Remarks at a town meeting in San Diego - Pres Bill Clinton's speech, May 17, 1993 - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 24, 1993

May 17, 1993

Moderator. Mr. President, these are the people of San Diego. We've got a lot of people out there watching right now that want to hear what you're talking about, and we have a lot of folks here in the studios who want to ask you questions directly.

The President. May I say one word before we start? First I want to thank all of you for being here and to say I think this is probably the second town meeting I've done like this since I have been President, but I want to start scheduling them on a more regular basis now. I'd like just to take a couple of minutes by way of opening statements.

Since I became your President, I have spent most of my time working on two things, the economy and the health care issue. We have worked very hard to present a budget to the Congress and the American people that would do two things, that would decrease the Government's deficit, which is very large as all of you know, and that would provide some targeted money for increases in areas that are very much needed here in southern California, in education and training and new technology, primarily. We also have developed a new policy on defense conversion to try to help provide jobs in areas hit by defense cutbacks, on making the most of our technology in America, and trying to get more jobs from technology. I presented a bill to the Congress, as I pledged in the campaign, to provide for a national service program to open the doors of college education to all Americans. And we will soon present our health care plan to control the cost of health care and provide basic health care to all Americans.

That has been the basic agenda. There are lots of controversies in all these things, and I know you'll ask the questions, but I hope we'll get a chance to talk about what's in the budget and how I proposed a deficit trust fund so that we can't raise any taxes unless we also cut spending. I think that's very important. But I want to answer your questions and spend most of the time talking about what you want to talk about. I just wanted you to know what I've been doing for the last 4 months.

Middle Class Tax Cut

Q. First, President Clinton, let me thank you for giving the opportunity for common folks like us to ask the President of the United States a question in person. It's an honor and a privilege, thank you.

President Clinton, I believe that you were elected largely on the basis of your promise of a middle class tax cut. But for the last 90 days or so, we've seen both you and the Congress transforming that promised middle class tax cut into an unprecedented round of more taxes and new spending. Our country has been in a deepening recession for the last 3 years. There's no end in sight, and a malaise is beginning to set in our country, like the Carter era. Please understand, Mr. President, San Diegans just don't have any more money to contribute to the coffers of Government. My question is, can you name one country that has ever taxed and spent itself back into prosperity? Thank you.

The President. The answer to your question is, I can't. But you can't fairly characterize my program as that. I have cut more spending than my predecessor did. My budget calls for $250 billion-plus in spending cuts net. The first thing I did was cut the White House staff by 25 percent, even though I've already received more mail in 3 1/2 months than came to the White House in all of 1992. If any of you have written, and I haven't answered, that's why. |Laughter~ I cut the administrative expenses of the Federal Government 14 percent across-the-board. I froze Federal employee pay in the first year and cut back their raises for 4 years. There have been massive spending cuts in this budget. So that's just a big myth that there hasn't been. I also worked hard to pass a budget resolution that would make it clear that we couldn't raise any taxes unless we cut spending.

Now, let me address the middle class tax cut specifically. Number one, after the election, after the election, the previous administration announced that the Government deficit was going to be $50 billion a year bigger in 3 of the next 4 years, a year, after the election. Therefore, I concluded that I could not in good conscience give anybody an across-the-board tax cut in the first year of my Presidency. I still think there should be an evening-up of the tax burden.

Secondly, it became clear to me that the best thing I could do for the middle class was to bring interest rates down and to try to get control of our budget. So I proposed a plan of budget cuts first and tax increases that are highly progressive. And let me just mention a couple of things that you may not know, having heard the press about the tax program I presented to the Congress. While it does raise about $250 billion over a 5-year period, it also provides significant relief to small business. Expensing provisions in the Tax Code, for example, are raised from $10,000 to $25,000 a year. That will lower a lot of people's tax bills. For people with incomes under $30,000, we increased the earned-income tax credit so much that they will not be affected by this tax increase in any way. And over 70 percent of the money that will be raised in this program will come from people with incomes net above $100,000.