[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
[May 27, 1993]
[Pages 742-760]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in the ``CBS This Morning'' Town Meeting
May 27, 1993

    Paula Zahn. Here comes President Clinton, cup of coffee in hand--
decaf coffee.
    The President. Good morning.

Budget Proposal

    Ms. Zahn. We wanted to start off by talking about the late night you 
kept last night. Word of an agreement that was struck between Democratic 
leaders and conservative members of your party on your economic plan. Do 
you think you now have the votes to carry this plan through in the 
House?
    The President. I think it will help. This is an agreement that I 
have wanted for a long time, because I think that the people are 
entitled to know that if we pass these budget cuts, that they're 
actually going to be made. I've been concerned, as someone who was a 
Governor who came from a State with a very tough balanced budget law, 
I've been very concerned--can you hear me? Can we start again?
    Q. You have two mikes on you now, Mr. President.
    The President. There was an agreement made last night that I had 
been supporting for a good long while sponsored by the conservative 
Democrats essentially to put a mechanism in the budget to force us every 
year to make the budget cuts that we say we're making in this 5-year 
budget. That is, obviously it's very hard to predict what will happen in 
every year for the next 5 years. If you had to do a family budget for 5 
years, it might not be possible, or a business budget or a farm budget. 
So these numbers are as good as we can make them. But this amendment 
actually says that every year, if we miss the deficit reduction target, 
the President has to bring in a plan to meet it and the Congress has to 
vote on it. And if they want to change it some, they can, but we've got 
to meet the deficit reduction target.
    We have been working for days to get this done. And finally, 
yesterday afternoon they gave up. So I called the folks that had given 
up, and I said, go back to the table. We've got to have some discipline 
in this budget, so that if we tell people we're going to make the cuts, 
we do it. And that's what this amendment says.
    Ms. Zahn. What happens if you don't get this through in the House 
today?
    The President. We keep working until we get a budget through. The 
real problem is, I think, that--there are two problems: One is that the 
details of the plan have been lost in the rhetoric; the second is that a 
lot of the Republicans who might otherwise want to vote with us got into

[[Page 743]]

a position where they said they wouldn't vote for any tax.
    Over 60 percent of this money, of the tax money, over 60 percent 
comes from people with incomes over $200,000. Seventy-four percent of it 
comes from people with incomes over $100,000, people whose taxes went 
down in the eighties while their incomes went up. People with incomes 
under $30,000 are protected even from the Btu tax. And next year people 
in the middle will pay about $1 a month, and it goes to $7 a month and 
then about $15 a month.
    We have to get all of our votes apparently from the Democrats this 
time. I hope it won't happen anymore.
    Ms. Zahn. No help from the Republicans?
    The President. Well, in the Senate we might get some Republican 
votes. We're working on it.

[At this point, the network took a commercial break.]

Administration Accomplishments

    Harry Smith. We are live in the Rose Garden with over 200 people 
from many States around the country, a couple of foreign countries as 
well. We're here with President Clinton. We thank you, first, for 
inviting us in to do this town meeting.
    I know you don't pay attention to this sort of stuff, polls. You 
never pay attention probably, right? The negatives are now higher than 
the positives in the polls. And I want to tap into something here, 
because there's a feeling in the country, and I think the people here 
reflect it. I think people in America want to see you succeed, but I 
just want to see a raise of hands this morning, and don't be intimidated 
just because you're in the Rose Garden. [Laughter] Do you feel like he 
could be doing a better job? Raise your hand if you think so. Don't be 
intimidated. Don't be intimidated. There's a lot of folks who feel that 
way. Do you feel like there's been a gap between the promises of the 
campaign and the performance thus far? If you think so, raise your 
hands. A lot of folks feel that way. What went wrong?
    The President. First of all, I don't know that anything went wrong, 
except I'm glad nobody found our about the manicure I got in California. 
[Laughter]
    Ms. Zahn. Let's check it out.
    The President. I'll tell you what went wrong. What went wrong was I 
was not able to keep the public focus on the issues that we're working 
on after I gave the State of the Union Address, even though that's what 
we kept doing.
    Now, look, we've been here 4 months, and look what's happened in 4 
months--and they give you a 4-year term--look what's happened in 4 
months: We had a major foreign policy challenge in Russia right after I 
got in office. If Yeltsin had gotten beat in Russia and a militant 
regime had returned, we would have had to turn around with the defense 
budget and a lot of bad things could have happened to America. The 
United States went to work, organized the rest of the world, supported 
Yeltsin. He won the election. We're back on track there making this 
world a safer place. That's my number one job. I think that's pretty 
impressive.
    The Congress passed a resolution committing to do a budget that 
reduced the deficit by $500 billion on time for the first time in 17 
years. Congress passed the family leave bill they've been fooling around 
with for 8 years to guarantee people some time off without losing their 
jobs. They passed the motor voter bill they've been fooling around with 
for years. No one now asks are we going to reduce the deficit. The 
question is how much and how. No one now asks are we ever going to do 
anything about health care. The question is when and exactly what are we 
going to do. I think that's a pretty good record for 4 months.
    Now, if you do a lot of things and you try to change a lot of things 
overnight, you may break some eggs, and it's not an exact process. And 
controversy always is better news--you know that--than the lack of 
controversy. So one of the things that happened--we were laughing about 
this yesterday--is I'll bet you most people in this audience and most 
people in this country have no earthly idea that we're going to cut way 
over $200 billion in spending off of this budget over the next 5 years, 
because the people who normally fight spending cuts supported it this 
time, and we rolled through the spending cuts without controversy. So 
the only controversy is over whether we should raise any taxes and from 
whom.
    Now, I think we're doing pretty well, but I think we've done a lousy 
job of being able to cut through the fog that always surrounds this town 
and communicate that. I'll admit that.

[[Page 744]]

Media Coverage

    Ms. Zahn. Why? Why have you had a tough time doing that?
    The President. Well, you tell me. I don't know. All I know is, I 
went to Cleveland the other day, and I talked to these four television 
folks locally. And they said--I'll just lay it out--this guy said, ``I 
was for you, but I'm mad at you because since you've been in Washington, 
you've spent all your time on Bosnia and gays in the military.'' I said, 
``How do you know that?'' He said, ``I watch the news every night.'' 
[Laughter] And I said, ``Well,'' I said, ``okay, let me tell you,'' I 
said, ``I just did an analysis of what I did the first 100 days. I spent 
25 percent of my time on foreign policy, all foreign policy, including 
going to Canada to see Mr. Yeltsin. I have to. That's my job. No one 
else can do that. I spent 40 percent of my office time and about 55 
percent of my total time working on the economy and health care''--let 
me finish--``and 20 percent of the time working on other domestic 
policies and seeing people and doing that.'' He said, ``How much time 
have you spent on gays in the military?'' I said, ``Two and a half 
hours.'' He said, ``I don't believe that.'' I said, ``That's the truth. 
You can look at the calendar.''
    So all I'm saying is controversy gets news. And when we're out here 
working on things that aren't controversial, it's often not reported in 
the news. And I have to find a way to do a better job of communicating 
directly to the American people as well as--I'm not saying we haven't 
made any mistakes. If you do a lot of things, you're going to make some 
mistakes. But the major failure since February 17th is not being able to 
communicate directly what we are doing and answer directly the questions 
and the criticisms of the American people. That's been the major 
problem, and I've got to figure out how to do it.

Selection of Attorney General

    Mr. Smith. You know what it is, though, I mean, given all of that 
stuff, motor voter, budget, all that other stuff, on a day-by-day basis, 
a week barely goes by that there isn't some sort of story that it sounds 
like--and I think people here would say, is the President on sure 
footing? One, two, three different choices for Attorney General. Flip-
flop: We're going to get tough on Bosnia, and then we're not going to 
get tough on Bosnia.
    The President. You want to talk about it, we can. See, that's what 
people do; you can't just lob these things out there.
    Mr. Smith. We have 2 hours to talk about all of this. We have 2 
hours to talk about all of this, but it seems like a day or a couple of 
days doesn't go by when they're putting out fires in the White House. 
And people want to know, do you have this thing under control?
    The President. Well, let me just mention the Attorney General thing. 
First of all, I think I've got a pretty good Attorney General, don't 
you?
    Mr. Smith. I think people would agree with that.
    The President. And the country's not--[applause]--and I think I did 
a good job. Secondly, if you look at what happened there, one of the 
things that no one noticed is that I was the first President since 
anybody could remember that had every other member of his Cabinet 
confirmed the day after I took office. So there is another side to this 
story. That was a manifestation of confidence, getting them all up and 
getting them all confirmed the next day. That hadn't happened in 
anyone's memory.
    We had some problems with the Attorney General thing, partly because 
the American people learned about an issue that we're now moving to 
resolve, this whole business about if you have household help, how you 
withdraw the Social Security, and what you do. That's a big, tough 
issue. I'm sorry it happened. I still think Zoe Baird is a fine person 
who made, obviously, a mistake and paid for it. But thousands of other 
Americans have, too. And I hope now we're going to get it cleaned up so 
people will follow the law and the law will be reasonable. But I wound 
up with an awfully good Attorney General, and I'm proud of her.

[The network took a commercial break.]

Health Care Reform and Gridlock

    Ms. Zahn. We're back in the Rose Garden now for a 2-hour town 
meeting with President Clinton. We have your first question now from the 
audience. Where are you from?
    Q. I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm a lab technician.
    Ms. Zahn. Fire away.
    Q. Well, I think I'll stay with my original question. We've seen a 
lot of issues being passed lately. We've seen some bills being passed. 
But

[[Page 745]]

the bigger bills, the things that dealt in the economy and jobs 
creation, along with that, especially this health care thing, they look 
like they're going to be destined to be locked up in gridlock. Is there 
some way that we can be confident that things are going to happen in 
this country?
    The President. I think you can be. Let me talk about--let's just 
talk about health care. And I'd like to talk about health care with this 
budget. A lot of Americans say to me what I say to myself every morning, 
which is that after we cut all this spending and raise this money and we 
reduce the deficit by $500 billion, it's still going to be too big in 5 
years because what's driving the deficit now--defense is coming down, 
we're holding about everything else constant--what's driving the deficit 
is the exploding costs of health care, the same thing that's hurting a 
lot of your businesses or maybe your homes or if you buy individual 
policies.
    In the last 4 months we've had hundreds of people here working on 
this health care task force that my wife is chairing. But we've also 
really worked hard to reach out to Republicans and Democrats and 
independents both in the Congress and around the country, people who 
provide health care, people who insure against health care, all those 
folks.
    I think you're going to see when we get this budget out of the way, 
which is the toughest thing--everybody wants to reduce the deficit, but 
everybody's got a different idea about how to do it--when we get that 
out of the way, I think you'll see an honest debate on health care. Now, 
keep in mind this health care thing could be the most important thing 
we've done in a generation to provide security to working families and 
people who don't have it and people who have to change their jobs.
    When President Roosevelt and the Congress put in the Social Security 
system it took them 2 years to do it. We're going to try to do it in a 
year. We're going to do our best to do it in a year. And then, of 
course, we'll have to phase it in over time because of the cost, but I 
think we can do that.
    I wouldn't be too discouraged. What you're seeing now, this fight 
over the budget and the fight over the emergency jobs plan earlier, is, 
I hope, the most partisan you will ever see this environment. I am doing 
everything I can to ask the Republicans to help, to ask people from 
outside to come in, to open up the process. I hate all this. I mean, I 
didn't run for President to get up and fight with the Republicans every 
day. It doesn't help America, and I don't want to do it. And I believe 
you will see a much more open process when the health care debate 
starts.
    Now, that's not to say everybody is going to agree with me. They 
shouldn't. But I believe there's a real chance we'll get health care 
reform, and it will come with bipartisan support from around the country 
and within the Congress.
    Ms. Zahn. But the fact is you've also had to do a lot of fighting 
with Democrats of your own party. And I think a lot of people were 
hoping, with a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress, that 
things would have gone more smoothly. Do you think issues like the 
haircut and the problems in the Travel Office have made it harder for 
you to get this economic plan through?
    The President. No. I think this economic plan is--I think it does 
because if you publicize something like that and people don't know, for 
example, on my haircut, that I asked whether anybody would be held up or 
inconvenienced, and I was told no. I asked twice, and I was told no. 
Now, I'd never do that, not in a hundred years, not ever. I mean, I 
wasn't raised that way; I've never lived that way. That's not the kind 
of person I am. So, you know, if something like that happens and it 
hurts me on a day-to-day basis, it may slow things up.
    But the real problem is, if these problems were easy, somebody else 
would have done them. You try to face difficult things and ask people to 
take difficult choices and make tough stands; it takes time.
    Ms. Zahn. President Clinton, I'm going to have to cut you off. 
Someone has to pay for the show today.

[The network took a commercial break.]

    Ms. Zahn. When we left you a couple of minutes ago, President 
Clinton was addressing the issue of gridlock. Anybody else have some 
questions here about partisan politics and gridlock? Will you stand up?

Campaign Finance Reform and Gridlock

    Q. I'm from Sulphur Springs, Texas. And I do have a question about 
partisan politics. It seems evident to us voters that when we elect 
people and send them to State government or

[[Page 746]]

to Washington, that they are more interested in the health and well-
being of their party then they are the health and well-being of the 
country in general. And I'm wondering what we can do other than term 
limits? What can we expect in the next few years to help that situation?
    The President. I think there are two things you can do. First of 
all, you can support some changes in the system that will make it work 
better. There are two bills here that will help: require all lobbyists 
to register and report how much money they spend on Members of Congress, 
and secondly, change the campaign laws. You make the system less 
partisan if you lower the cost of congressional campaigns, reduce the 
influence of PAC's, and open the airwaves to honest debate. I think 
those things would matter.
    I think the second thing you can do is to follow up on what this 
gentleman said. Tell us to get something done here. Tell us, talk less 
and do more. And I really believe that that mood in the country is going 
to manifest itself. I've got some friends who are Republican Senators 
who told me they're not comfortable with this filibuster deal. They want 
us to get together; they want us to work together. I think you'll see 
more progress in the months ahead. I really do.
    This is the toughest part. The budget is the toughest part. The debt 
got from $1 to $4 trillion in 12 years. It's hard to turn around. None 
of the choices are easy. This is the roughest part. I think you'll see 
it get better. I'm going to do everything I can to reach out to them and 
to try to depoliticize this atmosphere. But if you change the rules, 
you'll change that. You will make people closer to their folks and less 
partisan.
    Ms. Zahn. I've got another question here from the audience. Please 
stand.

National Sales Tax

    Q. I'm from Woodlake, CA, and I'm a retired teacher. My concern is 
about taxes. I'm wondering if you have considered a national sales tax 
in place of, but not added to, the income tax system we now have. Is it 
feasible at all?
    The President. It is feasible if it's not regressive. In other 
words, you could lower the income tax and have a value-added tax, so-
called national sales tax, but if you did that at a high level, that is, 
if you're going to replace the income tax or most of it, it would have 
to--[inaudible]--and you would have to exempt food and housing and the 
basics of life. It's something that we may look at later on.
    Most countries have a small national sales tax to replace part of 
their income tax. And the reason they do it is it helps your exports, 
that is, you don't apply it to things you sell to other countries, but 
you do apply it to things other countries sell in your country. So it 
helps your exports, and it helps your competitive environment at home 
more than the system we have. But it's such a big issue, I thought we 
ought to face the economy and health care first. When that's out of the 
way there will be plenty of time to debate the tax system. But it is a 
big change for America. And most Americans don't trust us to fool with 
their pocketbooks anyway. So it would have to take a big long debate, 
where people were absolutely concerned that it wasn't going to be 
regressive and unfair to the middle class.
    Ms. Zahn. President Clinton, we're going to take a short break again 
right now, at 29 minutes after the hour. We'll be back.

[The network took a commercial break.]

    Mr. Smith. We are back live in the Rose Garden, and we've had a 
couple of microphone problems which we think we have fixed now. What did 
you just say?
    The President. I said if you were a politician and all these mikes 
went out, they'd say, are you a failed network, are you a failed 
newscaster? [Laughter]
    Ms. Zahn. They will be saying that maybe in a half hour from now.
    The President. It's just one of those things. Something always goes 
wrong.

White House Travel Office

    Mr. Smith. You know what, we need to talk about this, 
``Travelgate.'' Who knew what when, and why was the FBI called in, and 
why did you hire your cousin, and why did you have a firm from Arkansas 
take over this business?
    The President. First of all, let's get back to the beginning, okay? 
Let's talk about my cousin. She's about my fifth or sixth cousin who 
worked in the campaign and ran the travel operations. We had a very 
efficient travel operation.
    Every operation at the White House was reviewed, because I said I 
was going to cut the White House staff by 25 percent. That's not easy to 
do, to run the White House on fewer

[[Page 747]]

people than your predecessor. We got more mail in 3\1/2\ months than 
came to the White House in all of 1992. It's tough.
    We found out that there were seven people working in the Travel 
Office, primarily to book travel for the press, and that the press was 
complaining that the cost was too high. So there were all these 
recommendations made to change it. But nothing was done until an 
accounting firm came in and reviewed the operation and found serious 
management questions in terms of unaccounted-for funds and things like 
that. So then the person in charge of that made the decision to replace 
them.
    Now, all those questions were raised about whether they all should 
have been replaced. Mr. McLarty got on it. He did an internal review. 
He'll fix it. But the issue is: Should we work seven people when three 
can do the job? And if we saved 25 percent off the cost of the very 
first plane flight, isn't that a good thing for the press? That's what 
we're trying to do.
    Mr. Smith. And nobody's going to argue with that. But what they are 
going to argue with is why was the FBI called in?
    The President. Oh, the FBI, because--the FBI was called in to look 
at the auditor's report, not to accuse any of these people of doing 
anything criminal but because there were sufficient questions raised 
that there had to be a review of it. And the FBI sounds like a huge deal 
to you, but when you're in Washington and you're the President, you 
can't call the local police or the local prosecutor; that's who you 
call.
    Ms. Zahn. But even your own Attorney General is now posing the 
question about a breach of policy. Is she right or wrong?
    The President. Well, to the best of our ability to determine it, 
there has never been a policy that if the White House had a local 
internal matter, they had to go through the Attorney General to get to 
the FBI. The FBI's always been an independent investigative agency. But 
I have no problem with doing that, because I trust her. I think she's 
got great judgment.
    But the report in the auditor's findings made us believe that 
someone at least ought to look into this and clear the air. And that's 
all we were trying to do.
    Ms. Zahn. Was Attorney General Reno justified in questioning the 
process?
    The President. She can question whatever she wants to, I think. 
She's a fine person. I like her. But I'm just saying, to the best of my 
knowledge, there has never been a policy that the White House, if they 
had some internal activity going on here, would clear asking the FBI to 
look into it through the Attorney General. But I have no problem with 
doing it. Not with me or anybody else was that the policy before, to the 
best of my knowledge.
    Mr. Smith. But at minimum, it looks like you used the FBI to justify 
what in turn ended up looking like or was, in fact, an act of cronyism.
    The President. No. It may look like that, but the bottom line--it 
wasn't an act of cronyism. The bottom line is if we can run an office 
with three that they were taking seven to run, and we can save 25 
percent off a trip because we have competitive bidding when they didn't 
have competitive bidding, the press saves money and the taxpayers save 
money. That was my only objection. If anything wrong was done, Mr. 
McLarty will correct it. This is a do-right deal, not a do-wrong deal. 
Let's not obscure what happened. We were trying to do the people's work 
with less money.

Mining Reform Legislation

    Mr. Smith. Do you have a question?
    Q. Yes, I do. I'm from Redwood City, California. I was a Clinton 
precinct leader in that State, and I'm very happy to see you elected. My 
question, however, is regarding the environment. I supported you in 
spite of the issue that Tyson's was one of the major producers of jobs 
in your State; it's also the major producer of pollution in your State. 
And I supported you in hope that Al Gore would work on convincing you to 
be more of an environmental President than George Bush was. However, I 
noticed that you recently backed down when it came to upping the user 
fees on mining, grazing, and lumber. This is in spite of the fact that 
mining, I believe, is fixed at like under a dollar an acre to mine, this 
based upon a post-Civil-War law, but you've not upped it. I understand 
that it could contribute----
    The President. Let me ask you----
    Q. ----$17 billion to the budget.
    The President. Okay. No, no. There wasn't $17 billion, I don't 
think. Do you all know what he's talking about? The Federal Government 
owns land--that's a very good question. I'm glad you asked it. The 
Federal Government owns a lot of land on which there are trees, cattle, 
and minerals to be mined. Most people believe,

[[Page 748]]

and it's absolutely true, that essentially people have been permitted to 
use that land, mostly out west, to cut trees, graze cattle, and mine 
minerals at lower than a market rate. Now, all the people who do that 
have good reasons why they think the system is good, and I don't know if 
we've got any of those folks in the audience, but I feel that the mining 
fees should be raised.
    Originally we had, originally--he's right--we had that in our 
original budget. And we took it out not to take a dive on it but 
because, since it's a new issue, under the parliamentary rules of the 
Senate, we'd be subject to a filibuster. That is, you have to get 60 
votes, not a majority, to pass the budget.
    So we are moving now a new mining reform law through the Congress 
which will do exactly what you say. We just had to agree to do it on a 
separate track. The mining reform is on track. I believe this year I 
will sign a mining reform law which you will be very proud of, which 
will require those companies to pay back to the Treasury more nearly the 
value of what they have gotten from the United States Government, and it 
will be good for the environment.
    It's a good question. It's going through on a separate track, and we 
had to break it out for parliamentary reasons because of the opposition 
to it in the Senate.

[The network took a commercial break.]

White House Staff

    Ms. Zahn. We're back in the Rose Garden live with a 2-hour town 
meeting with President Clinton. Before we get back to our audience, a 
quick question to you about staff. There has been a lot of criticism 
that you've surrounded yourself by young and inexperienced people. There 
has been talk that maybe there are going to be some major shakeups over 
the next couple of days. Are you entirely satisfied with the White House 
staff you have in place?
    The President. No, but they're working hard and we've gotten a lot 
done. I'm glad I got to talk about that. I think there are always going 
to be--you can't--this is the hardest place in the country to work in 
some ways. And I think that we've had a period--you know, we came in, 
most of us were not from here, we were trying to do things differently. 
And there are a lot of things that we didn't handle as well as could 
have been handled. This Travel Office is one. What we were trying to do 
was good for the country and good for the taxpayers. And there were 
glitches in it. We are going to fix that. But I think that by and large, 
we'll----
    Ms. Zahn. You're going to fix that by firing----
    The President. We have a--well, just watch and see what we do. We're 
going to----
    Ms. Zahn. No hints?
    The President. No hints.
    But I would also say that I wonder whether people think the staff is 
younger than it is. I mean, you have the head of my economic team, Bob 
Rubin, is in his fifties and was one of the most successful people on 
Wall Street. Our major senior staff, I think, on balance, is slightly 
older than President Kennedy's were. But there are a lot of young people 
in other positions here. And sometimes I think that the overall 
impression is that the staff is quite a bit younger than it is in terms 
of people that are actually making decisions.

Urban Youth

    Q. One of the big things about your campaign was hope for the future 
and don't stop thinking about tomorrow. My question is about the 
children in the country, especially in the inner cities. It seems like 
they've kind of lost hope, and it seems like they don't have a future. 
And I'm wondering what we can do as a country to instill that back into 
them.
    The President. I think there are some things that I can do as 
President, but there are also some things that are going to have to be 
done community by community and block by block.
    Let me talk about the things I can do first. My job, I think, for 
those kids is to try to do as much as I can to make sure they've got a 
fair chance to make it under difficult circumstances. What does that 
mean? That they have a healthy beginning, get a good chance to get a 
Head Start program and decent nutrition, that their schools are as good 
as we can influence them, that their streets are safer, that they have a 
chance to work when they're young, at least with summer jobs, and that 
there's some economic opportunity there.
    We have presented initiatives in all this area. We're going to have 
more police on the street, more investment in Head Start, and a dramatic 
increase in incentives for business to invest in those areas.
    But frankly, I think also, we have to say to

[[Page 749]]

those kids, the only way you can make it is if you play by the rules. 
And we know it's tougher where there aren't as many intact families. We 
know it's tougher where there's more violence. But we've got to have 
more people go in and deal with those kids one-on-one. A friend of mine 
said the other day--someone asked, ``How are we going to rescue all 
these kids?'' And she said, ``The same way we lost them, one at a 
time.''
    And we've got to have more people interested in these people as 
people. I'm telling you. I just got back from south central LA. Those 
kids aren't all that different from everybody else's kids. They just 
want a chance to live. And if we can give it to them with more personal 
involvement, I think they can make it.
    Mr. Smith. When you talk about one-on-one, are you talking about a 
giant volunteer corps or are you talking about some kind of system 
that's going to cost more money to do it?
    The President. No, I'm talking about----
    Mr. Smith. In 30 seconds.
    The President. I'm talking about--the money should be going to the 
things I mentioned. What we need is for people in each of these 
communities to be involved with those kids. I can't do that. We need 
people in these communities sponsoring schools, involved in the schools, 
working with those kids after school and on the weekends. They're good 
kids. They just need a chance to make it.

[The network took a commercial break.]

    Ms. Zahn. Welcome back to Washington and the Rose Garden. We 
continue our conversation, our town hall meeting, with President Clinton 
right now. I thought I'd give the folks that have been staring at our 
back sides all morning a chance to ask you a question.
    Sir, your question.

Law Enforcement

    Q. My question to you is in regards to a law enforcement issue in 
this country. We're well aware of the position of the previous 
administration in regards to the support of law enforcement. My question 
deals with the fact that I heard you mention earlier about trying to get 
additional police officers, 100,000 and so forth. We in this city, I 
believe it was a matter of a couple of weeks ago, went to the Hill to 
try to get additional funding to keep several segments of our police 
department running, mainly one of which is the helicopter unit, which 
provides a lot of support service for the ground police officers and the 
Secret Service and ATF. And they were turned down for, I think it was 
like, they were going for $2 million or something at that rate. But my 
question to you is, dealing with Congress up there, which it seems they 
have a problem of partisanism now, like I say, as far as----
    The President. Well, let me explain. First of all, let's talk about 
the bigger issue here, that this gentleman is an example of a major 
national problem. Thirty-five years ago, there were three policemen in 
America for every serious crime. Today, there are three crimes for every 
police officer. And a lot of cities have had to reduce hiring of police 
officers with budget problems they've got. So one of the things I said 
in the election was I would try to find a way to put 100,000 more police 
officers on the street over the next 4 years.
    There's a bill moving through Congress right now which makes a down 
payment on that, and the House passed it late last night. If the Senate 
passes it, and I think they will this time, it's a smaller bill, but it 
will permit us to hire another 15,000 or so police officers. And that 
will start the down payment. Then I'm going to support the crime bill, 
which includes the Brady bill, to require people to wait so we can check 
their criminal background before they buy handguns. It will also have 
more police officers on it.
    We're going to give people coming out of the military incentives to 
go into police work. We're going to give young people the opportunity to 
pay off part of their college loan by being police officers for a while. 
So I think we can get this 100,000 figure. And you will be helped by 
that. But this bill that's going through now should help DC and all the 
States, because it provides funds specifically for those who want to 
rehire people who have been laid off as well as hire new police 
officers. And that should help a lot.

Abortion

    Q. Good morning. I'd like to know, is abortion going to be covered 
under the new health care plan?
    The President. I don't think a decision has been made about that. 
Let me tell you what the problem is. The Congress has historically not 
permitted public funds to be spent for abor-


[[Page 750]]

tion, except to save the life of the mother. Most private health 
insurance plans permit some broader coverage for abortion for people who 
are covered.
    So what the health care task force is trying to resolve is how to at 
least provide for the position that we shouldn't--in solving the 
national health crisis, we shouldn't take away from people some right 
they now have in their health insurance plans. And that's what they're 
trying to work through now. And I'm not sure exactly where they're going 
to wind up, but I think they're going to try to wind up in a way that 
either does that or at least makes it possible that that can be done. 
That's the dilemma here.
    Ms. Zahn. You mean the continuation of----
    The President. That gives people the right to at least access what 
they've got now in their health insurance plan, if they're private 
citizens and they get that, as a result of this change we've got, 
because what we're trying to do is not run this money for the uninsured 
through the Government anyway. We want it to be operating outside the 
Government and the taxpayers.
    Ms. Zahn. Harry's working the other side of the audience over there.
    Mr. Smith. We've got a 1-minute question.

Immigration

    Q. I'm from southern California, and there we have a lot of problem 
with immigration. I kind of have a question for you. Idealistically, I 
feel that America should let as many people in as we can. But in our 
State it's really taking a toll on Medicare, et cetera, et cetera.
    The President. Absolutely. You're from California, you know that----
    Mr. Smith. Thirty seconds left.
    The President. Quick answer. The Nation does not enforce its 
immigration laws. We should let immigrants come in. It makes us a 
stronger country. But we can't let everybody in overnight. We should 
attempt to enforce the laws more rigorously. And when California, Texas, 
Florida, New York, and other States pay a disproportionate burden, the 
National Government ought to help them more. We changed the rules to 
help California more, because it's not fair for you to pay for what the 
National Government does or doesn't do.

[The network took a commercial break.]

China

    Q. I'm from Tarzana, California. I've been going to China since 
1980, seven or eight times. I've lived and worked in China for 2 years. 
I'm very concerned about what you're going to do with the----
    Mr. Smith. Most-favored-nation----
    Q. ----most-favored-nation. On the one hand, if you don't give them 
this, you feel that you'll pressure the government into changing their 
attitude. On the other hand, the people don't want that to happen 
because they feel that they will be hurt financially. And then when 
they're hurt economically and financially, then they'll get less rights 
and privileges.
    Mr. Smith. Is this a done deal, your decision on this?
    The President. I think it is a done deal for the next year. Let me 
explain the issue here. In order for a country to trade with us, they 
have to get what's called most-favored-nation status in order to have 
big trade. China is a huge trading partner of ours, I think now our 
second biggest trading deficit, with China just behind Japan. They've 
got one of the fastest growing economies in the world. They're moving 
away from communism to market economics very quickly. They still put 
political prisoners in jail. They still, we think, have used prison 
labor to make products, and we have some other problems with them.
    The issue is should we revoke that or should we put conditions on 
it. I basically have decided to extend most-favored-nation status for a 
year because I want to support modernization in China, and it's a great 
opportunity for America there. But I want to make it clear to them that 
there has to be some progress on human rights and the use of prison 
labor. Our trade disputes and our disputes about arms sales I'm going to 
take out of this issue and negotiate directly with them. I think they 
will appreciate the gesture I'm making, but I hope they understand that 
the United States just can't turn its back on the abuse of lots of 
people and especially the use of prison labor and just choking people 
off when they say their piece.

The Presidency

    Q. I'm from Troy, Michigan. My question, Mr. President, when you 
wake up in the morning, before you get out of bed, do you lie there and 
think, what stupid little thing is going to happen today? [Laughter]
    The President. Some days I do. What I really think of is stupid 
little things happen to every-


[[Page 751]]

body, and I just hope that if some stupid little thing happens to me, it 
won't overshadow all the big good things I'm trying to do.
    But actually, when I get up in the morning, I say a little prayer 
that I won't make any stupid little mistakes and that I'll do right by 
America today. That's what I do. Then I go out here and run off old age. 
I do my best to do that.
    Mr. Smith. Here we go, Mr. President.

District of Columbia Statehood

    Q. Good morning, Mr. President. I'm president of the Bloomingdale 
Civic Association here in Washington, and you're welcome to come to our 
community at any time.
    The President. Thank you. I'd like that.
    Q. My question basically is, can you express to the American people 
why it is important for the District of Columbia to have statehood, to 
have the opportunity to vote for two Senators and Members of Congress?
    The President. Well, I think, frankly, I think having the Senators 
and the Members of Congress is not as important as having control over 
your own destiny. The District of Columbia now has more people than 5 
other States, pays more taxes than 10 other States, and sent more 
soldiers to fight in the Persian Gulf war than 20 other States. And yet, 
every time they turn around, Congress can overturn anything they do 
through their elected officials.
    If they became a State, yes, it's true, they would get two Senators 
and a Member of Congress, just like the other small States. But the main 
thing is they would have more control over their own destiny. It's very 
frustrating for the people in the District to know that Congress can do 
or not do anything, just like this fellow said here, that they can say, 
``No, you can't have $2 million for police.'' And they can't do it on 
their own because they don't have the independence. So that's why I've 
always supported statehood. Once I saw the facts about the size, the 
taxes, and the contribution to the national interest, I thought they 
ought to have the right to be independent.
    Mr. Smith. We need to take a break. We'll come back with more live 
from the Rose Garden.

[The network took a commercial break.]

    Mr. Smith. We are live at the White House Rose Garden with President 
Clinton, the first national network town meeting since you were elected. 
We appreciate you letting us come in here. We've got lots of questions 
from more than 200 people in the audience.
    Paula.
    Ms. Zahn. And this man's been waiting very patiently for the last 
hour. Please stand, and you can fire away.

President's Haircut

    Q. I'm from Montana. I work for the Rural Electric. And my question 
for you is: With all the troubles in the world going on now, how do you 
like being on the bubble with your haircut?
    The President. I just learn to live with it. I think you've got to 
learn to laugh at things like that. You know, when little things get 
made big, and big things get made little, you know, and you make a 
boner--I mean, I really--I told you the truth earlier. I was really 
trying to avoid inconveniencing people, not trying to inconvenience 
people. It just winds out being embarrassing when something like that 
happens to you. And you just have to laugh it off and go on. If you 
didn't have a sense of humor in this business, you'd be ground down to 
nothing pretty quick.
    Ms. Zahn. Earlier this morning, President Clinton, you said that you 
would ask your aides on the plane whether the haircut was going to cause 
any delays or not, and they said no. There's a piece in the Wall Street 
Journal----
    The President. The Secret Service said no.
    Ms. Zahn. The Wall Street Journal is suggesting that maybe the staff 
members don't have enough of a spine to stand up to you. Can you comment 
on that report?
    The President. Oh, no. The Secret Service asked, and they were told 
that there would be no delays. It was just a mess-up. I mean, it was 
just a mess-up. But it's just not----
    Ms. Zahn. Do you wish you hadn't gotten that haircut?
    The President. Yeah. I mean, look, I wear a $40 watch. Do I look 
like the kind of guy that would go and sit on an airport--you know, I 
mean, it was just a blow-up. I'm glad they didn't find out about the 
manicure. [Laughter]

Health Care Reform

    Q. Good morning, Mr. President. I am from East Dubuque, Illinois. 
Tomorrow I'm graduating from medical school and will be going into----

[[Page 752]]

    The President. Congratulations.
    Q. Thanks--residency training in family practice. I am graduating 
with over $100,000 in student loans for medical school alone. I am 
wondering how you anticipate the health care reform will help me to be 
able to pay back my student loans, as well as the many colleagues that 
have a similar situation as I do.
    Mr. Smith. The fear being that doctors aren't going to make as much 
money and for folks like this they aren't going to be able to pay the 
bills, right?
    The President. First of all--don't sit down yet, I want to look at 
you--only about 15 percent of our medical school graduates are now doing 
what this fine woman is doing, coming out as family practitioners. Most 
medical school graduates now want to be specialists partly because they 
want to do it, partly because they can have more control over their 
hours, partly because they can make more money. What we are going to do 
is try to create more incentives for people to go into family practice: 
easier to pay off your loans, have Government-targeted assistance to 
medical school to lower the cost of medical education, give you more 
opportunities to be in family practice corps, to bring down the cost of 
your debt. And I don't think that your income will be constricted. I 
think there will be more reliance on family practice, and we're going to 
have to do more in primary preventative medicine in America if we're 
ever going to bring the cost of health care down.
    Ms. Zahn. I have another health care related question for you from 
back here.
    Q. Thanks. I'm from Springfield, Missouri. I'm glad to hear that 
answer because one of my children is in medical school and going into 
family health care.
    The President. That's great.
    Q. I work for a company that has less than 500 employees. I pay $50 
a month for a health plan, a dental plan, life insurance. Our health 
plan is self-insured. I don't want to pay more money for health care 
individually. I'm concerned that my employer may be taxed and have to 
pay more money, and I would receive less benefits than I am receiving, 
as well as I want to keep my self-funded health plan. How would the 
change in health care affect me as an individual?
    The President. Well, let me say first of all, one of the decisions 
that has not been finalized yet, at least in our original report, is to 
what extent any companies of any size should be able to, in effect, 
continue their self-insurance efforts. And that's a tough issue because 
what we're trying to do is get these pools of insurance big enough for 
small business to have affordable health care because that's been a 
back-breaker for a lot of small businesses.
    The requirement that they're working on in terms of financial 
contribution would not be a tax over and above what people are paying 
now. They're trying to hit the national average, maybe even a little 
below the national average of what employers are paying now. And many, 
many employers and employees in this country will actually save money if 
the health care plan comes into effect.
    But if you have a national budget, you have to have some sort of 
national standard for what the contribution will be by employers, but 
it's not going to be over and above what people are paying now. They're 
trying to substitute for it, and they're trying to work out what that 
number is now. To your point of view, if you have a low-cost self-
insurance plan, what we're going to try to do is to make sure that the 
people with low-cost plans and generous coverage don't have less 
coverage and higher cost. That's not what we're trying to do. What we're 
trying to do is to broaden the coverage.
    Mr. Smith. Fifteen minutes after the hour. We need to take a break. 
We'll come back live to the Rose Garden, right after this.
    The President. And lower the cost--I'm sorry, I didn't say.

[The network took a commercial break.]

    Mr. Smith. It's about a perfect day in Washington, DC. I think the 
President is probably hoping it's just as nice up the street a little 
bit in the Congress. But we've got lots of questions from our audience. 
Go ahead.

Affordable Housing

    Q. Mr. President, I'm an architect from Seattle, Washington. And the 
question I'd like to ask you is what vision do you and your 
administration have for the revitalization of housing, both in the urban 
areas and the rural areas?
    The President. I think the housing economy, first of all, is a big 
part of our overall economy. My vision is that we will set in motion 
market forces--with a little bit of Government support but not a lot--
mostly market forces, which will enable us to resume a vigorous 
homebuilding

[[Page 753]]

sector in the American economy. And let me just mention some of the 
things that are important to that.
    The most important thing is to pass a deficit reduction plan that 
keeps interest rates down. Interest rates, mortgage rates now are about 
a 20-year low. Last year, only 47 percent of people under 35 thought 
they were going to be able to own their own homes. This year, about 74 
percent do. That's because interest rates are down, because we're trying 
to bring the deficit down first.
    Secondly, I think the low income housing credits, tax credits, 
should be extended. That's in our tax bill, to give people incentives to 
build houses in inner cities.
    The third thing we need to do is to move aggressively in areas where 
credit is not available to break the credit crunch. And the Government's 
working hard on that. There are all kinds of sectors of our country that 
have had a huge dry-up of credit because of the collapse of the S&L's 
and because of regional recessions. And we're trying to break that.
    And finally, we have a Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 
Henry Cisneros, the former Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, who has got a 
wonderful raft of ideas about how to go into community after community 
and set up partnerships in rural and urban areas to get people to build 
more houses. So that's basically what we're trying to do. The dream of 
homeownership, and frankly, the importance to the economy are two things 
that can merge as part of my vision for rebuilding our country from the 
grassroots up.
    Ms. Zahn. President Clinton, we only have a couple of more minutes 
before we have to take another break. Another quick question for you 
from over here.

Association With Celebrities

    Q. I'm a finance manager from San Jose, California. My perception is 
that your administration is a little infatuated with Hollywood and 
celebrities. Is this a valid observation?
    The President. No. You know, all these politicians from here run out 
to Hollywood and have fundraisers all the time. Do you know how many 
fundraisers I had there before I ran for President? Zero. We've had two 
meetings here in the White House where groups of people from Hollywood 
have wanted to come in and talk about health care and the environment. 
We've had a couple of people from California who have stayed in the 
Governor's mansion. When my preacher from Arkansas stayed here, nobody 
wrote it up. When the guy who ran my campaign in Florida stayed here 
last week, nobody wrote it up. It's another thing where a little thing 
becomes big because it makes a good story. It doesn't amount to a hill 
of beans. There are some people in Hollywood who helped me, who care 
about the country. I treat them like I do everybody else that was part 
of the campaign and want to be part of it.
    But that is absolutely not true. It is not true now, it's not going 
to be true, and it's never been true. I like to go to the movies and 
listen to music. Most of you do, too. And that's about the extent of it.
    Ms. Zahn. Are you concerned, though, that when these little stories 
that you say just simply blow up----
    The President. Absolutely. Absolutely----
    Ms. Zahn. Let me just ask you this--that people who voted for you in 
the election and bought into this image of the man from Hope and that 
maybe stories like the $200 haircut with a guy who has one name might 
increase their cynicism about what's going on in your administration.
    The President. Sure it does. Sure it does, which is one reason 
they're so overplayed. But that doesn't mean they're valid. What I keep 
telling everybody here is, we have to realize when you're President, 
you're a long way from most people in America, and so little things 
become big. So you have to bend over backwards not to do things that 
you'd never even give a second thought to if you were a private citizen 
or a Governor or a Senator because they're going to be taken and blown 
all out of proportion and your whole image is going to be gnarled by it. 
So we have to be super sensitive not to do things that we would 
ordinarily do and not give a second about it because of the way it will 
be perceived in the country. That's absolutely right. And we haven't 
been very smart about that on a couple of these occasions. But that 
doesn't mean----
    Ms. Zahn. Whose fault was that?
    The President. It means that we have underestimated the fact that 
the press will play these things big and people will draw those 
conclusions from it. But she asked me a substantive question, not an 
image question. She said, has the administration gone Hollywood? The 
answer

[[Page 754]]

to that is, no, heck no, never, no. Never, Never. [Laughter] That's a 
substantive answer.
    Ms. Zahn. I think the answer is no.
    Mr. Smith. We've got lots more to come live from the White House 
Rose Garden with President Clinton. We've got questions about defense 
cuts and what happens to the people who are going to lose their jobs as 
the defense gets cut. And we're going to come back and get answers to 
those questions in just a minute.

[The network took a commercial break.]

Commemorative Tie

    Mr. Smith. I couldn't let this go; you've got to stand up a second. 
Okay, now, I didn't know this. I knew there were ties like this, but 
explain--the President of the United States knows that this tie actually 
means something and what it means.
    The President. This tie is part of a series of ties representing 
Beatles songs. And this one is ``Let It Be.'' And there's Mother Mary 
here; there's a line in the song that says, ``Mother Mary calls to me, 
whispers words of wisdom, let it be.'' And here she is with an angel. 
And so you're supposed to be able to look at this tie and know the 
Beatles songs. There's a whole bunch of them, and sometimes we give each 
other tests. [Laughter]
    Mr. Smith. Do you have a question for the President? Okay.

The Presidency

    Q. Yes, I do. It's sort of a change of pace; it's more of a personal 
question. I was wondering how you felt that you've changed over the last 
100 days of your Presidency?
    The President. I think I'm a lot more humbled in the face of some of 
the problems than I was before I became President. I'm still as 
convinced as I ever was that we can make change. I still think that we 
can restore a sense of hope and possibility. But a lot of these issues--
we talked a little about Bosnia during the break--are very humbling. 
They're difficult.
    And I'm also very mindful that--just what we were saying before--
when you're President, everything you do and everything you say and the 
way you do it and the way you say it and everybody you come in contact 
with takes on a meaning far bigger than you might have ever imagined as 
a Governor, a Senator, a candidate for President, a private citizen. And 
you have to be much more sensitive to that in order to make sure that 
the people know you as you really are.
    I think those are the two things that I have learned. I also have 
learned that it's probably the hardest job in the world. And you've got 
to reach down real deep every day and try to always rise above yourself 
and not be deterred by the momentary problems or the drops or raises in 
the polls. Both drops and increases in the polls are illusory in the 
end. The only thing that matters is, do you do a good job, and are 
people's lives better off when you finish than they were when you 
started. And I just have to keep working on that. I think it requires a 
much stronger character and a much deeper spirit to be President than it 
does to run for President. And I just try to work on it every day. I try 
to grow some every day into the job.
    Ms. Zahn. President Clinton, you know the tie you just looked at, 
the ``Let It Be'' tie? Here's a man that isn't content to let it be. He 
has a question for you now. Please stand.

Entitlement Programs and Health Care Reform

    Q. Mr. President, I'm from Los Angeles. My question is on the 
entitlement programs. Entitlements are 50 percent of the budget, as you 
know. And I see the constant growth of these entitlement programs. 
There's no way, as I see it, to curb the budget deficit without reining 
in these entitlement programs. And now you are going to propose a health 
care program, which is another entitlement program.
    The President. Well, the answer to your question is, the only way to 
control the health care entitlements is to get control of health care 
costs. And the only way to control health care costs in this country, in 
which we're spending 35 percent more of our income on health care than 
anybody else, is to provide some way for everybody to have some 
coverage, not lose it when they change jobs, and control public and 
private costs the way every other advanced nation has done. We cut a lot 
on the entitlements, on retirement entitlements, public employee 
entitlements, and health care. We need to cut much more, and we will.
    Ms. Zahn. Thank you, President Clinton. We will be back with a half 
hour more of our town meeting after this break.

[The network took a commercial break.]

    Ms. Zahn. Welcome back to ``CBS This Morn-


[[Page 755]]

ing'' and our special 2-hour meeting with President Clinton. We just had 
to go into a break, and we were talking about the notion of entitlements 
from this man back here. And his essential question was, with 
entitlements representing about at least 50 percent of our budget, when 
is the Government going to get serious about cutting into these 
programs? Did I paraphrase that correctly?
    The President. We have in this budget package that I have presented 
to the Congress, we have about $100 billion in cuts in various 
entitlement programs over the next 5 years in Medicare, in agriculture, 
in veterans programs. But they're still going up very rapidly. The only 
way ultimately to get control of the entitlements is to control overall 
health costs and bring them in line with inflation. For example, we 
could cut health care costs even more, but here's what would happen. If 
you cut Medicare and Medicaid and you cut what the providers get, the 
doctors and the hospitals, what do they do? They shift their costs off 
to you in the private sector. That's been happening for years now. 
People who have no health insurance get health care in this country. 
People whose health care is underfunded get health care anyway. And the 
cost gets shifted onto private employers and their employees in the form 
of exploding health insurance premiums. So health care cost in the 
private sector as a whole are going up as fast or faster than health 
care costs in the Government sector. And the trick is how to get them 
under control without messing up the programs, like the gentleman over 
here who has got a good program where they have control of their own 
costs. That's the trick. But you've got to deal with the private and the 
public to do that.

Aerospace Industry

    Q. The aerospace community is being assailed by the Europeans on the 
commercial side, and in some respects the defense budget will assail 
them on the defense budget side. A combination of those two are making 
aerospace employment a very delicate issue, a lot of unemployment, a lot 
of people without jobs. How do you think the new defense budget will 
address that as part of their program?
    The President. First of all, I want to answer your question, but I 
want to make a point since you stood up here, and I appreciate it.
    There are budget cuts and budget cuts. Everybody knows we have to 
bring the defense budget down. And we have cut it a lot. We are right on 
the edge. We should not cut it more right now. I feel very strongly 
about that. A lot of the defense cuts are in areas of contracts where 
people work in America. The question is what are they going to do when 
you lay them off? Why is southern California in so much trouble? Largely 
because of all the defense cuts, with no plans to find anything else. We 
believe very strongly, in this administration, and I personally believe, 
based on my experience as a Governor trying to put people back to work, 
that a portion of the defense cuts should be devoted to three things: 
one, retraining workers if they need retraining; two, helping companies 
to develop domestic markets to make up for the defense contracts they 
lost; and three, helping communities that have been devastated to 
restructure their economies.
    In the aerospace industry, I am convinced that the real key there is 
to try to have a competitive airline industry in America that's healthy 
and try to make sure the airline manufacturers, the airplane 
manufacturers and the parts manufacturers, have access to markets at 
home and abroad. The Commerce Secretary, Ron Brown, has just been around 
the world doing what he can to open up more markets for aerospace 
commercially. We cannot afford to lose our world leadership there just 
because we're cutting back in defense. Aerospace is one of seven areas 
of technology that will produce most of the high-wage, high-growth jobs 
for the world in the next 20 years, and we've got to try to maintain our 
leadership. I just appointed a commission, along with the Congress, 
completely bipartisan on this issue, to look at ways to revitalize 
aerospace, and I think we're going to make some progress.

Homosexuals in the Military

    Q. Mr. President, I'm the senior pastor at Christ Chapel in 
Woodbridge, Virginia. And I would like to say that we in the Woodbridge 
area pray for you and your administration regularly and daily.
    The President. Thank you.
    Q. And allow me to ask the question, give you 2 minutes in the 2 
hours and 31 minutes to talk about the issue of gays in the military, if 
I may. I'm concerned about the degradation of morality in our Nation, in 
our society, in the military as a whole, and I'm concerned with the 
long-term consequences of actions, not only

[[Page 756]]

on the issue with gays in the military but also with actions associated 
with health care in terms of the funding of abortion, issues such as 
that. The Christian community is very concerned in this Nation about 
those issues. And I'm somewhat disturbed, particularly, about the policy 
process for developing these programs.
    The President. Let's just talk about the gays in the military, 
because we don't have a lot of time to go into all of it.
    First of all, I think the military has a great moral fabric. We know 
there are homosexuals in the military and always have been. We know that 
the Tailhook scandal occurred. I don't think Tailhook reflects on the 
whole Navy. I think that the military has done more to give people a 
good, coherent set of values and a way to live and succeed in a very 
complicated and disintegrating world than most of the institutions in 
this country have. So I think that you should not worry about that.
    Here is the issue: There are and always have been homosexuals in the 
military. The question is whether they should be kicked out, not because 
of what they do but because of who they are. My view is people should be 
judged on their conduct. I have not called for any change in the Uniform 
Code of Conduct. I simply believe if people work hard, play by the 
rules, and serve, they ought to be able to serve. That does not imply 
that the rest of the society agrees with the lifestyle, but you just 
accept as a fact that there are in every country, and always have been, 
homosexuals who are capable of honoring their country, laying down their 
lives for their country, and serving. And they should be judged based on 
their behavior, not their lifestyle. That's my view: their behavior; 
it's a behavior test.
    Let me say this: We almost have a compromise here. Most Americans 
believe if you don't ask and you don't say and you're not forced to 
confront it, people should be able to serve. Most Americans believe that 
the gay lifestyle should not be promoted by the military or anybody else 
in this country. The issue is a narrow one: Should you be able to 
acknowledge, if asked, that you are homosexual? And if you don't do 
anything wrong, should you be booted from the military? We are trying to 
work this out so that our country does not--I understand what you're 
saying--so that our country does not appear to be endorsing a gay 
lifestyle, but we accept people as people and give them a chance to 
serve if they play by the rules. I think that is the tough issue for us, 
and I think we're very close to resolving it here.
    Ms. Zahn. Could you be satisfied with ``don't ask, don't tell, don't 
investigate''? Might that be where you might end up?
    The President. Well, we might end up that way as long as it doesn't 
lead to a whole range of deliberate outings. I mean, we don't want to 
make it worse. I think we're very close to a compromise along those 
lines. And I think most Americans will agree when it works out that 
people are treated properly if they behave properly without the 
Government appearing to endorse a lifestyle. I think that's what you're 
concerned about, and it's a legitimate concern. But I have to deal with 
people as people. And I've had so many people in the military come up to 
me and say that they have served with homosexuals who served bravely in 
Vietnam and other places, who were good people, who did not violate any 
rules. It is them that I am trying to protect.
    Ms. Zahn. President Clinton, thank you very much. We're going to 
take a short break here and be back in just a couple of minutes. Lots 
more to come on ``CBS This Morning.''

[The network took a commercial break.]

    Mr. Smith. We're back live in the White House Rose Garden. What's 
your question for the President?

Health Care Reform

    Q. Mr. President, one quick question on the health care issue. It 
does not yet appear what the health care plan is going to look like, but 
will we be ensured that we know that the less fortunate of this country 
and the unemployed will have ready access to quality care?
    The President. Yes. But it's not just the people who don't have 
health insurance--the people who have it who are afraid of losing it 
because somebody in their family's been sick, and they can't change 
jobs. There are millions of Americans locked into their jobs today 
because they or someone in their family has a preexisting condition. We 
need to change the rules so that you can change jobs and you can be 
unemployed and your business can fail and you don't have to worry about 
getting health care. I think it's very important. And if we do it right, 
we can do it and hold down the cost of health care, not drive it up. 
Keep in mind, your coun-


[[Page 757]]

try spends 35 percent more than any other country on Earth on health 
care, more of our income. We can do this.

Homelessness

    Q. I've been visiting Washington, DC, and I've noticed a lot of 
homeless people on the streets. And it really made me sad and 
everything. And I was just wondering if you had any plans to help them 
find jobs and get homes.
    The President. We do, actually. The Secretary of Housing and Urban 
Development, Mr. Cisneros, has just established a commission on 
homelessness, and they're supposed to give him a report in September 
about what we can do to change this. It's a very complicated problem. 
We're now having some people who don't want to go into the shelters at 
night because they don't think they'll be safe, and they think they're 
safer on the streets. It's a very sad thing.
    It's a question of jobs, of education, of drug treatment often. But 
we need to do something. I run by, every day when I run out here, I run 
by about six homeless people who stop and say, hello, Mr. President. And 
I talk to them, and I look at them and think, you know, I ought to be 
able to get those people off the street. If I can do anything, I ought 
to be able to do that. And we're going to try.

Administration Priorities

    Q. Hello, Mr. President, I'd like to get back earlier to what we 
were discussing. You were talking about how you were filtered to the 
media. And is there a problem with how you're filtered, from the 
administration's point of view, and your administration? Or is it 
something with a focus on too many issues at once and not a specific 
drive, so the public is not confused?
    Ms. Zahn. We're really not going to give you much time, 15 seconds, 
Mr. President. Sorry.
    The President. I think we have to do more than one thing. But we 
need to talk about one thing at a time. There's a difference in--we have 
to--you can't just shut the whole thing down. If we want to have welfare 
reform and student loans done 8 months from now, we have to start doing 
them now. But we need to talk about one thing. I need to get better at 
that, more disciplined. And I'm really working on it, to try to get 
through all the fog of all the many stories that are out there.

[The network took a commercial break.]

    Ms. Zahn. Welcome back to Washington, in the Rose Garden, where we 
continue our confrontation with--conversation, not confrontation with--
[laughter]--conversation, talk with, town hall.
    The President. The truth comes out. [Laughter]

Meeting With President Kennedy

    Ms. Zahn. The President wanted to say something about how it was 
more than almost 30 years ago that he was standing in this very spot.
    The President. This young man asked me where I was standing when I 
met President Kennedy in the Rose Garden when I was a delegate to the 
American Legion Boys Nation. He was standing on those steps there, and I 
was standing here, because they had us lined up in alphabetical order, 
and I was from Arkansas, and we were at the front of the alphabet. I was 
also the biggest kid on this side, so when he came over and started 
shaking hands, I sort--I'm embarrassed to say this, but I kind of 
elbowed the others out of the way to make sure--[laughter]--to make sure 
if he only shook three hands, at least I get to shake his hand. He was 
good, he shook hands with everybody on the front row.

The Presidency

    Ms. Zahn. So if some wide-eyed kid came up to you from that same 
position, what would you tell him about being President today and maybe 
what some of your misconceptions were about the job?
    The President. I would tell him it's an incredible challenge, an 
exhilaration, and a great honor. And if it ended tomorrow, it would be 
the greatest honor I ever had. You just have to get up every day and do 
the best you can.
    Abraham Lincoln said one time, if he tried to answer all the charges 
against him, he'd never get anything else done. If the end brought him 
out wrong, 10,000 angels claiming he was right wouldn't make any 
difference. And if the end brought him out all right, then everything 
that was said before wouldn't make any difference. You just have to keep 
your eye on the ball. The ball is you and your welfare and what happens 
to you.

Job Training

    Q. Mr. President, I'd like to address the issue of employee 
training. I believe in your campaign

[[Page 758]]

that you had stated that employers would be putting forth maybe 1.5 
percent towards training. I was wondering, is this going to be mandated 
for employers to put so much into training, or would it be left up to 
the voluntary action of employers?
    The President. We don't want a mandate. That is about the average of 
what employers in the country spend. And what we're trying to do is to 
work out a system of lifetime training that doesn't have mandates on 
employers but will give them more incentives to do that. You know, there 
are a lot of employer mandates right now on Social Security and other 
things that are just very expensive.
    Let me tell you where we're beginning. What we're beginning is with 
the kids who just get out of high school and with older people who come 
back into 2-year vocational training programs. We're going to try to 
help to set up a system by putting a little Federal money in and by 
giving States and localities more flexibility over the money we spend 
now to guarantee that people will always be able to go back and get at 
least 2 years of education after high school even if they don't go to 
college. And then we want to move from there to see what we can do to 
give the employer community more incentives to do that kind of training 
or access those things, because the average 18-year-old will change jobs 
eight times in a lifetime. And if we want to raise incomes in America, 
we've got to have a very well-trained work force, and people have to 
think of education as something they do always. We're going to have 
workers in their sixties going back to school and learning new skills. 
And if it is a source of security, they will be excited about it. We've 
got to find a way to make change the friend of Americans, instead of the 
enemies. That's the idea. But I don't want to mandate it.

Education

    Mr. Smith. We have a couple of young women here who are about to 
become teachers, right?
    Q. Correct. The standardized test scores for students in countries 
like Japan, France, and Canada exceed the ones in America. And as we're 
going into the 21st century, what changes will you propose to make sure 
that the students in America--in other words, we become the leader?
    Mr. Smith. Competitive, competitive--one minute.
    The President. We are trying right now to write in the national 
education Goals 2000--[inaudible]--law of the land. I then want some 
national standardized exams that really mean something and aren't bogus 
and that are updated annually. And we want tougher and higher standards 
for teachers that have some national credibility, national standards.
    I want you to understand, however, we don't go to school as long as 
a lot of other countries do. And we have a much more economic and social 
diversity than other countries, more immigrants, a lot more poor people, 
a lot of differences. But our system can achieve international 
excellence if we have clear standards and clear ways of training people 
and then if we judge the schools more based on their results rather than 
the bureaucratic inputs. So that's basically what we're trying to do.
     Mr. Smith. Thank you. We will be back with more live from the Rose 
Garden and President Clinton in just a second.

[The network took a commercial break.]

     Mr. Smith. We're back live in the Rose Garden at the White House 
with President Clinton.
    Did you vote for President Clinton?
    Q. Yes, I did.
    Mr. Smith. And have been worried about him a little bit?
    Q. Yes, I have been.
    The President. So has my mother. I'm glad you--[laughter]----
    Q. I'm old enough to be his mother, but I'm the wrong gender. 
[Laughter] No, I was concerned. But frankly, since being here this 
morning, I am reinforced in my hopes or belief that you'll do a good 
job. I really am. I think you're on the right track. You've given me a 
lot more confidence. Thank you.

Health Care Reform

    Ms. Zahn. Well actually, I have one question about Chelsea here, but 
before we get there, before we go off the air, I just wondered if you 
could give us a little more information on health care this morning. We 
know that some of your economic advisers have been advising against 
going with the big bang theory of doing this health care reform all at 
once. What exactly are their fears? What are they worried about and are 
those fears warranted?
    The President. Well, they're afraid that we

[[Page 759]]

won't be able to get savings out of the system. Basically, to go back to 
this man's question here on the health care issue, if you look at 
America compared to other countries, we spend more on insurance and 
paperwork, Government regulation, and other things than any other 
country does. What our attempt is going to be is to get savings out of 
all of that and use that to cover the uninsured and to make it cheaper 
for farmers, for small business people, and for self-employed people to 
get insurance. That's the deal. Some of them are afraid we can't get the 
savings quick enough, so they say we ought to have just a major medical 
coverage and protect people from disaster. But if you look at the 
economics, the economics are a disaster. If you have a--I don't know--a 
$3,000 deductible or something like that, well, what have you got? You 
don't have much. That's what a lot of people have today. So what I want 
to do is to phase in the coverage, but when you give it to people, give 
them something that's worth having, that really gives family security. I 
think the American people would rather us phase it in and do it 
gradually and do it right and then give people something that's worth 
something, than do it overnight but give them something that's not worth 
a nickel.
    Ms. Zahn. Can we talk about a family member now?
    The President. Yes.

Chelsea Clinton's Education

    Q. Hi. I'm a freshman in high school. My question was, sometime ago 
you said that our schools are safe. And if so, how come you won't let 
Chelsea go to a public school?
    The President. No, I didn't say our schools are safe, I said they 
could be. The question of personal safety had nothing to do with it. My 
daughter was always in a public school, and her public school education 
is serving her quite well now. She's doing well in the school she's in. 
She and her mother and I reviewed all the possible schools we could send 
her to, including--we looked at three private schools and three public 
schools. We examined, and we thought a lot about it. We decided that 
this was best for her for a number of reasons. One is my daughter is not 
a public figure. She does not want to be a public figure. She does not 
like getting a lot of publicity. And frankly, she has more privacy and 
more control over her destiny where she is than she would if she were at 
the public school that she was also interested in attending. All three 
of us made a family decision that it would be best for her under these 
circumstances.
    I also think the school that she decided to attend has some very 
special things about it, including a requirement that children do 
community service. There's a whole approach that the Friends have to the 
education system that she was interested in exploring. But it was not a 
rejection of the public schools. It was a decision that because of who 
she is and where she is and the circumstance she's in, she would be 
happier in a--she'd feel that she could be more of a normal kid if she 
could do that. That's the only reason we did it. We didn't reject the 
public schools.
    Mr. Smith. We've got just a little bit less than a minute right here 
and a real important question, Mr. President.

Community Involvement

    Q. I'm going to ask you the question that President Kennedy 
admonished us all to ask 33 years ago: What can we do to help our 
country?
    Mr. Smith. And the clock is running, 30 seconds.
    The President. You can do what you're doing today. You can keep 
asking us questions and keep saying to people: Put aside the partisan 
politics and try to solve the problems of the country. Get something 
done. You're going to make mistakes if you try to do something, but move 
us forward. The second thing you can do is to let everybody know that 
you're willing to do your part if everybody else does theirs, if it's 
fair. The third thing you can do is to go back home and ask, what 
problem do we have in this community that Bill Clinton can't do anything 
about, except maybe set an example, and try to deal with some of these. 
The family problems we've got, the children's problems we've got, a lot 
of the value problems we've got, they have to be dealt with one-on-one 
from the grassroots up. And every American needs to be involved in 
community service like that. The Government cannot solve some of these 
problems, and if we did more at the local level our Government would 
function better.
    Mr. Smith. We're going to wrap things up from the White House when 
we come back.

[The network took a commercial break.]

    Mr. Smith. We got Josh here from Indianap-


[[Page 760]]

olis. What's the title of your paper you just wrote?
    Q. ``Arkansas: The State Where the People Rule.''
    Mr. Smith. And you don't think you'll get extra credit for getting 
it signed by the President? [Laughter]
    Ms. Zahn. This wraps our special 2-hour edition of ``CBS This 
Morning,'' our town meeting with President Clinton. Thank you so much 
for your time today.
    The President. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Zahn. Will you ever invite us back into the Rose Garden here?
    The President. Absolutely. I'd like for all of you to come back.
    Ms. Zahn. All right. Have a good day everybody. See you in the 
morning.

Note: The town meeting began at 7:03 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the 
White House.