Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Saturday, 10 Oct 1992 01:15:53 CDT
From: <U56503@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: ==> Clinton Flint, MI Speech 10/2/92

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Information in the public interest which does not imply that it
is the opinion of UIC.  Contact 75300.3115@compuserve.com for
further information.
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 Remarks by Governor Bill Clinton
 Rochester-West Plant
 Flint, MI October 2, 1992

      I'm glad to be back here.  You know, I was here in March, and I
 learned that half the people here are from Arkansas.  And that,
 literally, if I went down to Burton I'd be the only guy there, I
 wouldn't have an accent, everybody talk just like me.

      I am delighted to be back here.  I thank Senator Riegle for his
 introduction, and I'm glad to be back in Flint with Mayor Stanley and
 my  good friend, Governor Blanchard, and the other state officials
 who are up  here, and all of you.

      I have just come from Toledo, Ohio where Mr. Bush didn't stop on
 his  train, then I went to Dayton where Mr. Quayle didn't go after he
 said he  would, and now I'm in Flint where Mr. Bush didn't go.  Maybe
 I can make up  to all three towns today.

      Ladies and gentlemen, last night Al Gore and I were in
 Wisconsin, and we  appeared before about 25,000 people at Madison,
 Wisconsin, in front of the  state capitol.  And I heard him say
 something I think I ought to repeat to  you.  He said, you know, this
 is a crazy time in America.  Unemployment is  up, and manufacturing
 is down.  Poverty is up, and construction is down.   Income is down
 and bankruptcies are up.  Everything that ought to be up is  down.
 Everything that ought to be down is up.  This country's upside down,
 but we're going to put it right side up on November the 3rd.

      You know, when you hear these guys talk about four more years,
 it sounds  more like a threat than a promise.  Look at that record.
 The record is in  now.  We got the last economic statistics today.
 In four years, in the  United States as a whole, there has been a
 decline of 35,000 private sector  jobs.  No new jobs in the nation as
 a whole in the private sector.  Only real  increases in the
 government that George Bush professes to hate.

      If you look at what's happened in the last two years, a 16
 hundred dollar decline in average family income.  Most people are
 working harder today than they were ten years ago for lower wages.
 Even the people that have jobs are being hurt.  100,000 Americans a
 month losing their health insurance.  Why did this  happen?  I'll
 tell you why.  Because of trickle down economics.  They're in  the
 grip of a failed economic theory.  They really believe if you keep
 taxes  low on the richest Americans, have no economic strategy
 whatever, all the  benefits will trickle down.

      Well, they got their wish.  The top one percent of Americans now
 control  more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.  For ten years, the
 wages of our top  executives have gone up by four times as much as
 workers' wages, and three  times as much as profits. But it didn't
 trickle down.

      We got no job growth, no income growth, a health care system
 that's coming  apart at the seams, too many people can't afford to go
 to college or to  study any more.  This country is going in the wrong
 direction, and it's time  to take a new course.  That's what this
 whole election is all about.

      And if you look at what Bush says, even when he tries to do
 something, he  betrays the real values of this administration.  He
 went to Japan on a trade  mission.  Remember that?  Which ended with
 the prime minister of Japan  saying he felt sympathy for the United
 States.  No wonder we get played for  a sucker.  We've got a four
 billion dollar trade surplus in auto parts with  everybody except
 Japan.  When you put Japan in, we've got a $9 billion trade  deficit,
 even though we are competitive in auto parts.

      So what did Mr. Bush do?  When they sent multi-purpose vehicles
 in here  from Japan, and our own government said--our own government
 said, well,  these things have to be under the tariff for light
 trucks, the Treasury  Department under Mr. Bush's orders overruled
 our own government and forced  the lower tariff to reward the
 Japanese for shafting the American auto parts  industry.  That's the
 kind of trade policy this administration has followed.

      And now, did you see what happened last week?  It has now
 finally been  revealed by one of the television networks that this
 administration has been  spending American tax dollars to finance
 shutting plants down in America and  moving them to Central America.

      It is literally true that George Bush has taken your tax dollars
 and  financed more private sector job growth in Central America than
 in middle  America, than in the United States of America.

      The very idea of it--304 people lost their jobs in Tennessee
 because the  government actually helped to finance a low interest
 loan for people that  shut the plant down and move it to Central
 America which they would not give  that same plant owner to modernize
 their plant and equipment in Tennessee.

      And the government paid for an advertisement to encourage people
 to come  down there for 57 cents an hour labor.  Your tax dollars
 paid for that.   And  to make it worse, your government spent more
 money training workers in  Central America than they spent to train
 workers who lost their jobs because  of foreign competition.  And, to
 make it worse, a hired employee of the  United States government,
 whom you paid for, was photographed on live  television--or he was
 photographed live, I don't know if he ought to be--he  was
 photographed talking to someone who said, I'm from Miami, Florida and
 I  want to know if

      I should shut my plant down.  Are these workers down here
 reliable?  And an  employee of your government that you paid for
 said, oh, yes, they're  reliable down here.  As a matter of fact,
 they're more reliable than your  workers in Miami.  And when the guy
 said, well, what about unions.  He said  we don't worry about that
 down here.  We've got them black listed.  You can  just fire them
 when you want.  And we've got a black list.

      Now, your government is paying for this.  Folks, I believe in
 trade.   Michigan sells a lot of stuff around the world.  America has
 to sell around  the world, and we have to buy.  I believe in that.
 But I'll swear I think  we ought to spend our tax money to keep jobs
 here in export products and  services, not spend our tax money to
 export jobs.

      Ask George Bush if he ever gets off the train in Flint why he
 spent American taxpayers' dollars to throw them out of work.  I mean,
 this is amazing, and it shows you the callous insensitivity of this
 administration.

      There are farmers listening to us tonight through the media.
 Michigan's  got a lot of farmers.  This administration had a program
 that the Congress provided for them so that we could sell grain to
 other countries.  Finally the Cold War is over.  Russia wants to buy
 grain from us.  Bush sits on the sale for eight months, and Europe
 gets the business, because they don't believe in trade if it's us
 selling to somebody else.  They don't believe the government ought to
 help anybody except to  finance the shutting down of jobs here and
 moving them overseas.

      Let me tell you something.  I believe in trade, but I believe we
 ought to  have a policy which uses our powers to invest in American
 jobs, American  goods, American products, and an American future, and
 that's what I'm going  to do.

      Let me give you an example.  Bush wants another across the board
 tax cut  for the wealthiest Americans, a tax cut that doesn't make
 any distinction  between buying a Maserati and starting a plant.  I
 want to ask the wealthiest people in our country, those with incomes
 above $200,000, to pay a little more in taxes, because their taxes
 were lowered while yours were raised under Bush and Quayle.

      But then I want to say to them, hey, look, I want to make
 millionaires,  too.  I just want us to make millionaires the old
 fashioned way, by putting  the American people to work.  So, here, if
 you want to make money, you want  to avoid tax rates, invest in new
 plants, new equipment, small businesses,  new technologies, housing
 for Americans, put our people to work, and then we  will give you a
 tax break, but not until.

      That's what we ought to do.  I'll tell you something else. I
 believe that  we ought to use the power of America's scientists and
 engineers, all these  people that won the Cold War for us to figure
 out a way to win the economic  wars of the futures.  So I say, let's
 take every dollar by which the defense  budget is reduced and
 reinvest that money in building the American economy  here at home.
 New transportation, communications, environmental clean up  system.
 Let's put all those people to work and make real jobs and
 opportunities for Americans.

      I'm telling you, folks, the issue in this campaign is jobs, and
 incomes.   And here is this administration with no record, no vision
 and no future.   The other day one of their own administration
 officials is quoted in Time  magazine as saying of their own plan,
 doesn't matter much what we tell the  American people.  We don't plan
 to follow through on it anyway.  Well, let  me tell you something,
 you can take my plan to the bank.  It's going to work.

      We're going to invest in your, and build this economy, and open
 America and  win again.

      You know, let me say something else.  The issue is jobs and
 incomes.  It  is also about whether we are going to develop the
 ability of our people to  move forward.  It's about whether we have a
 whole strategy to create a high  wage, high growth, high opportunity
 society.

      Let me give you another example.  Not only do we not give
 incentives to  people to modernize plant and equipment here; our tax
 code will subsidize  you more if you shut your plant down and move it
 overseas.  If somebody wants  to invest overseas, that's their
 business.  But why should we subsidize it?   No more incentives for
 moving overseas.  More incentives for building the  American economy.

      I'll give you another example.  We're still the only advanced
 country in  the world where the national government does not work
 with the private  sector to control health care costs and provide
 basic health care to all  Americans.  So what happens?  We're
 spending 30 percent more of our income  than anybody else on health
 care.  We'll never know how many manufacturing  jobs that cost us,
 how many small businesses that cost us.  No telling how  much misery
 in the lives of people who can't change jobs because they've had
 somebody in their family's been sick and they can't move because
 they've got  a pre-existing condition.  Unless you vote for Bill
 Clinton you will not get  a national health system to provide basic
 health care to all and put a lid  on these costs to bring them within
 inflation.  And we have got to do that.

       Finally, let me say the people in this town and the people in
 this state  have proved they are willing to change and to be
 productive.  But we have to  have a national system that will give
 everybody the opportunity to be  continuously retrained and
 re-educated for a lifetime.  This is the only  advanced country that
 doesn't guarantee every high school graduate at least  two years of
 further apprenticeship training so they can be competitive in  the
 global economy and get good jobs.  This country does not have a
 system  to retain all of its workers continuously so some get it and
 some don't.

       This country does not have a system to try to provide people
 who do lose  their jobs with the opportunity to get trained in areas
 where there will be  jobs, and then direct investment there so there
 will be money there to  create the jobs once they got the training.
 We don't do that.  But our  competitors do, and that's why so many
 countries now are growing faster than  we are.

      And this country ought to open the doors of college education to
 all  Americans.  We ought to make it possible for everybody to go.
 And we can  fund these things, folks.

      If we bring health costs in line with inflation, we ask the
 wealthiest  Americans, people with incomes over 200,000 to pay their
 fair share, if we  take the defense cuts and reinvest them here, if
 we are disciplined we can  fund these things, and move this country
 forward.  And if you're willing to  change, and you're willing to do
 what it takes to be great, productive  Americans, we can open this
 economy again and give our kids a brighter  future.

      But I'll tell you something.  You're going to hear the awfulest
 bunch of  squalling from the other side in the next 33 days you ever
 heard.  You know,  Bush comes to Michigan, tries to tell you I'm
 going to shut the automobile  business down.  He tells me that I'm--I
 couldn't do any better job of that  than he has.

      If I tried, there's no way I could cost as many jobs as he has.
 Why does  he say that?  Because he can't run on his record and he
 can't run on his  vision, so he's got to badmouth mine.

      Let me tell you something.  You look at my record.  All of you
 who've got  Arkansas roots, call down there.  You know where Arkansas
 ranks in private  sector job growth this year? Number one.  You know
 we have grown manufacturing jobs at ten times the national average,
 because we had a strategy to work together, business and labor,
 government and education.  We thought we could do what we had to do
 to grow the economy and protect the environment and move forward
 together in a sensible, fair way.

      And I believe we can do that in the United States.  And I'm
 tired of all this  fear mongering.

      And now the Bush campaign has got this incredible ad on.  I
 don't know if  you have seen it, which shows a factory worker and
 says I'm going to charge  him some more, and shows a scientist and
 says I'm going to charge her some  more in taxes.  And when they were
 asked, they virtually admitted that they  just made it up.

      It isn't true.  It isn't true.  Why would they run a false ad
 like that,  why would he president of the United States take your tax
 dollars to run a  bogus ad?  Well, he takes your tax dollars to move
 plants overseas.  He  thinks you can do anything with tax dollars
 except try to put you back to  work.  I'm going to tell you the
 truth.  Move this country forward and lift  us up if you will help
 me.  Will you spend the next four and a half weeks to  change this
 country?

      To end trickle down economics, to put the American people first,
 to give  our kids a future.  I need your help.  I need Michigan's
 support.  I'm  telling you, we are better than this.  We can do
 better than this.  You do  not deserve what has happened to the
 United States of America in the last  four year, and we can do
 better.  If you will dedicate the next four and a  half weeks, I'll
 get up every day, I'll work as hard as I can to make you  proud to
 pull this country together and to move forward, we can win again
 folks.  But we've got to seize our own future.  And it all begins on
 November 3rd.  Don't let them take it away.  Give it back to the
 American  people.  Thank you and God bless you.