[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
[December 3, 1993]
[Pages 2102-2103]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Exchange With Reporters
December 3, 1993

Personal Security and Responsibility

    Q. [Inaudible]--as far about what you meant by personal security 
when you talked about that theme and also about values?
    The President. Personal security means, among other things, that 
people who are out

[[Page 2103]]

there struggling in this country to work for a living and raise their 
kids should be safe on the streets and should have access to health care 
and should have access to a decent education for the course of their 
lifetimes.
    Q. But you also mentioned personal responsibility along with that. 
What responsibility do they have?
    The President. Well first of all, the Government cannot create 
success. The people have responsibilities in the area of work to make 
sure they're educated and trained. They're going to have 
responsibilities in the welfare reform area to take education, training 
and move from welfare to work. They're going to have responsibilities in 
the health care area, those who don't have health insurance, to pay for 
some of their own health care.
    And in a larger sense, in every community in this country we can put 
100,000 more police officers out there. We can train them right. But 
people are going to have to start recovering these families and these 
neighborhoods community by community. The private sector is going to 
have to invest in these neighborhoods. We've got these empowerment zones 
which give people tax incentives to invest in poor neighborhoods, but 
people who live in those cities are going to have to invest in them.
    Q. Are you going to start talking to people about maybe not having 
children they can't afford to take care of? Is this something that 
you're worried about?
    The President. Well, I talked about this a lot in the last couple of 
days. We've got to bring down the number of children who are born out of 
wedlock; that's what we've got to do. And people are going to have to 
think more about their future, more about their children's future, and 
when they do have children both parents are going to have to take more 
responsibility for them. We're going to have to crack down on 
identification of paternity, on child support enforcement. We're going 
to have to demand that people take more responsibility for the 
consequences of their action, including taking care of their children.
    Q. Are you going to be talking about that more in the future? Is 
this something we're going to hear about?
    The President. Absolutely. One of the reasons I asked Dr. Elders to 
be the Surgeon General is because we have been involved in an effort for 
years to try to drive down this teen pregnancy rate. I think that the 
out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy rate is threatening the whole family 
structure of communities in this country and undermining our ability to 
recover as a people.

Democratic Leadership Council

    Q. Have you made up with the DLC?
    The President. I don't think there's anything to make up about. 
Breaux saved my budget.
    Q. He didn't vote for the Brady bill.
    The President. He saved the budget. But the DLC--well, there's no 
political correctness test here. Nobody can agree on every issue. But 
the DLC endorsed the Brady bill early. The DLC was an early supporter of 
the Brady bill, an early supporter of family medical leave, and----
    Q. You haven't been critical about them, so they've been a little 
critical of you.
    The President. Yes, but that's why I--they said some things about 
the budget earlier on that I thought were not accurate. But Breaux 
didn't; he stayed with us on it and helped us pass it. So did Lieberman. 
So did Steny. So did most of the leaders. But I think they were wrong, 
and I said that.
    On the health care thing, if you go back and read the DLC's health 
care package, which was written by Jeremy Rosner who now works in the 
White House, I think we're much closer on health care than you think. I 
think that a lot of this stuff has been overblown. Every time one of 
them or one of us says, ``Here's what the difference is between our two 
health care plans,'' somebody says, ``Oh, they're dumping on each other 
again.'' I think that it's just an honest discussion. I predict that you 
will see an accommodation that will cause a health care plan to pass 
next year that has universal coverage and good benefits, and that's what 
I want.
    Thank you.

Note: The exchange began at 11:37 a.m. at the Sheraton Washington Hotel. 
A tape was not available for verification of the content of this 
exchange.