will help all of us.
So I ask you all to begin by resisting the temptation to focus only on a particular spending
cut you don't like or some particular investment that wasn't made, and nobody likes the tax
increases, but let's just face facts.
For 20 years, through administrations of both parties, incomes have stalled and debt
has exploded and productivity has not grown as it should.
We cannot deny the reality of our condition.
We have got to play the hand we were dealt and play it as best we can.
My fellow Americans, the test of this plan cannot be what is in it for me.
It has got to be what is in it for us.
If we work hard and if we work together, if we rededicate ourselves to creating jobs,
to rewarding work, to strengthening our families, to reinventing our government, we can lift
our country's fortunes again.
Tonight, I ask everyone in this chamber and every American to look simply into your own
heart, to spark your own hopes, to fire your own imagination.
There is so much good, so much possibility, so much excitement in this country now that
if we act boldly and honestly, as leaders should, our legacy will be one of prosperity
and progress.
This must be America's new direction.
Let us summon the courage to seize it.
Thank you.
God bless America.
President Clinton giving the State of the Union address to both houses of Congress.
You're listening to WBAI in New York.
The speech, which lasted over an hour longer than was previously estimated, called upon
Americans to look within themselves to see the necessary sacrifices that must be made.
He called for help in small businesses and new rewards for entrepreneurs who contribute
to new businesses, and also benefits for those companies that do not move overseas, that
choose to remain in the United States.
Also, he called for fair trade rules, the World Trade Zone, the North American Free
Trade Zone.
By far the biggest applause that he got was for reform in health care, something that
has been called upon for many years by many people in this country, and now President
Clinton has said that he will do what is necessary to reform the health care system.
If he fails to do that, if he fails to reform the health care system, all else will become
unhinged, so to say.
That was the period of the speech that got the biggest round of applause, the most esteemed
period there for the reform in health care.
He also called for immunizations for every eligible child for preventable diseases, something
that has gotten a bit of backlash from pharmaceutical companies.
Also, Head Start, eligibility and Head Start for every eligible child, ease in obtaining
college loans for college students, 100,000 more police officers to patrol the streets
of the United States, as well as what he called boot camps for nonviolent first offenders
to give more space to the more violent criminals, the ones that supposedly belong in prison.
He also pledged to keep guns out of the hands of criminals in a nation that is plagued with
violence and all kinds of problems involving guns, and he said at one point, I'll make
a deal with you, I'll make a bargain.
If you pass the Brady Bill, I'll sign it, and he got quite a bit of applause for that
particular bargain there.
He also pledged to support the voter bill, and he called for lobbyists to be registered,
the lobbyist registration bill to prevent lobbyists from getting an undue amount of
attention with politicians and those in governmental office.
He called for Americans to live within their means, and he pledged to begin that at the
top, citing his 25% cut in the White House staff, 100,000 positions he sent have been
cut from the federal bureaucracy, and the White House cuts saved $10 million, he said,
and the cuts of 100,000 positions, he said, will save $9 million.
He also called for across-the-board cuts in federal salaries for one year, and this is
for federal positions, and thereafter, the cost of living increase would be one point
lower than the rest of the nation.
In addition, he called for an adequate national defense in a post-Cold War world, obviously
cuts of some sort, however, details of that were not really gone into all that much.
No new cuts and benefits for Medicare, a broad-based tax on energy.
He claimed that this would be better than something like a gasoline tax because it would
not unduly hurt any one particular group of people, such as truck drivers, people who
need to drive for long distances.
By having a broad-based energy tax, everybody presumably will pay a similar amount.
You're listening to WBAI coverage of the State of the Union Address.
Our regular programming has been preempted, and we have a couple of guests with us in
the studio.
We'll be going to Bob Dole and the Republican response as soon as that comes over.
We have the editor of the Amsterdam News, Don Rojas, with us on the telephone, as well
as Doug Henwood, who is the publisher of the Left Business Observer and a frequent
commentator here on WBAI.
I'd like to direct the first question to Mr. Henwood.
What is your take on the speech, and how do you think economically, is this a very realistic
sacrifice that the President is asking us all to make?
Well, first of all, I object to the whole rhetorical strategy of calling for sacrifice.
I think most people in the country have been sacrificing for a considerable period of time,
and to call for more is completely inappropriate.
I recognize that most of the tax increases he's calling for are really going to hit a
very elite group of people, but still the combination of the energy taxes, the service
cuts, program cuts, and just the general squeeze of the government, the attack of
the deficit is going to represent for the economy at large, will, I think, filter through
to most of the population.
So I think he really hasn't, in my mind, directed enough of his fire towards the upper reaches,
despite the rhetoric, and there's a danger that the emphasis on deficit reduction, which
has really crowded out what his campaign rhetoric, I mean, during the campaign he talked more
about investment and the need to grow, and it was much more of an optimistic, expansive
kind of rhetoric that he was using then, and suddenly now that he's President, it's more
sacrifice, and restraint, and denial, and deferral, and all those things.
I think he could do a very interesting psychoanalysis of this idea that we need to purge ourselves
for some reason, and sacrifice today for a glorious future tomorrow.
It's a contradictory program at once, you know, he diagnoses some very, very serious
long-term problems with the economy, and I think he's quite accurate in his diagnosis
very often, proposes very weak medicine, I think, to address that, and then on top of
it graphs this rather austere attack on the deficit, so I think it's full of self-contradiction,
and certainly it's going to be under enormous political attack over the next several weeks.
He claims that 98.8 percent of the people are not going to see an increase in their
tax rate.
Income tax rates, yes.
Almost everyone's going to feel something from the energy taxes, and almost everyone's
going to feel something from program cuts, spending cuts.
Now, he also at one point said to the middle class, to people with lower incomes, as kind
of, I guess, reassurance, you're not going alone, and you're not going first.
Do you believe in that at all?
Well, it's certainly not the kind of program that Ross Perot would have come up with, or
any of the Wall Street Republicans would have come up with, that's for sure.
I think it's certainly less of a blow to people in middle and lower income brackets, there's
no question about that, but I don't think there should be any blow at all to those people,
which is my objection to the tax program, but also I think just you really have to look
at the broader economic effects of this kind of austerity program he's proposing, a four-year
fiscal squeeze, really, that I think is going to depress economic growth, keep unemployment
higher than it otherwise would be, and then if you add to that the psychology of austerity
and sacrifice that he's encouraging people to adopt, I think you're talking about several
years of quite a stagnant economy, after several years of having had quite a stagnant economy.
We also have Don Rojas, the editor of Amsterdam News.
Don, what's your impression of this?
Well, I think as far as Democratic Party politicians go in this country at this time, Clinton certainly
rose to the occasion and delivered what the loyal Democrats in Congress and around the
country wanted to hear.
I don't mean to interrupt, but we have the Republican response.
We'll get back to our discussion right after we hear this.
The chair has faded away.
Ceremony is over.
It's time to put aside the pomp and circumstance.
It's really time to get to work for America, and that's what I'd like to briefly visit
with you about, how your government can work better for you.
Don't worry.
I have no props and no flip charts, no pointer, no electronic gimmicks.
I don't even have a 1-800 number for you to call.
I'd just like to talk with you as though we were having a cup of coffee back in my hometown
of Peoria.
It's a chance to ask some questions about where our nation is heading, the kinds of
questions you might ask if you were here.
We Americans are a questioning people.
It's part of our national character.
In fact, we may be the only nation whose national anthem begins and ends with a question.
So in questioning the direction of the administration, we're acting in a great American tradition.
All of us, Democrats, Republicans, Perot supporters, independents, want our new president to succeed.
We want to help him do the right thing, but the only way we can help him is by candidly
letting him know how we feel about his announced policies.
Our new president has an excellent chance to be successful.
Because of the leadership of Presidents Reagan and Bush, our nation does not face a nuclear
threat.
President Bush handed over to the president an economy that is growing, not shrinking,
and a rate of worker productivity that is rising, not falling.
As a matter of fact, the past 12 years of Republican leadership have built a strong
foundation for progress.
We agree with the president that we have to put more people to work.
But remember this, 80 to 85% of the new jobs in this country are created by small businesses.
So the climate for starting and expanding businesses must be enhanced with tax incentives
and deregulation, rather than imposing higher taxes and more governmental mandates.
The president speaks of the half million new jobs that will be created by his economic
stimulus program.
But there are estimates that doing it his way will cost taxpayers some $55,000 per job.
It should be noted that last year alone, the private sector created a million and a half
new jobs on its own.
We have to make certain that government action helps, not hinders, the growing economy.
After listening to the president tonight, I wonder if you really know what the president's
long-range economic strategy is.
I don't, and I must say I wonder if he does.
All we are certain of is that the administration is engaged in a media blitz to sell his program.
The president offers us what he calls a new direction.
But where he seems to be going is back to the future, back to the failed big government
schemes of a generation ago.
And that's not the direction we should be going.
The Clinton spin doctors have even given us a new political vocabulary, if you will.
Investment now means big government spending your tax dollars.
Change now means reviving old discredited big government tax and spend schemes.
Patriotism now means agreeing with the Clinton program.
The powerful evocative word sacrifice has been reduced to the level of a bumper sticker
slogan.
And my favorite, contribution, is now the new word for taxes.
On April 15th, just try telling the IRS you don't feel like contributing this year.
The administration is about to launch the biggest propaganda campaign in recent political
history.
The White House is even now becoming one big partisan political megaphone.
But public relations campaigns are no substitute for sound public policy.
Tonight the president mentioned a number of new programs that inevitably will cost considerable
sums of money and laudable as they might be.
How do we pay for them?
The president's answer is, more taxes on everyone.
In 1992, candidate Clinton said, tax only the super rich.
Then in 1993, President Clinton now says, if you earn more than $30,000, your taxes
are going up.
So much for not taxing the middle class.
The American people would do well to remember, when you hear a Democrat call for taxes, do
not ask for whom the tax rises.
It will rise for you.
There are those who say some taxes are a necessary evil.
The difference is that Democrats stress the word necessary, and we Republicans stress
the word evil.
The president was short on specifics again tonight, particularly as it relates to cutting
spending.
That's probably because he keeps juggling those figures all the time.
He offers no benchmarks, no coherent economic principles by which to judge what it is that
he is hoping to achieve.
These fragmented, ad hoc proposals are the kind of thing that might be excused in the
heat of a campaign.
But Mr. President, the campaign is over.
You won.
The time has come to park the bus and start the hard work of governing.
And one of the hardest parts of that work is this vital question of health care reform,
which the president mentioned time and again.
Will there be rationing of care?
Will there be job-destroying mandates on employers?
Republicans believe in your right to select the doctor of your choice and your right to
immediate care without waiting long lines and preserving the best of what our health
care system has to offer.
Does the administration share these principles?
As I said, these are some of the questions we have to ask.
And then the answers we get will determine the kind of future we will have.
And we Republicans are here to ask the tough questions, cut through the rhetoric, and get
the job done.
But we do need your help.
My father, a French immigrant, used to tell me that it's better to listen 90% of the time,
for that leaves you only 10% for talking.
And throughout my life in public service, I've tried to take his advice.
And I know my party is listening to your voice, because we share your basic principles.
Our Republican governors, our state legislators, our elected officials, and of course those
of us in the U.S. House and Senate are all part of the same team.
And we owe it to you to make clear the ideas at the heart of our policies.
And here are just a few.
We Republicans, and I think it's fair to say a great body of Perot supporters, insist on
cutting spending as the best way to real deficit reduction.
We'd like to support the President on an honest, line-item veto that applies not only
to Port Barrel spending, but to special interest tax loopholes as well.
And we'll continue to press for a balanced budget amendment.
We want to help the President in his efforts to spur savings and investments.
We hope he will strive to maintain the current low rates of interest and inflation that he
inherited from George Bush.
And let's not forget, we still live in a tough and often brutal world.
Our nation's destiny is linked to our ability to compete in a global economy and to defend
our interests and our values around the world.
That's why we need to maintain a strong defense and stay on the cutting edge of high technology.
I'd like to address a few closing comments directly to the President himself.
Mr. President, we wish you well.
President Reagan and President Bush have given you a solid foundation of peace and a growing
economy on which to build.
You have a wonderful opportunity to succeed.
And when your domestic programs and policies are based on sound economic principles, common
sense and traditional American values, we Republicans will be with you.
And when your foreign policy is based on defending American interests and American values first
and foremost, we'll be with you.
But when those great values are missing from your proposals, we Republicans will be there
to ask the tough questions and to provide effective answers.
And to all of you, thanks for listening.
As the designated Republican questioner tonight, I know I speak for all elected Republicans
among our governors within the state legislatures and in the House and Senate when I say in
the months ahead, we'll be visiting with you, whether the issue is health care, crime, education
or the economy, we'll be listening and ready to react to your concerns.
Do make your voice heard.
You can make a difference.
Thank you and do have a good evening.
That was House Minority Leader Bob Michael with the actually the second of something
that I'm sure we'll be getting used to over the next four years.
Republican responses to speeches by President Bill Clinton.
The first of these responses came on Monday night after his 10 minute address.
Michael was chiding President Clinton for using the word contribution when he actually
meant increased taxes.
He said try telling the IRS on April 15th that you don't wish to make a contribution
at this time.
He also criticized the president for what he views as continuing to campaign.
He said you won.
You won the race.
It's time to stop campaigning and also gave quite a bit of credit to Reagan Bush era for
setting up a firm ground base for President Clinton to work with.
We have with us Don Rojas, editor of the Amsterdam News and Doug Henward, publisher of the Left
Business Observer and frequent BAI commentator.
I'd like first of all to have Don Rojas finish the statement he was making before we cut
to the Republican response and then ask Mr. Henward for his view on what the Republican
response was.
Yeah.
As I began to say, what we witnessed is basically a pep talk by Clinton full of appeals to patriotism
and in typical fashion of presidents of the past that have been confronted with serious
crises of one sort or another, a kind of call to arms, calling on the American people to
search into their hearts and face the hard facts and the realities of the tough times
that are with us and what we need to do together to pull the country out of the mess that it
is in.
I would say that Wall Street will rest assured this evening after listening to Clinton recite
basically the cornerstone of the neoliberal philosophy of the Democratic Leadership Conference,
which is the group that Clinton and Gore have led for many years within the Democratic
Party that has tried to reshape the party into the type of political organization that
big capital in this country can feel more comfortable with.
I think that basically what you heard him say was that government must do more, but
the real engine of economic growth in the country is and will remain the private sector,
and that's, I think, the fundamental tenet of this neoliberal philosophy of this administration.
What we witnessed is a leader of a crisis management team telling the American people
what his approach to managing a crisis that he inherited from previous administrations
would be.
The problem here, of course, is that this crisis that he inherited, this economic crisis,
is basically one of structure, not of policy.
It's structural, and it's a system that has been around for 70 years.
And with purchasing power not expanding and with unemployment remaining at a relatively
high level, you have a profound crisis within the system, a crisis of stagnant demand, and
that has led to falling profit rates, etc., etc.
So I think what he is attempting to do here is to sell a bill of goods to the American
people as to how his team of managers, i.e. his cabinet, etc., are going to tackle this
systemic crisis in the U.S. economy.
Doug Henwood, in light of the Republican response, are we in better shape now with Clinton leading
us, or does it not make very much of a difference?
At this point, I want to give out our phone number because we will be taking phone calls
212-279-3400.
Mr. Henwood?
Well, Michael's response was really just laughable, pointless, hardly worth commenting on.
He was just saying what we needed for the next four years is more of the same, which
I don't think anyone, aside from the most loyal Bush voter, would argue.
Do you think we've reached...
Have we reached...
It's probably worth really seriously analyzing the text of his speech.
It's kind of...
I've never been terribly friendly towards Clinton, but the last couple of days I've
actually felt a glimmer of warmth towards the guy just from listening to the way Wall
Street has been screaming about the idea that they may have to increase their tax bill by
a couple of percentage points.
They're really finding it most distressing and really something they're not used to.
Even as mild as the medicine is that Clinton is prescribing for their class, it's really...
They're just not used to making any kind of additional payment come April 15th.
So it's going to be very interesting to watch them agitate through Congress to try to undermine
the modest amounts, excessively modest, excessively timid things that Clinton is asking of them.
All right.
Now we're going to take a couple of phone calls and see how our listeners feel about
the speech tonight, whether the sacrifices that we're being asked to make as individual
citizens are acceptable or not acceptable.
That's pretty much the rather simple question we're asking here tonight.
You're listening to coverage of the State of the Union Address here on WBAI Pacifica
Radio in New York.
Let's take our first call.
Good evening.
Hi.
I have a question for Dr. Kaku.
Dr. Kaku has been off the air now for about two hours.
Let's go to another call.
Good evening.
Go ahead.
All right.
Let's try yet another call.
Good evening.
Hi.
How are you doing?
Go ahead.
I just want to say I was really glad to hear him say that he was cutting nuclear power.
I was very encouraged by that, just encouraged by the tone in general.
I was a bit surprised by that, actually.
I wasn't expecting to hear that.
I don't know if that was one of the things that was predicted that he would say.
You could hear a pin drop on the floor and all the jaws hitting the tables, probably.
I just hope the oil boys don't shoot him down.
What do you think of the sacrifices?
Are they acceptable to you?
For me, they are.
I like the way he explained the energy.
I wish he would have had more to say about solar energy and encouraging that, because
I think that's where we need to go.
But I thought it was a hell of a big change from Bush, that's for sure.
All right.
Do you think his budget will be passed in the end?
I really have no idea.
I don't know how much infighting there's going to be about particular congressmen fighting
for their project and their district and all that.
I feel ugly.
All right.
Well, thanks for your call.
Thank you.
Let me ask Mr. Rojas, Don Rojas, editor of Amsterdam News, do you think this budget will
be passed?
Yes, I think it will be passed.
The Democrats, of course, have a fairly sizable majority in both chambers of the Congress,
and they're certainly very enthusiastic to support Clinton.
They have an opportunity now to work in concert with a Democratic president that has been
denied them for over 12 years, so I think that it will pass.
You know, the Republicans will make some noises here and there, but in the final analysis
there will be a bipartisan consensus on what is essentially a kind of dressed-up version
of Perot's austerity program that he was offering during his campaign, so I think
it will be enacted into law.
These noises that the Republicans are making, will Clinton be able to afford to ignore that?
Will the rest of us be able to ignore that, or is that something that will be recognized?
I think Clinton would be well advised to listen more to the noises of the working people around
this country if they are prepared to make noises, that they are not ready and willing
to share the sacrifice of a crisis that they were not responsible for with the super-rich.
Those are the noises that he should pay more attention to, rather than those of the Michaels
and other Republican politicians.
Doug Henwood now.
I just wanted to remind that, unfortunately, it seems that people are following the president's
cue and making this all a matter of is sacrifice necessary, are you willing to sacrifice.
No one is really talking about whether the package itself has any merits, and whether
it's just that sacrifice itself is something that should be asked for.
For 95 percent of the population, I don't think that it's really proper to ask for sacrifice.
And people who really don't understand what they're being asked to do and what the economic
impact of this is going to be over the next several years are, nonetheless, sort of signing
on to the rather uncritical cheerleading.
And this White House is using the tools of opinion manipulation and market research more
than the Reagan and Bush administrations did, and I have that on the authority of Business
Week magazine this week.
So remember that these people are being very clever at setting the agenda, making it an
issue of patriotism, making you feel like you're something of an immoral person for
daring to dissent from the General Clinton line at this point.
So be very, very careful about what he's actually doing, and that, for example, the caller who
picked up on the remark about nuclear power research, we don't know what he really means
by that.
He's got an energy secretary who's very friendly to the nuclear industry, so he's full of pretty
sounding phrases here and there, but we should really scrutinize what it actually means when
it comes down to dollars and cents and real policy priorities.
Well, now you raise a very interesting point, considering the way that Clinton is manipulating
things.
He seems to have been avoiding the press in the first few days of his administration.
Do you see that as a troubling sign?
Well, absolutely.
I think he's trying to use all these media manipulation techniques to get around the
press, and as stupid and complicit and docile as the press can often be, sometimes they
ask embarrassing questions.
And I think that Clinton wants to avoid anything like that, and, you know, the great town meeting
of last week, you know, he knew at 11 o'clock in the morning what the questions were going
to be.
He had all day to prepare for them.
The audience was screened.
So he can give you the illusion of spontaneity and openness, but it's actually all scripted
down to an inch of its life.
And, you know, they're using all the Reagan and Bush media manipulation strategies, plus
they have a president now who can actually answer a question on his feet, who won't look
like a fool if his cue cards get mixed up and if something unsuspected happens, he can
handle himself.
So, you know, there's sort of, to the extent that media manipulation can amplify the message
itself, they're really leveraging a very intelligent and skillful politician here and not a fool
like Bush or an actor like Reagan.
All right.
Let's take another phone call.
Let's add a question.
In addition to, are you willing to make any kind of sacrifice?
Do you think that Clinton is breaking promises?
Do you think that he's not telling us the full picture here?
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
I just think that, truth be told, I wonder how much more progressive a person would have
likely become elected.
I mean, it's easy for Doug Henwood to say, you know, this guy's basically given us the
same old, same old, and he's, you know, basically a part of the Democratic machine and this
and that.
But how much more progressive a person do you think really could have got elected in
a government situation the way it is the right?
How much more progressive policies do you think he could have got passed and what might
those really have been?
A comment to Emanuel is that there is one bright spot in the job market if Clinton is
really going to introduce computer technology to all these government agencies, that means
a boom for all us computer people in the next few years.
All right.
Let's let Mr. Henwood answer that question.
Thanks for calling.
Well, you know, I think that's such a defeatist attitude.
What can we, you know, we have to be happy for what little is being done.
You're not going to get anything done at all if there's not some folks out there making
a lot of noise and pushing from the left.
And if we just sit down around and bite our tongue and say this is the best we can hope
for we're just going to suffer one defeat after another.
I mean, the big business is very well organized.
You've got Wall Street very well organized with a very important cadre within the administration.
And if we just sit back and say, you know, this is the best we can hope for, you're just
going to lose badly.
I mean, the reason that the Democratic administration in the 1930s under Roosevelt took a fairly
progressive turn by U.S. political standards was that there were people on the far to the
left of the Democratic Party agitating and threatening something even more dangerous
to the ruling order than what Roosevelt himself represented.
And if we're going to compromise ourselves before entering political struggle, then we're
not going to get a damn thing done.
I think it's possible what the caller meant was that while this might not be the best
we can hope for, period, it might be the best we can hope for at this point in time.
In other words, a stepping stone of some sort.
Do you think that might be possible?
Well, I think it's politically, you know, I don't think this is the same old same old,
by the way.
This is obviously a different, entirely different administration, a fairly different direction
from what Bush represented.
There's no question about that.
But it's still deeply conservative in a lot of its assumptions.
Its economic thinking is still quite conservative in a lot of ways.
So yeah.
But Clinton in many respects is the most conservative candidate the Democrats have ever come up
with, or at least since Grover Cleveland.
So it may be a good thing that he's changing the tone, that there's a different set of
questions that people are talking about in political discussion now.
It's not whether government should do anything at all, but what should it do and how much.
So I mean, there's a bright spot there, certainly.
But what Clinton is offering is very weak, I think, likely to fail on his own terms.
And I only hope that that will open a space for a move further to the left.
John Rojas, the issue of Haitian refugees was not mentioned in this speech, and that's
one of the issues that Clinton has been criticized on over the past few weeks as possibly breaking
a promise to allow more refugees into this country.
Do you think its absence tonight was significant?
Well, it was significant.
He didn't touch on many foreign policy issues at all, except to say that he will continue
to support a strong military posture as the U.S. goes into this dangerous new world in
the post-Cold War period as the only superpower there is, and therefore there are certain
responsibilities as the only superpower to make sure that there is stability around the
world and that U.S. interests are preserved, etc., etc.
But he didn't speak specifically about various hot spots or hot issues that he would inevitably
face in the next few weeks as he settles into the role of the leader of the new world order
that George Bush has bequeathed to him.
His talk basically tonight was his economic program, focusing almost exclusively on his
ideas or his administration's ideas for reviving the U.S. economy.
There were some phrases that were thrown out that I thought needed to be noted with some
degree of care and concern.
One of them was that he said that if the recovery continues, then we might be able to reduce
the deficit and produce all the new jobs that he has promised.
But the operative word there is if.
There is no guarantee, all of the predictions notwithstanding, that this current recovery
is going to last very long or, indeed, is going to produce economic growth at the kinds
of levels that his program would demand.
He's promising 500,000 jobs, half a million jobs over the next couple of years.
He's promising a $30 billion investment program in infrastructure, etc., 700,000 summer jobs
for youth.
Basically, what he's promising is the restoration of a degree of the safety net to America's
welfare state, while trying to buy time to restructure the U.S. economy in an increasingly
competitive global context.
He recognized that the Los Angeles rebellion of last April could very well occur again
in cities all across this country if some of that safety net is not restored.
So he's promising about 700,000 jobs for youth, inner-city youth.
He's promising a billion dollars for the establishment of urban enterprise zones, etc., etc.
So we'll have to wait and see how these promises translate into actual programs.
Do you have a particular time frame in mind?
I don't think that you're going to see a significant turnaround if he's able to do all of this
that he's promising, and if the recovery, in fact, continues or picks up momentum within
the first term, within his first term.
I think that, you know, he's going to have to look beyond the first four years.
But I'm not terribly optimistic that this is going to happen.
As I said earlier on, what Clinton is confronted with is a structural crisis in the U.S. economy
that goes beyond just the mere cyclical, you know, the mere business cycles, the vagaries
of the business cycle.
This is a systemic crisis, and the social problems that this crisis created over the
last 20 years are not going to be solved, certainly in the first four years of his term,
or indeed in the first eight years of his term.
But you're talking about a fundamental structural defect in the system.
Yes.
I think that, as I said before, you have an imbalance in the demand and supply, which
is a fundamental law of capitalist economics.
You have a very weak demand and you have an oversupply of goods and services.
The weak demand comes from the fact that there's a very high, relatively high unemployment
rate that has remained in the U.S. economy for the last five or six years.
And that has translated into a depression of purchasing power.
You know, working people simply don't have the money to be able to buy all the goods
and services that the U.S. industry is producing.
And so you have a glut, and too many things are being produced that cannot be sold.
And that cuts into profitability, and ultimately that means high unemployment.
And that whole cycle just keeps perpetuating itself.
Rail wages remain stagnant, et cetera.
And I don't think that this kind of stimulus program that he's proposing tonight is going
to put a significant dent into that structural crisis.
Okay.
We only have a couple of minutes left, so let's see if we can get a couple more phone
calls in here.
Good evening.
You're on.
Oh, good evening.
I wanted to say that I still heard a lot of buzzwords, like welfare, which I don't really
think does a lot to this economy, if we all look back at BCCI and all the other stuff
scandals that are happening.
Also on prisons, I think they're building prisons at an alarming rate.
And he seems to have even diversified it a little bit now with boot camps, the addition
of boot camps.
I think that's very, you know, it's something that I look out for, and I thought I heard
a big buzzword there.
I think they're making jobs by sticking our youth, minority youth and the poor, in jails.
When someone says that they spend $35,000 on a prison, where does the money go, you
know?
That's what I want to know.
Also healthcare.
Healthcare is a big thing, but if you keep on, if you, how would you, you know, with
healthcare, if you keep on going down the same road, you're not looking at preventative
care and stuff like that, serious preventative care, you're going to be spending money hand
over fist still.
You know, a lot of these things I don't really think that are really going to do anything
for the economy, really, when you check it out.
You're going to be locking up the president, you know, our citizens, you're going to be
running down the same road.
If we want to make a dent into, if we want to look at other countries and say, well,
look, they're doing this and they're doing that, and we're America, we should be doing
the same thing.
I think, no, we should be trying to change things to make things even better.
We should be ahead if we want to be like that.
We shouldn't be like them, in fact, but to look at their systems and is it really doing
anything for them?
If you want to look at Britain and Canada and anything like that, is there a way we
can improve?
Is preventative care a way to improve these different things?
Or is it just adapted to our particular society, in other words?
I think there's a lot to be called for, but one thing I think people forget is the fact
that Clinton was elected to really get Bush out of office and for us to buy some time
to find someone else, if there's anyone else, to put in office the next term and the term
after that.
I think people are really jumping at Clinton and acting like he's a god that's put out
there to save us, when really that's not what we put him there for.
I remember when everybody was talking and asking, I even asked people, why are you voting?
They said to get Bush out, so I think we tend to forget all of these things.
Okay.
Thanks very much for your call.
All right.
We have time for, I'd say, one more phone call, then we'll go into the conclusion and
then the WBAI Evening News rebroadcast at 11 o'clock.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yeah, hi.
I'd just like to say one thing that struck me from a personal level.
President Clinton sounds just like George Bush and just like Ronald Reagan and just
like Jimmy Carter.
The one group that seems to be bearing the brunt of all of their errors is the federal
workforce.
Again, they want to freeze our wages.
I have no problem with sacrificing, but everyone should be called upon to sacrifice.
Why should my wages be frozen?
My prices aren't frozen.
My rent goes up.
My expenses go up.
It's really, where is it going to end for us?
When you say everyone should be called upon, who is not being called upon?
Well, there should be wage freezes or there should be price freezes or something to make
it equitable instead of putting it all on a federal worker's backs.
Doug Hamwood, what do you feel about that?
Well, I think that's one of the areas we're going to see a squeeze on.
Clinton is being somewhat misleading in saying that his squeeze is falling strictly or almost
strictly on upper income people, where certainly federal workers are going to feel the squeeze.
Consumers of federal services are going to feel the squeeze.
So I mean, I think the pain is going to be much more broadly felt than Clinton is leading
us to believe.
I just wanted to second the remark that the caller made before about prisons.
That passage of the State of the Union reminded me of Mario Cuomo and the way he built more
prisons I think than anybody in human history and carrying on that great democratic tradition
of the White House.
I imagine Clinton wants to build more federal prisons, but he seemed to get almost misty-eyed
in talking about more space in the prisons at that moment there.
He mentioned the boot camps.
What do you think of that for youthful, non-violent offenders?
Well, this is one of the classic things the Democratic Leadership Council has been calling
for for a considerable period of time.
They want a very militaristic and disciplined approach to crime among young people.
They have this theory of crime and poverty that they're basically caused by culture and
habit and behavior and psychology and not by racism, not by a polarizing economy that
we have.
And they think that by imposing discipline on people, it's going to end the problem of
crime and reduce the problem of poverty.
And really, I think they're looking more at symptoms than they are at underlying causes
there.
Okay.
Donald Rojas, I have one minute for a conclusion here.
Well, I think what we will probably see emanate from the Clinton White House in the next few
months is a slightly more enlightened version of trickle-down economics, this time using
the government as the stimulus for the trickle-down, when in fact what we need is a flood-down
from the top to the bottom, a dramatic reversal of the redistribution of income from the bottom
of the social pyramid to the top that took place under Reagan and Bush.
The only way to rectify that shift, that theft, that whole-scale theft of the wealth of America's
working people and giving it to the top 10 percent, the wealthiest in this country, which
Reagan initiated and Bush continued, the only way that Clinton's going to reverse that is
by instituting a much more progressive tax code to the one that he's proposing this evening,
and by even larger social programs that are funded by the federal government.
And that is not in the cards.
That simply is not the prescription according to the tenets of neoliberalism.
And so I am not terribly optimistic that we're going to see a dramatic turnaround in the short term.
I think that they will rely and hope for the best on the business cycle, picking up a little bit,
the recovery chugging along over the next 18 to 24 months, and hope for the best.
That seems to be, at least that is my analysis of what we can expect in the short term.
All right. Well, I want to thank you both very much.
Don Rojas, editor of the Amsterdam News, and Doug Henward, publisher of Left Business Observer,
for being with us tonight to analyze the State of the Union address.
It's a topic that no doubt will be discussed at length in WBAI in future days and weeks.
Again, thanks for participating tonight.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you. Thank you for inviting us.
Thank you. Good night.
Good night.
I'd like to remind our listeners that our regular programming will be resuming next week,
the Personal Computer Show at 9 o'clock, Off the Hook at 10 o'clock.
And coming up next, as usual, a rebroadcast of the evening's news here on WBAI New York.
Coming up next, the WBAI Evening News.
Good evening.
In the news tonight, seniors lash out at one of the largest senior groups in the country on health insurance,
a bitter pill for middle America in Clinton's State of the Union.
The French abortion pill has a Chinese relative.
And in New York, elected officials promise to put more pressure on city government
to clean up contaminated soil around the Williamsburg Bridge.
With these and other stories, I'm Laura Seidel in New York with Verna Avery-Brown in Washington.
And this is the news for Wednesday, February 17, 1993.
First, to Mark Bevis with these news headlines.
Tonight, President Clinton reveals details of his $500 billion economic package before a joint session of Congress.
Republicans have charged Clinton's plan calls for too few spending cuts and too many tax hikes.
But Clinton told reporters at a White House photo session to look at the whole package,
which also contains cuts in government.
I can honestly say I've made more specific cuts that affect me personally
than I can think any of my predecessors have made,
and that I intend to find more as I go along.
I've just been here four weeks, and I'm continuing to work on it.
Wall Street has continued to turn its thumbs down on the Clinton plan,
as stocks retreated even further, with declining stocks outnumbering advancing ones by nearly 2 to 1.
In the coming days, Clinton will be sending cabinet members to various states to promote the package.
Speaking before a House banking subcommittee today,
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros said he could not reveal details of the Clinton package,
but it does show a general philosophy.
It's not about creating pain.
It's about trying to do the right thing for the country to create a future-oriented investment strategy.
Cisneros said Housing and Urban Development will be redefining its goals
and working in tandem with other departments, particularly labor.
Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat from California, emphasized to Cisneros
that Housing and Urban Development must use its powers to protect people in public housing.
Get child care so that women can access real job training programs so that they can go to work.
You cannot talk about welfare reform in the absence of the utilization of the HUD resources
in order to empower these women and these families.
Waters also told Cisneros that HUD needs to consider how to spend the $2 billion she added to appropriations
aimed at helping rebuild L.A.
The Democrat from Los Angeles pointed out almost all of that money is still sitting in HUD coffers.
Cisneros has to figure out how to spend lots of money left over from the Bush administration.
Most of it, over $9 billion, comes from funds allocated for housing modernization.
The governing council of the AFL-CIO is urging President Clinton
to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, also known as NAFTA.
In the words of the AFL-CIO statement, NAFTA is, quote,
a disaster for millions of working people, end quote.
The heads of 33 major unions say they fear U.S. manufacturers will move to Mexico,
lured by lower wage levels.
The AFL listed 20 additional environmental and labor provisions
that should be part of a U.S. trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.
There's a report from the New York Times that U.S. and Mexican entrepreneurs are marketing a fund
aimed at buying U.S. companies and relocating them to Mexico.
The Ameramex-Maquiladora Fund Limited Partnership
wants to raise $50 million to buy up to 13 American businesses.
One of the major backers is a bank controlled by the government of Mexico.
U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Cantor is expected to bring up the fund
in today's meeting with Mexico's trade minister.
The city of Tampa, Florida, is preparing to move forward with a $70 million tourist attraction,
the WIDA pirate ship.
The city says it means jobs, but community activists say the WIDA,
which was built for the slave trade, is the wrong symbol for Tampa.
Alan Lipke has the story.
Tampa officials agreed yesterday to lease land to the WIDA slave ship pirate attraction,
but members of NOW and AIM are joining local African Americans in trying to stop the project.
Tampa's record of racism and sexism, say many like Helen LaCount,
makes the proposed profit-making complex unacceptable.
I don't think it's about education, I don't think it's about jobs,
and I don't think it's about history.
I think it's about capitalistic greed.
But officials are impressed by the developers' promises to work with the community
and employ minority staff and subcontractors.
Councilman Joe Chilora says those advantages outweigh the protests.
I will pledge my total support to assure that a project that is insensitive
to concerns of the African American community will not be tolerated.
The developers are redesigning the project on the advice of top Afrocentric scholars,
but some swear they'll shut down the WIDA attraction if it's ever built.
For Pacifica News, I'm Alan Lipke.
And those are the headlines. I'm Mark Bevis.
And now to Vern Avery-Brown in Washington.
President Clinton's maiden State of the Union address tonight
is expected to be loaded with some heavy political baggage.
As forewarned in his speech Monday night, the president is expected to make official
that higher taxes are in store for both the middle class and the wealthy.
Clinton will unveil details for his plan to stimulate the economy,
but neither the left nor those on the right of the political spectrum