Remarks to the Mortgage Bankers Association of America

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents,  March 9, 1998  

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Thank you all so much. Thank you, Marc, and Paul Reid and Mike Ferell and all the officers and staff of the Mortgage Bankers Association; to our national treasurer and members of the National Association of State Treasurers. I'm delighted to be here, along with Frank Raines, my OMB Director, who used to spend some time with some of you, and Gene Sperling and others on our staff.

I have looked forward to this day for a long time, just to be able to thank you for the work that all of you have done in giving America the highest homeownership rate in the history of the Republic. It means a lot to a lot of people out there in the country, and I appreciate your role in this historic achievement. And I thank you very much.

In my State of the Union Address, I called upon all our people to strengthen our country for the new century ahead. Historically, that has always meant deepening the meaning of America's freedom, strengthening our Union, and drawing our people closer together across all the lines that divide us, and clearly, always widening the circle of opportunity.

Now, we are seeing a remarkable increase in the circle of opportunity. In addition to reaching the highest level of homeownership in history, millions of Americans have been able to refinance their mortgages, which has amounted to billions and billions of dollars in tax cuts for families, putting more money in their pockets, freeing up more for investment and savings. Access to capital has spread to minorities who for years have been locked out of the economy. And I appreciate what Mare said about going to New York. We do see increasing homeownership rates for minorities now and I hope it will continue. Our capital markets are the strongest in the world, and clearly, they have played a major role in helping us to do well in this new economy.

Today what I'd like to do is talk to you just for a few minutes about why we have to follow a consistent strategy of fiscal discipline and investment in our future and our people. The strategy that has worked for the last 5 years we must continue into the next century. I also want to talk about how all the discussions surrounding the tax system and the IRS fit into this: what is the right way to cut taxes; what is the right way to reform the IRS; what is the wrong way to do it? I especially want to comment on what I believe strongly is a misguided scheme recently introduced in the Congress that I believe could take us back to policies which have failed us in the past.

These are good times for our country, with a new economy powered by technology, nurtured by the ingenuity of the human mind, enlarged by our newfound fiscal discipline at home, and increasing trade among all nations. Over the past 5 years our new economy has produced now almost 15 million new jobs, with the highest percentage of those jobs in the private sector of any recovery in memory. Unemployment is the lowest in 24 years; business investment is growing at 11 percent, the fastest pace in 30 years; since 1993, family incomes are up about $2,200.

Today we have fresh new evidence that the economy continues to grow. Personal income rose six-tenths of one percent last month alone. Our social problems, from crime to welfare, are bending to our efforts. The welfare rolls are the lowest in 27 years; the crime rate the lowest in 24 years. We now have, literally, a system in which we have opened the doors of college education to all people in this country who are willing to work for it, with tax credits, with IRA's, with better student loans and tax deductibility for the interest on those loans, more Pell grants, more work-study positions. We are adding 5 million children from working families to the ranks of those with health insurance. Combined with our record levels of homeownership, the American dream is clearly within reach for more and more American families.

This did not happen by accident, but no one alone can claim credit for it. It was the product of a remarkable concerted endeavor by tens of millions of Americans. But it also was supported by the economic policies that we have followed with discipline and consistency over the last 5 years. We moved beyond the sterile debate between those who said Government was the problem and those who said it was the solution to a new way, a new Government for the information age that gives our people the tools they need to make the most of their own lives, that is unashamedly a catalyst for new ideas where the old ones don't work, that is a good partner with the private sector.

We have the smallest Government here in Washington since President Kennedy was in office. But it is still more progressive, more active. It is smaller, but the Nation is stronger. We put in place a three-part economic strategy, rejecting these false choices from the past: first, restoring fiscal discipline and conquering the deficits that hobbled growth, spiked interest rates, and robbed our economy of capital for investment throughout the 1980's; second, investments in our people, in science and technology, in education and job training, and health care, so that everyone has a chance to reap the rewards of growing prosperity; and third, we responded to the global nature of the new economy by opening new markets to our goods and services.