Bill Clinton: “----workers who are helping the community, and their response has been one of the most timely, comprehensive, and…”

“----workers who are helping the community, and their response has been one of the most timely, comprehensive, and effective in memory. And as I emphasized when I visited you a few weeks ago, while short-term disaster relief is absolutely necessary, I want to assure you that we'll be there over the long run as well. The latest information on the status of the disaster assistance is this: The conference on the supplemental appropriation has just concluded. With luck, I'll be able to sign this legislation tomorrow morning. I was in Los Angeles within 48 hours of that quake, and your needs were clear to me and overwhelming. The following week, as soon as Congress returned from its recess, I transmitted to them a formal request for funds prepared by our OMB Director, Leon Panetta, from California. I'm pleased that Congress, led by the California delegation, has acted so quickly and so responsibly. In total, this legislation will bring the entire amount of Federal disaster assistance to southern California to about $10 billion. I know there's been a little public debate about whether States have an obligation to match 10 percent of these funds. I think they should; everyone must take some responsibility and do their share. It's what we did in the terrible 500-year floods in the Midwest, and it's what we should do here. These funds will help meet the immediate need. But California and all America, as you know, face a larger challenge: creating jobs and creating growth in a tough global economy, restoring the American dream for middle class people, and bringing our whole country together as a nation again. That's why I came to office with a comprehensive economic strategy designed to get the deficit down, lower interest rates, keep inflation down, free up investments, and create jobs. It's working. Of course, there are still too many who haven't benefited and too many regions that have not really felt movement yet. But before our plan took effect last year, the 1995 budget was projected to be $302 billion. Now it's expected to be $176 billion, a 40 percent reduction. Core inflation and long-term interests rates are at historic lows. Home sales are up, car sales are up, and last year this economy created almost 2 million jobs, 90 percent of them in the private sector. That's more than in the previous 4 years combined. But in creating a national strategy, we tried to be exceedingly mindful that California faces very serious problems different from and greater than any other State; especially southern California faces these problems. And as I have said repeatedly, in every region of the country we can't hope to rebuild the American economy until we also restore your economy, which accounts for one-eighth of all America's output. We've worked hard to do that. Many of the elements of our economic plan will benefit California, including the national information superhighway, our efforts to develop new environmental technologies. NAFTA was a huge win for California and so was the GATT agreement and the reduction in export controls on communications equipment and computers. And nearly a quarter of the grants awarded for defense conversion and technology reinvestment have gone to California-led projects. We are doing better, but our economic problems didn't come overnight, and they won't go away overnight. We need continued discipline, especially in the budget. The budget I just introduced is the toughest budget Congress has seen yet. Adjusted for inflation, we'll cut more than 60 percent of the major accounts in the budget. We cut more than 300 specific nondefense programs, 115 of which we eliminate outright. Half the Cabinet departments take budget cuts. We slash the Federal bureaucracy by 118,000 people. If the Congress adopts this budget, it will keep the deficit coming down, interest rates coming down, the investment climate will continue to improve, we'll continue to create jobs, and we'll be able to invest in the things that make us strong and secure. That includes investing over $350 million in new funds for border security to control illegal immigration, which will allow us to increase by 40 percent the number of border patrol officers on the San Diego border this year. These funds are in the new budget. The budget adds hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funds to offset California's cost of providing medical services to indigents and to providing educational services to disadvantaged children. Both will help you to respond to the needs of the immigrant population. We've added these funds and specifically redesigned spending formulas precisely because States like California have had special demands placed on them. And this budget includes $1.6 billion that are new for new highway and transit projects in California, above and beyond the emergency funds which are desperately needed in the wake of the earthquake. All these are new funds. All are new investments in California's future. You need them, and I'll fight for them. In addition, continued budget discipline means that we can do things like lift the standards of every school in America and create a reemployment system to offer new skills for our displaced workers, replacing our old unemployment system which doesn't offer those skills. If this budget passes, we'll be able to put 100,000 more police officers on the street including thousands and thousands in California, lock up career criminals for life, and we can get serious about drug treatment and prevention. We can begin to change the welfare system as we know it, and we can reform health care. Unless we do that and guarantee every Amer- ican private health insurance that can never be taken away, we'll never be able to control this deficit in the long run, never have the money we need to invest in the future and our jobs, and never provide real security to America's working families. The Congressional Budget Office pointed out last week that our health care plan saves an enormous amount of money over the next decade, will not cost jobs in the American economy, and can be done in the way we have proposed it. We can do this health care reform as our proposal does by simply building on what works best in the present system. Our current proposal retains private insurance, retains the freedom to choose plans and doctors, and retains the employer-based system that 9 out of 10 working people already use. We stress primary care and preventive care. We increase medical research and provide drug benefits and long-term care to the elderly. And our plan will save money in the long run. As I said, if you review the Congressional Budget Office study just concluded, it says our plan reduces the projected growth of health care costs, reduces the deficit over time dramatically, improves wages, and could benefit all small businesses. Small businesses now are in a pickle. Seventy percent of the small businesses in this country cover their employees, but they pay 35 to 40 percent more for insurance premiums. The other 30 percent don't cover their employees, and when those folks get sick, the rest of us pay the bill because their costs are passed along through higher hospital and insurance costs. Now, what will happen if we don't take these steps? We'll go on charging older people more than younger people just because they're older. Three out of four of us will continue to have lifetime limits on our coverage so that just when we need it most, we'll lose health insurance coverage. Small businesses will continue to spend 35 to 40 percent more for premiums than big business. One hundred thousand Americans a month will continue to lose their coverage permanently. Eighty-one million Americans with so-called preexisting conditions will continue to be denied coverage or charged more or feel that they can never change jobs without losing their coverage. And sometime every year, 58 million of our fellow citizens will have no insurance at all. And the cost of health care will keep destroying the Federal budget. There will be no money left for more police or better schools or newer technology or for any of the things we need to get your economy coming back. Your nonpartisan legislative analysis recently estimated through its office that our plan will save California, and I quote, ``hundreds of millions of dollars in the early years and more in later years.'' They concluded that our plan should enhance California's long-term economic prospects, encourage people to move off welfare, and save California approximately $700 million a year in care for the indigent. I am enthusiastic about the health care debate. It's exciting because it's about the future, about facing up to our challenges. This ought not to be a partisan issue. We can differ over the specific prescriptions for what should be done, but this year proves that we can differ and still get the job done for America. As I said in the State of the Union Address, our Nation is growing stronger, but it must be stronger still. We've begun to make it stronger. We've begun to solve our problems. But we must stay together and stay focused on the future so that we can move forward with the hopefulness that is at the core of the California spirit and at the heart of the American dream. Thank you very much. Public Libraries”