[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[June 13, 1994]
[Pages 1071-1074]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Teleconference With the U.S. Conference of Mayors
June 13, 1994

    The President. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor Abramson, for 
what you said and for the outstanding leadership that you've given this 
year. I want to say hello to you and to Mayor Ashe and to your host 
mayor, Mayor Katz, my good friend. I wish I were there to be with all of 
you in the U.S. Conference of Mayors. I know you've had a wonderful 
stay, and I wish that I could have come out there and seen you, 
especially in Portland, the city I always love to visit.
    I appreciate what you said, Mayor Abramson, about the work we've 
done together. And I appreciate the leadership that you gave and the 
initiative and the energy that you put into making sure that I followed 
through on our common ambitious goals for our country. Both of us want 
the same things. We want to bring our people back together. We want to 
move our country forward. We want to restore the importance of work and 
responsibility. We want to strengthen our families and our communities. 
We want to provide opportunity. We want to promote values, but when we 
do, we know we are strengthening the fiber of American life in ways that 
will take this country into the 21st century, will make our cities and 
our communities work again but will also ensure that our country will go 
into the next century still the greatest country in the world.
    That's why our administration has sought to strengthen families by 
rewarding parents who work. Tomorrow I will continue that effort when I 
present our blueprint for welfare reform in Kansas City, Missouri. I'll 
be there with one of your number, Mayor Emanuel Cleaver, who, along with 
others in the U.S. Conference of Mayors, has been a terrific help to the 
White House on this welfare reform issue.
    If our people are willing to work hard and to hold their families 
together, then it seems to me the rest of us have a shared 
responsibility to help them hold their lives and their communities 
together. That's also one reason why the crime bill is important to me.
    I want to just thank all of you for helping to move that crime bill 
through both Houses of Congress. But I also want to remind you that the 
bill is not yet law. This week, Members of the House and the Senate will 
sit down together and start to hammer out a conference report that both 
Chambers can pass and that all of us can support, that I can sign into 
law this year, and begin to move this year. We have now waited 6 long 
years for a national comprehensive crime bill, and we shouldn't have to 
wait much longer. So while you're out there in Portland, I hope you'll 
give your delegation in Congress a call. Take advantage of the boiler 
room that Mayor Abramson and the conference staff has set up to make it 
easier for you to send this message. And tell the Congress that our 
communities do need more police, more punishment, more prevention, and 
they need it now. Tell them you need that crime bill so we can hire 
100,000 new police officers and put them to work in communities that 
need them most, that we need more certain punishment of criminal 
behavior and smarter and more comprehensive prevention efforts.
    Too many of our young people have grown up without appreciating that 
there are consequences to their behavior. The crime bill must change 
that. You and I both know that punishment, however, can only be part of 
the solution. We've got to give our children something to say yes to. 
We've got to reinforce the fact that responsible behavior will 
ultimately bring rewards. That's why we've got to have a crime

[[Page 1072]]

bill with a youth employment and a skills program to create 
opportunities for kids in places where very few now exist; why I want a 
crime bill with an Ounce of Prevention Council, to keep kids off the 
street by keeping schools open after hours and expanding boys and girls 
clubs; why I want to promote more partnerships between our police 
officers and our young people, and things like midnight basketball 
leagues that cost so little but make a very big difference in 
communities like yours.
    Investing in our young people through activities and summer jobs 
builds self-esteem, respect for others, a healthy work ethic at an early 
age. It's an investment worth making, especially when you consider how 
we pay for it, not through any new taxes but by cutting spending 
elsewhere in the Federal budget. What we do here in Washington, however, 
can only work if we give the people in your communities back home the 
tools they need to get the things done that have to be done.
    As a former Governor who faced the burdens of Federal mandates for 
12 long years, I know how questions over funding concern everything else 
you do, from putting more police on the street to providing clean water 
for people in your cities. That's why our people have been working with 
Members of Congress who are focused on this mandates issue. I can report 
to you that we're getting closer to a workable bill. And although there 
are still a few issues that remain to be resolved, I think we can see 
legislation acceptable to the Nation's mayors soon. And let me also 
assure you that resolving the issue of unfunded mandates does not mean 
abandoning our responsibilities to govern. I do believe that we must 
proceed in a more realistic way, providing greater flexibility about the 
constraints facing our State and local governments.
    I know we share the same desire to see that every American has a 
chance to succeed. That's why we've worked to pass the lifetime learning 
agenda, from Head Start reauthorization to our education reforms to our 
school-to-work initiative to train America's high school students before 
they enter the work force. We've already seen more than 3 million new 
private-sector jobs created in this administration. But we still have to 
change our outmoded unemployment system to a reemployment system.
    The reemployment act will enable cities to modernize their training 
and job placement systems. They'll set up one-stop centers where a 
worker can walk in, apply for unemployment benefits, find a new job, and 
arrange for long-term training. The reemployment act helps working 
families, and we should pass it this year, too. Working families, after 
all, are the building blocks of healthy cities and our healthy society.
    They also shouldn't have to worry about the danger of losing their 
health care. That's why, last week, for the first time in the history of 
our Republic, believe it or not, a Senate committee finally approved a 
bill that guarantees private health insurance for every American family. 
Now other congressional committees are moving forward to achieve 
coverage for all Americans on health care.
    I think the momentum is swinging to our side, and it's time to give 
every American a rock-solid guarantee that their health care can never 
be taken away. So I want to ask you to work with me to push aside half-
measures, half-measures which are exploding the health care budgets of 
cities and States and the Federal Government, to make sure that every 
American will have the health care they need when they need it.
    Let's be clear about what we should have. I want private insurance 
for everyone. I do not want a Government-run system. I do not want to 
take any part of the private system away from the private sector. But I 
do want to make sure private insurance is available for every American 
family.
    Finally, let me just say that over the last year and a half, we've 
done a lot to make our national economy, our working families, and the 
American community more healthy, more safe, and more secure. A great 
deal has been accomplished already. But I know we can do a lot more, and 
you know we have a lot more to do.
    So let's keep working together; let's keep working hard. Let's not 
be diverted or distracted or divided. Let's stay with our minds focused 
on the people we were elected to represent. Together we can do what we 
have to do for this great country to make sure that, as we near the end 
of this decade and this century, America will still be the greatest and 
the best place in the world to live.
    Thank you very much.
    Mayor Jerry Abramson. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I wonder 
if we might ask a couple of questions so that we can have a little bit 
of dialog before you have to go.

[[Page 1073]]

    The President. I'd be disappointed if you didn't. It wouldn't be 
you. [Laughter]

[Mayor Abramson of Louisville, KY, asked about Federal mandate 
legislation.]

    The President. Well, we're very close, I think, to resolving all the 
outstanding questions. And I think they will be resolved soon. I have 
nothing but the highest compliments for Senator Kempthorne and Senator 
Glenn, Congressman Condit. They've been very good to work with us just 
to try to deal with some of the practical issues involved. And I expect 
that we will get a bill out this year that all of us can support. And 
I'm looking forward to it. And we've devoted a lot of time and energy to 
it. And I recognize that we have to have legislation. We cannot do 
everything we need to do with Executive orders. I believe we'll get that 
bill out.
    There are just a couple of outstanding issues; they are not really 
big ones. And I think we'll get them resolved. And I believe that 
there's a good chance since a majority have signed on in both Houses 
that we can roll out an agreed-upon bill before the end of the year.
    Mayor Abramson. Excellent. So Chairman Glenn, who will be, I guess, 
carrying the responsibility for the majority party as well as the White 
House, is in there presently negotiating those few remaining issues so 
that we can ultimately join together.
    The President. But this has really been a pretty good bipartisan 
effort. I mean, Senator Kempthorne has also worked with us directly, 
along with John Glenn, who's a very good friend of mine and of the 
Nation's mayors. I feel very good about the spirit and the atmosphere 
and openness on this.

[Mayor Abramson introduced Mayor Victor Ashe of Knoxville, TN, who asked 
about funding for crime prevention in the proposed crime bill and also 
suggested an increase in funding for youth service projects.]

    The President. On the first question, let me say I will work very 
hard to keep that prevention money in there. I think it is very 
important. Good prevention programs work. They are far less expensive, 
and more importantly, they save more lives and better futures.
    On the other issue, I will see what I can do. I am generally very 
sympathetic to what you've said, but you've asked me a question that may 
have budgetary implications that I don't know the answer to. So I will 
double-check it. I will get back to you.
    I think that it's important that the cities have as much flexibility 
as possible to hire young people, to give them things to do, to engage 
them in positive things. And I think that, clearly, there's lots of 
evidence that that helps to prevent crime.
    Let me also just get in one more plug while I'm at it. I hope that 
all of you, as we increase the scope of our national service program, 
will see that in at least one instance in every city of any size in the 
country there will be an approved national service program so we can 
channel some of that funding in to help your young people work on the 
problems of your community.
    I am very excited about it. We are going to have 20,000 people this 
fall, but by year after next we'll have 100,000 young Americans earning 
credit against education by serving in their communities. And I hope all 
of you will take full advantage of that.

[Mayor Abramson introduced Mayor Norman Rice of Seattle, WA, who asked 
about financing for welfare reform.]

    The President. Well, let me say, I don't necessarily agree that 
there are better options available because I've looked with a fine-tooth 
comb through the Federal budget for them. But I'm certainly willing to 
work with you on other alternatives. If you have some alternatives, I'm 
willing to work with you on it.
    Let me say that if you look at what we did with our bill as compared 
with, let's say, the Republican alternative, which has a lot in common 
with our bill and has some very good things in it, but they were funding 
it by essentially cutting off benefits to nonresident--or to resident 
but not legal--immigrants. And if you do that, that's really going to 
throw a big cost on local governments and State governments.
    What we did with deeming rules were designed to--it was designed to 
keep costs from coming on to the Government that should be borne by 
families of immigrants who actually have good incomes and can afford to 
pay. So that's what we were attempting to do. I understand what the 
concerns are, I believe, of the mayors, and I'm more than willing to 
work with you if you can find any other ideas. But I have to say, we had 
to find money for the GATT round this year. And we had to find money

[[Page 1074]]

for our reemployment bill, and we have to find money for welfare reform. 
And under the budgeting rules of the Federal Government, we have to 
follow very strict procedures. We can't, for example, assume what I 
think is a reasonable reduction in welfare caseloads by the success of 
this reform. We can't assume what I think is a reasonable growth in the 
economy as a result of GATT. So we have very tough rules in terms of 
dedicating funds to this program.
    And I had, myself, I had at least three long meetings on welfare 
reform, which major portions of the meeting were going over funding 
options as a result of the work Mr. Panetta did. So if you can find 
something better, I'll be glad to talk to you about it. But I can't say 
that I agree that there's a better way, because if I thought there was, 
I would have it there. I have, myself, been unsuccessful. But there are 
a lot of you who have proved over time that you're as creative and 
innovative as anybody in this country. So have at it, and see what you 
can come up with.

[Mayor Abramson discussed the Department of Commerce's involvement in 
defense conversion and thanked the President for making the process 
easier in many cities.]

    The President. Thank you very much, Mayor. You know, we had tried 
very hard to do a couple of things with this base closing, based on the 
experiences I had as a Governor and what mayors and Governors all over 
the country talked to me about.
    First is to bring Commerce in and to bring this whole notion of 
business development in. And the second is to change the rules by which 
the facilities are turned over to local communities to try to accelerate 
the process, to not let the environmental cleanup obligations delay it 
too long, to make the best financial deal we could to the mayors, and to 
make sure that we focused on creating jobs and opportunities to replace 
those that were lost.
    I think the dramatic change in priorities that we've made is really 
going to make a difference. I was out in the Inland Empire area of 
California not very long ago, celebrating the successes that the 
communities are having there with one of their bases that they're now 
redeveloping.
    We can do this all over America. These resources can be put to use 
to develop the economy of the 21st century. But the Federal Government 
is going to have to be much more aggressive and flexible and responsive 
in working with you. I think we're on the way, and I think the Commerce 
Department has a lot to do with that. But I also have to say that in the 
last year and a half, I have seen a dramatic change in the attitude of 
the Defense Department as well. So we're going to work hard and do our 
best to be there for you.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The teleconference began at 12:05 p.m. The President spoke from 
Room 459 in the Old Executive Office Building. In his remarks, he 
referred to Mayor Vera Katz of Portland, OR.