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208th State of the Union Clinton’s Second Annual Message January 25, 1994 Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the 103d Congress, my fellow Americans: I'm not at all sure what speech is in the TelePrompter tonight—[laughter]—but I hope we can talk about the state of the Union. I ask you to begin by recalling the memory of the giant who presided over this Chamber with such force and grace. Tip O'Neill liked to call himself "a man of the House." And he surely was that. But even more, he was a man of the people, a bricklayer's son who helped to build the great American middle class. Tip O'Neill never forgot who he was, where he came from, or who sent him here. Tonight he's smiling down on us for the first time from the Lord's gallery. But in his honor, may we, too, always remember who we are, where we come from, and who sent us here. If we do that we will return over and over again to the principle that if we simply give ordinary people equal opportunity, quality education, and a fair shot at the American dream, they will do extraordinary things. We gather tonight in a world of changes so profound and rapid that all nations are tested. Our American heritage has always been to master such change, to use it to expand opportunity at home and our leadership abroad. But for too long and in too many ways, that heritage was abandoned, and our country drifted. For 30 years, family life in America has been breaking down. For 20 years, the wages of working people have been stagnant or declining. For the 12 years of trickle-down economics, we built a false prosperity on a hollow base as our national debt quadrupled. From 1989 to 1992, we experienced the slowest growth in a half century. For too many families, even when both parents were working, the American dream has been slipping away. In 1992, the American people demanded that we change. A year ago I asked all of you to join me in accepting responsibility for the future of our country. Well, we did. We replaced drift and deadlock with renewal and reform. And I want to thank every one of you here who heard the American people, who broke gridlock, who gave them the most successful teamwork between a President and a Congress in 30 years. This Congress produced a budget that cut the deficit by half a trillion dollars, cut spending, and raised income taxes on only the wealthiest Americans. This Congress produced tax relief for millions of low-income workers to reward work over welfare. It produced NAFTA. It produced the Brady bill, now the Brady law. And thank you, Jim Brady, for being here, and God bless you, sir. This Congress produced tax cuts to reduce the taxes of 9 out of 10 small businesses who use the money to invest more and create more jobs. It produced more research and treatment for AIDS, more childhood immunizations, more support for women's health research, more affordable college loans for the middle class, a new national service program for those who want to give something back to their country and their communities for higher education, a dramatic increase in high-tech investments to move us from a defense to a domestic high-tech economy. This Congress produced a new law, the motor voter bill, to help millions of people register to vote. It produced family and medical leave. All passed; all signed into law with not one single veto. These accomplishments were all commitments I made when I sought this office. And in fairness, they all had to be passed by you in this Congress. But I am persuaded that the real credit belongs to the people who sent us here, who pay our salaries, who hold our feet to the fire. But what we do here is really beginning to change lives. Let me just give you one example. I will never forget what the family and medical leave law meant to just one father I met early one Sunday morning in the White House. It was unusual to see a family there touring early Sunday morning, but he had his wife and his three children there, one of them in a wheelchair. I came up, and after we had our picture taken and had a little visit, I was walking off and that man grabbed me by the arm and he said, "Mr. President, let me tell you something. My little girl here is desperately ill. She's probably not going to make it. But because of the family leave law, I was able to take time off to spend with her, the most important time I ever spent in my life, without losing my job and hurting the rest of my family. It means more to me than I will ever be able to say. Don't you people up here ever think what you do doesn't make a difference. It does." Though we are making a difference, our work has just begun. Many Americans still haven't felt the impact of what we've done. The recovery still hasn't touched every community or created enough jobs. Incomes are still stagnant. There's still too much violence and not enough hope in too many places. Abroad, the young democracies we are strongly supporting still face very difficult times and look to us for leadership. And so tonight, let us resolve to continue the journey of renewal, to create more and better jobs, to guarantee health security for all, to reward work over welfare, to promote democracy abroad, and to begin to reclaim our streets from violent crime and drugs and gangs, to renew our own American community. Last year we began to put our house in order by tackling the budget deficit that was driving us toward bankruptcy. We cut $255 billion in spending, including entitlements, and over 340 separate budget items. We froze domestic spending and used honest budget numbers. Led by the Vice President, we launched a campaign to reinvent Government. We cut staff, cut perks, even trimmed the fleet of Federal limousines. After years of leaders whose rhetoric attacked bureaucracy but whose action expanded it, we will actually reduce it by 252,000 people over the next 5 years. By the time we have finished, the Federal bureaucracy will be at its lowest point in 30 years. Because the deficit was so large and because they benefited from tax cuts in the 1980's, we did ask the wealthiest Americans to pay more to reduce the deficit. So on April 15th, the American people will discover the truth about what we did last year on taxes. Only the top 1—[applause]—yes, listen, the top 1.2 percent of Americans, as I said all along, will pay higher income tax rates. Let me repeat: Only the wealthiest 1.2 percent of Americans will face higher income tax rates, and no one else will. And that is the truth. Of course, there were, as there always are in politics, naysayers who said this plan wouldn't work. But they were wrong. When I became President, the experts predicted that next year's deficit would be $300 billion. But because we acted, those same people now say the deficit is going to be under $180 billion, 40 percent lower than was previously predicted. Our economic program has helped to produce the lowest core inflation rate and the lowest interest rates in 20 years. And because those interest rates are down, business investment and equipment is growing at 7 times the rate of the previous 4 years. Auto sales are way up. Home sales are at a record high. Millions of Americans have refinanced their homes. And our economy has produced 1.6 million private sector jobs in 1993, more than were created in the previous 4 years combined. The people who supported this economic plan should be proud of its early results, proud. But everyone in this Chamber should know and acknowledge that there is more to do. Next month I will send you one of the toughest budgets ever presented to Congress. It will cut spending in more than 300 programs, eliminate 100 domestic programs, and reform the ways in which governments buy goods and services. This year we must again make the hard choices to live within the hard spending ceilings we have set. We must do it. We have proved we can bring the deficit down without choking off recovery, without punishing seniors or the middle class, and without putting our national security at risk. If you will stick with this plan, we will post 3 consecutive years of declining deficits for the first time since Harry Truman lived in the White House. And once again, the buck stops here. Our economic plan also bolsters our strength and our credibility around the world. Once we reduced the deficit and put the steel back into our competitive edge, the world echoed with the sound of falling trade barriers. In one year, with NAFTA, with GATT, with our efforts in Asia and the national export strategy, we did more to open world markets to American products than at any time in the last two generations. That means more jobs and rising living standards for the American people, low deficits, low inflation, low interest rates, low trade barriers, and high investments. These are the building blocks of our recovery. But if we want to take full advantage of the opportunities before us in the global economy, you all know we must do more. As we reduce defense spending, I ask Congress to invest more in the technologies of tomorrow. Defense conversion will keep us strong militarily and create jobs for our people here at home. As we protect our environment, we must invest in the environmental technologies of the future which will create jobs. This year we will fight for a revitalized Clean Water Act and a Safe Drinking Water Act and a reformed Superfund program. And the Vice President is right, we must also work with the private sector to connect every classroom, every clinic, every library, every hospital in America into a national information superhighway by the year 2000. Think of it: Instant access to information will increase productivity, will help to educate our children. It will provide better medical care. It will create jobs. And I call on the Congress to pass legislation to establish that information superhighway this year. As we expand opportunity and create jobs, no one can be left out. We must continue to enforce fair lending and fair housing and all civil rights laws, because America will never be complete in its renewal until everyone shares in its bounty. But we all know, too, we can do all these things—put our economic house in order, expand world trade, target the jobs of the future, guarantee equal opportunity—but if we're honest we'll all admit that this strategy still cannot work unless we also give our people the education, training, and skills they need to seize the opportunities of tomorrow. We must set tough, world-class academic and occupational standards for all our children and give our teachers and students the tools they need to meet them. Our Goals 2000 proposal will empower individual school districts to experiment with ideas like chartering their schools to be run by private corporations or having more public school choice, to do whatever they wish to do as long as we measure every school by one high standard: Are our children learning what they need to know to compete and win in the global economy? Goals 2000 links world-class standards to grassroots reforms. And I hope Congress will pass it without delay. Our school-to-work initiative will for the first time link school to the world of work, providing at least one year of apprenticeship beyond high school. After all, most of the people we're counting on to build our economic future won't graduate from college. It's time to stop ignoring them and start empowering them. We must literally transform our outdated unemployment system into a new reemployment system. The old unemployment system just sort of kept you going while you waited for your old job to come back. We've got to have a new system to move people into new and better jobs, because most of those old jobs just don't come back. And we know that the only way to have real job security in the future, to get a good job with a growing income, is to have real skills and the ability to learn new ones. So we've got to streamline today's patchwork of training programs and make them a source of new skills for our people who lose their jobs. Reemployment, not unemployment, must become the centerpiece of our economic renewal. I urge you to pass it in this session of Congress. And just as we must transform our unemployment system, so must we also revolutionize our welfare system. It doesn't work. It defies our values as a nation. If we value work, we can't justify a system that makes welfare more attractive than work if people are worried about losing their health care. If we value responsibility, we can't ignore the $34 billion in child support absent parents ought to be paying to millions of parents who are taking care of their children. If we value strong families, we can't perpetuate a system that actually penalizes those who stay together. Can you believe that a child who has a child gets more money from the Government for leaving home than for staying home with a parent or a grandparent? That's not just bad policy, it's wrong. And we ought to change it. I worked on this problem for years before I became President, with other Governors and with Members of Congress of both parties and with the previous administration of another party. I worked on it with people who were on welfare, lots of them. And I want to say something to everybody here who cares about this issue. The people who most want to change this system are the people who are dependent on it. They want to get off welfare. They want to go back to work. They want to do right by their kids. I once had a hearing when I was a Governor, and I brought in people on welfare from all over America who had found their way to work. The woman from my State who testified was asked this question: What's the best thing about being off welfare and in a job? And without blinking an eye, she looked at 40 Governors, and she said, "When my boy goes to school and they say, ‘What does your mother do for a living?' he can give an answer." These people want a better system, and we ought to give it to them. Last year we began this. We gave the States more power to innovate because we know that a lot of great ideas come from outside Washington, and many States are already using it. Then this Congress took a dramatic step. Instead of taxing people with modest incomes into poverty, we helped them to work their way out of poverty by dramatically increasing the earned-income tax credit. It will lift 15 million working families out of poverty, rewarding work over welfare, making it possible for people to be successful workers and successful parents. Now that's real welfare reform. But there is more to be done. This spring I will send you a comprehensive welfare reform bill that builds on the Family Support Act of 1988 and restores the basic values of work and responsibility. We'll say to teenagers, "If you have a child out of wedlock, we will no longer give you a check to set up a separate household. We want families to stay together"; say to absent parents who aren't paying their child support, "If you're not providing for your children, we'll garnish your wages, suspend your license, track you across State lines, and if necessary, make some of you work off what you owe." People who bring children into this world cannot and must not walk away from them. But to all those who depend on welfare, we should offer ultimately a simple compact. We'll provide the support, the job training, the child care you need for up to 2 years. But after that, anyone who can work, must, in the private sector wherever possible, in community service if necessary. That's the only way we'll ever make welfare what it ought to be, a second chance, not a way of life. I know it will be difficult to tackle welfare reform in 1994 at the same time we tackle health care. But let me point out, I think it is inevitable and imperative. It is estimated that one million people are on welfare today because it's the only way they can get health care coverage for their children. Those who choose to leave welfare for jobs without health benefits, and many entry-level jobs don't have health benefits, find themselves in the incredible position of paying taxes that help to pay for health care coverage for those who made the other choice, to stay on welfare. No wonder people leave work and go back to welfare to get health care coverage. We've got to solve the health care problem to have real welfare reform. So this year, we will make history by reforming the health care system. And I would say to you, all of you, my fellow public servants, this is another issue where the people are way ahead of the politicians. That may not be popular with either party, but it happens to be the truth. You know, the First Lady has received now almost a million letters from people all across America and from all walks of life. I'd like to share just one of them with you. Richard Anderson of Reno, Nevada, lost his job and with it, his health insurance. Two weeks later his wife, Judy, suffered a cerebral aneurysm. He rushed her to the hospital, where she stayed in intensive care for 21 days. The Andersons' bills were over $120,000. Although Judy recovered and Richard went back to work at $8 an hour, the bills were too much for them, and they were literally forced into bankruptcy. "Mrs. Clinton," he wrote to Hillary, "no one in the United States of America should have to lose everything they've worked for all their lives because they were unfortunate enough to become ill." It was to help the Richard and Judy Andersons of America that the First Lady and so many others have worked so hard and so long on this health care reform issue. We owe them our thanks and our action. I know there are people here who say there's no health care crisis. Tell it to Richard and Judy Anderson. Tell it to the 58 million Americans who have no coverage at all for some time each year. Tell it to the 81 million Americans with those preexisting conditions. Those folks are paying more, or they can't get insurance at all, or they can't ever change their jobs because they or someone in their family has one of those preexisting conditions. Tell it to the small businesses burdened by the skyrocketing cost of insurance. Most small businesses cover their employees, and they pay on average 35 percent more in premiums than big businesses or Government. Or tell it to the 76 percent of insured Americans, three out of four, whose policies have lifetime limits, and that means they can find themselves without any coverage at all just when they need it the most. So if any of you believe there's no crisis, you tell it to those people, because I can't. There are some people who literally do not understand the impact of this problem on people's lives. And all you have to do is go out and listen to them. Just go talk to them anywhere in any congressional district in this country. They're Republicans and Democrats and independents; it doesn't have a lick to do with party. They think we don't get it. And it's time we show them that we do get it. From the day we began, our health care initiative has been designed to strengthen what is good about our health care system: the world's best health care professionals, cutting-edge research and wonderful research institutions, Medicare for older Americans. None of this, none of it should be put at risk. But we're paying more and more money for less and less care. Every year fewer and fewer Americans even get to choose their doctors. Every year doctors and nurses spend more time on paperwork and less time with patients because of the absolute bureaucratic nightmare the present system has become. This system is riddled with inefficiency, with abuse, with fraud, and everybody knows it. In today's health care system, insurance companies call the shots. They pick whom they cover and how they cover them. They can cut off your benefits when you need your coverage the most. They are in charge. What does it mean? It means every night millions of well-insured Americans go to bed just an illness, an accident, or a pink slip away from having no coverage or financial ruin. It means every morning millions of Americans go to work without any health insurance at all, something the workers in no other advanced country in the world do. It means that every year more and more hard-working people are told to pick a new doctor because their boss has had to pick a new plan. And countless others turn down better jobs because they know if they take the better job, they will lose their health insurance. If we just let the health care system continue to drift, our country will have people with less care, fewer choices, and higher bills. Now, our approach protects the quality of care and people's choices. It builds on what works today in the private sector, to expand employer-based coverage, to guarantee private insurance for every American. And I might say, employer-based private insurance for every American was proposed 20 years ago by President Richard Nixon to the United States Congress. It was a good idea then, and it's a better idea today. Why do we want guaranteed private insurance? Because right now 9 out of 10 people who have insurance get it through their employers. And that should continue. And if your employer is providing good benefits at reasonable prices, that should continue, too. That ought to make the Congress and the President feel better. Our goal is health insurance everybody can depend on: comprehensive benefits that cover preventive care and prescription drugs; health premiums that don't just explode when you get sick or you get older; the power, no matter how small your business is, to choose dependable insurance at the same competitive rates governments and big business get today; one simple form for people who are sick; and most of all, the freedom to choose a plan and the right to choose your own doctor. Our approach protects older Americans. Every plan before the Congress proposes to slow the growth of Medicare. The difference is this: We believe those savings should be used to improve health care for senior citizens. Medicare must be protected, and it should cover prescription drugs, and we should take the first steps in covering long-term care. To those who would cut Medicare without protecting seniors, I say the solution to today's squeeze on middle class working people's health care is not to put the squeeze on middle class retired people's health care. We can do better than that. When it's all said and done, it's pretty simple to me. Insurance ought to mean what it used to mean: You pay a fair price for security, and when you get sick, health care's always there, no matter what. Along with the guarantee of health security, we all have to admit, too, there must be more responsibility on the part of all of us in how we use this system. People have to take their kids to get immunized. We should all take advantage of preventive care. We must all work together to stop the violence that explodes our emergency rooms. We have to practice better health habits, and we can't abuse the system. And those who don't have insurance under our approach will get coverage, but they'll have to pay something for it, too. The minority of businesses that provide no insurance at all, and in so doing shift the cost of the care of their employees to others, should contribute something. People who smoke should pay more for a pack of cigarettes. Everybody can contribute something if we want to solve the health care crisis. There can't be any more something for nothing. It will not be easy but it can be done. Now, in the coming months I hope very much to work with both Democrats and Republicans to reform a health care system by using the market to bring down costs and to achieve lasting health security. But if you look at history we see that for 60 years this country has tried to reform health care. President Roosevelt tried. President Truman tried. President Nixon tried. President Carter tried. Every time the special interests were powerful enough to defeat them. But not this time. I know that facing up to these interests will require courage. It will raise critical questions about the way we finance our campaigns and how lobbyists yield their influence. The work of change, frankly, will never get any easier until we limit the influence of well-financed interests who profit from this current system. So I also must now call on you to finish the job both Houses began last year by passing tough and meaningful campaign finance reform and lobby reform legislation this year. You know, my fellow Americans, this is really a test for all of us. The American people provide those of us in Government service with terrific health care benefits at reasonable costs. We have health care that's always there. I think we need to give every hard-working, tax-paying American the same health care security they have already given to us. I want to make this very clear. I am open, as I have said repeatedly, to the best ideas of concerned Members of both parties. I have no special brief for any specific approach, even in our own bill, except this: If you send me legislation that does not guarantee every American private health insurance that can never be taken away, you will force me to take this pen, veto the legislation, and we'll come right back here and start all over again. But I don't think that's going to happen. I think we're ready to act now. I believe that you're ready to act now. And if you're ready to guarantee every American the same health care that you have, health care that can never be taken away, now—not next year or the year after—now is the time to stand with the people who sent us here, now. As we take these steps together to renew our strength at home, we cannot turn away from our obligation to renew our leadership abroad. This is a promising moment. Because of the agreements we have reached this year, last year, Russia's strategic nuclear missiles soon will no longer be pointed at the United States, nor will we point ours at them. Instead of building weapons in space, Russian scientists will help us to build the international space station. Of course, there are still dangers in the world: rampant arms proliferation, bitter regional conflicts, ethnic and nationalist tensions in many new democracies, severe environmental degradation the world over, and fanatics who seek to cripple the world's cities with terror. As the world's greatest power, we must, therefore, maintain our defenses and our responsibilities. This year, we secured indictments against terrorists and sanctions against those who harbor them. We worked to promote environmentally sustainable economic growth. We achieved agreements with Ukraine, with Belarus, with Kazahkstan to eliminate completely their nuclear arsenal. We are working to achieve a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. We will seek early ratification of a treaty to ban chemical weapons worldwide. And earlier today, we joined with over 30 nations to begin negotiations on a comprehensive ban to stop all nuclear testing. But nothing, nothing is more important to our security than our Nation's Armed Forces. We honor their contributions, including those who are carrying out the longest humanitarian air lift in history in Bosnia, those who will complete their mission in Somalia this year and their brave comrades who gave their lives there. Our forces are the finest military our Nation has ever had. And I have pledged that as long as I am President, they will remain the best equipped, the best trained, and the best prepared fighting force on the face of the Earth. Last year I proposed a defense plan that maintains our post-cold-war security at a lower cost. This year many people urged me to cut our defense spending further to pay for other Government programs. I said no. The budget I send to Congress draws the line against further defense cuts. It protects the readiness and quality of our forces. Ultimately, the best strategy is to do that. We must not cut defense further. I hope the Congress, without regard to party, will support that position. Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. Democracies don't attack each other. They make better trading partners and partners in diplomacy. That is why we have supported, you and I, the democratic reformers in Russia and in the other states of the former Soviet bloc. I applaud the bipartisan support this Congress provided last year for our initiatives to help Russia, Ukraine, and the other states through their epic transformations. Our support of reform must combine patience for the enormity of the task and vigilance for our fundamental interest and values. We will continue to urge Russia and the other states to press ahead with economic reforms. And we will seek to cooperate with Russia to solve regional problems, while insisting that if Russian troops operate in neighboring states, they do so only when those states agree to their presence and in strict accord with international standards. But we must also remember as these nations chart their own futures—and they must chart their own futures—how much more secure and more prosperous our own people will be if democratic and market reforms succeed all across the former Communist bloc. Our policy has been to support that move, and that has been the policy of the Congress. We should continue it. That is why I went to Europe earlier this month, to work with our European partners, to help to integrate all the former Communist countries into a Europe that has a possibility of becoming unified for the first time in its entire history, its entire history, based on the simple commitments of all nations in Europe to democracy, to free markets, and to respect for existing borders. With our allies we have created a Partnership For Peace that invites states from the former Soviet bloc and other non-NATO members to work with NATO in military cooperation. When I met with Central Europe's leaders, including Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, men who put their lives on the line for freedom, I told them that the security of their region is important to our country's security. This year we must also do more to support democratic renewal and human rights and sustainable development all around the world. We will ask Congress to ratify the new GATT accord. We will continue standing by South Africa as it works its way through its bold and hopeful and difficult transition to democracy. We will convene a summit of the Western Hemisphere's democratic leaders from Canada to the tip of South America. And we will continue to press for the restoration of true democracy in Haiti. And as we build a more constructive relationship with China, we must continue to insist on clear signs of improvement in that nation's human rights record. We will also work for new progress toward the Middle East peace. Last year the world watched Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat at the White House when they had their historic handshake of reconciliation. But there is a long, hard road ahead. And on that road I am determined that I and our administration will do all we can to achieve a comprehensive and lasting peace for all the peoples of the region. Now, there are some in our country who argue that with the cold war, America should turn its back on the rest of the world. Many around the world were afraid we would do just that. But I took this office on a pledge that had no partisan tinge, to keep our Nation secure by remaining engaged in the rest of the world. And this year, because of our work together, enacting NAFTA, keeping our military strong and prepared, supporting democracy abroad, we have reaffirmed America's leadership, America's engagement. And as a result, the American people are more secure than they were before. But while Americans are more secure from threats abroad, I think we all know that in many ways we are less secure from threats here at home. Every day the national peace is shattered by crime. In Petaluma, California, an innocent slumber party gives way to agonizing tragedy for the family of Polly Klaas. An ordinary train ride on Long Island ends in a hail of 9-millimeter rounds. A tourist in Florida is nearly burned alive by bigots simply because he is black. Right here in our Nation's Capital, a brave young man named Jason White, a policeman, the son and grandson of policemen, is ruthlessly gunned down. Violent crime and the fear it provokes are crippling our society, limiting personal freedom, and fraying the ties that bind us. The crime bill before Congress gives you a chance to do something about it, a chance to be tough and smart. What does that mean? Let me begin by saying I care a lot about this issue. Many years ago, when I started out in public life, I was the attorney general of my State. I served as a Governor for a dozen years. I know what it's like to sign laws increasing penalties, to build more prison cells, to carry out the death penalty. I understand this issue. And it is not a simple thing. First, we must recognize that most violent crimes are committed by a small percentage of criminals who too often break the laws even when they are on parole. Now those who commit crimes should be punished. And those who commit repeated violent crimes should be told, "When you commit a third violent crime, you will be put away, and put away for good; three strikes and you are out." Second, we must take serious steps to reduce violence and prevent crime, beginning with more police officers and more community policing. We know right now that police who work the streets, know the folks, have the respect of the neighborhood kids, focus on high crime areas, we know that they are more likely to prevent crime as well as catch criminals. Look at the experience of Houston, where the crime rate dropped 17 percent in one year when that approach was taken. Here tonight is one of those community policemen, a brave, young detective, Kevin Jett, whose beat is eight square blocks in one of the toughest neighborhoods in New York. Every day he restores some sanity and safety and a sense of values and connections to the people whose lives he protects. I'd like to ask him to stand up and be recognized tonight. Thank you, sir. [Applause] You will be given a chance to give the children of this country, the law-abiding working people of this country—and don't forget, in the toughest neighborhoods in this country, in the highest crime neighborhoods in this country, the vast majority of people get up every day and obey the law, pay their taxes, do their best to raise their kids. They deserve people like Kevin Jett. And you're going to be given a chance to give the American people another 100,000 of them, well trained. And I urge you to do it. You have before you crime legislation which also establishes a police corps to encourage young people to get an education and pay it off by serving as police officers; which encourages retiring military personnel to move into police forces, an inordinate resource for our country; one which has a safe schools provision which will give our young people the chance to walk to school in safety and to be in school in safety instead of dodging bullets. These are important things. The third thing we have to do is to build on the Brady bill, the Brady law, to take further steps to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. I want to say something about this issue. Hunters must always be free to hunt. Law-abiding adults should always be free to own guns and protect their homes. I respect that part of our culture; I grew up in it. But I want to ask the sportsmen and others who lawfully own guns to join us in this campaign to reduce gun violence. I say to you, I know you didn't create this problem, but we need your help to solve it. There is no sporting purpose on Earth that should stop the United States Congress from banishing assault weapons that out-gun police and cut down children. Fourth, we must remember that drugs are a factor in an enormous percentage of crimes. Recent studies indicate, sadly, that drug use is on the rise again among our young people. The crime bill contains—all the crime bills contain— more money for drug treatment for criminal addicts and boot camps for youthful offenders that include incentives to get off drugs and to stay off drugs. Our administration's budget, with all its cuts, contains a large increase in funding for drug treatment and drug education. You must pass them both. We need them desperately. My fellow Americans, the problem of violence is an American problem. It has no partisan or philosophical element. Therefore, I urge you to find ways as quickly as possible to set aside partisan differences and pass a strong, smart, tough crime bill. But further, I urge you to consider this: As you demand tougher penalties for those who choose violence, let us also remember how we came to this sad point. In our toughest neighborhoods, on our meanest streets, in our poorest rural areas, we have seen a stunning and simultaneous breakdown of community, family, and work, the heart and soul of civilized society. This has created a vast vacuum which has been filled by violence and drugs and gangs. So I ask you to remember that even as we say no to crime, we must give people, especially our young people, something to say yes to. Many of our initiatives, from job training to welfare reform to health care to national service, will help to rebuild distressed communities, to strengthen families, to provide work. But more needs to be done. That's what our community empowerment agenda is all about, challenging businesses to provide more investment through empowerment zones, ensuring banks will make loans in the same communities their deposits come from, passing legislation to unleash the power of capital through community development banks to create jobs, opportunity, and hope where they're needed most. I think you know that to really solve this problem, we'll all have to put our heads together, leave our ideological armor aside, and find some new ideas to do even more. And let's be honest, we all know something else too: Our problems go way beyond the reach of Government. They're rooted in the loss of values, in the disappearance of work, and the breakdown of our families and our communities. My fellow Americans, we can cut the deficit, create jobs, promote democracy around the world, pass welfare reform and health care, pass the toughest crime bill in history, but still leave too many of our people behind. The American people have got to want to change from within if we're going to bring back work and family and community. We cannot renew our country when within a decade more than half of the children will be born into families where there has been no marriage. We cannot renew this country when 13-year-old boys get semiautomatic weapons to shoot 9-year-olds for kicks. We can't renew our country when children are having children and the fathers walk away as if the kids don't amount to anything. We can't renew the country when our businesses eagerly look for new investments and new customers abroad but ignore those people right here at home who would give anything to have their jobs and would gladly buy their products if they had the money to do it. We can't renew our country unless more of us—I mean, all of us— are willing to join the churches and the other good citizens, people like all the—like ministers I've worked with over the years or the priests and the nuns I met at Our Lady of Help in east Los Angeles or my good friend Tony Campollo in Philadelphia, unless we're willing to work with people like that, people who are saving kids, adopting schools, making streets safer. All of us can do that. We can't renew our country until we realize that governments don't raise children, parents do. Parents who know their children's teachers and turn off the television and help with the homework and teach their kids right from wrong, those kinds of parents can make all the difference. I know; I had one. I'm telling you, we have got to stop pointing our fingers at these kids who have no future and reach our hands out to them. Our country needs it, we need it, and they deserve it. So I say to you tonight, let's give our children a future. Let us take away their guns and give them books. Let us overcome their despair and replace it with hope. Let us, by our example, teach them to obey the law, respect our neighbors, and cherish our values. Let us weave these sturdy threads into a new American community that can once more stand strong against the forces of despair and evil because everybody has a chance to walk into a better tomorrow. Oh, there will be naysayers who fear that we won't be equal to the challenges of this time. But they misread our history, our heritage. Even today's headlines, all those things tell us we can and we will overcome any challenge. When the earth shook and fires raged in California, when I saw the Mississippi deluge the farmlands of the Midwest in a 500-year flood, when the century's bitterest cold swept from North Dakota to Newport News, it seemed as though the world itself was coming apart at the seams. But the American people, they just came together. They rose to the occasion, neighbor helping neighbor, strangers risking life and limb to save total strangers, showing the better angels of our nature. Let us not reserve the better angels only for natural disasters, leaving our deepest and most profound problems to petty political fighting. Let us instead be true to our spirit, facing facts, coming together, bringing hope, and moving forward. Tonight, my fellow Americans, we are summoned to answer a question as old as the Republic itself: What is the state of our Union? It is growing stronger, but it must be stronger still. With your help and God's help, it will be. Thank you, and God bless America. Source: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-before-joint-session-the-congress-the-state-the-union-12

207th State of the Union Clinton’s First Annual Message February 17, 1993 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. [Laughter] When Presidents speak to Congress and the Nation from this podium, typically they comment on the full range in 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 has seemed 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 the American 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. 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 jumpstarting 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 borne. 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 one 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 work force 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, in 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 a 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 in 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. This 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 5 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 cost 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'll have to root out fraud and overcharges and make sure that paperwork no longer chokes your doctor. We'll 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 I will work to do better. 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 2-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 for school, is a success story. We all know that it saves money. But today it just reaches barely over one-third of all the eligible children. Under this plan, every eligible child will be able to get a head start. This is not just the right thing to do; it is the smart thing to do. For every dollar we invest today, we'll save $3 tomorrow. We have to start thinking about tomorrow. I've heard that somewhere before. [Laughter] We have to ask more in our schools of our students, our teachers, our principals, our parents. Yes, we must give them the resources they need to meet high standards, but we must also use the authority and the influence and the funding of the Education Department to promote strategies that really work in learning. Money alone is not enough. We have to do what really works to increase learning in our schools. We have to recognize that all of our high school graduates need some further education in order to be competitive in this global economy. So we have to establish a partnership between businesses and education and the Government for apprenticeship programs in every State in this country 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 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. And 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 knowledge. 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. 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. 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 2 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. 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 in this world. 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. 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 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. Believe me, they were cheering 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 4 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 costs. 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 4-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 Superfund 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 4 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 4 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. 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 4 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. [Laughter] 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 will 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 shooting 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 are 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 are 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, that 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 any more, 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: 98.8 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 for Medicare. As we move toward the 4th year, with the explosion in health care costs, as I said, projected 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 Medicare benefits for any beneficiary. 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, that's not too hard on the coal States; unlike a gas tax, that'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 propose, 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 who 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 had 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 cost 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. If 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. If 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 income, to more debt, to more disappointment. Worse, 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 looked 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 scepticisms, not with our words but with our deeds. After so many years of gridlock and indecision, 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, 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 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. Source: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-before-joint-session-congress-administration-goals

53rd Inauguration: Clinton’s Second Inaugural Address January 20, 1997 My fellow citizens : At this last presidential inauguration of the 20th century, let us lift our eyes toward the challenges that await us in the next century. It is our great good fortune that time and chance have put us not only at the edge of a new century, in a new millennium, but on the edge of a bright new prospect in human affairs, a moment that will define our course, and our character, for decades to come. We must keep our old democracy forever young. Guided by the ancient vision of a promised land, let us set our sights upon a land of new promise. The promise of America was born in the 18th century out of the bold conviction that we are all created equal. It was extended and preserved in the 19th century, when our nation spread across the continent, saved the union, and abolished the awful scourge of slavery. Then, in turmoil and triumph, that promise exploded onto the world stage to make this the American Century. And what a century it has been. America became the world's mightiest industrial power; saved the world from tyranny in two world wars and a long cold war; and time and again, reached out across the globe to millions who, like us, longed for the blessings of liberty. Along the way, Americans produced a great middle class and security in old age; built unrivaled centers of learning and opened public schools to all; split the atom and explored the heavens; invented the computer and the microchip; and deepened the wellspring of justice by making a revolution in civil rights for African Americans and all minorities, and extending the circle of citizenship, opportunity and dignity to women. Now, for the third time, a new century is upon us, and another time to choose. We began the 19th century with a choice, to spread our nation from coast to coast. We began the 20th century with a choice, to harness the Industrial Revolution to our values of free enterprise, conservation, and human decency. Those choices made all the difference. At the dawn of the 21st century a free people must now choose to shape the forces of the Information Age and the global society, to unleash the limitless potential of all our people, and, yes, to form a more perfect union. When last we gathered, our march to this new future seemed less certain than it does today. We vowed then to set a clear course to renew our nation. In these four years, we have been touched by tragedy, exhilarated by challenge, strengthened by achievement. America stands alone as the world's indispensable nation. Once again, our economy is the strongest on Earth. Once again, we are building stronger families, thriving communities, better educational opportunities, a cleaner environment. Problems that once seemed destined to deepen now bend to our efforts: our streets are safer and record numbers of our fellow citizens have moved from welfare to work. And once again, we have resolved for our time a great debate over the role of government. Today we can declare: Government is not the problem, and government is not the solution. We,- the American people, we are the solution. Our founders understood that well and gave us a democracy strong enough to endure for centuries, flexible enough to face our common challenges and advance our common dreams in each new day. As times change, so government must change. We need a new government for a new century - humble enough not to try to solve all our problems for us, but strong enough to give us the tools to solve our problems for ourselves; a government that is smaller, lives within its means, and does more with less. Yet where it can stand up for our values and interests in the world, and where it can give Americans the power to make a real difference in their everyday lives, government should do more, not less. The preeminent mission of our new government is to give all Americans an opportunity,- not a guarantee, but a real opportunity to build better lives. Beyond that, my fellow citizens, the future is up to us. Our founders taught us that the preservation of our liberty and our union depends upon responsible citizenship. And we need a new sense of responsibility for a new century. There is work to do, work that government alone cannot do: teaching children to read; hiring people off welfare rolls; coming out from behind locked doors and shuttered windows to help reclaim our streets from drugs and gangs and crime; taking time out of our own lives to serve others. Each and every one of us, in our own way, must assume personal responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families, but for our neighbors and our nation. Our greatest responsibility is to embrace a new spirit of community for a new century. For any one of us to succeed, we must succeed as one America. The challenge of our past remains the challenge of our future, will we be one nation, one people, with one common destiny, or not? Will we all come together, or come apart? The divide of race has been America's constant curse. And each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction are no different. These forces have nearly destroyed our nation in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. And they torment the lives of millions in fractured nations all around the world. These obsessions cripple both those who hate and, of course, those who are hated, robbing both of what they might become. We cannot, we will not, succumb to the dark impulses that lurk in the far regions of the soul everywhere. We shall overcome them. And we shall replace them with the generous spirit of a people who feel at home with one another. Our rich texture of racial, religious and political diversity will be a Godsend in the 21st century. Great rewards will come to those who can live together, learn together, work together, forge new ties that bind together. As this new era approaches we can already see its broad outlines. Ten years ago, the Internet was the mystical province of physicists; today, it is a commonplace encyclopedia for millions of schoolchildren. Scientists now are decoding the blueprint of human life. Cures for our most feared illnesses seem close at hand. The world is no longer divided into two hostile camps. Instead, now we are building bonds with nations that once were our adversaries. Growing connections of commerce and culture give us a chance to lift the fortunes and spirits of people the world over. And for the very first time in all of history, more people on this planet live under democracy than dictatorship. My fellow Americans, as we look back at this remarkable century, we may ask, can we hope not just to follow, but even to surpass the achievements of the 20th century in America and to avoid the awful bloodshed that stained its legacy? To that question, every American here and every American in our land today must answer a resounding "Yes." This is the heart of our task. With a new vision of government, a new sense of responsibility, a new spirit of community, we will sustain America's journey. The promise we sought in a new land we will find again in a land of new promise. In this new land, education will be every citizen's most prized possession. Our schools will have the highest standards in the world, igniting the spark of possibility in the eyes of every girl and every boy. And the doors of higher education will be open to all. The knowledge and power of the Information Age will be within reach not just of the few, but of every classroom, every library, every child. Parents and children will have time not only to work, but to read and play together. And the plans they make at their kitchen table will be those of a better home, a better job, the certain chance to go to college. Our streets will echo again with the laughter of our children, because no one will try to shoot them or sell them drugs anymore. Everyone who can work, will work, with today's permanent under class part of tomorrow's growing middle class. New miracles of medicine at last will reach not only those who can claim care now, but the children and hardworking families too long denied. We will stand mighty for peace and freedom, and maintain a strong defense against terror and destruction. Our children will sleep free from the threat of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Ports and airports, farms and factories will thrive with trade and innovation and ideas. And the world's greatest democracy will lead a whole world of democracies. Our land of new promise will be a nation that meets its obligations, a nation that balances its budget, but never loses the balance of its values. A nation where our grandparents have secure retirement and health care, and their grandchildren know we have made the reforms necessary to sustain those benefits for their time. A nation that fortifies the world's most productive economy even as it protects the great natural bounty of our water, air, and majestic land. And in this land of new promise, we will have reformed our politics so that the voice of the people will always speak louder than the din of narrow interests, regaining the participation and deserving the trust of all Americans. Fellow citizens, let us build that America, a nation ever moving forward toward realizing the full potential of all its citizens. Prosperity and power, yes, they are important, and we must maintain them. But let us never forget: The greatest progress we have made, and the greatest progress we have yet to make, is in the human heart. In the end, all the world's wealth and a thousand armies are no match for the strength and decency of the human spirit. Thirty-four years ago, the man whose life we celebrate today spoke to us down there, at the other end of this Mall, in words that moved the conscience of a nation. Like a prophet of old, he told of his dream that one day America would rise up and treat all its citizens as equals before the law and in the heart. Martin Luther King's dream was the American Dream. His quest is our quest: the ceaseless striving to live out our true creed. Our history has been built on such dreams and labors. And by our dreams and labors we will redeem the promise of America in the 21st century. To that effort I pledge all my strength and every power of my office. I ask the members of Congress here to join in that pledge. The American people returned to office a President of one party and a Congress of another. Surely, they did not do this to advance the politics of petty bickering and extreme partisanship they plainly deplore. No, they call on us instead to be repairers of the breach, and to move on with America's mission. America demands and deserves big things from us,- and nothing big ever came from being small. Let us remember the timeless wisdom of Cardinal Bernardin, when facing the end of his own life. He said, "It is wrong to waste the precious gift of time, on acrimony and division." Fellow citizens, we must not waste the precious gift of this time. For all of us are on that same journey of our lives, and our journey, too, will come to an end. But the journey of our America must go on. And so, my fellow Americans, we must be strong, for there is much to dare. The demands of our time are great and they are different. Let us meet them with faith and courage, with patience and a grateful and happy heart. Let us shape the hope of this day into the noblest chapter in our history. Yes, let us build our bridge. A bridge wide enough and strong enough for every American to cross over to a blessed land of new promise. May those generations whose faces we cannot yet see, whose names we may never know, say of us here that we led our beloved land into a new century with the American Dream alive for all her children; with the American promise of a more perfect union a reality for all her people; with America's bright flame of freedom spreading throughout all the world. From the height of this place and the summit of this century, let us go forth. May God strengthen our hands for the good work ahead, and always, always bless our America. Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/clinton2.asp

52nd Inauguration: Clinton’s First Inaugural Address January 20, 1993 My fellow citizens : Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal. This ceremony is held in the depth of winter. But, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring. A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America. When our founders boldly declared America's independence to the world and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America, to endure, would have to change. Not change for change's sake, but change to preserve America's ideals; life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless. Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be an American. On behalf of our nation, I salute my predecessor, President Bush, for his half-century of service to America. And I thank the millions of men and women whose steadfastness and sacrifice triumphed over Depression, fascism and Communism. Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War assumes new responsibilities in a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom but threatened still by ancient hatreds and new plagues. Raised in unrivaled prosperity, we inherit an economy that is still the world's strongest, but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages, increasing inequality, and deep divisions among our people. When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to uphold, news traveled slowly across the land by horseback and across the ocean by boat. Now, the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to billions around the world. Communications and commerce are global; investment is mobile; technology is almost magical; and ambition for a better life is now universal. We earn our livelihood in peaceful competition with people all across the earth. Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world, and the urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy. This new world has already enriched the lives of millions of Americans who are able to compete and win in it. But when most people are working harder for less; when others cannot work at all; when the cost of health care devastates families and threatens to bankrupt many of our enterprises, great and small; when fear of crime robs law-abiding citizens of their freedom; and when millions of poor children cannot even imagine the lives we are calling them to lead, we have not made change our friend. We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps. But we have not done so. Instead, we have drifted, and that drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence. Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. And Americans have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people. We must bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came before us. From our revolution, the Civil War, to the Great Depression to the civil rights movement, our people have always mustered the determination to construct from these crises the pillars of our history. Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our nation, we would need dramatic change from time to time. Well, my fellow citizens, this is our time. Let us embrace it. Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. And so today, we pledge an end to the era of deadlock and drift; a new season of American renewal has begun. To renew America, we must be bold. We must do what no generation has had to do before. We must invest more in our own people, in their jobs, in their future, and at the same time cut our massive debt. And we must do so in a world in which we must compete for every opportunity. It will not be easy; it will require sacrifice. But it can be done, and done fairly, not choosing sacrifice for its own sake, but for our own sake. We must provide for our nation the way a family provides for its children. Our Founders saw themselves in the light of posterity. We can do no less. Anyone who has ever watched a child's eyes wander into sleep knows what posterity is. Posterity is the world to come; the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility. We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all. It is time to break the bad habit of expecting something for nothing, from our government or from each other. Let us all take more responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our communities and our country. To renew America, we must revitalize our democracy. This beautiful capital, like every capital since the dawn of civilization, is often a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way. Americans deserve better, and in this city today, there are people who want to do better. And so I say to all of us here, let us resolve to reform our politics, so that power and privilege no longer shout down the voice of the people. Let us put aside personal advantage so that we can feel the pain and see the promise of America. Let us resolve to make our government a place for what Franklin Roosevelt called "bold, persistent experimentation," a government for our tomorrows, not our yesterdays. Let us give this capital back to the people to whom it belongs. To renew America, we must meet challenges abroad as well at home. There is no longer division between what is foreign and what is domestic; the world economy, the world environment, the world AIDS crisis, the world arms race; they affect us all. Today, as an old order passes, the new world is more free but less stable. Communism's collapse has called forth old animosities and new dangers. Clearly America must continue to lead the world we did so much to make. While America rebuilds at home, we will not shrink from the challenges, nor fail to seize the opportunities, of this new world. Together with our friends and allies, we will work to shape change, lest it engulf us. When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and conscience of the international community is defied, we will act; with peaceful diplomacy when ever possible, with force when necessary. The brave Americans serving our nation today in the Persian Gulf, in Somalia, and wherever else they stand are testament to our resolve. But our greatest strength is the power of our ideas, which are still new in many lands. Across the world, we see them embraced, and we rejoice. Our hopes, our hearts, our hands, are with those on every continent who are building democracy and freedom. Their cause is America's cause. The American people have summoned the change we celebrate today. You have raised your voices in an unmistakable chorus. You have cast your votes in historic numbers. And you have changed the face of Congress, the presidency and the political process itself. Yes, you, my fellow Americans have forced the spring. Now, we must do the work the season demands. To that work I now turn, with all the authority of my office. I ask the Congress to join with me. But no president, no Congress, no government, can undertake this mission alone. My fellow Americans, you, too, must play your part in our renewal. I challenge a new generation of young Americans to a season of service; to act on your idealism by helping troubled children, keeping company with those in need, reconnecting our torn communities. There is so much to be done; enough indeed for millions of others who are still young in spirit to give of themselves in service, too. In serving, we recognize a simple but powerful truth, we need each other. And we must care for one another. Today, we do more than celebrate America; we rededicate ourselves to the very idea of America. An idea born in revolution and renewed through two centuries of challenge. An idea tempered by the knowledge that, but for fate we, the fortunate and the unfortunate, might have been each other. An idea ennobled by the faith that our nation can summon from its myriad diversity the deepest measure of unity. An idea infused with the conviction that America's long heroic journey must go forever upward. And so, my fellow Americans, at the edge of the 21st century, let us begin with energy and hope, with faith and discipline, and let us work until our work is done. The scripture says, "And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not." From this joyful mountaintop of celebration, we hear a call to service in the valley. We have heard the trumpets. We have changed the guard. And now, each in our way, and with God's help, we must answer the call. Thank you, and God bless you all. Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/clinton1.asp

Great Britain : Parliament - The Currency Act; April 19, 1764 WHEREAS great quantities of paper bills of credit have been created and issued in his Majesty's colonies or plantations in America, by virtue of acts, orders, resolutions, or votes of assembly, making and declaring such bills of credit to be legal tender in payment of money: and whereas such bills of credit have greatly depreciated in their value, by means whereof debts have been discharged with a much less value than was contracted for, to the great discouragement and prejudice of the trade and commerce of his Majesty's subjects, by occasioning confusion in dealings, and lessening credit in the said colonies or plantations: for remedy whereof, may it please your most excellent Majesty, that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the King's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That from and after the first day of September, one thousand seven hundred and sixty four, no act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, in any of his Majesty's colonies or plantations in America, shall be made, for creating or issuing any paper bills, or bills of credit of any kind or denomination whatsoever, declaring such paper bills, or bills of credit, to be legal tender in payment of any bargains, contracts, debts, dues, or demands whatsoever; and every clause or provision which shall hereafter be inserted in any act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, contrary to this act, shall be null and void. II. And whereas the great quantities of paper bills, or bills of credit, which are now actually in circulation and currency in several colonies or plantations in America, emitted in pursuance of acts of assembly declaring such bills a legal tender, make it highly expedient that the conditions and terms, upon which such bills have been emitted, should not be varied or prolonged, so as to continue the legal tender thereof beyond the terms respectively fixed by such acts for calling in and discharging such bills; be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, in any of the said colonies or plantations, which shall be made to prolong the legal tender of any paper bills, or bills of credit, which are now subsisting and current in any of the said colonies or plantations in America, beyond the times fixed for the calling in, sinking, and discharging of such paper bills, or bills of credit, shall be null and void. III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any governor or commander in chief for the time being, in all or any of the said colonies or plantations, shall, from and after the said first day of September, one thousand seven hundred and sixty four, give his assent to any act or order of assembly contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, every such governor or commander in chief shall, for every such offence, forfeit and pay the sum of one thousand pounds, and shall be immediately dismissed from his government, and for ever after rendered incapable of any public office or place of trust. IV. Provided always, That nothing in this act shall extend to alter or repeal an act passed in the twenty fourth year of the reign of his late majesty King George the Second, intituled, An act to regulate and restrain paper bills of credit in his Majesty's colonies or plantations of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Connecticut, the Massachuset's Bay, and New Hampshire, in America, and to prevent the same being legal tenders in payments of money. V. Provided also, That nothing herein contained shall extend, or be construed to extend, to make any of the bills now subsisting in any of the said colonies a legal tender. Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/curency_act_1764.asp

Chap. VII.— An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters. Section 1.  Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever the executive authority of any state in the Union, or of either of the territories northwest or south of the river Ohio, shall demand any person as a fugitive from justice, of the executive authority of any such state or territory to which such person shall have fled, and shall moreover produce the copy of an indictment found, or an affidavit made before a magistrate of any state or territory as aforesaid, charging the person so demanded, with having committed treason, felony or other crime, certified as authentic by the governor or chief magistrate of the state or territory from whence the person so charged fled,  it shall be the duty of the executive authority of the state or territory to which such person shall have fled, to cause him or her to be arrested and secured, and notice of the arrest to be given to the executive authority making such demand, or to the agent of such authority appointed to receive the fugitive, and to cause the fugitive to be delivered to such agent when he shall appear:  But if no such agent shall appear within six months from the time of the arrest, the prisoner may be discharged.  And all costs or expenses incurred in the apprehending, securing, and transmitting such fugitive to the state or territory making such demand, shall be paid by such state or territory. Sec. 2.  And be it further enacted,  That any agent, appointed as aforesaid, who shall receive the fugitive into his custody, shall be empowered to transport him or her to the state or territory from which he or she shall have fled.  And if any person or persons shall by force set at liberty, or rescue the fugitive from such agent while transporting, as aforesaid, the person or persons so offending shall, on conviction, be fined not exceeding five hundred dollars, and be imprisoned not exceeding one year. Sec. 3.  And be it also enacted,  That when a person held to labour in any of the United States, or in either of the territories on the northwest or south of the river Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of the said states or territory, the person to whom such labour or service may be due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive from labour, (b) and to take him or her before any judge of the circuit or district courts of the United States, residing or being within the state, or being any magistrate of a county, city or town corporate, wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made, and upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magistrate, either by oral testimony or affidavit taken before and certified by a magistrate of any such state or territory, that the person so seized or arrested, doth, under the laws of the state or territory from which he or she fled, owe service or labour to the person claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge or magistrate to give a certificate thereof to such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from labour, to the state or territory from which he or she fled. Sec. 4.  And be it further enacted , That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct or hinder such claimant, his agent or attorney in so seizing or arresting such fugitive from labour, or shall rescue such fugitive from such claimant, his agent or attorney when so arrested pursuant to the authority herein given or declared; or shall harbor or conceal such person after notice that he or she was a fugitive from labour, as aforesaid, shall for either of the said offences, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars.  Which penalty may be recovered by and for the benefit of such claimant, by the action of debt, in any court proper to try the same; saving moreover to the person claiming such labour or service, his right of action for or on account of the said injuries or either of them. Approved, February 12, 1793 Source: Statutes at Large , 2nd Congress, 2nd Session, Ch. 7, p. 302. Image Source: https://www.statutesandstories.com/blog_html/fugitive-slave-act-of-1793-a-constitutionally-authorized-law-that-bitterly-divided-the-country/

To the Members of the African Society in the city of New York Gentlemen, I take the liberty to dedicate an address to my poor brethren to you. If you think it is likely to do good among them, I do not doubt but you will take it under your care. You have discovered so much kindness and good will to those you thought were oppressed, and had no helper, that I am sure you will not despise what I have wrote, if you judge it will be of any service to them. I have nothing to add, but only to wish that “the blessing of many ready to perish, may come upon you.” I am Gentlemen, Your Servant, Jupiter Hammon To the Public: An Address to the Negroes of the State of New York When I am writing to you with a design to say something to you for your good, and with a view to promote your happiness, I can with truth and sincerity join with the apostle Paul, when speaking of his own nation the Jews, and say, “That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” Yes my dear brethren, when I think of you, which is very often, and of the poor, despised and miserable state you are in, as to the things of this world, and when I think of your ignorance and stupidity, and the great wickedness of the most of you, I am pained to the heart. It is at times, almost too much for human nature to bear, and I am obliged to turn my thoughts from the subject or endeavour to still my mind, by considering that it is permitted thus to be, by that God who governs all things, who seteth up one and pulleth down another. While I have been thinking on this subject, I have frequently had great struggles in my own mind, and have been at a loss to know what to do. I have wanted exceedingly to say something to you, to call upon you with the tenderness of a father and friend, and to give you the last, and I may say, dying advice, of an old man, who wishes our best good in this world, and in the world to come. But while I have had such desires, a sense of my own ignorance, and unfitness to teach others, has frequently discouraged me from attempting to say any thing to you; yet when I thought of your situation, I could not rest easy. When I was at Hartford in Connecticut, where I lived during the war, I published several pieces which were well received, not only by those of my own colour, but by a number of the white people, who thought they might do good among their servants. This is one consideration, among others, that emboldens me now to publish what I have written to you. Another is, I think you will be more likely to listen to what is said, when you know it comes from a negro, one your own nation and colour, and therefore can have no interest in deceiving you, or in saying any thing to you, but what he really thinks is your interest and duty to comply with. My age, I think, gives me some right to speak to you, and reason to expect you will hearken to my advice. I am now upwards of seventy years old, and cannot expect, though I am well, and able to do almost any kind of business, to live much longer. I have passed the common bounds set for man, and must soon go the way of all the earth. I have had more experience in the world than the most of you, and I have seen a great deal of the vanity, and wickedness of it. I have great reason to be thankful that my lot has been so much better than most slaves have had. I suppose I have had more advantages and privileges than most of you, who are slaves have ever known, and I believe more than many white people have enjoyed, for which I desire to bless God, and pray that he may bless those who have given them to me. I do not, my dear friends, say these things about myself to make you think that I am wiser or better than others; but that you might hearken, without prejudice, to what I have to say to you on the following particulars. 1st. Respecting obedience to masters. Now whether it is right, and lawful, in the Sight of God, for them to make slaves of us or not, I am certain that while we are slaves,  it is our duty to obey our masters, in all their lawful commands, and mind them unless we are bid to do that which we know to be sin, or forbidden in God’s word. The apostle Paul says, “Servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling in singleness in your heart as unto Christ: Not with eye service, as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart: With good will doing service to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatever thing a man doeth the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.” –Here is a plain command of God for us to obey our masters.  It may seem hard for us, if we think our masters wrong in holding us slaves, to obey in all things, but who of us dare dispute with God!  He has commanded us to obey, and we ought to do it cheerfully, and freely.  This should be done by us, not only because God commands, but because our own peace and comfort depend upon it.  As we depend upon our masters, for what we eat and drink and wear, and for all our comfortable things in this world, we cannot be happy, unless we please them.  This we cannot do without obeying tem freely, without muttering or finding fault.  If a servant strives to please his master and studies and takes pains to do it, I believe there are but few masters who would use such a servant cruelly.  Good servants frequently make good masters.  If your master is really hard, unreasonable and cruel, there is no way so likely for you to convince him of it, as always to obey his commands, and try to serve him, and take care of his interest, and try to promote it all in your power.  If you are proud and stubborn and always finding fault, your master will think the fault lies wholly on your side, but if you are humble, and meek, and bear all things patiently, your master may think he is wrong, if he does not, his neighbors will be apt to see it, and will befriend you, and try to alter his conduct.  If this does not do, you must cry to him, who has the hearts of all men in his hands, and turneth them as the rivers of waters are turned. 2d: The particular I would mention is honesty and faithfulness, You must suffer me now to deal plainly with you, my dear brethren, for I do not mean to flatter, or omit speaking the truth, whether it is for you or against you.  How many of you are there who allow yourselves in stealing from your masters.  It is very wicked for you not to take care of your masters goods, but how much worse is it to pilfer and steal from them, whenever you think you shall not be found out.  This you must know is very wicked and provoking to God.  There are none of you so ignorant, but that you must know that this is wrong.  Though you may try to excuse yourselves, by saying that your masters are unjust toyou, and though you may try to quiet your consciences in this way, yet if you are honest in owning the truth you must think it is as wicked, and on some accounts more wicked to steal from your masters, than from others. We cannot certainly, have any excuse either for taking any thing that belongs to our masters without their leave, or for being unfaithful in their business. It is our duty to be faithful, not with eye service as men please.  We have no right to stay when we are sent on errands, any longer than to do the business we were sent upon.  All the time spent idly, is spent wickedly, and is unfaithfulness to our masters.  In these things I must say, that I think many of you are guilty.  I know that many of you endeavor to excuse yourselves, and say that you have nothing that you can call your own, and that you are under great temptations to be unfaithful and take from your masters.   But this will not do, God will certainly punish you for stealing and for being unfaithful.  All that we have to mind is our own duty.  If God has put us in bad circumstances that is not our fault and he will not punish us for it.  If any are wicked in keeping us so, we cannot help it, they must answer to God for it.  Nothing will serve as an excuse to us for not doing our duty.  The same God will judge both them and us.  Pray then my dear friends, fear to offend in this way, but be faithful to God, to your masters, and to your own souls. The next thing I would mention, and warn you against, IS profaneness. This you know is forbidden by God. Christ tells us, “swear not at all,” and again it is said “thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless, that taketh his name in vain.” Now though the great God has forbidden it, yet how dreadfully profane are many, and I don’t know but I may say the most of you? How common is it to hear you take the terrible and awful name of the great God in vain?-To swear by it, and by Jesus Christ, his Son-How common is it to hear yon wish damnation to your companions, and to your own souls and to sport with in the name of Heaven and Hell, as if there were no such places for you to hope for, or to fear, Oh my friends, be warned to forsake this dreadful sin of profaneness. Pray my dear friends, believe and realize, that there is a God-that he is great and terrible beyond what you can think-that he keeps you in life every moment-and that he can send you to that awful Hell, that you laugh at, in an instant, and confine you there for ever, and that he will certainly do it, if you do not repent. You certainly do not believe, that there is a God, or that there is a Heaven or Hell, or you would never trifle with them. It would make you shudder, if you heard others do it, if you believe them as much, as you believe any thing you see with your bodily eyes. I have heard some learned and good men say, that the heathen, and all that worshiped false Gods, never spoke lightly or irreverently of their Gods, they never took their names in vain, or jested with those things which they held sacred. Now why should the true God, who made all things, be treated worse in this respect, than those false Gods, that were made of wood and stone, I believe it is because Satan tempts men to do it, He tried to make them love their false Gods, and to speak well of them, but he wishes to have men think lightly of the true God, to take his holy name in vain, and to scoff at, and make a jest of all things that are really good. You may think that Satan has not power to do so much, and have so great influence on the minds of men: But the scripture says, “he goeth about like a roaring Lion, seeking whom he may devour-That he is the prince of the power of the air-and that he rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience,-and that wicked men are led captive by him, to do his will.” All those of you who are profane, are serving the Devil. You are doing what he tempts and desires you to do. If you could see him with your bodily eyes, would you like to make an agreement with him, to serve him, and do as he bid you. I believe most of you would be shocked at this, but you may be certain that all of you who allow yourselves in this sin, are as really serving him, and to just as good purpose, as if you met him, and promised to dishonor God, and serve him with all your might. Do you believe this? It is true whether you believe it or not, Some of you to excuse yourselves, may plead the example of others, and say that you hear a great many white-people, who know more, than such poor ignorant negroes, as you are, and some who are rich and great gentlemen, swear, and talk profanely; and some of you may say this of your masters, and say no more than is true, But all this is not a sufficient excuse for you. You know that murder is wicked. If you saw your master kill a man, do you suppose this would be any excuse for you, if you .should commit the same crime? You must know it would not; nor will your hearing him curse and swear, and take the name of God in vain, or any other man, be he ever so great or rich, excuse you. God is greater than all other beings, and him we are bound to obey. To him we must give an account for every idle word that we speak. He will bring us all, rich and poor, white and black, to his judgment seat. If we are found among those who feared his name, and trembled at his word, we shall be called good and faithful servants. Our slavery will be at an end, and though ever so mean, low, and despited in this world, we shall sit with God in his kingdom as Kings and Priests, and rejoice forever, and ever. Do not then, my dear friends, take God’s holy name in vain, or speak profanely in any way. Let not the example of others lead you into the sin, but reverence and fear that great and fearful name, the Lord our God. I might now caution you against other sins to which you are exposed; but as I meant only to mention those you were exposed to, more than others, by your being slaves, I will conclude what I have to say to you, by advising you to become religious, and to make religion the great business of your lives. Now I acknowledge that liberty is a great thing, and worth seeking for, if we can get it honestly, and by our good conduct, prevail on our masters to set us free: Though for my own part I do not wish to be free, yet I should be glad, if others, especially the young negroes were to be free, for many of us, who are grown up slaves, and have always had masters to take care of us, should hardly know how to take care of ourselves; and it may be more for our own comfort to remain as we are. That .liberty is a great thing we may know from our own feelings, and we may likewise Judge so from the conduct of the white-people, in the late war. How much money has been spent, and how many lives has been lost, to defend their liberty. I must say that I have hoped that God would open their eyes, when they were so much engaged for liberty, to think of the state of the poor blacks, and to pity us. He has done it in some measure, and has raised us up many friends, for which we have reason to be thankful, and to hope in his mercy. What may be done further, he only knows, for known unto God are all his ways from the beginning. But this my dear brethren IS by no means, the greatest thing we have to be concerned about. Getting our liberty in this world, is nothing to our having the liberty of the children of God. Now the Bible tells us that we are all by nature, sinners, that we are slaves to sin and Satan, and that unless we are converted, or born again, we must be miserable forever. Christ says, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, and all that do not see the kingdom of God, must be in the kingdom of darkness. There are but two places where all go after death, white and black, rich and poor; those places are Heaven and Hell. Heaven is a place made for those, who are born again, and who love God, and it is a place where they will be happy for ever. Hell IS a place made for those who hate God, and are his enemies, and where they will be miserable to all eternity. Now you may think you are not enemies to God, and do not hate him: But if your heart has not been changed, and you have not become true Christians, you certainly are enemies to God, and have been opposed to him ever since you were born. Many of you, I suppose, never think of this, and are almost as ignorant as the beasts that perish. Those of you who can read I must beg you to read the Bible, and whenever you can get time, study the Bible, and if you can get no other time, spare some of your time from sleep, and learn what the mind and will of God is. But what shall I say to them who cannot read. This lay with great weight on my mind, when I thought of writing to my poor brethren, but I hope that those who can read will take pity on them and read what I have to say to them. In hopes of this I will beg of you to spare no pains in trying to learn to read. If you are once engaged you may learn. Let all the time you can get be spent in trying to learn to read. Get those who can read to learn you, but remember, that what you learn for, is to read the Bible. If there was no Bible, it would be no matter whether you could read or not. Reading other books would do you no good. But the Bible is the word of God, and tells you what you must do to please God; it tells you how you may escape misery, and be happy for ever. If you see most people neglect the Bible, and many that can read never look into it, let it not harden you and make you think lightly of it, and that it is a book of no worth. All those who are really good, love the Bible, and meditate on it day and night. In the Bible God has told us every thing it is necessary we should know, in order to be happy here and hereafter. The Bible is a revelation of the mind and will of God to men. Therein we may learn, what God is. That he made all things by the power of his word; and that he made all things for his own glory, and not for our glory. That he is over all, and above all his creatures, and more above them that we can think or conceive-that they can do nothing without him-that he upholds them all, and will over-rule all things for his own glory. In the Bible likewise we are told what man is. That he was at first made holy, in the image of God, that he fell from that state of holiness, and became an enemy to God, and that since the fall, all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart, are evil and only evil, and that continually. That the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And that all mankind, were under the wrath, and curse of God, and must have been for ever  miserable, if they had been left to suffer what their sins deserved. It tells us that God, to save some of mankind, sent his Son into this world to die, in the room and stead of sinners, and that now God can save from eternal misery, all that believe in his Son, and take him for their saviour, and that all are called upon to repent, and believe in Jesus Christ. It tells us that those who do repent, and believe, and are friends to Christ, shall have many trials and sufferings in this world, but that they shall be happy forever, after death, and reign with Christ to all eternity. The Bible tells us that this world is a place of trial, and that there is no other time or place for us to alter, but in this life. If we are Christians when we die, we shall awake to the resurrection of life; if not, we shall awake to the resurrection of damnation. It tells us, we must all live in Heaven or Hell, be happy or miserable, and that without end. The Bible does not tell us of but two places, for all to go to. There is no place for innocent folks, that are not Christians. There is no place for ignorant folks, that did not know how to be Christians. What I mean is, that there is no place besides Heaven and Hell. These two places, will receive all mankind, for Christ says, there are but two sorts, he that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth abroad.-The Bible likewise tells us that this world, and all things in it shall be burnt up-and that “God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world, and that he will bring every secret thing whether it be good or bad into judgment that which is done in secret shall be declared on the house top.” I do not know, nor do I think any can tell, but that the day of judgment may last a thousand years. God could tell the state of all his creatures in a moment, but then every thing that every one has done, through his whole life is to be told, before the whole world of angels, and men. There, Oh how solemn is the thought! You, and I, must stand, and hear every thing we have thought or done, however secret, however wicked and vile, told before all the men and women that ever have been, or ever will be, and before all the angels, good and bad. Now my dear friends seeing the Bible is the word of God, and every thing in it is true, and it reveals such awful and glorious things, what can be more important than that you should learn to read it; and when you have learned to read, that you should study it day and night. There are some things very encouraging in God’s word for such ignorant creatures as we are; for God hath not chosen the rich of this world. Not many rich, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the weak things of this world, and things which are not, to confound the things that are: And when the great and the rich refused coming to the gospel feast, the servant was told, to go into the highways, and hedges, and compel those poor creatures that he found there to come in. Now my brethren it seems to me, that there are no people that ought to attend to the hope of happiness in another world so much as we do. Most of us are cut off from comfort and happiness here in this world, and can expect nothing from It. Now seeing this is the case, why should we not take care to be happy after death. Why should we spend our whole lives in sinning against God: And be miserable in this world, and in the world to come. If we do thus, we shall certainly be the greatest fools. We shall be slaves here, and slaves forever. We cannot plead so great temptations to neglect religion as others. Riches and honours which drown the greater part of mankind, who have the gospel, in perdition, can be little or no temptations to us. We live so little time in this world that it is no matter how wretched and miserable we are, if it prepares us for heaven. What is forty, fifty, or sixty years, when compared to eternity. When thousands and millions of years have rolled away, this eternity will be no nigher coming to an end. Oh how glorious is an eternal life of happiness! And how dreadful, an eternity of misery. Those of us who have had religious masters, and have been taught to read the Bible, and have been brought by their example and teaching to a sense of divine things, how happy shall we be to meet them in heaven, where we shall join them in praising God forever. But if any of us have had such masters, and yet have lived and died wicked, how will it add to our misery to think of Our folly. If any of us, who have wicked and profane masters should become religious, how will our estates be changed in another world. Oh my friends, let me entreat of you to think on these things, and to live as if you believed them to be true. If you become Christians you will have reason to bless God forever, that you have been brought into a land where you have heard the gospel, though you have been slaves. If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves. Let me beg of you my dear African brethren, to think very little of your bondage in this life, for your thinking of it will do you no good. If God designs to set us free, he will do it, in his own time, and way; but think of your bondage to sin and Satan, and do not rest, until you are delivered from it. We cannot be happy if we are ever so free or ever so rich, while we are servants of sin, and slaves to Satan. We must be miserable here, and to all eternity. I will conclude what I have to say with a few words to those negroes who have their liberty. The most of what I have said to those who are slaves may be of use to you, but you have more advantages, on some accounts, if you will improve your freedom, as you may do, than they. You have more time to read God’s holy word, and to take care of the salvation of your souls. Let me beg of you to spend your time in this way, or it will be better for you, if you had always been slaves.  If you think seriously of the matter, you must conclude, that if you do not use your freedom, to promote the salvation of your souls, it will not be of any lasting good to you.  Besides all this, if you are idle, and take to bad courses, you will hurt those of your brethren who are slaves, and do all in your power to prevent their being free.  Our great reason that is given by some for not freeing us, I understand is, that we should not know how to take care of ourselves, and should take to bad courses.  That we should be lazy and idle, and get drunk and steal.  Now all those of you, who follow any bad courses, and who do not take care to get an honest living by your labour and industry, are doing more to prevent our being free, than any body else.  Let me beg of you then for the sake of your own good and happiness, in time, and for eternity, and for the sake of your poor brethren, who are still in bondage “to lead quiet and peaceable lives in all Godliness and honesty,” and may God bless you, and bring yo to his kingdom, for Christ’s sake, Amen. Transcription Source: BlackPast, B. (2012, March 15). (1787) Jupiter Hammon, “An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York” . BlackPast.org . https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1787-jupiter-hammon-address-negroes-state-new-york/ Image Source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbc0001.2019gen15736/?st=gallery

October 19, 1992 Jim Lehrer. Good evening. Welcome to this third and final debate among the three major candidates for President of the United States: Governor Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee; President George Bush, the Republican nominee; and independent candidate Ross Perot. I am Jim Lehrer, of "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" on PBS. I will be the moderator for this debate, which is being sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. It will be 90 minutes long. It is happening before an audience on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing. The format was conceived by and agreed to by representatives of the Bush and Clinton campaigns. And it is somewhat different than those used in the earlier debates. I will ask questions for the first half under rules that permit followups. A panel of three other journalists will ask questions in the second half under rules that do not. As always, each candidate will have 2 minutes, up to 2 minutes, to make a closing statement. The order of those as well as that for the formal questioning were all determined by a drawing. Gentlemen, again, welcome. And again, good evening. Credibility It seems, from what some of those voters said at your Richmond debate and from polling and other data, that each of you, fairly or not, faces serious voter concerns about the underlying credibility and believability of what each of you says you would do as President in the next 4 years. Governor Clinton, in accordance with the draw, those concerns about you are first. You are promising to create jobs, reduce the deficit, reform the health care system, rebuild the infrastructure, guarantee college education for everyone who is qualified, among many other things, all with financial pain only for the very rich. Some people are having trouble, apparently, believing that is possible. Should they have that concern? Governor Clinton. No. There are many people who believe that the only way we can get this country turned around is to tax the middle class more and punish them more. But the truth is that middle class Americans are basically the only group of Americans who have been taxed more in the 1980's and during the last 12 years even though their incomes have gone down. The wealthiest Americans have been taxed much less even though their incomes have gone up. Middle class people will have their fair share of changing to do and many challenges to face, including the challenge of becoming constantly reeducated. But my plan is a departure from trickle-down economics, just cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans and getting out of the way. It's also a departure from tax-and-spend economics because you can't tax and divide an economy that isn't growing. I propose an American version of what works in other countries. I think we can do it better: invest and grow. I believe we can increase investment and reduce the deficit at the same time if we not only ask the wealthiest Americans and foreign corporations to pay their fair share, we also provide over $100 billion in tax relief in terms of incentives for new plants, new small businesses, new technologies, new housing, and for middle class families, and we have $140 billion of spending cuts. Invest and grow: raise some more money; spend the money on tax incentives to have growth in the private sector; take the money from the defense cuts and reinvest it in new transportation and communications and environmental cleanup systems. This will work. On this, as on so many other issues, I have a fundamental difference from the present administration. I don't believe trickle-down economics will work. Unemployment is up. Most people are working harder for less money than they were making 10 years ago. I think we can do better if we have the courage to change. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President, a response. President Bush. Do I have one minute? Just the ground rules here. Mr. Lehrer. Well, you have roughly one minute. We can loosen that up a little bit. But go ahead. President Bush. He doesn't like trickle-down Government, but hey, I think he's talking about the Reagan-Bush years where we created 15 million jobs. The rich are paying a bigger percent of the total tax burden. What I don't like is trickle-down Government. I think Governor Clinton keeps talking about trickle-down, trickle-down, and he's still talking about spending more and taxing more. Government, he says, invest Government, grow Government. Government doesn't create jobs. If they do, they're make-work jobs. It's the private sector that creates jobs. And yes, we've got too many taxes on the American people, and we're spending too much. That's why I want to get the deficit down by controlling the growth of mandatory spending. It won't be painless. I think Mr. Perot put his finger on something there. It won't be painless, but we've got to get the job done. But not by raising taxes. Mr. and Mrs. America, when you hear him say we're going to tax only the rich, watch your wallet, because his figures don't add up, and he's going to sock it right to the middle class taxpayer and lower if he's going to pay for all the spending programs he's proposed. So we have a big difference on this trickle-down theory. I do not want any more trickle-down Government. It's gotten too big. I want to do something about that. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot, what do you think of the Governor's approach, what he just laid out? Mr. Perot. Well, the basic problem with it is it doesn't balance the budget. If you forecast it out, you still will have a significant deficit under each of their plans, as I understand them. Our challenge is to stop the financial bleeding. If you take a patient into a hospital that's bleeding arterially, step one is to stop the bleeding. And we are bleeding arterially. There's only one way out of this, and that is to stop the deterioration of our job base, to have a growing, expanding job base to give us the tax base. See, balancing the budget is not nearly as difficult as paying off the $4 trillion debt and leaving our children the American dream intact. We have spent their money. We have got to pay it back. This is going to take fair-shared sacrifice. My plan balances the budget within 6 years. We didn't do it faster than that because we didn't want to disrupt the economy. We gave it off to a slow start and a fast finish to give the economy time to recover. But we faced it, and we did it. And we believe it's fair-shared sacrifice. The one thing I have done is lay it squarely on the table in front of the American people. You've had a number of occasions to see in detail what the plan is and at least you'll understand it. I think that's fundamental in our country that you know what you're getting into. Mr. Lehrer. Governor, the word "pain," one of the other leadership things that's put on you is that you don't speak of pain, that you speak of all things -- nobody's going to really have to suffer under your plan. You've heard what Mr. Perot has said. He said to do the things you want to do, you can't do it by just taking the money from the rich. That's what the President says as well. How do you respond to that? The numbers don't add up. Governor Clinton. I disagree with both of them. Let me just follow up here. I disagree with Mr. Perot that the answer is to put a 50-cent gas tax on the middle class and raise more taxes on the middle class and the working poor than on the wealthy. His own analysis says that unemployment will be slightly higher in 1995 under his plan than it is today. As far as what Mr. Bush says, he is the person who raised taxes on the middle class after saying he wouldn't. Just this year Mr. Bush vetoed a tax increase on the wealthy that gave middle class tax relief. He vetoed middle class tax relief this year. Furthermore, under this administration, spending has increased more than it has in the last 20 years, and he asked Congress to spend more money than it actually spent. Now, it's hard to outspend Congress, but he tried to for the last 3 years. So my view is the middle class is the -- they've been suffering, Jim. Now, should people pay more for Medicare if they can? Yes. Should they pay more for Social Security if they get more out of it than they've paid in and they're upper income people? Yes. But look what's happened to the middle class. Middle class Americans are working harder for less money than they were making 10 years ago, and they're paying higher taxes. The tax burden on them has not gone down; it has gone up. I don't think the answer is to slow the economy down more, drive unemployment up more, and undermine the health of the private sector. The answer is to invest and grow this economy. That's what works in other countries, and that's what will work here. Mr. Lehrer. As a practical matter, Mr. President, do you agree with the Governor when he says that the middle class -- the taxes on the middle class -- do your numbers agree that the taxes on the middle class have gone up during the last -- -- President Bush. I think everybody is paying too much taxes. He refers to one tax increase. Let me remind you it was a Democratic tax increase. I didn't want to do it, and I went along with it. I said I made a mistake. If I make a mistake, I admit it. That's quite different than some. But I think that's the American way. I think everyone is paying too much. But I think this idea that you can go out and -- then he hits me for vetoing a tax bill. Yes, I did, and the American taxpayer ought to be glad they have a President to stand up to a spending Congress. We remember what it was like when we had a spending President and a spending Congress and interest rates -- who remembers that -- they were 21.5 percent under Jimmy Carter, and inflation was 15. We don't want to go back to that. So yes, everybody's taxed too much, and I want to get the taxes down, but not by signing a tax bill that's going to raise taxes on people. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President, when you said just then that you admit your mistakes, and you looked at Governor Clinton and said -- what mistake is it that you want him to admit to? President Bush. Well, the record in Arkansas. I mean, look at it. And that's what we're asking America to have? Now, look, he says Arkansas's a poor State. They are. But in almost every category, they're lagging. I'll give you an example. He talks about all the jobs he's created in 1 or 2 years. Over the last 10 years since he's been Governor, they're 30 percent behind. They're 30 percent of the national average. On pay for teachers, on all these categories, Arkansas is right near the very bottom. You haven't heard me mention this before, but we're getting close now, and I think it's about time I start putting things in perspective. I'm going to do that. It's not dirty campaigning, because he's been talking about my record for half a year here, 11 months here, and so we've got to do that. I've got to get it in perspective. What's his mistake? Admit it, that Arkansas is doing very, very badly against any standard: environment, support for police officers, whatever it is. Mr. Lehrer. Governor, is that true? Governor Clinton. Mr. Bush's Bureau of Labor Statistics says that Arkansas ranks first in the country in the growth of new jobs this year, first -- -- President Bush. This year. Governor Clinton. -- -- fourth in manufacturing jobs; fourth in the reduction of poverty; fourth in income increase. Over the last 10 years we've created manufacturing jobs much more rapidly than the national average. Over the last 5 years our income has grown more rapidly than the national average. We are second in tax burden, the second lowest tax burden in the country. We have the lowest per capita State and local spending in the country. We are low-spending, low tax burden. We've dramatically increased investment and our jobs are growing. I wish America had that kind of record, and I think most people looking at us tonight would like it if we had more jobs and a lower spending burden on the Government. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot, if you were sitting at home now and just heard this exchange about Arkansas, who would you believe? Mr. Perot. I grew up five blocks from Arkansas. [Laughter] Let's put it in perspective. It's a beautiful State. It's a fairly rural State. It has a population less than Chicago or Los Angeles, about the size of Dallas and Fort Worth combined. So I think probably we're making a mistake night after night after night to cast the Nation's future on a unit that small. Mr. Lehrer. Why is that a mistake? Mr. Perot. It's irrelevant. [Laughter] Mr. Lehrer. What he did as Governor of Arkansas -- -- Mr. Perot. No, no, no. But you can't -- I could say that I ran a small grocery store on the corner, therefore, I extrapolate that into the fact that I could run Wal-Mart. That's not true. I carefully picked an Arkansas company, you notice there, Governor. Mr. Lehrer. Governor? Governor Clinton. Mr. Perot, with all respect, I think it is highly relevant, and I think that a $4 billion budget in State and Federal funds is not all that small. I think the fact that I took a State that was one of the poorest States in the country and had been for 153 years and tried my best to modernize its economy and to make the kind of changes that have generated support from people like the presidents of Apple Computer and Hewlett-Packard and some of the biggest companies in this country, 24 retired generals and admirals, and hundreds of business executives are highly relevant. And you know, I'm frankly amazed that since you grew up five blocks from there you would think that what goes on in that State is irrelevant. I think it's been pretty impressive. Mr. Perot. It's not -- -- Governor Clinton. And the people who have jobs and educations and opportunities that didn't have them 10 years ago don't think it's irrelevant at all. They think it's highly relevant and wish the rest of the country -- -- President Bush. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'd like to get in on it. Governor Clinton. You think it's relevant. President Bush. Governor Clinton has to operate under a balanced budget amendment. He has to do it. That is the law. I'd like to see a balanced budget amendment for America, to protect the American taxpayers. Then that would discipline not only the executive branch but the spending Congress, the Congress that's been in control of one party, his party, for 38 years. We almost had it done. And that institution, the House of Representatives -- everyone's yelling "Clean House!" One of the reasons is we almost had it done, and the Speaker, very able, decent fellow, I might add, but he twisted the arms of some of the sponsors of that legislation and had them change their vote. What's relevant here is that tool, that discipline that he has to live by in Arkansas. And I'd like it for the American people. I want the line-item veto. I want a check-off so if the Congress can't do it, let people check off their income tax, 10 percent of it, to compel the Government to cut spending. If they can't do it, if the Congress can't do it, let them then have to do it across the board. That's what we call a sequester. That's the discipline we need. And I'm working for that to protect the American taxpayer against the big spenders. Leadership Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President, let's move to some of the leadership concerns that have been voiced about you. They relate to something you said in your closing statement in Richmond the other night about the President being the manager of crises, and that relates to an earlier criticism that you began to focus on the economy, on health care, on racial divisions in this country only after they became crises. Is that a fair criticism? President Bush. Jim, I don't think that's a fair shot. I hear it. I hear it echoed by political opponents, but I don't think it's fair. I think we've been fighting from day one to do something about the inner cities. I'm for enterprise zones. I have had it in every single proposal I've sent to the Congress. Now we hear a lot of talk, "Oh, well, we all want enterprise zones." Yet the House and the Senate can't send it down without loading it up with a lot of these Christmas tree ornaments they put on the legislation. I don't think in racial harmony that I'm a laggard on that. I've been speaking out since day one. We've gotten the Americans for Disabilities Act, which I think is one of the foremost pieces of civil rights legislation. And yes, it took me to veto two civil rights quota bills, because I don't believe in quotas, and I don't think the American people believe in quotas. I beat back the Congress on that, and then we passed a decent civil rights bill that offers guarantees against discrimination in employment, and that is good. I've spoken out over and over again against anti-Semitism and racism, and I think my record as a Member of Congress speaks for itself on that. What was the other part of it? Mr. Lehrer. Well, it's just that -- you've spoken to it, I mean, but the idea -- not so much in specifics -- -- President Bush. Yes. Mr. Lehrer. -- -- but that it has to be a crisis before it gets your attention. President Bush. I don't think that's true at all. I don't think that's true. But, you know, let others fire away on it. Mr. Lehrer. Do you think that's true, Mr. Perot? Mr. Perot. I'd like to just talk about issues, and so -- -- Mr. Lehrer. You don't think this is an issue? Mr. Perot. Well, no. But the point is that's a subjective thing. The subjective thing is when does President Bush react. It would be very difficult for me to answer that in any short period of time. Mr. Lehrer. Well, then, I'll phrase it differently then. He said the other night in his closing words in Richmond that one of the key things that he believes the American people should decide among the three of you, is who they want in charge if this country gets to a crisis. Now, that's what he said. And the rap on the President is that it's only crisis time that he focuses on some of these things. So my question to you -- we're going to talk about you in a minute. Mr. Perot. I thought you'd forgotten I was here. [Laughter] Mr. Lehrer. No, no, no. No, no. But my question to you is -- so, if you have nothing to say about it, fine. I'll go to Governor Clinton. But -- -- Mr. Perot. I will let the American people decide that. I would rather not critique the two candidates. Mr. Lehrer. All right. Governor, what do you think? Governor Clinton. The only thing I would say about that is I think that on the economy, Mr. Bush said for a long time there was no recession and then said it would be better to do nothing than to have a compromise effort with the Congress. He really didn't have a new economic program until over 1,300 days into his Presidency and not all of his health care initiative has been presented to the Congress even now. I think it's important to elect a President who is committed to getting this economy going again and who realizes we have to abandon trickle-down economics and put the American people first again and who will send programs to the Congress in the first 100 days to deal with the critical issues that America's crying out for leadership on: jobs, incomes, the health care crisis, the need to control the economy. Those things deserve to be dealt with from day one. I will deal with them from day one. They will be my first priority, not my election year concerns. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President. President Bush. Well, I think you're overlooking that we have had major accomplishments in the first term. But if you're talking about protecting the taxpayer against his friends in the United States Congress, go back to what it was like when you had a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress. You don't have to go back to Herbert Hoover. Go back to Jimmy Carter. Interest rates were 21 percent. Inflation was 15 percent. The "misery index," unemployment, inflation added together, it was invented by the Democrats, went right through the roof. We've cut it in half, and all you hear about is how bad things are. You know, you remember the question, "Are you better off?" Well, is a homebuyer better off who can refinance the home because interest rates are down? Is a senior citizen better off because inflation is not wiping out their family savings? I think they are. Is the guy out of work better off? Of course he's not. But he's not going to be better off if we grow the Government, if we invest, as Governor Clinton says, invest in more Government. You've got to free up the private sector. You've got to let small business have more incentives. For 3 months -- three quarters I've been fighting, three quarters, been fighting to get the Congress to pass some incentives for small business, capital gains, investment tax allowance, credit for first-time homebuyers, and it's blocked by the Congress. Then if a little of it comes my way, they load it up with Christmas trees and tax increases. And I have to stand up in favor of the taxpayer. Staying the Course Mr. Lehrer. We have to talk about Ross Perot now, or he'll get me, I'm sure. Mr. Perot, on this issue that I have raised at the very beginning and we've been talking about, which is leadership as President of the United States, the concerns -- my reading of it, at least -- my concerns about you, as expressed by folks in the polls and other places, it goes like this: You've got a problem with General Motors. You took over $750 million, and you left. You had a problem in the spring and summer about some personal hits that you took as a potential candidate for President of the United States, and you walked out. Does that say anything relevant to how you would function as President of the United States? Mr. Perot. I think the General Motors thing is very relevant. I did everything I could to get General Motors to face its problems in the mid-eighties while it was still financially strong. They just wouldn't do it. Everybody now knows the terrible price they're paying by waiting until it's obvious to the brain dead that they have problems. [Laughter] Now, hundreds, thousands of good, decent people, whole cities up here in this State are adversely impacted because they would not move in a timely way. Our Government is at that point now. The thing that I am in this race for is to tap the American people on the shoulder and to say to every single one of you: Fix it while we're still relatively strong. If you have a heart problem, you don't wait until the heart attack to address it. So the General Motors experience is relevant. At the point when I could not get them to address those problems, I had created so much stress in the board, who wanted just to keep the Lawrence Welk music going, that they asked to buy my remaining shares. I sold them my remaining shares. They went their way; I went my way, because it was obvious we had a complete disagreement about what should be done with the company. But let's take my life in perspective. Again and again on complex, difficult tasks, I have stayed the course. When I was asked by our Government to do the POW project, within a year the Vietnamese had sent people into Canada to make arrangements to have me and my family killed. And I had five small children. And my family and I decided we would stay the course, and we lived with that problem for 3 years. Then I got into the Texans' war on drugs program, and the big-time drug dealers got all upset. Then when I had two people imprisoned in Iran, I could have left them there. I could have rationalized it. We went over, we got them out, and we brought them back home. And since then, for years, I have lived with the burden of the Middle East, where it's eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth country, in terms of their unhappiness with the fact that I was successful in that effort. Again and again and again, in the middle of the night, 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, my Government has called me to take extraordinary steps for Americans in distress. And again and again and again, I have responded. And I didn't wilt, and I didn't quit. Now, what happened in July we've covered again and again and again. But I think in terms of the American people's concern about my commitment -- and I'm here tonight, folks. I've never quit supporting you as you put me on the ballot in the other 26 States. When you asked me to come back in, I came back in. And talk about not quitting, I'm spending my money on this campaign. The two parties are spending your money, taxpayer money. I've put my wallet on the table for you and your children. Over $60 million at least will go into this campaign to leave the American dream to you and your children, to get this country straightened out, because if anybody owes it to you, I do. I've lived the American dream. I'd like for your children to be able to live it, too. Mr. Lehrer. Governor, do you have a response to the staying the course question about Mr. Perot? Governor Clinton. I don't have any criticism of Mr. Perot. I think what I'd like to talk about a minute is, since you asked him the question, was the General Motors issue. I don't think there's any question that the automobile executives made some errors in the 1980's, but I also think we should look at how much productivity has increased lately, how much labor has done to increase productivity, and how much management has done. We're still losing a lot of auto jobs, in my judgment, because we don't have a national economic strategy that would build the industrial base of this country. Just today, I met with the presidents and the vice presidents of the Willow Run union near here. They both said they were Vietnam veterans supporting me because I had an economic program that put them back to work. We need an investment incentive to modernize plant and equipment. We've got to control the health care costs for those people. Otherwise we can't keep the manufacturing jobs here. We need a tough trade policy that is fair, that insists on open markets in return for open markets. We ought to have a strategy that will build the economic and industrial base. So I think Mr. Perot was right in questioning the management practices. But they didn't have much of a partner in Government here as compared with the policies the Germans and the Japanese followed. I believe we can do better. That's one of the things I want to change. I know that we can grow manufacturing jobs. We did it in my State, and we can do it nationally. CAFE Standards Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President, do you have a response? President Bush. To this? Mr. Lehrer. Yes. President Bush. Well, I wondered when Governor Clinton was talking to the autoworkers whether he talked about his and Senator Gore's favoring CAFE standards, those are fuel efficiency standards, of 40 miles per gallon. That would break the auto industry and throw a lot of people out of work. As regarding Mr. Perot, I take back something I said about him. I once said in a frivolous moment when he got out of the race, if you can't stand the heat, buy an air conditioning company. I take it back because I think he said he made a mistake. The thing I find is if I make a mistake, I admit it. I've never heard Governor Clinton make a mistake. But one mistake he's made is fuel efficiency standards at 40 to 45 miles per gallon will throw many autoworkers out of work, and you can't have it both ways. There's a pattern here of appealing to the autoworkers and then trying to appeal to the spotted owl crowd or the extremes in the environmental movement. You can't do it as President. You can't have a pattern of one side of the issue one day and another the next. So my argument is not with Ross Perot; it is more with Governor Clinton. Mr. Lehrer. Governor, what about that charge that you want it both ways on this issue? Governor Clinton. Let's just talk about the CAFE standards. Mr. Lehrer. All right. Governor Clinton. That's the fuel efficiency standards. They're now 27.5 miles per gallon per automobile fleet. I never said, and I defy you to find where I said -- I gave an extensive environment speech in April. I said that we ought to have a goal of raising the fuel efficiency standards to 40 miles a gallon. I think that should be a goal. I never said we should write it into law if there is evidence that that goal cannot be achieved. The National Science Foundation did a study which said it would be difficult for us to reach fuel efficiency standards in excess of 37 miles per gallon by the year 2000. I think we should try to raise the fuel efficiency. And let me say this: I think we ought to have incentives to do it. I think we ought to push to do it. That doesn't mean we have to write it into the law. Look, I am a job creator, not a job destroyer. It is the Bush administration that has had no new jobs in the private sector in the last 4 years. In my State we're leading the country in private sector job growth. But it is good for America to improve fuel efficiency. We also ought to convert more vehicles to compressed natural gas. That's another way to improve the environment. NAFTA Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot, based on your experience at General Motors, where do you come down on this? This has been thrown about, back and forth during this campaign from the very beginning about jobs and CAFE standards. Mr. Perot. Well, everybody's nibbling around the edges. Let's go to the center of the bull's eye to the core problem. Believe me, everybody on the factory floor all over this country knows it. You implement that NAFTA, the Mexican trade agreement, where they pay people $1 an hour, have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and you're going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country right at a time when we need the tax base to pay the debt and pay down the interest on the debt and get our house back in order. We have got to proceed very carefully on that. See, there's a lot I don't understand. I do understand business. I do understand creating jobs. I do understand how to make things work. And I've got a long history of doing that. Now, if you want to go to the core problem that faces everybody in manufacturing in this country, it's that agreement that's about to be put into practice. But here, very simply, everybody says it will create jobs. Yes, it will create bubble jobs. Now, watch this. Listen very carefully to this: One-time surge while we build factories and ship machine tools and equipment down there. Then year after year for decades they will have jobs. And I finally thought I didn't understand it. I called all the experts, and they said, "Oh, it will be disruptive for 12 to 15 years." We haven't got 12 days, folks. We cannot lose those jobs. They were saying Mexican jobs will eventually come to $7.50 an hour and ours will eventually go down to $7.50 an hour. It makes you feel real good to hear that, right? Let's think it through, here. Let's be careful. I'm for free trade philosophically, but I have studied these trade agreements until the world has gone flat, and we don't have good trade agreements across the world. I hope we'll have a chance to get into that tonight, because I can get right to the center of the bull's eye and tell you why we're losing whole industries in this country. Excuse me. Mr. Lehrer. Just for the record, though, Mr. Perot, I take it then for your answer you do not have a position on whether or not enforcing the CAFE standards will cost jobs in the auto industry. Mr. Perot. Oh, no. It will cost jobs. But that's not -- let me say this: I'd rather, if you gave me two bad choices -- -- Mr. Lehrer. Okay. Mr. Perot. I'd rather have some jobs left here than just see everything head south, see? Mr. Lehrer. So that means no -- [laughter] -- in other words, you agree with President Bush, is that right? Mr. Perot. No, I'm saying our principal need now is to stabilize the tax base, which is the job base, and create a growing, dynamic base. Now, please, folks, if you don't hear anything else I say, remember millions of people at work are our tax base. One quick point: If you confiscate the Forbes 400 wealth, take it all, you cannot balance the budget this year. Kind of gets your head straight about where the taxes year-in and year-out have got to come from. Millions and millions of people at work. Mr. Lehrer. I wanted -- yes, sir. President Bush. Well, I'm caught in the middle of NAFTA. Ross says, with great conviction, he opposes the North American free trade agreement. I am for the North American free trade agreement. My problem with Governor Clinton, once again, is that one time he's going to make up his mind, he will see some merit in it. But then he sees a lot of things wrong with it. And then the other day, he says he's for it; however, then we've got to pass other legislation. When you're President of the United States, you cannot have this pattern of saying, "Well, I'm for it, but I'm on the other side of it." And it's true on this, and it's true on CAFE. Look, if Ross were right and we get a free trade agreement with Mexico, why wouldn't they have gone down there now? You have a differential in wages right now. I just have an honest philosophical difference. I think free trade is going to expand our job opportunity. I think it is exports that have saved us when we're in a global slowdown, a connected, global slowdown, a recession in some countries. It's free trade, fair trade that needs to be our hallmark, and we need more free trade agreements, not fewer. Mr. Lehrer. Governor, a quick answer on trade, and I want to go on to something else. Governor Clinton. I'd like to respond to that. You know, Mr. Bush was very grateful when I was among the Democrats who said he ought to have the authority to negotiate an agreement with Mexico. Neither I nor anybody else, as far as I know, agreed to give him our proxy to say that whatever he did was fine for the workers of this country and for the interests of this country. I am the one who is in the middle on this. Mr. Perot says it's a bad deal. Mr. Bush says it's a hunky-dory deal. I say, on balance, it does more good than harm if we could get some protection for the environment so that the Mexicans have to follow their own environmental standards, their own labor law standards, and if we have a genuine commitment to reeducate and retrain the American workers who lose their jobs and reinvest in this economy. I have a realistic approach to trade. I want more trade. I know there are some good things in that agreement, but it can sure be made better. Let me just point out, just today in the Los Angeles Times, Clyde Prestowitz, who was one of President Reagan's leading trade advisers, and a lifelong conservative Republican, endorsed my candidacy because he knows that I'll have a free and fair trade policy, a hard-headed realistic policy, and not get caught up in rubber-stamping everything the Bush administration did. If I wanted to do that, why would I run for President, Jim? Anybody else can run the middle class down and run the economy in a ditch. I want to change it. President Bush. I think he made my case. On the one hand, it's a good deal, but on the other hand, I'd make it better. You can't do that as President. You can't do it on the war, where he says, "Well, I was with the minority, but I guess I would have voted with the majority." This is my point tonight: We're talking about 2 weeks from now you've got to decide who is going to be President. And there is this pattern that has plagued him in the primaries and now about trying to have it both ways on all these issues. You can't do that. If you make a mistake, say you made a mistake and go on about your business, trying to serve the American people. Right now we heard it. Ross is against it. I am for it. He says, "On the one hand, I'm for it, and on the other hand, I may be against it." Mr. Lehrer. Governor -- -- Governor Clinton. That's what's wrong with Mr. Bush. His whole deal is, you've got to be for it or against it, and you can't make it better. I believe we can be better. I think the American people are sick and tired of either-or solutions, people being pushed in the corner, polarized to extremes. I think they want somebody with common sense, who can do what's best for the American people. I'd be happy to discuss these other issues, but I can't believe he is accusing me of getting on both sides. He said trickle-down economics was voodoo economics. Now, he's its biggest practitioner. Let me just say -- -- President Bush. I've always said trickle-down Government is bad. Governor Clinton. I could run this string out a long time, but remember this, Jim: Those 209 Americans last Thursday night in Richmond told us they wanted us to stop talking about each other and start talking about Americans and their problems and their promises. I think we ought to get back to that. I'll be glad to answer any question you have, but this election ought to be about the American people. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot? Mr. Perot. Is there an equal time rule here tonight? President Bush. Yes. Mr. Perot. Or do you just keep lunging in at will? I thought we were going to have equal time, but maybe I just have to interrupt the other two. Is that the way it works this -- -- Mr. Lehrer. No. Mr. Perot, you're doing fine. Go ahead. Whatever you want to say, say it. Foreign Lobbyists Mr. Perot. Now that we've talked all around the problem about free trade, let's go again to the center of the bull's eye. Mr. Lehrer. Wait a minute. I was going to ask -- I thought you wanted to respond to what we were talking about. Mr. Perot. I do. I do. I just want to make -- these foreign lobbyists, this whole thing. Our country has sold out to foreign lobbyists. We don't have free trade. Both parties have foreign lobbyists on leave in key roles in their campaigns. If there's anything more unwise than that, I don't know what it is. Every debate, I bring this up, and nobody ever addresses it. I would like for them to look you in the eye and tell you why they have people representing foreign countries working on their campaigns. And you know, you've seen the list; I've seen the list. We won't go into the names. But no wonder they -- if I had those people around me all day every day telling me it was fair and free, I might believe it. But if I look at the facts as a businessman, it's so tilted. The first thing you ought to do is just say, "Guys, if you like these deals so well, we'll give you the deal you gave us." Now, Japanese couldn't unload the cars in this country if they had the same restrictions we had, and on and on and on and on and on. I suggest to you that the core problem -- one country spent $400 million lobbying in 1988 -- our country. And it goes on and on. And you look at a Who's Who in these campaigns around the two candidates. They're foreign lobbyists taking leaves. What do you think they're going to do when the campaign's over? Go back to work at 30,000 bucks a month representing some other country. I don't believe that's in the American people's interest. I don't have a one of them, and I haven't taken a penny of foreign money, and I never will. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President, how do you respond to that? Mr. Perot has made that charge several times, the fact that you have people working in your campaign who are paid foreign lobbyists. President Bush. Most people that are lobbying are lobbying the Congress. I don't think there's anything wrong with an honest person who happens to represent an interest of another country for making his case. That's the American way. What you're assuming is that that makes the recipient of the lobbying corrupt or the lobbyists themselves corrupt. I don't agree with that. But if I found somebody that had a conflict of interest that would try to illegally do something as a foreign registered lobby, the laws cover this. I don't know why -- I've never understood quite why Mr. Perot was so upset about it, because one of the guys he used to have working for him, I believe, had foreign accounts. Could be wrong, but I think so. Mr. Perot. Soon as I found it out, he went out the door, too. President Bush. Well, I think you've got to look at the integrity and the honor of the people that are being lobbied and those that are lobbyists. The laws protect the American taxpayer in this regard. If the laws are violated so much -- but to suggest if somebody represents a foreign country on anything, that makes him corrupt or against the taxpayer, I don't agree with it. Mr. Perot. One quick relevant specific. We're getting ready to dismantle the airlines industry in our country, and none of you know it. I doubt, in all candor, if the President knows it. But this deal that we're doing with BAC and USAir and KLM and Northwest -- now, guess who is on the President's campaign big time? A guy from Northwest. This deal is terribly destructive to the U.S. airline industry. One of the largest industries in the world is the travel and tourist business. We won't be making airplanes in this country 10 years from now if we let deals like this go through. If the press has any interest tonight, I'll detail it to you. I won't take 10 minutes tonight; all these things take a few minutes. But that's happening as we sit here today. We hammerlock the American companies, American Airlines, Delta, the last few great we have, because we're trying to do this deal with these two European companies. Never forget, they've got Airbus over there, and it's a government-owned, privately owned consortium across Europe. They're dying to get the commercial airline business. Japan is trying to get the commercial airline business. I don't think there are any villains inside Government on this issue, but there sure are a lot of people who don't understand business. And maybe you need somebody up there who understands when you're getting your pocket picked. Mr. Lehrer. Governor, I'm sorry, but that concludes my time with -- -- Governor Clinton. Boy, I had a great response to that. Mr. Lehrer. All right. Go ahead, quickly. Just very briefly. Governor Clinton. I think Ross is right and that we do need some more restrictions on lobbyists. We ought to make them disclose the people they've given money to when they're testifying before congressional committees. We ought to close the lawyers' loophole; they ought to have to disclose when they're really lobbying. We ought to have a much longer period of time, about 5 years, between the time when people can leave executive branch offices and then go out and start lobbying for foreign interest. I agree with that. We've wrecked the airline industry already because there's all these leveraged buyouts and all these terrible things that have happened to the airline industry. We're going to have a hard time rebuilding it. But the real thing we've got to have is a competitive economic strategy. Look what's happening to McDonnell Douglas. Even Boeing is losing market share because we let the Europeans spend 25 to 40 billion dollars on Airbus without an appropriate competitive response. What I want America to do is to trade more, but to compete and win by investing in competitive ways. And we're in real trouble on that. Mr. Lehrer. I'm going to be in real trouble if I don't bring out -- it's about time -- -- President Bush. I promise it's less than 10 seconds. Mr. Lehrer. Okay. President Bush. I heard Governor Clinton congratulate us on one thing. First time he said something pleasant about this administration. Productivity in this country is up. It is way up. Productivity is up, and that's a good thing. There are many other good ones, but I was glad he acknowledged that. Mr. Perot. I've volunteered -- now, look, I'm just kind of a, you know, cur dog here. I was put on the ballot by the people, not special interest, so I have to stand up for myself. Now, Jim, let me net it out. On the second debate, I offered, since both sides want the enterprise zones but can't get together, I said I'll take a few days off and go to Washington and hold hands with you, and we'll get it done. I'll take a few days off, hold hands with you, and get this airline thing straightened out, because that's important to this country. That's kind of pathetic I have to do it, and nobody's called me yet to come up, I might mention -- [laughter] -- but if they do, if they do, it's easy to fix. If you all want the enterprise zones, why don't we pass the dang thing and do it? Right? Mr. Lehrer. All right. Now we're going to bring in three other journalists to ask questions. They are Susan Rook of CNN, Gene Gibbons of Reuters, and Helen Thomas of United Press International. You thought you'd never get in here, didn't you? President Bush. Uh-oh. Mr. Lehrer. Okay, we are going to continue on the subject of leadership, and the first question goes to Governor Clinton for a 2-minute answer. It will be asked by Helen Thomas. Helen? The Draft Issue Helen Thomas. Governor Clinton, your credibility has come into question because of your different responses on the Vietnam draft. If you had to do it over again, would you put on the Nation's uniform? And, if elected, could you, in good conscience, send someone to war? Governor Clinton. If I had to do it over again, I might answer the questions a little better. You know, I had been in public life a long time and no one had ever questioned my role, and so I was asked a lot of questions about the things that happened a long time ago. I don't think I answered them as well as I could have. Going back 23 years, I don't know, Helen. I was opposed to the war. I couldn't help that. I felt very strongly about it, and I didn't want to go at the time. It's easy to say in retrospect I would have done something differently. President Lincoln opposed the war, and there were people who said maybe he shouldn't be President. But I think he made us a pretty good President in wartime. We've got a lot of other Presidents who didn't wear their country's uniform and had to order our young soldiers into battle, including President Wilson and President Roosevelt. So the answer is, I could do that. I wouldn't relish doing it, but I wouldn't shrink from it. I think that the President has to be prepared to use the power of the Nation when our vital interests are threatened, when our treaty commitments are at stake, when we know that something has to be done that is in the national interest. And that is a part of being President. Could I do it? Yes, I could. Mr. Lehrer. A reminder now, we're back on the St. Louis rules, which means that the Governor had his answer, and then each of you will have one minute to respond. Mr. President. President Bush. Well, I've expressed my heartfelt difference with Governor Clinton on organizing demonstrations while in a foreign land against your country when young ghetto kids have been drafted and are dying. My argument with him on -- the question was about the draft is that there is this same pattern. In New Hampshire, Senator Kerry said you ought to level, you ought to tell the truth about it. And April 17th, he said he'd bring out all the records on the draft. They have not been forthcoming. He got a deferment, or he didn't. He got a notice, or he didn't. I think it's this pattern that troubles me more than the draft. A lot of decent, honorable people felt as he did on the draft. But it is this pattern. And again, you might be able to make amendments all the time, Governor, but as President, you can't be on all these different sides, and you can't have this pattern of saying, well, I did this, or I didn't. Then the facts come out, and you change it. That's my big difference with him on the draft. It wasn't failing to serve. Mr. Lehrer. Your minute is up, sir. Mr. Perot, one minute. Mr. Perot. I've spent my whole adult life very close to the military; feel very strongly about the people who go into battle for our country; appreciate their idealism, their sacrifices; appreciate the sacrifices their families make. That's been displayed again and again in a very tangible way. I look on this as history. I don't look on it, personally, as relevant. I consider it really a waste of time tonight when you consider the issues that face our country right now. Mr. Lehrer. All right. The next question goes to President Bush, and Gene Gibbons will ask it. 1990 Budget Agreement Gene Gibbons. Mr. President, you keep saying that you made a mistake in agreeing to a tax increase to get the 1990 budget deal with Congress. But if you hadn't gotten that deal you would have either had to get repeal of the Gramm-Rudman deficit control act or cut defense spending drastically at a time when the country was building up for the Gulf war and decimate domestic discretionary spending, including such things as air traffic control. If you had it to do all over again, sir, which of those alternatives would you choose? President Bush. I wouldn't have taken any of the alternatives. I believe I made a mistake. I did it for the very reasons you say. There was one good thing that came out of that budget agreement, and that is we put a cap on discretionary spending. One-third of the President's budget is at the President's discretion, or really, the Congress', since they appropriate every dime and tell the President how to spend every dime. We've put a cap on the growth of all that spending, and that's good. And that's helped. But I was wrong because I thought the tax compromise, going along with one Democratic tax increase, would help the economy. I see no evidence that it has done it. So what would I have done, what should I have done? I should have held out for a better deal that would have protected the taxpayer and not ended up doing what we had to do or what I thought at the time would help. So I made a mistake. You know, the difference, I think, is that I knew at the time I was going to take a lot of political flak. I knew we'd have somebody out there yelling, "Read my lips." And I did it because I thought it was right. And I made a mistake. That's quite different than taking a position where you know it's best for you. That wasn't best for me, and I knew it in the very beginning. I thought it would be better for the country than it was. So there we are. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot, one minute. Mr. Perot. The 101 in leadership is be accountable for what you do. Let's go back to the tax and budget summit briefly. Nobody ever told the American people that we increased spending $1.83 for every dollar of taxes raised. That's absolutely unconscionable. Both parties carry a huge blame for that on their shoulders. This was not a way to pay on the deficit. This was a trick on the American people. That's not leadership. Let's go back in terms of accepting responsibilities for your actions. To create Saddam Hussein over a 10-year period, using billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money, step up to the plate and say it was a mistake. To create Noriega using taxpayer money, step up to the plate and say it was a mistake. If you can't get your act together to pick him up one day when a Panamanian major has kidnaped him, a special forces team is 400 yards away and it's a stroll across the park to get him, and if you can't get your act together, at least pick up the Panamanian major who they then killed, step up to the plate and admit it was a mistake. That's leadership, folks. Now, leaders will always make mistakes. And I'm not aiming at any one person here. I'm aiming at our Government. Nobody takes responsibility for anything. We've got to change that. Mr. Lehrer. I'll take responsibility for saying your time is up. Mr. Perot. I'm watching the light. Mr. Lehrer. All right. Governor Clinton, one minute, sir. Governor Clinton. The mistake that was made was making the "read my lips" promise in the first place just to get elected, knowing what the size of the deficit was, knowing there was no plan to control health care costs, and knowing that we did not have a strategy to get real economic growth back into this economy. The choices were not good then. I think at the time the mistake that was made was signing off on the deal late on Saturday night in the middle of the night. That's just what the President did when he vetoed the family leave act. I think what he should have done is gone before the American people on the front end and said, "Listen, I made a commitment, and it was wrong. I made a mistake because I couldn't have foreseen these circumstances. And this is the best deal we can work out at the time." He said it was in the public interest at the time, and most everybody who was involved in it, I guess, thought it was. The real mistake was the "read my lips" promise in the first place. You just can't promise something like that just to get elected if you know there's a good chance that circumstances may overtake you. Mr. Lehrer. All right, Mr. Perot, the question is for you. You have a 2-minute answer, and it will be asked by Susan Rook. Leadership Susan Rook. Mr. Perot, you've talked about going to Washington to do what the people who run this country want you to do. But it is the President's duty to lead and often lead alone. How can you lead if you are forever seeking consensus before you act? Mr. Perot. Let's talk about two different subjects. In order to lead, you first have to use the White House as a bully pulpit and lead. Then you have to develop consensus, or you can't get anything done. That's where we are now. We can't get anything done. How do you get anything done when you've got all of these political action committees, all of these thousands of registered lobbyists, 40,000 registered lobbyists, 23,000 special interest groups, and the list goes on and on and on, and the average citizen out here just working hard every day. You've got to go to the people. I just love the fact that everybody, particularly in the media, goes bonkers over the town hall. I guess it's because you will lose your right to tell them what to think. [Laughter] The point is, they'll get to decide what to think. President Bush. Hey, you've got something there. Mr. Perot. I love the fact that people will listen to a guy with a bad accent and a poor presentation manner talking about flip charts for 30 minutes, because they want the details. See, all the folks up there at the top said, people, "The attention span of the American people is no more than 5 minutes. They won't watch it." They're thirsty for it. You want to have a new program in this country? If you get grassroots America excited about it and if they tap Congress on the shoulder and say, "Do it, Charlie," it will happen. That's a whole lot different from these fellows running up and down the halls whispering in their ears now and promising campaign funds for the next election if they do it. Now, I think that's going back to where we started. That's having a Government from the people. I think that's the essence of leadership, rather than cutting deals in dark rooms in Washington. Mr. Lehrer. Governor Clinton, one minute. Governor Clinton. Well, I believe in the town hall meetings. They started with my campaign in New Hampshire. I think Ross Perot has done a good job in having them. And I, as you know, pushed for the debate to include 209 American citizens who were part of it in Richmond a few days ago. I've done a lot of them, and I'll continue to do them as President. But I'd also like to point out that I haven't been part of what we're criticizing in Washington tonight. Of the three of us, I have balanced a government budget 12 times. I have offered and passed campaign finance reform; offered, pushed for, and passed in public referendum lobbyist restrictions; done the kinds of things you have to do to get legislators together, not only to establish consensus but to challenge them to change. In 12 years as Governor, I guess I've taken on every interest group there was in my State at one time or another to fight for change. It can be done. That's why I've tried to be so specific in this campaign: to have a mandate, if elected, so that Congress will know what the American people have voted for. Mr. Lehrer. President Bush, one minute. President Bush. I would like the record to show the panelists that Ross Perot took the first shot at the press. My favorite bumper sticker, though, is "Annoy the Media. Reelect President Bush." [Laughter] I just had to work that in. Sorry, Helen. I'm going to pay for this later on. Look, you have to build a consensus, but in some things -- Ross mentioned Saddam Hussein. Yes, we tried, and yes, we failed to bring him into the family of nations. He had the fourth largest army. But then when he moved against Kuwait I said, this will not stand. And it's hard to build a consensus. We went to the U.N. We made historic resolutions up there. The whole world was united. Our Congress was dragging its feet. Governor Clinton said, "Well, I might have been with the minority, let sanctions work. But I guess I would have voted with the majority." A President can't do that. Sometimes he has to act. In this case, I'm glad we did, because if we'd have let sanctions work and had tried to build a consensus on that, Saddam Hussein today would be in Saudi Arabia controlling the world's oil supply, and he would be there maybe with a nuclear weapon. We busted the fourth largest army, and we did it through leadership. Mr. Lehrer. All right, we're going to go on to another subject now, and the subject is priorities. And the first question goes to you, President Bush, and Susan will ask it. Women Advisers Ms. Rook. President Bush, gentlemen, I acknowledge that all of you have women and ethnic minorities working for you and working with you. But when we look at the circle of the key people closest to you, your inner circle of advisers, we see white men only. Why, and when will that change? President Bush. You don't see Margaret Tutwiler sitting in there with me today? Ms. Rook. The key people, President Bush. President Bush. What? Ms. Rook. The key people, the people beyond the glass ceiling. President Bush. I happen to think she's a key person. I think our Cabinet members are key people. I think the woman that works with me, Rose Zamaria, is about as tough as a boot out there and makes some discipline and protects the taxpayer. Look at our Cabinet. You talk about somebody strong, look at Carla Hills. Look at Lynn Martin, who's fighting against this glass ceiling and doing a first-class job on it. Look at our Surgeon General, Dr. Novello. You can look all around and you'll see first-class, strong women. Jim Baker's a man. Yes, I plead guilty to that. [Laughter] But look who's around with him there. I mean, this is a little defensive on your part, Susan, to be honest with you. We've got a very good record appointing women to high positions and positions of trust. And I'm not defensive at all about it. What we've got to do is keep working, as the Labor Department is doing a first-class job on, to break down discrimination, to break down the glass ceiling. I am not apologetic at all about our record with women. You think about women in Government. I think about women in business. Why not try to help them with my small business program to build some incentives into the system? I think we're making progress here. You've got a lot of women running for office. As I said the other night, I hope a lot of them lose, because they're liberal Democrats, and we don't need more of them in the Senate or more of them in the House. But nevertheless, they're out there. And we've got some very good Republican women running. So we're making dramatic progress. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot, one minute. Mr. Perot. Well, I've come from the computer business, and everybody knows women are more talented than the men. So we have a long history of having a lot of talented women. One of our first officers was a woman, a chief financial officer. She was a director. And it was so far back, it was considered so odd. And even though we were a tiny little company at the time, it made all the national magazines. But in terms of being influenced by women and being a minority, there they are right out there, my wife and my four beautiful daughters. And I just have one son. So he and I are surrounded by women telling us what to do all the time. [Laughter] Iraq For the rest of my minute, I want to make a very brief comment here in terms of Saddam Hussein. We told him that we wouldn't get involved with this border dispute, and we've never revealed those papers that were given to Ambassador Glaspie on July 25. I suggest, in the sense of taking responsibility for your actions, we lay those papers on the table. They're not the secrets to the nuclear bomb. Secondly, we got upset when he took the whole thing, but to the ordinary American out there who doesn't know where the oilfields are in Kuwait, they're near the border. We told him he could take the northern part of Kuwait, and when he took the whole thing, we went nuts. And if we didn't tell him that, why won't we even let the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee see the written instructions for Ambassador Glaspie? President Bush. I'd like to reply on that. That gets to the national honor. We did not say to Saddam Hussein, Ross, "You can take the northern part of Kuwait." That is absolutely absurd. Glaspie has testified -- -- Mr. Perot. Where are the papers? President Bush. -- -- and Glaspie's papers have been presented to the United States Senate. So please -- -- Mr. Perot. If you have time, go through NEXIS and LEXIS, pull all the old news articles. Look at what Ambassador Glaspie said all through the fall and what have you, and then look at what she and Kelly and all the others in State said at the end when they were trying to clean it up. And talk to any head of any of those key committees in the Senate. They will not let them see the written instructions given to Ambassador Glaspie. And I suggest that in a free society owned by the people, the American people ought to know what we told Ambassador Glaspie to tell Saddam Hussein. Because we spent a lot of money and risked lives and lost lives in that effort, and did not accomplish most of our objectives. We got Kuwait back to the Amir; but he still got his nuclear, his chemical, his bacteriological, and he's still over there, right? I'd like to see those written instructions. Sorry. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President, when you -- just make sure that everybody knows what's going on here. When you responded directly to Mr. Perot then -- -- President Bush. Yes. Mr. Lehrer. -- -- you violated the rule, your rules. Now, I'm willing -- -- President Bush. I apologize. When I make a mistake, I say -- [laughter]. Mr. Lehrer. No, no, no. I just want to make sure that everybody understands. If you all want to change the rules, we can do it. President Bush. No, I don't. I apologize for it. But that one got right to the national honor. Mr. Lehrer. All right. Okay. President Bush. And I'm sorry. Mr. Lehrer. Okay. But Governor Clinton, you have a minute. Women Advisers Governor Clinton. Susan, I don't agree that there are no women and minorities in important positions in my campaign. There are many. But I think even more relevant is my record at home. For most of my time as Governor, a woman was my chief of staff, an African American was my chief cabinet officer, an African American was my chief economic development officer. It was interesting, there was a story either today or yesterday in the Washington Post about my economic programs. My chief budget officer and my chief economic officer were both African Americans, even though the Post didn't mention that, which I think is a sign of progress. The National Women's Political Caucus gave me an award, one of their good guy awards, for my involvement of women in high levels of government. I've appointed more minorities to positions of high levels in government than all the Governors in the history of my State combined before me. So that's what I'll do as President. I don't think we've got a person to waste. I think I owe the American people a White House staff, a Cabinet, and appointments that look like America, but that meet high standards of excellence, and that's what I'll do. Mr. Lehrer. All right. The next question goes to you, Mr. Perot, for 2 minutes. It's a 2-minute question, and Helen will ask it. Helen? Investigations Ms. Thomas. Mr. Perot, what proof do you have that Saddam Hussein was told that he could have -- do you have any actual proof, or are you asking for the papers? And also, I really came in with another question. What is this penchant you have to investigate everyone? Are those accusations correct, investigating your staff, investigating the leaders of the grassroots movement, investigating associates of your family? Mr. Perot. No, they're not correct. And if you look at my life for the first -- until I got involved in this effort, I was one person. And then after the Republican dirty tricks group got through with me, I'm another person, which I consider an absolutely sick operation. And all of you in the press know exactly what I'm talking about. They investigated every single one of my children. They investigated my wife. They interviewed all my children's friends from childhood on. They went to extraordinary, sick lengths. And I just found it amusing that they would take two or three cases where I was involved in lawsuits and would engage an investigator, the lawyers would engage an investigator, which is common. And the only difference between me and any other businessman that has the range of businesses I have is I haven't had that many lawsuits. So that's just another one of those little fruit-loopy things they make up to try to, instead of facing issues, to try to redefine a person that's running against them. This goes on night and day. I will do everything I can, if I get up there, to make dirty tricks a thing of the past. One of the two groups has raised it to an art form. It's a sick art form. Iraq Now, let's go back to Saddam Hussein. We gave Ambassador Glaspie written instructions. That's a fact. We've never let the Congress and these Foreign Relations -- Senate Intelligence Committee see them. That's a fact. Ambassador Glaspie did a lot of talking, right after July the 25th, and that's a fact, and it saw the newspapers. You pull all of it at once and read it, and I did, and it's pretty clear what she and Kelly and the other key guys around that thing thought they were doing. Then, at the end of the war when they had to go testify about it, their stories are a total disconnect from what they said in August, September, and October. So I say, this is very simple: Saddam Hussein released a tape, as you know, claiming it was a transcript of their meeting, where she said, "We will not become involved in your border dispute," and in effect, "You can take the northern part of the country." We later said, "No, that's not true." I said, well, this is simple. What were her written instructions? We guard those like the secrets to the atomic bomb, literally. Now, I say: Whose country is this? This is ours. Who will get hurt if we lay those papers on the table? The worst thing is, again, it's a mistake. Nobody did any of this with evil intent. I just object to the fact that we cover up and hide things, whether it's Iran-contra, Iraqgate, or you name it. It's a steady stream. Mr. Lehrer. Governor Clinton, you have one minute. Governor Clinton. Let's take Mr. Bush for the moment at his word. I mean, he's right, we don't have any evidence, at least, that our Government did tell Saddam Hussein he could have that part of Kuwait. And let's give him the credit he deserves for organizing Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. It was a remarkable event. But let's look at where, I think, the real mistake was made. In 1988, when the war between Iraq and Iran ended, we knew Saddam Hussein was a tyrant. We had dealt with him because he was against Iran. The enemy of my enemy maybe is my friend. All right, the war is over. We know he's dropping mustard gas on his own people. We know he's threatened to incinerate half of Israel. Several Government Departments, several, had information that he was converting our aid to military purposes and trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. But in late '89, the President signed a secret policy saying we were going to continue to try to improve relations with him, and we sent him some sort of communication on the eve of his invasion of Kuwait that we still wanted better relations. So I think what was wrong -- I give credit where credit is due, but the responsibility was in coddling Saddam Hussein when there was no reason to do it and when people at high levels in our Government knew he was trying to do things that were outrageous. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President, you have a moment -- a minute, I'm sorry. President Bush. It's awful easy when you're dealing with 90/90 hindsight. We did try to bring Saddam Hussein into the family of nations. He did have the fourth largest army. All our Arab allies out there thought we ought to do just exactly that. When he crossed the line, I stood up and looked into the camera and I said, "This aggression will not stand." We formed a historic coalition, and we brought him down. We destroyed the fourth largest army, and the battlefield was searched, and there wasn't one single iota of evidence that any U.S. weapons were on that battlefield. The nuclear capability has been searched by the United Nations, and there hasn't been one single scintilla of evidence that there's any U.S. technology involved in it. What you're seeing on all this Iraqgate is a bunch of people who were wrong on the war trying to cover their necks here and try to do a little revisionism. I cannot let that stand, because it isn't true. Yes, we had grain credits for Iraq, and there isn't any evidence that those grain credits were diverted into weaponry, none, none whatsoever. And so I just have to say it's fine. You can't say there, Governor Clinton, and say, "Well, I think I have supported the minority" -- let sanctions work or wish that it would go away -- "but I would have voted with the majority." Come on, that's not leadership. Mr. Lehrer. The next question goes to Governor Clinton, and Gene Gibbons will ask it. Gene? Banking Situation Mr. Gibbons. Governor, an important aspect of leadership is, of course, anticipating problems. During the 1988 campaign, there was little or no mention of the savings and loan crisis that has cost the American people billions and billions of dollars. Now there are rumblings that a commercial bank crisis is on the horizon. Is there such a problem, sir? If so, how bad is it, and what will it cost to clean it up? Governor Clinton. Gene, there is a problem in the sense that there are some problem banks. And on December 19th, new regulations will go into effect which will, in effect, give the Government the responsibility to close some banks that are not technically insolvent but that are plainly in trouble. On the other hand, I don't think that we have any reason to believe that the dimensions of this crisis are anywhere near as great as the savings and loan crisis. The mistake that both parties made in Washington with the S&L business was deregulating them without proper capital requirements, proper oversight and regulation, proper training of the executives. Many people predicted what happened, and it was a disaster. The banking system in this country is fundamentally sound, with some weak banks. I think that our goal ought to be, first of all, not to politicize it, not to frighten people; secondly, to say that we have to enforce the law in two ways. We don't want to overreact as the Federal regulators have, in my judgment, on good banks so that they've created credit crunches that have made our recession worse in the last couple of years, but we do want to act prudently with the banks that are in trouble. We also want to say that, insofar as is humanly possible, the banking industry itself should pay for the cost of any bank failures, the taxpayers should not, and that will be my policy. I believe we have a good, balanced approach. We can get the good banks loaning money again in the credit crunch, have proper regulation on the ones that are in trouble, and not > Transfer interrupted! em, but I don't see it as the kind of terrible, terrible problem that the S&L problem was. Mr. Lehrer. President Bush, one minute. President Bush. Well, I don't believe it would be appropriate for a President to suggest that the banking system is not sound; it is sound. There are some problem banks out there. But what we need is financial reform. We need some real financial reform, banking reform legislation. I have proposed that, and when I am reelected I believe one of the first things ought to be to press a new Congress, not beholden to the old ways, to pass financial reform legislation that modernizes the banking system, doesn't put a lot of inhibitions on it, and protects the depositors through keeping the FDIC sound. I just was watching some of the proceedings of the American Bankers Association, and I think the general feeling is most of the banks are sound. Certainly there's no comparison here between what happened to the S&L's and where the banks stand right now, in my view. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot, one minute. Mr. Perot. Well, nobody's gotten into the real issue yet on the savings and loan. Again, nobody's got a business background, I guess. The whole problem came up in 1984. The President of the United States was told officially it was a $20 billion problem. These crooks -- now, Willie Sutton would have gone to own a savings and loan rather than rob banks. He robbed banks because that's where the money is; owning a savings and loan is where the money was. Now, in 1984 they were told. I believe the Vice President was in charge of deregulation. Nobody touched that tar baby until the day after election in 1988, because they were flooding both parties with crooked PAC money. And it was, in many cases, stolen PAC money. Now, you and I never got a ride on a lot of these yachts and fancy things it bought, but you and I are paying for it. And they buried it until right after the election. Now, if you believe the Washington Post and you believe this extensive study that's been done, and I'm reading it, right after election day this year they're going to hit us with 100 banks. It'll be a $100 billion problem. Now, if that's true, just tell me now. I'm grown up. I can deal with it. I'll pay my share. But just tell me now. Don't bury it until after the election twice. I say that to both political parties. The people deserve that, since we have to pick up the tab. You've got the PAC money. We'll pay the tab. Just tell us. Mr. Lehrer. All right, Mr. Perot. The next question, we're going into a new round here on a category just called "differences." And the question goes to you, Mr. Perot, and Gene will ask it. Gene? Government Reform Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Perot, aside from the deficit, what Government policy or policies do you really want to do something about? What really sticks in your craw about conditions in this country, beside the deficit, that you would want to fix as President? Mr. Perot. The debt and the deficit. Well, if you watched my television show the other night, you saw it. If you watch it Thursday, Friday, Saturday this week, you'll get more. So, a shameless plug there, Mr. President. But in a nutshell, we've got to reform our Government or we won't get anything done. We have a Government that doesn't work. All these specific examples I'm giving tonight, if you had a business like that, they'd be leading you away and boarding up the doors. We have a Government that doesn't work. It's supposed to come from the people. It comes at the people. The people need to take their Government back. You've got to reform Congress. They've got to be servants to the people again. You've got to reform the White House. We've got to turn this thing around. It's a long list of specific items, and I've covered it again and again in print and on television. But very specifically, the key thing is to turn the Government back to the people and take it away from the special interests and have people go to Washington to serve. Who can give themselves a 23-percent pay raise anywhere in the world except Congress? Who would have 1,200 airplanes worth $2 billion a year just to fly around in? I don't have a free reserved parking place at National Airport. Why should my servants? I don't have an indoor gymnasium and an indoor tennis court, an indoor every other thing they can think of. I don't have a place where I can go make free TV to send to my constituents to try to brainwash them to elect me the next time. And I'm paying for all that for those guys. I'm going to be running an ad pretty soon that shows -- they promised us they were going to hold the line on spending, a tax and budget summit -- and I'm going to show how much they've increased this little stuff they do for themselves. It is Silly Putty, folks, and the American people have had enough of it. Step one, if I get up there, we're going to clean that up. You say, how can I get Congress to do that? I'll have millions of people shoulder-to-shoulder with me, and we will see it done warp speed, because it's wrong. We've turned the country upside down. Mr. Lehrer. Governor Clinton, you have one minute. Governor. Governor Clinton. I would just point out on the point Mr. Perot made, I agree that we need to cut spending in Congress. I've called for a 25-percent reduction in congressional staffs and expenditures. But the White House staff increased its expenditures by considerably more than Congress has in the last 4 years under the Bush administration, and Congress has actually spent $1 billion less than President Bush asked them to spend. Now, when you outspend Congress, you're really swinging. That, however, is not my only passion. The real problem in this country is that most people are working hard and falling further behind. My passion is to pass a jobs program to get incomes up with an investment incentive program to grow jobs in the private sector, to waste less public money and invest more, to control health care costs and provide for affordable health care for all Americans, and to make sure we've got the best trained work force in the world. That is my passion. We've got to get this country growing again and this economy strong again, or we can't bring down the deficit. Economic growth is the key to the future of this country. Mr. Lehrer. President Bush, one minute. President Bush. On Government reform? Mr. Lehrer. Sir? President Bush. Government reform? Mr. Lehrer. Yes. Well, to respond to the subject that Mr. Perot mentioned. President Bush. How about this for a Government reform policy? Reduce the White House staff by a third after or at the same time the Congress does the same thing for their staff; term limits for Members of the United States Congress. Give the Government back to the people. Let's do it that way. The President has term limits. Let's limit some of these guys sitting out here tonight. Term limits, and then how about a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution? Forty-three States, more than that, States have it, I believe. Let's try that. You want to do something about all this extra spending that concerns Mr. Perot and me? Okay, how about a line-item veto? Forty-three Governors have that. Give it to the President. If the Congress isn't big enough to do it, let the President have a shot at this excess spending. A line-item veto, that means you can take a line and cut out some of the pork out of a meaningful bill. Governor Clinton keeps hitting me on vetoing legislation. Well, that's the only protection the taxpayer has against some of these reckless pork programs up there. I'd rather be able to just line it right out of there and get on about passing some good stuff, but leave out the garbage. Line-item veto, there's a good reform program for you. Mr. Lehrer. The next question goes to Governor Clinton. You have two minutes, Governor, and Susan will ask it. Taxes Ms. Rook. Governor Clinton, you said that you will raise taxes on the rich, people with incomes of $200,000 a year or higher. A lot of people are saying that you will have to go lower than that, much lower. Will you make a pledge tonight below which -- an income level that you will not go below? I am looking for numbers, sir, not just a concept. Governor Clinton. You can read my plan. My plan says that we want to raise marginal incomes on family incomes above $200,000 from 31 to 36 percent; that we want to ask foreign corporations simply to pay the same percentage of taxes on their income that American corporations pay in America; that we want to use that money to provide over $100 billion in tax cuts for investment in new plant and equipment, for small business, for new technologies, and for middle class tax relief. Now, I can tell you this: I will not raise taxes on the middle class to pay for these programs. If the money does not come in there to pay for these programs, we will cut other Government spending, or we will slow down the phase-in to the programs. I am not going to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for these programs. Now, furthermore, I am not going to tell you "Read my lips" on anything because I cannot foresee what emergencies might develop in this country. And the President said never, never, never would he raise taxes, in New Jersey. Within a day, Marlin Fitzwater, his spokesman, said, now, that's not a promise. So I think even he has learned that you can't say "Read my lips" because you can't know what emergencies might come up. But I can tell you this: I'm not going to raise taxes on middle class Americans to pay for the programs I've recommended. Read my plan. And you know how you can trust me about that? Because you know, in the first debate, Mr. Bush made some news. He had just said Jim Baker was going to be Secretary of State, but in the first debate he said no, now he's going to be responsible for domestic economic policy. Well, I'll tell you, I'll make some news in the third debate: The person responsible for domestic economic policy in my administration will be Bill Clinton. I'm going to make those decisions, and I won't raise taxes in the middle class to pay for my program. Mr. Lehrer. President Bush, you have one minute. President Bush. That's what worries me, that he's going to be responsible. He would do for the United States what he has done for Arkansas. He would do for the United States what he's done to Arkansas. We do not want to be the lowest of the low. We are not a nation in decline. We are a rising nation. My problem is, I heard what he said. He said, "I want to take it from the rich, raise $150 billion from the rich." To get it, to get $150 billion in new taxes, you've got to go down to the guy that's making $36,600. And if you want to pay for the rest of his plan, all the other spending programs, you're going to sock it to the working man. So when you hear "tax the rich," Mr. and Mrs. America, watch your wallet. Lock your wallet, because he's coming right after you just like Jimmy Carter did, and just like you're going to get -- you're going to end up with interest rates at 21 percent, and you're going to have inflation going through the roof. Yes, we're having tough times. But we do not need to go back to the failed policies of the past when you had a Democratic President and a spendthrift Democratic Congress. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot. Governor Clinton. You permitted Mr. Bush to break the rules, he said to defend the honor of the country. What about the honor of my State? We rank first in the country in job growth. We've got the lowest spending, State and local, in the country and the second lowest tax burden. The difference between Arkansas and the United States is that we're going in the right direction, and this country's going in the wrong direction. And I have to defend the honor of my State. Mr. Lehrer. We've got a wash, according to my calculations. We have a wash. And we'll go to Mr. Perot for one minute. In other words, the violation of the rule; that's what I meant. Mr. Perot. I'm the only one that's untarnished at this point. Mr. Lehrer. That's right, you're clean. [Laughter] Mr. Perot. I'm sure I'll do it before it's over. The key thing here, see, we all come up with images. Images don't fix anything. You know, I'm starting to understand it. You stay around this long enough, you think about -- if you talk about it in Washington, you think you did it. If you've been on television about it, you think you did it. [Laughter] What we need is people to stop talking and start doing. Now, our real problem here is they both have plans that will not work. The Wall Street Journal said your numbers don't add up. And you can take it out on charts; you look at all the studies that different groups have done; you go out 4, 5, 6 years: We're still drifting along with a huge deficit. So let's come back to harsh reality. Everybody said, "Gee, Perot, you're tough." I say, well, this is not as tough as World War II; and it's not as tough as the Revolution. It's fair-shared sacrifice to do the right thing for our country and for our children. And it will be fun if we all work together to do it. Mr. Lehrer. This is the last question, and it goes to President Bush for a 2-minute answer. And it will be asked by Helen. Presidential Campaign Ms. Thomas. Mr. President, why have you dropped so dramatically in the leadership polls, from the high eighties to the forties? And you have said you will do anything you have to do to get reelected. What can you do in 2 weeks to win reelection? President Bush. Well, I think the answer to why the drop, I think, has been the economy in the doldrums. Why I'll win is I think I have the best plan of the three of us up here to do something about it. Mine does not grow the Government. It does not have Government invest. It says we need to do better in terms of stimulating private business. We've got a big philosophical difference here tonight between one who thinks the Government can do all these things through tax and spend, and one who thinks it ought to go the other way. So I believe the answer is, I'm going to win it because I'm getting into focus my agenda for America's renewal, and also I think that Governor Clinton's had pretty much of a free ride on looking specifically at the Arkansas record. He keeps criticizing us, criticizing me; I'm the incumbent. Fine. But he's an incumbent. And we've got to look at all the facts. They're almost at the bottom on every single category. We can't do that to the American people. Then, Helen, I really believe where people are going to ask this question about trust -- because I do think there's a pattern by Governor Clinton of saying one thing to please one group and then trying to please another group. I think that pattern is a dangerous thing to suggest would work for the Oval Office. It doesn't work that way when you're President. Truman is right: The buck stops there. You have to make decisions, even when it's against your own interest. I've done that. It's against my political interests to say go ahead and go along with the tax increase. But I did what I thought was right at the time. So I think people are going to be looking for trust and experience. Then, I mentioned it the other night, I think if there's a crisis, people are going to say, "Well, George Bush has taken us through some tough crises, and we trust him to do that." So I'll make the appeal on a wide array of issues. Also I've got a philosophical difference -- I've got to watch the clock here -- I don't think we're a declining nation. The whole world has had economic problems. We're doing better than a lot of the countries in the world. And we're going to lead the way out of this economic recession across this world and economic slowdown here at home. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot, you have one minute. President Bush. That's why I think I'll win. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot, you have -- sorry. Excuse me, sir. Mr. Perot, you have one minute. Mr. Perot. I'm the last one, right? Mr. Lehrer. No. Governor Clinton has a minute after you. Then we have the closing statements. Mr. Perot. One minute after you? Mr. Lehrer. Right. Mr. Perot. I'm totally focused on the fact that we may have bank failures, and nobody answered it. I'm totally focused on that fact that we are still evading the issue of the Glaspie papers. I'm totally focused on the fact that we still could have enterprise zones, according to both parties, but we don't. So I'm still focused on gridlock, I guess. I'm also focused on the fact that isn't it a paradox that we have the highest productivity in our work force in the industrialized world and at the same time have the largest trade deficit, and at the same time rank behind nine other nations in what we pay our most productive people in the world. We're losing whole industries overseas. Now, can't somebody agree with me that the Government is breaking business' legs with these trade agreements? They're breaking business' legs in a number of different ways. We have an adversarial relationship that's destroying jobs and sending them overseas, while we have the finest workers in the world. Keep in mind the factory worker has nothing to do with anything except putting it together on the factory floor. It's our obligation to make sure that we give him the finest products in the world to put together, and we don't break his legs in the process. Mr. Lehrer. Governor Clinton, one minute. Governor Clinton. I really can't believe Mr. Bush is still trying to make trust an issue after "read my lips" and "15 billion new jobs" and embracing what he called "voodoo economics" and embracing an export enhancing program for farmers he threatened to veto and going all around the country giving out money and programs that he once opposed. But the main thing is he still didn't get it, from what he said the other night to that fine woman on our program, the 209 people in Richmond. They don't want us talking about each other. They want us to talk about the problems of this country. I don't think he'll be reelected because trickle-down economics is a failure, and he's offering more of it. And what he's saying about my program is just not true. Look at the Republicans that have endorsed me, high-tech executives in northern California. Look at the 24 generals and admirals, retired, who have endorsed me, including the deputy commander of Desert Storm. Look at Sarah Brady, Jim Brady's wife, President Reagan's Press Secretary, who endorsed me because he knuckled under to the NRA and wouldn't fight for the Brady bill. We've got a broad-based coalition that goes beyond party, because I am going to change this country and make it better with the help of the American people. Mr. Lehrer. All right. That was the final question and answer, and we now go to the closing statements. Each candidate will have up to 2 minutes. The order was determined by a drawing. Governor Clinton, you are first. Governor. Closing Statements Governor Clinton. First I'd like to thank the Commission and my opponents for participating in these debates and making them possible. I think the real winners of the debates were the American people. I was especially moved in Richmond a few days ago when 209 of our fellow citizens got to ask us questions. They went a long way toward reclaiming this election for the American people and taking their country back. I want to say, since this is the last time I'll be on a platform with my opponents, that even though I disagree with Mr. Perot on how fast we can reduce the deficit and how much we can increase taxes on the middle class, I really respect what he's done in this campaign to bring the issue of deficit reduction to our attention. I'd like to say to Mr. Bush, even though I've got profound differences with him, I do honor his service to our country. I appreciate his efforts, and I wish him well. I just believe it's time to change. I offer a new approach. It's not trickle-down economics; it's been tried for 12 years, and it's failed. More people are working harder for less, 100,000 people a month losing their health insurance, unemployment going up, our economy slowing down. We can do better. And it's not tax-and-spend economics. It's invest and grow, put our people first, control health care costs and provide basic health care to all Americans, have an education system second to none, and revitalize the private economy. That is my commitment to you. It is a kind of change that can open up a whole new world of opportunities to America as we enter the last decade of this century and move toward the 21st century. I want a country where people who work hard and play by the rules are rewarded, not punished. I want a country where people are coming together across the lines of race and region and income. I know we can do better. It won't take miracles, and it won't happen overnight. But we can do much, much better if we have the courage to change. Thank you very much. Mr. Lehrer. President Bush, your closing statement, sir. President Bush. Three weeks from now -- two weeks from tomorrow, America goes to the polls. You're going to have to decide who you want to lead this country to economic recovery. On jobs, that's the number one priority, and I believe my program for stimulating investment, encouraging small business, brandnew approach to education, strengthening the American family, and yes, creating more exports is the way to go. I don't believe in trickle-down Government. I don't believe in larger taxes and larger Government spending. On foreign affairs, some think it's irrelevant. I believe it's not. We're living in an interconnected world. The whole world is having economic difficulties. The U.S. is doing better than a lot. But we've got to do even better. If a crisis comes up, I ask: Who has the judgment and the experience and, yes, the character to make the right decision? Lastly, the other night on character, Governor Clinton said it's not the character of the President but "the character of the Presidency." I couldn't disagree more. Horace Greeley said, "The only thing that endures is character." And I think it was Justice Black who talked about "Great nations, like great men, must keep their word." And so the question is: Who will safeguard this Nation? Who will safeguard our people and our children? I need your support. I ask for your vote. And may God bless the United States of America. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Perot, your closing statement, sir. Mr. Perot. To the millions of fine, decent people who did the unthinkable and took their country back in their own hands and put me on the ballot, let me pledge to you that tonight is just the beginning. These next 2 weeks we will be going full steam ahead to make sure that you get a voice and that you get your country back. This Thursday night on ABC from 8:30 to 9, Friday night on NBC from 8 to 8:30, and Saturday night on CBS from 8 to 8:30, we'll be down in the trenches, under the hood, working on fixing the old car to get it back on the road. [Laughter] Now, the question is: Can we win? Absolutely we can win, because it's your country. The question really is: Who do you want in to the White House? It's that simple. Now, you've got to stop letting these people tell you who to vote for. You've got to stop letting these folks in the press tell you you're throwing your vote away. You've got to start using your own head. Then the question is: Can we govern? I love that one. The "we" is you and me. You bet your hat we can govern, because we will be in there together, and we will figure out what to do. You won't tolerate gridlock. You won't tolerate endless meandering and wandering around. You won't tolerate nonperformance. And believe me, anybody who knows me understands I have a very low tolerance for nonperformance also. Together we can get anything done. The President mentioned that you need the right person in a crisis. Well, folks, we've got one. And that crisis is a financial crisis. Pretty simply, who's the best qualified person up here on the stage to create jobs? Make your decision and vote on November the 3d. I suggest you might consider somebody who's created jobs. Second, who's the best person to manage money? I suggest you pick a person who's successfully managed money. Who's the best person to get results and not talk? Look at the record; make your decision. Finally, who would you give your pension fund and your savings account to to manage? And the last one, who would you ask to be the trustee of your estate and take care of your children if something happened to you? Finally, to you students up there, God bless you. I'm doing this for you. I want you to have the American dream. And to the American people, to the American people, I'm doing this because I love you. That's it. Thank you very much. Mr. Lehrer. Thank you, Mr. Perot. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Governor Clinton, for being with us tonight and the previous debates. Thank you to the panel. The only thing that is left to be said is, from Michigan State University in East Lansing, I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night. Note: The debate began at 7 p.m. in Wharton Center for the Performing Arts at Michigan State University. During the debate, the following persons were referred to: Rose M. Zamaria, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of White House Operations; April C. Glaspie, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq; and John H. Kelly, former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. George Bush, Presidential Debate in East Lansing, Michigan Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/217088

October 15, 1992 Carole Simpson. Good evening, and welcome to the second of three Presidential debates between the major candidates for President of the United States. The candidates are the Republican nominee, President George Bush; the independent, Ross Perot; and Governor Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee. My name is Carole Simpson, and I will be the moderator for tonight's 90-minute debate which is coming to you from the campus of the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. Now, tonight's program is unlike any other Presidential debate in history. We're making history now, and it's pretty exciting. An independent polling firm has selected an audience of 209 uncommitted voters from this area. The candidates will be asked questions by these voters on a topic of their choosing, anything they want to ask about. My job as moderator is to, you know, take care of the questioning, ask questions myself if I think there needs to be continuity and balance, and sometimes I might ask the candidates to respond to what another candidate may have said. Now, the format has been agreed to by representatives of both the Republican and Democratic campaigns, and there is no subject matter that is restricted. Anything goes. We can ask anything. After the debate the candidates will have an opportunity to make a closing statement. So, President Bush, I think you said it earlier, let's get it on. President Bush. Let's go. Ms. Simpson. And I think the first question is over here. Foreign Trade and Domestic Jobs Q. I'd like to direct my question to Mr. Perot. What will you do as President to open foreign markets to fair competition from American business and to stop unfair competition here at home from foreign countries so that we can bring jobs back to the United States? Mr. Perot. That's right at the top of my agenda. We've shipped millions of jobs overseas, and we have a strange situation because we have a process in Washington where after you've served for a while, you cash in, become a foreign lobbyist, make $30,000 a month, then take a leave, work on Presidential campaigns, make sure you got good contacts, and then go back out. Now, if you just want to get down to brass tacks, first thing you ought to do is get all these folks that have got these one-way trade agreements that we've negotiated over the years and say, "Fellas, we'll take the same deal we gave you." They'll gridlock right at that point, because, for example, we've got international competitors who simply could not unload their cars off the ships if they had to comply, you see, if it was a two-way street, just couldn't do it. We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. To those of you in the audience who are business people, pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers, and you can move your factory south of the border, pay $1 an hour for labor, hire young -- let's assume you've been in business for a long time; you've got a mature work force -- pay $1 an hour for your labor, have no health care -- that's the most expensive single element in making a car -- have no environmental controls, no pollution controls, and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south. So if the people send me to Washington, the first thing I'll do is study that 2,000-page agreement and make sure it's a two-way street. I have one last part here. I decided I was dumb and didn't understand it, so I called the "Who's Who" of the folks that have been around it. And I said, "Why won't everybody go south?" They say, "It would be disruptive." I said, "For how long?" I finally got them up for 12 to 15 years. And I said, "Well, how does it stop being disruptive?" And that is, when their jobs come up from $1 an hour to $6 an hour, and ours go down to $6 an hour, then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals. We've got to cut it out. Ms. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Perot. I see that the President has stood up, so he must have something to say about this. President Bush. Well, Carole, the thing that saved us in this global economic slowdown has been our exports, and what I'm trying to do is increase our exports. If, indeed, all the jobs were going to move south because of lower wages, there are lower wages now, and they haven't done that. So I have just negotiated with the President of Mexico the North American free trade agreement, and the Prime Minister of Canada, I might add. I want to have more of these free trade agreements because export jobs are increasing far faster than any jobs that may have moved overseas. That's a scare tactic, because it's not that many. But any one that's here, we want to have more jobs here, and the way to do that is to increase our exports. Some believe in protection. I don't. I believe in free and fair trade. That's the thing that saved us. And so I will keep on, as President, trying to get a successful conclusion to the GATT round, the big Uruguay round of trade which will really open up markets for our agriculture, particularly. I want to continue to work after we get this NAFTA agreement ratified this coming year. I want to get one with Eastern Europe. I want to get one with Chile. Free and fair trade is the answer, not protection. As I say, we've had tough economic times, and it's exports that have saved us, exports that have built -- -- Ms. Simpson. Governor Clinton. Governor Clinton. I'd like to answer the question, because I've actually been a Governor for 12 years, so I've known a lot of people who have lost their jobs because of jobs moving overseas, and I know a lot of people whose plants have been strengthened by increasing exports. The trick is to expand our export base and to expand trade on terms that are fair to us. It is true that our exports to Mexico, for example, have gone up, and our trade deficit's gone down. It's also true that just today a record-high trade deficit was announced with Japan. So what is the answer? Let me just mention three things very quickly. Number one, make sure that other countries are as open to our markets as our markets are to them. If they're not, have measures on the books that don't take forever and a day to implement. Number two, change the Tax Code. There are more deductions in the Tax Code for shutting plants down and moving overseas than there are for modernizing plants and equipment here. Our competitors don't do that. Emphasize and subsidize modernizing plants and equipment here, not moving plants overseas. Number three, stop the Federal Government's program that now gives low interest loans and job training funds to companies that will actually shut down and move to other countries, but we won't do the same thing for plants that stay here. So more trade, but on fair terms, and favor investment in America. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. I think we have a question over here. Federal Deficit Q. This is for Governor Clinton. In the real world, that is, outside of Washington, DC, compensation and achievement are based on goals defined and achieved. My question is about the deficit. Would you define in specific dollar goals how much you would reduce the deficit in each of the 4 years of a Clinton administration and then enter into a legally binding contract with the American people that if you did not achieve those goals that you would not seek a second term? Answer yes or no, and then comment on your answer, please. Governor Clinton. No, and here's why; I'll tell you exactly why, because the deficit now has been building up for 12 years. I'll tell you exactly what I think can be done. I think we can bring it down by 50 percent in 4 years and grow the economy. Now, I could get rid of it in 4 years in theory on the books now, but to do it you'd have to raise taxes too much and cut benefits too much to people who need them, and it would even make the economy worse. Mr. Perot will tell you, for example, that the expert he hired to analyze his plan says that it will bring the deficit down in 5 years, but it will make unemployment bad for 4 more years. So my view is, sir, you have to increase investment, grow the economy, and reduce the deficit by controlling health care costs, prudent reductions in defense, cuts in domestic programs, and asking the wealthiest Americans and foreign corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, and investing in growing this economy. I ask everybody to look at my economic ideas. Nine Nobel Prize winners and over 500 economists and hundreds of business people, including a lot of Republicans, said this is the way you've got to go. If you don't grow the economy, you can't get it done. But I can't foresee all the things that will happen, and I don't think a President should be judged solely on the deficit. Let me also say we're having an election today. You'll have a shot at me in 4 years, and you can vote me right out if you think I've done a lousy job. I would welcome you to do that. Ms. Simpson. Mr. President? President Bush. Well, I've got to -- I'm a little confused here because I don't see how you can grow the deficit down by raising people's taxes. You see, I don't think the American people are taxed too little. I think they're taxed too much. I went for one tax increase, and when I make a mistake, I admit it, say that wasn't the right thing to do. Governor Clinton's program wants to tax more and spend more: $150 billion in new taxes, spend another $220 billion. I don't believe that's the way to do it. Here's some things that will help. Give us a balanced budget amendment. He always talks about Arkansas having a balanced budget, and they do. But he has a balanced budget amendment; have to do it. I'd like the Government to have that. I think it would discipline not only the Congress, which needs it, but also the executive branch. I'd like to have what 43 Governors have, the line-item veto. So if the Congress can't cut, we've got a reckless spending Congress, let the President have a shot at it by wiping out things that are pork barrel or something of that nature. I've proposed another one. Some sophisticates think it may be a little gimmicky. I think it's good. It's a check-off. It says to you as a taxpayer -- say, you're going to pay a tax of $1,000 or something; you can check 10 percent of that if you want to in one box, and that 10 percent, $100, or if you're paying $10,000, whatever it is, $1,000, check it off, and make the Government, make it lower the deficit by that amount. If the Congress won't do it, if they can't get together and negotiate how to do that, then you'd have a sequester across the board. You'd exempt Social Security. I don't want to tax or touch Social Security. I'm the President that said, "Hey, don't mess with Social Security." And we haven't. So I believe we need to control the growth of mandatory spending, back to this gentleman's question, that's the main growing thing in the budget. The program that the President -- two-thirds of the budget, I, as President, never get to look at, never get to touch. We've got to control that growth to inflation and population increase, but not raise taxes on the American people now. I just don't believe that would stimulate any kind of growth at all. Ms. Simpson. How about you, Mr. Perot? Mr. Perot. Well, we're $4 trillion in debt, and we're going into debt an additional $1 billion, a little more than $1 billion, every working day of the year. Now, the thing I love about it -- I'm just a businessman. I was down in Texas, taking care of business, tending to my family. This situation got so bad that I decided I had better get into it. The American people asked me to get into it. But I just find it fascinating that while we sit here tonight, we will go into debt an additional $50 million in an hour and a half. Now, it's not the Republicans' fault, of course, and it's not the Democrats' fault. What I'm looking for is who did it? Now, they're the two folks involved; so maybe if you put them together, they did it. Now, the facts are we have to fix it. I'm here tonight for these young people up here in the balcony from this college. When I was a young man, when I got out of the Navy, I had multiple job offers. Young people with high grades can't get a job. The 18- to 24-year-old high school graduates 10 years ago were making more than they are now. In other words, we were down to -- 18 percent of them were making -- the 18- to 24-year-olds were making less than $12,000. Now that's up to 40 percent. And what's happening in the meantime? The dollar's gone through the floor. Now, whose fault is that? Not the Democrats; not the Republicans. Somewhere out there there's an extraterrestrial that's doing this to us, I guess. [Laughter] And everybody says they take responsibility. Somebody, somewhere has to take responsibility for this. Put it to you bluntly, the American people: If you want me to be your President, we're going to face our problems. We'll deal with the problems. We'll solve our problems. We'll pay down our debt. We'll pass on the American dream to our children. I will not leave our children a situation that they have today. When I was a boy, it took two generations to double the standard of living. Today it will take 12 generations. Our children will not see the American dream because of this debt that somebody, somewhere dropped on us. Ms. Simpson. You're all wonderful speakers, and I know you have lots more to add. But I have talked to this audience, and they have lots of questions on other topics. Can we move to another topic, please? We have one up here, I think. Presidential Campaign Q. Yes, I'd like to address all the candidates with this question. The amount of time the candidates have spent in this campaign trashing their opponents' character and their programs is depressingly large. Why can't your discussions and proposals reflect the genuine complexity and the difficulty of the issues to try to build a consensus around the best aspects of all proposals? Ms. Simpson. Who wants to take that one? Mr. Perot, you have an answer for everything, don't you? Go right ahead, sir. [Laughter] Mr. Perot. No, I don't have an answer for everything. As you all know, I've been buying 30-minute segments to talk about issues. Tomorrow night on NBC from 10:30 to 11, eastern, we're going to talk about how you pay the debt down. So we're going to come right down to that one, see. We'll be on again Saturday night 8 to 9 o'clock on ABC. [Laughter] Ms. Simpson. Okay, okay. Mr. Perot. So the point is, finally, I couldn't agree with you more, couldn't agree with you more. And I have said again and again and again, let's get off mud wrestling. Let's get off personalities, and let's talk about jobs, health care, crime, the things that concern the American people. I'm spending my money, not PAC money, not foreign money, my money to take this message to the people. Ms. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Perot. So that seems directed. He would say it's you gentlemen that have been doing that. Mr. Clinton, Governor Clinton, how do you -- President Bush, how would you like to respond? President Bush. Well, first place, I believe that character is a part of being President. I think you have to look at it. I think that has to be a part of candidate for President or being President. In terms of programs, I've submitted, what, four different budgets to the United States Congress in great detail. They're so heavy they'd give you a broken back. Everything in there says what I am for. Now, I've come out with a new agenda for America's renewal, a plan that I believe really will help stimulate the growth of this economy. My record on world affairs is pretty well-known because I've been President for 4 years. So I feel I've been talking issues. Nobody likes "who shot John," but I think the first negative campaign run in this election was by Governor Clinton. And I'm not going to sit there and be a punching bag. I'm going to stand up and say, "Hey, listen, here's my side of it." But character is an important part of the equation. The other night, Governor Clinton raised -- I don't know if you saw the debate the other night, suffered through that. [Laughter] Well, he raised a question of my father. It was a good line, well-rehearsed and well-delivered. But he raised a question of my father and said, "Well, your father, Prescott Bush, was against McCarthy. You should be ashamed of yourself -- McCarthyism." I remember something my dad told me. I was 18 years old, going to Penn Station to go into the Navy. He said, "Write your mother," which I faithfully did. He said, "Serve your country." My father was an honor, duty, and country man. And he said, "Tell the truth." And I've tried to do that in public life, all through it. That has said something about character. My argument with Governor Clinton -- you can call it mud wrestling, but I think it's fair to put it in focus -- is I am deeply troubled by someone who demonstrates and organizes demonstration in a foreign land when his country's at war. Probably a lot of kids here disagree with me, but that's what I feel. That's what I feel passionately about. I'm thinking of Ross Perot's running mate sitting in the jail; how would he feel about it? But maybe that's generational. I don't know. But the big argument I have with the Governor on this is this taking different positions on different issues, trying to be one thing to one person here that's opposing the NAFTA agreement and then for it; what we call waffling. And I do think that you can't turn the White House into the waffle house. You've got to say what you're for. And you have got to -- -- Ms. Simpson. Mr. President, I am getting time cues, and with all due respect, I'm sorry. President Bush. Excuse me, I don't want to -- no, go ahead, Carole. Ms. Simpson. Governor Clinton. President Bush. I get wound up because I feel strongly. Ms. Simpson. Yes, you do. [Laughter] Governor Clinton. Let me say first of all to you that I believe so strongly in the question you asked that I suggested this format tonight. I started doing these formats a year ago in New Hampshire, and I found that we had huge crowds because all I did was let people ask questions, and I tried to give very specific answers. I also had a program starting last year. I've been disturbed by the tone and the tenor of this campaign. Thank goodness the networks have a fact check so I don't have to just go blue in the face anymore. Mr. Bush said once again tonight I was going to have a $150 billion tax increase. When Mr. Quayle said that, all the networks said: that's not true; he's got over $100 billion in tax cuts and incentives. So I'm not going to take up your time tonight, but let me just say this. We'll have a debate in 4 days, and we can talk about this character thing again, but the Washington Post ran a long editorial today saying they couldn't believe Mr. Bush was making character an issue, and they said he was the greatest political chameleon, for changing his positions, of all time. Now, I don't want to get into that -- -- President Bush. Please don't say anything by the Washington Post. Governor Clinton. Wait a minute. Let's don't -- you don't have to believe that. Here's my point. I'm not interested in his character. I want to change the character of the Presidency. And I'm interested in what we can trust him to do and what you can trust me to do and what you can trust Mr. Perot to do for the next 4 years. So I think you're right, and I hope the rest of the night belongs to you. Ms. Simpson. May I -- I talked to this audience before you gentlemen came, and I asked them about how they felt about the tenor of the campaign. Would you like to let them know what you thought about that, when I said, "Are you pleased with how the campaign's been going?" Audience members. No! Ms. Simpson. Who wants to say why you don't like the way the campaign is going? We have a gentleman back here? Focusing on Issues Q. If I may, and forgive the notes here, but I'm shy on camera. The focus of my work as a domestic mediator is meeting the needs of the children that I work with by way of their parents, and not the wants of their parents. I ask the three of you, how can we as, symbolically, the children of the future President, expect the two of you, the three of you, to meet our needs, the needs in housing and in crime and you name it, as opposed to the wants of your political spin doctors and your political parties? Ms. Simpson. So your question is -- -- Q. Can we focus on the issues and not the personalities and the mud? I think there is a need -- if we could take a poll here with the folks from Gallup, perhaps -- I think there is a real need here to focus at this point on the needs. Ms. Simpson. How do you respond? How do you gentlemen respond to -- -- Governor Clinton. I agree with him. Ms. Simpson. President Bush? President Bush. Let's do it. Let's talk about programs for children. Q. Could we cross our hearts, and it sounds silly here, but could we make a commitment? You know, we're not under oath at this point, but could you make a commitment to the citizens of the United States to meet our needs, and we have many, and not yours again? You know, I repeat that; that's a real need I think that we all have. President Bush. I think it depends on how you define it. I mean, I think, in general, let's talk about these issues, let's talk about the programs. But in the Presidency, a lot goes into it. Caring goes into it; that's not particularly specific. Strength goes into it; that's not specific. Standing up against aggression; that's not specific in terms of a program. This is what a President has to do. So, in principle, though, I'll take your point. I think we ought to discuss child care or whatever else it is. Ms. Simpson. And you two? Governor Clinton. Ross had his hand up. Mr. Perot. No hedges, no ifs, ands, and buts, I'll take the pledge, because I know the American people want to talk about issues and not tabloid journalism. So I'll take the pledge, and we'll stay on the issues. Now, just for the record, I don't have any spin doctors. I don't have any speechwriters. Probably shows. [Laughter] I make those charts you see on television even. [Laughter] But you don't have to wonder if it's me talking. Hey, what you see is what you get. If you don't like it, you've got two other choices, right? Governor Clinton. Wait a minute. I want to say just one thing now, Ross, in fairness. The ideas I express are mine. I've worked on these things for 12 years, and I'm the only person up here who hasn't been part of Washington in any way for the last 20 years. So I don't want the implication to be that somehow everything we say is just cooked up and put in our head by somebody else. I worked 12 years very hard as a Governor on the real problems of real people. I'm just as sick as you are by having to wake up and figure out how to defend myself every day. I never thought I'd ever be involved in anything like this. Mr. Perot. May I finish? Ms. Simpson. Yes, you may finish. Mr. Perot. Very briefly? Ms. Simpson. Yes, very briefly. Mr. Perot. I don't have any foreign money in my campaign. I don't have any foreign lobbyists on leave in my campaign. I don't have any PAC money in my campaign. I've got 5 1/2 million hard-working people who have put me on the ballot, and I belong to them. Ms. Simpson. Okay. Mr. Perot. And they are interested in what you're interested in. I'll take the pledge. I've already taken the pledge on cutting the deficit in half. I never got to say that. There's a great young group, Lead or Leave, college students, young people who don't want us to spend their money. I took the pledge we'd cut it out. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. We have a question here. Domestic Infrastructure Q. Yes. I would like to get a response from all three gentlemen. And the question is, what are your plans to improve the physical infrastructure of this Nation, which includes the water system, the sewer system, our transportation systems, et cetera? Thank you. Ms. Simpson. The cities. Who is going to fix the cities, and how? President Bush. I'd be glad to take a shot at it. Ms. Simpson. Please. President Bush. I'm not sure that -- and I can understand if you haven't seen this because there's been a lot of hue and cry. We passed this year the most farthest looking transportation bill in the history of this country since Eisenhower started the interstate highways, $150 billion for improving the infrastructure. That happened when I was President. So I am very proud of the way that came about, and I think it's a very, very good beginning. Like Mr. Perot, I am concerned about the deficits. And $150 billion is a lot of money, but it's awful hard to say we're going to go out and spend more money when we're trying to get the deficit down. But I would cite that as a major accomplishment. We hear all the negatives. When you're President, you expect this. Everybody's running against the incumbent. They can do better; everyone knows that. But here's something that we can take great pride in because it really does get to what you're talking about. Our home initiative, our homeownership initiative, HOPE, that passed the Congress is a good start for having people own their own homes instead of living in these deadly tenements. Our enterprise zones that we hear a lot of lip service about in Congress would bring jobs into the inner city. There's a good program. I need the help of everybody across this country to get it passed in substantial way by the Congress. When we went out to South Central in Los Angeles -- some of you may remember the riots there. I went out there. I went to a boys club, and every one of them, the boys club leaders, the ministers, all of them were saying, pass enterprise zones. We go back to Washington, and very difficult to get it through the Congress. But there's going to be a new Congress. No one likes gridlock. There's going to be a new Congress because the old one, I don't want to get this man mad at me, but there was a post office scandal and a bank scandal. You're going to have a lot of new Members of Congress. And then you can sit down and say, "Help me do what we should for the cities. Help me pass these programs." Ms. Simpson. Mr. President, aren't you threatening to veto the bill, the urban aid bill, that included enterprise zones? President Bush. Sure, but the problem is you get so many things included in a great big bill that you have to look at the overall good. That's the problem with our system. If you had a line-item veto, you could knock out the pork. You could knock out the tax increases, and you could do what the people want, and that is create enterprise zones. Ms. Simpson. Governor Clinton, you're chomping at the bit. Governor Clinton. That bill pays for these urban enterprise zones by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more, and that's why he wants to veto it, just like he vetoed an earlier bill this year. This is not mud slinging. This is fact slinging. President Bush. There you go. Governor Clinton. A bill earlier this year -- this is fact -- that would have given investment tax credits and other incentives to reinvest in our cities and our country. But it asked the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more. Mr. Perot wants to do the same thing. I agree with him. I mean, we agree with that. Let me tell you specifically what my plan does: My plan would dedicate $20 billion a year in each of the next 4 years for investments in new transportation, communications, environmental cleanup, and new technologies for the 21st century. We would target it especially in areas that have been either depressed or which have lost a lot of defense-related jobs. There are 200,000 people in California, for example, who have lost their defense-related jobs. They ought to be engaged in making high-speed rail. They ought to be engaged in breaking ground in other technologies, doing waste recycling, clean water technology, and things of that kind. We can create millions of jobs in these new technologies, more than we're going to lose in defense if we target it. But we're investing a much smaller percentage of our income in the things you just asked about than all of our major competitors. Our wealth growth is going down as a result of it. It's making the country poorer, which is why I answered the gentleman the way I did before. We have to both bring down the deficit and get our economy going through these kinds of investments in order to get the kind of wealth and jobs and incomes we need in America. Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot, what about your plans for the cities? You want to tackle the economy and the deficit first. Mr. Perot. First, you've got to have money to pay for these things. So you've got to create jobs, and there are all kinds of ways to create jobs in the inner city. Now, I am not a politician, but I think I could go to Washington in a week and get everybody holding hands and get this bill signed, because I talked to the Democratic leaders, and they want it. I talked to the Republican leaders, and they want it. But since they are bred from childhood to fight with one another rather than get results, I would be glad to drop out and spend a little time and see if we couldn't build some bridges. Now, results is what counts. The President can't order Congress around. Congress can't order the President around. That's not bad for a guy that's never been there, right? But you have to work together. Now, I have talked to the chairmen of the committees that want this; they're Democrats. The President wants it. But we can't get it because we sit here in gridlock because it's a campaign year. We didn't fund a lot of other things this year, like the savings and loan mess. That's another story that we're going to pay a big price for right after the election. The facts are, though, the facts are the American people are hurting. These people are hurting in the inner cities. We're shipping the low-paying, quote, "low-paying" jobs overseas. What are low-paying jobs? Textiles, shoes, things like that that we say are yesterday's industries. They're tomorrow's industries in the inner city. Let me say in my case, if I'm out of work, I'll cut grass tomorrow to take care of my family. I'll be happy to make shoes. I'll be happy to make clothing. I'll make sausage. You just give me a job. Put those jobs in the inner cities, instead of doing diplomatic deals and shipping them to China, where prison labor does the work. Washington Gridlock Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot, everybody thought you won the first debate because you were plain-speaking, and you make it sound, oh, so simple. "We'll just do it." What makes you think that you're going to be able to get the Democrats and Republicans together any better than these guys? Mr. Perot. If you asked me if I could fly a fighter plane or be an astronaut, I can't. I've spent my life creating jobs. It's something I know how to do, and very simply in the inner city, they're starved. You see, small businesses is the way to jump-start the inner city. Ms. Simpson. Are you answering my question? [Laughter] Mr. Perot. You want jobs in the inner city? Do you want jobs in the inner city? Is that your question? Ms. Simpson. No, I want you to tell me how you're going to be able to get the Republicans and Democrats in Congress -- -- Mr. Perot. Oh, I'm sorry. Ms. Simpson. -- -- to work together better than these two gentlemen. Mr. Perot. I've listened to both sides. If they would talk to one another instead of throwing rocks, I think we could get a lot done. And among other things, I would say, okay, over here in this Senate committee, to the chairman who is anxious to get this bill passed, to the President who's anxious, I'd say, "Rather than just yelling at one another, why don't we find out where we're apart; try to get together. Get the bill passed, and give the people the benefits, and not play party politics right now." I think the press would follow that so closely that probably they would get it done. That's the way I would do it. I doubt if they'll give me the chance, but I will drop everything and go work on it. Ms. Simpson. Okay. I have a question here. Gun Control and Crime Q. My question was originally for Governor Clinton, but I think I would welcome a response from all three candidates. As you are aware, crime is rampant in our cities. In the Richmond area, and I'm sure it's happened elsewhere, 12-year-olds are carrying guns to school. And I'm sure when our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, they did not mean for the right to bear arms to apply to 12-year-olds. So I'm asking, where do you stand on gun control, and what do you plan to do about it? Ms. Simpson. Governor Clinton? Governor Clinton. I support the right to keep and bear arms. I live in a State where over half the adults have hunting or fishing licenses or both. But I believe we have to have some way of checking handguns before they're sold, to check the criminal history, the mental health history, and the age of people who are buying them. Therefore, I support the Brady bill, which would impose a national waiting period, unless and until a State did what only Virginia has done now, which is to automate its records. Once you automate your records, then you don't have to have a waiting period, but at least you can check. I also think we should have, frankly, restrictions on assault weapons, whose only purpose is to kill. We need to give the police a fighting chance in our urban areas where the gangs are building up. The third thing I would say doesn't bear directly on gun control, but it's very important. We need more police on the street. There is a crime bill which would put more police on the street, which was killed for this session by a filibuster in the Senate, mostly by Republican Senators. I think it's a shame it didn't pass. I think it should be made the law, but it had the Brady bill in it, the waiting period. I also believe that we should offer college scholarships to people who will agree to work them off as police officers. I think as we reduce our military forces, we should let people earn military retirement by coming out and working as police officers. Thirty years ago there were three police officers on the street for every crime. Today, there are three crimes for every police officer. In the communities which have had real success putting police officers near schools where kids carry weapons, to get the weapons out of the schools, or on the same blocks, you've seen crime go down. In Houston there's been a 15-percent drop in the crime rate in the last year because of the work the Mayor did there in increasing the police force. So I know it can work. I've seen it happen. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. President Bush? President Bush. I think you put your finger on a major problem. I talk about strengthening the American family. It's very hard to strengthen the family if people are scared to walk down to the corner store and send their kid down to get a loaf of bread. It's very hard. I have been fighting for very strong anticrime legislation: habeas corpus reform, so you don't have these endless appeals; so when somebody gets sentenced, hey, this is for real. I've been fighting for changes in the exclusionary rule, so if an honest cop stops somebody and makes a technical mistake, the criminal doesn't go away. I'll probably get into a fight in this room with some, but I happen to think that we need stronger death penalties for those that kill police officers. Virginia's in lead in this, as Governor Clinton properly said, on this identification system for firearms. I am not for national registration of firearms. Some of the States that have the toughest antigun laws have the highest levels of crime. I am for the right -- as the Governor says, I'm a sportsman, and I don't think you ought to eliminate all kinds of weapons. But I was not for the bill that he was talking about because it was not tough enough on the criminal. I'm very pleased that the Fraternal Order of Police in Little Rock, Arkansas, endorsed me, because I think they see I'm trying to strengthen the anticrime legislation. We've got more money going out for local police than any previous administration. So we've got to get it under control. And as one last point I'd make: drugs. We have got to win our national strategy against drugs, the fight against drugs. We're making some progress, doing a little better on interdiction. We're not doing as well amongst the people that get to be habitual drug users. The good news is, and I think it's true in Richmond, teenage use is down of cocaine substantially, 60 percent in the last couple of years. So we're making progress. But until we get that one done, we're not going to solve the neighborhood crime problem. Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot, there are young black males in America dying at unprecedented -- -- Mr. Perot. I would just make a comment on this. Ms. Simpson. Yes, I'm getting -- -- Mr. Perot. Oh, you're going to elaborate. Okay, excuse me. Ms. Simpson. -- -- to the fact that homicide is the leading cause of death among young black males, 15 to 24 years old. What are you going to do to get the guns off the street? Mr. Perot. On any program, and this includes crime, you'll find we have all kinds of great plans lying around that never get enacted into law and implemented. I don't care what it is, competitiveness, health care, crime, you name it. The Brady bill, I agree that it's a timid step in the right direction, but it won't fix it. So why pass a law that won't fix it? Now, what it really boils down to is can you live -- we have become so preoccupied with the rights of the criminal that we have forgotten the rights of the innocent. In our country, we have evolved to a point where we've put millions of innocent people in jail, because you go to the poor neighborhoods and they've put bars on their windows and bars on their doors and put themselves in jail to protect the things that they acquired legitimately. Now, that's where we are. We have got to become more concerned about people who play by the rules and get the balance we require. This is going to take, first, building a consensus in grassroots America. Right from the bottom up, the American people have got to say they want it. And at that point, we can pick from a variety of plans and develop new plans. And the way you get things done is bury yourselves in the room with one another, put together the best program, take it to the American people, use the electronic town hall, the kind of thing you're doing here tonight, build a consensus, and then do it and then go on to the next one. But don't just sit here slow dancing for 4 years doing nothing. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Perot. We have a question up here. Term Limits Q. Please state your position on term limits. And if you are in favor of them, how will you get them enacted? President Bush. Any order? I'll be glad to respond. I strongly support term limits for Members of the United States Congress. I believe it would return the Government closer to the people, the way that Ross Perot is talking about. The President's terms are limited to two, a total of 8 years. What's wrong with limiting the terms of Members of Congress to 12? Congress has gotten kind of institutionalized. For 38 years, one party has controlled the House of Representatives. And the result? A sorry little post office that can't do anything right and a bank that has more overdrafts than all of Chase Bank and Citibank put together. We've got to do something about it. I think you get a certain arrogance, bureaucratic arrogance if people stay there too long. So I favor, strongly favor term limits. And how to get them passed? Send us some people that will pass the idea, and I think you will. I think the American people want it now. Everyplace I go, I talk about it, and I think they want it done. Actually, you'd have to have some amendments to the Constitution because of the way the Constitution reads. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. Governor Clinton? Governor Clinton. I know they're popular, but I'm against them. I'll tell you why. I believe, number one, it would pose a real problem for a lot of smaller States in the Congress who would have enough trouble now making sure their interests are heard. Number two, I think it would increase the influence of unelected staff members in the Congress who have too much influence already. I want to cut the size of the congressional staffs, but I think you're going to have too much influence there with people who were never elected who have lots of expertise. Number three, if the people really have a mind to change, they can. You're going to have 120 to 150 new Members of Congress. Now, let me tell you what I favor instead. I favor strict controls on how much you can spend running for Congress, strict limits on political action committees, requirements that people running for Congress appear in open public debates like we're doing now. If you did that, you could take away the incumbent's advantage, because challengers like me would have a chance to run against incumbents like him for the House races and Senate races, and then the voters could make up their own mind without being subject to an unfair fight. So that's how I feel about it, and I think if we had the right kind of campaign reform, we'd get the changes you want. Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot, would you like to address term limitations? Mr. Perot. Yes. Let me do it first on a personal level. If the American people send me up to do this job, I intend to be there one term. I do not intend to spend one minute of one day thinking about reelection. It is a matter of principle. My situation is unique, and I understand it. I will take absolutely no compensation. I go as their servant. Now, I have set as strong an example as I can. And at that point, when we sit down over at Capitol Hill -- tomorrow night I'm going to be talking about Government reform. It is a long subject; you wouldn't let me finish tonight. If you want to hear it, you can get it tomorrow night. [Laughter] But the point is, you'll hear it tomorrow night. But we have got to reform Government. If you put term limits in and don't reform Government, you won't get the benefit you thought. It takes both. So we need to do the reforms and the term limits. And after we reform it, it won't be a lifetime career opportunity. Good people will go serve and then go back to their homes, and not become foreign lobbyists and cash in at 30,000 bucks a month, and then take time off to run some President's campaign. They're all nice people. They're just in a bad system. I don't think there are any villains, but boy, is the system rotten. Ms. Simpson. Thank you very much. We have a question over here. Health Care Reform Q. I'd like to ask Governor Clinton, do you attribute the rising costs of health care to the medical profession itself, or do you think the problem lies elsewhere? And what specific proposals do you have to tackle this problem? Governor Clinton. I've had more people talk to me about their health care problems, I guess, than anything else. All across America, people who have lost their jobs, lost their businesses, had to give up their jobs because of sick children -- so let me try to answer you in this way. Let's start with the premise. We spend 30 percent more of our income than any nation on Earth on health care. And yet, we insure fewer people. We have 35 million people without any insurance at all, and I see them all the time. One hundred thousand Americans a month have lost their health insurance just in the last 4 years. So if you analyze where we're out of line with other countries you come up with the following conclusions: Number one, we spend at least $60 billion a year on insurance, administrative costs, bureaucracy, and Government regulation that wouldn't be spent in any other nation. So we have to have, in my judgment, a drastic simplification of the basic health insurance policies of this country, be very comprehensive for everybody. Employers would cover their employees. Government would cover the unemployed. Number two, I think you have to take on specifically the insurance companies and require them to make some significant change in the way they rate people in the big community pools. I think you have to tell the pharmaceutical companies they can't keep raising drug prices at 3 times the rate of inflation. I think you have to take on medical fraud. I think you have to help doctors stop practicing defensive medicine. I've recommended that our doctors be given a set of national practice guidelines and that if they follow those guidelines, that raises the presumption that they didn't do anything wrong. I think you have to have a system of primary preventive clinics in our inner cities and our rural areas so people can have access to health care. But the key is to control the costs and maintain the quality. To do that, you need a system of managed competition where all of us are covered in big groups, and we can choose our doctors and our hospitals from a wide range, but there is an incentive to control costs. And I think there has to be -- I think Mr. Perot and I agree on this -- there has to be a national commission of health care providers and health care consumers that set ceilings to keep health costs in line with inflation plus population growth. Now, let me say, some people say we can't do this, but Hawaii does it. They cover 98 percent of their people, and their insurance premiums are much cheaper than the rest of America. So does Rochester, New York. They now have a plan to cover everybody, and their premiums are two-thirds the rest of the country. This is very important. It's a big human problem and a devastating economic problem for America. I'm going to send a plan to do this within the first 100 days of my Presidency. It's terribly important. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. Sorry to cut you short, but, President Bush, health care reform. President Bush. I just have to say something. I don't want to stampede -- Ross was very articulate. Across the country, I don't want anybody to stampede to cut the President's salary off altogether. Barbara is sitting over here, and I -- [laughter] -- but what I have proposed, 10 percent cut, downsize the Government, and we can get that done. She asked the question, I think, is whether the health care profession was to blame. No. One thing to blame is these malpractice lawsuits. They are breaking the system. It costs $20 to $25 billion a year, and I want to see those outrageous claims capped. Doctors don't dare to deliver babies sometimes because they're afraid that somebody's going to sue them. People don't dare, medical practitioners, to help somebody along the highway that are hurt because they're afraid that some lawyer's going to come along and get a big lawsuit. So you can't blame the practitioners or the health -- and my program is this: Keep the Government as far out of it as possible, make insurance available to the poorest of the poor through vouchers, next range in the income bracket through tax credits, and get on about the business of pooling insurance. A great, big company can buy -- Ross has got a good size company, been very successful. He can buy insurance cheaper than mom-and-pop stores on the corner. But if those mom-and-pop stores all get together and pool, they, too, can bring the cost of insurance down. So I want to keep the quality of health care. That means keep Government out of it. I don't like this idea of these boards. It all sounds to me like you're going to have some Government setting price. I want competition, and I want to pool the insurance and take care of it that way. Here's the other point. I think medical care should go with the person. If you leave a business, I think your insurance should go with you to some other business. You shouldn't be worrying if you get a new job as to whether that's going to -- and part of our plan is to make it what they call portable, big word, but that means if you're working for the Jones Company and you go to the Smith Company, your insurance goes with you. I think it's a good program. I'm really excited about getting it done, too. Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot? Mr. Perot. We have the most expensive health care system in the world. Twelve percent of our gross national product goes to health care. Our industrial competitors, who are beating us in competition, spend less and have better health care. Japan spends a little over 6 percent of its gross national product; Germany spends 8 percent. It's fascinating. You bought a front-row box seat, and you're not happy with your health care. You're saying tonight we've got bad health care but very expensive health care. Folks, here's why. Go home and look in the mirror. You own this country, but you have no voice in it the way it's organized now. If you want to have a high-risk experience comparable to bungee jumping -- [laughter] -- go into Congress sometime when they're working on this kind of legislation, when the lobbyists are running up and down the halls. Wear your safety-toe shoes when you go. [Laughter] And as a private citizen, believe me, you are looked on as a major nuisance. The facts are, you now have a Government that comes at you. You're supposed to have a Government that comes from you. Now, there are all kinds of good ideas, brilliant ideas, terrific ideas on health care. None of them ever get implemented because -- let me give you an example. A Senator runs every 6 years. He's got to raise 20,000 bucks a week to have enough money to run. Who's he going to listen to, us or the folks running up and down the aisle with money, the lobbyists, the PAC money? He listens to them. Who do they represent? Health care industry. Not us. Now, you've got to have a Government that comes from you again. You've got to reassert your ownership in this country, and you've got to completely reform our Government. And at that point, they'll just be like apples falling out of a tree. The programs will be good because the elected officials will be listening, too. I said the other night I was all ears and I would listen to any good idea. I think we ought to do plastic surgery on a lot of these guys so that they're all ears, too, and listen to you. Then you get what you want, and shouldn't you? You paid for it. Why shouldn't you get what you want as opposed to what some lobbyist cuts a deal, writes the little piece in the law, and it goes through. That's the way the game's played now. Until you change it, you're going to be unhappy. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. Governor Clinton, you wanted one brief point. Governor Clinton. One brief point. We have elections so people can make decisions about this. The point I want to make to you is, a bipartisan commission reviewed my plan and the Bush plan and concluded -- there were as many Republicans as Democratic health care experts on it -- they concluded that my plan would cover everybody, and his would leave 27 million behind by the year 2000, and that my plan in the next 12 years would save $2.2 trillion in public and private money to reinvest in this economy. The average family would save $1,200 a year under the plan that I offered, without any erosion in the quality of health care. So I ask you to look at that. You have to vote for somebody with a plan. That's what you have elections for. If people say, "Well, he got elected to do this," and then the Congress says, "Okay, I'm going to do it." That's what the election was about. Ms. Simpson. Brief, Governor Clinton. Thank you. We have a question right here. Personal Impact of the Economy Q. Yes, how has the national debt personally affected each of your lives? And if it hasn't, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what's ailing them? Mr. Perot. May I answer it? Ms. Simpson. Well, Mr. Perot, yes, of course. Mr. Perot. Who do you want to start with? Q. My question is for each of you, so -- -- Mr. Perot. Yes, it caused me to disrupt my private life and my business to get involved in this activity. That's how much I care about it. Believe me, if you knew my family and if you knew the private life I have, you would agree in a minute that that's a whole lot more fun than getting involved in politics. I have lived the American dream. I came from a very modest background. Nobody's been luckier than I've been, all the way across the spectrum, and the greatest riches of all are my wife and children. It's true of any family. But I want all the children, I want these young people up here to be able to start with nothing but an idea like I did and build a business. But they've got to have a strong basic economy. And if you're in debt, it's like having a ball and chain around you. I just figure as lucky as I've been, I owe it to them, and I owe it to the future generations. And on a very personal basis, I owe it to my children and grandchildren. Ms. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Perot. Mr. President. President Bush. Well, I think the national debt affects everybody. Obviously, it has a lot to do with interest rates -- -- Ms. Simpson. She's saying you personally. Q. You, on a personal basis, how has it affected you? Ms. Simpson. Has it affected you personally? President Bush. Well, I'm sure it has. I love my grandchildren. I want to think that -- -- Q. How? President Bush. I want to think that they're going to be able to afford an education. I think that that's an important part of being a parent. If the question -- maybe I get it wrong. Are you suggesting that if somebody has means that the national debt doesn't affect them? Q. What I'm saying -- -- President Bush. I'm not sure I get it. Help me with the question, and I'll try to answer it. Q. Well, I've had friends that have been laid off in jobs -- -- President Bush. Yes. Q. I know people who cannot afford to pay the mortgage on their homes, their car payment. I have personal problems with the national debt. But how has it affected you? And if you have no experience in it, how can you help us if you don't know what we're feeling? Ms. Simpson. I think she means more the recession, the economic problems today the country faces rather than -- -- President Bush. Well, listen, you ought to be in the White House for a day and hear what I hear and see what I see and read the mail I read and touch the people that I touch from time to time. I was in the Lomax AME Church. It's a black church just outside of Washington, DC, and I read in the bulletin about teenage pregnancies, about the difficulty that families are having to make ends meet. I talked to parents. I mean, you've got to care. Everybody cares if people aren't doing well. But I don't think it's fair to say you haven't had cancer, therefore you don't know what it's like. I don't think it's fair to say, whatever it is, if you haven't been hit by it personally. But everybody's affected by the debt, because of the tremendous interest that goes into paying on that debt, everything's more expensive. Everything comes out of your pocket and my pocket. So it's that. But I think in terms of the recession, of course, you feel it when you're President of the United States. That's why I'm trying to do something about it by stimulating the export, investing more, better education system. Thank you. I'm glad you clarified it. Governor Clinton. Tell me how it's affected you again? You know people who have lost their jobs and lost their homes? Q. Yes. Governor Clinton. Well, I've been Governor of a small State for 12 years. I'll tell you how it's affected me. Every year, Congress and the President sign laws that make us do more things; it gives us less money to do it with. I see people in my State, middle class people, their taxes have gone up from Washington and their services have gone down, while the wealthy have gotten tax cuts. I have seen what's happened in this last 4 years when, in my State, when people lose their jobs there's a good chance I'll know them by their names. When a factory closes, I know the people who ran it. When the businesses go bankrupt, I know them. And I've been out here for 13 months, meeting in meetings just like this ever since October with people like you all over America, people that have lost their jobs, lost their livelihood, lost their health insurance. What I want you to understand is, the national debt is not the only cause of that. It is because America has not invested in its people. It is because we have not grown. It is because we've had 12 years of trickle-down economics. We've gone from 1st to 12th in the world in wages. We've had 4 years where we've produced no private sector jobs. Most people are working harder for less money than they were making 10 years ago. It is because we are in the grip of a failed economic theory. And this decision you're about to make better be about what kind of economic theory you want, not just people saying, "I want to go fix it," but what are we going to do. What I think we have to do is invest in American jobs, in American education, control American health care costs, and bring the American people together again. Ms. Simpson. Thank you, Governor Clinton. We are a little more than halfway through this program, and I'm glad that we're getting the diversity of questions that we are. And I don't want to forget these folks on the wings over here, so let's go over here. Do you have a question? Entitlement Programs Q. Yes, I do. My name is Ben Smith. I work in the financial field, counseling retirees. And I'm personally concerned about three major areas. One is the Social Security Administration or trust fund is projected to be insolvent by the year 2036. We've funded the trust fund with IOU's in the form of Treasury bonds. The pension guaranty fund which backs up our private retirement plans for retirees is projected to be bankrupt by the year 2026, not to mention the cutbacks by private companies. And Medicare is projected to be bankrupt maybe as soon as 1997. I would like from each of you a specific response as to what you intend to do for retirees relative to these issues, not generalities but specifics, because I think they're very disturbing issues. Ms. Simpson. President Bush, may we start with you? President Bush. Well, the Social Security -- you're an expert and I could, I'm sure, learn from you the details of the pension guaranty fund and the Social Security fund. The Social Security system was fixed, about 5 years, and I think it's projected out to be sound beyond that. So at least we have time to work with it. But on all of these things, a sound economy is the only way to get it going. Growth in the economy is going to add to the overall prosperity and wealth. I can't give you a specific answer on pension guaranty fund. All I know is that we have firm Government credit to guarantee the pensions, and that is very important. But the full faith in credit of the United States, in spite of our difficulties, is still pretty good. It's still the most respected credit. So I would simply say, as these dates get close you're going to have to reorganize and refix as we did with the Social Security fund. I think that's the only answer. But the more immediate answer is to do what this lady was suggesting we do, and that is to get this deficit down and get on without adding to the woes, and then restructure. One thing I've called for that has been stymied, and I'll keep on working for it, is a whole financial reform legislation. It is absolutely essential in terms of bringing our banking system and credit system into the new age instead of having it living back in the dark ages, and it's a big fight. I don't want to give my friend Ross another shot at me here, but I am fighting with the Congress to get this through. You can't just go up and say, "I'm going to fix it." You've got some pretty strong-willed guys up there that argue with you. But that's what the election's about; I agree with the Governor. That's what the election is about. Sound fiscal policy is the best answer, I think, to all the three problems you mentioned. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. Mr. Perot? Mr. Perot. Just on a broad issue here. When you're trying to solve a problem, you get the best plans. You have a raging debate about those plans. Then out of that debate, with leadership, comes consensus. And if the plans are huge and complex, like health care, I would urge you to implement pilot programs. Like the older carpenter says, measure twice, cut once. Let's make sure this thing's as good as we all think it is at the end of the meeting. Then, finally, our Government passes laws and freezes the plan in concrete. Anybody that's ever built a successful business will tell you, you optimize, optimize, optimize after you put something into effect. The reason Medicare and Medicaid are a mess is we froze them. Everybody knows how to fix them. There are people all over the Federal Government if they could just touch it with a screwdriver could fix it. Now, back over here. See, we've got a $4 trillion debt, and only in America would you have $2.8 trillion of it, or 70 percent of it, financed 5 years or less. Now, that's another thing for you to think about when you go home tonight. You don't finance long-term debt with short-term money. Why did our Government do it? To get the interest rates down. A one-percent increase in interest rates in that $2.8 trillion is $28 billion a year. Now, when you look at what Germany pays for money and what we don't pay for money, you realize there's quite a spread, right? You realize this is a temporary thing and there's going to be another sucking sound that runs our deficit through the roof. You know, and everybody's ducking it so I'm going to say it, that we are not letting that surplus stay in the bank. We are not investing that surplus like a pension fund. We are spending that surplus to make the deficit look smaller to you than it really is. Now, that puts you in jail in corporate America if you kept books that way, but in Government it's just kind of the way things are. That's because it comes at you, not from you. Now then, that money needs to be -- they don't even pay interest on it, they just write a note for the interest. Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot, can you wrap it up? Mr. Perot. Sure. But the point, see, do you want to fix the problem or sound-bite it? I understand the importance of time, but see, here's how we get to this mess we're in. This is just 1 of 1,000. Ms. Simpson. But we've got to be fair. Mr. Perot. Now then, to nail it, there's one way out, a growing, expanding job base, a growing, expanding job base to generate the funds and the tax revenues to pay off the mess and rebuild America. We've got to double hit. If we're $4 trillion down, we should have everything perfect, but we don't. We've got to pay it off and build money to renew it, spend money to renew it, and that's going to take a growing, expanding job base. That is priority one in this country. Put everybody that's breathing to work. I'd love to be out of workers and have to import them, like some of our international competitors. Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot, I'm sorry, I'm going to -- -- Mr. Perot. Sorry. Ms. Simpson. And I don't want to sound-bite you, but we are trying to be fair to everyone. Mr. Perot. No, absolutely. I apologize. Ms. Simpson. All right, Governor Clinton. Governor Clinton. I think I remember the question. [Laughter] Let me say first of all, I want to answer your specific question, but first of all, we all agree that there should be a growing economy. What you have to decide is who's got the best economic plan. We all have ideas out there, and Mr. Bush has a record. I don't want you to read my lips, and I sure don't want you to read his. [Laughter] I do hope you will read our plans. Now, specifically -- -- President Bush. [Inaudible] -- first rule? Governor Clinton. -- -- one, on Medicare, it is not true that everyone knows how to fix it; there are different ideas. The Bush plan, the Perot plan, the Clinton -- we have different ideas. I am convinced, having studied health care for a year, hard, and talking to hundreds and hundreds of people all across America, that you cannot control the costs of Medicare until you control the cost of private health care and public health care with managed competition, ceiling on cost, and radical reorganization of the insurance markets. You've got to do that. We've got to get those costs down. Number two, with regard to Social Security, that program, a lot of you may not know this: It produces a $70 billion surplus a year. Social Security is in surplus $70 billion. Six increases in the payroll tax -- that means people with incomes of $51,000 a year or less pay a disproportionately high share of the Federal tax burden, which is why I want some middle class tax relief. What do we have to do? By the time the century turns, we have got to have our deficit under control, we have to work out of so that surplus is building up, so when the baby boomers like me retire, we're okay. Number three, on the pension funds, I don't know as much about it, but I will say this: What I will do is to bring in the pension experts of the country, take a look at it, and strengthen the pension requirements further, because it's not just enough to have the guarantee. We had a guarantee on the S&L's, right? We had a guarantee, and what happened? You picked up a $500 billion bill because of the dumb way the Federal Government deregulated it. So I think we are going to have to change and strengthen the pension requirements on private retirement plans. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. I think we have a question here on international affairs, hopefully. Foreign Affairs Q. We've come to a position where we're in the new world order. And I'd like to know what the candidates feel our position is in this new world order and what our responsibilities are as a superpower. Ms. Simpson. Mr. President? President Bush. We have come to that position. Since I became President, 43, 44 countries have gone democratic. No longer totalitarian, no longer living under dictatorship or communist rule. This is exciting. This new world order to me means freedom and democracy. I think we will have a continuing responsibility, as the only remaining superpower, to stay involved. If we pull back in some isolation and say we don't have to do our share, or more than our share, anymore, I believe you're going to just ask for conflagration that we'll get involved in in the future. NATO, for example, has kept the peace for many, many years. I want to see us keep fully staffed in NATO so we'll continue to guarantee the peace in Europe. But the exciting thing is the fear of nuclear war is down. You hear all the bad stuff that's happened on my watch. I hope people will recognize that this is something pretty good for mankind. I hope they'll think it's good that democracy and freedom is on the move. And we're going to stay engaged, as long as I am President, working to improve things. You know, it's so easy now to say, hey, cut out foreign aid, we've got a problem at home. I think the United States has to still have the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of caring for others. We're right this very minute, we're sending supplies in to help these little starving kids in Somalia. It's the United States that's taken the lead in humanitarian aid into Bosnia. We're doing this all around the world. And yes, we've got problems at home. I think I've got a good plan to help fix those problems at home. But because of our leadership, because we didn't listen to the freeze, the nuclear freeze group -- do you remember: "Freeze it," back in about in the late seventies. "Freeze, don't touch it. We're going to lock it in now, or else we'll have war." President Reagan said, "No. Peace through strength." It worked. The Soviet Union is no more. Now we're working to help them become totally democratic through the FREEDOM Support Act that I led on. A great Democratic Ambassador, Bob Strauss over there, Jim Baker, all of us got this thing passed, through cooperation, Ross. It worked with cooperation. And you're for that, I'm sure, helping Russia become democratic. So the new world order to me means freedom and democracy, keep engaged, do not pull back into isolation. We are the United States, and we have a responsibility to lead and to guarantee the security. If it hadn't been for us, Saddam Hussein would be sitting on top of three-fifths of the oil supply of the world, and he'd have nuclear weapons. Only the United States could do this. Excuse me, Carole. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. Mr. Perot. Mr. Perot. Well, it's cost-effective to help Russia succeed in its revolution. It's pennies on the dollar compared to going back to the cold war. Russia's still very unstable. They could go back to square one and worse. All the nuclear weapons are not dismantled. I'm particularly concerned about the intercontinental weapons, the ones that can hit us. We've got agreements, but they're still there. With all this instability and breaking into Republics and all the Middle Eastern countries going over there and shopping for weapons, we've got our work cut out for us. So we need to stay right on top of that and constructively help them move toward democracy and capitalism. We have to have money to do that. We have to have our people at work. See, for 45 years, we were preoccupied with the Red Army. I suggest now that our number one preoccupation is red ink in our country. And we've got to put our people back to work so that we can afford to do these things we want to do in Russia. We cannot be the policeman for the world any longer. We spend $300 billion a year defending the world. Germany and Japan spend around $30 billion apiece. It's neat. If I can get you to defend me and I can spend all my money building industry, that's a home run for me. Coming out of World War II, it made sense. Now the other superpowers need to do their part. I'll close on this point: You can't be a superpower unless you're an economic superpower. If we're not an economic superpower, we are a used-to-be, and we will no longer be a force for good throughout the world. If nothing else gets you excited about rebuilding our industrial base, maybe that will, because job one is to put our people back to work. Ms. Simpson. Governor Clinton, the President mentioned Saddam Hussein. Your vice president and you have had some words about the President and Saddam Hussein. Would you care to comment? Governor Clinton. I'd rather answer her question first, and then I'll be glad to, because the question you ask is important. The end of the cold war brings an incredible opportunity for change, the winds of freedom blowing around the world, Russia demilitarizing. It also requires us to maintain some continuity, some bipartisan American commitment to certain principles. I would just say there are three things that I would like to say. Number one, we do have to maintain the world's strongest defense. We may differ about what the elements of that are. I think the defense needs to be with fewer people and permanent armed services, but with greater mobility on the land, in the air, and on the sea, with a real dedication to continuing development of high-technology weaponry and well-trained people. I think we're going to have to work to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We've got to keep going until all those nuclear weapons in Russia are gone and the other Republics. Number two, if you don't rebuild the economic strength of this country at home, we won't be a superpower. We can't have any more instances like what happened when Mr. Bush went to Japan and the Japanese Prime Minister said he felt sympathy for our country. We have to be the strongest economic power in the world. That's what got me into this race, so we could rebuild the American economy. Number three, we need to be a force for freedom and democracy. We need to use our unique position to support freedom, whether it's in Haiti or in China or in any other place, wherever the seeds of freedom are sprouting. We can't impose it, but we need to nourish it. That's the kind of thing that I would do as President, follow those three commitments into the future. Ms. Simpson. Okay, we have a question up there. Education Q. We've talked a lot tonight about creating jobs. But we have an awful lot of high school graduates who don't know how to read a ruler, who cannot fill out an application for a job. How can we create high-paying jobs with the education system we have? And what would you do to change it? Ms. Simpson. Who would like to begin? The education President? President Bush. I'd be delighted to, because you can't do it the old way. You can't do it with the school bureaucracy controlling everything. And that's why we have a new program that I hope people have heard about. It's being worked now in 1,700 communities -- I bypassed Congress on this one, Ross -- 1,700 communities across the country. It's called America 2000. It literally says to the communities: Reinvent the schools, not just the bricks and mortar but the curriculum and everything else. Think anew. We have a concept called the New American School Corporation, where we're doing exactly that. So I believe that we've got to get the power in the hands of the teachers, not the teachers union -- what's happening up there? [Laughter] So our America 2000 program also says this: It says let's give parents the choice of a public, private, or religious school. And it works. It works in Milwaukee. A Democratic woman up there taking the lead in this, the Mayor up there on the program, and the schools that are not chosen are improved. Competition does that. So we've got to innovate through school choice. We've got to innovate through this America 2000 program. But she is absolutely right. The programs that we've been trying where you control everything and mandate it from Washington don't work. The Governors -- and I believe Governor Clinton was in on this, but I don't want to invoke him here -- but they come to me, and they say, please get the Congress to stop passing so many mandates telling us how to control things. We know better how to do it in California or Texas or wherever it is. So this is what our program is all about. I believe -- you're right onto something -- that if we don't change the education, we're not going to be able to compete. Federal funding for education is up substantially. Pell Grants are up. But it isn't going to get the job done if we don't change K through 12. Ms. Simpson. Governor Clinton? Governor Clinton. First of all, let me say that I've spent more of my time in life on this in the last 12 years than any other issue. Seventy percent of my State's money goes to public schools. I was really honored when Time magazine said that our schools have shown more improvement than any other State in the country except one other. They named two States showing real strides forward in the eighties. So I care a lot about this, and I've spent countless hours in schools. But let me start with what you've said. I agree with some of what Mr. Bush said, but it's nowhere near enough. We live in a world where what you earn depends on what you can learn, where the average 18-year-old will change jobs eight times in a lifetime, and where none of us can promise any of you that what you now do for a living is absolutely safe from now on. Nobody running can promise that. There's too much change in the world. So what should we do? Let me reel some things off real quick, because you said you wanted specifics. Number one, under my program we would provide matching funds to States to teach everybody with a job to read in the next 5 years and give everybody with a job a chance to get a high school diploma, in big places, on the job. Number two, we would provide 2-year apprenticeship programs to high school graduates who don't go to college, in community colleges or on the job. Number three, we'd open the doors to college education to high school graduates without regard to income. They could borrow the money and pay it back as a percentage of their income over the couple of years of service to our Nation here home. Number four, we would fully fund the Head Start program to get little kids off to a good start. Five, I would have an aggressive program of school reform. More choices in the -- I favor public schools or these new charter schools. We can talk about that if you want. I don't think we should spend tax money on private schools, but I favor public school choice. I favor radical decentralization in giving more power to better trained principals and teachers with parent councils to control their schools. Those things would revolutionize American education and take us to the top economically. Ms. Simpson. Thank you, Governor Clinton. What the question is -- what is it going to cost? Q. What is it going to cost? Ms. Simpson. What is it going to cost? Governor Clinton. In 6 years -- I budget all this in my budget. In 6 years, the college program would cost $8 billion over and above what -- the present student loan program costs 4. You pay $3 billion for busted loans, because we don't have an automatic recovery system, and a billion dollars in bank fees. So the net cost will be $8 billion 6 years from now, in a trillion-plus budget: not very much. The other stuff, all the other stuff I mentioned costs much less than that. The Head Start program, full funding, would cost about $5 billion more. It's all covered in my budget from the plans that I've laid out, from raising taxes on families with incomes above $200,000, and asking foreign corporations to pay the same tax that American corporations do on the same income; from $140 billion in budget cuts, including what I think are very prudent cuts in the defense budget. It's all covered in the plan. Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot, you on education, please. Mr. Perot. Yes. I've got scars to show from being around education reform. The first words you need to say in every city and State and just draw a line in the sand -- public schools exist for the benefit of the children -- you're going to see a lot of people fall over it, because any time you're spending $199 billion a year, somebody's getting it, and the children get lost in the process. So that's step one. Keep in mind in 1960 when our schools were the envy of the world, we were spending $16 billion on them. Now we spend more than any other nation in the world, $199 billion a year, and rank at the bottom of the industrialized world in terms of educational achievement. One more time, you've bought a front-row box seat and got a third-rate performance. This is a Government that's not serving you. By and large, it should be local. The more local, the better. Interesting phenomenon, small towns have good schools, big cities have terrible schools. The best people in a small town will serve on the school board. You get into big cities, it's political patronage, stepping stones. You get the job, give your relatives the janitor's job at $57,000 a year, more than the teachers make. And with luck, they clean the cafeteria once a week. [Laughter] Now, you're paying for that. Those schools belong to you, and we put up with that. As long as you put up with that, that's what you're going to get. These folks are just dividing up 199 billion bucks, and the children get lost. If I could wish for one thing for great public schools, it would be a strong family unit in every home. Nothing will ever replace that. You say, "Well, gee, what are you going to do about that?" Well, the White House is a bully pulpit, and I think we ought to be pounding on the table every day. There's nothing -- the most efficient unit of Government we'll ever know is a strong, loving family unit. Next thing. You need small schools, not big schools. A little school, everybody's somebody. Individualism is very important. These big factories, everybody told me they were cost-effective. I did a study on it. They're cost-ineffective. Five thousand students: why is a high school that big? One reason. Sooner or later, you get 11 more boys that can run like the devil, that weigh 250 pounds, and they might win district. Now, that has nothing to do with learning. Secondly, across Texas, typically half the school day was nonacademic pursuits. In one place, it was 35 percent. In Texas, you could have unlimited absences to go to livestock shows. Found a boy -- excuse me, but this gives the flavor -- a boy in Houston kept a chicken in the bathtub in downtown Houston. Missed 65 days going to livestock shows. Finally had to come back to school, the chicken lost his feathers. That's the only way we got him back. [Laughter] Now, that's your tax money being wasted. Now, neighborhood schools. It is terrible to bus tiny little children across town. It is particularly terrible to take poor, tiny little children and wait until the first grade and bus them across town to Mars where the children know their numbers, know their letters, have had every advantage; the end of the first day, that little child wants out. I close on this: You've got to have world-class teachers, world-class books. If you ever got close to how textbooks were selected, you wouldn't want to go back the second day. I don't have time to tell you the stories. [Laughter] Ms. Simpson. No, you don't. [Laughter] Mr. Perot. Finally. If we don't fix this, you're right, we can't have the industries of tomorrow unless we have the best educated work force. And here, for the disadvantaged children, you've got to have early childhood development, the cheapest money you'll ever spend. The first contact should be with the mother when she's pregnant. That little child needs to be loved and hugged and nurtured and made to feel special, like you children were. They learn to think well or poorly of themselves in the first 18 months. Ms. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Perot. Mr. Perot. Within the first few years, they either learn how to learn or don't learn how to learn. If they don't, they wind up in prison, and it costs more to keep them in prison than it does to send them to Harvard. I rest my case. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. President Bush, you wanted to add something. President Bush. I just had a word of clarification because of something Governor Clinton said. My school choice program, "GI bill" for kids, does not take public money and give it to private schools. It does what the GI bill itself did when I came out of World War II. It takes public money and gives it to families or individuals to choose the school they want. Where it's been done, those schools, like in Rochester, those schools that weren't chosen find that they then compete and do better. So I think it's worth a shot. We've got a pilot program. It ought to be tried: school choice, public, private, or religious, not to the schools, but to -- 46 percent of the teachers in Chicago, public schoolteachers, send their kids to private school. Now, I think we ought to try to help families and see if it will do what I think, make all schools better. Governor Clinton. I just want to mention if I could -- -- Ms. Simpson. Very briefly. Governor Clinton. Very briefly. Involving the parents in the preschool education of their kids, even if they're poor and uneducated, can make a huge difference. We have a big program in my State that teaches mothers or fathers to teach their kids to get ready for school. It's the most successful thing we've ever done. Just a fact clarification real quickly. We do not spend a higher percentage of our income on public education than every other country. There are nine countries that spend more than we do on public education. We spend more on education because we spend so much more on colleges. But if you look at public education alone, and you take into account that we have more racial diversity and more poverty, it makes a big difference. There are great public schools where there are public school choice, accountability, and brilliant principals. I'll just mention one, the Beasley Academic Center in Chicago. I commend it to anybody. It's as good as any private school in the country. Ms. Simpson. We have very little time left, and it occurs to me that we have talked all this time and there has not been one question about some of the racial tensions and ethnic tensions in America. Is there anyone in this audience that would like to pose a question to the candidates on this? Yes? Women or Minority Presidential Candidates Q. What I'd like to know, and this is to any of the three of you, is aside from the recent accomplishments of your party, aside from those accomplishments in racial representation and without citing any of your current appointments or successful elections, when do you estimate your party will both nominate and elect an Afro-American and female ticket to the Presidency of the United States? Ms. Simpson. Governor Clinton, why don't you answer that first. Governor Clinton. Well, I don't have any idea, but I hope it will happen sometime in my lifetime. Q. I do, too. Governor Clinton. I believe that this country is electing more and more African-Americans and Latinos and Asian-Americans who are representing districts that are themselves not necessarily of a majority of their race. The American people are beginning to vote across racial lines, and I hope it will happen more and more. More and more women are being elected. Look at all these women Senate candidates we have here. You know, according to my mother and my wife and my daughter, this world would be a lot better place if women were running it most of the time. I do think there are special experiences and judgments and backgrounds and understandings that women bring to this process, by the way. This lady said here, how have you been affected by the economy? I mean, women know what it's like to be paid an unequal amount for equal work; they know what's it like not to have flexible working hours; they know what it's like not to have family leave or child care. So I think it would be a good thing for America if it happened, and I think it will happen in my lifetime. Ms. Simpson. Okay. I'm sorry we have just a little bit of time left. Let's try to get responses from each of them. President Bush or Mr. Perot? President Bush. I think if Barbara Bush were running this year she'd be elected. [Laughter] But it's too late. You don't want us to mention appointees but when you see the quality of people in our administration, see how Colin Powell performed -- I say administration, he's in the military. Q. I said when's your guess? President Bush. You weren't impressed with the fact that he performed -- -- Q. Excuse me, I'm extremely impressed with that. President Bush. Yes, but wouldn't that suggest to the American people then here's a quality person, if he decided that he could automatically -- -- Q. Sure. I just wanted to know -- -- President Bush. -- -- get the nomination of either party? Huh? Q. I'm totally impressed with that. I just wanted to know is when is your guess of when. President Bush. Oh, I see. You mean time? Q. Yeah. President Bush. I don't know. Starting after 4 years. [Laughter] No, I think you'll see -- -- Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot? President Bush. I think you'll see more minority candidates and women candidates coming forward. Ms. Simpson. Thank you. President Bush. This is supposed to be the year of the women in the Senate. Let's see how they do. I hope a lot of them lose. Ms. Simpson. Mr. Perot, I don't want to cut you up any more, but we only have a minute left. Mr. Perot. I have a fearless forecast. Unless he just won't do it, Colin Powell will be on somebody's ticket 4 years from now. Right? Right? You wanted -- that's it. Four years. Ms. Simpson. How about a woman? Mr. Perot. Now, if he won't be, General Waller would be a -- you say, why do you keep picking military people? These are people that I just happened to know and have a high regard for. I'm sure there are hundreds of others. President Bush. How about Dr. Lou Sullivan? Mr. Perot. Absolutely. President Bush. Yeah, good man. Mr. Perot. Absolutely. Ms. Simpson. What about a woman? Mr. Perot. Oh, oh. President Bush. My candidate's right back there. Mr. Perot. I can think of many. Ms. Simpson. Many? Mr. Perot. Absolutely. Ms. Simpson. When? Mr. Perot. How about Sandra Day O'Connor as an example? Dr. Bernadine Healy. Ms. Simpson. Good. Mr. Perot. National Institutes of Health. All right, I'll yield the floor. Name some more. President Bush. Good Republicans. [Laughter] Ms. Simpson. Thank you. I want to apologize to our audience because there were 209 people here, and there were 209 questions. We only got to a fraction of them, and I'm sorry to those of you that didn't get to ask your questions, but we must move to the conclusion of the program. It is time now for the 2-minute closing statements. By prior agreement, President Bush will go first. Closing Statements President Bush. May I ask for an exception because I think we owe Carole Simpson a -- anybody who can stand in between these three characters here and get the job done -- we owe her a round of applause. [Applause] Just don't take it out of my time. Ms. Simpson. That's right. President Bush. I feel strongly about it, but I don't want it to come out of my time. Ms. Simpson. That's right. [Laughter] President Bush. No, but let me just say to the American people: In 2 1/2 weeks, we're going to choose who should sit in this Oval Office, who to lead the economic recovery, who to be the leader of the free world, who to get the deficit down. Three ways to do that: one is to raise taxes; one is to reduce spending, controlling that mandatory spending; another one is to invest and save and to stimulate growth. I do not want to raise taxes. I differ with the two here on that. I'm just not going to do that. I do believe that we need to control mandatory spending. I think we need to invest and save more. I believe that we need to educate better and retrain better. I believe that we need to export more, so I'll keep working for export agreements where we can sell more abroad. And I believe that we must strengthen the family. We've got to strengthen the family. Now, let me pose this question to America: If in the next 5 minutes a television announcer came on and said, there is a major international crisis, there is a major threat to the world, or in this country a major threat, my question is, if you were appointed to name one of the three of us, who would you choose? Who has the perseverance, the character, the integrity, the maturity to get the job done? I hope I'm that person. Thank you very, very much. Ms. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. President. And now a closing statement from Mr. Perot. Mr. Perot. If the American people want to do it and not talk about it, then I'm one person they ought to consider. If they just want to keep slow dancing and talk about it and not do it, I'm not your man. I am results oriented. I am action oriented. I've built my businesses getting things done in 3 months that my competitors took 18 months to do. Everybody says, you can't do that with Congress. Sure you can do that with Congress. Congress, they're all good people. They're all patriots. But you've got to link arms and work with them. Sure, you'll have arguments. Sure, you'll have fights. We have them all day, every day. But we get the job done. Now, I have to come back in my close to one thing, because I am passionate about education. I was talking about early childhood education for disadvantaged little children. Let me tell you one specific pilot program where children who don't have a chance go to this program when they're 3. Now, we're going back to when the mother is pregnant, and they'll start right after they're born, starting when they're 3 and going to this school until they're 9, and then going into the public school in the fourth grade -- 90 percent are on the honor roll. Now, that will change America. Those children will all go to college. They will live the American dream. I beg the American people, anytime they think about reforming education, to take this piece of society that doesn't have a chance, and take these little pieces of clay that can be shaped and molded and give them the same love and nurture and affection and support you give your children. Teach them that they're unique and that they're precious and there's only one person in the world like them, and you will see this Nation bloom. We will have so many people who are qualified for the top job that it will be terrific. Now, finally, if you can't pay the bills, you're dead in the water. We have got to put our Nation back to work. Now, if you don't want to really do that, I'm not your man. I'd go crazy sitting up there slow dancing that one. In other words, unless we're going to do it, then pick somebody who likes to talk about it. Now, just remember, when you think about me, I didn't create this mess. I've been paying taxes just like you. And Lord knows, I've paid my share, over $1 billion in taxes. And for a guy that started out with everything he owned in the trunk of his car, that ain't bad. Ms. Simpson. I'm sorry, Mr. Perot. Once again -- -- Mr. Perot. But it's in your hands. I wish you well. I'll see you tomorrow night on NBC, 10:30 p.m., 11 p.m., eastern. [Laughter] Ms. Simpson. And finally, last but not least, Governor Clinton. Governor Clinton. Thank you, Carole, and thank you, ladies and gentleman. Since I suggested this format, I hope it's been good for all of you. I've really tried to be faithful to your request that we answer the questions specifically and pointedly. I thought I owed that to you. And I respect you for being here, and for the impact you've had on making this a more positive experience. These problems are not easy. They're not going to be solved overnight. But I want you to think about just two or three things. First of all, the people of my State have let me be their Governor for 12 years because I made commitments to two things, more jobs and better schools. Our schools are now better. Our children get off to a better start, from preschool programs and smaller classes in the early grades. We have one of the most aggressive adult education programs in the country. We talked about that. This year, my State ranks first in the country in job growth, fourth in manufacturing job growth, fourth in income growth, fourth in the decline of poverty. I'm proud of that. It happened because I could work with people, Republicans and Democrats. That's why we've had 24 retired generals and admirals, hundreds of business people, many of them Republican, support this campaign. You have to decide whether you want to change or not. We do not need 4 more years of an economic theory that doesn't work. We've had 12 years of trickle-down economics. It's time to put the American people first, to invest and grow this economy. I'm the only person here who's ever balanced a government budget, and I've presented 12 of them and cut spending repeatedly. But you cannot just get there by balancing the budget. We've got to grow the economy by putting people first, real people like you. I got into this race because I did not want my child to grow up to be part of the first generation of Americans to do worse than their parents. We're better than that. We can do better than that. I want to make America as great as it can be, and I ask for your help in doing it. Thank you very much. Ms. Simpson. Thank you, Governor Clinton. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the debate, sponsored by the Bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. I'd like to thank our audience of 209 uncommitted voters who may leave this evening maybe being committed. And hopefully, they'll go to the polls like everyone else on November 3d and vote. We invite you to join us on the third and final Presidential debate next Monday, October 19th, from the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. I'm Carole Simpson. Good night. Note: The debate began at 9 p.m. in Robins Center at the University of Richmond. George Bush, Presidential Debate at the University of Richmond Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/217084

203rd State of the Union Bush’s First Annual Message February 09, 1989 Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, and distinguished Members of the House and Senate, honored guests, and fellow citizens: Less than 3 weeks ago, I joined you on the West Front of this very building and, looking over the monuments to our proud past, offered you my hand in filling the next page of American history with a story of extended prosperity and continued peace. And tonight I'm back to offer you my plans as well. The hand remains extended; the sleeves are rolled up; America is waiting; and now we must produce. Together, we can build a better America. It is comforting to return to this historic Chamber. Here, 22 years ago, I first raised my hand to be sworn into public life. So, tonight I feel as if I'm returning home to friends. And I intend, in the months and years to come, to give you what friends deserve: frankness, respect, and my best judgment about ways to improve America's future. In return, I ask for an honest commitment to our common mission of progress. If we seize the opportunities on the road before us, there'll be praise enough for all. The people didn't send us here to bicker, and it's time to govern. And many Presidents have come to this Chamber in times of great crisis: war and depression, loss of national spirit. And 8 years ago, I sat in that very chair as President Reagan spoke of punishing inflation and devastatingly high interest rates and people out of work -- American confidence on the wane. And our challenge is different. We're fortunate -- a much changed landscape lies before us tonight. So, I don't propose to reverse direction. We're headed the right way, but we cannot rest. We're a people whose energy and drive have fueled our rise to greatness. And we're a forward-looking nation -- generous, yes, but ambitious, not for ourselves but for the world. Complacency is not in our character -- not before, not now, not ever. And so, tonight we must take a strong America and make it even better. We must address some very real problems. We must establish some very clear priorities. And we must make a very substantial cut in the Federal budget deficit. Some people find that agenda impossible, but I'm presenting to you tonight a realistic plan for tackling it. My plan has four broad features: attention to urgent priorities, investment in the future, an attack on the deficit, and no new taxes. This budget represents my best judgment of how we can address our priorities. There are many areas in which we would all like to spend more than I propose; I understand that. But we cannot until we get our fiscal house in order. Next year alone, thanks to economic growth, without any change in the law, the Federal Government will take in over $80 billion more than it does this year. That's right -- over $80 billion in new revenues, with no increases in taxes. And our job is to allocate those new resources wisely. We can afford to increase spending by a modest amount, but enough to invest in key priorities and still cut the deficit by almost 40 percent in 1 year. And that will allow us to meet the targets set forth in the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law. But to do that, we must recognize that growth above inflation in Federal programs is not preordained, that not all spending initiatives were designed to be immortal. I make this pledge tonight: My team and I are ready to work with the Congress, to form a special leadership group, to negotiate in good faith, to work day and night -- if that's what it takes -- to meet the budget targets and to produce a budget on time. We cannot settle for business as usual. Government by continuing resolution, or government by crisis, will not do. And I ask the Congress tonight to approve several measures which will make budgeting more sensible. We could save time and improve efficiency by enacting 2-year budgets. Forty-three Governors have the line-item veto. Presidents should have it, too. And at the very least, when a President proposes to rescind Federal spending, the Congress should be required to vote on that proposal instead of killing it by inaction. And I ask the Congress to honor the public's wishes by passing a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget. Such an amendment, once phased in, will discipline both the Congress and the executive branch. Several principles describe the kind of America I hope to build with your help in the years ahead. We will not have the luxury of taking the easy, spendthrift approach to solving problems because higher spending and higher taxes put economic growth at risk. Economic growth provides jobs and hope. Economic growth enables us to pay for social programs. Economic growth enhances the security of the Nation, and low tax rates create economic growth. I believe in giving Americans greater freedom and greater choice. And I will work for choice for American families, whether in the housing in which they live, the schools to which they send their children, or the child care they select for their young. You see, I believe that we have an obligation to those in need, but that government should not be the provider of first resort for things that the private sector can produce better. I believe in a society that is free from discrimination and bigotry of any kind. And I will work to knock down the barriers left by past discrimination and to build a more tolerant society that will stop such barriers from ever being built again. I believe that family and faith represent the moral compass of the Nation. And I'll work to make them strong, for as Benjamin Franklin said: "If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, can a great nation rise without His aid?" And I believe in giving people the power to make their own lives better through growth and opportunity. And together, let's put power in the hands of people. Three weeks ago, we celebrated the bicentennial inaugural, the 200th anniversary of the first Presidency. And if you look back, one thing is so striking about the way the Founding Fathers looked at America. They didn't talk about themselves. They talked about posterity. They talked about the future. And we, too, must think in terms bigger than ourselves. We must take actions today that will ensure a better tomorrow. We must extend American leadership in technology, increase long-term investment, improve our educational system, and boost productivity. These are the keys to building a better future, and here are some of my recommendations: I propose almost $2.2 billion for the National Science Foundation to promote basic research and keep us on track to double its budget by 1993. I propose to make permanent the tax credit for research and development. I've asked Vice President Quayle to chair a new Task Force on Competitiveness. And I request funding for NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] and a strong space program, an increase of almost $2.4 billion over the current fiscal year. We must have a manned space station; a vigorous, safe space shuttle program; and more commercial development in space. The space program should always go "full throttle up." And that's not just our ambition; it's our destiny. I propose that we cut the maximum tax rate on capital gains to increase long-term investment. History on this is clear -- this will increase revenues, help savings, and create new jobs. We won't be competitive if we leave whole sectors of America behind. This is the year we should finally enact urban enterprise zones and bring hope to the inner cities. But the most important competitiveness program of all is one which improves education in America. When some of our students actually have trouble locating America on a map of the world, it is time for us to map a new approach to education. We must reward excellence and cut through bureaucracy. We must help schools that need help the most. We must give choice to parents, students, teachers, and principals; and we must hold all concerned accountable. In education, we cannot tolerate mediocrity. I want to cut that dropout rate and make America a more literate nation, because what it really comes down to is this: The longer our graduation lines are today, the shorter our unemployment lines will be tomorrow. So, tonight I'm proposing the following initiatives: the beginning of a $500 million program to reward America's best schools, merit schools; the creation of special Presidential awards for the best teachers in every State, because excellence should be rewarded; the establishment of a new program of National Science Scholars, one each year for every Member of the House and Senate, to give this generation of students a special incentive to excel in science and mathematics; the expanded use of magnet schools, which give families and students greater choice; and a new program to encourage alternative certification, which will let talented people from all fields teach in our classrooms. I've said I'd like to be the "Education President." And tonight, I'd ask you to join me by becoming the "Education Congress." Just last week, as I settled into this new office, I received a letter from a mother in Pennsylvania who had been struck by my message in the Inaugural Address. "Not 12 hours before," she wrote, "my husband and I received word that our son was addicted to cocaine. He had the world at his feet. Bright, gifted, personable -- he could have done anything with his life. And now he has chosen cocaine." "And please," she wrote, "find a way to curb the supply of cocaine. Get tough with the pushers. Our son needs your help." My friends, that voice crying out for help could be the voice of your own neighbor, your own friend, your own son. Over 23 million Americans used illegal drugs last year, at a staggering cost to our nation's well-being. Let this be recorded as the time when America rose up and said no to drugs. The scourge of drugs must be stopped. And I am asking tonight for an increase of almost a billion dollars in budget outlays to escalate the war against drugs. The war must be waged on all fronts. Our new drug czar, Bill Bennett, and I will be shoulder to shoulder in the executive branch leading the charge. Some money will be used to expand treatment to the poor and to young mothers. This will offer the helping hand to the many innocent victims of drugs, like the thousands of babies born addicted or with AIDS because of the mother's addiction. Some will be used to cut the waiting time for treatment. Some money will be devoted to those urban schools where the emergency is now the worst. And much of it will be used to protect our borders, with help from the Coast Guard and the Customs Service, the Departments of State and Justice, and, yes, the U.S. military. I mean to get tough on the drug criminals. And let me be clear: This President will back up those who put their lives on the line every single day -- our local police officers. My budget asks for beefed-up prosecution, for a new attack on organized crime, and for enforcement of tough sentences -- and for the worst kingpins, that means the death penalty. I also want to make sure that when a drug dealer is convicted there's a cell waiting for him. And he should not go free because prisons are too full. And so, let the word go out: If you're caught and convicted, you will do time. But for all we do in law enforcement, in interdiction and treatment, we will never win this war on drugs unless we stop the demand for drugs. So, some of this increase will be used to educate the young about the dangers of drugs. We must involve the parents. We must involve the teachers. We must involve the communities. And, my friends, we must involve ourselves, each and every one of us in this concern. One problem related to drug use demands our urgent attention and our continuing compassion, and that is the terrible tragedy of AIDS. I'm asking for $1.6 billion for education to prevent the disease and for research to find a cure. If we're to protect our future, we need a new attitude about the environment. We must protect the air we breathe. I will send to you shortly legislation for a new, more effective Clean Air Act. It will include a plan to reduce by date certain the emissions which cause acid rain, because the time for study alone has passed, and the time for action is now. We must make use of clean coal. My budget contains full funding, on schedule, for the clean coal technology agreement that we've made with Canada. We've made that agreement with Canada, and we intend to honor that agreement. We must not neglect our parks. So, I'm asking to fund new acquisitions under the Land and Water Conservation Fund. We must protect our oceans. And I support new penalties against those who would dump medical waste and other trash into our oceans. The age of the needle on the beaches must end. And in some cases, the gulfs and oceans off our shores hold the promise of oil and gas reserves which can make our nation more secure and less dependent on foreign oil. And when those with the most promise can be tapped safely, as with much of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, we should proceed. But we must use caution; we must respect the environment. And so, tonight I'm calling for the indefinite postponement of three lease sales which have raised troubling questions, two off the coast of California and one which could threaten the Everglades in Florida. Action on these three lease sales will await the conclusion of a special task force set up to measure the potential for environmental damage. I'm directing the Attorney General and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to use every tool at their disposal to speed and toughen the enforcement of our laws against toxic-waste dumpers. I want faster cleanups and tougher enforcement of penalties against polluters. In addition to caring for our future, we must care for those around us. A decent society shows compassion for the young, the elderly, the vulnerable, and the poor. Our first obligation is to the most vulnerable -- infants, poor mothers, children living in poverty -- and my proposed budget recognizes this. I ask for full funding of Medicaid, an increase of over $3 billion, and an expansion of the program to include coverage of pregnant women who are near the poverty line. I believe we should help working families cope with the burden of child care. Our help should be aimed at those who need it most: low-income families with young children. I support a new child care tax credit that will aim our efforts at exactly those families, without discriminating against mothers who choose to stay at home. Now, I know there are competing proposals. But remember this: The overwhelming majority of all preschool child care is now provided by relatives and neighbors and churches and community groups. Families who choose these options should remain eligible for help. Parents should have choice. And for those children who are unwanted or abused or whose parents are deceased, we should encourage adoption. I propose to reenact the tax deduction for adoption expenses and to double it to $3,000. Let's make it easier for these kids to have parents who love them. We have a moral contract with our senior citizens. And in this budget, Social Security is fully funded, including a full cost-of-living adjustment. We must honor our contract. We must care about those in the shadow of life, and I, like many Americans, am deeply troubled by the plight of the homeless. The causes of homelessness are many; the history is long. But the moral imperative to act is clear. Thanks to the deep well of generosity in this great land, many organizations already contribute, but we in government cannot stand on the sidelines. In my budget, I ask for greater support for emergency food and shelter, for health services and measures to prevent substance abuse, and for clinics for the mentally ill. And I propose a new initiative involving the full range of government agencies. We must confront this national shame. There's another issue that I've decided to mention here tonight. I've long believed that the people of Puerto Rico should have the right to determine their own political future. Personally, I strongly favor statehood. But I urge the Congress to take the necessary steps to allow the people to decide in a referendum. Certain problems, the result of decades of unwise practices, threaten the health and security of our people. Left unattended, they will only get worse. But we can act now to put them behind us. Earlier this week, I announced my support for a plan to restore the financial and moral integrity of our savings system. I ask Congress to enact our reform proposals within 45 days. We must not let this situation fester. We owe it to the savers in this country to solve this problem. Certainly, the savings of Americans must remain secure. Let me be clear: Insured depositors will continue to be fully protected, but any plan to refinance the system must be accompanied by major reform. Our proposals will prevent such a crisis from recurring. The best answer is to make sure that a mess like this will never happen again. The majority of thrifts in communities across the Nation have been honest. They've played a major role in helping families achieve the dream of home ownership. But make no mistake, those who are corrupt, those who break the law, must be kicked out of the business; and they should go to jail. We face a massive task in cleaning up the waste left from decades of environmental neglect at America's nuclear weapons plants. Clearly, we must modernize these plants and operate them safely. That's not at issue; our national security depends on it. But beyond that, we must clean up the old mess that's been left behind. And I propose in this budget to more than double our current effort to do so. This will allow us to identify the exact nature of the various problems so we can clean them up, and clean them up we will. We've been fortunate during these past 8 years. America is a stronger nation than it was in 1980. Morale in our Armed Forces has been restored; our resolve has been shown. Our readiness has been improved, and we are at peace. There can no longer be any doubt that peace has been made more secure through strength. And when America is stronger, the world is safer. Most people don't realize that after the successful restoration of our strength, the Pentagon budget has actually been reduced in real terms for each of the last 4 years. We cannot tolerate continued real reduction in defense. In light of the compelling need to reduce the deficit, however, I support a 1-year freeze in the military budget, something I proposed last fall in my flexible freeze plan. And this freeze will apply for only 1 year, and after that, increases above inflation will be required. I will not sacrifice American preparedness, and I will not compromise American strength. I should be clear on the conditions attached to my recommendation for the coming year: The savings must be allocated to those priorities for investing in our future that I've spoken about tonight. This defense freeze must be a part of a comprehensive budget agreement which meets the targets spelled out in Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law without raising taxes and which incorporates reforms in the budget process. I've directed the National Security Council to review our national security and defense policies and report back to me within 90 days to ensure that our capabilities and resources meet our commitments and strategies. I'm also charging the Department of Defense with the task of developing a plan to improve the defense procurement process and management of the Pentagon, one which will fully implement the Packard commission report. Many of these changes can only be made with the participation of the Congress, and so, I ask for your help. We need fewer regulations. We need less bureaucracy. We need multiyear procurement and 2-year budgeting. And frankly -- and don't take this wrong -- we need less congressional micromanagement of our nation's military policy. I detect a slight division on that question, but nevertheless -- [laughter]. Securing a more peaceful world is perhaps the most important priority I'd like to address tonight. You know, we meet at a time of extraordinary hope. Never before in this century have our values of freedom, democracy, and economic opportunity been such a powerful and intellectual force around the globe. Never before has our leadership been so crucial, because while America has its eyes on the future, the world has its eyes on America. And it's a time of great change in the world, and especially in the Soviet Union. Prudence and common sense dictate that we try to understand the full meaning of the change going on there, review our policies, and then proceed with caution. But I've personally assured General Secretary Gorbachev that at the conclusion of such a review we will be ready to move forward. We will not miss any opportunity to work for peace. The fundamental facts remain that the Soviets retain a very powerful military machine in the service of objectives which are still too often in conflict with ours. So, let us take the new openness seriously, but let's also be realistic. And let's always be strong. There are some pressing issues we must address. I will vigorously pursue the Strategic Defense Initiative. The spread, and even use, of sophisticated weaponry threatens global security as never before. Chemical weapons must be banned from the face of the Earth, never to be used again. And look, this won't be easy. Verification -- extraordinarily difficult, but civilization and human decency demand that we try. And the spread of nuclear weapons must be stopped. And I'll work to strengthen the hand of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Our diplomacy must work every day against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. And around the globe, we must continue to be freedom's best friend. And we must stand firm for self-determination and democracy in Central America, including in Nicaragua. It is my strongly held conviction that when people are given the chance they inevitably will choose a free press, freedom of worship, and certifiably free and fair elections. We must strengthen the alliance of the industrial democracies, as solid a force for peace as the world has ever known. And this is an alliance forged by the power of our ideals, not the pettiness of our differences. So, let's lift our sights to rise above fighting about beef hormones, to building a better future, to move from protectionism to progress. I've asked the Secretary of State to visit Europe next week and to consult with our allies on the wide range of challenges and opportunities we face together, including East-West relations. And I look forward to meeting with our NATO partners in the near future. And I, too, shall begin a trip shortly to the far reaches of the Pacific Basin, where the winds of democracy are creating new hope and the power of free markets is unleashing a new force. When I served as our representative in China 14 or 15 years ago, few would have predicted the scope of the changes we've witnessed since then. But in preparing for this trip, I was struck by something I came across from a Chinese writer. He was speaking of his country, decades ago, but his words speak to each of us in America tonight. "Today," he said, "we're afraid of the simple words like `goodness' and `mercy' and `kindness."' My friends, if we're to succeed as a nation, we must rediscover those words. In just 3 days, we mark the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the man who saved our Union and gave new meaning to the word "opportunity." Lincoln once said: "I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition but to assist in ameliorating that of mankind." It is this broader mission to which I call all Americans, because the definition of a successful life must include serving others. And to the young people of America, who sometimes feel left out, I ask you tonight to give us the benefit of your talent and energy through a new program called YES, for Youth Entering Service to America. To those men and women in business, remember the ultimate end of your work: to make a better product, to create better lives. I ask you to plan for the longer term and avoid that temptation of quick and easy paper profits. To the brave men and women who wear the uniform of the United States of America, thank you. Your calling is a high one: to be the defenders of freedom and the guarantors of liberty. And I want you to know that this nation is grateful for your service. To the farmers of America, we appreciate the bounty you provide. We will work with you to open foreign markets to American agricultural products. And to the parents of America, I ask you to get involved in your child's schooling. Check on the homework, go to the school, meet the teachers, care about what is happening there. It's not only your child's future on the line, it's America's. To kids in our cities, don't give up hope. Say no to drugs; stay in school. And, yes, "Keep hope alive." To those 37 million Americans with some form of disability, you belong in the economic mainstream. We need your talents in America's work force. Disabled Americans must become full partners in America's opportunity society. To the families of America watching tonight in your living rooms, hold fast to your dreams because ultimately America's future rests in your hands. And to my friends in this Chamber, I ask your cooperation to keep America growing while cutting the deficit. That's only fair to those who now have no vote: the generations to come. Let them look back and say that we had the foresight to understand that a time of peace and prosperity is not the time to rest but a time to press forward, a time to invest in the future. And let all Americans remember that no problem of human making is too great to be overcome by human ingenuity, human energy, and the untiring hope of the human spirit. I believe this. I would not have asked to be your President if I didn't. And tomorrow the debate on the plan I've put forward begins, and I ask the Congress to come forward with your own proposals. Let's not question each other's motives. Let's debate, let's negotiate; but let us solve the problem. Recalling anniversaries may not be my specialty in speeches -- [laughter] -- but tonight is one of some note. On February 9th, 1941, just 48 years ago tonight, Sir Winston Churchill took to the airwaves during Britain's hour of peril. He'd received from President Roosevelt a hand-carried letter quoting Longfellow's famous poem: "Sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!" And Churchill responded on this night by radio broadcast to a nation at war, but he directed his words to Franklin Roosevelt. "We shall not fail or falter," he said. "We shall not weaken or tire. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job." Tonight, almost half a century later, our peril may be less immediate, but the need for perseverance and clear-sighted fortitude is just as great. Now, as then, there are those who say it can't be done. There are voices who say that America's best days have passed, that we're bound by constraints, threatened by problems, surrounded by troubles which limit our ability to hope. Well, tonight I remain full of hope. We Americans have only begun on our mission of goodness and greatness. And to those timid souls, I repeat the plea: "Give us the tools, and we will do the job." Thank you. God bless you, and God bless America. Source: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-administration-goals-before-joint-session-congress

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1989 Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. President, Vice President Quayle, Senator Mitchell, Speaker Wright, Senator Dole, Congressman Michel, and fellow citizens, neighbors, and friends: There is a man here who has earned a lasting place in our hearts and in our history. President Reagan, on behalf of our Nation, I thank you for the wonderful things that you have done for America. I have just repeated word for word the oath taken by George Washington 200 years ago, and the Bible on which I placed my hand is the Bible on which he placed his. It is right that the memory of Washington be with us today, not only because this is our Bicentennial Inauguration, but because Washington remains the Father of our Country. And he would, I think, be gladdened by this day; for today is the concrete expression of a stunning fact: our continuity these 200 years since our government began. We meet on democracy's front porch, a good place to talk as neighbors and as friends. For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended. And my first act as President is a prayer. I ask you to bow your heads: Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love. Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day and the shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make us strong to do Your work, willing to heed and hear Your will, and write on our hearts these words: "Use power to help people." For we are given power not to advance our own purposes, nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people. Help us to remember it, Lord. Amen. I come before you and assume the Presidency at a moment rich with promise. We live in a peaceful, prosperous time, but we can make it better. For a new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree. A new breeze is blowing, and a nation refreshed by freedom stands ready to push on. There is new ground to be broken, and new action to be taken. There are times when the future seems thick as a fog; you sit and wait, hoping the mists will lift and reveal the right path. But this is a time when the future seems a door you can walk right through into a room called tomorrow. Great nations of the world are moving toward democracy through the door to freedom. Men and women of the world move toward free markets through the door to prosperity. The people of the world agitate for free expression and free thought through the door to the moral and intellectual satisfactions that only liberty allows. We know what works: Freedom works. We know what's right: Freedom is right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on Earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections, and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state. For the first time in this century, for the first time in perhaps all history, man does not have to invent a system by which to live. We don't have to talk late into the night about which form of government is better. We don't have to wrest justice from the kings. We only have to summon it from within ourselves. We must act on what we know. I take as my guide the hope of a saint: In crucial things, unity; in important things, diversity; in all things, generosity. America today is a proud, free nation, decent and civil, a place we cannot help but love. We know in our hearts, not loudly and proudly, but as a simple fact, that this country has meaning beyond what we see, and that our strength is a force for good. But have we changed as a nation even in our time? Are we enthralled with material things, less appreciative of the nobility of work and sacrifice? My friends, we are not the sum of our possessions. They are not the measure of our lives. In our hearts we know what matters. We cannot hope only to leave our children a bigger car, a bigger bank account. We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend, a loving parent, a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood and town better than he found it. What do we want the men and women who work with us to say when we are no longer there? That we were more driven to succeed than anyone around us? Or that we stopped to ask if a sick child had gotten better, and stayed a moment there to trade a word of friendship? No President, no government, can teach us to remember what is best in what we are. But if the man you have chosen to lead this government can help make a difference; if he can celebrate the quieter, deeper successes that are made not of gold and silk, but of better hearts and finer souls; if he can do these things, then he must. America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world. My friends, we have work to do. There are the homeless, lost and roaming. There are the children who have nothing, no love, no normalcy. There are those who cannot free themselves of enslavement to whatever addiction--drugs, welfare, the demoralization that rules the slums. There is crime to be conquered, the rough crime of the streets. There are young women to be helped who are about to become mothers of children they can't care for and might not love. They need our care, our guidance, and our education, though we bless them for choosing life. The old solution, the old way, was to think that public money alone could end these problems. But we have learned that is not so. And in any case, our funds are low. We have a deficit to bring down. We have more will than wallet; but will is what we need. We will make the hard choices, looking at what we have and perhaps allocating it differently, making our decisions based on honest need and prudent safety. And then we will do the wisest thing of all: We will turn to the only resource we have that in times of need always grows--the goodness and the courage of the American people. I am speaking of a new engagement in the lives of others, a new activism, hands-on and involved, that gets the job done. We must bring in the generations, harnessing the unused talent of the elderly and the unfocused energy of the young. For not only leadership is passed from generation to generation, but so is stewardship. And the generation born after the Second World War has come of age. I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging, sometimes leading, sometimes being led, rewarding. We will work on this in the White House, in the Cabinet agencies. I will go to the people and the programs that are the brighter points of light, and I will ask every member of my government to become involved. The old ideas are new again because they are not old, they are timeless: duty, sacrifice, commitment, and a patriotism that finds its expression in taking part and pitching in. We need a new engagement, too, between the Executive and the Congress. The challenges before us will be thrashed out with the House and the Senate. We must bring the Federal budget into balance. And we must ensure that America stands before the world united, strong, at peace, and fiscally sound. But, of course, things may be difficult. We need compromise; we have had dissension. We need harmony; we have had a chorus of discordant voices. For Congress, too, has changed in our time. There has grown a certain divisiveness. We have seen the hard looks and heard the statements in which not each other's ideas are challenged, but each other's motives. And our great parties have too often been far apart and untrusting of each other. It has been this way since Vietnam. That war cleaves us still. But, friends, that war began in earnest a quarter of a century ago; and surely the statute of limitations has been reached. This is a fact: The final lesson of Vietnam is that no great nation can long afford to be sundered by a memory. A new breeze is blowing, and the old bipartisanship must be made new again. To my friends--and yes, I do mean friends--in the loyal opposition--and yes, I mean loyal: I put out my hand. I am putting out my hand to you, Mr. Speaker. I am putting out my hand to you Mr. Majority Leader. For this is the thing: This is the age of the offered hand. We can't turn back clocks, and I don't want to. But when our fathers were young, Mr. Speaker, our differences ended at the water's edge. And we don't wish to turn back time, but when our mothers were young, Mr. Majority Leader, the Congress and the Executive were capable of working together to produce a budget on which this nation could live. Let us negotiate soon and hard. But in the end, let us produce. The American people await action. They didn't send us here to bicker. They ask us to rise above the merely partisan. "In crucial things, unity"--and this, my friends, is crucial. To the world, too, we offer new engagement and a renewed vow: We will stay strong to protect the peace. The "offered hand" is a reluctant fist; but once made, strong, and can be used with great effect. There are today Americans who are held against their will in foreign lands, and Americans who are unaccounted for. Assistance can be shown here, and will be long remembered. Good will begets good will. Good faith can be a spiral that endlessly moves on. Great nations like great men must keep their word. When America says something, America means it, whether a treaty or an agreement or a vow made on marble steps. We will always try to speak clearly, for candor is a compliment, but subtlety, too, is good and has its place. While keeping our alliances and friendships around the world strong, ever strong, we will continue the new closeness with the Soviet Union, consistent both with our security and with progress. One might say that our new relationship in part reflects the triumph of hope and strength over experience. But hope is good, and so are strength and vigilance. Here today are tens of thousands of our citizens who feel the understandable satisfaction of those who have taken part in democracy and seen their hopes fulfilled. But my thoughts have been turning the past few days to those who would be watching at home to an older fellow who will throw a salute by himself when the flag goes by, and the women who will tell her sons the words of the battle hymns. I don't mean this to be sentimental. I mean that on days like this, we remember that we are all part of a continuum, inescapably connected by the ties that bind. Our children are watching in schools throughout our great land. And to them I say, thank you for watching democracy's big day. For democracy belongs to us all, and freedom is like a beautiful kite that can go higher and higher with the breeze. And to all I say: No matter what your circumstances or where you are, you are part of this day, you are part of the life of our great nation. A President is neither prince nor pope, and I don't seek a window on men's souls. In fact, I yearn for a greater tolerance, an easy- goingness about each other's attitudes and way of life. There are few clear areas in which we as a society must rise up united and express our intolerance. The most obvious now is drugs. And when that first cocaine was smuggled in on a ship, it may as well have been a deadly bacteria, so much has it hurt the body, the soul of our country. And there is much to be done and to be said, but take my word for it: This scourge will stop. And so, there is much to do; and tomorrow the work begins. I do not mistrust the future; I do not fear what is ahead. For our problems are large, but our heart is larger. Our challenges are great, but our will is greater. And if our flaws are endless, God's love is truly boundless. Some see leadership as high drama, and the sound of trumpets calling, and sometimes it is that. But I see history as a book with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of hopefulness and meaning. The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds. And so today a chapter begins, a small and stately story of unity, diversity, and generosity--shared, and written, together. Thank you. God bless you and God bless the United States of America. Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/bush.asp

January 05, 1993 Thank you all very much. Good luck. Please be seated. Thank you, General Graves, for that very kind introduction. Barbara and I are just delighted to be here and honored that we could be joined by our able Secretary of the Army, Mike Stone; of course, the man well-known here that heads our Army, General Sullivan, General Gordon Sullivan; and Gracie Graves, General Robert Foley, General Galloway; Shawn Daniel, well-known to everybody here, been our host, in a sense; and a West Point alum who has been at my side for 4 years, over here somewhere, General Scowcroft, graduate of this great institution who served his country with such distinction. May I salute the members of the Board of Visitors. I see another I have to single out, General Galvin, who served his country with such honor. And, of course, save the best for last, the Corps of Cadets, thank you for that welcome. Let me begin with the hard part: It is difficult for a Navy person to come up to West Point after that game a month ago. Go ahead, rub it in. [Laughter] But I watched it. Amazing things can happen in sports. Look at the Oilers, my other team that took it on the chin the other day. [Laughter] But I guess the moral of all of this is that losing is never easy. Trust me, I know something about that. [Laughter] But if you have to lose, that's the way to do it: Fight with all you have. Give it your best shot. And win or lose, learn from it, and get on with life. I am about to get on with the rest of my life. But before I do, I want to share with you at this institution of leadership some of my thinking, both about the world you will soon be called upon to enter and the life that you have chosen. Any President has several functions. He speaks for and to the Nation. He must faithfully execute the law. And he must lead. But no function, none of the President's hats, in my view, is more important than his role as Commander in Chief. For it is as Commander in Chief that the President confronts and makes decisions that one way or another affects the lives of everyone in this country as well as many others around the world. I have had many occasions to don this most important of hats. Over the past 4 years, the men and women who proudly and bravely wear the uniforms of the U.S. armed services have been called upon to go in harm's way and have discharged their duty with honor and professionalism. I wish I could say that such demands were a thing of the past, that with the end of the cold war the calls upon the United States would diminish. I cannot. Yes, the end of the cold war, we would all concede, is a blessing. It is a time of great promise. Democratic governments have never been so numerous. What happened 2 or 3 days ago in Moscow would not have been possible in the cold war days. Thanks to historic treaties such as that START II pact just reached with Russia, the likelihood of nuclear holocaust is vastly diminished. But this does not mean that there is no specter of war, no threats to be reckoned with. And already, we see disturbing signs of what this new world could become if we are passive and aloof. We would risk the emergence of a world characterized by violence, characterized by chaos, one in which dictators and tyrants threaten their neighbors, build arsenals brimming with weapons of mass destruction, and ignore the welfare of their own men, women, and children. And we could see a horrible increase in international terrorism, with American citizens more at risk than ever before. We cannot and we need not allow this to happen. Our objective must be to exploit the unparalleled opportunity presented by the cold war's end to work toward transforming this new world into a new world order, one of governments that are democratic, tolerant, and economically free at home and committed abroad to settling inevitable differences peacefully, without the threat or use of force. Unfortunately, not everyone subscribes to these principles. We continue to see leaders bent on denying fundamental human rights and seizing territory regardless of the human cost. No, an international society, one more attuned to the enduring principles that have made this country a beacon of hope for so many for so long, will not just emerge on its own. It's got to be built. Two hundred years ago, another departing President warned of the dangers of what he described as "entangling alliances." His was the right course for a new nation at that point in history. But what was "entangling" in Washington's day is now essential. This is why, at Texas A&M a few weeks ago, I spoke of the folly of isolationism and of the importance, morally, economically, and strategically, of the United States remaining involved in world affairs. We must engage ourselves if a new world order, one more compatible with our values and congenial to our interest, is to emerge. But even more, we must lead. Leadership, well, it takes many forms. It can be political or diplomatic. It can be economic or military. It can be moral or spiritual leadership. Leadership can take any one of these forms, or it can be a combination of them. Leadership should not be confused with either unilateralism or universalism. We need not respond by ourselves to each and every outrage of violence. The fact that America can act does not mean that it must. A nation's sense of idealism need not be at odds with its interests, nor does principle displace prudence. No, the United States should not seek to be the world's policeman. There is no support abroad or at home for us to play this role, nor should there be. We would exhaust ourselves in the process, wasting precious resources needed to address those problems at home and abroad that we cannot afford to ignore. But in the wake of the cold war, in a world where we are the only remaining superpower, it is the role of the United States to marshal its moral and material resources to promote a democratic peace. It is our responsibility, it is our opportunity to lead. There is no one else. Leadership cannot be simply asserted or demanded. It must be demonstrated. Leadership requires formulating worthy goals, persuading others of their virtue, and contributing one's share of the common effort and then some. Leadership takes time. It takes patience. It takes work. Some of this work must take place here at home. Congress does have a constitutional role to play. Leadership therefore also involves working with the Congress and the American people to provide the essential domestic underpinning if U.S. military commitments are to be sustainable. This is what our administration, the Bush administration, has tried to do. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, it was the United States that galvanized the U.N. Security Council to act and then mobilized the successful coalition on the battlefield. The pattern not exactly the same but similar in Somalia: First the United States underscored the importance of alleviating the growing tragedy, and then we organized humanitarian efforts designed to bring hope, food, and peace. At times, real leadership requires a willingness to use military force. And force can be a useful backdrop to diplomacy, a complement to it, or, if need be, a temporary alternative. As Commander in Chief, I have made the difficult choice to use military force. I determined we could not allow Saddam's forces to ravage Kuwait and hold this critical region at gunpoint. I thought then, and I think now, that using military force to implement the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council was in the interest of the United States and the world community. The need to use force arose as well in the wake of the Gulf war, when we came to the aid of the peoples of both northern and southern Iraq. And more recently, as I'm sure you know, I determined that only the use of force could stem this human tragedy of Somalia. The United States should not stand by with so many lives at stake and when a limited deployment of U.S. forces, buttressed by the forces of other countries and acting under the full authority of the United Nations, could make an immediate and dramatic difference, and do so without excessive levels of risk and cost. Operations Provide Comfort and Southern Watch in Iraq and then Operation Restore Hope in Somalia all bear witness to the wisdom of selected use of force for selective purposes. Sometimes the decision not to use force, to stay our hand, I can tell you, it's just as difficult as the decision to send our soldiers into battle. The former Yugoslavia, well, it's been such a situation. There are, we all know, important humanitarian and strategic interests at stake there. But up to now it's not been clear that the application of limited amounts of force by the United States and its traditional friends and allies would have had the desired effect, given the nature and complexity of that situation. Our assessment of the situation in the former Yugoslavia could well change if and as the situation changes. The stakes could grow; the conflict could threaten to spread. Indeed, we are constantly reassessing our options and are actively consulting with others about steps that might be taken to contain the fighting, protect the humanitarian effort, and deny Serbia the fruits of aggression. Military force is never a tool to be used lightly or universally. In some circumstances it may be essential, in others counterproductive. I know that many people would like to find some formula, some easy formula to apply, to tell us with precision when and where to intervene with force. Anyone looking for scientific certitude is in for a disappointment. In the complex new world we are entering, there can be no single or simple set of fixed rules for using force. Inevitably, the question of military intervention requires judgment. Each and every case is unique. To adopt rigid criteria would guarantee mistakes involving American interests and American lives. And it would give would-be troublemakers a blueprint for determining their own actions. It could signal U.S. friends and allies that our support was not to be counted on. Similarly, we cannot always decide in advance which interests will require our using military force to protect them. The relative importance of an interest is not a guide: Military force may not be the best way of safeguarding something vital, while using force might be the best way to protect an interest that qualifies as important but less than vital. But to warn against a futile quest for a set of hard-and-fast rules to govern the use of military force is not to say there cannot be some principles to inform our decisions. Such guidelines can prove useful in sizing and, indeed, shaping our forces and in helping us to think our way through this key question. Using military force makes sense as a policy where the stakes warrant, where and when force can be effective, where no other policies are likely to prove effective, where its application can be limited in scope and time, and where the potential benefits justify the potential costs and sacrifice. Once we are satisfied that force makes sense, we must act with the maximum possible support. The United States can and should lead, but we will want to act in concert, where possible involving the United Nations or other multinational grouping. The United States can and should contribute to the common undertaking in a manner commensurate with our wealth, with our strength. But others should also contribute militarily, be it by providing combat or support forces, access to facilities or bases, or overflight rights. And similarly, others should contribute economically. It is unreasonable to expect the United States to bear the full financial burden of intervention when other nations have a stake in the outcome. A desire for international support must not become a prerequisite for acting, though. Sometimes a great power has to act alone. I made a tough decision -- I might say, on advice of our outstanding military leaders who are so well known to everybody here -- to use military force in Panama when American lives and the security of the Canal appeared to be threatened by outlaws who stole power in the face of free elections. And similarly, we moved swiftly to safeguard democracy in the Philippines. But in every case involving the use of force, it will be essential to have a clear and achievable mission, a realistic plan for accomplishing the mission, and criteria no less realistic for withdrawing U.S. forces once the mission is complete. Only if we keep these principles in mind will the potential sacrifice be one that can be explained and justified. We must never forget that using force is not some political abstraction but a real commitment of our fathers and mothers and sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. You've got to look at it in human terms. In order even to have the choice, we must have available adequate military forces tailored for a wide range of contingencies, including peacekeeping. Indeed, leading the effort toward a new world order will require a modern, capable military, in some areas necessitating more rather than less defense spending. As President, I have said that my ability to deploy force on behalf of U.S. interests abroad was made possible because past Presidents, and I would single out in particular my predecessor, Ronald Reagan, and past Secretaries of Defense sustained a strong military. Consistent with this sacred trust, I am proud to pass on to my successor, President-elect Clinton, a military second to none. We have the very best. Yet, it is essential to recognize that as important as such factors are, any military is more than simply the sum of its weapons or the state of its technology. What makes any armed force truly effective is the quality of its leadership, the quality of its training, the quality of its people. We have succeeded abroad in no small part because of our people in uniform. The men and women in our Armed Forces have demonstrated their ability to master the challenges of modern warfare. And at the same time, and whether on the battlefield of Iraq or in some tiny little village in Somalia, America's soldiers have always brought a quality of caring and kindness to their mission. Who will ever forget -- I know I won't -- those terrified Iraqi soldiers surrendering to American troops? And who will forget the way the American soldier held out his arms and said, "It's okay. You're all right now." Or in Somalia, the young marine, eyes filled with tears, holding the fragile arm of an emaciated child. There can be no doubt about it: The All Volunteer Force is one of the true success stories of modern day America. It is instructive to look at just why this is so. At its heart, a voluntary military is based upon choice -- you all know that -- the decision freely taken by young men and women to join, the decision by more mature men and women to remain. And the institution of the Armed Forces has thrived on its commitment to developing and promoting excellence. It is meritocracy in action. Race, religion, wealth, background count not. Indeed, the military offers many examples for the rest of society, showing what can be done to eradicate the scourge of drugs, to break down the barriers of racial discrimination, to offer equal opportunity to women. This is not just a result of self-selection. It also reflects the military's commitment to education and training. You know, people speak of defense conversion, the process by which the defense firms retool for civilian tasks. Well, defense conversion within the military has been going on for years. It is the constant process of training and retraining, which the military does so well, that allows individuals to keep up with the latest technology, take on more challenging assignments, and prepare for life on the outside. Out of this culture of merit and competition have emerged hundreds of thousands of highly skilled men and women brimming with real self-confidence. What they possess is a special mix of discipline, a willingness to accept direction, and the confidence, a willingness to accept responsibility. Together, discipline and confidence provide the basis for winning, for getting the job done. There is no higher calling, no more honorable choice than the one that you here today have made. To join the Armed Forces is to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for your country and for your fellow man. What you have done, what you are doing, sends an important message, one that I fear sometimes gets lost amidst today's often materialist, self-interested culture. It is important to remember, it is important to demonstrate that there is a higher purpose to life beyond one's self. Now, I speak of family, of community, of ideals. I speak of duty, honor, country. There are many forms of contributing to this country, of public service. Yes, there is government. There is voluntarism. I love to talk about the thousand Points of Light, one American helping another. The daily tasks that require doing in our classrooms, in our hospitals, our cities, our farms, all can and do represent a form of service. In whatever form, service benefits our society, and it ennobles the giver. It is a cherished American concept, one we should continue to practice and pass on to our children. This was what I wanted to share on this occasion. You are beginning your service to country, and I am nearing the end of mine. Exactly half a century ago, in June of 1942, as General Graves mentioned, we were at war, and I was graduating from school. The speaker that day at Andover was the then-Secretary of War, Henry Stimson. And his message was one of public service, but with a twist -- on the importance of finishing one's schooling before going off to fight for one's country. I listened closely to what he had to say, but I didn't take his advice. And that day was my 18th birthday. And when the commencement ceremony ended, I went on into Boston and enlisted in the Navy as a seaman 2d class. And I never regretted it. You, too, have signed up. You, too, will never regret it. And I salute you for it. Fortunately, because of the sacrifices made in years before and still being made, you should be able to complete this phase of your education. A half century has passed since I left school to go into the service. A half century has passed since that day when Stimson spoke of the challenge of creating a new world. You will also be entering a new world, one far better than the one I came to know, a world with the potential to be far better yet. This is the challenge. This is the opportunity of your lifetimes. I envy you for it, and I wish you Godspeed. And while I'm at it, as your Commander in Chief, I hereby grant amnesty to the Corps of Cadets. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. Good luck to all of you. Warm up here. Good luck to you guys. Thank you. Source: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-united-states-military-academy-west-point-new-york