Remarks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus reception

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 3, 1994

September 27, 1994

Thank you, Congressman Serrano, and to all my colleagues up here on the stage, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and to Secretary Babbitt, Secretary and Mrs. Cisneros, Secretary and Mrs. Pena. I know the Attorney General is coming. I haven't seen her here, but I think she's here somewhere. And I thank her and all of them for serving our Cabinet and our country so well. To Rita Elisando, and all the others who work at the Institute, and to all of you, first, let me thank you for receiving me so well, and thank you for letting me come early and leave early. You know I have a date with President Yeltsin tonight. [Laughter] And I don't want to stiff him, so I'm going to have to leave here in just a moment. I do want to--I wish I could take the mariachis back with me to entertain him. [Laughter]

I want to say a special word of thanks to a couple of people here: First, to Congressman Ron de Lugo who's retiring after two decades representing the Virgin Islands. We will miss him very much. And thanks--next I would like to say a special word of thanks to the chief deputy whip, Congressman Bill Richardson, for his wonderful efforts in Haiti, to help us make peace and restore democracy in Haiti.

Congressman Serrano went over some of the accomplishments of this administration, but I want to do it again to ask you to do something for all of these Members who are up here, because they have worked very hard--very, very hard--to make this country work again. And our biggest problem--the thing you laughed about there, about not getting credit--I don't really care who gets the credit, as long as the country is going forward. But when the congressional elections come up, the people who are getting credit for moving the country forward need to be rewarded, so the voters don't wind up inadvertently voting for the very things they are against.

And that's what I want you to think about. If someone had told you 20 months ago that in 20 months we would see the biggest deficit reduction passed in history; the biggest spending cuts in history; scores of Government programs eliminated outright; the smallest Federal bureaucracy since Kennedy was President; 3 years of deficit reduction in a row for the first time since Truman was President; and still more money being spent to put 200,000 more kids in Head Start, to immunize all the children in America under the age of 2 by 1996; for education and training for people who are unemployed, for young people who want to go into good jobs when they get out of high school, but don't want to go on to college--you need apprenticeships; that we would reform the student loan program and make 20 million Americans eligible for student loans at lower interest rates, lower fees, and longer repayment terms; and that these things would produce 4.3 million new jobs, a 1.5 percent decline in the Hispanic unemployment rate, you'd say that was pretty good, wouldn't you?

We are moving this country in the right direction. The guys that voted against us said if we did this, it would wreck the economy. They were wrong; we were right; the American people should know it. It's important, and you need to make a commitment not simply to support these folks here with the Institute and with your presence at this dinner but with your voice and your heart and your spirit and getting people out to vote between now and November the 8th. They were wrong; we were right. They should be rewarded because we are moving this country in the right direction.

Since NAFTA was ratified, we have increased exports to Mexico by 19 percent, 3 times as much as our exports are going up elsewhere. Automobile and truck exports are up 600 percent. We've got folks in those auto factories working overtime for the first time in more than 10 years. And I might say, that's why I hope we can pass the GATT agreement before we leave, because that will bring another 300,000 to 500,000 jobs into this economy.

We had 8 months in a row this year where manufacturing employment increased for the first time in 10 years. And for the first time in 9 years, the annual vote of the panel of international economists, the United States was voted the most productive economy in the entire world. We're moving in the right direction. They need to be rewarded for it, these people in Congress who have made it possible.

Because of the Hispanic Caucus, we're closer to reenacting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to help give educationally disadvantaged children a better chance. Congressman Becerra worked especially hard on that.

In addition to passing, in this economic plan, a tax cut for 15 million working families with children, who are working and hovering just above the poverty line who are disproportionally Hispanic, I might add--we cut their taxes. We raised tax rates on the top 1.2 percent of Americans, cut taxes for 15 million working families so they wouldn't fall into poverty while they were working, so they could succeed as parents and workers, so they wouldn't choose welfare over work. We did it; they all voted against it. You ought to reward the people who did it and not the reverse.