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Convention Hall 9/17/92 [OA 5813]
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administrative marker by the George Bush Presidential
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Record Group/Collection:
George H.W. Bush Presidential Records
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Speechwriting, White House Office of
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Speech File Draft Files
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Convention Hall 9/17/92 [OA 5813]
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1
TIME OF TRANSMISSION
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WHITE HOUSE
SITUATION ROOM
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RELEASER: R'viloR
PRIORITY
ROUTINE
DTG: 152307 Z Sep92
MESSAGE NO. 07 CLASSIFICATION UNCLAS
PAGES 12
FROM Andy (NAME) Ferguson
2930
122
(PHONE NUMBER)
(ROOM NO.)
MESSAGE DESCRIPTION Oklahoma speech
TO (AGENCY)
DELIVER TO
DEPT/ROOM NO.
PHONE NUMBER
NewMexico Steve Provost
Christina Martin
REMARKS: SP: Rough draft per RBZ's
instructions. you'll love it !
AF
(Ferguson/Bunton)
September 15, 1992
7:00 pm
ENID
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: CONVENTION HALL
SEPTEMBER 17, 1992
XX:XX PM
ENID, OKLAHOMA
Good afternoon, everyone.
(Acknowledgments. joke about horse race.)
I have come here today to the Bright star of the Plains to
discuss a serious topic -- perhaps the most serious issue
Americans face this fall.
I want to speak of our economic future, and of the very
real, and very different, choices my opponent and I offer for
shaping that future.
Last week in Detroit I released my Agenda for American
Renewal. My agenda is comprehensive. It diagnoses the problems
we face, and lays out the principles that underlie our approach
to those problems.
I conclude my agenda with a list -- 13 actions that I will
pursue in the first year of my second term with every ounce of
energy at my command.
I have gone into such detail for a simple reason. In the
crossfire of a national campaign, differences can sometimes
become blurred. But elections are about clear mandates; and a
clear mandate from the American people is what I seek in this
election. You are entitled to know precisely what I intend to
do, and how I intend to do it.
2
And I want to pursue a detailed debate for another reason.
People are anxious. The changes we see all around us breed
uncertainty. But change must not be an excuse for rash
judgments. We have the power to select the kinds of changes
America will face. And the irreversible mistake would be to
grasp change for change's sake, without knowing where change will
lead us, or what change will entail in the daily life of every
American.
That is why this afternoon I want to lay out the chief
distinctions between my opponent and me. These distinctions are
philosophical, and they are basic: they color our approaches to
every major issue in this election -- from education to health
care to the renewal of the American economy.
The first difference I want to discuss is, I believe, the
most profound, for it goes to the most fundamental question: what
makes our economy grow? or more precisely, who makes an economy
grow?
My answer is: the individual -- the aspirations and ideas of
entrepreneurs, and their capacity to make those ideas work. From
these aspirations come enterprise, and from enterprise comes the
creation of jobs and the creation of wealth.
Our American system of entrepreneurial capitalism is based
on opportunity, and it offers this opportunity without regard to
rank or social class. Napoleon once said that every one of his
privates carried a general's baton in his knapsack.
3
Entrepreneurial capitalism is based on the belief that every
American should have the chance to wield the general's baton.
Now, my opponent, in addressing the fundamental question of
how an economy grows, offers a very different answer. The
distinction between us is not merely over the role of government
in an economy; both he and I agree that government has a role to
play.
The distinction is between the nature and extent of
government's role. For he sees the government as the catalyst of
economic growth; as the spark that lights the tinder of
enterprise and invention. Over and above the market decisions of
entrepreneurs he places the judgment of government planners and
bureaucrats.
Listen carefully to him and his advisers. For most
Americans the traditional economic model is the small businessman
or -woman, who takes a risk with a nest-egg, offers something new
or better to the consumer, and creates jobs and wealth in the
process.
But for my opponent and his advisers the ideal is quite
different. In their writings they speak often of the "European
model," of societies organized from the top-down. The ideal is
the government planner -- the public policy-maker who studies
charts and graphs in a bureaucratic cubicle, fusses with
econometric models, and in so doing flatters himself that he
understands the American economy better than the workers and
entrepreneurs who actually create it.
4
I believe that my opponent and his advisers do indeed
understand the power of the market -- the market, after all, is
the only mechanism that can create the revenues they need to
finance their social policies.
But they fundamentally distrust the market. Where the
market can be raw and rough-edged, they prefer academic tidiness.
Where the market is often unpredictable and risky, they prefer
the false certitude of theory.
You can see these different attitudes at work in our
political parties. At the Democratic convention, nearly half the
delegates were on the public payroll. Our Republican convention,
by contrast, was full of small business entrepreneurs who have
built their livelihoods in the private sector, designing and
manufacturing and marketing products and services.
And you can trace our different attitudes to our different
backgrounds. I spent half my life in private business, building
a company from the ground up, trying to expand the business, to
create more jobs -- and, as you know, to pay more taxes along the
way.
My opponent, on the other hand, chose at an exceptionally
early age to run for office, to determine how those taxes should
be spent, and to shape people's lives through government
programs.
This choice about who should lead the American economy --
the entreprenuer or the government planner -- comes at a decisive
moment in our history.
5
From Mexico to Eastern Europe, from Russia to parts of
China, command-and-control economies are understood as failures.
The new era is an era of the individual set free, private
enterprise unleashed, bureaucracies shut down.
So why, as America enjoys an unchallenged stature around the
world, should our country embrace an economic logic that the rest
of the world has at last dismissed?
My answer is: we shouldn't. My opponent says we should.
This the most fundamental disagreement between us -- about
the importance of entrepreneurial capitalism. But from this one
disagreement flow many others, with important practical
consequences for our economy.
Take the issue of taxes. Our difference could be summarized
very easily: He wants to raise them, I want to cut them.
But this afternoon, let me address the issue of what that's
SO.
Much has been made this election about the conversion from a
wartime economy to a peacetime economy. It is an important
discussion, but one major aspect has so far been overlooked.
our
tax system itself is a product of a wartime economy; peacetime
now offers us the chance to reduce the burden it places on the
taxpayer.
The first income tax was XX percent. The demands of World
War One changed all that; and following World War Two, we have
kept in place that wartime system of taxation, with its high
marginal rates.
6
Those high rates have engendered pressure for exceptions
1
tax loopholes -- and the discovery and enlarging of loopholes
has in turn created a vast service industry of accountants and
lawyers and tax specialists, all in the pay of special interests
seeking special treatment.
My opponent calls for raising those marginal rates still
further -- which will only increase the demand for loopholes, and
thus the demand for lawyers and accountants. He says these
higher rates somehow relate to some undefined notion of
"fairness," but he neglects to tell you that two-thirds of the
people who would see their taxes increase are family farmers and
small business owners.
Those people will already be reeling from Governor Clinton's
other tax ideas -- which will lead, for example, to a 7 percent
payroll tax for mandatory health care and a one percent tax for
training. Taken together, his tax policies amount to a kind of
punishment against the entrepreneurial spirit -- against the
forces of creativity and dynamism our economy thrives on.
My philosophy moves us in the opposite direction. I want to
cut taxes. why? Again, the answer is experience. In the 1980s,
when we lowered marginal rates, closed loopholes, and broadened
the tax base, we created XX million jobs -- almost all of them,
incidentally, in the small, entrpreneurial businesses that
Governor Clinton wants to tax. That's the direction I want us to
move in.
7
Governor Clinton will not be budged from his higher-tax
position, and the reason leads me to our third major difference:
spending.
Again, the difference couldn't be plainer. He wants to
increase government spending, I want to cut it.
The federal government today spends 24 cents of every dollar
of national income -- more than $1.5 trillion this year. To me
that suggests a simple truth: Government is too big and it spends
too much.
To Governor Clinton it suggests something else. Apparently
he feels $1.5 trillion isn't enough. He has already called for
$220 billion in new spending -- $220 billion that his economic
planners feel they can allocate more rationally and efficiently
than the people who earned it.
My proposal to reduce the growth of spending has three
parts: a cap on mandatory spending, excluding Social Security; a
freeze on domestic spending; and cuts in 246 programs and more
than 2000 projects we don't need and can't afford. Governor
Clinton says he would like to cut a government program, too: the
honey bee subsidy, though he may have to fight his running mate
on this one. Senator Gore has voted to three times to save the
subsidy.
I have laid my proposed spending reductions on the table for
all to examine, and I welcome the debate. But let's not lose
sight of the forest for the trees. The trends are plain.
Governor Clinton wants to debate which programs to increase;
I
8
want to debate which programs to cut. He wants to increase
government's share of the national wealth, I want to decrease it.
The question of government's role also affects one of the
defining issues of this campaign -- opening markets for American
goods -- and here too my opponent views are different from my
own.
[[Insert on Oklahoma jobs supported by foreign trade. I
want to build on the kind of success exports have brought to
Enid. Opening foreign markets is central to my agenda. I want
lower-priced goods for American consumers, and I want American
business to make America an export superpower. ]
There are times when my opponent says he favors open trade.
Other times, he has second thoughts. And on some occasions --
usually when he appears before protectionist interest groups --
he has no opinion at all. [[NAFTA quote. ]]
A President doesn't have the luxury of indecision. And when
it comes to opening markets, firm leadership is essential.
Here's why: Over the past twenty years, Congress has splintered
into shifting coalitions at the beck and call of well-financed
interest groups. Many of these special interests benefit from
protectionism; they see it as much easier than remaining
competitive. As a result, protectionist sentiment has overtaken
the Congress.
Against this massive protectionist effort to maintain the
status quo, our small businesses are outnumbered. It is left to
the President to speak against the special interests and for the
9
interests of our entrepreneurs -- which is in the national
interest.
Frankly, I believe that when they go shopping Americans
should give American-made products the first look. American
products are the best in the world. But they will remain the
best only if American business opens itself to competition from
all comers -- competition gave us our competitive edge, and
competition will keep that edge sharp.
My commitment to open trade has shown concrete results: the
North American Free Trade Agreement; the progress toward a new
world trade agreement; and, as I outline in my Agenda, a network
of free-trade agreements around the world. only an unequivocal
commitment to open markets will make these possibilities real.
Every time my opponent has been asked to show such a
commitment, he has waffled; and his protectionist allies in
Congress will not permit him to open those markets that our
entrepreneurs will need to thrive. The choice we offer on open
markets is the difference between moving forward and standing
still. And in the global economy, standing still means falling
behind.
In the challenge ahead, small business will need relief from
over-regulation by the federal government. This is the fifth
difference between my opponent and me.
I believe firmly in government's power to protect the health
and safety of its citizens. And there are times when new
government regulation is in order. I'm proud of the Clean Air
10
Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Both of them have
required new regulations to clean our air and to bring disabled
AMericans into the mainstream of our national life.
But tt is in the nature of government always to expand its
power. The Federal Register - the publication that lists each
year's federal regulations -- has grown to the size of the
Manhattan phone book. Only an active, countervailing force can
check this tendency, so that the need for sound regulation does
not become an excuse for meddling from Washington.
That is why I have called for a top-to-bottom review of all
government regulation, to assess each new rule's impact on
economic growth. And in my Agenda I have called for adding
"sunset" provisions to all new regulations, so that the
government's regulatory policies can adapt themselves to changing
circumstances. growth. There's no reason regulations should live
longer than my friend George Burns.
My opponent's attitude to regulation can be seen in his
health care proposals. For him regulation is not a necessary
evil but a first resort. I have proposed increasing access to
health care by making the health care market more efficient --
through larger pools of XX and increasing competition among
private providers.
My opponent proposes set up an new government body to
regulate costs. Government control of prices, as any East
European can tell you, leads to one thing: rationing. In health
11
care that will mean longer lines, inefficient service, and
reduced care.
His health care plan is another instance of Governor
Clinton's almost infinite faith in the wisdom of government, and
his near-total distrust of private decision-making.
Finally, my opponent disagree on an issue crucial to small
businesses: reforming our legal system, putting an end to the
frivolous lawsuits that cripple businesses and coarsen our social
fabric.
Again, when it comes to reforming our legal system, I can
briefly summarize: he's against it. I'm for it.
Our disagreement is revealing. As a former businessman, I
understand that growth -- the investment of capital, the creation
of jobs -- comes with risk. My opponent doesn't get it. He
favors the status quo -- even though Americans today spend $200
billion in direct costs to lawyers.
That is a cost a competitive America simply can't afford --
not now, and certainly not in the next decade. But my opponent
won't budge. Trial lawyers have fought my efforts to reform the
system, and so it's not surprising that they are among the
biggest donors to Governor Clinton's campaign.
Veto of Good Samaritan law. Quote.
We would be a lot better off if sued each other less and
cared for each other more.
These, then, are my core differences with Governor Clinton.
There are others, but all relate to America's central challenge -
12
- the challenge of securing peace and prosperity in a new era,
unlike any other our nation has seen.
I think my opponent and I both recognize this as our great
challenge. I think that's why we address ourselves to the same
topics.
But don't let that similarlity fool you. Though we discuss
the same things, we hope to take America in very different
directions.
My opponent would unite the power of the Presidency and the
power of the Congress in the service of a larger government that
taxes more, spends more, and reneges on its obligation to open
markets to the products Americans produce.
Those aren't new ideas. They're bad ideas. And they've
been tried before.
Together with the higher prices protectionism would bring,
unchecked spending and draconian regulation will fuel inflation -
- again. Higher inflation will spike interest rates -- again.
And in response government's clumsy hand will meddle even
more in the market place, and handicap business more and more
severly.
In 1988, my opponent nominated Michael Dukakis for
President. He praised Michael Dukakis then as a "master of
innovation," the architect of the Massachusetts Miracle.
Six months later the Miracle was in tatters, the state was
on the verge of bankruptcy.
I think America can do without that kind of innovation.
13
of course America will change. But there are some kinds of
change America simply can't afford.
I look to a different kind of future, and I have charted our
course. We can build on our past strengths. With inflation
that thief of dreams -- safely behind bars, our entrepreneurs can
turn to the challenges they were meant to face: transforming
their dreams into wealth, their risk-taking into jobs for all
Americans.
And the result won't be the mirage of innovation conjured up
by government planners. It will be a wave of genuine innovation
and prosperity, created by free men and women, exploiting
opportunities unprecedented in our history.
That is the choice we face. I ask when you make that
choice, please consider carefully which cnadidate's agenda best
fits your beliefs, our national heritage, and our hopes for
lasting peace and prosperity.
have highlighted these differences today
Mer
(Ferguson/Bunton)
September 16, 1992
11 7:30 pm
ENID
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: CONVENTION HALL
SEPTEMBER 17, 1992
10:00 A.M.
ENID, OKLAHOMA
Good morning, everyone.
(Acknowledgments.)
I've come here today to the "Bright Star of the Great
Plains" to discuss perhaps the most serious issue Americans face
this fall.
I want to speak of our economic future, and of the very real
serious
choices my opponent and I offer for shaping that future.
polly,
Enid is the perfect place for this discussion, for in many
ways your community is a metaphor for America. Here we can find
the forces that have made us the world's greatest economic power.
Yesterday, you celebrated the 99th anniversary of the Land
Race -- a peculiarly American experiment.
The government set up the competition in 1893, but then
stood back -- to let free people work their miracles. And 99
years later, we see the results all around us: hard working
ranchers, some of the world's best oilmen. Enid has become a
thriving center of commerce, a hub of transportation, a producer
of goods sold in every corner of the earth.
A government planner might conjure up this miracle, but only
a free people could have produced it. The lesson it teaches
should guide us as we look to the challenges ahead.
2
We stand today at the edge of a new era. At the close of a
long and costly Cold War, we have an opportunity turn our
attention to the problems at home. Americans recognize the world
is in transition. We feel it in our homes and neighborhoods.
In Detroit, last week I presented my Agenda for American
Renewal -- a look at what's wrong in America -- and what's right.
I offered a comprehensive, integrated approach to win the new
global economic competition -- to create the world's first $10
trillion economy -- by early in the next century.
My Agenda includes 13 actions that I will pursue in the
first year of my second term -- and I will fight for them with
every ounce of energy at my command.
I want to be specific about what I have to offer America --
because I want to a mandate to govern. I built a mandate in the
Persian Gulf -- and look what we accomplished. I want to do the
same thing here at home. Because just as America has achieved a
lasting political and military security, we can and will forge a
new economic security -- right here at home.
Yes, change is underway, because change is the nature of
America. Yet change must be a tool for us, not against us. So
we must never grasp change blindly -- without considering
seriously where those changes will lead us, or what they will
mean in our daily lives.
That is why this afternoon I want to lay out the differences
between my Agenda and my opponent's plan. These distinctions are
fundamental: they shape our approach to every major issue in this
3
election -- from education to health care to the renewal of the
American economy.
The first difference is the most profound, for it goes to
the heart of the matter: what makes our economy grow? or more
precisely, who makes an economy grow?
My answer is: individual working men and women. My opponent
puts his faith in different people -- government planners. He
believes that Washington -- the government -- will produce
economic growth through -- quote -- investing your money more
wisely than you can.
To understand where these differences come from, you have to
look at the differences in who we are -- what we believe.
I came out here, like a number of you, to build a
wildcatting business. I spent half my life in business, and I
had the ulcers to prove it. I built a company from the ground
up, created jobs, and paid my taxes.
On the other hand, my opponent chose to run for office at an
exceptionally early age. He wanted to determine how the people's
taxes should be spent -- how to shape people's lives through more
government programs.
I never forgot my days in the Texas oil fields, so my
philosophy is unleashing the aspirations of the little guy or gal
with the big idea. Aspirations lead to enterprise and enterprise
creates jobs and wealth -- the opportunity that knows no
difference between color, creed or social class.
4
My opponent and his advisors propose something quite
different.
Their writings refer to European models and industrial
policies. Their ideal is not the entrepreneur, but the
government planner -- the lawyer or policy professor who flatters
himself that he understands the American economy better than the
workers and entrepreneurs who actually make it work.
My opponent and his advisors can trace their intellectual
roots to the turn-of-the century socialists. Their predecessors
advocated large-scale government ownership to give the state the
leading role in the society and economy. Today, European
governments are still selling off the inefficient industrial
monstrosities that were born from those ideas.
Then the socialists became interventionist liberals, who
wanted to create a welfare state. They sought to "level"
differences, to tax success, to redistribute wealth. They ended
up paralyzing the private sector. That's one reason some
European countries today are stuck with unemployment rates around
10 percent. And it's why ordinary Europeans are rebelling
against anything that even smacks of elite central government.
My opponent is drawn to these views; he and a number of his
advisors studied them at Oxford in the '60s. But they are shrewd
enough to know that the welfare state doesn't sell in America, so
my opponent labels his latest technique for government management
"investment." No matter what you call it, it's still big-
5
time government spending directed by Washington planners who want
to re-order social and economic priorities.
My opponent's approach exploits the market, but
fundamentally distrusts it. Where the market can be rough-
edged, they prefer academic tidiness. Where the market is often
unpredictable, they prefer the false certitude of social
engineering -- fashioned by a new economic elite of the so-
called "best and brightest. "
From Santa Monica to Cambridge, my opponents are cranking up
their models -- ready to test them -- on you.
You see, your choice about who should lead the American
economy -- the entrepreneur or the government planner -- comes at
a decisive moment in history.
From Mexico to Eastern Europe, from Russia to South China,
command-and-control economies have dismissed as failures. The
individual is being set free, private enterprise unleashed,
bureaucracies shut down.
At the exact moment the rest of the world is going our way -
- why would we ever want to go their way?
What are we supposed to say to a world suddenly copying our
ideas about free enterprise? Just kidding?
This is the most fundamental disagreement between us:
whether the driving engine of growth is government
interventionism, or entrepreneurial capitalism. But from this
one disagreement flow many others, with important practical
consequences for our economy, our nation, and your family.
6
Take our second disagreement -- over the issue of taxes.
He wants to raise taxes, I want to cut them.
I believe our tax system is fundamentally the product of a
wartime economy. The cost of fighting two World Wars and a Cold
War vastly expanded the number of people who had to pay taxes,
and raised marginal tax rates.
High tax rates created pressure for exceptions -- tax
loopholes. The discovery and enlarging of loopholes has in turn
created a vast industry of accountants and lawyers and tax
specialists, all paid by special interests seeking favored
treatment.
During the 1980s, we slashed the tax on labor -- increasing
incentives for work and creating 21 million jobs. Now, we need
to lower the tax on capital -- encouraging more investment that
will create more jobs.
My opponent calls for raising marginal rates again. His
approach will cut the demand for labor -- unless you happen to be
a lawyer or accountant or lobbyist.
There's a motive to his madness. My opponent needs the
money to pay for his social engineering. He says it will come
from the "rich." He neglects to mention that two-thirds of the
quote "rich" -- he's targeting are family farmers and small
business owners. His theory is that you may not live the
lifestyle of the Rich and Famous -- but you can be taxed like you
do.
7
This leads me to our third major difference: government
spending.
Again, the contrast couldn't be more plain. He wants to
raise government spending, I want to cut it.
The federal government today spends almost a quarter of our
national income. When you add state and local spending, the
figure is about 35 cents.
My opponent thinks government should be bigger. He has
already called for $220 billion in new spending, on top of
today's $1.5 trillion -- so government can lead our economy with
new "investments." And Newsweek suggests that the actual cost
could be three times that.
My proposal to reduce the growth of spending has three
parts: a cap on the growth of mandatory spending, excluding
Social Security; a freeze on domestic spending; and the
elimination of 246 programs and more than 4000 projects we don't
need and can't afford.
I want this discipline backed up with a balanced budget
amendment, and a line-item veto. And I want to give you the right to
take up to 10 percent of your tax payment -- and dedicate it
solely to cut spending and the deficit.
My opponent says he would like to cut a government program,
too. One program in the entire federal budget -- the honey bee
subsidy -- worth $11 million. Incidentally, Senator Gore has
voted four times to save the program.
8
My opponent ducks the subject of spending cuts. He's
proposed about $5 billion in cuts in mandatory spending over four
years. The trends are clear. He wants to increase government's
share of the national wealth, I want to decrease it.
The fourth defining difference? Opening foreign markets for
American goods. Again, two contrasting approaches.
Here in Oklahoma, 65,000 jobs are supported by trade -- and
that number will grow, if we open more foreign markets. That's
why I negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement or
NAFTA- why I want a network of free trade agreements with other
countries.
I want lower-priced goods for American consumers, and I know
that, given the chance, the American worker can out think, out
compete, and out create any worker in the world.//
There were times when my opponent said he favored open
trade. Other times -- usually after meeting with big union
leaders -- he has no opinion at all. Asked about the free trade
pact with Mexico he now says -- "When I have a definitive
opinion I'll say so."
That indecision could have disastrous consequences. Make no
mistake: An indecisive President will produce a protectionist
trade policy. Over the past twenty years, Congress has become
much more protectionist. Changes in the way Congress operates
have significantly increased the power of individual members.
And the established special interests have targeted each one --
with a great deal of success. These local interest groups will
9
conspire with their clients in Congress to keep out competition
altogether. Only the President can speak for the national
interest.
The marriage of convenience between the special interests
and powerful Congressmen poses particular dangers to free trade.
Entrepreneurs are very good at taking advantage of foreign
markets; they are not as good at taking lobbyists to lunch. Old
line companies know the game well -- the weaker their competitive
edge in the marketplace, the greater their competition for favors
from Capitol Hill. So the President must be firmly committed to
opening markets -- at home and abroad.
Frankly, I believe that when Americans shop we should give
the first look to products marked Made-in-the-USA. Our quality
revolution has made American products the best in the world. But
they will only remain the best if American business opens itself
to competition. Competition gave American business its
competitive edge, and competition will keep it sharp.
There's a fifth difference between my opponent and me: our
attitudes toward government regulation, mandates and monopolies.
I want to minimize federal intrusion in the workings of the
marketplace; my opponent sees regulation as he sees taxes and
spending -- as a chance to reorder society according to some planner's
blueprint.
Of course, I believe firmly in government's obligation to
protect the health and safety and rights of its citizens. I
fought for both the Clean Air Act and the Americans With
10
Disabilities Act.
Both will require new regulations -- but we
are proceeding to implement them in the most efficient and least
burdensome way possible.
Last year, Americans expended 5.3 billion hours just to keep
up with federal regulations. That's like watching every pro
football game on television back-to-back for the next 12 million
-- 268,000 years. (That's not including playoffs.)
That is why I have ordered a top-to-bottom review of
government regulations, to assess each new rule's impact on
economic growth. And in my Agenda I have called for adding
"sunset" provisions to all new regulations.
Look at health care -- a case study of our different
attitudes toward government regulation. My health care reform
will bring health care to those without it by giving them the
means to choose the kind of care they want. And my program
harnesses the forces of competition to control costs.
My opponent, by contrast, says that government will simply
issue an edict: Costs shall not rise. And he will order
businesses to provide health care or pay for it -- though he
never quite says how. It sounds simple, even seductive.
But that's not the way the world works. My opponent's new
dictates and taxes won't cure the health care problem; they will
just make the economy sicker. From Warsaw to Prague to Moscow,
government price controls have led to one thing: rationing of
service. In health care, that will mean longer lines,
inefficient service, and lower quality.
11
Our difference in approach to government's role shows up
across the board.
In child care -- I fought to empower parents to choose from
a public agency, a relative, or a church. My opponents wanted a
government-knows-best monopoly.
In education -- I'm fighting to give parents scholarships to
choose the best schools for their kids -- public, private or
religious. My opponent bows to the special interests who say
parents should only choose government schools.
Lastly, my opponent and I disagree on an issue crucial to
small businesses. I believe our legal system is out of control,
heading for an accident. The litigation explosion has
discouraged risk-taking and innovation, the life's blood of
entrepreneurial capitalism. Today Americans spend up to $200
billion in direct costs to lawyers-- far more than our
competitors in Asia and Europe.
Again, when it comes to legal reform, the difference is
clear: I'm for it. My opponent and the trial lawyers want to
kill it.
In fact, one trial lawyer from Arkansas solicited funds for
my opponent by writing: "I can never remember an occasion when
he failed to do the right thing where we trial lawyers were
concerned."
A truly competitive America cannot afford a President who
worries about doing the right thing for trial lawyers.
12
We need to sue each other less and care for each other more.
These, then, are the six core differences between my Agenda
and my opponent's plan. There are others, but all relate to
America's central challenge --- the challenge of securing peace
and prosperity in a totally new era.
We may talk about the same issues, but the similarity ends
there. My opponent and I hope to take America in very different
directions.
He would unite the Presidency and the Congress to achieve
one end above all others: more government -- a government that
taxes more, spends more, regulates more, encourages more
lawsuits, and shuts off more markets to the products Americans
create.
Those aren't new ideas. They're bad ideas. And they've
been tried before.
Buying my opponent's prescription for the economy would be
like going to the used car lot and buying the lemon you got rid
of 12-years-ago. Only this time, there would be higher taxes,
higher interest rates, and higher inflation. This is not a good
deal for America.
On July 20, 1988, my opponent nominated Michael Dukakis for
President. He praised Michael Dukakis then as a "master of
innovation," the architect of the Massachusetts Miracle.
Six months later the Miracle was a curse, and Massachusetts
teetered toward bankruptcy.
13
I think America can do without that kind of innovation.
There are some kind of changes America simply can't afford.
I look to a different kind of future. We can build on our
strengths. With inflation kept safely behind bars, our
entrepreneurs can turn to the challenges they love to face:
transforming their dreams into wealth, their risk-taking into
jobs for all Americans.
And the result won't be the mirage of innovation conjured up
by government planners. It will be a wave of genuine innovation
and prosperity, created by free men and women, exploiting
opportunities unprecedented in our history.
That is the choice we face. So I ask when you make that
choice, please consider carefully which candidate's agenda best
fits your beliefs, our national heritage, and our hopes for
lasting peace and prosperity.
Thank you for listening. God Bless the United States of
America.
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