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"A New Covenant for Economic Change"
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Governor Bill Clinton
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Georgetown University
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November 20, 1991
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:
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Thank you for being here today. A better future for your
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generation -- a better life for all who
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will work for it -- is what this campaign is about.
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But I come here today convinced that your future -- the very
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future of our country -- the
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American Dream -- is in peril. This country is in trouble. As
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I've travelled around this country, I've
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seen too much pain on people's faces, too much fear in people's
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eyes. We've got to do better.
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This month, I visited with a couple from New Hampshire named
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David and Rita Springs. He's
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a chemical engineer by training; she's studying to be a lab
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technician. They told me that a month before
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his pension was vested, the people who ran his company fired him to
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cut their payrolls. Then they
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turned around and sold the company, and bailed out with a golden
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parachute while David Springs and
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his family got the shaft.
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Last week, at a bowling alley in Manchester, I met a fireman
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who was working two jobs and his
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wife who was working 50 hours a week in a mill. They told me they
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were worried that even though
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both of them were working like this and their son was a straight A
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student, they still wouldn't be able to
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afford to send him to college because of the rising cost of college
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education and because they were too
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well-off to get government help.
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At a breakfast in a cafe in New Hampshire, I met a young man
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whose 12-year-old child had had
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open-heart surgery, and now no one will hire him because they can't
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afford his health insurance.
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The families I met are from New Hampshire, but they could be
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from anywhere in America.
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They're the backbone of the country, the ones who do the work and
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pay the taxes and send their children
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off to war. They're a lot like people I've seen in Arkansas for
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years, living with the real consequences
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of our national neglect. These are the real victims of the Reagan
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Revolution, the Bush Succession, and
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this awful national recession.
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During this administration, the economy has grown more slowly
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and fewer jobs have been
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created than in any administration since World War II. People who
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have jobs are working longer hours
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for less money; people who don't are looking harder to find less.
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Middle-class people are paying more
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for health care, housing, education, and taxes, when government
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services have been cut.
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And as these hard-working middle-class families look to their
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President to make good on his
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promises, his answer to them is: Tough luck. It's your fault. Go
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buy a house or a car.
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Just this week, George Bush said we don't need a plan to end
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this recession -- that if we wait
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long enough, our problems will go away. Well, he's right about
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that part: If he doesn't have a plan to
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turn this country around by November of 1992, we're going to lay
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George Bush off, put America back
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to work, and our problems will go away.
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We need a President who will take responsibility for getting
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this country moving again. A
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President who will provide the leadership to pull us together and
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challenge our nation to compete in the
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world and win again.
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Ten years ago, America had the highest wages in the world.
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Now we're 10th, and falling. Last
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year, Germany and Japan had productivity growth rates three and
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four times ours because they educate
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their people better, invest more in their future, and organize
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their economies for global competition and
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we don't.
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For 12 years of this Reagan-Bush era, the Republicans have let
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S&L crooks and self-serving
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CEOs try to build an economy out of paper and perks instead of
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people and products. It's the
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Republican way: every man for himself and get it while you can.
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They stacked the odds in favor of
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their friends at the top, and told everybody else to wait for
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whatever trickled down.
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And every step of the way, the Republicans forgot about the
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very people they had promised to
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help -- the very people who elected them in the first place -- the
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forgotten middle class Americans who
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still live by American values and whose hopes, hearts, and hands
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still carry the American Dream.
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But Democrats forgot about real people, too.
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Democrats in Congress joined the White House in tripling the
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national debt and raising the
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deficit to the point of paralysis. Democrats and Republicans in
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Congress joined the White House on the
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sidelines, cheering on an S&L boom until it went bust to the tune
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of $500 billion.
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For too many Americans, for too long, it's seemed that
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Congress and the White House have
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been more interested in looking out for themselves and for their
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friends, but not for the country and not
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for the people who make it great.
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And, now, after 12 years of Reagan-Bush, the forgotten middle
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class is discovering that the
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reward for 12 years of sacrifice and hard work is more sacrifice
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and more hard times: They've paid
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higher taxes on lower incomes for service cuts, while the rich got
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tax cuts, while poverty increased, and
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the President and Congress got pay raises and health insurance.
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We've got to move in a radically different direction. The
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Republicans' failed experiment in
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supply-side economics doesn't produce growth. It doesn't create
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upward mobility. And most important,
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it doesn't prepare millions and millions of Americans to compete
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and win in the new world economy.
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And we've got to move away from the old Democratic theory that
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says we can just tax and
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spend our way out of any problem we face. Expanding government
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doesn't expand opportunity. And
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big deficits don't produce sustained economic growth, especially
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when the borrowed money is spent on
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yesterday's mistakes, not tomorrow's investments.
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Stale theories produce nothing but stalemate. The old
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economic answers are obsolete. We've
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seen the limits of Keynesian economics. We've seen the worst of
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supply-side economics. We need a
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new approach.
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For 12 years, we've had no economic vision, no economic
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leadership, no national economic
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strategy. What America needs is a President with a radical new
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approach to our economic problems that
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will give new life to the American Dream.
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We need a New Covenant for economic change, a new economics
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that empowers people,
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rewards work, and organizes America to compete and win again. A
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national economic strategy to
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liberate and energize the abilities of millions of Americans who
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are paying more taxes when the
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government is doing less for them, who are working harder while
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their wages go down.
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This New Covenant isn't liberal or conservative. It's both
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and it's different. The American
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people don't care about the idle rhetoric of left and right.
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They're real people, with real problems, and
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they think no one in Washington wants to solve their problems or
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stand up for them.
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The goals of our New Covenant for economic change are
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straightforward:
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o We need a President who will put economic opportunity in the
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hands of ordinary people, not
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rich and powerful special interests;
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o A President who will revolutionize government to invest more
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in the future;
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o A President who will encourage the private sector to
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organize in new ways and cooperate to
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produce economic growth;
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o A President who will challenge and lead America to compete
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and win in the global economy,
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not retreat from the world;
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That's how we'll turn this country's economy around, recapture
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America's leadership in the
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world, and build a better future for our children. That's how
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we'll show the forgotten middle class we
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really understand their struggle. That's how we'll reduce poverty
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and rebuild the ladder from poverty to
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the middle class. And that, my friends, is why I'm running for
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President of the United States.
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Our first responsibility under this New Covenant is to move
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quickly to put this recession behind
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us. Last week, I released a plan for what I would do right away to
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help working people and get the
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economy moving again. I'd not only extend unemployment benefits,
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as Congress and the President have
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finally done, but I'd push through a middle-class tax cut, an
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accelerated highway bill to create 40-45,000
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new construction jobs over the next six months, and an increase in
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the ceiling on FHA mortgage
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guarantee so half a million families could pump up the economy by
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buying their first home. I do think
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good credit card customers should receive a break from the 18 and
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19 percent rates of banks, which
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have cut the rates the customers get paid on their deposit
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accounts. And I'm proud to say that four of
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the ten banks charging the lowest credit card rates nationwide are
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in my state.
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I would also make sure federal regulators send a clear signal
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to the financial community not to
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call in loans that are performing, and not to fear making good
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loans to local businesses.
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But even if we did all those things tomorrow, it wouldn't
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change the fundamental challenge of
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the 1990s. We need to get out of this recession, and soon. But we
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also need a long-term national
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strategy to create a high-wage, high-growth, high-opportunity
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economy, not a hard-work, low-wage
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economy that's sinking when it ought to be rising.
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It doesn't have to be that way. I believe we can win again.
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In the global economy of the 1990s,
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economic growth won't come from government spending. It will come
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instead from individuals working
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smarter and learning more, from entrepreneurs taking more risks and
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going after new markets, and from
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corporations designing better products and taking a longer view.
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We're going to reward work, expand
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opportunity, empower people, and we are going to win again.
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EMPOWERING EVERY AMERICAN
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There are two reasons why middle-class people today are
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working harder for less pay. First,
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their taxes have gone up -- but that's only 30% of their problem.
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The other 70% of the problem is
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America's loss of economic growth and world economic leadership.
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If we're going to turn this country around, we've not only got
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to liberate ordinary people from
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unfair taxes, we've got to empower every American with the
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education and training essential to get
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ahead.
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Let me make this clear: Education is economic development.
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We can only be a high-wage,
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high-growth country if we are a high-skills country. In a world in
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which money and production are
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mobile, the only way middle-class people can keep good jobs with
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growing incomes is to be lifetime
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learners and innovators. Without world-class skills, the middle
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class will surely continue to decline.
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With them, middle-class workers will generate more high-wage jobs
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in America in the '90s.
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Empowering everybody begins with preschool for every child who
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needs it, and fully funding
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Head Start. It includes a national examination system to push our
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students to meet world-class standards
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in core subjects like math and science, and an annual report card
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for every state, every school district,
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and every school to measure our progress in meeting those
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standards.
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Empowerment means training young people for high-wage jobs,
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not dead-end ones. Young
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Americans with only a high school education make 25 percent less
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today than they would have 15 years
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ago. In a Clinton Administration we'll have a national
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apprenticeship program that will enable high
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school students who aren't bound for college to enter a course of
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study, designed by schools and local
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businesses, to teach them valuable skills, with a promise of a real
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job with growing incomes when they
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graduate.
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Empowerment means challenging our students and every American
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with a system of voluntary
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national service. In a Clinton Administration we will offer a
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domestic GI Bill that will say to middle
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class as well as low income people: We want you to go to college
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and we're glad to pay for it, but
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you've got to give something back to your country in return. As
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President, I'll ask Congress to establish
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a trust fund out of which any American can borrow money for a
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college education, so long as they pay it
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back either as a small percentage of their income over time or with
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a couple of years of national service
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as teachers, police officers, child care workers -- doing work our
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country urgently needs. The fund
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would be financed with a portion of the peace dividend and by
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redirecting the present student loan
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program, which is nowhere near as cost-effective as it should be.
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This program will pay for itself many
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times over.
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But in an era when what you can earn depends largely on what
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you can learn, education can't
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stop at the schoolhouse door. From now on, anyone who's willing to
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work will have a chance to learn.
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In a Clinton Administration, we'll make adult literacy programs
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available to all who need it, by working
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with states to make sure every state has a clear, achievable plan
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to teach everyone with a job to read, to
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give them a chance to earn a GED, and wherever possible, to do it
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where they work. In Arkansas we
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had 14,000 people in adult education programs in 1983. Today we
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have over 50,000. By 1993, we'll
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have over 70,000. Every state can do the same for a modest cost
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with a disciplined plan and a flexible
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delivery system.
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And we will ensure that every working American has the
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opportunity to learn new skills every
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year. Today, American business spends billions of dollars on
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training -- the equivalent of 1.5 percent of
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the costs of their payrolls -- but 70 percent of it goes to the 10
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percent at the top of the ladder. In a
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Clinton Administration, we'll require employers to offer every
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worker his or her share of those training
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dollars, or contribute the equivalent to a national training fund.
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Workers will get the training they need,
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and companies will learn that the more you train your workers, the
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more your profits increase.
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We need special efforts to empower the poor to work their way
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out of poverty. We'll make
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work pay by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working
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poor, and by supporting private
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and public partnerships to give low-income entrepreneurs the tools
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to start new businesses, through
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innovative institutions like Shore Bank in Chicago and its rural
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counterpart, the Southern Development
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Bancorporation in Arkansas. We've got to break the cycle of
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dependency and put an end to permanent
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dependence on welfare as a way of life, by really investing in the
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development of poor people and giving
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them the means, the incentives, and the requirement to go to work.
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Finally, empowering working Americans means letting them keep
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more of what they earn.
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Ronald Reagan and George Bush raised taxes on the middle class. I'm
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going to cut them. In a Clinton
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Administration, we'll cut income tax rates on the middle class: an
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average family's tax bill will go
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down 10 percent, a savings of $350 a year. And the deficit won't
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go up -- instead, those earning over
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$200,000 a year will pay more, though still a smaller percentage of
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their incomes than they paid in the
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'70s, not to soak the rich but to return to basic fairness.
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A REVOLUTION IN GOVERNMENT
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Besides empowering citizens, we must lead a revolution in
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government so it becomes an engine
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of opportunity again, not an obstacle to it. Voters who went to
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the polls in this month's elections sent us
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a clear message: People want more for their money. The experts in
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Washington think that is a
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contradiction. But I think the experts are wrong and the people are
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right. People want a better deal from
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government, and they'll get it in a Clinton Administration.
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Too many Washington insiders of both parties think the only
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way to provide more services is to
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spend more on programs already on the books in education, housing,
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and health care. But if we reinvent
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government to deliver new services in different ways, eliminate
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unnecessary layers of management, and
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offer people more choices, we really can give taxpayers more
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services with fewer bureaucrats for the
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same or less money.
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Every successful major corporation in America had to
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restructure itself to compete in the last
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decade, to decentralize, become more entrepreneurial, give workers
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more authority to make decisions,
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and offer customers more choices and better products.
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That's what we're trying to do in Arkansas -- balancing the
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budget every year, improving
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services, and treating taxpayers like our customers and our bosses,
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because they are. Arkansas was the
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first state to initiate a statewide total quality management
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program. We've dramatically reduced the
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number of reports the Department of Education requires of school
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districts, slashed bureaucratic costs in
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the Department of Human Services and put the money into direct
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services that help real people, and
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speeded up customer services in the Revenue Department. We measure
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the job placement rate of
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graduates from vocational-technical programs, and if a program
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can't show results, we shut it down.
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So I know it can be done. But let us be clear: Serious
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restructuring of government for greater
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productivity is very different from the traditional top-down
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reorganization plans that have been offered
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over the last 20 years, including in this campaign. Those require
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a lot of time and energy and generally
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leave us with more of the same government, not less.
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What I am proposing is hard, unglamorous work. It will
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require us to reexamine every dollar of
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the taxpayers' money we spend and every minute of time that the
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government puts in on business. It
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will require us to enlist the energies of front-line public
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servants who are often as frustrated as the rest
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of us with bureaucracy. And if we do it in Arkansas, which has
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among the lowest taxes in the country,
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imagine how much more important and productive it will be at the
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federal level. In a Clinton
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Administration, we'll make government more effective by holding
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ourselves to the same standard of
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productivity growth as business and insisting on 3%
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across-the-board cuts in the administrative costs of
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the federal bureaucracy every year.
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If we're going to get more for our money, we ought to have a
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federal budget which invests more
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in the future and spends less on the present and the past. As
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President, I'll throw out last year's budget
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deal, which brought us the biggest deficits in American history and
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the fastest-growing spending since
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World War II. In its place, I'll establish a new three-part
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federal budget: a past budget for interest
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payments; a present budget for spending on current consumption, and
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a future budget for investments in
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things that will make us richer.
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Today the federal government spends only 9% of the budget on
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investing in the future -- in
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education, child health, environmental technology, infrastructure,
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and basic research. We'll double that
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in a Clinton Administration. We'll begin to finance the future
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budget by converting resources no longer
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needed for national defense to the investments needed to rebuild
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our economic security, and by
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controlling health care costs.
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We can bring the deficit down over time, but only if we
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control spending on current
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consumption programs by tying overall increases to real revenue
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increases, not estimates. I propose to
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limit overall increases in the consumption budget to increases in
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personal income, so that the federal
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budget can't go up any faster than the average American's paycheck.
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Making Congress and the
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President live by this rule will cut the deficit drastically in
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five years, in a dramatic budget reform.
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Finally, if we're serious about reinventing government, we
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must reinvent the way we deliver
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health care in this country. We spend 30% more than any other
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country on health care and do less with
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it. For many Americans, the rising cost of health care and the
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loss of it is the number one fear they face
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on a daily basis. Thousands of American businesses are losing jobs
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because health care costs are a 30%
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handicap in the global marketplace. Two-thirds of the strikes
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today are about health care, and no matter
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how they come out, both sides lose. We are the only nation in the
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world that doesn't help control health
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care costs.
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We could cover every American with the money we're spending if
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we had the courage to
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demand insurance reform and slash health care bureaucracies, and if
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we followed the lead of other
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nations in controlling the unnecessary spread of technology,
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stopping drug prices from going up three
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times the rate of inflation, and forcing the people who send bills
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and the people who pay them to agree
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on how much health care should cost. We don't need to reduce
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quality; we need to restructure the
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system. And no nation has ever done it without a national
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government that took the lead in controlling
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costs and providing health care for all.
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In the first year of the Clinton Administration, Congress and
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I will deliver quality, affordable
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health care for all Americans.
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A REVOLUTION IN THE WORKPLACE
|
||
|
||
These changes are vital, but American workers and American
|
||
businesses are going to have to
|
||
change too, the private sector is where the jobs are created. Many
|
||
of the most urgent changes cannot be
|
||
legally mandated, but we know they're overdue after a decade in
|
||
which the stock market tripled and
|
||
average wages went down.
|
||
|
||
Old economic arrangements are holding America back. It's time
|
||
for a revolution in the
|
||
American workplace that will radically raise the status of the
|
||
American worker and tear down the Berlin
|
||
Wall between labor and management.
|
||
|
||
It's been years since the U.S. could outproduce the rest of
|
||
the world by treating workers like so
|
||
many cogs in a machine. We need a whole new organization of work,
|
||
where workers at the front lines
|
||
make decisions, not just follow orders, and entire levels of
|
||
bureaucratic middle management become
|
||
obsolete. And we need a new style of management, where front-line
|
||
workers and managers have more
|
||
responsibility to make decisions that improve quality and increase
|
||
productivity.
|
||
|
||
Dynamic, flexible, well-trained workers who cooperate with
|
||
savvy, sensitive managers to make
|
||
changes every day are the keys to high growth in manufacturing and
|
||
in the service sector, including
|
||
government, education, and health care, areas where productivity
|
||
growth was very weak in the 1980s.
|
||
|
||
Everyone will have to change, but everyone will get something
|
||
in return. Workers will gain
|
||
new prosperity and independence, but they'll have to give up
|
||
non-productive work rules and rigid job
|
||
classifications and be more open to change. Managers will reap
|
||
more profits but will have to manage
|
||
for the long-run, train all workers, and not treat themselves
|
||
better than their workers are treated.
|
||
Corporations will reach new heights in productivity, growth and
|
||
profitability, but CEOs will have to put
|
||
the long-term interests of their workers, their customers, and
|
||
their companies first.
|
||
|
||
We should restore the link between pay and performance by
|
||
encouraging companies to provide
|
||
for employee ownership, profit-sharing for all employees, not just
|
||
executives. And executives should
|
||
profit when their companies do. We should all go up or down
|
||
together. We'll say to America's
|
||
corporate leaders: No more taking bonuses for yourselves if you
|
||
don't give bonuses to everybody. And
|
||
no more golden parachutes if you don't make good severance packages
|
||
available for your workers.
|
||
|
||
It's wrong for executives to do what so many did in the '80s.
|
||
Executives at the biggest
|
||
companies raised their pay by four times the percentage their
|
||
workers' pay went up and three times the
|
||
percentage their profits went up. It's wrong to drive a company
|
||
into the ground and have the boss bail
|
||
out with a golden parachute to a cushy life.
|
||
|
||
The average CEO at a major American corporation is paid 85
|
||
times as much as the average
|
||
worker. And our government today rewards that excess with a tax
|
||
break for executive pay, no matter
|
||
how high it is, or whether it reflects increased performance. If
|
||
a company wants to overpay its
|
||
executives to perform less well, and underinvest in the future, it
|
||
shouldn't get any special treatment from
|
||
Uncle Sam.
|
||
|
||
If a company wants to transfer jobs abroad and cut the
|
||
security of working people, it shouldn't
|
||
get special treatment from the Treasury. In the 1980s, we didn't
|
||
do enough to help our companies to
|
||
compete and win in a global economy. We did too much to transfer
|
||
wealth away from hard-working
|
||
middle-class people to the rich without good reason and too much to
|
||
weaken our country with debt that
|
||
wasn't invested in America. That's got to stop. There should be
|
||
no more deductibility for
|
||
irresponsibility.
|
||
|
||
I believe in business. I believe in the marketplace. I
|
||
believe that the best jobs program this
|
||
country will ever have is economic growth. Most new jobs in this
|
||
country are created by small
|
||
businesses and entrepreneurs who get little help from the
|
||
government.
|
||
|
||
Too often, especially in this environment, banks and other
|
||
investors won't take a chance on good
|
||
ideas and good people. I want to encourage small business people
|
||
and entrepreneurs. In a Clinton
|
||
Administration, we'll offer a tax incentive to those who take risks
|
||
by starting new businesses and
|
||
developing new technologies. Instead of offering a capital gains
|
||
tax cut for the wealthy who will churn
|
||
stocks on Wall Street anyway, we'll put forth a new enterprise tax
|
||
cut that rewards those with the
|
||
patience, the courage, and the determination to create new jobs.
|
||
Those who risk their savings on new
|
||
businesses that create most of the jobs in the country will receive
|
||
a 50% tax exclusion for gains held
|
||
more than five years.
|
||
|
||
And I want to encourage investment here in America in other
|
||
ways -- by making the R&D tax
|
||
credit permanent, by taking away incentives for companies to shut
|
||
down their plants in the U.S. and
|
||
move their jobs overseas, and by offering a targeted investment tax
|
||
credit to medium and small-size
|
||
businesses who'll create new jobs with new plant and equipment.
|
||
|
||
|
||
A NEW STRATEGY TO COMPETE AND WIN
|
||
|
||
Finally, we owe American workers, entrepreneurs, and industry
|
||
a pledge that all their hard work
|
||
will not go down the drain.
|
||
|
||
We must have a national strategy to compete and win in the
|
||
global economy. The American
|
||
people aren't protectionists. Protectionism is just a fancy word
|
||
for giving up; we want to compete and
|
||
win. That is why our New Covenant must include a new trade policy
|
||
that says to Europe, Japan and our
|
||
other trading partners: we favor an open trading system, but if
|
||
you won't play by those rules, we'll play
|
||
by yours. That's why we need a stronger, sharper "Super 301" bill
|
||
as the means to enforce that policy.
|
||
|
||
I supported fast track negotiations with Mexico for a free
|
||
trade agreement, but our negotiators
|
||
need to insist upon tough conditions that prevent our trading
|
||
partners from exploiting their workers or by
|
||
lowering costs through pollution to gain an advantage. We should
|
||
seek out similar agreements with all
|
||
of Latin America, because rich countries will get richer by helping
|
||
other countries grow into strong
|
||
trading partners.
|
||
|
||
We also need a new energy policy to lower the trade deficit,
|
||
increase productivity, and improve
|
||
the environment. We must rely less on imported oil, and more on
|
||
cheap and abundant natural gas, and
|
||
on research and development into renewable energy resources. We
|
||
must achieve European standards of
|
||
energy efficiency in factories and office buildings. That will
|
||
free up billions of dollars to invest in the
|
||
American economy.
|
||
|
||
If we want to help U.S. companies keep pace in the world
|
||
economy, we need to restore America
|
||
to the forefront not just in inventing products, but in bringing
|
||
them to market. Too often, we have won
|
||
the battle of the patents but lost the war of creating jobs,
|
||
profits, and wealth. American scientists
|
||
invented the microwave, the VCR, the color TV, and the memory chip,
|
||
and yet today the Koreans, the
|
||
Japanese, and other nations make most of those products.
|
||
|
||
The research and development arm of the Defense Department did
|
||
a great job of developing
|
||
products and taking them to production because we didn't want them
|
||
produced overseas. We should
|
||
launch the civilian equivalent -- an agency to provide basic
|
||
research for new and critical technologies and
|
||
make it easier to move these ideas into the marketplace. And we
|
||
can pledge right now that for every
|
||
dollar we reduce the defense budget on research and development,
|
||
we'll increase the civilian R&D
|
||
budget by the same amount. We should commit ourselves to a
|
||
transitional plan for converting from a
|
||
defense to a domestic economy in a way that creates more high-wage
|
||
jobs, and doesn't destroy our most
|
||
successful high-wage industrial base, and with it the careers of
|
||
many thousands of our best scientists,
|
||
engineers, and workers.
|
||
|
||
We must do all these things, and something more. The economic
|
||
challenges we confront today
|
||
are not just a matter of statistics and numbers. Behind them are
|
||
real human beings and real human
|
||
suffering. I have seen the pain in the faces of unemployed workers
|
||
in New Hampshire, policemen in
|
||
New York and Texas, computer company executives in California,
|
||
middle-class people everywhere.
|
||
They're all showing the same pain and worry I hear in the voices of
|
||
my own people in Arkansas,
|
||
including men and women I grew up with who played by the rules and
|
||
now see their dreams for the
|
||
future slipping away.
|
||
|
||
That's why we're offering a new radical approach to economics.
|
||
Economics as if people were
|
||
really important. If we offer these hard-working families no hope
|
||
for the future, no solutions to their
|
||
problems, no relief for their pain, then fear and insecurity will
|
||
grow, and the politics of hate and
|
||
division will spread. If we do not act to bring this country
|
||
together in common cause to build a better
|
||
future, David Duke and his kind will be able to divide and destroy
|
||
our nation. Our streets will get
|
||
meaner, our families will be devastated, and our very social fabric
|
||
-- our goodness and tolerance and
|
||
decency as a people -- will be torn apart.
|
||
|
||
The politics of division which the Republicans have parlayed
|
||
into the Presidency will turn on
|
||
even them. George Bush has forgotten the warning of our greatest
|
||
Republican President, Abraham
|
||
Lincoln: A house divided cannot stand. Lincoln gave his life for
|
||
the American community. The
|
||
Republicans have squandered his legacy.
|
||
|
||
I want to be a President who will unite this country. This
|
||
morning, here at Georgetown, the
|
||
Robert Kennedy Human Rights Awards ceremony was held. Twenty-five
|
||
years ago, when I was
|
||
President of my class here, Robert Kennedy accepted our invitation
|
||
to come to Georgetown to give a
|
||
speech. In that same year, he gave a very different description of
|
||
what American politics should be all
|
||
about. And I would like to read that to you today, and ask you how
|
||
long it's been since you heard an
|
||
American President say and believe these things:
|
||
|
||
Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve
|
||
the lot of others or
|
||
strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of
|
||
hope, and crossing each other
|
||
from a million different centers of energy and daring, those
|
||
ripples build a current that
|
||
can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and
|
||
resistance.
|
||
|
||
That is the spirit I seek to bring to the Presidency. The
|
||
spirit of renewal of America. I believe
|
||
with all my heart that the very future of our country is on the
|
||
line. That is why these are not just
|
||
economic proposals. They are the way to save the very soul of our
|
||
nation.
|
||
|
||
This is not just a campaign. This is a crusade to restore the
|
||
forgotten middle class, give
|
||
economic power back to ordinary people, and recapture the American
|
||
Dream. It is a crusade not just
|
||
for economic renewal, but for social and spiritual renewal as well.
|
||
It is a crusade to build a new
|
||
economic order of empowerment and opportunity that will preserve
|
||
our social order and make it possible
|
||
for our country once again to make the American Dream live at home
|
||
and to be strong enough to
|
||
triumph abroad.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|