Night Owl 9/Night Owl CD-ROM (NOPV9) (Night Owl Publisher) (1993).ISO/032a/wh930603.zip/06-03I.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-03 | 11KB

From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail]  Thu Jun  3 20:00:22 1993
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 13:25-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail],
Subject: President's Remarks on River Walk Tour  6.3.93

                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary

______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                               June 3, 1993


                       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                          ON RIVER WALK TOUR

                        Fredericktowne Village
                         Frederick, Maryland

11:12 A.M. EDT

         THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  Good morning,
ladies and gentlemen, and good morning, boys and girls.  It's great
to be here in Frederick today.  I want to thank Roger Glunt, the
President of the National Association of Home Builders, for being
here and for his support of our economic program, as well as the
support of homebuilders and realtors all across America who
understand what we can do for the American economy if we can get
interest rates down and keep them there.

         I want to thank the Murrys for giving me a tour of their
home before it was finished.  One of the things I did in my former
life, back when I had one -- (laughter) -- when I was a young man was
engage in a little bit of homebuilding.  That's hard work.  And I'm
glad to see somebody else doing it back there.  But they did a great
job.

         I want to say thanks to the Dragers and the Fishmans and
the Taylors, the other families here on this circle who showed me
their home and talked to me a little bit about their lives.  I want
to thank Jim Johnson for being here and for the wonderful job that he
does at Fanny Mae to help finance homes and make the American Dream
come real for Americans.  And I want to say thanks to Don Meade, the
construction site supervisor, who hasn't spoken today.  That will
make him the most popular person here.  (Applause.)  I thank him for
showing me around.

         Ladies and gentlemen, last year when I was out
campaigning for the job I now hold, I think all of us realized that
our country was in a period of short-term recession, which it lasted
for about three years, but of long-term economic problems brought on
by some economic competition from other countries around the world
and from some problems that we had created for ourselves, and that it
was impossible to point the blame at one person, that both parties in
Washington were to blame, but that it was absolutely clear that we
couldn't keep going the way we were going, where the deficit was
going up and up and up every year, so our debts were piling higher.

         In 12 years -- 12 years -- we went from a $1 trillion to
a $4 trillion national debt.  And the deficit was over $300 billion a
year.  And at the same time, we were reducing our investment in the
things that make us a rich country -- in incentives for people to
build houses, in new technologies to compete with other countries, in
the education and training of our work force.

         So what I tried to do was to turn that around.  It
seemed to me that the faith -- we had to begin was to bring down the
deficit with a combination of tough spending cuts and tax increases
that would be mostly on those who had been more successful, whose
taxes had gone down and were in higher income groups.

         This plan that I have presented to Congress does that.
But I want to emphasize to you -- I'll talk a little more about the
details in a moment -- but why would the homebuilders be here
supporting it if it were bad for business and bad for America.  They
wouldn't be.  They're here because all these people building these
houses need jobs, and we need more people like them working.  And if
people can work, we wouldn't have half the problems we've got in this
country.  (Applause.)

         Six million Americans are employed in the housing and
related industry.  Homebuilding is critical to our future and
critical to the dreams of millions of American families.  A year ago,
less than half of the American people under the age of 35 thought
they had a good chance to buy a home.  Today, over 70 percent of them
do.  And there's one clear reason:  lower long-term interest rates,
which make mortgage rates as low as they've been in 20 years.

         If you think about it, mortgage rates currently are at
about 7.5 percent.  Now, if someone had a home mortgage at 10 percent
and they refinance that at 7.5 percent, in the very first year of the
refinancing, they'd save $2,100.  That is way over twice as much in
one year as the same family -- let's say, a family with an income of
$40,000 to $60,000 would  pay in new taxes under the energy tax in
four years under our program.

         That is the key to this whole thing.  A balanced
approach, cut spending, raise money from people who can afford it,
minimize the burden on the middle class, but ask people to pay
something, but give them back low interest rates, more jobs, and a
growing economy.  That is the idea, and the critical thing is the
interest rates.  (Applause.)

         Every time mortgage rates go down a point an additional
350,000 people are able to buy homes.  In November, shortly after the
election, our administration announced a serious attempt to reduce
the deficit based on spending cuts, targeted revenue increases, long-
term interest rates started to drop.  They've dropped almost one full
point since the election.  Last week, after the House of
Representatives adopted the economic program, they dropped again, and
the stock market went up again because people who control these
decisions began to believe again that we could take control of our
destiny and really move America forward.

         You've already heard some of these specific ideas, but
let me just reiterate.  In this bill there aren't just tax increases,
there are spending cuts -- $100 billion in the entitlement areas, and
another $150 billion in 200 specific cuts in other areas, including a
reduction in the size of the federal government by 150,000 employees
over the next four years, an across-the-board cut of 14 percent in
the administrative costs of government, and hundreds of other
specific cuts in spending.

         But there are also some incentives in this program,
which are important.  The small business community -- some of you
would be in that -- have been asking for years to increase the
expensing provisions in the tax code so they could write off $25,000
a year, not $10,000 a year, if they invested in their business to
make it more productive.  That's in this provision.  (Applause.)

         Larger businesses who invest a lot of money in new plant
and new equipment, which put people to work, have been asking for
years for us to change the minimum tax provisions so they won't have
to pay taxes on investments they make to put people to work.  And we
did that in this tax bill, and that will put people to work.
(Applause.)

         People in real estate have been asking for years that
they simply be treated on what are called their passive losses, like
people in every other business in the United States of America.  And
that is in this tax bill, and that will put people to work.
(Applause.)  These things will create jobs.  (Applause.)

         Maybe most important of all, for something I care a lot
about, I'll bet you that more than half the people in this audience
from time to time in the last 10 or 15 years, have complained about
the welfare system and have said sometimes there seems like there are
more incentives to stay on welfare than off.  Well, let me tell you
something else this bill does.  Some people stay on welfare rather
than work 40 hours a week, because if they take a minimum wage job
and go to work, they've got to pay somebody for child care; they
don't have any health insurance, so they go back on welfare; you pay
it through Medicaid, and they can stay home with the kids.

         This tax bill -- it's not because the welfare check is
big, it's because of the  child care and the medical benefits.  This
tax bill says that, look, we're going to favor work over welfare
forever.  If you go to work, you work 40 hours a week, you have a
child in your house, the tax system will lift you out of poverty.
We're going to favor work over welfare.  That's a very important
thing that this tax bill does.  (Applause.)

         Now, next week the United States Senate is coming back
into session and we have to pass this bill in the Senate.  Many
senators and many House members and the President would like to pass
the bill with even fewer taxes and more spending cuts, and we're
going to look for that.  But let me remind you, look at the results
already.  The most important thing is to pass a bill that has real
deficit reduction, real spending cuts, put it all in a trust fund so
the money can't go to anything else, and no tax increases without the
spending cuts, and keep the interest rates down.  That is what is
important here.

         I have been overwhelmed -- yesterday I had lunch again,
as I do about every week with a lot of business executives who
themselves will have to pay the lion's share of the tax bill.  Over
60 percent of this money will come from people with annual incomes in
excess of $200,000; over 75 percent of it from people in the top
seven percent of the income bracket.  And most of them are willing to
pay as long as they know the interest rates will go down because the
deficit is going down.

         So I think it's important to say, yes, let's shoot for
more spending cuts and less taxes, but let's pass the bill and get
the deficit down.

         I want to just leave you with this.  New home sales last
month reached a seven-year high in April -- seven-year high.
(Applause.)  That's worth doing.  Mortgage rates are at a 20-year
low.  That's worth keeping.  (Applause.)  Well, I ask you, let's
don't take our eye off the ball.  It is estimated that in this year
alone, if we can keep these interest rates down at this level, it
will put $100 billion back into the American economy, in people
refinancing their mortgages, refinancing business loans, lower
consumer loans, lower college loans, lower car rates.  That's what
we've got to do.

         I ask for your support.  I ask for your support not on a
partisan basis, but to rebuild the American economy.  There is no
party label, there's just jobs and incomes behind this.  We've got to
grow this economy.

         I thank the people on this stage and all of you for
being here today to make that point.  Thank you very much.
(Applause.)

                                 END11:24 A.M. EDT