pd08au94 Remarks to Health Security Express Participants...

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program, it's nothing but a big tax increase; it will collapse the 
economy.'' Well, here's what it did.
    It had $255 billion in spending cuts. It had tax cuts for 15 million 
working Americans to keep them at work and off of welfare, including 
350,000 New Jersey families. It asked the wealthiest 1\1/2\ percent to 
pay a tax increase, and it reduced the Federal Government--I hear all 
the time the other side saying we hate big Government. Well, we 
Democrats passed a budget that will give you the smallest Federal 
Government since John Kennedy was President, three years of deficit 
reduction for the first time since Harry Truman was President, and 
produced 3.8 million new jobs and a 1\1/2\ percent unemployment rate 
drop and the largest number of new businesses formed in any year since 
World War II. That is what we say to the naysayers, a Government that 
works for ordinary Americans again.
    For 6 years I heard them talking about crime in Washington and how 
tough they were on crime, except nothing ever happened. But last week, 
after 6 years and this problem plaguing American families, what 
happened? The Congress decided to send for a final vote the toughest, 
smartest crime bill in the history of the country: a 20-percent increase 
in the number of police officers, 100,000 more in the United States; 
``three strikes and you're out''; an assault weapons ban like you had 
here in New Jersey that you had to fight like crazy to keep; a bill that 
makes it illegal for young people to have handguns unless they're under 
the supervision of adults; money to keep our schools safer, so our kids 
don't have to duck under their desks to dodge bullets; and more money to 
give our young people something to say yes to, summer jobs, midnight 
basketball, drug treatment programs, the chance to build a better life. 
That is what we are producing for middle class America to build a better 
country.
    And now, now we come to health care. I don't know if you saw this, 
but Saturday, Hillary and I went down to Independence, Missouri, to 
President Truman's hometown, with the Vice President and Mrs. Gore. And 
the Governor of Missouri got up, and he read all these things. He said, 
``Just listen to what they're saying about our President. They're saying 
he wants socialized medicine. They're saying he's going to take health 
care away from the American people. They're saying he's going to mess it 
up.'' He went through all these quotes, and then he said, ``This is not 
what they said about President Clinton; this is what they said 50 years 
ago about President Truman.'' The lines are still the same, and the 
objective is still the same. I am trying to get health care for ordinary 
American people.
    Let me tell you something, folks. When I presented our plan, I went 
all around the country and I listened to what people said. They said, 
``We want you to change it some, make it less bureaucratic, provide more 
flexibility, give bigger breaks to small business, take some more time 
to phase it in.'' And we said we would do that. Those changes have been 
made. But one thing we shouldn't change is whether America at long last 
will join the ranks of all the other advanced countries in the world and 
provide health care for all the middle class working people in the 
United States.

[[Page 1599]]

    If you're on welfare, you have health care. If you're in jail, you 
have health care. If you're rich, you have health care. If you're a 
politician, you've got it. The only people who can lose it are working 
people. Over 80 percent of the people in the United States without 
health insurance work for a living every day. And it is not right.
    And let me tell you this. I say this to all the people who come here 
to disagree with us in good faith. How do you explain the fact that all 
of our competitors cover their people? How do you explain the fact that, 
while that is happening, in the last 5 years in America, there are now 5 
million people in this country today who don't have health insurance who 
had it 5 years ago, that New Jersey has had almost a 50-percent increase 
in the number of people without health insurance in the last 5 years? 
Almost one million people in New Jersey alone don't have it. What is 
their answer? I have given you my answer. Let's ask the American people 
to give health insurance to everybody.
    Let me say one other thing. I'm a big one on getting beyond all this 
slogan and name-calling and just asking what works. In the State of 
Hawaii, for the last 20 years in Hawaii, employers and employees have 
had the responsibility to make sure that everybody had health insurance. 
Now, if you've ever been to Hawaii, you know that everything in the 
entire State of Hawaii is more expensive than it is here because it's 
way out there in the ocean. That is, everything except one thing: health 
insurance. It is 30 percent cheaper in Hawaii than it is in the United 
States, on the average. The healthy population is greater. The infant 
mortality rate is down. And small business is booming because they can 
all afford health care. And that's what I want to do for the United 
States, what we know will work.
    What is the answer of those who say, ``We don't like what they did 
in Hawaii; we don't want cheaper health insurance; we don't want 
healthier people. We want people to be able to get a free ride and stick 
the taxpayer with what happens. It's all right with us if these country 
hospitals close down in places like my State and if Dennis Rivera's 
workers can't afford to take care of all the people without health 
insurance.'' What is their answer? It is time for the shoe to be on the 
other foot. I have been out here for one year saying, let's give health 
care to the American people.
    Now this time who advocates shared responsibility? Who in America 
says everybody ought to have health insurance? Well, the American 
Association of Retired People, all these folks in the unions who already 
have health care, they're doing it for the rest of Americans, spending 
your money. And I thank you for that. But for the first time, for the 
first time ever, we have the nurses association, the medical 
association, the pediatricians, the children's doctors association, the 
family doctors association, 600,000 small businesses who provide health 
care for their workers, all of them say, ``If everybody did it we could 
make this a healthier, better, stronger country, and we would lower 
health care costs for tens of millions of Americans.'' That's what we're 
here for. That's what I want you to fight for. That's what I want 
Congress to vote for.
    My fellow Americans, this decision rests no longer in my hands 
alone. The Congress has been under enormous pressure. There has been 
enormous disinformation out there. You've got people here holding up 
signs saying, ``No Socialized Medicine.'' What does our plan require? 
Everybody to buy private insurance. Most of them have parents on 
Medicare. You want to repeal Medicare, ma'am? Do you think that's 
socialized medicine? I don't. Medicare, however, is paid for by all of 
us and by our employers. And they take care of the elderly people of 
this country; nobody wants to repeal it.
    Our plan gives you your choice of doctors. You keep your doctor. You 
make your decision. It's private insurance. It's just what Hawaii has 
done. And there are people who say, ``Don't ration health care.'' You 
talk to anybody who's had their insurance cut back or their premiums up 
or their deductibles increased. You talk to any doctor who's had to hire 
somebody just to call the insurance companies to get them to pay the 
bill. We are rationing health care today; 39 million Americans don't 
have it. We are losing ground.
    There are millions and millions of people who are holding on by 
their fingernails with

[[Page 1600]]

worse and worse policies. What I want to do is stop rationing health 
care, avoid socialized medicine, give good, old-fashioned private 
American health care to every American working family. That's what we're 
trying to do. And all the disinformation in the world won't change it.
    So I ask you this: Don't let the fear- mongers, don't let the 
dividers, don't let the people who disseminate false information 
frighten the United States Congress into walking away from the 
opportunity of a lifetime. Tell the Members of Congress you will support 
them. This is not partisan politics.
    I met with three families before I came up here with these problems. 
I don't have any earthly idea whether they are Republicans or Democrats. 
I couldn't tell you to save my life who they voted for for President. 
But I can tell you one thing: If they get up and go to work and obey the 
law and do their best to raise their children, they deserve health 
insurance. And with your help, we're going to give it to them.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 2:10 p.m. at Liberty State Park. In his 
remarks, he referred to Gerald McEntee, president, AFSCME; Vince 
Sombrotto, president, Letter Carriers of the United States; Dennis 
Rivera, president, Local 1199; Health Security Express rider Carolyn 
Vilas; and Louis and Maria Agnes, of New Jersey, who had written to the 
President concerning their problems obtaining health care insurance.


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[Page 1600]
 
Monday, August 8, 1994
 
Volume 30--Number 31
Pages 1581-1636
 
Week Ending Friday, August 5, 1994
 
Statement on Crime Legislation

August 1, 1994

    Every major law enforcement organization in America supports this 
crime bill. Republican mayors have written members of their party in 
Congress to urge swift passage of the bill and Democratic mayors have 
done the same.
    Today, the Nation's prosecutors have come to Washington to add their 
voices to this mighty chorus with its simple message: Pass the crime 
bill now.
    Police officers want it because it bans the deadly assault weapons 
that outgun them every day. Mayors want it because it will put 100,000 
more police officers on the streets. Prosecutors want it because it's 
full of tough punishments that will allow them to seek the penalties 
violent criminals deserve.
    The American people want action against the crime and violence that 
has become a familiar threat in almost every neighborhood.
    It's time for the lawmakers to do what the law enforcers have asked: 
Pass the crime bill now.


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[Page 1600-1601]
 
Monday, August 8, 1994
 
Volume 30--Number 31
Pages 1581-1636
 
Week Ending Friday, August 5, 1994
 
Proclamation 6709--50th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising

August 1, 1994

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

     On this day of remembrance, we pause together to recall the brutal 
path that has led to the triumph of freedom in Poland. We remember the 
brave men and women of the Polish Home Army who stood on the front lines 
of combat as their city was destroyed. We recall the children of Warsaw 
who braved sniper fire to deliver messages for the Resistance. We hold 
in our hearts the spirits of those who lost their lives. We grieve with 
their survivors. We speak to one another of those bloody days so that we 
may never know that sorrow again.
    A half-century ago, the residents of Warsaw, Poland, could scarcely 
imagine that their city would restore its playgrounds for children or 
its gardens for flowers. For 63 monstrous days of Nazi aggression, it 
seemed impossible that a Polish arsenal stockpiled with courage, faith, 
and solidarity could prevail against the tanks, machine guns, and 
bombers of Hitler's tyranny. But since that time, when it seemed 
unfathomable to the valiant citizens of Warsaw that they would ever 
recapture freedom's light, the people of Poland have emerged victorious. 
Fifty years later, the weapons of Nazi terror are lost to history. 
Solidarity inspires us still.
    Warsaw has earned the flowers that grace it today. Though battered 
by the chaos of the second World War and stifled by the strictures of 
the Cold War, the people of Poland have continued to rebuild their 
beloved capital. Brick by brick, building by building, the beauty and 
majesty that defined Warsaw for centuries are being reborn to a 
generation

[[Page 1601]]

of Poles who have just recently discovered the blessings of freedom.
    The courage and hope that carried their parents and grandparents 
through the darkest days of the 1944 uprising remain. The legacy of that 
battle stirs today's residents to embrace the challenges of liberty. And 
on the strength of that tradition, democracy now thrives in Warsaw.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 1, 
1994, as the 50th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. I call upon the 
people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate 
ceremonies and activities.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of 
August, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-four, and of 
the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
nineteenth.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:56 a.m., August 2, 
1994]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on August 
3.


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[Page 1601-1602]
 
Monday, August 8, 1994
 
Volume 30--Number 31
Pages 1581-1636
 
Week Ending Friday, August 5, 1994
 
Proclamation 6711--Helsinki Human Rights Day, 1994

August 1, 1994

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    For over 20 years, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 
Europe has been an important forum in leading humanity's ongoing 
struggle to define and defend human rights. The Helsinki Final Act of 
1975 committed the United States, Canada, and 33 European states to 
respect ``freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, for all 
without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.'' It stands 
as a fundamental declaration of freedom--a beacon and a warning to all 
those who would turn away from democracy's welcoming light.
    When the West called upon the states in the Eastern bloc to uphold 
their CSCE human rights commitments during the Cold War, CSCE members' 
support of these ideals played a pivotal role. In recent years, the end 
of the Cold War and the dramatic political changes sweeping Eastern 
Europe and the former Soviet Union have allowed the CSCE to expand and 
reinforce its mandate even further. The 1990 Charter of Paris added to 
existing CSCE principles, embracing new commitments to political 
pluralism, economic liberty, and the rule of law. The 1992 Helsinki 

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