    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [April 7, 1995]
    [Pages 474-485]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With the American Society of
    Newspaper Editors in Dallas, Texas
    April 7, 1995

        The President. Thank you very much. Thank you. ``Fishbait'' Favre.
    It's got kind of a nice ring, doesn't it? [Laughter] I knew he was born
    in New Orleans before he ever said it. I love to listen to people from
    New Orleans talk.
        I thank you for that kind introduction. Your convention program
    chair, Bob Haiman, and your incoming president, Bill Ketter, ladies and
    gentlemen, I'm very glad to be here.
        I thought that in addition to me you were going to hear from three
    people who had run, are running, and were about to run for President.
    But only Bill Weld showed up. I hope he stays in the ``about to run.''
    He and Steve Merrill are very impressive men, and I'm glad that they
    came here and gave the Republican point of view.
        It's a privilege to be here. I'd like to begin by saying that I am
    very proud, and I know you are, for the work that the Inter American
    Press Association has done in its Declaration of Chapultepec. I know
    that you and the Newspaper Association of America have worked tirelessly
    for press freedoms all throughout the Americas. And just before I came
    out here I was proud to sign a Charter of Endorsement for the
    Declaration of Chapultepec. And I thank you for giving me that
    opportunity and for what you have done to advance the cause of a free
    press.
        I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who said, ``Well, in
    the '94 election we discovered the limits of liberalism, and now we're
    about to discover the limits of conservatism.'' And it put me in mind of
    a story I once heard about the--and actually, I thought about it because
    I met Mr. Favre--about the late Huey Long, who, when he was Governor and
    he was preaching his share-the-wealth plan, was out in the country one
    day at a little country crossroads. And he had all the people gathered
    up. And he was going on about how the people were being plundered by the
    organized wealthy interests in Louisiana.
        And he saw a guy out in the crowd that he knew and he said,
    ``Brother Jones, if you had three Cadillacs, wouldn't you give up one of
    them so we could gather up the kids and take them to school during the
    week and take them to church on the weekend?'' He said, ``Sure, I
    would.'' He said, ``And if you had $3 million, wouldn't you give up just
    a million of it so we could put a roof over everybody's head and make
    sure everybody had food to eat?'' He said, ``Well, of course I would.''
    He said, ``And if you had three hogs--'' He said, ``Wait a minute,
    Governor, I've got three hogs.'' [Laughter]
        Anyway, that's the limits of liberalism. Now we're about to discover
    the limits of conservatism.
        Ladies and gentlemen, we are at a historic moment in our country's
    history: on the verge of a new century, living in a very different kind

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    of economy with a bewildering array of challenges and opportunities. In
    1992 and in 1994, the voters spoke out and demanded bold changes in the
    way we govern and the policies we pursue. They know better than anyone
    else that they are living in a time with new challenges that demand new
    answers.
        In the last 2 years, my administration has begun to meet those
    challenges. I ran for President because I felt we were being victimized
    by 12 years of gridlock in which the deficit had gone up, the wealthiest
    Americans had done quite well, the middle class had stagnated, and the
    poor were in trouble, in which the American dream was really at risk
    because half of the American people were working for the same or lower
    wages that they had made 15 years earlier.
        I had a clear mission. I wanted to grow the middle class, shrink the
    under class, and speed up the opportunities for entrepreneurs. I wanted
    to promote the mainstream values of responsibility and work, family and
    community. I wanted to reform the Government so that we could enhance
    opportunity, shrink bureaucracy, increase our security, and most
    important of all, empower people through education to make the most of
    their own lives.
        In the first 2 years we've made good progress. The economy is up,
    and the deficit is down. We've expanded educational opportunities from
    Head Start through more college loans that are more affordable. The
    American people are marching toward more security because there are no
    Russian missiles pointed at the children of our country for the first
    time since the dawn of the nuclear age, because we passed a serious
    crime bill that will lower the crime rate in many of our communities
    throughout the country, and because we've begun to address some of the
    problems of family security with the Family and Medical Leave Act. And
    certainly, we have done a lot to shrink and to reform the Government's
    bureaucracy.
        But it is not enough. Too many Americans don't yet feel any of those
    benefits. Too many still feel uncertain about their own future, and too
    many people are overwhelmingly concerned about the social and the
    underlying moral problems of our society. And so in 1994, they voted to
    give the Republicans a chance to run the Congress.
        In the last 100 days, the House of Representatives has passed a
    series of bold initiatives. We will soon begin the second 100 days of
    this Congress. In the first 100 days, the mission of the House
    Republicans was to suggest ways in which we should change our Government
    and our society. In the second 100 days and beyond, our mission together
    must be to decide which of these House proposals should be adopted,
    which should be modified, and which should be stopped.
        In the first 100 days, it fell to the House of Representatives to
    propose. In the next 100 days and beyond, the President has to lead the
    quiet, reasoned forces of both parties in both Houses to sift through
    the rhetoric and decide what is really best for America. In making these
    decisions, it is absolutely vital that we keep alive the spirit and the
    momentum of change. But the momentum must not carry us so far that we
    betray our legacy of compassion, decency, and common sense.
        We have entered a new era. For years, out here in the country, the
    old political categories have basically been defunct, and a new
    political discussion has been begging to be born. It must be now so in
    Washington, as well. The old labels of liberal and conservative, spender
    and cutter, even Democrat and Republican, are not what matter most
    anymore. What matters most is finding practical, pragmatic solutions
    based on what we know works in our lives and our shared experiences so
    that we can go forward together as a nation. Ideological purity is for
    partisan extremists. Practical solution, based on real experience, hard
    evidence, and common sense, that's what this country needs.
        We've been saddled too long with a political debate that doesn't
    tell us what we ought to do, just who we ought to blame. And we have got
    to stop pointing fingers at each other so that we can join hands.
        You know, our country has often moved forward spurred on by purists,
    reformists, populist agendas which articulated grievances and proposed
    radical departures. But if you think about our most successful periods
    of reform, these initiatives have been shaped by Presidents who
    incorporated what was good, smoothed out what was rough, and discarded
    what would hurt. That was the role of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow
    Wilson in the aftermath of the populist era. That was the role of
    Franklin Roosevelt in the aftermath of the La Follette progressive
    movement. And that is my job in the next 100 days and for all the days I
    serve as President.

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        We stand at a crossroads. In one direction lies confrontation and
    gridlock; in the other lies achievement and progress. I was not elected
    President to pile up a stack of vetoes. I was elected President to
    change the direction of America. That's what I have spent the last 2
    years doing and that's what I want to spend the next 100 days and beyond
    doing. Whether we can do that depends upon what all of us in Washington
    do from here on out.
        So I appeal today to Republicans and to Democrats alike to get
    together, to keep the momentum for change going, not to allow the energy
    and longing for change now to be dissipated amid a partisan clutter of
    accusations. After all, we share much common ground.
        For example, in 1992, I was elected to end welfare as we know it.
    That was part of my New Covenant of opportunity and responsibility. In
    1994, the Republicans made the same demand with their contract. In the
    last 2 years, I have already given 25 States, one-half of the country,
    the opportunity to do just that on their own. And I introduced the most
    sweeping welfare reform the country had ever seen. I want to work with
    the Congress to get real welfare reform.
        In 1992, I was elected to slash the deficit. That also was part of
    my New Covenant. In 1994, the Republican contract called for a
    continuing deficit reduction and movement toward a balanced budget.
    Well, I cut the deficit by $600 billion, cut 300 programs; I proposed to
    consolidate or eliminate 400 more. I want to cut the deficit. Except for
    the interest run up between 1981 and 1992, our budget would be in
    balance today. My administration is the only one in 30 years to run an
    operating surplus. I will work with the Republicans to reduce the
    deficit.
        In 1992, I was elected to shrink the size of the Federal Government,
    which I have done. That, too, was a part of my New Covenant. In 1994,
    the Republican contract said we should shrink the Government. I have
    already cut 100,000 bureaucratic positions, and we are on the way under
    budgets already passed to reducing the Government by 270,000, to its
    smallest size since President Kennedy occupied this office. I want to
    work with Congress to reduce the size of Government.
        We both want tax cuts, less intrusive Government regulations, the
    line-item veto, the toughest possible fight against crime. These were a
    part of the New Covenant and a part of the Republican contract. In 2
    years, we have made real progress on all these fronts, but we can, and
    we should do more.
        We are near many breakthroughs. The real issue is whether we will
    have the wisdom and the courage to see our common ground and walk on it.
    To do that, we must abandon extreme positions and work together. This is
    no time for ideological extremism. Good-faith compromising, negotiating
    our differences, actually listening to one another for a change, these
    are the currency of a healthy democracy.
        In that spirit, I come here today to outline where I stand on the
    remaining items in the Republican contract and the unfinished business
    of my New Covenant.
        Let's begin with taxes. In 1993, I made a down payment on the
    middle-class tax cut I advocated when I ran for President. We cut taxes
    for 15 million working families. What that means on average is that this
    year a family of four with an income of $25,000 a year or less will have
    about $1,000 in lower tax bills. We did this to ensure that nobody who
    works full-time and has children should live in poverty. If you want to
    reform the welfare system, you must reward work and parenting.
        So I want a tax cut to expand, to include more members of the middle
    class. Why? Because half the American people are working for the same or
    lower incomes they were making 15 years ago. And we've had a recovery
    that's produced 6.3 million new jobs, the lowest combined rates of
    unemployment and inflation in 25 years, and we need to spread the
    benefits of the recovery.
        But this $200 billion tax cut, which is really more than 3 times
    that if you look at it over a 10 year period, is a fantasy. It's too
    much. It's not going to happen. We can't afford it. A realistic cut
    would be somewhere around a third of that. That's something we can
    afford. In the world we're living in up there, if we go beyond that,
    what you're going to see is no success at deficit reduction or horrible
    injustice to the most vulnerable people in our country. So we can't pass
    that. Let's get over it and talk about what we can pass and work on
    doing it. Let's target a tax cut to the right people and for the right
    purpose.
        We have to choose: Do you want a tax cut for the wealthy or for the
    middle class? The Republican plan gives half of the benefits to

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    the 10 percent of the people who are best off, and most importantly, to
    the 10 percent of our people who have done very, very well in the last
    15 years. Twenty percent of the benefits go to the top one percent of
    our people. They have done very well in the new global economy. The
    middle class has suffered the stagnant incomes. Let's direct the tax
    benefits to those people.
        But we also have to choose what kind of tax break. Shall we just put
    money in people's pockets? Or shouldn't we do something that will
    strengthen families and increase the whole wealth and success of the
    United States over the long run? Let's help our people get the education
    and job training they need.
        The technology revolution, the global economy, these are dividing
    opportunity at home and abroad. The middle class is splitting apart. And
    the fault line is education. Those who have it do well; those who don't
    are in trouble. So let's use the tax cut as I propose in the middle
    class bill of rights as sort of a scholarship given by America to people
    for their cost of education after high school. And let's provide for an
    IRA that people can withdraw from, tax-free, to meet the exigencies that
    their families face: college education, health care costs, first-time
    home, care of an elderly parent. These things will strengthen our
    country and we can afford it.
        Let's take welfare reform. As I said, both of us, both the
    Republican contract and my New Covenant, have focused heavily on welfare
    reform. What do we agree on? That there ought to be a limit to welfare;
    that there ought to be flexibility for the States; that we ought to have
    the toughest possible child support enforcement; and that people have to
    take more responsibility for their own lives and for the children they
    bring into this world.
        But the current House bill focuses primarily on cutting costs. It's
    weak on work and tough on kids. It punishes young people for past
    mistakes. We must require them, instead, to look to the future and in
    the future to be responsible parents, to be responsible workers, to be
    responsible students, and then give them the opportunity to do that.
        The House bill also punishes young children for the sins of their
    parents. I think that's wrong. Rich or poor, black, white, or brown, in
    or out of wedlock, a baby is a baby, a child is a child. It's part of
    our future, and we have an obligation to those children not to punish
    them for something over which they had absolutely no control.
        Now, that's where I disagree. But look what we agree on. We are near
    historic change. We can do this. We can make a difference. We can break
    the culture of welfare, and we can do something good for our country to
    support the values we all believe in. And we can give these children a
    better future. But to do it, we're going to have to talk through our
    differences and get beyond the rhetoric to how these real lives work and
    not stand on the sidelines posturing for political gain.
        Let's take cutting the deficit. The balanced budget amendment is
    dead. But now we have to get specific. How are we going to cut the
    deficit and move this budget toward balance? If we can focus on cuts,
    not making partisan points, that's the first step. There are cuts I
    can't live with. There are cuts the Republicans can't live with. Let's
    avoid them and make cuts we can all live with.
        We shouldn't cut help for our children. That builds our future. We
    shouldn't cut their education, their immunization, their school lunches,
    the infant formulas, or the nutrition programs. There's no need to cut
    them. So far, based on the action they've taken, the Republicans want
    the poor in this country to bear the burden of two-thirds of their
    proposed cuts and only get 5 percent of the benefit of the tax cuts. It
    is not right. It is wrong. But that doesn't mean we don't have to cut
    the budget and reduce the deficit.
        The rescission package that passed the Senate last night gives us a
    model about how we should proceed. The House passed a rescission package
    with completely unacceptable cuts in education, child nutrition,
    environment, housing, and national service. The Senate Republicans, to
    their credit, restored several of these cuts. I insisted on restoring
    even more and replacing them with better cuts. And almost every one of
    the Democrats in the Senate agreed.
        So yesterday, over the course of the debate, they worked that out.
    Those cuts were restored as well. There will still be a $16 billion
    reduction in the deficit this year. The bill passed 99-0 in the Senate,
    and I will sign the Senate bill if the House and the Senate will send it
    to me. That's how we should be doing the business of America.
        Let's talk about the line-item veto. As I said before, that was in
    the Republican contract, and

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    I campaigned for President on it in 1992. I appeal to Congress to pass
    it in its strongest form. I appeal to members of my own party who have
    reservations about it to support it as well. The line-item veto has now
    passed both the Senate and the House.
        If you look at how it passed the Senate, that's an example of how we
    can make this system work. I strongly supported it. I campaigned to
    Democratic Senators and asked them to support it. They worked out their
    differences, and it passed overwhelmingly in the Senate.
        The President and the Congress both need the power to cut spending.
    If you doubt it, if you doubt it, look at the bill that Congress
    recently passed to restore to 3.2 million self-employed Americans,
    farmers, small businesspeople, professionals, and all their family
    members, the 25 percent deduction for the cost of their health
    insurance. That was a part of my health care plan. I desperately want to
    do that. We ought to do more. They ought to be treated just like
    corporations. It is imperative to sign it. But hidden in that bill was a
    special tax break for people who did not need it. If I had the Senate
    version of the line-item veto, I could sign the bill and help the people
    who are entitled to it, and veto the special break. This is the kind of
    thing that's been hidden in bills of Congress forever. We can now do
    something about it, and we ought to do it.
        Political reform, something that was also in the Republican
    contract: Two of the ten items in the Republican contract have actually
    become law. And two, term limits and the balanced budget amendment, have
    been defeated. Of the two that have become law, they were both about
    political reform, and they were also both part of my 1992 commitments to
    the American people. One applies to Congress the laws they impose on the
    private sector. The other limits the ability of Congress to impose
    unfunded mandates on State and local government. I was proud to sign
    them both. They will advance the cause of responsible Government in this
    country.
        But political reform means more. It must include, I believe, both
    lobbying reform and campaign finance reform. If you doubt how much we
    need lobby reform, just go back and refer to the story that was rightly
    printed just a few days ago about how in this session of Congress you
    have lobbyists actually sitting at the table with Congressmen, writing
    bills for them and then explaining to them what the bills mean. It seems
    to me that since these bills help the people the lobbyists represent,
    but drastically restrict the ability of the Government to act in the
    areas of the environment, in protecting our people, we need some
    significant reform in our lobbying laws. So I don't think we should stop
    there.
        Regulatory reform, another big item in the Republican contract:
    There are lots of horror stories. Every one of you probably knows a
    story that shows where a bureaucrat overreached or there were too many
    regulations or there was too little common sense. I am committed to
    changing the culture of regulation that has dominated our country for a
    long time. I have gone around espousing to everybody that they ought to
    read Mr. Howard's book ``The Death of Common Sense.''
        But for 2 years, we have been working through the reinventing
    Government initiative that the Vice President has headed to change the
    culture of regulation. We deregulated banking. We deregulated intrastate
    trucking. We have reformed the procedures of the SBA. We scrapped the
    10,000-page Federal personnel manual. We have dramatically changed the
    way the General Services Administration operates in ways that have saved
    hundreds of millions of dollars for the taxpayers and put more
    competition into the process, thanks to the GSA Director, Roger Johnson,
    who happens to be here with me today. We are working on these things to
    move forward.
        But we must do more. And yet, surely, the answer is not to stop the
    Government from regulating what it needs to regulate. If the Republicans
    send me a bill that would let unsafe planes fly or contaminated meat be
    sold or contaminated water continue to find itself into city water
    systems, I will veto it. I will veto it. But if Congress will just sit
    down with me and work out a reasonable solution for more flexible
    regulatory reform, we can create an historic achievement.
        I agree that Congress has a role to play. I agree that Congress
    sometimes hears things about the way regulations work that people in the
    executive branch don't. Congresswoman Johnson and Congressman Bryant and
    Congressman Geren flew down here with me today. They're out there all
    the time talking to their members. They may hear things we don't. That's
    why I approve of the Senate's 45-day override

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    legislation. But I will veto any bill that lets a bunch of lawyers tie
    up regulation for years. We've got too much of that as it is.
        So I say, flexibility, yes; reform, yes; but paralysis and
    straightjacketing, no.
        Let's talk about legal reform. Are there too many lawsuits? Of
    course, there are. Do jury awards once in a while get out of hand? Yes,
    they do. Does this affect the insurance system in the country? It has an
    impact on it. But at a time when we're giving more and more
    responsibility to the States in which one of the signal ideas of the
    Republican contract that I largely agree with is that the State and
    local governments should have more responsibility, do we really want to
    take the entire civil justice system away from the States for the first
    time in 200 years? I don't think so.
        Let me give you a couple of examples. Should we put justice out of
    the reach of ordinary people with a ``loser pay'' rule? No. Think about
    it this way: ``Loser pays'' will keep ordinary citizens from exercising
    their rights in court just as a poll tax used to keep ordinary people of
    color and poverty from exercising their right to vote. I will veto any
    bill with a ``loser pay'' requirement such as that that was in the House
    bill. I don't think it's right.
        Punitive damages: they could stand some reform but not artificial
    ceilings. Punitive damages are designed to deter bad future conduct.
    Now, if you have a national ceiling of $250,000 think what that means--
    $250,000 may be too burdensome for a small-business person who loses a
    lawsuit. You don't want to put them out of business unless they're
    malicious. But does anybody seriously believe that $250,000 will have
    any kind of significant deterrent impact on a giant multinational
    corporation? So let's negotiate realistic reforms that improve the
    system, but don't wreck it.
        Crime: Crime was a big part of the New Covenant, a big part of why I
    ran for President. The personal security of the American people should
    be our first concern. And we delivered. After 6 years we broke gridlock,
    and I signed a crime bill that was endorsed by all the major law
    enforcement organizations in the country, the cities, the counties, the
    prosecutors, the attorneys general, everybody. And it had bipartisan
    support, too, until we got close to the last election; Republicans and
    Democrats cosponsoring all major provisions.
        What was in the crime bill? It had more punishment, ``three strikes
    and you're out,'' expansion of capital punishment. It had more police,
    100,000 police on our street. And I might say that over half of the
    communities in this country have already received grants under the
    police program just since last October. We're ahead of schedule and
    under budget. There are already about 17,000 police officers authorized
    and funded to be hired. It had more prisons, something the Republicans
    very much wanted, as long as the States agreed to change their
    sentencing procedures. And it had more prevention programs, something
    the police demanded. The police said, ``You cannot police and punish and
    imprison your way out of the crime crisis. You have got to give these
    children in our country something to say yes to. You've got to give them
    a reason to stay off drugs, a reason to stay in school, a reason to
    believe they can have a future.'' So it had all those things.
        Now, if the Republicans wish to continue to try to repeal the
    commitment to 100,000 police or to repeal the assault weapons ban, they
    have a perfect right to do it. But if they send me those provisions, I
    will veto them. On the other hand, while the rest of their crime bill
    needs some work and I disagree with some provisions of it, it has some
    good points. If we can build on the '94 crime bill instead of tear it
    down, we can continue our efforts to make the American people more
    secure. So let's do that. Let's pass a crime bill we can be proud of,
    that builds the country up and makes our citizens safer.
        The environmental protection area: A big part of my New Covenant was
    protecting our environment and promoting our natural resources. It's
    something we can all give to our children whether we die rich or poor.
    And it is our obligation to our future economic health, because no
    nation over the long run succeeds economically unless you preserve your
    environment.
        I just got back from Haiti, and I can tell you one of the biggest
    obstacles to the survival of democracy in that country is they have
    ripped all the trees off every hill in the country, and we need to plant
    tens of millions of trees. We could put half the young people in the
    country to work for a year just trying to undo the environmental
    devastation. And unless we do it, they're not going to be able to regain
    their economic footing.
        I cannot and I will not compromise any clean water, any clean air,
    any protection against toxic

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    waste. The environment cannot protect itself. And if it requires a
    Presidential veto to protect it, then that's what I'll provide.
        I will also veto the House-passed requirement that Government pay
    property owners billions of dollars every time we act to defend our
    national heritage of seashores or wetlands or open spaces. If that law
    were on the books in every State in the country today, then local
    governments would completely have to give up zoning or be bankrupt every
    time they try to change a zoning law. That is why every time it's been
    on the ballot in a State--and it's been on the ballot 20 times,
    including in conservative, Republican States--it has been defeated. The
    people of Arizona voted against it by a 20-point margin last November.
        Well, the people do not have to vote--do not have a vote on this
    issue in Congress. But I do, and I'll use it. This is not a good law.
        Peacekeeping: Decades from now when we have our next Republican
    President--[laughter]--he or she will be very grateful that I refused to
    approve the so-called peacekeeping legislation passed by the House. The
    United Nations and the world community did not struggle through 45 years
    of stagnation because of Soviet vetoes to have to deal with a new
    stagnation because of an American congressional veto.
        The United Nations is 50 years old this year. But it's only 4 or 5
    years old as a real force for international stability and security as it
    was imagined by Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight
    Eisenhower and Arthur Vandenberg, responsible Republicans and Democrats.
    So let us learn from the United Nations mistakes in Somalia and the
    United Nations successes in Haiti and throughout the world, about how we
    can best keep the peace in partnership with our neighbors throughout the
    world.
        In Haiti there were almost 30 countries in there with us and the
    multinational force, and under the U.N. mission there now, well over 30
    countries, people who came from a long way away because they know the
    world must work together to promote humanity and peace and democracy and
    decency. Let us not walk away from the United Nations and isolate
    America from the world.
        There's some other things I want to talk about. Those are the items
    in the Republican contract, many of which were also in my New Covenant
    and where I stand on them. But I want to talk about some other items as
    well, the unfinished business of the agenda that I ran for President on.
        I was elected to fix a broken Government, to relight the dormant
    fires of the economy, to make sure that working families reap the just
    reward of their effort and are able to pass their children the same
    dream they had, and to end the sort of something-for-nothing mentality
    that had crept into our country by restoring the values of
    responsibility and work and family and community.
        The Republican contract, even where I agree with it, does not deal
    with much of what is really at the heart of America's challenges today,
    opportunity and security for working Americans. So let me talk about
    these issues.
        Health care: In the State of the Union I said I had learned that I
    bit off more than I could chew last year, and we have to reform health
    care a step at a time. But I haven't forgotten the need to reform health
    care. Everybody knows we still have problems. It costs too much. There
    are a lot of people who have inadequate coverage. There are a lot of
    people who have no coverage at all, and there are millions of Americans
    who could lose their coverage at any time. So I call on Republicans to
    join me in taking this one step at a time, beginning with things the
    majority of them have long endorsed:
        First, making benefits portable so you don't lose your health care
    when you change jobs.
        Second, requiring coverage for families with a preexisting condition
    so the whole family doesn't lose health care just because there's been
    one sick child. I saw a couple from Delaware on the street in Washington
    a couple of months ago when I was taking my jog, the best-looking family
    you ever saw. The young man and woman looked to be in their late
    thirties. They had five children. Their fourth child had a birth defect.
    And he was a small businessman. None of them had any health insurance.
    That's an intolerable situation in this country, and we shouldn't put up
    with it.
        The third thing we ought to do is to establish voluntary pools, such
    as those established in Florida and many other States, which allow small
    businesses and self-employed people to buy health care on the same terms
    as those of us who work for Government or big corporations can buy it,
    to put some competitive power behind their need.

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        The fourth thing we should do is to expand home care for the
    elderly, so that families who are struggling to keep their elderly
    parents and grandparents at home in a more independent living setting
    have some alternative before putting them into a nursing home when it
    will almost certainly cost the Government much, much more money.
        And finally, we ought to do our best in the way of coverage to help
    families keep their coverage when they're unemployed for an extended
    period of time. And we should do all this within the context of a
    determination to hold down the costs of health care, still the biggest
    problem for most Americans. We can do this without a tax increase and
    while working to bring the deficit down. We have been working very hard
    on this. The numbers clearly make that apparent.
        The second issue I want to raise on our unfinished agenda is the
    minimum wage. The minimum wage is the key, first, to welfare reform.
    Unless work pays, why will people do it? There is some evidence that not
    only will the minimum wage increase I proposed not cost jobs, it might
    actually increase employment by drawing people into the ranks of the
    employed who are hanging out now. Not only that, working people simply
    cannot live and raise kids on $8,500 a year.
        Now, the Republicans want--and they've wanted for a long time--they
    want to index tax rates against inflation, which has now been done. Now
    they want to index capital gains against inflation. They want to guard
    the defense budget against inflation. But they're willing to let minimum
    wage workers fall to their lowest real incomes in 40 years? That's what
    will happen if we don't raise the minimum wage. The lowest real incomes
    in 40 years, is that your idea of the legacy for working people in the
    aftermath of the cold war, in the information age, leading America into
    a bright, new time?
        The minimum wage, again, has always before been a bipartisan issue.
    The last time we raised the minimum wage, it got an enormous vote in the
    Congress from Republicans and Democrats. Let's make the minimum wage a
    bipartisan issue again and raise it to a decent level, so that working
    people and their children will not have to worry about being punished
    for doing the right thing.
        The last issue I want to talk about is education and training. I've
    already said most of what I want to say about it. The Secretary of
    Education is here with me today, along with many other people in the
    White House, my Chief of Staff, Mr. Panetta, and others. We've all
    worked very hard on education. Why? Because I believe that the most
    important job of Government today is to give people the tools they need
    to succeed in the global economy.
        With all these changes that are going on, everybody knows the
    Government can't guarantee everybody a job. We haven't been able to do
    it in a long time, and our ability to guarantee the same job for a
    career is less than ever before. I can work to create healthy conditions
    in which large numbers of jobs will be created, but guaranteeing a
    particular job to a particular person for a lifetime, it is out. It's
    not possible.
        The only thing we can do is to make sure that for a whole lifetime
    people will always be able to get the skills they need, beginning at the
    earliest possible time with good education. That means that as we cut
    the deficit and cut the budget, we must not cut education. We shouldn't
    cut Head Start. We shouldn't cut aid to public schools to meet national
    standards of excellence. We shouldn't cut apprenticeships to help young
    people who don't go on to college get good training so they can get a
    job with a growing income, not a shrinking income.
        We sure shouldn't cut and make more expensive the college loan
    program when we need more people going to college and the cost of going
    is higher than ever before. And we should not cut our national service
    program, AmeriCorps, which lets people earn college money through
    community service. Cutting education in the face of global economic
    competition, as I have said repeatedly, would be just like cutting the
    defense budget at the height of the cold war. It undermines our security
    as a people, and we shouldn't do it.
        I advocated in the middle class bill of rights a deduction for the
    cost of all education after high school; the ability to withdraw tax-
    free from an IRA to pay for the cost of education after high school; and
    a ``GI bill'' for America's workers that would collapse literally dozens
    of these Federal programs that are here, there, and yonder in job
    training into one block grant, and not give it to the States, give it to
    the people. Let Americans who are unemployed or grossly unemployed have
    a voucher for cash money which they can use at any education or training
    facility of their choice as long as it's decent and meets good
    standards, so that we can have

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    a continuous, seamless web of lifetime of education and training
    opportunities for the people of the United States.
        Well, there it is. That's what I'm for and what I'm against. I do
    not want a pile of vetoes. I want a pile of bills that will move this
    country into the future. I don't want to see a big fight between the
    Republicans and the Democrats. I want us to surprise everybody in
    America by rolling up our sleeves and joining hands and working
    together. I believe this is a time of such profound change that we need
    a dynamic center that is not in the middle of what is left and right but
    is way beyond it. That's what I want, and that's what I'm working for.
        If you want to know how I'm going to make other decisions--if I left
    one out--I would refer you to what I said in my address to the Nation on
    December 15th. My test is: Does an idea expand middle class incomes and
    opportunities? Does it promote values like family, work, responsibility,
    and community? Does it strengthen the hand of America's working families
    in a global economy? If it does, I'll be for it, no matter who proposes
    it. And if it doesn't, I will oppose it.
        The future I want for America is like the one I imagined I had when
    I was the age of these children that are here in this audience. We can
    give this to our children. In fact, we can give a bigger future to our
    children. I am absolutely convinced that if we are tough enough and wise
    enough and unpolitical enough to put the interests of ordinary Americans
    first, and to really focus on the future, that our best days are before
    us, better than we can even imagine. But it all depends on what we do at
    this crossroads. Let's get busy.
        Thank you very much.

    [At this point, the President took questions from newspaper editors.]

    Newspaper Role in Community Dialog

        Q. Mr. President, you talk about a civilized conversation in this
    country leading towards a new common ground. How would you challenge
    American newspapers to forward that conversation, doing things that we
    aren't doing now?
        The President. Well, I don't know what each of you are doing or not
    doing now. But I will give you some examples. I'll give you three
    examples. I think you should try to replicate in your communities the
    kind of conversation that Newsweek reprinted based on questions they
    asked Speaker Gingrich and me about what the role of Government is and
    what it should be. I don't think that we--I think both of us are a
    little bit frustrated about it, because we didn't know--we just answered
    questions, and then they had to turn it into an article, but it was the
    beginning of an interesting conversation about what the role of
    Government ought to be.
        The second thing I would advise is to take each one of these
    issues--I saw in the, I think it was in the Dallas Morning News, one of
    the papers today I saw, that I read had a portrait of a family on
    welfare. Take each of these big issues and try to figure out how to go
    from rhetoric to reality so that people can understand what all these
    labels mean. Because if all you hear about these debates is what sort of
    pierces through in 10 or 15 seconds on the evening news, chances are
    your opinion will be more dominated by the rhetoric. And if it happens
    to comport with the facts, that's fine, but if it doesn't, that's not so
    good. Newspapers can do that. Newspapers can analyze in depth real, hard
    evidence on various problems.
        And the third thing I think maybe you ought to consider doing is
    sponsoring conversations within your community of people of different
    political and racial and other stripes--just people who are different.
    Because we are running the risk--interestingly enough, we have more
    information than ever before, but the way we get it may divide us from
    one another instead of unite us.
        And I think it might be really interesting if all the newspapers in
    the country sponsored community discussions. I don't mean bring people
    like me or people who want to be President, or even maybe people from
    Congress in from outside, but I mean the people in your local community
    who would represent different political points of view and live in
    different neighborhoods and are from different racial backgrounds and
    have an agenda of common topics that are being discussed all around the
    country, and let people listen to each other and talk to each other.
        My experience has always been that the differences among us, except
    on a few issues, are not nearly as profound as we think they are. And
    then report that to your readers, because we have to establish some
    sense of common ground. If all of our public discourse is about

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    segmenting the electorate and then trying to make sure that by election
    day you've got the biggest segment, and there's never an opportunity to
    redefine where we are in common, that may work okay in a stable time
    because the policies are more or less set, the direction is more or less
    set; nobody's going to veer too much one way or the other anyway. But in
    a time of real profound change where the information revolution has made
    all of us actors, it is important that we try to establish more common
    ground. So those would be my three suggestions.

    V-J Day 50th Anniversary

        Q. Mr. President, we're coming upon the ceremonies to commemorate
    the 50th anniversary of V-J Day. And someone suggested that it's time to
    try to heal the wounds of that war, and that the United States should
    take the first step by apologizing for dropping a bomb on Hiroshima and
    Nagasaki. Should we apologize? And did President Harry Truman make the
    right decision in dropping the bomb?
        The President. No. And based on the facts he had before him, yes.

    Cuban Refugees

        Q. Mr. President, last week you went to Haiti, where the military
    operation of our troops and other nations really helped restore order
    and to stop the refugees from coming to our State and to our country.
    Several miles away, there are several thousand Cubans trying to flee
    that oppressive regime who are now being detained indefinitely in
    Guantanamo. What's the way out for our policy and for those Cubans?
        The President. First, we are doing our best to deal with the
    situation at Guantanamo, which is a very difficult one, for reasons
    because of where you're from you understand as well as I do. We have
    moved quickly, or as quickly as we could to review the cases of the
    children and the elderly people who are there, and we have moved quite a
    lot of people into the United States. We are now having detailed
    discussions about what we should do about the remainder of the people
    who are there at Guantanamo. Meanwhile, we've done what we could to make
    their conditions as livable, as bearable as possible.
        As to our policy, even though I recognize most countries disagree
    with it, I think being firm has been the proper policy. And I do not
    believe we should change it except within the confines of the Cuban
    Democracy Act. I would remind everyone here who's interested in this
    that the Cuban Democracy Act, while it stiffened sanctions against Cuba,
    also for the first time explicitly laid out in legislative language the
    conditions under which the United States might change various actions
    toward Cuba in return for actions by the Cubans.
        Let me give you just one example. We have established, for the first
    time, direct phone service into Cuba. And the lines are quite jammed, as
    I understand it. It's cut the cost of calling home and calling relatives
    for Cuban-Americans. And it's enabled the Cuban Government to earn some
    money, because in all direct telephone conversations internationally,
    countries--at least, many countries--put a fee on such conversations. We
    did that because we thought it was the appropriate thing to do given the
    state of our relations and because of some things that had changed. Cuba
    is now establishing a more genuine farmers market that shows some
    movement in that area.
        But the Cuban Democracy Act gives us a framework for future
    movement, and I--and also a firmness in our policy. And I think we
    should stay with both, both the firmness and the framework of the act.

    Multiracial Families

        Q. We have heard from several people here that there ought to be a
    multiracial box on the U.S. census forms so that people with parents of
    two races wouldn't have to deny one of them. What do you think should
    happen here?
        The President. I wouldn't be opposed to that. That's the first time
    I ever heard it, but it makes sense. It's interesting that you raised
    that because of a related debate that's going on in Washington today,
    which is whether we should pass a Federal law which makes it clear that
    we should not discriminate against parents of one race in their attempts
    to adopt a child of another race. And I personally strongly support that
    position. And we've been trying to work through it to make--I though we
    had adopted that position last year at the end of the year. We did in
    large measure. We're talking about whether we need any other legal
    changes to achieve that.
        But I--we are clearly going to have more and more multiracial,
    multiethnic children and families in this country. You're the first
    person

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    who ever asked me that question. But I think it ought to be done. I
    can't see any reason not to do it.

    Telecommunications Legislation

        Q. One of the issues we've been examining at this convention, Mr.
    President, is the new information age and our own role in it. And one of
    the issues that's likely to come up in the next 100 days to which you
    referred is a broad reform of telecommunications policy. Do you think
    that a pragmatic, practical compromise solution in this area, which
    affects how people get their dial tones and what is on the dial tone, is
    likely to come out of these discussions?
        The President. I do. I think it is likely. Let me say that I very
    much wanted to pass a telecommunications act in the last session of
    Congress. And we came within a hair's breadth of being able to do it.
    Some rather--to me anyway--rather minor problems hung it up in the
    Senate. And as you know, it's not difficult to hang a bill up in the
    Senate. And so it got hung. If we can pass the right kind of
    telecommunications act, it can be good for American consumers and it can
    pump billions of more dollars into this economy and create a very large
    number of jobs.
        It's interesting that you would ask me this. The Vice President and
    I had lunch yesterday, our weekly lunch, and we talked about this for
    quite some time. My concern about the bill in its present form in the
    Senate is that I believe, as written, it would lead to a rather rapid
    increase and a rather substantial increase in both telephone and cable
    rates in ways that I do not believe are necessary to get the benefits
    that the telecommunications bill seeks to achieve. So I would like to
    see some provisions in there which deal with that.
        I can also tell you that the Antitrust Division of the Justice
    Department has some fairly serious reservations about how far it goes.
    Now I have in several areas been willing to see, because of the
    globalization of the economy, some modifications in our antitrust laws.
    But I'm concerned--and I think they're warranted. But I think that this
    may go too far. But the most important concern I have is, are we going
    to have a very large and unnecessary increase in cable and phone rates
    immediately if the bill, as passed, is adopted? That is my major
    concern. But I think we can get one, and we certainly need to get one.

    First Lady's Role

        Q. Mr. President, yesterday on the front page of the New York Times
    was this headline, ``Hillary Clinton a Traditional First Lady Now.''
    Could you tell us, was there a point where you sat down with the First
    Lady to discuss her role for the remainder of your term? [Laughter]
        The President. No.
        Q. And if so, what was the content of that discussion and what
    prompted it? [Laughter]
        The President. I was trying to think of something really funny to
    say, but it would be a polite way of saying I don't discuss my private
    conversations with my wife. [Laughter]
        Actually, while I was very pleased with the First Lady's trip and
    with the way my wife and daughter were treated and what they learned,
    and very, very pleased with the coverage, I don't really agree with
    that. I mean, I think that I very much wanted her to go to India, to
    Pakistan, to Bangladesh, Nepal, to Sri Lanka because that part of the
    world is a very important part of the world to us. And for various
    reasons, we have not been as closely involved, even with the democracies
    there, as we might have been, largely as a legacy of the cold war.
        But one of the biggest obstacles to the modernization of those
    countries and to the vitality and preservation of democracy are the
    challenges faced by women and children there. I did not consider the
    trip either too traditional or unimportant. I thought what they were
    doing--what Hillary was doing was profoundly important. And after
    getting a blow-by-blow description of the trip for a good long while
    yesterday from both my wife and daughter, I still feel that way.
        So I--when my wife was an unconventional First Lady of Arkansas and
    working full-time and, as she told that lady in the Bangladesh village,
    making more money than her husband--[laughter]--still her first concern
    was always for the welfare of mothers, children, and families. She
    founded an organization called the Advocates for Families and Children
    in our State. She was on the board of the Children's Hospital. We built
    an intensive care nursery there, the first time the State had ever been
    involved. This is a 25-year concern of hers, and I wouldn't over-read
    the significance of it.
        I also wouldn't underestimate the significance of having a First
    Lady who can galvanize a glob-

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    al discussion about the role of women and young girls on our planet and
    for our future.

    Electronic Information Regulation

        Q. You alluded to our being in the information age. Many of us in
    this room are investigating and developing ways of disseminating
    information electronically. There are thousands outside this room who
    are doing the same. What role, if any, does the Federal Government have
    in censoring or regulating that information and news?
        The President. Let me begin by saying I support what you're doing,
    and I've tried to bring the White House up to date electronically. You
    know, we have a pretty sophisticated E-mail operation. And now you can
    take a tour of the White House and all the Federal agencies on the
    Internet and find out more than you ever wanted to know. So we're trying
    to be there for you in virtual reality land.
        I guess you're asking me about the bill that Senator Exon introduced
    on trying to regulate obscenity through the E-mail system, or through
    the electronic superhighway. To be perfectly honest with you, I have not
    read the bill. I am not familiar with its contents, and I don't know
    what I think. I do believe--about this specific bill. [Laughter] I'll
    tell you what I think about the issue.
        I believe that insofar as that Governments have the legal right to
    regulate obscenity that has not been classified as speech under the
    First Amendment, and insofar as the American public widely supports, for
    example, limiting access of children to pornographic magazines, I think
    it is folly to think that we should sit idly by when a child who is a
    computer whiz may be exposed to things on that computer which in some
    ways are more powerful, more raw, and more inappropriate than those
    things from which we protect them when they walk in a 7-Eleven.
        So as a matter of principle, I am not opposed to it. I just can't
    comment on the details of the bill, because I do not know enough about
    it. And I do not believe in any way shape or form that we should be able
    to do on E-mail, or through the electronic superhighway, in terms of
    Government regulation of speech, anything beyond what we could
    elsewhere. I think the First Amendment has to be uniform in its
    application.
        So I'm not calling for a dilution of the First Amendment. But if you
    just imagine, those of us who have children and who think about this,
    you just think about what's the difference in going in the 7-Eleven and
    hooking up to the computer. I think that we have to find some resolution
    of this. And within the Supreme Court's standards, which are very
    strict, I am not philosophically opposed to some action.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:55 a.m. at the Loews Anatole Hotel. In
    his remarks, he referred to Gregory Favre, outgoing president, Robert J.
    Haiman, board of directors, and William B. Ketter, incoming president,
    American Society of Newspaper Editors; Gov. William F. Weld of
    Massachusetts; and Gov. Stephen Merrill of New Hampshire.