THE WHITE HOUSE

                  Office of the Press Secretary
                   (Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania)
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                         April 17, 1993     

             
                  RADIO ADDRESS TO THE NATION 
                        BY THE PRESIDENT
             
                Pittsburgh International Airport
                    Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
             
             
10:06 A.M. EDT
             
             
             THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning.  My voice is coming to
you this morning through the facilities of the oldest radio
station in America, KDKA in Pittsburgh.  I'm visiting the city to
meet personally with citizens here to discuss my plans for jobs,
health care and the economy.  But I wanted first to do my weekly
broadcast with the American people. 
             
             I'm told this station first broadcast in 1920 when
it reported that year's presidential elections.  Over the past
seven decades presidents have found ways to keep in touch with
the people, from whistle-stop tours to fire-side chats to the bus
tour that I adopted, along with Vice President Gore, in last
year's campaign.
             
             Every Saturday morning I take this time to talk with
you, my fellow Americans, about the problems on your minds and
what I'm doing to try and solve them.  It's my way of reporting
to you and of giving you a way to hold me accountable.
             
             You sent me to Washington to get our government and
economy moving after years of paralysis and policy and a bad
experiment with trickle-down economics.  You know how important
it is for us to make bold, comprehensive changes in the way we do
business.  
             
             We live in a competitive global economy.  Nations
rise and fall on the skills of their workers, the competitiveness
of their companies, the imagination of their industries, and the
cooperative experience and spirit that exists between business,
labor and government.  Although many of the economies of the
industrialized world are now suffering from slow growth, they've
made many of the smart investments and the tough choices which
our government has for too long ignored.  That's why many of them
have been moving ahead and too many of our people have been
falling behind.
             
             We have an economy today that even when it grows is
not producing new jobs.  We've increased the debt of our nation
by four times over the last 12 years, and we don't have much to
show for it.  We know that wages of most working people have
stopped rising, that most people are working longer work weeks
and that too many families can no longer afford the escalating
cost of health care.
             
             But we also know that, given the right tools, the
right incentives and the right encouragement, our workers and
businesses can make the kinds of products and profits our economy
needs to expand opportunity and to make our communities better
places to live.
             
             In many critical products today Americans are the
low cost, high quality producers.  Our task is to make sure that
we create more of those kinds of jobs.
             
             Just two months ago I gave Congress my plan for
long-term jobs and economic growth.  It changes the old
priorities in Washington and puts our emphasis where it needs to
be -- on people's real needs, on increasing investments and jobs
and education, on cutting the federal deficit, on stopping the
waste which pays no dividends, and redirecting our precious
resources toward investment that creates jobs now and lays the
groundwork for robust economic growth in the future.
             
             These new directions passed the Congress in record
time and created a new sense of hope and opportunity in our
country.  Then the jobs plan I presented to Congress, which would
create hundreds of thousands of jobs, most of them in the private
sector in 1993 and 1994, passed the House of Representatives.  It
now has the support of a majority of the United States Senate. 
But it's been held up by a filibuster of a minority in the
Senate, just 43 senators.  They blocked a vote that they know
would result in the passage of our bill and the creation of jobs.
             
             The issue isn't politics; the issue is people. 
Millions of Americans are waiting for this legislation and
counting on it, counting on us in Washington.  But the jobs bill
has been grounded by gridlock.  
             
             I know the American people are tired of business as
usual and politics as usual.  I know they don't want us to spin
or wheels.  They want the recovery to get moving.  So I have
taken a first step to break this gridlock and gone the extra
mile.  Yesterday I offered to cut the size of this plan by 25
percent -- from $16 billion to $12 billion.  
             
             It's not what I'd hoped for.  With 16 million
Americans looking for full-time work, I simply can't let the bill
languish when I know that even a compromise bill will mean
hundreds of thousands of jobs for our people.  The mandate is to
act to achieve change and move the country forward.  By taking
this initiative in the face of an unrelenting Senate talkathon, I
think we can respond to your mandate and achieve a significant
portion of our original goals.
             
             First, we want to keep the programs as much as
possible that are needed to generate jobs and meet human needs,
including highway and road construction, summer jobs for young
people, immunization for children, construction of waste water
sites, and aid to small businesses.  We also want to keep funding
for extended unemployment compensation benefits, for people who
have been unemployed for a long time because the economy isn't
creating jobs.
             
             Second, I've recommended that all the other programs
in the bill be cut across-the-board by a little more than 40
percent.
             
             And third, I've recommended a new element in this
program to help us immediately start our attempt to fight against
crime by providing $200 million for cities and towns to rehire
police officers who lost their jobs during the recession and put
them back to work protecting our people.  I'm also going to fight
for a tough crime bill because the people of this country need it
and deserve it.
             
             Now, the people who are filibustering this bill --
the Republican senators -- say they won't vote for it because it
increases deficit spending, because there's extra spending this
year that hasn't already been approved.  That sounds reasonable,
doesn't it?  Here's what they don't say.  This program is more
than paid for by budget cuts over my five-year budget, and this
budget is well within the spending limits already approved by the
Congress this year.
             
             It's amazing to me that many of these same senators
who are filibustering the bill voted during the previous
administration for billions of dollars of the same kind of
emergency spending, and much of it was not designed to put the
American people to work.  
             
             This is not about deficit spending.  We have offered
a plan to cut the deficit.  This is about where your priorities
are -- on people or on politics.  
             
             Keep in mind that our jobs bill is paid for dollar
for dollar.  It is paid for by budget cuts.  And it's the
soundest investment we can now make for ourselves and our
children.  I urge all Americans to take another look at this jobs
and investment program; to consider again the benefits for all of
us when we've helped make more American partners working to
ensure the future of our nation and the strength of our economy.
             
             You know, if every American who wanted a job had
one, we wouldn't have a lot of the other problems we have in this
country today.  This bill is not a miracle, it's a modest first
step to try to set off a job creation explosion in this country
again.  But it's a step we ought to take.  And it is fully paid
for over the life of our budget.
             
             Tell your lawmakers what you think.  Tell them how
important the bill is.  If it passes, we'll all be winners.
             
             Good morning, and thank you for listening.