CLINTON: 1996-12-13 Press Conference of the President

[The White House]

Keywords: Arkansas, Communications, Culture, District-Of-Columbia, Economy,
Document-Id: PDI://OMA.EOP.GOV.US/

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release December 13, 1996

PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE PRESIDENT


Room 450
Old Executive Office Building

2:00 P.M. EST


THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. Please be seated.

As President, I have worked to keep the American Dream
alive for all those who are willing to work for it -- to restore
economic growth and to put our nation on the path to long-term
prosperity. One of the accomplishments I'm proudest of since 1992 is
the way our economic advisors have worked as a team to advance America's
interests at home and abroad.

Working together, this team has helped to cut our deficit
by 60 percent; increase our investments in education, the environment,
and technology; expand America's exports to record levels; and to help
our economy create nearly 11 million new jobs.

Today we see new results of that kind of teamwork.
American negotiators have agreed with the other members of the World
Trade Organization on a landmark information technology agreement -- the
pact that I worked so hard on at the APEC meeting in Manila recently. I
am pleased that it will eliminate by the year 2000 all tariffs on
computers, semiconductors, and telecommunications equipment. That's a
$5 billion cut in tariffs on the American products exported to other
nations.

America leads the world in these industries, and this
agreement means that there will be extraordinary new opportunities for
American businesses and workers, so the American people can reap the
rewards of the global economy as we move into the 21st century.

Today I'm pleased to introduce most of the members of the
team that will build on our work:

The Treasury Department has never been in better hands.
Bob Rubin has been the captain of our economic team for four years,
first as Director of the National Economic Council, and now as Secretary
of the Treasury. And I am pleased that he will stay on.

Larry Summers will continue as Deputy Secretary of the
Treasury, and we'll be calling upon his unique policy and analytic
skills in an enhanced capacity. Today I am also naming him as a
principal on the National Economic Council, which will benefit greatly
from his expertise in domestic and international economic policy.

As we work toward a balanced budget, the Office of
Management and Budget will play a critical role, because we have to do
it in a way that reflects our values and the other policy objectives of
this administration. Frank Raines has been on the job there for several
months now, working hard to reach a bipartisan agreement on a balanced
budget plan. I am happy to say that after four months he has agreed to
stay on the job, in a job that is often the biggest headache in town.

To prepare America for the 21st century, we must maintain a
strong Commerce Department. In the last four years, two exceptionally
gifted leaders -- my friends, the late Ron Brown and Mickey Kantor --
have headed that department and turned it into an economic powerhouse
for the American people. It has promoted American business, created
American jobs through exports and innovative technologies. I understand
Mickey Kantor's desire to return to private life after four grueling
years, but I regret it very much. He is a great talent, a great
citizen, and I will miss him.

Today I am pleased to nominate Bill Daley of Chicago as the
new Secretary of Commerce, a man of rare effectiveness, a long-time
civic leader, a prominent attorney and business leader. As Special
Counsel to the President for the North American Free Trade Agreement, he
coordinated our administration's efforts to forge a broad, bipartisan
coalition to pass that landmark trade agreement. He embodies the values
of hard work and fair play, faith and family, that will serve him in
very good stead as the Secretary of Commerce.

Second, I am pleased to announce my intention to nominate
Charlene Barshefsky to be our United States Trade Representative, a job
she has held on an acting basis for eight months. She's a tough and
determined representative for our country, fighting to open markets to
the goods and services produced by American workers and businesses. Her
skill is demonstrated by the information technology agreement I just
announced. She has been negotiating it around the clock in Singapore
for the last week.

Indeed, I'm not sure she's had any sleep in the last week,
but this is a remarkable achievement. I'm sorry she could not be here,
but her husband, Ed Cohen, and her daughters are with us. I spoke to
her last night in Singapore to congratulate her on this remarkable
achievement. I know she wishes she could be here, and I'm very glad
she'll be on the job for America.

Finally, when I took office four years ago, I established
for the first time a National Economic Council, to coordinate economic
policy, to make sure we get the best advice and a range of options as
well as new ideas. Today, I am pleased to appoint Gene Sperling to be
the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the
National Economic Council. Gene was my chief economic policy advisor in
the 1992 campaign. He's been Deputy Director of the NEC since its
creation. He has been central to the development of our budget, our
tax, our education, our training policies.

I rely on him heavily, on his knowledge and skill, his mind
and his heart. As all of you know, he certainly shows that the work
ethic is still alive and well in America. Indeed, I made him promise as
a condition of getting this appointment that he would adopt a dramatic
new idea in the next few years -- sleep. (Laughter.) I suppose if we
were giving MVP awards for our economic team, Gene would have been there
in each one of the last four years. And I'm very proud of his service
and excited about his promotion.

We know that our economic future is increasingly dependent
upon mastering the challenges of the global economy. Today I am pleased
to announce that I am appointing Dan Tarullo to be Assistant to the
President for International Economic Policy. In his job, Dan will
report to the heads of both the NEC and the NSC bringing, thus, even
closer coordination between our foreign and our economic teams. He's
represented the United States around the world as we have negotiated
trade agreements as Assistant Secretary of State and Deputy Director of
the NEC.

I'm also pleased to announce the completion of our foreign
policy team. Our Ambassador to the United Nations must be someone who
can give voice to America's interests and ideals around the world,
someone who can work to reform the United Nations so that it costs less
and is prepared to meet its new challenges, someone who can not only
talk but who can also act effectively.

All Americans have watched admiringly as Bill Richardson
has undertaken the toughest and most delicate diplomatic efforts around
the world -- from North Korea to Iraq. Just this week, Congressman
Richardson was huddled in a rebel chieftain's hut in Sudan, eating
barbecued goat and negotiating the freedom of three hostages.

Today I am proud to nominate him to be our next Ambassador
to the United Nations, to serve in my Cabinet and as a principal on our
foreign policy team.

In addition to his already long list of foreign policy
achievements, he has represented the people of northern New Mexico for
14 years now as a member of the House Democratic leadership, and as one
of our nation's most prominent and proud Hispanic leaders. He told me
last night how much he loved the people of his district. He and Al Gore
used to compete for who held the most town meetings in the entire
Congress. I know he will serve those constituents, and all the American
people, exceedingly well as the United Nations Ambassador.

I'm very proud of this team. We're making good progress in
putting our new people in place, and in resolving all the other
outstanding questions. I hope the Senate now will move as quickly as
possible to confirm them. I was very pleased that in 1993, with only
one exception, all the members of my Cabinet were confirmed the day
after the inauguration and I hope we can continue to push through that
process.

Finally, before our new appointees have a chance to say a
few words, I know you're all interested in a couple of other matters. I
have been having talks with a number of other Cabinet members, as all of
you know. I have not yet finished my conversations, but in the last
several days I have spoken with Secretary of Health and Human Services
Donna Shalala, Attorney General Janet Reno, and just this morning, our
EPA Administrator Carol Browner. I have asked all of them to stay on in
their current jobs. We will make those and some other announcements
formally soon, when I finish my round of interviews, so that we can
announce the rest of our domestic economic team.

And the last matter I want to mention is, as all of you
know, Jack Quinn has announced that he will have to leave the White
House as White House Counsel because of family obligations. Jack and I
have known each other a long time. He and the Vice President have known
each other a long time. I just want to say a word of thanks for the
integral and invaluable work he has done as a White House staff member,
the fine job he has done as Counsel to the President. He has really
been a superb Counsel. I will miss him very much.

We had a long talk about the reasons -- I think the good
reasons, indeed the best reasons anyone can ever have for leaving public
service. I will regret that, but I wish him well, and I look forward to
making an expeditious appointment of a replacement.

Now I would like to ask Bill Daley, Bill Richardson, Gene
Sperling, and Dan Tarullo to make brief statements and we will proceed
to questions.

MR. DALEY: Thank you very much, Mr. President, for your
kind words and particularly for your confidence. Let me extend my deep
appreciation to you and the Vice President. I am honored to join such a
strong team and a distinguished economic team.

I believe there has never been a more vigorous commitment
to the creation and expansion of markets for American businesses large
and small than the one which we have seen under this administration.
President Clinton understands the economic challenges of our times. He
understands the new world in which America must compete if we're to make
the next century as promising and as prosperous for our nation and its
people as the one that's about to end.

I was privileged to witness firsthand his leadership and
his leadership of Secretaries Brown and Kantor when we launched
unprecedented efforts to aid American business by identifying
opportunities and lowering barriers at home and abroad. And that's one
major reason that we have seen steady economic growth and robust job
creation for the past four years.

I deeply believe in the ingenuity, creative energy and
productive capacity of this great nation. In the nearly 100 years since
the Commerce Department was inaugurated, these qualities have helped
America become the economic engine and envy of the world.

I should not let this moment pass without noting the
tremendous efforts and dedication of the Department's staff and the
workers of that Department throughout the world.

We live in a very different world today, a world in which
competition is all around us. And more is required of us to maintain
that economic leadership. My commitment to you, Mr. President, and to
our fellow Americans is to work day and night in partnership with
American businesses, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses, in
our inner cities and rural America, to help face the challenges and
seize the opportunities which lie ahead for us.

And if you will permit me one note, one final note, Mr.
President, public service often is demeaned and denigrated in these
days. But I have a very different view. I come from a family in which
we were taught by word and example that there is no higher calling or
greater trust. If the Senate will honor me with their confirmation, it
is my intent to serve in that spirit.

Mr. President, I can think of no greater distinction than
to serve you and our country. On behalf of my family, my wife Loretta,
my daughters Lauren, Maura, and my son, William, who is here, I thank
you immensely. And congratulations to my new colleagues, and again, I
thank you for this great opportunity. (Applause.)

CONGRESSMAN RICHARDSON: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank
you, Mr. Vice President. Since I have a month more before hopefully I'm
confirmed, I'm going to try to beat your town meeting record once and
for all. (Laughter.)

To my wife and family -- my wife, Barbara, thank you. I
apologize for riding in the DC-3, 50 years old without windows. I won't
do it again. (Laughter.)

To those on my congressional staff, those that accompanied
me on these -- (Mr. Daley faints.)

THE PRESIDENT: I think he's fine. He fainted. I think he
fainted, I think he's fine. We'll give you a report in a minute.

Go ahead.

CONGRESSMAN RICHARDSON: To the people of New Mexico,
particularly those in my congressional district, I couldn't be here
without your support. New Mexico will now have a seat in the
President's Cabinet.

A la communidad Hispana de los Estados Unidos, gracias y lo
representare con arruyo.

To the first Americans -- Native Americans, thank you. To
Secretary-designate Albright, I hope my shoes can fill your big heels.
(Laughter.)

Mr. President, this is an honor and a challenge. The
United States was the driving force behind the creation of the United
Nations. It was established out of the ashes of holocaust and war for
the purpose of making the future less bloody and less unjust than the
past.

But although we played the primary role in creating the
U.N., we've always been ambivalent about it. We support its goals and
the principles upon which it is based. But we're jealous of our own
prerogatives. This administration has sought to meld those attitudes,
working hard to reform and strengthen the U.N., while making it clear
that we would continue to rely on our own resources and alliances for
the protection of our vital economic and security interests.

Considerable progress has been made. Thanks in large
measure to American initiatives, supported both by the administration
and the Congress, the U.N. of today is more disciplined, more
accountable and in many ways more effective than it was four years ago.
I look forward, if confirmed, to building on that progress.

The next U.N. Ambassador will have a new Secretary General
with whom to work. He will have a robust agenda of reform initiatives
to propose. He will have the responsibility of working with other key
member states to make U.N. peacekeeping better planned, better managed,
and more successful than it has been. He will continue to expand the
Security Council in a responsible way that does not compromise its
effectiveness. He will work with others to encourage implementing a
range of consensus international goals in the areas of development, the
environment, and human rights, including women's rights. Last, but
definitely not least, he will need to work closely with Congress to find
a mutually acceptable means for paying our outstanding U.N. bills.

This is a difficult agenda. I know it, but I welcome it,
Mr. President, because it's an agenda that matters to our interests, to
our people, to those from around the world to look to us for leadership.
To the peoples of the developing world of Africa, Asia, and Latin
America, I hope to be your bridge.

Finally, once again, to Senator Bingaman, my constituents
in New Mexico, thank you. To my colleagues in the United States
Congress, I am proud to have been a member of that body and proud to
say, like Billy Daley just did -- that I'm proud to be a public servant
and a politician.

Mr. Vice President, Mr. President, thank you. (Applause.)

MR. SPERLING: Where is Bob Reich's box anyway?
(Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Here. Here. Anything I can do to help
you.

MR. SPERLING: Thank you, sir. (Laughter.) Aaah.
(Applause.)

Thank you for this honor, Mr. President. I am very proud
to be a member of the President's economic team and very proud to have
been appointed as new National Economic Advisor. Most of all, I am
proud that, already so far, we have been able to accomplish so much of
what this President and this Vice President set out to do -- to
strengthen the economy, open markets and show that it is possible to
dramatically reduce the deficit while, at the same time, increasing
educational and economic opportunity.

Before I go further, I want to say that I'm also very happy
to have some of my family -- my parents here with me. They are my
inspiration and my heroes.

To paraphrase Madeleine Albright, and very recently
Congressman Richardson, I won't even try to fill the heels or shoes of
my two predecessors, Robert Rubin and Laura Tyson. Together, they have
come to personify in this town the essence of sound judgment and
reasoned decision-making. But I am firmly committed to continuing and
strengthening the legacy of coordinated and sound economic policymaking
in the Clinton administration.

Too often in the past economic policymaking has failed
because turf battles overcame hard-headed analysis, because
policy-makers failed to appreciate the unintended consequences of their
actions or the full force of the market. For some, these challenges are
reason for an action and resignation. What this President and this Vice
President have done instead is to create a policy process where through
a rigorous, coordinated analysis and a team process we seek to weed out
the good from the bad so that we can present the President with the
soundest options for improving economic opportunity for all Americans.

This year we have a historic opportunity to work in a
bipartisan manner to balance the budget, spur educational opportunity
and strengthen our economic standing in the world. Our efforts to
address long-term entitlement reform, to balance the budget, to ensure
that every child can read by the end of 3rd grade and be technologically
literate, and to ensure that even the poorest American child has a fair
chance to succeed will say a lot about our values and what kind of a
nation we will be.

With these challenges ahead, it has never been more
important for there to be a strong National Economic Council. With the
people that we have here, I have no question that we have an extremely,
extremely strong team.

Our nation is filled with millions of stories of families
from all backgrounds in which a single person was given a single
opportunity and took personal responsibility to improve their lives, and
in doing so improved the lives of their children and their
grandchildren. I am most proud to serve a President and a Vice
President that never let you forget that increasing the number of those
American family success stories is why we are here and the guiding light
for everything we do.

Thank you. (Applause.)

MR. TARULLO: Thank you very much, Mr. President, Mr. Vice
President. I am honored to have received this appointment. Your
creation of an Assistant for International Economic Policy reflects both
your commitment and your accomplishments in advancing U.S. economic
interests around the world.

We have a lot to do in the next couple of years, not only
with our ongoing agenda, but with our hosting of the G-7 Economic Summit
next June in Denver. And I look forward to continuing my work with you
and the Vice President to realize your global and economic policy aims.

At the beginning of this century, America was evolving from
a regional to a national economy. As we enter the next century, we are
becoming part of a global economy. I look forward to working with Sandy
Berger and Gene Sperling, with Charlene, who characteristically is
halfway around the world promoting our trade interests at this very
moment, and with the rest of the Cabinet to implement your policies, to
help ensure that all Americans will have the opportunity to prosper in
this global economy in the years to come.

Again, thank you very much, and I'm deeply honored.
(Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Welcome back.

MR. DALEY: Thanks. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Fornier.

Q Mr. President, looking beyond today's announcement to
your second term, can you tell us how you hope history will judge your
eight years in office? What single accomplishment would you like to be
remembered for? And along those lines, could you share your thinking
with us on the specific roles, the specific roles, the First Lady will
play in the next four years?

THE PRESIDENT: That's enough for an hour. (Laughter.)
You've heard me say that I believe this time is most closely paralleled
in our history to about a hundred years ago when then we moved from the
farm to the factory, from the rural areas to the city -- we became
primarily an urban manufacturing country. We are now a global leader
and the basis of all economic activity is increasingly knowledge and
information and technology.

I would like to be remembered as the President who prepared
America for that future, who prepared America for the 21st century where
we had opportunity available to all Americans who were responsible
enough to exercise it; where we lived with the diversity of this country
and the diversity of the world on terms of respect and honor, giving
everyone a chance to live up to the fullest of his or her own ability in
building a stronger sense of community, instead of becoming more
divided, as so many countries are; and where we continue to be the
indispensable nation in the world for peace and freedom and prosperity.
That is my vision of America in the 21st century. And when I'm
finished, I hope people will add up all of the things we did and say,
that is what they achieved.

I have nothing to add to what I've already said about the
First Lady, except that the State Department has asked her to undertake
more efforts around the world, following up on the Beijing Conference,
like the one she did in Northern Thailand recently, speaking out on
behalf of the human rights dimensions of women and young girls around
the world. And I expect she will do more of that, and I expect she will
continue her interests in children and families and related issues here
at home. But I have nothing else to say beyond that.

Helen.

Q Mr. President, what is your response to the perception
that you are willing to sacrifice the needy and compassion at the altar
of a balanced budget and bipartisanship? I refer to the fact that you
have not mentioned any remedy for the punitive parts of the welfare law
recently, but you're reviewing children with disabilities with an eye to
dropping them from benefits; that you may wipe out fuel -- heating oil
subsidy; that you may slash by $1 billion low-cost housing budgets; and
a few other things.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, let me say I have no
intention of slashing the home heating oil budget as we come to the
winter. That's one budget item I know something about.

We have -- in the drive to balance the budget we have to
make some tough decisions, and some of the housing issues will be
brought before me, I'm sure, in the last round of appeals. But we've
not made final budget decisions there.

If you look at the record of this administration I think it
would be very hard to make a case that we have been callous toward the
poor. I mean, look what we did. We doubled the earned income tax
credit; raised the minimum wage; increased the availability of
immunizations to poor children; dramatically expanded the number of poor
children in Head Start, vetoed two welfare reform bills which revoked
the guarantees of health care and nutrition to poor children because
they did.

So -- and as a result, there are about a million fewer
children living in poverty today. We had the biggest drop in poverty
among children in 20 years, the biggest drop among poverty -- among
working single women in 30 years, the lowest poverty rate ever recorded
in 1995 for African Americans. That is the record of this
administration. I think it is very hard to make a case that an
administration with that record and those policies is insensitive to the
problems of the poor.

Now, in welfare reform, there are two great issues before
us in the welfare reform. Issue number one is there are not now enough
jobs available, particularly in a lot of urban areas, for all the
able-bodied people on welfare when they run out of their two-year time
limit under the new law. I said that all along. That's why a big part
of my campaign for the presidency this time was the commitment to
present to Congress and to challenge the states to do things like
provide special tax incentives and wage subsidies and training subsidies
to employers to help hire people off welfare and to help the cities with
a lot of welfare caseload. That's the big welfare reform problem.

Number two, there are problems in the welfare reform bill,
as I have repeatedly said, that have nothing to do with welfare that
will hurt a lot of innocent people -- principally, the way legal
immigrants who get hurt through no fault of their own are treated; and
the way the nutrition programs, the food stamp programs are treated for
single men who are willing to go to work and, most importantly, for
working families.

I have set aside several billion dollars in my balanced
budget plan to fix those problems. And the budget I present to the
Congress will address both of those within the context of a balanced
budget plan.

On the question of the disabled children, I want to ask all
of you to help all of us on this, because here's the issue: Nearly
everyone who reviewed the law as it used to be said that the disability
definitions were too broad and that it was very difficult to justify,
given all the needs of the country, the coverage that existed under the
old law. And we even proposed to the Congress that some changes be made
to tighten the standards of disability coverage for children under SSI.

Now what we have to do is to define regulations under the
new law. So the trick is going to be to do it in a way that does not
hurt genuinely needy children and families and cause harm, instead of
tightening up a program that virtually everyone who analyzed it thought
ought to be tightened up. So we're all going to have to just watch that
one and try not to mess it up. But I'm -- the welfare reform bill I
think is going to prove to be a good bill. I do not think it will
increase job poverty if we create jobs. We need to fix the non-welfare
parts of the welfare bill.

Brit, let me say before you leave -- I know this is your
last White House press conference; you'll be too important to mess with
presidents and other people before long. (Laughter.) But over the last
several years, I think all of us think you have done an extraordinary,
professional job under Republican and Democratic administrations alike,
and we will miss you. And we wish you well, and congratulations on your
new position.

Q Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you very
much, indeed. Sir, over the years Republicans have sometimes criticized
the whole idea of having an Office of Independent Counsel as being
subject to abuse, possibly raising the prospect of witch hunts. More
recently, one of your chief political advisors seems to have joined in
that thinking, and you, yourself, have even suggested that the current
Independent Counsel may be, as I believe you put it, "out to get you."
I wonder if you could give us your current thinking on the whole
independent counsel process and how this particular one is, in your
view, doing its job?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, on the second part of that question,
I have nothing to add to what I said earlier on that.

But let me say there may be a few limited cases where this
is appropriate. I was impressed by the comments made by Archibald Cox.
I believe he wrote an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times a day or two
ago. And what I think what we ought to do is to search out people like
that. The American Bar Association recently had a seminar where a lot
of people who have been involved in this work for years came and talked
about what kinds of cases ought to be covered, what kinds of time lines
ought to be there, what kinds of limitations there ought to be.

And I think what we ought to do is take people who aren't
so personally involved in it, but who understand the enormous costs of
the present system, as well as whatever benefits might come to it, and
reassess it. But I think, you know, we could start with what Mr. Cox
had to say and analyze it and go from there. But I think -- I have to
focus my attention on trying to complete the agenda the American people
elected me to complete, and that's what I intend to do.

I do think this is worth some study and thought, but I
think you ought to refer to people who are not so caught up in it and
don't have other things to do like I do. I need to not think about
that. I need to think about my plans to grow the economy and improve
education and other things.

Q Mr. President, Republicans on Capitol Hill still want to
cut the capital gains tax. Are there any conditions in which you would
agree to such a cut if it would result in a budget deal?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I have always said that I was not
inherently opposed to any kind of capital gains tax and, indeed, there
was a capital gains treatment in my first budget in '93 for investments
in new and small businesses that were held for a significant period of
time. It is not part of my balanced budget because I had other
priorities which I was trying to advance.

We are not going to get a balanced budget which the
American people need, which our economy needs and which would do, I
think, very good things for us not only economically, but also
psychologically as we move forward into this new century in the absence
of bipartisan cooperation.

So as -- when the 50-plus hours I spent with Senator Dole
and Speaker Gingrich and Mr. Armey last year, I made clear to them in
private what I have said publicly several times which is that,
obviously, I had no right to say that was a show-stopper in a deal. I
was perfectly willing to talk about it, but only in the context of
balanced budget negotiations.

Q Mr. President, I'd like to shift the focus to something
that I think is equally as important, or at least many people think is
important, some of the so-called national things we speak about, and
that's the question about the Nation's Capital city -- your city, sir.
I wonder what you could tell us, what help perhaps or comment you might
offer on what many people think to be is a chaotic and failing District
of Columbia government. Now, the Financial Control Board does recommend
a partial takeover. I wonder how you feel about that or is it time for
a complete takeover, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Let me, first of all, say, I have had
several conversations in the last two months, leading up to and after
the election, about what I believe is my responsibility and the
responsibility of our administration to try to play a constructive role
in making Washington the kind of city it ought to be.

In the last four years, first Alice Rivlin, and then Frank,
have worked hard to coordinate what our administration was doing in
Washington. Henry Cisneros, for example, has done a lot of good work on
homelessness here in Washington. The Commerce Department has taken some
community-based initiatives. Even my Secret Service detail adopted a
school in response to my request for people to do more in Washington.
But we have not done as much as we can, so that's the first thing I want
to say.

The second thing I want to say is that the American people
need to understand the unique challenges facing Washington. Washington,
D.C., is really not quite a state, but not quite a city. It is not
quite dependent and not quite independent. And I think that is the
source of a lot of the difficulties we face today. There is sort of a
series of purgatories in which Washington has found itself over the
years, and very often when functions are divided in responsibility, they
wind up being nobody's responsibility and easy for people to avoid,
therefore, the tough decisions that have to be made.

So what -- I have asked the Office of Management and Budget
and Frank Raines in his capacity as head of this task force to review
that. I was very impressed that the D.C. Control Board came out with a
set of specific recommendations, and I want to review them and try to do
two things: Number one, I want to respond to the financial
recommendations that will come both from Frank Raines and from the D.C.
Control Board. And number two, I want to think in a larger way about
what kind of more systematic effort we can make to be a constructive
force in the revitalization of Washington.

This is a beautiful city. This is a city full of talented
people. It has problems, but so does every other city in America. And
I am convinced that a lot of these problems have been aggravated over
time by the fact, this what I would call the "not quite" factor -- not
quite a state, not quite a city, not quite independent, not quite
dependent, and so there has just been too much gray area. And we have
to try to resolve this and work through it. And I promise you a more
serious effort.

Q Just to follow up, sir, will you be speaking with House
Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has mentioned trying to work up a plan, and
Senate Leader Trent Lott --

THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely.

Q -- will this be a --

THE PRESIDENT: Again, I would say we have to do this on a
bipartisan basis. When the Control Board was set up, Congressman Davis
was a very constructive force in this, and, of course, Eleanor Holmes
Norton. So we know we have to do this together. And I think we have --
those of us who live here and work here have a real obligation to try to
resolve this. But I just want to make it clear that I think we need
some serious fixes here that deal with this sort of not-quite factor.
You've got to resolve who is going to be responsible for what, how is it
going to be done, where are we going to be over the long run.

Q But you could do that as President, couldn't you, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, not unilaterally, but we've got to
have some help from the Congress. We'll work on it.

Q Mr. President, with it now revealed that there are
Justice Department investigations ongoing about two members of your
national security team, one nominee and one person who doesn't have to
get Senate confirmation, I'm wondering if you could tell us why you
decided to go ahead with people under Justice Department investigation,
and whether, as Mr. Daley sort of alluded to, you worry that the level
of scrutiny has become so high that maybe people feel that they are
driven out of accepting jobs. It's also been reported that you're
having trouble filling the White House Counsel's post because people
don't want a job that is going to just be one problem after another --
questions on that.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, there was a recent -- let me answer
two points of your question. Number one, I will take full
responsibility for whatever happens here; I'm fully aware of the status
of the issues relating to Mr. Berger and Mr. Lake, and based on the
advice of Mr. Quinn, my White House Counsel, I decided to go forward
because I am convinced that nothing they did was in way disqualifying,
and because the issues involved were very straightforward, but have been
over at the Justice Department for some time and we had to make a
decision. I mean, the work of the people has to go forward.

So what we decided to do is to let the thing go forward.
You know what the issues are, they've been fully disclosed, there's
nothing there that has not been disclosed to the best of my knowledge.
And I made a decision, based on the advice of my counsel, that the best
people that I wanted to appoint could, in fact, be appointed and that
the issues outstanding were not disqualifying.

Now, to the larger question you asked, there is no question
that the climate has changed to the point where a lot of people don't
want to fool with it anymore. There's no doubt about it. In fact, I
was sort of touched by what Mr. Daley said because I have to say that
the truly moving thing is how many gifted men and women of all walks of
life are still willing to serve, notwithstanding the fact that they know
they may be subject to things that are excessive and unfair.

There was, a couple of weeks ago, a commission -- I can't
even remember who chaired the commission, but I know Lloyd Cutler was a
member of it -- on the whole appointment process. You know what I'm
talking about, don't you? I'm -- what was the formal name of the
commission? Yes, the 20th Century Fund Commission. And they made a lot
of recommendations there that I thought had a lot of merit.

Now, of course, the appointment process is largely
controlled by the Congress and by the Senate and it would require the
Senate to, with some discipline, moderate its own procedures and change
it. But I thought it was quite impressive, the thoughtfulness, the
fairness and the balance of that fund's recommendation. So I couldn't
add anything to the recommendations they made. I think that ought to be
studied and we ought to decide what to do about it.

Q Just to follow up, sir, do you think that there's any
possibility that mistakes made within your own White House, though, have
contributed to this perception?

THE PRESIDENT: But I don't think -- when you're making
millions and millions of actions, literally, over a four-year period,
everybody's going to make some mistakes. The question is, does the
mistake amount to a violation of law? Does it amount to a dereliction
of duty? Does it amount to some dark attempt to undermine the public
interest?

I mean, there is a sense -- what I think we need here is
full disclosure, but reasoned judgment, and a certain balance here. You
know, in order to get all of the information out, you have to have the
information accompanied with balance. And I think everybody has to ask
themselves what is fundamentally fair here. I think a lot of people who
don't want to come in say, well, somebody raises a question, then there
is a presumption of guilt, you have to prove yourself innocent of things
you're not even sure of what the charge is. And that's what I think we
have to avoid, which is why I thought the suggestions of this 20th
Century Fund Commission bore some evaluation.

Again, I don't have time to think much about it, because I
have to keep working on the agenda that I ran on, the agenda I've been
working on and the one I'm trying to implement for the next four years.
But I do think that those of you in a different position might well
evaluate it.

Wolf.

Q Mr. President, with Congress coming back into a new
session, there seems to be indications they will take up two issues
which are contentious which you have opposed in the past -- an amendment
to balance the budget, a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.
You caused some, I guess, concern a few weeks ago among some of your
aides by suggesting you could live with a constitutional amendment to
balance the budget. And secondly, legislation that would ban a
late-term abortion procedure known as partial-birth abortions. Could
you tell us exactly what kind of language you could accept on both of
those issues that would allow you to go forward and support those
matters?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, they're two different things there.
First of all, what I said on the balanced budget thing, I don't think --
let me try to be clear here so I won't be misunderstood. I do not
believe it is good policy or needed to have a constitutional amendment
to balance the budget. I do believe that it's good policy for America
to pass a balanced budget plan now and to implement it. And I believe I
have some credibility on that because we've cut the deficit by more in
four years than anybody has in a month of Sundays. So everybody knows
that -- and my record as governor was that of a fiscal conservative.

So this is not about fiscal conservatism. It is about
whether you can design a constitutional amendment which in difficult and
very different times than the ones in which we now live won't do more
harm than good. That's my only concern there.

And so the only thing -- what I was trying to say when I
was asked about this before is, there have been changes in the
composition of the Senate which at least apparently give them enough
votes to pass this amendment. So what I was saying is I'm not for this,
but if you're going to do it, try to do it in a way that gives you
enough flexibility to deal with the kinds of things that can happen.
We're passing this constitutional amendment in a very different
environment than some of the environments in which we've lived in the
last 30 years. That's the only point I was trying to make on that.

Now, perhaps changes in the House will make it more
difficult to pass in the House, but I just don't know. You know, the
President cannot veto a constitutional amendment. It gets passed and
sent out to the states. So that's the point I want to make on that.

On the partial birth abortion issue, I would very much -- I
wanted to sign that legislation when I first heard about it; I thought I
would sign it, since I am generally opposed to third-trimester abortions
anyway, and signed legislation to restrict them in Arkansas.

The problem is, I will say again, there are a few hundred
women every year who have personally agonizing situations, where their
children are born or are about to be born with terrible deformities
which will cause them to die either just before, during, or just after
childbirth. And these women, among other things, cannot preserve the
ability to have further children unless the enormous size of the baby's
head is reduced before being extracted from their bodies. This is a
very painful thing to discuss. I have met six of these women. I will
say again, three of them were pro-life Catholics. One of them was a
pro-life evangelical Christian. This is not a pro-life, pro-choice
issue. To me this is a practical problem. I believe that people put in
that situation ought not to have Congress tell them that they're never
going to be able to have children again.

Now, I know there are just a few hundred of them, and I
know that all the votes were on the other side. And I am well aware
that there were several places in this country where major political
headway was made against the Vice President and me and against some of
our candidates for Congress and against others running for other things
because of this issue, because it sounds so awful when you describe it
-- that the politics is all on the other side. But one of the things
the President is supposed to do is to look out for the few hundred
against the many millions when the facts are not consistent with the
rhetoric.

And I'm just telling you -- Hillary and I, we only had one
child. And I just cannot look at a woman who's in a situation where the
baby she is bearing against all her wishes and prayers is going to die
anyway, and tell her that I am signing a law which will prevent her from
ever having another child. I'm not going to do it.

Now, I pleaded and I pleaded and I pleaded last time with
the Congress to adopt highly restrictive language on this procedure
which would make it clear that there had to be a very serious health
problem for the woman involved before it could be adopted, in addition
to having her own life at stake -- a very serious health problem, like
having the ability to have a child again. And they would not do it.
And they would not do it, I believe, because it was great politics. But
it's bad policy.

So if we will -- if we can have the right sort of language
here -- I don't like this procedure, I don't think anybody ought to
just, you know, show up eight months and two weeks pregnant and say I
just think I'd like to have an abortion and this is what I want to use.
I think the states should have taken care of that. Eighty percent of
the states have, but 20 percent haven't. But if they will help me with
language here and do it in good faith, I will happily sign this bill.

But there are a few hundred people every year that are
adversely affected by this, and I am the only person that's elected by
all the people that feels, therefore, less pressure on this. I have to
do what I think is right. I cannot take away from these women the right
to bear further children. It would be wrong and I will not do it.

Q Mr. President, do you share Alan Greenspan's view that
Wall Street is currently in the grips of irrational exuberance? And
agree or not that the market is overpriced, when the inevitable
correction comes, what is the degree of risk that it will throw the
economy into a tailspin?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't comment on the Fed's
decisions and I don't comment on the market's movements, so I shouldn't
talk about the Fed Chairman's comments about the market's movements.
(Laughter.) Nothing I say will produce any good.

I think the answer to your second question is the same --
I'll tell you an interesting story. You know when the market fell in
'87, by blind accident, when the market closed, the then wealthiest man
in America, Sam Walton, was sitting in my office in Little Rock, in the
Governor's Office, just by pure coincidence. He was there on business.
He came in to see me, and we were sitting there at 4:00 p.m. in the
afternoon, or whenever it was, and the market closed in New York. So he
called and I said, Sam, how much money did you lose today? He said, a
billion dollars, on paper. And I said, what do you think about it? He
said, I think tomorrow I'm going to get in my airplane and fly to a
little town in Tennessee where they're opening a new Wal-Mart, and if
the pickups and the cars show up and people get out and buy goods,
America's all right. This is a Main Street economy.

So I say to you, I'm very pleased that not only wealthy
people, but a lot of middle-class people have made a lot of money in the
markets. A lot of people's retirements are more secure because of it.
I'm proud of the vibrant markets we have. They will change. They go up
and down; they always do. My job is to keep the underlying fundamentals
sound so that tomorrow in all those little towns all across America
people can get up and go to work and go to the store and buy something.
If that happens, I think we'll be okay.

Q Mr. President, given the fact that people have invested
in pensions, 401(k)s, it really has become a middle-class situation,
isn't it almost inevitable that a correction would trigger a tailspin?

THE PRESIDENT: No. I don't think we should over-conclude
that. Look at '87. Look at everything since 1929. You've seen
long-term -- over the long term, if we have the discipline, all of us,
to ride out the inevitable changes in the markets, the markets have
produced a very steady growth over the long run, even with ups and
downs, and even when the downs were fairly significant.

Q Mr. President, as the country prepares to see its first
television rating system devised, can you give us some of your thoughts
about whether or not an American parent who feels particularly concerned
about violence but perhaps not so concerned about exposing his or her
child to sexual content or bad language --should that parent be able to
know in advance if a television program has violent content?

THE PRESIDENT: Let me try to answer you based on what I
know now. Of course, that is the controversy about the proposed
television rating system which the industry has come up with. They said
that they would try to develop a television rating system which would
more or less parallel the movie rating system. I have not yet had a
report on it, but, apparently, that is what they have done. All I know
is what all of you have reported about it, but, apparently, that is what
they have done. Therefore, the big conflict now is whether the rating
system should be more content-based instead of age-based. This is like
the movie system except it has more age categories than the movie
system, as I understand it.

I guess what I would say to you is that I believe that it's
a good thing that on these cable movies you have -- you get a sort of a
sheet comes on the screen and checks the content issues. But it's a
very different thing with all of these hundreds and hundreds of
television programs that are on and everything. What I would say is,
let's remember how far we've come. This has been debated for 10 years.
We now have one; we're going to have one a year before televisions have
to start including the V-chip.

The industry itself has promised to review where they are
within 10 months. So what I think we should do -- since I feel very
strongly the government should not do this, this must be an
industry-based thing, the government should not be involved in this --
what I think ought to happen is that all of the parents in the country
ought to look at these ratings, ask themselves the questions you've just
asked, check the shows against the ratings, give it 10 months to work,
and then if they're inadequate or there needs to be some more content in
the rating systems, then after a 10-month test period we'll be able to
make that argument. I think, all of us, and I think the industry has
shown that they're interested in doing something here.

I believe that at this moment, we shouldn't say that the
whole thing is not worth doing. I think -- because it does bear rough
parallels to what's been done in the movies, except there are more age
categories, as I understand it.

Q Mr. President, our political system does not outlaw
contributions by foreigners, and these legal contributions are made to
both Democrats and Republicans. When foreigners give huge sums of money
-- $10,000 or $100,000 or $400,000 -- what do you think they think they
will get in return?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it's probably different for
different people. You know, when -- sometimes, according to reports
that I've read in the press, they think maybe it may enhance their
standing in their own countries. Sometimes they may think that it's
something they ought to do because they have business operations in
America, which they have to have -- you know, they have to be somehow
involved in America to give legally. They may think that it enhances
their standing as citizens.

Sometimes there may be a specific issue. I suppose -- and
I don't begrudge this, this is perfectly legal -- but when the British
tobacco company, Brown and Williamson, made significant contributions to
the Republicans they did it because they agree with their position and
disagree with my position on the regulation of tobacco and the
restriction of the advertising, sales and marketing of tobacco to
children.

So there are different reasons. But let me reiterate what
I said about this earlier. I believe that is has been legal, and I can
understand why it has -- you know, if you've got a green card, you're
paying taxes, you're working here, maybe you ought to be able to give.
If you have a business here, maybe you ought to be able to give. I
understand the argument. But I think that, as we've seen in the last
few weeks, it raises more questions than it answers, and I personally
believe that the campaign finance reform legislation should make
contributions by adult non-citizens illegal. Now -- and we shouldn't do
it anymore.

Furthermore, I think we ought to go on and pass the
campaign finance reform legislation. As I said Wednesday in my speech
to the DLC, repeated reasonable bills have died by Senate filibuster.
Let me tell you, there is always an objection to any bill. There has
never been a perfect piece of legislation passed by the Congress. There
is always a theoretical or actual objection anybody can raise to any
bill. But the time has come to quit killing this by filibuster and to
pass it. And I'm prepared to do my part. And we ought to start with
the McCain-Feingold bill. It's a good bill, it's a reasonable bill,
it's a bipartisan bill, and we ought to pass it. And we should amend it
to make the foreign contributions not legal anymore.

Mara.

Q Mr. President, when you begin your campaign to improve
public education in this country, are you going to follow up on a
suggestion that you made in the first presidential debate, which is to
encourage states and cities to offer vouchers for private school choice?

THE PRESIDENT: I don't believe I made that suggestion.

Q You said that states and cities should be allowed to do
it.

THE PRESIDENT: No -- well, I've always thought they should
be allowed to do it. I supported Milwaukee's right to do it. But I'm
not going to encourage or discourage. I think it should be made based
on the facts of the case. I am opposed to the federal government doing
it. Our aid is too limited and it is too targeted and it is too much
needed for what is done now. And if I were at the state and local
level, I would not be in favor of it because I think the schools are
underfunded. I don't think they're overfunded. But I do believe that
they have the legal right to do it and I don't support any action to
take that legal right away from them. And if they think the situation
is totally out of hand and they want to try what they did in Milwaukee,
I think they ought to have the right to do it.

Q This is along the same lines. You talked, over the
course of your presidency a lot about college accessibility,
affordability, tuition credits, et cetera, but there are festering
problems at the secondary and elementary levels across this country
probably nowhere more pronounced than in this very city. Do you have
any initiatives or programs in mind that can reform, if not rescue, the
public schools of America?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the rescue of the public schools of
America will have to be done by the people who are in control of them.
We do fundamentally have local control of our schools and under the
constitutions of virtually every state in the country, the states are
constitutionally responsible for them. So when you hear people say they
want local control and they don't like all these federal rules, the
truth is, we do have local control.

The federal contribution to public education is about 7
cents on the dollar; never been higher than 10 cents on the dollar. But
there are things that we can do and that I believe we should do. First
of all, I think we should support reform efforts. That's why I have
supported things like public school choice and charter schools. We have
in this balanced budget plan sufficient funds for 3,000 charter schools
which would triple the number of schools created under the umbrella of
local school districts, but without a lot of the rules and regulations
which I think make real learning more difficult, with more control for
the parents and the principals and the teachers in each school.

Secondly, I think we should support the establishment in
every state of national standards of excellence and means of measuring
it. And one of the things I think we should do more of where I think we
have not -- let me back up and say, when we did the education summit in
1989 with President Bush, and the governors all came together and stayed
up all night and wrote the National Education Goals, if you read the
document that goes with the goals we wrote, we were moving to deal with
what was a really tough issue.

Keep in mind, this is now a 13-year effort in our country,
starting back -- going back to the Nation At Risk Report in early '83,
when we said our schools are in trouble, we need more math, we need more
science, we need more foreign language, we need higher standards, we
need better-paid, better-trained and more accountable teachers -- all
those things that came out in '83.

So then, all of the states worked on that. So about '89,
we could see that the problem was, you can always have more and better
of anything, but what is the goal here. And that's why the National
Educational Goals were adopted, so we would have some way or measuring
whether we were succeeding.

But we all understood that even though we wanted state
constitutional responsibility and local control, that our children were
going to be judged by global standards. And the next step is plainly to
devise -- not federal government, but national standards of excellence.
We got there in mathematics and science -- there actually are pretty
widely-accepted mathematics and science standards -- at the high school
level and, to some extent, at the junior high school level.

There was all the controversy over the history standards.
Do you remember that, right after I took office? They were not
developed in our administration, but they were presented then. I still
think we can achieve standards in the arts. And then I believe there
has to be a nationally recognized means of testing kids so that we know
by some more or less universal standards whether our kids know what
they're supposed to know. And I think that we should work very hard on
that -- not government standards, but national standards. And I think
unless we're prepared to hold all of our kids up to the light of real
measurement, we'll never know and we'll never succeed in having a
genuine national education system.

Q Mr. President, in the last election the Democratic Party
raised more money than it ever had before. Do you think you put too
much pressure on your fundraisers, and do you take any sort of personal
responsibility for the problems and the embarrassments that subsequently
developed?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, yes, I think any of us who were
involved in it have to take some responsibility. I certainly do. But
let me say that I did everything I could to make it clear that I wanted
the law followed to the last letter. I wanted every T crossed, every I
dotted.

In our campaign, Lyn Utrecht and others rigorously checked
every check that came in. But I feel very badly that there were some
funds received which should not have been received. Some of them were
illegal. Some of them were not illegal, but on better judgment would
dictate that they not be received. I also believe it's a disservice to
the more than -- to the 99 percent of the people plus and the more than
98 percent of the contributions that the Democratic Party received that
were perfectly legal and perfectly appropriate.

So, yes, I think that. And that's why I am pleased that
the Democratic Party has contracted with a law firm and an accounting
firm to review all this, to analyze what was done, get to the bottom of
it and make sure that it never happens again.

But I'll say again, the real answer, in spite of all of
that, it is very difficult to raise that kind of money in that kind of
way without some problem occurring. You remember back during the
campaign, there was an official of the Dole campaign who actually had to
plead guilty to a money-laundering operation. And I'm sure Senator Dole
felt somewhat responsible for that, although I do not believe in any way
he knew about it or condoned it.

What you see here is too much money being raised, raising
too many questions and taking too much time away from all the people
involved. The answer to this -- there will never be a perfect answer
until we reform the campaign finance system.

So, yes, we should -- the Democratic Party should
investigate, evaluate what's done, make sure its house is clean, and
should live within the rules. But even living within the rules, you're
going to have -- the amount of money it takes to communicate with the
American people today, unless you make campaign finance reform --
restrict spending limits, give people access to free media time in
return for restricted limits -- unless you do that there will always be
questions raised, even when their contributions are perfectly legal.

The answer is to reform this system. We can do it now. If
one good thing could come out of this whole issue, it would be shining
the bright light on the larger issues of how campaigns are financed
today and how we're the only country in the world that really does it
like this -- or at least in the Western world, I believe, and we ought
to stop it and have some campaign finance reform.

Q Can we get just one foreign policy question, sir? Have
you seen any evidence to support Saudi Arabia's suspicions that Iran may
be somehow involved with the Khobar Tower bombing? And if those
suspicions do get played out, what kind of consequences might Iran face?

THE PRESIDENT: As you might imagine, I have spent a great
deal of time on the Khobar issue since it occurred, first of all, making
sure that we redeployed our forces in Saudi Arabia, making sure that we
strengthened our defenses, making sure that we analyzed very carefully
what had been done, because all of us policymakers from top to bottom
underestimated the degree of terrorist threat which could be presented
to our men and women in uniform, and they don't deserve that. They
deserve the best possible decision-making by us.

I have also exerted a lot of effort to make sure that we
were cooperating and working with the Saudis in investigating the
murder. The FBI Director has been there one more than one occasion. We
have worked hard on this.

I think it is only fair, however, to say that the
investigation is not completed. I have not reached any -- been
presented with any final conclusions. I have not reached any final
conclusions myself. And because of that, anything I say about what we
might do if we knew what had happened would only give rise to an
inference that I had really concluded someone was guilty of something
that I don't know they're guilty of yet. So I can't say more except to
say that we are on top of this and we are going to stay on top of it.

Thank you.

END 3:08 P.M. EST