[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[February 11, 1994]
[Pages 235-241]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Interview With California Newspaper Publishers
February 11, 1994

[The President's remarks are joined in progress.]

    The President. ----workers who are helping the community, and their 
response has been one of the most timely, comprehensive, and effective 
in memory. And as I emphasized when I visited you a few weeks ago, while 
short-term disaster relief is absolutely necessary, I want to assure you 
that we'll be there over the long run as well.
    The latest information on the status of the disaster assistance is 
this: The conference on the supplemental appropriation has just 
concluded. With luck, I'll be able to sign this legislation tomorrow 
morning. I was in Los Angeles within 48 hours of that quake, and your 
needs were clear to me and overwhelming. The following week, as soon as 
Congress returned from its recess, I transmitted to them a formal 
request for funds prepared by our OMB Director, Leon Panetta, from 
California. I'm pleased that Congress, led by the California delegation, 
has acted so quickly and so responsibly. In total,

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this legislation will bring the entire amount of Federal disaster 
assistance to southern California to about $10 billion.
    I know there's been a little public debate about whether States have 
an obligation to match 10 percent of these funds. I think they should; 
everyone must take some responsibility and do their share. It's what we 
did in the terrible 500-year floods in the Midwest, and it's what we 
should do here.
    These funds will help meet the immediate need. But California and 
all America, as you know, face a larger challenge: creating jobs and 
creating growth in a tough global economy, restoring the American dream 
for middle class people, and bringing our whole country together as a 
nation again. That's why I came to office with a comprehensive economic 
strategy designed to get the deficit down, lower interest rates, keep 
inflation down, free up investments, and create jobs. It's working.
    Of course, there are still too many who haven't benefited and too 
many regions that have not really felt movement yet. But before our plan 
took effect last year, the 1995 budget was projected to be $302 billion. 
Now it's expected to be $176 billion, a 40 percent reduction. Core 
inflation and long-term interests rates are at historic lows. Home sales 
are up, car sales are up, and last year this economy created almost 2 
million jobs, 90 percent of them in the private sector. That's more than 
in the previous 4 years combined.
    But in creating a national strategy, we tried to be exceedingly 
mindful that California faces very serious problems different from and 
greater than any other State; especially southern California faces these 
problems. And as I have said repeatedly, in every region of the country 
we can't hope to rebuild the American economy until we also restore your 
economy, which accounts for one-eighth of all America's output. We've 
worked hard to do that.
    Many of the elements of our economic plan will benefit California, 
including the national information superhighway, our efforts to develop 
new environmental technologies. NAFTA was a huge win for California and 
so was the GATT agreement and the reduction in export controls on 
communications equipment and computers. And nearly a quarter of the 
grants awarded for defense conversion and technology reinvestment have 
gone to California-led projects.
    We are doing better, but our economic problems didn't come 
overnight, and they won't go away overnight. We need continued 
discipline, especially in the budget.
    The budget I just introduced is the toughest budget Congress has 
seen yet. Adjusted for inflation, we'll cut more than 60 percent of the 
major accounts in the budget. We cut more than 300 specific nondefense 
programs, 115 of which we eliminate outright. Half the Cabinet 
departments take budget cuts. We slash the Federal bureaucracy by 
118,000 people. If the Congress adopts this budget, it will keep the 
deficit coming down, interest rates coming down, the investment climate 
will continue to improve, we'll continue to create jobs, and we'll be 
able to invest in the things that make us strong and secure.
    That includes investing over $350 million in new funds for border 
security to control illegal immigration, which will allow us to increase 
by 40 percent the number of border patrol officers on the San Diego 
border this year. These funds are in the new budget. The budget adds 
hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funds to offset 
California's cost of providing medical services to indigents and to 
providing educational services to disadvantaged children. Both will help 
you to respond to the needs of the immigrant population. We've added 
these funds and specifically redesigned spending formulas precisely 
because States like California have had special demands placed on them. 
And this budget includes $1.6 billion that are new for new highway and 
transit projects in California, above and beyond the emergency funds 
which are desperately needed in the wake of the earthquake.
    All these are new funds. All are new investments in California's 
future. You need them, and I'll fight for them. In addition, continued 
budget discipline means that we can do things like lift the standards of 
every school in America and create a reemployment system to offer new 
skills for our displaced workers, replacing our old unemployment system 
which doesn't offer those skills.
    If this budget passes, we'll be able to put 100,000 more police 
officers on the street including thousands and thousands in California, 
lock up career criminals for life, and we can get serious about drug 
treatment and prevention. We can begin to change the welfare system as 
we know it, and we can reform health care. Unless we do that and 
guarantee every Amer-


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ican private health insurance that can never be taken away, we'll never 
be able to control this deficit in the long run, never have the money we 
need to invest in the future and our jobs, and never provide real 
security to America's working families.
    The Congressional Budget Office pointed out last week that our 
health care plan saves an enormous amount of money over the next decade, 
will not cost jobs in the American economy, and can be done in the way 
we have proposed it. We can do this health care reform as our proposal 
does by simply building on what works best in the present system. Our 
current proposal retains private insurance, retains the freedom to 
choose plans and doctors, and retains the employer-based system that 9 
out of 10 working people already use. We stress primary care and 
preventive care. We increase medical research and provide drug benefits 
and long-term care to the elderly. And our plan will save money in the 
long run.
    As I said, if you review the Congressional Budget Office study just 
concluded, it says our plan reduces the projected growth of health care 
costs, reduces the deficit over time dramatically, improves wages, and 
could benefit all small businesses. Small businesses now are in a 
pickle. Seventy percent of the small businesses in this country cover 
their employees, but they pay 35 to 40 percent more for insurance 
premiums. The other 30 percent don't cover their employees, and when 
those folks get sick, the rest of us pay the bill because their costs 
are passed along through higher hospital and insurance costs.
    Now, what will happen if we don't take these steps? We'll go on 
charging older people more than younger people just because they're 
older. Three out of four of us will continue to have lifetime limits on 
our coverage so that just when we need it most, we'll lose health 
insurance coverage. Small businesses will continue to spend 35 to 40 
percent more for premiums than big business. One hundred thousand 
Americans a month will continue to lose their coverage permanently. 
Eighty-one million Americans with so-called preexisting conditions will 
continue to be denied coverage or charged more or feel that they can 
never change jobs without losing their coverage. And sometime every 
year, 58 million of our fellow citizens will have no insurance at all. 
And the cost of health care will keep destroying the Federal budget. 
There will be no money left for more police or better schools or newer 
technology or for any of the things we need to get your economy coming 
back.
    Your nonpartisan legislative analysis recently estimated through its 
office that our plan will save California, and I quote, ``hundreds of 
millions of dollars in the early years and more in later years.'' They 
concluded that our plan should enhance California's long-term economic 
prospects, encourage people to move off welfare, and save California 
approximately $700 million a year in care for the indigent.
    I am enthusiastic about the health care debate. It's exciting 
because it's about the future, about facing up to our challenges. This 
ought not to be a partisan issue. We can differ over the specific 
prescriptions for what should be done, but this year proves that we can 
differ and still get the job done for America.
    As I said in the State of the Union Address, our Nation is growing 
stronger, but it must be stronger still. We've begun to make it 
stronger. We've begun to solve our problems. But we must stay together 
and stay focused on the future so that we can move forward with the 
hopefulness that is at the core of the California spirit and at the 
heart of the American dream.
    Thank you very much.

Public Libraries

    Q. Mr. President, my question goes to the crisis in our library 
system. If my information is correct, during our recession we've been 
closing libraries in this country at the rate of one a day. And by 
contrast, during the Great Depression, I don't believe one library was 
closed. This is a natural question from a group of people that love the 
printed word more than most, and many of us are involved in private 
initiatives to help our city and country libraries. But I wonder what 
you might do, sir.
    The President. Well, given the problems we have in the Federal 
budget and given the fact that we need to use as much money as we can 
for education and training and new technologies, I would think that any 
Federal help to libraries would have to come in the form of some 
initiative that we have in furtherance of that, like an adult literacy 
initiative.
    I do think the library system in this country will be dramatically 
helped by being able to hook into the information superhighway, and 
we've already made that commitment. I think

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that will make a difference. But I'm afraid that the lion's share of 
that work will have to be done at the State and local level.
    I know when I was a Governor in my former life, we really worked 
hard to get more State help for libraries because we knew that local 
government simply could not afford to do it. In the 1980's, when so much 
Federal spending was cut back and so many new responsibilities were put 
on local governments, it was very tough. I have found that most voters, 
when given the chance, if they know they're dedicating the money to do 
it, will vote to save their local library. And what we did at home was 
to give them the opportunity to do that.
    I will look into it. If you have any other specific ideas, I'd be 
glad to look into them. But I think the literacy mission of libraries 
and the information superhighway are the two main areas in which the 
Federal Government can probably be of help.
    Q. Thank you, sir.
    The President. Thank you. Thank you.

Information Superhighway

    Q. Mr. President, as you might imagine, we've been spending a bit of 
time talking about technology and the future here in the last couple of 
days, and my question relates to that. Newspapers present issues with a 
certain amount of depth that other media don't often attempt. Is there 
something there that you'd like to see or think ought to be preserved in 
the new information superhighway?
    The President. Absolutely. One of my staff aides, when we were 
coming over here, and I had a conversation about this very issue and 
about how the information superhighway needs to be both wide and deep, 
deep in the way that newspapers are. I can understand how you might have 
some concern that it might become a nationalized version of E-mail or 
something and be too narrow. Our view of it is that we ought to 
incorporate the kind of in-depth information that newspapers provide in 
the information superhighway.
    Q. Thank you.

Immigration

    Q. Mr. President, you referred to--with the obligation of the 
Federal Government to meet California--to match and pay for California's 
obligation--California's payments to and for care and service of illegal 
immigrants. You referred to that in your remarks about your budget. Will 
that fully cover that obligation?
    The President. Well, it's hard to know exactly because it's hard to 
know what the figure is. The estimates vary rather dramatically. But I 
can tell you this: Last year, in our first round of budget cuts, we 
still included several hundred million dollars in more money to deal 
with the cost of immigration, especially immigrant health care and 
immigrant education. This year, we have much more money in there yet 
again. And this year we have in addition to that enough money, as I 
said, to drastically increase border patrols across the country, 
including a 40 percent increase along the San Diego border.
    So we're getting closer; that's all I know. Frankly, we don't have a 
very good way of estimating what those costs are, and I agree that we 
need more. But because I have heard for years the Governors of 
California and Texas and Florida, particularly, talk to me about this 
problem, we made a commitment when I came in that each year we would try 
to do as much as we possibly could to help cover these costs that are 
imposed on States because of immigration. And we have certainly made 
more progress in the last 2 years, even with tough budgets, than have 
been made in a long time. And we'll continue to try to find more exact 
ways of measuring what the costs are, because I do think that if we had 
them measured, it would be easier to know whether we're meeting our 
target.

Defense Conversion

    Q. Mr. President, I think you touched on my question in your 
remarks, but I'd like you to expand on it a bit if you could. Given the 
cuts in defense spending and the resulting impact on aerospace jobs in 
California, what plans do you have to help our State replace those jobs 
and regain economic viability?
    The President. Well, we're doing a number of things. First of all, I 
have been very aggressively involved with our major aerospace companies 
in trying to increase exports of all kinds to try to build the job base. 
And I expect you'll be seeing a whole series of announcements about that 
over the coming year.
    Secondly, we have worked hard with a lot of the aerospace companies 
to try to get them involved in dual-use technologies, to make sure they 
were engaged in the technology reinvestment project, where we take a 
significant por-


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tion of the money by which we reduce defense spending and make it 
available for commercial research and development. Rockwell 
International, for example, which I visited in California recently, has 
been quite aggressive and active and successful in that regard in trying 
to find new ways to put people to work.
    And thirdly, in our conversion plans we've been very aggressive at 
working with local communities to try to help them make the most of the 
facilities they have and the human resources they have to try to attract 
new investment for new jobs.
    We believe that since we started doing this last year, and we spent 
over $500 million on this last year and will spend more money this year 
than we did last year, that we will be able to substantially accelerate 
the rate at which people either find new work in the same industry or 
find comparable jobs in other industries, if we can get the technology 
reinvestment going.
    So that's my commitment. One of the things that we dramatically 
increased in this budget was the technology reinvestment. I'd also like 
to point out that last year, because of the combination of low interest 
rates and new incentives, we had an all-time high in venture 
capitalizations for new corporations in the high-tech area. And I hope 
we're going to break that record again this year. Those companies, as 
you know, are disproportionately located in California. And if we can 
keep those new companies starting, then they will begin to provide other 
totally different employment opportunities for a lot of those folks.

Health Care Reform

    Q. Mr. President, I have to admit I'm a little confused, and I hope 
you can help me on this. You made your comments in your earlier remarks 
about your judgment of the impact of your health plan on businesses. And 
of course, the critics of your plan suggest that the costs of this 
expanded medical care will be borne largely on the shoulders of 
businesses. And I'm wondering if you could give us an idea of what your 
judgment is of what this impact will be on businesses, particularly 
relatively small employers like publishers represented in this room.
    The President. Well, first of all, let's go back. If you look at all 
the studies, there was a study by the Lewin Group, which were mostly 
health care folks who had been in and out of Government, many of them 
were in the Reagan and Bush administrations. And the Lewin study said 
that a majority of American employers and employees would pay the same 
or less money for the same or greater health care, that people who do 
not have any health coverage at all or people who have very, very 
limited, like catastrophic policies with very high deductibles, would 
pay more. But under our plan, we put a ceiling of 7.9 percent of payroll 
for full-time employees on all employers and then lowered that all the 
way down as low as 3.9 for smaller businesses with average payroll below 
$24,000 a year. So there are a whole series of discounts available for 
private insurance there.
    Let me just say, the flip side is that if you look at how much 
America as a nation is spending on health care, we spend 14.5 percent of 
our income on health care. Canada spends 10; Germany and Japan spend 
less than 9. Now, about half of that gap is due to the fact that we 
spend more on medical technology and medical research than other 
countries, and we wouldn't change that for the world, I don't think. 
About half of it is due to the fact that we are more violent and have 
higher AIDS rates than other countries. We would change that if we 
could. But we can't in this health care bill.
    Now, if you take that out of the way, the rest of this system's 
costs that are out of line with any other country in the world are 
solely due to the crazy way we finance health care and the fact that not 
everybody has coverage, so you've got massive cost shifting in it. So I 
just refuse to believe that we're the only advanced country in the world 
that can't figure out a way to provide health care for all of its 
citizens. Germany has absorbed Eastern Germany, taken that enormous 
burden, kept health care costs under 9 percent, and their unemployment 
rate is still almost exactly what ours is.
    So we know that this can be done. And the congressional process is 
started now. There's been an awful lot of misinformation about this 
plan, but as I said, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office just 
issued a report which estimated that there would be no net loss in jobs, 
in fact, would probably be a net gain in jobs, if our plan passed.
    So I would urge you to read it carefully, if you have suggestions 
about what you think is wrong with it, to let us know what you think is 
wrong with it. And we'll be glad to look at those things. The only 
bottom-line commitment I have is that the United States should

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not go on being the only country in the world with an advanced economy 
that can't figure out how to give some form of guaranteed private health 
care to all of its working people. Poor people get it, and other people 
get it. Most people who don't have it are the working poor. And so I 
think that we have to find a way to do that. And I believe that our plan 
is the most cost-effective, most reasonable way to do it.
    But we're going to have 4 or 5 months of congressional debate. And 
as I said, what I wish you would do if you have a concern about this is 
get someone to analyze it who particularly--maybe a doctor or someone 
who has no necessary ax to grind, tell us what you think is wrong with 
it or how you think it can be improved, and that can become part of the 
ongoing debate. I mean, California has an enormously large congressional 
delegation that will be in a position to have a big impact on how this 
ultimately comes out.
    I don't want to do anything I thought would cost jobs. I think this 
will gain us jobs. I think that if we pass this bill, the percentage of 
our income going to health care 5 years from now will be markedly less 
than it will be if we don't. And I think, therefore, we will have more 
jobs in America as a result of controlling health care costs and 
providing guaranteed health care than we will if we don't do it. And my 
evidence is all the other countries in the world that have done it are 
spending less money on health care.
    Q. Thank you.
    Q. Mr. President, I do have a couple of specifics on the health care 
plan I'd like to ask you about. I have had health care for my employees 
for 10 years, and I support your universal health care plan with two 
exceptions. One, when both parents work, both employers must pay 80 
percent of the health care for the family. This overlap makes the plan 
onerous. Two, also with specific regard to the newspaper industry, we 
have many distribution people and freelancers who choose to work just a 
few hours a week. We can't make full-time jobs of those because the 
distribution has to be done in such a concentrated fashion. Paying the 
full employer's share of those people's health care really becomes quite 
staggering to the newspaper industry, specifically. What can be done 
about that?
    The President. Well, first, for part-time workers who work over 10 
hours a week, the full share would not be due unless people worked 30 
hours a week. If it's between 10 and 30, it's less than the full share, 
but some contribution would be required.
    This is a general problem, by the way. We had to find a way to cover 
part-time workers. But some employers, perhaps not in the newspaper 
industry, but some employers, let's say they have a permanent payroll of 
more or less 500, they may have 6,000 part-time employees coming in and 
out, and they're worried about the bookkeeping problems with this. So 
we're, frankly, looking for a way to deal with this that is fair, but we 
know we have to find some way, given how many part-time workers there 
are in this country, to find the coverage for part-time workers. And so 
we asked for a pro rata contribution from the employer but not a full 
contribution for the part-time workers.
    On the other issue, we had a lot of debates about this because a lot 
of families have been in the situation over time--our family has been--
where you have fairly decent health insurance policies that you can 
access at either place, but if you choose, you only buy one at one 
place. And I understand what you're saying there.
    The problem that we run up against is if you require all employers 
to make a contribution and employees to match, or at least you give them 
the right to require their employees to pay the match, which most people 
do anyway, then will it be fair to one small business as compared to 
another if just by the luck of the draw the families always choose to 
use one plan over another? We're trying to work through that. And the 
reason we adopted the plan that the idea that everybody was paid we 
thought under those circumstances, one would pay as an individual so 
that the premiums would be quite a bit lower, but it would avoid putting 
some businesses at a dramatic competitive disadvantage to others.
    Again, that was one of the tough issues in this whole debate. If you 
have an idea about it, I would urge you to get in touch with our health 
care task force. We tried to work through it in a way that wouldn't put 
any group of businesses or individual business at a disadvantage 
compared to others. And that's why we wound up with that approach, 
giving people the option to, in effect, pay lower rates at each place 
and pay something, than pay a much higher rate at one place and nothing 
at all at another.

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    Q. Mr. President, we appreciate you taking time out from your busy 
schedule to address us. You'll always have a special place in the 
history of this organization since you've, today, become the first 
President of the United States to ever address the leading State 
newspaper organization in the U.S.
    Once again, thank you very much.
    The President. Well, I've enjoyed it very much. And I thank you all 
very much. I just want to try to encourage you. You know, I know 
California has been through so much. You went through an earthquake in 
the north a couple of years ago, the fires, the earthquake in the south, 
the riots in L.A., and all the incredible economic problems because of 
the defense downsizing going back to the late eighties. But 
fundamentally, the health, the strength, the diversity of California is 
staggering. And the future is bright. And I am committed to doing 
everything I can to make sure you get fair treatment and a genuine 
partnership and a better chance at a tomorrow from our administration.
    And I thank you, and I thank you for your probing questions. Thank 
you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 3:33 p.m. via satellite from Room 459 of 
the Old Executive Office Building. The press release issued by the 
Office of the Press Secretary did not include the complete opening 
remarks of the President. A tape was not available for verification of 
the content of this interview.