Home > 1994 Presidential Documents > pd09my94 Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters on Departure From the CNN...pd09my94 Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters on Departure From the CNN...
to display the flag on all government buildings and grounds on this day.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day
of April, 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
eighteenth.
William J. Clinton
[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 4:37 p.m., May 2, 1994]
Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on May 4.
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Monday, May 9, 1994
Volume 30--Number 18
Pages 941-1005
Week Ending Friday, May 6, 1994
Proclamation 6681--Small Business Week, 1994
April 30, 1994
By the President of the United States
of America
A Proclamation
Small businesses create many new jobs in the United States and are
an important part of our Nation's international competitiveness. Today,
America's 20 million small businesses remain at the heart of our
economy. These companies are the engines of growth, and it is in small
business that people continue to find opportunity, pride, and dignity.
Indeed, small business is the lifeblood of America's free enterprise
system. This is the sector that creates two of every three new jobs in
our country, putting the American Dream within reach of hundreds of
thousands of men and women who provide the variety and ingenuity that
are our greatest natural resources. Small businesses employ more than 57
percent of the private U.S. work force, account for 54 percent of all
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sales, and generate half of the domestic private sector output.
As we move forward in a spirit of renewal and change, there is one
constant that must prevail in the economy of the United States. Small
business must continue to provide the solid foundation upon which this
Nation builds its economic strength and maintains its character.
Government, working hand in hand with entrepreneurs, must recognize
these contributions and help small business create jobs and increase
incomes.
We must support and honor small business for the contributions this
sector makes to the economy. And just as important, we should remember
that it is in small business that the United States finds energy, faith,
and confidence in our system of democracy and free enterprise. Only by
fully developing our technological and human resources can we expect to
be leaders in the global marketplace.
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 the week
of May 1 through May 7, 1994, as the 31st ``Small Business Week,'' and I
call on every American to join me in this tribute.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day
of April, 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
eighteenth.
William J. Clinton
[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 4:38 p.m., May 2, 1994]
Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on May 4.
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Monday, May 9, 1994
Volume 30--Number 18
Pages 941-1005
Week Ending Friday, May 6, 1994
Statement on the Agreement To Withdraw Russian Military Forces From
Latvia
April 30, 1994
I applaud today's agreement signed by Latvian President Guntis
Ulmanis and Russian President Boris Yeltsin that will lead to the
withdrawal of Russian military forces from the territory of the Republic
of Latvia by August 31, 1994. I have contacted both leaders to offer my
personal congratulations for their vision and statesmanship in
concluding this historic accord.
Since the early days of my administration, among my highest foreign
policy priorities has been promoting agreement on an orderly withdrawal
of Russian forces from the Baltic countries. I discussed this frequently
with President Yeltsin and President Ulmanis. The United States has
played an active role with both parties during the course of the
Latvian-Russian negotiations. I believe that our engagement with both
sides, along with the support provided by other countries, in particular
Sweden, has played a constructive role in bringing this agreement to a
successful conclusion.
Over the course of their negotiations, both the Latvian and Russian
Governments displayed a pragmatic approach to resolving their
differences. The understandings that this document embodies, including
the continued operation of the radar installation at Skrunda as a
civilian facility, are testimony to the determination of both sides to
conclude an agreement that responds to Russian concerns while affirming
Latvia's full and unrestricted sovereignty and promoting its integration
into the world community.
The agreement between Latvia and Russia now opens the door to a more
normal relationship between the two countries. It constitutes an
important contribution to overall stability in the Baltic region and to
European security as a whole. I hope that this agreement also will help
stimulate a speedy conclusion of the troop withdrawal negotiations
between Estonia and Russia.
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Monday, May 9, 1994
Volume 30--Number 18
Pages 941-1005
Week Ending Friday, May 6, 1994
Remarks to Americans With Disabilities
May 2, 1994
Well, thank you, Stephanie and Denise, and thank you all for being
here. I want to thank ADAPT; the National Council for Independent
Living; the Consortium of Citizens With Disabilities; recognize my good
friend Tony Coelho; Marca Bristo, the Chair of the National Council on
Disabilities, pend-
[[Page 954]]
ing confirmation. I'm honored to be given this book of signatures of
genuine American heroes who are fighting every day for their own rights
and for genuine health care reform for all Americans. I want to say a
special word of thanks to Justin Dart, who has risen above partisanship
to provide an example for all of us about what it really means to keep
fighting the good fight--not only for Americans with disabilities. This
is a fight for all Americans who are touched by these problems. And I
want to say a special word of thanks to Kate Miles and her family for
being here today, for her determination, her courage, her love, and for
her ability to get up here and tell their very moving personal story.
I say this to make a special point. The issues affecting Americans
with disabilities--they say, ``Well, there are 49 million Americans with
some sort of disability, and there are 255 million of us total.'' But if
you consider all the family members of all of the Americans with
disabilities, you're getting very close to a majority of us who would be
affected in a positive way by the provisions of the health security act
that help Americans with disabilities, just those provisions. And in a
very, moving and human way, Kate Miles and Robert and their children--
husbands, all the families they stand for all across America, they have
reminded us what this is all about.
The theme of your rally today is ``Bridge to Freedom,'' and I want
to talk a little about that. The Americans with disability law was a
bridge to freedom. But it's only part of the equation. It's only part of
the equation. What about economic freedom? How many Americans with
disabilities are denied the chance to do work they are able to do not
because of discrimination per se but because of the way the health care
system works. This is not just a health care issue, it's a work issue.
How much better off would the rest of us be if every American with a
disability who was willing to work, could work because of changes in the
health care system? It's self-defeating to say to the Americans with
disabilities, ``You can have health benefits, but only if you spend
yourself into poverty, and above all, you must not work.''
Forty-nine million Americans with disabilities, 24 million with
severe disabilities, half with no private health insurance--the health
care system is failing Americans with disabilities, but in so doing is
failing us all, is making us less productive than we would otherwise be,
less strong than we would otherwise be. It is costing more tax dollars
and robbing us of taxes that would come to America's treasury, not from
higher tax rates but from more Americans working and paying taxes in the
ordinary course of their lives. We had better fix it now.
After all of the incredible debates, after all of the amazing ads
where--and Justin just referred to one of them--you know, these ads
where they say--somebody calls up and says, ``Well, we'll have to call
the Government and see if you can get your doctor,'' all these
incredibly bogus ads. We had better do this now. We had better do this
now. Otherwise, the forces of disinformation, organized disinformation,
will think that the American people actually prefer to have the most
expensive, wasteful, bureaucratically cumbersome health care insurance
financing system on the entire face of the Earth, that they prefer that
as opposed to giving a decent break to this fine family and to all of
you. I don't believe the American people prefer that, and we had better
make sure that no one draws that historic lesson from this health care
debate.
There's a lot of talk today about the whole term ``empowerment''. It
risks becoming a buzzword. There is an empowerment television network.
But frankly, I like it. It encaptures something that is uniquely
American: the idea that people ought to be able to live up to the
fullest of their God-given abilities and that the Government should
facilitate people fulfilling themselves, not just be a paternalistic
Government doing things for people. I have believed in that for years.
Long before I ever became President, I worked on things that I thought
would promote empowerment: more choices for parents and children in
education, tax breaks for lower income working people, some of the
things that we've also promoted here in Washington. The family and
medical leave act here in my Presidency was an empowerment bill that
enables people to be good parents and good workers at the same time, the
empowerment zone concept that
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we passed through the economic program last time, lower student loans--
lower interest rates for student loans and better paybacks--is an
empowerment notion. National service is an empowerment notion: let
people have the strength at the grassroots level to solve their own
problems.
Empowerment involves work and family and self-fulfillment in a
responsible way. How can we empower the American people when 81 million
of us live in families with preexisting conditions; when the average
American, in the normal course of an economic lifetime, now will change
jobs eight times; when this fine man cannot change a job, even if he
gets a better job offer, because he can't insure his child? Is that
empowerment? No, it is the very reverse. So when we try to fix it, what
do our adversaries say? ``They're trying to have the Government take
over the health care system.'' False. Private insurance, private
providers, empowerment for this man, this woman, these children, their
families, and their futures. [Applause] Can you stay around here until
this is over? [Laughter] You're great.
Now, they say--let's not kid ourselves, if this were easy, it would
have been done already, right? Somebody would have been--people have
been trying to do it for 60 years. What is the nub of this? The nub is
the question of how to cover everybody and then how to give small
businesses the same market power in buying insurance that big business
and Government have. Because all across America, Government and big
business are downsizing, and small businesses are growing. I might say,
that means we better fix this now, because 10 years from now you'll have
a smaller percentage of people working for Government and big business
and a larger percentage of people working for small business. And if we
do not fix this now, this is going to get worse, not better.
We already have about 100,000 Americans a month losing their
insurance permanently. In the future, if we're going to be caught up in
the kind of a world that I want, where we have open borders and we trade
and we have these churning, fascinating, ever-changing economies, we had
better fix it now, because people will change jobs more often, not less
often.
This is a profoundly important issue. But we cannot do it unless we
find a way for everyone to have access and actually be covered by
insurance. Nine out of 10 Americans who have private insurance today
have it at work. Eight out of 10 Americans who don't have insurance,
like this fine young man here, are in families where there is at least
one working person. Therefore, it makes logical sense to say that people
who do work should be covered through work with a combination of
responsibility, just as this family has, from employers and the
employee. And then people who are not working should be covered from a
public fund. That is our plan; hardly a Government takeover of health
care.
And it makes sense for the Government to empower small business to
be able to afford this by providing the opportunity to be in buyers' co-
ops so that small businesses, self-employed people, and farmers can buy
insurance on the same term big business and Government can, and thereby
can afford to hire persons with disabilities. Because they will be
insured in big pools so that if there is one big bill for this young man
here, the insurer does not go broke.
And furthermore, it makes sense to give small businesses a discount
because a lot of them have financial burdens and lower profit margins,
and so we do that. That is the role of the Government in this: require
people who don't provide insurance to their employees to do it in
partnership with their employees; let small businesses go into big
buyers' co-ops so they can buy insurance on the same terms that the
President and the Congress can and people who work for big companies
can; eliminate discrimination so that people can move from job to job by
removing the problems of preexisting conditions; and finally, face the
fact that if you look at the aging population and the disabled
population, we must do something to support long-term care that is
community-based and home-based.
This is empowerment. This plan helps a person with a disability to
be able to take a job by including a tax credit for personal assistance
services worth 50 percent of what he or she earns. That's empowerment.
But home and community based long-term care is also empowerment. And it
also, over the
[[Page 956]]
long run, will be less expensive. Does it cost more in the short run?
Yes, it costs some extra money. But if you look at the population trends
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