Remarks to the Nassau County Republican Dinner

Tonight I would like to talk with you about America's future — about the direction I believe America should take, and about the dangerous road of weakness and stagnation Bill Clinton is taking us down right now.

Over the last three and a half years, we've had a first glimpse of what the difference between Bill Clinton and the Republican Party means to our nation.

In 1992 Bill Clinton and his party took control of the entire government. In just twenty-four months they gave us the biggest tax increase in history, a defunded and demoralized military, a foreign policy that could be forced to reverse course even by a mob on a dock in a tiny country like Haiti, judges that put the rights of criminals over those of victims and an attempt to remake the greatest health care system in the world in the image of the Post Office.

The American people saw all that. They didn't like it. And in 1994 our party took back both houses of Congress for the first time in forty years.

And what happened then?

Welfare reform. Passed.

A balanced budget. Passed.

Tax cuts for American families. Passed.

And then what happened?

Welfare reform? Vetoed.

The balanced budget? Vetoed.

The tax cut for American families? Vetoed.

Some say there's not much difference between the sides this year. I say the differences are profound and fundamental. I think it's time to spell out the differences — the difference in outlook on the economy and on the role of government and on America's role in the world. Because when you add it up, Americans will have a choice this year. And the choice is just this simple: Bill Clinton is the rear-guard of big government and the welfare state, the champion of the Great Society status quo. We stand for less government, lower taxes, flatter taxes, more freedom, and a strong, proud America at home and abroad.

You don't have to look far to see the differences between us and the President at work. They were all over the news this week.

Bill Clinton says the way to lower gas prices is a one-time-only shell-game to sell-off our strategic petroleum reserves. I say the best way to lower gas prices is to repeal the Clinton gas tax once and for all time.

In fact, that's exactly what we're going to do. On Tuesday, I will introduce legislation in the Senate to repeal the Clinton gas tax.

And in November, let's repeal the Administration that gave us, not just the gas tax, but the largest tax increase in history — it's running on empty anyway.

I believe that the American people are looking for leadership this year — leadership in the right direction.

Let's take the economy.

This Administration touts its economic performance as a success story.

Some success.

When Bill Clinton came into office the economy was growing at "4-point-3" percent. Now we're lucky if it hits a fast crawl. America can do better.

Today, the American people are caught in a "Clinton crunch" between higher taxes and stagnant wages. According to one study, without the $265 billion Clinton tax increase — the largest tax increase in our nation's history — American companies would have created more than one million additional jobs and American households would have $2,600 more in disposable income.

And that's not all.

Once the President vetoed the first real shot we had at a balanced budget in over 20 years and offered a fantasy budget that won't make real cuts until the next century, mortgage rates began to move up — one full percentage point since January.

We want a balanced budget with lower and flatter taxes — because the engines of economic growth are new businesses and new technologies, they are men and women who work hard and take chances and save what they ran, who build homes and a future for their children and their communities.

I say it is time our government was on the side of those people, the side of hardworking American families. And the first step is to cut government, to cut interest rates and to cut taxes — to balance the budget with less spending and more growth.

Bill Clinton says the era of big government is over. It's not yet. But come November, with your help, it will be.

And so will be this short, sad interlude of American waffling and weakness in world affairs.

The last 50 years have taught us that a secure peace depends on a strong America.

But from a sham agreement with North Korea that may well allow them to keep and develop more nuclear weapons, to indecision about defending a democratic ally like Taiwan against Chinese aggression, from the halls of Port-au-Prince to the shores of Somalia, to Bosnia where President Clinton allowed Iran, of all nations, to conduct American foreign policy, Mr. Clinton's conduct of foreign policy has telegraphed indecision and weakness to the world.

Until his hand was forced by Congress, Mr. Clinton wouldn't even stand up to a washed-out, isolated communist dictator in Cuba who had murdered American citizens in cold blood.

He has slashed our defense budget and sent our men and women in uniform to do the bidding of Boutros-Boutros Ghali and sent entire combat units to serve under U.N. command — a first in American history.

Well, in my administration, Americans will not serve under the command of the United Nations.

Sometimes you've got to wonder what goes on in the heads of those deep thinkers in the Clinton White House. They're continuing missile defense cooperation with Israel — a good idea which began under Presidents Reagan and Bush — but Mr. Clinton has fought against giving the American people a defense against missile attack since he took office.

If a missile defense is necessary for Tel Aviv — and I certainly believe it is — it is equally necessary for America, including for right here in Nassau County. I've supported missile defense but this President is against it. In my administration we will have it.

Anyone who says we don't need a missile defense because there is no immediate nuclear threat, is like someone saying he doesn't need an umbrella because it is not raining right now. I've seen enough of war to know, you don't take chances with America's security. In my administration, America will once again follow Ronald Reagan's policy of peace through strength.

Allies will no longer doubt our commitment. Adversaries will no longer doubt our resolve. America will lead again.

I've spoken about the differences, the clear differences between Clintonomics and the kind of economic policy you can expect from my administration. And I've talked about the difference between my view of America's security needs and the way the President sees it. But let's talk for a minute about something as important as either the economy or America's foreign policy. Let's talk about the difference in our sense of values — the difference between common sense conservatism and out-dated liberalism, the difference between talk and action.

We don't need a president who prefers to spend his spare time raising money from the Hollywood elite.

We need a president from the nation's heartland, who honors the common-sense of ordinary Americans.

We also need a president who honors his commitment and means what he says.

We all know that, too often, this administration has talked conservatively while walking knee-deep in the swamps of liberalism.

The president's rhetoric is tough on crime, but his actions are to appoint judges like Judge Harold Baer of New York who have made careers of getting tough on cops.

And he appoints officials like HUD's Roberta Achtenberg, who ordered an investigation of men and women who petitioned, spoke out and filed suits against putting a house for recurring drug addicts in their Berkeley, California neighborhood — and threatened each of them with heavy fines.

So while the Clinton Administration invents ever new and expansive rights for criminals, they are apparently willing to trample on the most basic rights — first amendment rights — of law-abiding American citizens standing up for their own communities.

In my administration neighborhoods and families will have rights, too.

He said he wanted to make abortions rare. But his policies are confined to taking the extreme position of vetoing Congress' ban on partial-birth abortions. As President, I will sign the partial-birth abortion bill into law.

Talk right, run left. That's Bill Clinton's record. My Administration will not just talk the talk. It will walk the walk.

I want to be president, because I want to return integrity to our government.

I want to be president, because I want to restore the vigor of the American economy — to restore the growth and opportunity that open up better lives for American families and their children.

I want to be president, because I want to restore an instinct for decency to our national life and our culture.

I want to be president, because I want to restore America's strength of purpose in the world — and restore the strong defense that is needed to support it.

I want to be president, because I believe that as great as America has been, America has even greater, better days ahead.

We're seeing the Olympic torch being carried across America this year in relays. That's sort of what the presidency is, a relay into the future, with the torch of office passed from one commander-in-chief to another.

The question the American people must decide is, how has the flame been kept these last four years? Has it burned as brightly as it should? Has the torch carrier taken it along the right path? Does the flame light the way to a better life for ourselves and our children?

Or should the torch be passed to a new president who knows a better way, a president who will hold it higher, a president who will carry it on a steady course and leave it burning even brighter when it's passed to other hands in the years ahead.

I believe the torch should be passed in 1996, and I am prepared to receive it.

Join with me in running the race together — to a brighter, better, more hopeful America.

Thank you and God bless you all.