    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [October 3, 1993]
    [Pages 1652-1667]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in a Town Meeting in Sacramento
    October 3, 1993

        The President. First of all, let me thank all of you for being here
    tonight, and also thank all those I can't see yet who are at the other
    stations, and all the people of California who are watching.
        I want to talk about whatever you want to talk about tonight, but
    just by way of introduction, let me say that when I ran for President, I
    ran basically because I thought our country was headed in the wrong
    direction economically, because I thought our people were coming apart
    instead of coming together as a country, and because I thought our
    Government wasn't facing up to our problems. And since taking office,
    I've tried to address those things by changing our economic focus, by
    trying to bring people together across regional and racial and other
    lines, and by trying to just take the tough problems of the country, one
    after the other, starting with the deficit, trying to make some progress
    on it.
        There are a lot of things I hope we get to

    [[Page 1653]]

    talk about, including the California economy tonight, which I spent
    countless hours on since I've been President. But I want to talk a
    minute just about the health care issue, because it relates to so much
    else.
        We are in a time of great change. You know that out here. You've
    benefited from some of these changes in the last 10 years. Now you've
    suffered for the last 3 years from a lot of those economic changes. In
    order for America to make change our friend instead of our enemy, we
    have to have a certain base level of personal security and family
    security in this country. In order for us to do that, we have to be
    competitive with other nations, too. And both of those things bring us
    always back to health care, where we spend more money and have less to
    show for it and where we're the only advanced country that doesn't
    provide health security for all our people.
        So the thrust of this health care effort is, first of all, to
    guarantee Americans security--health care that's always there, health
    care that can never be taken away--and to do it in a way that is fair to
    the American people and that lowers, not cuts health care costs but
    lowers the rate at which it is increasing, so that it helps the economy
    as well as helps the health security of American families. And it is the
    key to dealing with so many of our other problems and to giving the
    American people the security they need to face the future. I hope we get
    to talk more about it.
        Thank you.

    Russia

        Stan Atkinson. Mr. President, while we are here tonight to address
    the matters of health care, the economy, and other domestic issues, we
    certainly can't ignore the events talking place today and tonight in
    Russia. It has been a bloody day there, with anti-Yeltsin forces
    fighting police and military units in the streets. Well-armed protesters
    won most of the battles, ramming trucks into government buildings, even
    launching rocket-propelled grenades. Russian President Yeltsin has
    issued a state of emergency, and military reinforcements in the form of
    his crack best troops are en route to Moscow.
        Carol Bland. And before we begin tonight, Mr. President, we're
    wondering whether or not you could update us on the situation in Russia,
    in particular this Government's response to it.
        The President. Well, first of all, let me say what happened is that
    the opponents of reform, the people who don't want a new constitution,
    the people that don't want an election, basically in the person of Mr.
    Rutskoy and Mr. Khasbulatov, their supporters who basically started all
    this disorder and violence today--President Yeltsin has bent over
    backwards not to have the soldiers fire on anybody, not to promote any
    violence. And he may be thinking today he went too far in that, because
    they basically got up a head of steam, and the situation got out of
    control.
        I believe that he will be successful in the end because the people
    support him. And I think the United States should support Yeltsin as
    long as he is the person who embodies a commitment to democracy and to
    letting the Russian people chart their own course. And he does. The
    people who have started this opposition are people who represent the old
    Communist system that Russia is trying so hard to move away from.
        So I wish him success. I thank him for not trying to promote any
    unnecessary violence. And I hope that this will be as peaceful a
    resolution as possible, but it's going to be pretty tough for them for
    the next few days.
        Mr. Atkinson. Thank you, Mr. President. Now on to our program. In
    addition to the audience here with you at KCRA in Sacramento, we're also
    going to hear from a lot of other people all over California, up and
    down the State, in fact. They're in cities tonight waiting to listen to
    you. For instance, may I do some introductions? Joining us by satellite
    from KRON television in San Francisco, reporter and news anchor Pete
    Wilson, along with a live studio audience. Moving south to Los Angeles,
    Paul Moyer is there with a group assembled at KNBC television. Welcome
    to all of you. And also, from southern California, Marty Levine. Marty
    and our fourth studio audience join us live from KNSD television in San
    Diego. And from Sacramento and KCRA, I'm Stan Atkinson. Mr. President,
    my partner, Carol Bland.

    Health Care Reform

    [Ms. Bland introduced a participant whose insurance company refused to
    cover the cost of a bone marrow transplant for her son who had leukemia.
    She asked if the new health care plan would cover such experimental
    procedures.]

        The President. The answer to the question

    [[Page 1654]]

    is that in most cases the answer would be yes. And the reason I say most
    cases is that under our plan people will have coverage as they do in
    insurance today for certain conditions like leukemia. And when there is
    evidence that that is the best available treatment and a doctor for the
    child, in this case, for a child or for an adult wants to pursue that
    treatment, then the insurer will not take that option away. But there
    has to be--I don't want to mislead you, there has to be at least a
    doctor, there has to be some substantial evidence that the treatment
    might work--you never know if it will in experimental treatment--but
    that it might work.
        So in the case of a bone marrow transplant where there is evidence
    that it often has been effective, it should cover that. And that's the
    way we tried to set it up. In other words, to be less restrictive than
    most insurance policies are today but still leave doctors with their
    considered medical judgment, some ground not to do things that don't
    make any sense at all.
        Mr. Atkinson. Mr. President, if we can step back just a moment, let
    me call your attention to our screen, and we're going to see--that's a
    fellow whose name is Pete Wilson. Now, he's not the Governor Pete
    Wilson, he's the news anchor Pete Wilson from KRON television in San
    Francisco.
        Pete.
        Pete Wilson. Stan, the President and I have been over this a couple
    of times just in recent weeks, as a matter of fact.
        The President. He always gives me that disclaimer. But I talk to
    Governor Wilson all the time. [Laughter]

    Public School System

    [Mr. Wilson introduced a participant who asked what the administration
    plans to do to improve the public school system.]

        The President. Good question. Before I answer that, I want to thank
    that lady who just asked that question. It must take an awful lot of
    courage for her to come here within a month of losing her child, and I
    thank you.
        Let's talk about the public schools. I have been working since I
    first became President to pass a new bill called Goals 2000, which will
    enable us to change the way we evaluate our schools and will give the
    schools the incentives and resources they need to perform at a much
    higher level.
        Essentially, what we want to do is to set some national standards,
    not by Government employees but by educational experts, some national
    standards that, then, we can measure every school against every year so
    that parents and other interested people can tell how well the schools
    are doing. We want to emphasize the things that we know are important
    for the future, especially science, mathematics, creative thinking
    skills, the ability to use the language to reason through new problems,
    and to provide special resources for that.
        The Secretary of Education has worked with the Governors of the
    country and educators all over the country. They're very excited about
    having the Government, instead of telling educators what kind of
    specific inputs they have, set some national standards, give the schools
    more flexibility over how they do it, and go forward.
        The second thing we've done is to try to change the way we
    distribute Federal aid to education, which will be of immense benefit to
    California. A lot of the poorer school districts, or districts with a
    lot of poor kids, don't get their fair share of aid. The bill that we
    have in the legislature now, and the Congress passes, will be a big boon
    to California.
        The third thing we've tried to do is to deal with the problem of the
    kids who don't go to 4-year colleges or don't graduate from them. Well
    over half of our students don't graduate from 4-year colleges, but 100
    percent of our students need both a high school diploma and at least 2
    years of post-high school education. So we're setting up a system now
    which will integrate the public schools and the 2-year institutions, the
    community colleges, the vocational institutions, and others, starting in
    high school, to let people meld work and learning and begin to do that
    for a lifetime.
        And the final thing that we've tried to do that I think is perhaps
    going to have the most profound effect over the long run is to be able
    to tell our young people while they're in junior high and high school
    that they won't have to worry about paying for a college education,
    because we've reformed the student loan system to lower the interest
    rates for the loans, to string out the repayment terms, to make college
    affordable to everyone, and to allow, starting next year 25,000, going
    up to hundreds of thousands of students to repay their loan through
    community service at the local level.

    [[Page 1655]]

        So, start with standards instead of inputs. I spent 12 years working
    on the public schools, and I can tell you, we need national standards,
    and then we need to focus how we can give resources to the schools to
    meet those standards instead of telling them how to run every minute of
    every day in the classroom. Take account of these other things, and I
    think you'll see some substantial improvements.
        I also will tell you that our bill provides for, I think, a better
    option than the option that's on the ballot out here for choice. We give
    States incentives to allow more choice of schools within the public
    school system, and we give incentives for school systems to empower
    people to set up schools, license them, and run them according to high
    standards as a part of the public school system, like you could give a
    group of teachers permission to start their own school, but it would be
    part of a school system, and it would have to meet, then, the standards
    of that school system and give the students and their parents the choice
    to go there. I think that's a better way to go than the initiative
    that's on the ballot out here.
        Mr. Atkinson. Mr. President, we're going to switch southward now to
    Los Angeles. And at the studios of KNBC, there's Paul Moyer.

    Violence in Schools

        Paul Moyer. Stan, thank you. We're going to continue on the vein of
    education and schools, but this is a different aspect of the life in
    schools, Mr. President. I would like to introduce you to a very, very
    brave young man. His name is Dion Brown, he's 15 years old, and he has
    seen and experienced something that hopefully none of us ever will.
    About 3 weeks ago he was in line at Dorsey High School here in Los
    Angeles with his brother, simply trying to register for class. And his
    brother was shot in the stomach, caught in gang cross-fire. His brother
    was supposed to be here. He's so afraid of retaliation, we couldn't find
    him. We're not going to show you Dion's face because he, too, is afraid.
    But Mr. President, he has a question for you. He's a little nervous, so
    bear with us.

    [Mr. Brown explained how his brother was shot and asked what the
    President planned to do to prevent violence in schools.]

        The President. Thank you for coming tonight. And thank you for
    saying that. Let me say, first of all, the story you just heard
    unfortunately is becoming all too common, and not just in California and
    not just in big cities. And we ought to start with first things first.
        This is the only country, the only advanced country in the world,
    the only country I know of where we would permit children access to
    weapons that make them better armed than police forces. So I'll tell you
    what we ought to do. I've asked the Congress to pass the Brady bill,
    which would give us a national system, a waiting period to check the
    backgrounds of people for age, criminal records, and mental health
    history before we sell weapons.
        There are several bills before the Congress which would ban assault
    weapons, which have no purpose other than to kill. We ought to pass one.
    We ought to do it this year. States all over the country are looking at
    ownership laws which make it illegal for minors to have guns unless
    they're in the presence of their parents, either hunting or on a target
    range. And we ought to do that in every State. And we ought to look at
    the laws by which we regulate gun sellers. We've got to get the guns out
    of the hands of the children. It is imperative.
        Now, in addition to that, I do have a part of this education bill
    that I just spoke to, safe schools initiative, which would give schools
    the ability to have more security forces. And in the crime bill, which
    includes the Brady bill, the waiting period, there are funds which would
    help people all over the country, cities all over the country, hire
    another 50,000 police officers which would allow hard-strapped cities to
    deploy these police officers around schools and at the places of
    greatest need. It makes a 50 percent downpayment on my desire and
    commitment from the campaign to put another 100,000 police officers on
    the street over the next 4 years.
        Now, let me just say one final thing. I also think--make them safe
    first. Make the schools safe, get the guns out of the hands of the kids,
    put more police on the beat. Start there. Then you have to take these
    young people who haven't had the family supports, the neighborhood
    supports, the community supports that a lot of us have had, that we've
    taken for granted, and realize they are the tip end of a generation of
    change. This has been going on for 30 years, getting worse every year.
    And we have got to find ways to give these kids a structure, an order, a
    hope to their lives.
        We have 10 closed military bases today around the country where
    we've got an experi-

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    mental program going with the National Guard, teaching high school
    dropouts to go back and go to school and going through boot camp-like
    exercises. These are kids that didn't commit crimes. And we've been
    flooded with kids who want it, because they have no structure in their
    lives.
        We also have more boot camps in the crime bill for first-time
    offenders. You've got to give these kids something to say ``yes'' to
    instead of telling them ``no'' all the time. But first, there has to be
    a reestablishment of order and safety in the schools and on the streets.
    And I hope if you care about this--I know I'm going on a little long,
    but this is a big deal--the Congress should not drag its feet. They have
    been debating this for 2 years. It is time to pass a crime bill, it is
    time to pass the Brady bill, it is time to ban assault weapons, get them
    out of the hands of kids so the police can do their jobs, and put more
    police on the street.
        Mr. Atkinson. President Clinton, we're going to move even farther
    south. We're into San Diego now. Your audience awaits you at the studios
    of KNSD.

    Immigration

    [Marty Levine introduced a migrant rights activist who asked about
    blockades to control illegal immigration from Mexico.]

        The President. Well, I think we should have more Border Patrol
    guards, and I think we should do more to restrict illegal immigration, I
    certainly do. I think the fact that we have so much illegal immigration
    and that half of all of the illegal immigrants in America are in
    California, a State with an unemployment rate 3 percentage points above
    the national average, is endangering the historic attitude of America
    that has been proimmigration. I mean, Los Angeles County has people from
    150 different racial and ethnic groups alone. Immigrants made this
    country. But they did it, by and large, by operating within our laws. If
    we permit our laws to be regularly violated and flagrantly violated and
    impose those costs on the State that has the biggest economic problems,
    I think we run the risk of undermining support for immigration, which I
    think is a very important American value. So yes, I believe we should
    stiffen our efforts to control the border.
        I don't think it undermines the NAFTA negotiations. The President of
    Mexico has never asked me to do anything illegal or to continue what is
    a policy that is inconsistent with our law. And as a matter of fact--I
    hope we get a chance to talk about this later tonight--one of the
    reasons that I so strongly support this North American Free Trade
    Agreement is if you have more jobs on both sides of the border and
    incomes go up in Mexico, that will dramatically reduce the pressure felt
    by Mexican working people to come here for jobs. Most immigrants, keep
    in mind, come here illegally not for the social services, most of them
    come here for the jobs. If they have jobs in Mexico and they pay decent
    wages, which this agreement will provide for, then they'll be more
    likely to stay there, and the immigrants who come here will be more
    likely to be a manageable number and legal in nature.

    Health Care Reform

        Mr. Atkinson. We have a health care question for you now, President
    Clinton. And back in KCRA, Carol Bland.

    [Ms. Bland introduced a participant who asked if she would be able to
    choose her doctor under the new health care plan.]

        The President. Yes.
        Q. And will I have easy access to the specialists?
        The President. Yes. The answer to your questions are, yes, you'll
    have freedom of choice; yes, you'll have easy access to specialists. And
    most Americans will have more choice than they have now. You heard what
    she said. She's on Medicare, and she's enrolled in PPO. That's a group
    of doctors who provide health care together so that you can get a
    general practitioner or a specialist. They work together.
        Q. And I can go anyplace I want?
        The President. And she can go anywhere she wants with any doctor who
    is enrolled in the PPO. And if she has an emergency, they can refer her
    out to a doctor.
        I was just talking with a doctor in Las Vegas who helped to organize
    a PPO with 700 doctors in it. Under our plan, first of all if you're on
    Medicare, nothing will change. Secondly, every State in the country will
    have the power to approve every existing HMO or PPO they want to, so
    that the people that are already enrolled in these kinds of plans and
    have high consumer satisfaction will basically not see a change in their
    health care.

    [[Page 1657]]

        However, you should know that for people who are working for a
    living and who are insured through their place of work, today only one-
    third of them have any choice at all. Most of them have no choice,
    they're just told, here's your plan, and here it is. We will propose to
    give them at least two other choices so that everybody will have three
    choices. If they choose a more expensive one than their employer has
    chosen, they might have to pay a little more, but at least they'll have
    some choice. You won't be affected. And I think what you'll see is more
    and more doctors putting together these PPO's so the doctors, rather
    than insurance companies, will be deciding the quality of health care in
    America.
        Q. Thank you.
        Mr. Atkinson. President Clinton, we're going back to San Francisco
    now. KRON, Pete Wilson. Pete.

    Gays in the Military

    [Mr. Wilson introduced a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve who asked why
    the President would not allow the courts to make a decision on gays
    serving in the military.]

        The President. Well, the courts will decide the issue. And as you
    know, I don't agree with the policy of the ban, and I attempted to
    change it. And I did get some change, but not the change that I wanted.
    And there was a vote in the Senate last week, which I hope you noticed,
    which showed that only one-third of the Senate basically supported my
    position. And the reason that we had to have a compromise is we didn't
    have the votes to get more done.
        Part of getting the agreement to stop the investigations, to not
    automatically throw people out who said they were gay and at least give
    them a chance to demonstrate that they were complying with the code of
    military conduct, and not using people's associations against them to
    investigate them, in other words, creating a big zone of privacy for
    gays and lesbians in the military service, was the agreement to go
    forward with the lawsuit. The courts know what the arguments are. The
    Justice Department can't just drop it because there are too many other
    cases. In other words, there are other cases at the same level of court,
    and they've all gone against the service personnel. So they're being
    appealed up anyway by people who lost them.
        And so, it would only change the law, in other words if we changed
    it. It would only change the law for that circuit, that one Federal
    district. And if the court of appeals overturned it, it would only
    change the law for that one court of appeals district, and the act that
    Congress has enacted would still control it for everybody else. We have
    no reason to believe that the Supreme Court will uphold the ruling. If
    it does, of course, then the whole issue will be moot. I think
    everybody's better off in trying to get a legal resolution of it. And if
    we just stopped it, it would die right there with that one court. It
    would be nice for everybody there, but it wouldn't have national impact.
        Mr. Atkinson. From Los Angeles again, Paul Moyer has another
    question.

    Health Care Reform

    [Mr. Moyer introduced a couple whose twins were born prematurely and had
    to stay in the hospital for several weeks. They asked if the new health
    care plan would cover families who had very high medical expenses.]

        The President. I want to answer your question, but first I want to
    make sure that all the people that are watching this understand exactly
    what question he asked. You know, some health insurance policies have
    very good coverage, but they have a limit to how much you can draw
    against the coverage. They have a lifetime cap, which, if you get a
    really serious illness, you could use up in one time. And your lifetime
    cap's gone, so even though you had a real good policy, you could never
    use it again. That's the question he was asking.
        The answer is under this plan there would be no lifetime caps. You
    would pay whatever you would be required to pay. If you were self-
    employed, you'd pay what your premium is. If you were working in a
    business, you would pay, if you don't have any coverage, up to 20
    percent. If you have better coverage than that right now, if your
    employer pays everything, your employer can continue to pay everything,
    but there's a limit as to how much can be taken away from you under our
    plan.
        The reason there's no need for a lifetime cap under our plan is that
    people will be insured in huge pools, community rating pools. You know,
    this is an expensive thing, but aren't you glad that they got it? They
    have these two beautiful children now. And so, sure, they put an

    [[Page 1658]]

    extra cost on it, but instead of that cost being, say, 200 or 300 or 400
    people insured, there might be 200,000 or 300,000 people insured in the
    same pool, so that cost spread across a big group won't be that much.
    And there will be no caps. Our plan abolishes the lifetime caps to keep
    people from being financially destroyed.
        Mr. Atkinson. We're going back to San Diego now. Marty Levine has
    someone with another question for you.

    NAFTA

    [Mr. Levine introduced a small business man who expressed concern that
    NAFTA would cause unemployment in California.]

        The President. Let me talk just a little about that because it is
    the big issue. First of all, let me tell you I was the Governor of a
    State that had plants shut down and jobs moved to Mexico, where people
    lost their jobs and their livelihoods whom I knew. And I worked very
    hard on stopping that and even wound up bringing one of those plants
    back. So I would never knowingly do anything that would put the American
    people's economic welfare at risk. I believe NAFTA will create jobs, not
    lose jobs. And I believe that the jobs we'll create will be better
    paying jobs. And let me explain why.
        Most people who worry about NAFTA losing jobs know that there are a
    lot of plants that American companies own along the Mexican border with
    the United States in the so-called maquilladora area. If an American
    company puts up a plant down there, they can produce products in Mexico
    and import them back into the United States duty free. So people think,
    well, that happened in the 1980's, so if this agreement breaks down
    barriers, maybe more of that will happen. Actually, less of that will
    happen. Here's why.
        Under the NAFTA agreement, the cost of labor and the cost of
    environmental investments in Mexico will go up. Under the NAFTA
    agreement, Mexico agrees to stop requiring so many products sold in
    Mexico to be made in Mexico. So, for example, we'll go from selling
    1,000 American cars to 60,000 American cars in Mexico the first year,
    according to the auto companies. And also under the NAFTA agreement,
    Mexican tariff barriers are further lowered and so are Americas. The
    problem is theirs are 2\1/2\ times as much as ours. So as they lower
    barriers, we'll get a bigger benefit out of it than if we lower
    barriers.
        And finally, let me say this. Five years ago we had a $5.5 billion
    trade deficit with Mexico. Now we have a $5.7 billion trade surplus.
    Compare that with an $18 billion trade deficit with China, a $44 billion
    trade deficit with Japan. We will gain jobs out of this. We will gain
    incomes out of this. And finally, if we do this with Mexico, then you've
    got Chile, Argentina, and other countries who want the same deal. We'll
    make a lot of money out of it over the next 20 years if we do it.
        I hope I can help you persuade the people in San Diego to support
    it. We're also going to get some more money for that terrible
    environmental problem you've got along the border there in San Diego to
    try to clean that up. And there will be less environmental problems and
    more investment of the kind you needed years ago there if we pass this
    agreement.
        Mr. Atkinson. President Clinton, back here at KCRA, a good-looking
    young fellow has something he wants to ask you.
        The President. Boy, he does look good.

    Youth Employment Opportunities

    [Ms. Bland introduced a 13-year-old who asked what could be done to
    prevent youth from selling drugs in order to make money.]

        The President. Give him a hand. [Applause] That took a lot of guts.
        Let me say, we're working on a couple of things. First of all, this
    last summer we were able to have a couple hundred thousand more jobs in
    the country for young people in the summertime. I wanted a much bigger
    program that I tried to pass in the Congress, but I couldn't. What I
    think we need to do is two things, one I mentioned earlier. I want to
    try in every community in the country to bring school and work closer
    together, so that people can learn while they're working and so that
    young people who need to work can work and get an educational experience
    at the same time. In other countries, this is much more frequent,
    Germany, for example. We're trying to build up those kind of programs in
    this country. The second thing I want to try to do is to provide
    opportunities for young people who need it to work part-time, but year
    round. And we're working on that. I tried, as I said, I tried to pass a
    bill through the Congress earlier this year to get more summer jobs. I
    couldn't pass it.

    [[Page 1659]]

    But I think there is a lot of support in the country for the idea that
    young people who live in economically difficult circumstances, want to
    work, have the chance to do it. We want to make it easier for the
    employers to hire them.
        So we're working on that, and you've given us a little encouragement
    to do it.

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

    Defense Conversion

        Mr. Atkinson. You've had a lively afternoon. That was quite a crowd
    that greeted you at McClellan, a couple of thousand people. They got you
    going, didn't they?
        The President. They did, and I love seeing them.
        Mr. Atkinson. It was a hard time stopping. Just barely made it in
    time to get on the air here.
        The President. Well, they've done so much wonderful work at
    McClellan. They showed me two of the electric cars that they're working
    with people in the area to do and some of the environmental work they've
    done. One of the things we're really trying to do to help California
    deal with all the military cuts is to emphasize the ability of the
    defense system, especially these bases, to develop dual-use
    technologies. And they showed me a lot--that is, things that can be used
    for defense and domestic purposes. At McClellan, they developed an
    electric car that goes from zero to 60 in 12 seconds, gets 80 miles per
    gallon at 55 miles an hour, and has a maximum speed of 100 miles an
    hour. And now all we've got to do is figure out how to make it
    economical for people to buy. [Laughter] But I think we'll be able to do
    it.
        The Big Three automakers this week announced a pathbreaking research
    project with all of our Government and defense labs, and we're going to
    try to triple the mileage on cars by the end of the decade. And the auto
    companies have made a commitment; they're going to invest money. We're
    going to invest money. And it means a lot more jobs for Americans if we
    can do it.
        Mr. Atkinson. Pretty slick.
        Pete Wilson is standing by with your audience at KRON in San
    Francisco.

    Job Training

    [Mr. Wilson introduced an unemployed California resident who asked about
    programs to retrain older professionals.]

        The President. You know, you're about the third person in the last
    10 days that's asked me that question, and I have to tell you that we
    have not done anything or thought of what to do exactly that would
    emphasize only people above a certain age. I will tell you what we have
    done. Did you work in a high-tech company before?
        Q. I did, sir, yes.
        The President. What kind of company did you work in?
        Q. It was a nuclear weapons, actually.
        The President. Yes, I think even you hope we don't have to do that
    anymore. But let me say what we are--first thing we've got to try to do
    is create some more jobs in the high-tech area, so let me emphasize
    that. Just this week we announced, with a lot of people from California
    there in Washington, that we were removing from any export limitations
    70 percent of the computers made in this country, in recognition of the
    fact that the cold war is over. We still have to worry about
    proliferation of weapons, but we freed up $30 billion worth of computer
    exports and $7 billion worth of supercomputers and telecommunications
    exports. That will create a lot more jobs in California, and a lot of
    the companies in California have already issued statements saying it
    will create more jobs. So I hope there will be more jobs for you to
    take.
        Now, let me tell you what we are trying to do which will benefit
    older people, because very often companies don't themselves retrain
    them. What we're trying to do is to set up a partnership with the
    private sector in which we change the present unemployment system to a
    reemployment system. That is, you're a good example of--now,
    unfortunately, you're more usual than unusual. It used to be when people
    lost their jobs, there was a temporary downturn in the economy, and a
    few months later they get the same job back when their old company got
    new business, when the economy picked up.
        Now, when people lose their jobs, most often because of what we call
    structural changes in the economy. That is, the jobs are lost to
    automation, or the demand for the jobs are no longer there, or some
    other country's kicked us out of the market, or we kick some other
    country out of the market. So the unemployment system needs to be
    totally changed to a

    [[Page 1660]]

    reemployment system so that the minute someone is notified that they're
    going to lose their job, the Government kicks in with training funds,
    which can be used in partnership with the employer if the employer wants
    to keep the person and try to train them for something new. Or we show
    people, here's where the jobs are growing in number, here are your
    training options, and you start right then. Instead of waiting for their
    unemployment to run out and then starting it, it should start
    immediately at the time a person knows they're going to be unemployed
    and hopefully even before.
        When we were in Sunnyvale, California, the other day, not too far
    from here, they had already started such a system, and it had resulted
    in a dramatic shortening of the time people were unemployed. And so that
    is what I think we should do.
        It may be that we should give employers some extra incentive to
    retrain older workers. I'll be honest with you, until people like you
    started asking me, I had never given it much thought. If you have any
    specific ideas, I hope you'll write me and give them to me because,
    believe it or not, I normally get them. Uncle Sam's doing a pretty good
    job of getting your mail to me.
        Mr. Atkinson. We're going back to Los Angeles.
        The President. Let me--one last thing. He is really the typical
    American of the future. The average person will change work seven times
    in a lifetime now, sometimes for the same employer, sometimes for a
    different employer. So we simply have to establish a lifetime learning
    system so that people feel the same obligation to retrain the 55-year-
    old worker that they do the 25-year-old worker. If we don't do it, we'll
    never get our economy straightened out, because you can't keep the same
    kind of work; the nature of work is changing too fast.

    [Mr. Moyer introduced a representative of the Mexican American Grocers
    Association who requested help to expand the association's training
    program.]

        The President. Let me tell you what I want to do. Keep in mind,
    there are people like you all over America who may be doing different
    things. And the needs of every economy are different. I want to try to
    do two things. First of all, I think we need more funds for job training
    given to States, so that the States can direct those funds in the way
    that they're best needed.
        So in the case of California, most of the unemployed people are in
    the south, although the whole State has problems, but most of the
    unemployment is in southern California. And the people at the local
    level are best able to judge what programs are working. So you've got a
    wildly successful program; if your State had more job training funds,
    they could direct them to you. And that's part of what we're trying to
    get done in this whole reemployment system that I just described to you.
    And we'll be going up to Congress soon with a bill that tries to do
    that, to get more funds, with fewer strings attached, given to local
    communities for the programs that work.
        The second thing that we need to do is to vigorously attempt to get
    more private investment into distressed inner-city areas. If you think
    about it, it is not rational for there not to be more locally owned
    businesses and more people working in these distressed inner-city areas,
    because most of the people who live there have jobs, make money, have
    checks, could spend it there, but there's no investment going into those
    areas. So we passed a bill earlier this year, which we're in the process
    of implementing, that will give big incentives for people to invest
    private dollars to create more jobs so that your training programs will
    be able to find work for people after they're trained. Those are the two
    things we're trying to do.
        But when you see this training bill come up before the Congress in
    the next several weeks, I think you'll like it because it will not only
    provide more money but it will be with fewer strings attached, so the
    communities can direct it to people like you who are making things
    happen.
        It's real impressive, 400 jobs, isn't it? It's good.
        Mr. Atkinson. We're back to San Diego again.

    Violence and Drugs

    [Mr. Levine introduced a church-based community organizer who asked
    about administration plans to combat violence and crime.]

        The President. Let me tell you, first of all, I'd like for you to
    have a chance to say maybe to me and to all these people what you think
    ought to be done. But let me begin by responding to your specific
    question. He is coming to see--Dr. Brown is, Lee Brown, who is the Di-

    [[Page 1661]]

    rector of Drug Policy for our country, the drug czar. He was formerly
    the police chief in New York, in Atlanta, and in Houston. He started a
    community policing program in New York. And believe it or not, New York
    City now, for 2 years in a row, according to the FBI statistics has had
    a decline in their crime rate in all seven major areas of crime.
        So the first thing we've got to try to do is to make the police and
    the community work together better, with the proper allocation of
    resources with a view toward preventing crime from occurring as well as
    catching criminals quicker. That's why we need more police officers so
    cities can afford to deploy the resources that way. The second thing
    we've got to do, I'll say again, is to try to take the guns out of the
    hands of people who shouldn't have them. The third thing we're trying to
    do, as Dr. Brown will tell you, is we want to change the emphasis of the
    Federal Government's drug control efforts. And with regard to
    enforcement, we want to concentrate more on kingpins, really big
    dealers, to try to break the financial back of a lot of these networks,
    not just on how many arrests we can make of people in the middle but
    really go after big people and money networks.
        Then, with people who are actual users and who may commit crimes in
    the course of that, we're trying to have much more comprehensive alcohol
    and drug abuse treatment. One of the really important things about our
    health care plan that I would think you would support is that it
    includes substance abuse treatment for people who now don't have any
    insurance. So that will stop a lot of these long, long delays for
    adequate treatment. Drug treatment works in an extraordinary percentage
    of the cases, not in all the cases but in a lot of the cases, if it is
    there.
        So those are that things that we're working on. But the other thing
    we want to do is to listen to people like you who have actually done
    things that work. We have not only Lee Brown. Janet Reno, the Attorney
    General, was a prosecutor in Miami, one of the toughest towns in America
    for drug problems. And Louis Freeh, the Director of the FBI, was a U.S.
    attorney, a Federal judge, and an FBI agent, working principally in drug
    cases. He broke big international drug cases as well as dealing with
    drugs on the street. So we've got these three crimefighters who
    basically came up from the grassroots. And it's the first time we ever
    had a team of grassroots crimefighters dealing with the drug issue. They
    want to hear from you and people like you all over the country about
    what would work for you.
        Mr. Atkinson. Mr. President, while we have you and since you've
    asked, Mr. Hay does have a couple of suggestions.
        The President. I want to know.

    [The participant said that education and drug treatment programs were
    more effective than increasing law enforcement.]

        The President. Let me say just, if you think what he said, plus what
    the young man said here who wanted the job for his friends, plus what
    the young man said whose brother got shot in school--it goes back to the
    bigger point: The problems you see that you're all horrified about today
    have been festering and developing over a generation in America.
        There were poor communities in this country 30, 40, 50 years ago
    that had no difference in the crime rate, no difference in the drug
    abuse rate as the communities today. But they had locally owned
    businesses, coherent community organizations, and intact families, all
    of which you have going away today.
        So if you want to do something fundamental, we have to give these
    kids people like him to relate to--like you, sir--people who can be
    almost the kind of role models you used to take it for granted that the
    parents would be, who can create their own kind of gang in a community
    organization. We all want to be in a gang, don't we? I mean, your church
    is a gang. Your basketball team is a gang. In other words, we have a
    need to be with people who are like us, who share our values, who make
    us feel important, who reinforce us. And there is no simple answer to
    this, but you've got to start with these children when they're very
    young, and you have to give them a way of belonging and a way of
    learning and a way of growing that is positive.
        Let me say, I agree with you about the jails. You can build more
    jails and not make society safer. And we need to distinguish between
    people who need to be kept out of society for a very long time and
    others that we may be jailing we could do something else with.
        There's a difference in police. More police won't necessarily make
    you safer, but if they relate well to the community, if their neighbors
    trust them, if they like them, if they're on the

    [[Page 1662]]

    street, they can lower the crime rate by keeping crime from occurring,
    by deterring the thing from occurring. If you have the right kind of
    relationships, they can be an enormous weapon.
        But I want you to talk to Dr. Brown. And you're absolutely right,
    and I thank you for giving your life to this. There is not any more
    important work in America today than what you are trying to do.

    Health Care Reform

        Mr. Atkinson. I think we're going to switch gears. This is a
    Sacramento physician.
        Ms. Bland. Exactly. He's our first doctor of the evening, as a
    matter of fact----
        The President. Good for you.

    [Ms. Bland introduced a doctor who asked if the new health care plan
    would enable struggling physicians groups to provide the best care for
    their patients and if independent doctors would receive assistance.]

        The President. Yes. First of all, let me say that there are things
    in this plan which will give much better access to data of all kinds to
    physicians, both business management data, health outcomes data, a whole
    lot of things you don't get now, particularly if you're in individual
    practice, and to help people to set up and operate things without losing
    money, without making business mistakes.
        Also the plan would significantly simplify a lot of the money
    management and paper management problems you have today. For example, a
    community this size, I would imagine the average multidoctor practice
    would be just like a hospital, you have to deal with maybe 300 different
    insurance companies. And we're trying to simplify that. That will reduce
    the possibility of error.
        Secondly, keep in mind, every person under our proposal who's not
    covered now would be offered the option of three different kinds of
    coverage, and one of which would be to keep choosing individual doctors
    on an individual basis. That, in the beginning, would be more expensive
    for the employee. But at least they'd have the choice. Today only one-
    third of the workers who are insured at work have multiple choices in
    their health plan. And what we think will happen, sir, is that a lot of
    independent doctors will be able to organize, but not in a HMO type
    thing, maybe even in a PPO thing, but at least to all say, we will serve
    our patients as they need it, but we'll be able to save a lot of money
    doing it because the administrative costs will be lower.
        Let me say, in an attempt to satisfy just your concern, we did
    involve hundreds of doctors in this, including people that we trusted. I
    asked my own doctors to help us, just from their point of view of their
    own practice. I figure they'd tell me the truth. They don't mind
    disagreeing with me or telling me I'm crazy or telling me I need to lose
    10 pounds or whatever they say. [Laughter] So we used a lot of doctors
    in different specialties and family doctors, GP's, too. And we also have
    asked Dr. Koop, who was the Surgeon General, as you remember, a few
    years ago under President Reagan and did a marvelous job, to sort of be
    our moderator, if you will, with the physician community all over
    America, to try to get as much feedback as we can, so as we move forward
    with this plan in Congress, we address concerns just like yours and we
    make sure that the doctors feel very good about this when it's over.
        Let me just say, as you pointed out, the independent practice is
    becoming rarer and rarer anyway because of the economic pressures. One
    of the reasons for that and one of the reasons a lot of doctors have
    urged us to do something, is that in 1980--just listen to this, you want
    to know what they're up against--in 1980, the average doctor took home
    about 75 percent of the money that came into a clinic. By 1992, that
    figure had dropped from 75 percent to 52 percent because of increased
    bureaucracy and paperwork and all the people they had to hire to keep up
    with all the things that are ballooning the cost of this system. So
    we're trying to simplify that and leave you the option to stay in
    independent practice and leave your patients the options to be covered
    by you.
        Now, keep in mind, most of the patients you have today probably have
    their own health insurance. Those that are in plans now that do that,
    we're not going to change that. What we're trying to do is to help those
    who don't have coverage get some coverage. But they would also be able
    to choose you in either a physician group or as an independent
    practitioner. Another thing that they can do is to enter a PPO, and you
    stay out of the PPO, but when they need to see you, they see you. And
    then the only thing they have to pay is the difference between the
    reimbursement schedule in the PPO and what you would charge, which in
    your

    [[Page 1663]]

    line of work would probably not be dramatically different.
        So there are going to be all kinds of options. It should lead to a
    bigger patient pool, not a smaller one, and it shouldn't radically force
    you to change your practice, but it would give you the opportunity to do
    it. And if you do it, you will get the information you need to avoid
    losing money, and you'll have a simpler system to deal with.
        Mr. Atkinson. Four out of every five people in the Sacramento metro
    area are in a managed health care system. We understand that Sacramento
    was used as something of a model for you and the First Lady. Is that
    true?
        The President. It was. We looked at the Sacramento area because of
    the high percentage of people in some sort of managed care and the
    relatively high level of satisfaction among consumers with it. And we
    looked at the California public employees system because they've done
    such a good job of not lowering their rates but lowering the rate of
    increase.
        We also looked at a number of other things. The Mayo Clinic system,
    for example, most of the people would concede that the Mayo Clinic has
    pretty high quality health care. Their inflation in cost this year was
    3.9 percent, about a third of what the medical inflation rate was
    nationwide.
        So there are ways to lower cost without sacrificing quality. To be
    fair, though, there are a lot of other things. Doctors do need a lot of
    information that they don't have now to deal with the system they've
    got. And if you give it to them and we provide it, that will also enable
    them to do a better job.

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

    Abortion

    [Mr. Wilson introduced a participant who asked if the President had
    changed his position on abortion.]

        The President. The answer to your question is no, it hasn't changed.
    And in fact, if you've been following any of my rallies, all the people
    that protested against me in the campaign are still protesting against
    me. So they don't think I've changed my position.
        But let me say this. When I took office I abolished the gag rule. I
    abolished the ban on fetal tissue research. I appointed Ruth Bader
    Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, who has made a career of fighting for the
    rights of women and believes in the constitutional right to choose. I
    have gotten the United States back into the effort to control worldwide
    population growth, which is an important human issue, not through
    abortion but through basic contraceptives, something that the United
    States had walked away from before. So I think that my record on that is
    clear and unblemished.
        The issue that you raise is this: Federal district court judges are
    appointed by the President but recommended to the President by Senators,
    if they are Senators of the President's own party, in the States. I
    didn't know anything about the issue you raised until I also read it in
    the press. Apparently some of the Senators, two of them, I think,
    recommended judges to me to be appointed who have questionable positions
    on that issue. But they are lower court judges; they have to follow the
    law. So before I appoint them I will have to be satisfied that they
    intend to faithfully carry out the law of the United States as it now
    exists, or I won't do it if I think they're going to do that. So you
    don't have to worry about that. But I don't think I should have the same
    standard, if you will, or have just sort of a litmus test for every
    judge on every last detailed issue that might come before the court
    under the abortion area. I mean, there are a thousand different
    questions.
        I think that if this is a good judge, I ought to consider appointing
    the judge. But I wouldn't appoint someone that I thought would just
    flagrantly walk away from what is clearly the law of the land, which is
    that a woman, within the first two trimesters of pregnancy anyway, has a
    constitutional right to choose. That's what the law is. That's what I
    believe in. I don't think it should be changed. And the judges that I
    appoint will have to be willing to uphold the law of the land if they
    want the job.
        Mr. Atkinson. We're going to go back to Los Angeles, to our sister
    station, KNBC, and Paul Moyer.

    Immigration and Border Control

    [Mr. Moyer introduced a representative of the Asian Legal Center who
    asked about reorganization of the Immigration and Naturalization
    Service.]

        The President. Well, let me say this, the Vice President, in his
    reinventing Government report,

    [[Page 1664]]

    had recommended that we look at whether the border functions of Customs
    and the border functions of Immigration should be integrated. That was
    the issue. And that is something, I think, that is worth debating. We've
    had some instances in which--we got reports when we began to look in how
    the Federal Government operated, that the Immigration people and the
    Customs people were actually not only not cooperating but almost getting
    in each other's way at some border crossings in the United States.
        So that's all we looked at. We would not diminish the other part of
    Immigration's control--function, excuse me--or defund it or underfund it
    or any of the things that you might be concerned about. And in fact, no
    decision has been made yet about the organizational issues. It's just
    that we have been concerned, given the kind of immigration problems we
    have when we want to reduce the chance that, for example, terrorists
    could get into this country, we want to deal with some of the problems
    we had where people were almost sold into bondage to come to this
    country. And we don't want any kind of unnecessary overlap or conflict
    between Customs and Immigration. So that's what we're trying to work
    out, not to diminish the other functions of the Immigration and
    Naturalization Service, which are very important.
        Mr. Atkinson. Mr. President, I hope I'm not breaking the rules here,
    but a quick followup to that. You know that the Border Patrol says they
    don't have enough people.
        The President. They don't.
        Mr. Atkinson. They say that their equipment is falling apart.
    Senator Dianne Feinstein's proposed what she calls, I believe, a
    crossing fee of about a dollar a car to raise $400 million for more
    agents and better equipment. Your INS nominee testified last week that
    she is not philosophically opposed to that. Can we assume then that
    that's the administration's stand on that issue?
        The President. Well, let me give you two answers. First of all, I
    have not endorsed the Feinstein proposal, but I am not philosophically
    opposed to it either. It's just we've got to think through what it means
    and what others might do for our crossing and whether it has any
    implications that we don't understand.
        The main point is that Senator Feinstein and Senator Boxer and
    others in the California delegation want us to hire 600 more Border
    Patrol agents, and want us to update and modernize their equipment, and
    they're right about that. We've got a bill in the Congress which will go
    a long way towards doing that, and I hope we can pass it and pass it
    soon. There are simply not enough Border Patrol agents, and the
    equipment that they've got is simply inadequate. And we must do better.
        In terms of the fee, I wouldn't rule it out, but I just hate to
    embrace something before I understand all of the implications of it. But
    I agree with the INS Commissioner, Doris Meissner. Neither one of us are
    philosophically opposed to it, we just have to know what the
    implications of it are before we can embrace it.
        But the bottom line is, what the California Senators want is
    results. They want more Border Patrol agents, they want modern
    equipment, they want them to be able to do their job, and they're right.
    And we're going to do our best to see that they can.
        Mr. Atkinson. Appropriately enough, we're going to switch closer to
    the border now, to San Diego and to KNSD.

    Health Care Reform and Privacy

    [Mr. Levine introduced the regional director of the National Conference
    of Christians and Jews, who expressed concern that the proposed national
    health security card would infringe on an individual's privacy.]

        The President. Well, it'll work just like a Social Security card
    does. It'll look something like this. This is our little mock-up that I
    held up on television. And you would have this, which would entitle you
    to health care wherever you got sick and whatever happened to you. And
    we have to have some sort of card like this so people can be identified.
    And so if, for example, if there is an emergency, their health
    information can be secured quickly if they're in an approved health
    facility or dealing with a doctor. But it will have the same sorts of
    protections that a Social Security card would, for example.
        And if you'll remember, there was an attempt a couple of years ago
    to try to broaden the use of Social Security identification which was
    repelled, because the American people were worried about their Social
    Security card being used for anything other than to validate the fact
    that they were entitled to Social Security. So this is purely for the
    purposes of establishing that you belong to the health care system, that

    [[Page 1665]]

    you are duly enrolled, you're properly a member, and it would function
    in much the same way as a Medicare card or a Social Security card.
        If you have any specific suggestions, I'd be glad to have them. But
    I can tell you no one has ever anticipated that this would be used to
    sort of plunder the privacy rights of Americans, but to just increase
    their personal security.
        Q. The concern that, as expressed, has to do with the type of
    information that might be magnetically made available as part of the
    information that that card contains and who will have access to the
    information that that magnetic strip would contain with regard to the
    individual's background.
        The President. But the individual will have--the only thing you have
    to do is--so that the person is eligible, the person will be enrolled in
    a health alliance, and the alliance will know whether the person is
    eligible because he or she is self-employed, small business employee, a
    big business employee, or somebody on Medicaid. And then there will have
    to be some access to health data for the appropriate health
    professionals. But I don't think that there's going to be a lot of
    information just floating out there.
        In fact, people will not have access to information that they don't
    need or that they don't have a right to know. I mean, you can't just go
    in and plunder somebody's files. I think the protections for the people
    will be quite adequate, just as they are today again with Social
    Security and with Medicare.
        Let me just say this. If you have a list of specific questions, if
    you will get them to me, I will get you a list of very specific answers.
    Because I realize that, on this question like that, the devil is always
    in the details. So I know that I haven't fully satisfied you, so you
    send me the specific questions, and I'll send you the specific answers.
    And then you can decide whether you agree or not.
        Mr. Atkinson. Be assured that she will. We only have 15 minutes
    left. It's amazing. Time has gone very quickly. We're back in
    Sacramento, and Carol has a guest.

    Teacher Shortage

    [Ms. Bland introduced a participant who asked about efforts to deal with
    the shortage of teachers.]

        The President. Yes. Two things I might mention. One is that you've
    probably noticed recently that the Congress passed and I signed the
    national service bill, which will, within 3 years, enable us to offer
    100,000 young Americans a year the opportunity to serve their
    communities and either earn credit toward a college degree or, if they
    are teachers coming out of college, to go into teaching and teach off a
    significant portion of their college costs, so that the National Service
    Corps will have a teacher corps component.
        We work with a program called Teach For America that you're probably
    familiar with. And a young woman named Wendy Kopp organized it to try to
    make sure we integrated that into the National Service Corps proposal.
    So young people in college today, for example, could take out loans
    under the National Service Corps concept and say, I'm going to be a
    teacher, in certain areas where there's a shortage of teachers, for a
    couple of years, and they can wipe off a big portion of their loans.
        In addition to that, we're making a real effort to try to encourage
    a lot of these wonderful people who are coming out of the military, as
    we downsize the military, to go into teaching, to try to encourage them
    to do it. And we need, I might say, more cooperation from a lot of the
    States in passing easier ways for them to become certified to go into
    the classroom. But if you think about it, the military has had a
    stunning amount of success in educating and training people on a
    continuing basis. If you go back to what the gentleman said, he was an
    older high-tech worker that lost his job, and that's the kind of thing
    that we need in a lot of our schools today.
        So a lot of these military people are being encouraged to go into
    teaching and being given, through a special program passed by Congress,
    some incentives to do that. And I hope we can expand that program,
    because I'd really like to see it. A lot of those folks are still young,
    they've got the best years of their lives ahead of them, and they could
    make a major contribution to the classroom. And a lot of them come from
    previously disadvantaged backgrounds and from all different races and
    ethnic makeups. So they can make a major contribution to what we need to
    do in our schools and our cities. Thank you.
        Let me just say this, you didn't ask that, but since we've got a lot
    of doctors here, there is also the National Health Service Corps, which
    helped a lot of doctors to get through med

    [[Page 1666]]

    school but has been shrunk in the last 10 years, will be dramatically
    expanded if the health care program passes. So you have a lot of doctors
    in urban and rural underserved areas, too, with the same plan.
        Mr. Atkinson. Okay, we're going to switch back to KRON in San
    Francisco. Pete.

    Gun Control

    [Mr. Wilson introduced a participant whose brother had been murdered,
    and he asked what could be done to deter violent criminals who
    apparently do not fear punishment.]

        The President. Well, a lot of the younger ones, unfortunately,
    aren't afraid of anything because they have no sense of the future.
    They're not invested in their own lives. They're not invested in what
    they might be doing 2 or 3 or 5 years from now. We're raising a
    generation of young people for whom the future is what happens 30
    minutes from now or what happens tomorrow. And that's a terrible
    problem.
        Now, I believe we should have stronger gun control measures than the
    Brady bill. For example, let me say again what I think we should do. I
    think we should pass one of a number of good bills that are in the
    Congress which would ban assault weapons. There are a lot of them out
    there for the sole purpose of killing people, and they should be banned,
    either at the national level or in every State. We should follow the
    lead of the 17 States which have now made it illegal for young people to
    possess handguns, unless they are, I'll say again, with their parents,
    hunting or at some target range, some approved place. We should have
    much stiffer penalties against possessing these weapons illegally. Then
    every community in the country could then start doing major weapon
    sweeps and then destroying the weapons, not selling them.
        Another thing you ought to look into in your area: If the murder
    weapon is ever recovered, which it may not be, it would be interesting
    to know where it comes from and what tracking is on it. Because one of
    the things that I learned when I got into this is that every State of
    any size has hundreds of gun dealers that may be licensed only by the
    Federal Government for a $10 fee a year. And there are cities and States
    which may have other laws, but you can still be a gun dealer if you've
    got this little piddly Federal permit.
        So another thing that ought to be done is that the price of getting
    into the business ought to be raised, and people ought to have to comply
    with the local laws and not just the Federal permitting laws. All these
    things would help us to deal with the sheer volume of weapons that are
    out there in the hands of people that are totally disconnected from our
    society, while we try to deal with these deeper problems that we talked
    about earlier.
        I feel terrible about what happened to you. We have to face the fact
    that this is the only advanced country in the world where anybody who
    wants to can get any kind of gun they want to, to do anything that they
    want to with it. It's crazy. It doesn't happen in other countries, and
    we better make up our minds to change it if we want to save more lives
    and not have to see more people like this person on television 5 years
    from now. Thank you, sir.

    Social Security

    [Mr. Moyer introduced a senior citizen who asked why the Social Security
    earnings limit had not been eliminated.]

        The President. Because I haven't been able to pass it yet.
    Specifically, what I promised to do was to raise it and not to totally
    eliminate it. I think that--do you know what she's talking about? Do you
    all know what she's talking--once you start drawing Social Security, you
    can only earn so much money before they start to lower your Social
    Security check, even if you're totally vested and you're entitled to the
    whole thing. And a lot of older people are finding it necessary to go
    back to work today, or they want to go back to work. I mean, people are
    standing vigorous for much longer periods of time.
        And in the campaign for President, I said that I thought the
    earnings limit was way too low and should be substantially raised, and I
    do. And I don't even think it would cost a lot of money because the
    people who earn money pay taxes on the money they earn. And also with
    the population not growing as fast now, we need those older workers. And
    so, what I believe we should do is to raise the earning limit. We are
    negotiating now; we're talking about how much it can be raised, what we
    can pass through Congress, and what the costs will be.
        One of the things that we've done is, in get-

    [[Page 1667]]

    ting serious about the deficit, is to have to make sure before we pass
    anything, we have to know as precisely as we can exactly what the costs
    will be. I personally believe, as I told you and I said during the
    campaign, that it wouldn't cost much, if anything, to raise the earnings
    limit because the people who go to work will earn more money and pay
    more taxes.
        But I still strongly support it. I think it should be raised, and I
    think it will be raised. It's just a question of how much and how quick
    I can get it passed in Congress. I am still committed to it, and I would
    like to urge you and anybody else watching this program who is in your
    situation to urge the Members of Congress from this State to vote to do
    that.
        This is one of those issues that there aren't a lot of people
    against; it's just hard to raise it on the radar screen of the Congress.
    And to be fair to them--it's easy to bash Congress--they're working 40
    percent more this year than last year. I'm proud of that, 40 percent
    more. I've put all this stuff there, and they're working hard now
    because of all the things we've put before them. But this has not been
    addressed, and you're right to bring it up. I haven't forgotten it, but
    I need your help in building the kind of public support we need to
    change it.
        Mr. Atkinson. Mr. President, unfortunately we have to give way, I
    think, for a dolphin and ``SeaQuest'' here in a moment, but we wanted to
    save a little time for you. I think you have about a minute.
        The President. Well, I wish I could take another question or two.
    Let me first of all thank all of you for coming. And thank you for your
    interest. Thank you for the very good questions you asked; I wish we
    could have done more. And let me urge you to keep up this level of
    involvement. We can get these changes made if the American people demand
    them. And you don't have to agree with every detail of my health care
    program, just demand that we pass one that has security and savings and
    simplicity, that preserves the kind of choice and quality these doctors
    talked about tonight, and that asks all of us to be more responsible.
        We can do this and we can also turn the California economy around if
    we'll take it one day at a time, one project at a time, and keep at
    these things until they're done. We can do it. Thank you very much.

    Note: The town meeting began at 6:33 p.m. at the KCRA television studio.