Remarks on the Budget and the Legislative Agenda and an Exchange With Reporters - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Nov 6, 2000

October 30, 2000

The President. Good afternoon. This morning I had planned on coming here this afternoon to share good news about bipartisan progress on the budget. Our team worked all weekend and late, late into the night last night, indeed, into the early morning hours, to fashion a good-faith agreement with compromises on both sides that provided for the largest increased investment ever in the education of our children. We thought we had that agreement.

But instead of honoring it, the Republican leadership came back this afternoon and ripped it apart. Why? Because some special interest lobbyists insisted on it. They've insisted on a provision that would undermine the health and safety of millions of workers.

Six hundred thousand people lose time from work each year because of repetitive stress injuries on the job, injuries that cost American businesses about $50 billion a year. Our proposal would save these businesses $9 billion a year and save 300,000 workers the pain and suffering associated with the injuries. That's the cashier at the neighborhood grocery store, the office worker who works on a keyboard 8 hours a day, the nursing home worker who cares for our seniors.

Once again the Republican leadership has let the whispers of the special interests drown out the voices of the American people. Families should not have to choose between worker safety and their children's education.

We were on the verge of passing a landmark education bill, to hire highly qualified teachers to reduce class size in the early grades, to repair and modernize crumbling schools, to expand after-school programs, invest in teacher quality, and strengthen accountability to turn around failing schools. With the largest student enrollment in history, this budget would have honored our obligation to our children by investing more in our schools and demanding more from them.

If we could get this agreement, it would be a great bipartisan achievement. It was negotiated, until the early morning hours, by those authorized by the leaders in both parties to negotiate the agreement. But the Republican leadership is on the verge of abandoning it to put special interests ahead of the children's education. That is a mistake.

But make no mistake, this is not about a lack of bipartisanship. By working long and hard, we have reached a bipartisan consensus on the education bill. We also have bipartisan agreement on campaign finance reform, hate crimes legislation, raising the minimum wage, the Patients' Bill of Rights--all being blocked by the Republican leadership.

Congress is now 30 days into the new fiscal year without a budget. As I have often said, there is a right and a wrong way to conduct budget negotiations. When we have worked together, we have unfailingly made progress. When there is a genuine spirit of cooperation and compromise, we can accomplish great things for our people.

Last week, we came together with a forward-looking bill to fund our veterans and housing programs. Saturday, I signed legislation to fund our agriculture programs and provide vital assistance to farmers, ranchers, and rural communities. These bills didn't have everything I wanted. They had some things I opposed. But we can't make the perfect the enemy of good progress. On balance, the bills were good for the American people. They were negotiated in good faith, and I signed them.

There is still more work to be done on education and on other priorities. We need to make headway on strengthening Medicare, providing needed resources to teaching hospitals, rural hospitals, home health agencies, and other providers, not just to HMO's.

I also believe we can have a tax bill that meets the test of fairness to children, seniors, millions of Americans without health coverage, and small business. Instead of meeting that test or even meeting with us, the Republican leadership has crafted their own partisan tax package and passed it on a largely party line vote.

Again, we have accomplished so much in this session of Congress in a bipartisan fashion. It has been one of the most productive sessions. But the most important legislation is still out there--the education of our children, plus the opportunity to raise the minimum wage, pass the new markets legislation, and provide needed tax relief, as well as to provide fairness to our immigrants and invest in the health care of our people.

I hope we can do this. It's not too late, and we can still work together to make an agreement. But it has to be one for the people and not the special interests.

Thank you.

Q. So what's the next step, sir? The election is a week and a day away. What do you do next?

The President. I don't know. They were up 'til 2:30 in the morning, and I came in this morning, and they said we had an agreement. Senator Harkin called me, absolutely ecstatic about the agreement. We had a good-faith compromise on this rule on labor stress injuries, which would have allowed us to proceed but would have delayed enforcement until the next election, so if they win and they want to reassess the worker safety thing, they'd have the opportunity to do it, but otherwise it would go into effect. It was an honorable compromise. The Republicans and the Democrats agreed on it, and then the Republican leadership blew it up. That's all I can tell you.