Bill Clinton: “Well, first of all, I think one of the things that has happened is that increasingly in this information age, with all…”

“Well, first of all, I think one of the things that has happened is that increasingly in this information age, with all this explosion of access to information, one of the things that's happening that's not good is that people are more and more and more listening to people who tell them just what they want to hear or play on their own fears. And that's isolating us. One reason I like this is that there are a lot of people here of different points of view. So I think--I would urge you to urge them to open their ears and eyes to different points of view. Now, let me just deal with the three issues you mentioned. You mentioned welfare; you mentioned Government regulation; you mentioned taxes. On the welfare issue, most Americans believe, I learned from a recent poll, that we're spending 45 percent of your money on foreign aid and welfare. In fact, we're spending about a nickel of your money on foreign aid and welfare, your tax money. For the last 2 years, 2\1/2\ years, I have done everything I could to convince the Congress to pass a welfare reform bill which would invest more in work and require people on welfare to move to work and would give people who are parents of small children the ability to work and still see that their kids are taken care of. When that has not happened, I have given 29 States now the permission to get out from under all these Federal rules and regulations and adopt their own plans to move people from welfare to work. On the regulation issue, we have reduced more regulations than the two previous administrations. We're going to cut enough paperwork this year to stretch page by page from New York to San Francisco. So if you want me to defend Government regulation, you're talking to the wrong person. I can't even defend everything that's been done since I've been here, because I believe we do have to change the way the Government works. But the final thing I would tell you is, I do not believe that we should abandon our commitment to a clean environment and to the quality of life that makes everybody in the world want to live in a place like Montana. But I think we have to change the way we regulate and do it better. On the tax issue, the American tax burden is about the same as it is in Japan and, on average, about 50 percent lower than it is in the European countries. And I have done what I could to bring it down for middle class people who are overtaxed. Today, families of four with incomes of $28,000 a year or less this year paid $1,000 less than they would have before I became President, because of taxes we cut in '93. And I want to provide further tax relief to middle class Americans to educate their children, to raise their children, and to help to save to pay for health insurance or care for their parents. So we're working on all these things. The answer is not to join the militia and opt out. The answer is to come in here and opt in and be a vigorous voice of citizen responsibility. Federal Employee Safety [The daughter of a Bureau of Land Management employee expressed concern for her father's safety.]”