Remarks in an interview with the New York and New Jersey press - Bill Clinton speech - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, July 26, 1993

July 22, 1993

The President. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President.

I'm sorry we are a little bit late. We had an unavoidable problem come up in the office a few minutes ago that we had to deal with. But I do want to echo a couple of things the Vice President said and make one or two specific points.

On Tuesday, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, appeared before the House Banking Committee. And in his testimony he said the most important thing we could do would be to urgently pass this plan for deficit reduction because there's no question that it is the primary thing driving down long-term interest rates and that the economy could absorb $500 billion in deficit reduction. And that plus trying to do something about the ever-increasing costs of health care to the Government budget and to the American people generally were two things which could give us a very vibrant economy. And I think he used the phrase, something like we could have more prosperity than we'd had in decades.

But I just want to emphasize that when you get outside of the political arena and you analyze this thing, there are Republicans as well as Democrats; there are small-, medium-, and large-sized businesses. Yesterday I had lunch with a significant number of small business people from around America, because most of the vocal support we have gotten for the economic ,plan had come from bigger businesses. And they were supporting the plan because of the capital gains incentives for investment in new businesses, enterprises that are capitalized at $50 million a year or less. They were supporting it because of the emphasis on research and development. They were supporting it because, frankly, over 90 percent of the small businesses in the country are in a position to get a tax cut under this bill with the expensing provisions, which says that if you invest more you pay less tax. They pay no income tax increase, and they can reduce their tax burden if they invest more. Now, you never get any of that in the rhetoric of our opponent, but that is the fact.

Let me make one other point. There's a lot of talk about spending cuts and people saying, well, there ought to be more spending cuts. Well, there are 200 specific spending cuts in this program, over 100 of them in excess of $100 million apiece. And when the Senate Finance Committee took up this economic plan and dealt with the spending cuts that were on the table, the Republicans on the committee did not offer one single spending cut in addition to the ones that we had put on the table. Not one, not one red cent. So it is very easy to talk in general terms about cutting spending and capping this and "We'll figure out something later," and quite another thing to say, "This is where we're going to cut the spending." And that's what we have done. And therefore, I think we put together a good and balanced plan.

I'm encouraged by the progress of the conference so far. There are still some difficult issues ahead and a lot of vote-getting to do, but the main thing is we have to resolve the uncertainty, keep the interest rates down, bring the deficit down, and get this economy moving again.

And that's why we're doing a whole series of these, and I'm glad to have so many of you from New York and New Jersey here. And if you have questions, I'll try to answer them.

Economic Program

Q. This scenario, as we heard today, to paint the picture of not passing this and economic catastrophe, is that your strategy for the next couple of critical days or critical weeks?

The President. No, I think we are going to pass it. But I think that if you look - there was an article in either the Times or the Wall Street Journal today, I can't remember which, which said there was a little bump up in the long-term interest rates yesterday because the bond markets, the people who set these interest rates were afraid that maybe the Congress wasn't serious. I think they are serious. I think they will pass it. There is not a serious alternative. And there is no question that the failure to pass the budget would be a destabilizing effect on the economy. It would lead to an increase in long-term interest rates, there's no question about that. But I'm not trying to talk in terms of Armageddon. I want the Congress to do something that will move the country forward, that'll get energy back in.

I feel, frankly, quite good about what's happening. These are tough decisions. You know, the easy decisions had all been made by the time we got here. Anybody can write you a check and run the deficit up. It's quite another thing to have a disciplined plan to cut spending, increase revenues in a very fair way, and have a very targeted increase in investments in areas that will generate jobs. That's a much tougher thing to do.

Q. At our briefings today we were led to believe that you are moving towards the Senate version of this plan. Is that accurate?

The President. No, not quite. I think what is fair to say is, I think that any energy tax that comes out will be closer to the Senate version, not only in form but in dollars. It will be closer to the Senate version. But the House version has a lot of very important economic initiatives in it and one very important prowork, profamily provision that I believe should be in the final bill. And if I might, I'd like to just mention them very quickly, the things in the House bill which I believe should be either in the final bill, or the final bill should be more like the House bill than the Senate bill.