The Role Of Government
The New Covenant approach to governing is as different from the old bureaucratic way as the computer is from the manual typewriter. The old way of governing around here protected organized interests; we should look out for the interests of ordinary people. The old way divided us by interests, constituency or class; the New Covenant way should unite us behind a common vision of what's best for our country.
The old way dispensed services through large, top-down, inflexible bureaucracies. The New Covenant way should shift these resources and decision making from bureaucrats to citizens, injecting choice and competition and individual responsibility into national policy.
The old way of governing around here actually seemed to reward failure. The New Covenant way should have built-in incentives to reward success.
The old way was centralized here in Washington. The New Covenant way must take hold in the communities all across America, and we should help them to do that.
Our job here is to expand opportunity, not bureaucracy, to empower people to make the most of their own lives and to enhance our security here at home and abroad.
We must not ask Government to do what we should do for ourselves. We should rely on Government as a partner to help us to do more for ourselves and for each other.
I hope very much that as we debate these specific and exciting matters, we can go beyond the sterile discussion between the illusion that there is somehow a program for every problem, on the one hand, and the other illusion that the Government is the source of every problem that we have.
Our job is to get rid of yesterday's Government so that our own people can meet today's and tomorrow's needs.
And we ought to do it together.
You know, for years before I became President, I heard others say they would cut Government and how bad it was. But not much happened.
We actually did it. We cut over a quarter of a trillion dollars in spending, more than 300 domestic programs, more than 100,000 positions from the Federal bureaucracy in the last two years alone.
Based on decisions already made, we will have cut a total of more than a quarter of a million positions from the Federal Government, making it the smallest it has been since John Kennedy was president, by the time I come here again next year.
Under the leadership of Vice President Gore, our initiatives have already saved taxpayers $ 63 billion. The age of the $ 500 hammer and the ashtray you can break on David Letterman is gone. Deadwood programs like mohair subsidies are gone. We've streamlined the Agriculture Department by reducing it by more than 1,200 offices. We've slashed the small-business loan form from an inch thick to a single page. We've thrown away the Government's 10,000-page personnel manual.
And the Government is working better in important ways. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has gone from being a disaster to helping people in disaster.
You can ask the farmers in the Middle West who fought the flood there or the people in California who've dealt with floods and earthquakes and fires and they'll tell you that.
Government workers, working hand-in-hand with private business, rebuilt Southern California's fractured freeways in record time and under budget.
And because the Federal Government moved fast, all but one of the 5,600 schools damaged in the earthquake are back in business.
Now, there are a lot of other things that I could talk about. I want to just mention one because it'll be discussed here in the next few weeks.
University administrators all over the country have told me that they are saving weeks and weeks of bureaucratic time now because of our direct college loan program, which makes college loans cheaper and more affordable with better repayment terms for students, costs the Government less and cuts out paperwork and bureaucracy for the Government and for the universities.
We shouldn't cap that program, we should give every college in America the opportunity to be a part of it.
Previous Government programs gather dust; the reinventing Government report is getting results. And we're not through--there's going to be a second round of reinventing Government.
We propose to cut $ 130 billion in spending by shrinking departments, extending our freeze on domestic spending, cutting 60 public housing programs down to 3, getting rid of over a hundred programs we do not need like the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Helium Reserve Program.
And we're working on getting rid of unnecessary regulations and making them more sensible. The programs and regulations that have outlived their usefulness should go. We have to cut yesterday's Government to help solve tomorrow's problems.
And we need to get Government closer to the people it's meant to serve. We need to help move programs down to the point where states and communities and private citizens in the private sector can do a better job. If they can do it, we ought to let them do it. We should get out of the way and let them do what they can do better.
Community Empowerment
Taking power away from Federal bureaucracies and giving it back to communities and individuals is something everyone should be able to be for. It's time for Congress to stop passing onto the states the cost of decisions we make here in Washington.
I know there are still serious differences over the details of the unfunded mandates legislation but I want to work with you to make sure we pass a reasonable bill which will protect the national interest and give justified relief where we need to give it.
For years, Congress concealed in the budget scores of pet spending projects. Last year was no different. There was a million dollars to study stress in plants and $ 12 million for a tick removal program that didn't work. It's hard to remove ticks; those of us who've had them know.
But I'll tell you something, if you'll give me the line-item veto, I'll remove some of that unnecessary spending.
But, I think we should all remember, and almost all of us would agree, that Government still has important responsibilities.
Our young people--we should think of this when we cut--our young people hold our future in their hands. We still owe a debt to our veterans. And our senior citizens have made us what we are.
Budget
Now, my budget cuts a lot. But it protects education, veterans, Social Security and Medicare, and I hope you will do the same thing. You should, and I hope you will.
And when we give more flexibility to the states, let us remember that there are certain fundamental national needs that should be addressed in every state, north and south, east and west.
Immunization against childhood disease, school lunches in all our schools, Head Start, medical care and nutrition for pregnant women and infants--all these things are in the national interest.
I applaud your desire to get rid of costly and unnecessary regulations, but when we deregulate let's remember what national action in the national interest has given us: safer food for our families, safer toys for our children, safer nursing homes for our parents, safer cars and highways and safer workplaces, cleaner air and cleaner water. Do we need common sense and fairness in our regulations? You bet we do. But we can have common sense and still provide for safe drinking water. We can have fairness and still clean up toxic dumps and we ought to do it.
Should we cut the deficit more? Well of course we should. Of course we should. But we can bring it down in a way that still protects our economic recovery and does not unduly punish people who should not be punished, but instead should be helped.
I know many of you in this chamber support the balanced-budget amendment. I certainly want to balance the budget. Our Administration has done more to bring the budget down and to save money than any in a very, very long time.
If you believe passing this amendment is the right thing to do, then you have to be straight with the American people. They have a right to know what you're going to cut, what taxes you're