Bill Clinton: “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…”

“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”