Our economic program has helped to produce the lowest core inflation rate
and the lowest interest rates in 20 years, and because those interest rates
are down, business investment and equipment is growing at seven times the
rate of the previous four years. Auto sales are way up, home sales at a
record high. Millions of Americans have refinanced their homes and our
economy has produced 1.6 million private-sector jobs in 1993, more than
were created in the previous four years combined.
The people who supported this economic plan should be proud of its early
results--proud. But everyone in this chamber should know and acknowledge
that there is more to do. Next month I will send you one of the toughest
budgets ever presented to Congress. It will cut spending in more than 300
programs, eliminate 100 domestic programs, and reforms the way in which
governments buy goods and services.
This year we must again make the hard choices to live within the hard
spending ceilings we have set. We must do it. We have proved we can bring
the deficit down without choking off recovery, without punishing seniors or
the middle class, and without putting our national security at risk. If you
will stick with this plan, we will post three consecutive years of
declining deficits for the first time since Harry Truman lived in the White
House. And once again, the buck stops here.