Clinton Assures Nation Over Economy
By SANDRA SOBIERAJ Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- His political survival partly pinned to a
sagging stock market, President Clinton assured Americans ''the
pillars of our prosperity stand solid'' amid the storm churning from
failing economies overseas.
The Senate's top Republican, meanwhile, refused to let the topic
turn from Monica Lewinsky and warned of ''a contentious five
weeks'' ahead before Congress adjourns for reelection.
In Saturday's weekly radio address recorded during his travels in
Ireland, Clinton looked back over a week of wild gyrations on
Wall Street and focused on a piece of good news from the Labor
Department at week's end -- that unemployment remained at a
low 4.5 percent.
The president said he had asked Janet Yellen, chairwoman of his
Council of Economic Advisers, for an overall economic
assessment last week and what he heard back on Saturday
''should be reassuring to America's families.''
''Markets rise and fall, but our economy is the strongest it's been
in a generation and its fundamentals are sound,'' Clinton said,
while acknowledging that U.S. markets were feeling the effects of
turmoil in Russia and Asia.
''The bottom line is that for all the quicksilver volatility in the
world's financial markets, the American economy is on the right
track,'' Clinton said.
According to polls, Americans continue to give Clinton high
job-approval ratings primarily because of the thriving home
economy.
But Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, in the Republicans'
weekly radio broadcast, was the latest voice in Congress to
signal trouble ahead for the president. Clinton has ''eroded the
moral dimension of the presidency'' and left the office
''diminished in stature,'' Lott said.
''No matter how much President Clinton tries to change the
subject, his legal and ethical problems are just too deep to
ignore,'' the Mississippi senator said even as he, too, offered the
public a reassuring note.
Republicans, he said, ''are determined to maintain -- and to
justify -- your confidence no matter what else may happen in
other branches of government.''
Congressional Republicans and Democrats alike are keenly
sensitive to presenting voters with some record of
accomplishment in these remaining eight weeks before the Nov. 3
election.
''Despite the sensational headlines that many await us, let me
assure you we will work our way through this situation,'' Lott
said.
With spending battles also ahead, Lott additionally pledged that
Republicans were working on a new round of tax cuts and would
''keep the vital operations of government open'' even if Clinton
vetoes critical appropriations bills.
The president outlined his own agenda, reiterating that he would
insist that every penny of any budget surplus be set aside until the
Social Security system is secure, and that he would resist any tax
cut or new spending plan that squandered the surplus.
''In this time of financial uncertainty, we must maintain America's
hard-won fiscal discipline,'' he said.
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