Remarks to the community in Billings

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, June 5, 1995

We all know that we have to slow the rate of growth of the Government's medical programs, Medicare and Medicaid. They've been growing at about 9, 10 percent a year when inflation's about 3 percent a year, and health care inflation, generally, was 4.5 percent last year. We know we've got to slow the rate of growth of that. But we don't want to do it in a way that closes a bunch of rural hospitals that are the only access to health care people in places like rural Arkansas and rural Montana have.

Does that mean we can walk away from the problem? No, it just means we need to have our head on straight when we're dealing with it. We need to do what's practical and understand how it will work.

We all know that the Government can overreach in its regulatory authority. Does that mean there should be no national standards on clean water or clean air or safe drinking water, after what happened to those poor folks in Milwaukee? I don't think so. So we've got to find a way to make the bureaucracy more flexible.

The Environmental Protection Agency, under our administration, is going to cut paperwork burdens by 25 percent in one year next year. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is going to dramatically slash regulations on businesses that will work with them to be in compliance with safety rules. The Small Business Administration has cut their budget and increased their loan volume by 40 percent. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. And the only way we can do it in the right way is if we stop looking for simple answers to complicated problems and talk common sense to one another, if we stop treating each other like enemies and start treating each other like we're all friends, we're all Americans, we're all part of a big American family.

I believe that if we'll keep our eye on the prize - what is the prize? We have to increase the incomes and the security of the American people. We have to protect what is good about our country and what works and change what doesn't and get ourselves into the next century with the American dream alive and well for our children. I'll just give you one last example: You look at this farm bill. Most Democrats and Republicans in the Congress are from urban or suburban areas. Most of them want to do the right thing. Most of them think we spend too much money on farm programs. Well, the farmers in the audience know we have already substantially cut farm subsidies in the last 5 or 6 years, substantially.

I've fought like crazy to get the Europeans to make a deal on agriculture so we could cut agricultural subsidies some more. I don't know a farmer in my home State that wouldn't give up every lick of Government support if every other country would give up all theirs and we just had a fair chance to compete in a global marketplace.

So, do we need to deal with this agricultural issue? Yes, we do. But if you just blow off all these supports and everybody else keeps doing it, what's going to happen? One of two things: We either lose markets, or we'll lose all the family farmers, and big corporations will be running all the farms in the country, or a little bit of both.