[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
[June 11, 1995]
[Pages 848-861]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in a Town Meeting With Speaker of the House of Representatives 
Newt Gingrich in Claremont, New Hampshire
June 11, 1995

    The President. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, 
Lou. Mr. Speaker, Governor, Mayor Lizott, Congressman Bass, Mrs. 
Gingrich, Mrs. Zeliff, to Sandy Osgood, and to the Stevens High School 
Band, thank you very much for keeping everybody entertained while I got 
away from Dartmouth and got over here.
    I am delighted to be back in Claremont again. I have spent some 
happy days here. And I was invited to come here, as you know, when you 
folks found out--I think it was actually Lou's idea; he found out I was 
going to be at Dartmouth giving the speech. And then I was interviewed, 
and someone said, ``Well, the Speaker is going to be here for the whole 
weekend. What advice would you give him?'' And I said, ``Well, I'd give 
him two pieces of advice. I think he ought to--if he's going to be in 
Concord, he ought to go down to Mary Hill's grocery store and talk to 
her because she's a wise woman. And he ought to do one of these little 
town meetings like I do from time to time.'' And so he called me, and he 
said, ``I accept.'' [Laughter]
    So that's how you became transformed into this. I'm going to talk 
for a couple of minutes; he's going to talk for a couple of minutes. 
Then

[[Page 849]]

we're going to spend most of our time just answering your questions. But 
let me be very brief and say that when I came here in 1992, I was 
running because I thought we ought to change the direction of the 
country. I thought that we were in danger of losing our standard of 
living and that we were coming apart when we ought to be coming 
together. I was worried about the decline in middle class incomes, the 
growth of the under class, the high unemployment rate at the time, an 
exploding deficit, a declining level of investment. I was also worried 
very much about the breakdown of our families, the number of children 
growing up in poverty, and the whole breakdown of a lot of the social 
factors that are very important to all of us and made us what we are.
    I said then and I will reiterate today that I thought what we needed 
then--I still believe what we need is an economic strategy that focuses 
on creating jobs and raising incomes, a social strategy that rewards 
work and family, in terms of welfare reform and everything else we do, 
it reinforces responsible childrearing and responsible work, that we 
ought to do it in a way that reduced the size of the Government and 
reduced the bureaucratic burden of the Government but kept the 
Government on the side of ordinary Americans.
    Now, what I tried to do is follow policies--whether it was reducing 
the deficit, expanding trade, increasing investment in education, 
promoting welfare reform--things that would help people to make the most 
of their own lives. I've also tried to do things I thought would 
increase security for American people, whether it was the Family and 
Medical Leave Act or the crime bill or the things we've tried to do in 
foreign policy or the antiterrorism legislation that the Speaker will 
take up when the Congress meets again starting tomorrow.
    Now, we have a lot of differences, and perhaps these differences 
will come out. But we also have some areas in which we can work 
together. I think the most important thing is that we try to identify 
clearly the places where we disagree but then make our best effort, our 
dead-level best effort, to work together to move this country forward.
    It seems to me that a lot of our problems are not particularly 
partisan in nature. We do have--for example, as I have said from the day 
I became President, we cannot afford not to do something about the fact 
that Medicare and Medicaid costs have risen at much more rapid rates 
than Government revenues are going up, so that every year we spend more 
and more on Medicare and Medicaid, which means we have to either spend 
less on something else or explode the deficit. But I think how we do it 
and how long we take to do it and the manner in which we do it is 
critical.
    So we need to discuss these things in an open way. And one of the 
things that I like about New Hampshire that I don't like about modern 
politics, generally, because it's so different, is that when I was 
running here in '92, I really felt that most people were making their 
decisions based on encounters like this rather than 30-second television 
ads or some blurb that comes across the airwaves where one politician is 
hitting another one and trying to use some emotional issue to divide the 
American people instead of to bring them together. I think that is what 
you have done for Presidential politics, which is why I hope you'll 
always be able to have this first-in-the-Nation primary for both 
parties, so we'll all have to go through this process of getting to know 
each other.
    So having said that, I'd like to now bring the Speaker on, let him 
say a word or two, and then we'll get on with your questions.
    Mr. Speaker.
    Speaker Gingrich. Let me say--let me say, first of all, that I am 
delighted to be here, and I appreciate very, very much--I appreciate 
very much the opportunity to be here. And I want to thank both Lou 
Gendron and I want to thank the President for having been willing to 
allow me to come over.

[At this point, there was a disturbance in the audience.]

    Speaker Gingrich. I think, despite this particular gentleman, I 
think that the tradition of New Hampshire for townhall meetings is 
exactly the right sort of thing to do.
    Now, let me just say, if I might, that I am delighted to be here and 
that you ought to know this is a historic moment, the President visiting 
you, as we are told--the first time since, I believe, Calvin Coolidge 
came here in the 1920's that a President has visited, although of course 
many candidates have been here in the primaries. And I believe in all of 
American history there has never been a townhall meeting where a 
President and a Speaker have been there at

[[Page 850]]

the same time. So literally, the city of Claremont is setting history 
today.
    Marianne and I are delighted to be here with Congressman Bass and 
Mrs. Zeliff and with Governor Merrill. But I wanted to say two things 
that have happened to me today that are classically New Hampshire. One I 
did on my own, and one the President recommended.
    First of all, we got up very early this morning, and I want to 
report that we did see four moose, and one of them was a huge bull that 
stood in the middle of the road and stared until every single 
photographer who was with me could get their picture. [Laughter] The 
other was, I have to report, Mr. President, I broke down; we stopped at 
the Dunkin Donuts in Berlin this morning after seeing the moose, and 
this is why you've done better with your figure than I have with mine. 
[Laughter] I failed. But I followed his advice.
    Let me say also to the band--I had a chance to listen a while ago--I 
thought you set exactly the right tone and exactly the right mood. I am 
grateful that you all would allow me to come and join the President. I 
hope today we can talk in a positive way about the positive things we 
Americans need to do.
    And I agree with the President--the New Hampshire tradition of this 
kind of a discussion where we can sit, you can ask questions, we can 
both talk, and we're not in 9-second or 20-second or clever 
advertisements or any of that stuff. And I just want to say one thing 
about where we are that I think all of you can identify with. I called 
my mom a while ago, and I called my mother-in-law, and said, ``Gee, I'm 
here now, and what should I do?'' and all that. And I also talked to my 
two daughters. We have all three generations involved now in this 
discussion.
    But let me tell you what I really honestly believe--and I think this 
is pretty close to the President's--most of you lived through the 
Depression, and it was hard. And you saved freedom in World War II. And 
you saved freedom in Korea. And you paid the taxes. And you worked at 
the jobs to help win the cold war. And you raised your children, and you 
wanted them to live in a better country. And now, you're helping raise 
your grandchildren.
    And I believe all Americans can be told the truth and can actually 
watch their leaders have honest, open disagreements and can talk things 
out, and we can find common solutions. And I believe this process, 
working with the President, with the House and the Senate, with the 
Governors, I believe we can get to a balanced budget in a positive way. 
I believe we can save Medicare, and it will not go broke, despite the 
trustees' report. I believe we can create a better future for our 
children and grandchildren. But it's got to be done exactly like here 
today.
    So I hope with your permission, the President and I will now have a 
dialog with you, and maybe the country can learn a little bit about 
working together, not just buying commercials and attacking each other.
    Thank you for letting me be here.
    The President. Who would like to go first? Who's got a question? 
Yes, sir.

Lobby and Health Care Reform

[A participant asked if a bipartisan commission could be formed to 
address lobby reform.]

    The President. Well, I would certainly be open to that. Let me back 
up and say one of the differences we have--let's talk about one of the 
differences we have about this. No one seriously believes that the 
budget can be balanced unless we can reduce the rate of increase in 
Medicare and Medicaid costs. We agree on that. We disagree on how much 
we have to reduce it and how it ought to be done.
    I also believe that it would be far better if we could do it in the 
context of health care reform so that, for example, for seniors, we 
would provide some incentives for less expensive but more widely 
available long-term care short of nursing homes. We would have more 
emphasis on preventive care, because one of the big problems with 
Medicare is--there are three issues here: What is the medical rate of 
inflation, and can we get it down to the overall rate of inflation? You 
know, health care costs have been going up more than medical costs--
regular costs. The second issue is how many new folks are coming on to 
Medicare every year. The third issue is how much more will the same 
people use the system because people are living longer and longer, and 
the longer you live, the more you need to use it.
    And all these things are at the core of what we have to work out 
about how much we try to control the spending. It may be that the only 
way to do that is in the context of some sort of base closing 
commission, like you say. But I think we have to tell them what their

[[Page 851]]

mission is. That is, it seems to me that the mission can't just be to 
save money. It has to be not only to stabilize the Medicare fund over 
the long run but to do it in a way that doesn't force retirees without 
the means to do it to shoulder much bigger increases for their own 
health care or run the risk of having professionals jump out of the 
health care system.
    Now, that is what my problem is. I just think that--we have to be 
very careful about this. We've worked hard to bring down the cost 
increases. But to get much--to go lower, we're going to have to have 
structural changes that provide for real options and quality of health 
care, in my opinion. Without health care reform, I don't think you can 
go dramatically lower.
    Speaker Gingrich. Let me just ask first, I--[applause]--let me stop, 
and please applaud. I think this is--to have the President here is a 
good thing.
    Let me--I think you were saying something a little different. I'll 
talk about Medicare in a second. But I think you were raising an issue 
that's very interesting. If I understood, sir, you're suggesting that 
when this whole issue of lobbyists and campaign finance and, you know, 
we have this whole issue about gifts in the Congress, which I'm, 
frankly, very uncomfortable with--I mean, I just--I don't know how all 
of you would feel, but when you come down to talking about yourself, 
it's very tricky sometimes. And I think you were suggesting--I've never 
heard this proposed before--that maybe if we had sort of a blue-ribbon 
commission of people that really had respect and integrity, that would 
look at the whole lobbying political process----
    The President. Is that what you--I thought you were talking about 
health care reform.
    Speaker Gingrich. No, no----
    The President. You want to do it on lobby reform? In a heartbeat. I 
accept. Because, otherwise--otherwise, in this--we cannot pass lobby 
reform or campaign finance reform or anything else. I would love to have 
a bipartisan commission on it. It's our only chance to get anything 
passed. I accept.
    Speaker Gingrich. Let's shake hands right here in front of 
everybody. How's that? Is that a pretty good deal?
    The President. I accept.
    Speaker Gingrich. I'll tell you, if every question is this 
productive--now, can I just take one minute, Mr. President, and talk 
about the Medicare thing? I do think the President put his finger on 
something here where I think we analyze it slightly different, but we 
both have the same commitment. And let me say, because I did talk both 
to my mother-in-law and my mother today, I can report that I'm checking 
in pretty much with people who are immediately concerned about Medicare.
    There are two differences. One is, I agree with the President that 
there are a number of things that have to be changed about health care 
in America. For example, I believe if you're in the insurance system, we 
ought to guarantee tomorrow morning that you have portability, that you 
can change insurance and change jobs and there are no preconditions. And 
I feel this personally because my older daughter has a precondition, and 
she's been through a period where she had to spend a whole year in 
vulnerability without any insurance.
    So I think step by step--I think where we disagreed strategically 
is, I think you can do those one building block at a time and get them 
through and get them signed. I think it's very hard as a practical 
matter to get a big comprehensive bill through because it seems to break 
down of its own weight.
    Now, specifically on Medicare, I hope this summer that we'll be able 
to work with the President and with his Cabinet. We're going to propose 
a plan in general terms that takes current spending, which is $4,800 a 
year per senior citizen, and moves it up over the 7 years of the budget 
to $6,400 per senior citizen. That takes into account additional people. 
But it will be a $1,600 or 33 percent increase. That's less than the 
current projections--I'm not going to try to kid anybody--but it is an 
increase.
    And what we're trying to do right now is find a way, first of all, 
to guarantee that everyone who wants the current Medicare can keep it. 
And it may--you may have some increase in the amount you pay, much along 
the line you had in the last 6 or 7 years. But you can keep the current 
system. Nobody's going to be forced to change. Nobody has to leave.
    But at the same time, I'm hoping that working with the President and 
his administration, we can find five or six additional options: Managed 
care for those who want it--in some counties, a lot do; in other 
counties, very few people do. Medical savings accounts, which is a new 
idea that lets people have savings which could then be applied to long-
term care, for example. A voucher system, which some big companies

[[Page 852]]

are now using, which is very effective, where you can go to any doctor 
you want and we pay directly to the doctor of your choice, your control. 
And finally, something which I think we'll get overwhelming support 
for--if you look at your bills and you see waste or fraud, I'd like us 
to work in a system so if you spot it and you report it, you get a 
percentage of the savings, so every senior citizen in the country has a 
good, sound reason to check on waste and fraud to help us get that out 
of the system, because there's a General Accounting Office report that 
says there's about $44 billion a year in waste and fraud in both 
Medicare and Medicaid combined.
    So I'm just suggesting, if we can work together and get the Senate 
with us, we can, by the end of the summer, keep the current system and 
offer four or five options and move towards a system where you become a 
customer and you're making the choice for you about which one you like. 
And if you prefer the current system, you get to keep it. That's your 
choice.
    The President. Here's what my concerns are. Will I work with them 
and try to work this out? Absolutely. But here's what my concerns are. 
It sounds like a lot to increase something by one-third over 7 years. 
But that's about 4 percent a year. And this last year we had medical 
inflation at about 4\1/2\ percent, and that was good. We don't know 
whether it will stay that way, and the problem is that the Medicare 
population is going to get older and older. And as they get older, 
people use the system more. So I don't know that we can keep it to 4 
percent a year.
    The Republican in the Senate, Senator Packwood, with the major 
responsibility for this says that we can stabilize the financial fund of 
Medicare with savings at about half the level proposed in the Speaker's 
budget. It's not really his budget, but--well, it is now. They passed 
it. And I would prefer not to say right now we're going to cut at a 
level greater than I believe we have to in ways that I think will 
certainly require a lot of people who cannot afford it to pay more until 
we have explored all other alternatives, because I believe we can get 
there without doing this.
    And as you know, I believe--let me say, there are going to have to 
be some changes. We cannot leave the system the way it is. We can't 
pretend that just because we're at a senior center that there will be no 
changes. There have to be some changes. But I think these reductions 
from the projected levels of spending I think are too severe, and what I 
favor is having a smaller tax cut and a smaller Medicare reduction and 
Medicaid reduction. And then let's see how much we can save year by 
year, because we have not tried a lot of these things.
    He and I both, for example--I really believe you ought to have 
incentives to join managed care plans. I don't think anybody ought to 
make you do it; I just think you ought to have incentives to do it. Out 
West, I know, there's one managed care plan for Medicare that offers 
people the right to get into Medicare for 95 percent of what the per-
person cost is, and they give them a prescription drug benefit along 
with health care and still make money.
    I think you should have the right--I think, you know, people ought 
to be able to try to talk you into doing that, that that ought to be an 
option, not a requirement. If you want to stay in the program, I think 
you ought to be able to stay in the program.
    The way it works now is, you don't pay for part A, but you do pay 
more, as you said, by about the rate of inflation for the doctor bills 
and things like that. So that's where I would start these negotiations. 
I'd say, let's cut it as little as possible until we know how much we 
can save, because if we lock ourselves into a tax cut and we lock 
ourselves into other spending, then we'll wind up just not funding it, 
even if we wind up hurting people. And I don't think we ought to do 
that. I have no problem with all these experiments, but let's know what 
we're going to do.
    Speaker Gingrich. Can I make one other comment? I'll just make one 
quick comment, and then we'll go back to a question here.
    But let me just say, I think in spirit we're not that far apart. The 
thing that is driving us is that the trustees reported that Medicare 
will go broke by 2002. It starts to lose money next year and it 
literally runs--this is part A. This the hospital part. And all of you--
folks who may be watching may not get it, but every person in this room 
understands part A, or every person in this plaza understands part A.
    We start first with two big steps here. And then I think we can talk 
about exactly how we make the transition. One is, how do we save it for 
your generation? And that's very, very important. And we have to--and 
the earlier we

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can take some changes, the easier it's going to be to make that 
transition by 2002.
    But I must tell you--I become 52 this coming week. And I'm older 
than he is, and you can see where the gray hair up here--but I started 
thinking about when the baby boomers start to retire, the weight of the 
current system financially is so enormous--and we've seen some numbers--
$3,500,000,000,000 a year would be the cost of Medicare alone, not 
counting Social Security.
    And so, part of what I hope we can do is set up a second 
commission--to go back to this gentleman's idea--and this would be a 
commission that would look out beyond saving Medicare in the short run 
and start to talk now about what do we need to do for the baby boomers 
in their retirement years and their health care. Because frankly, that 
makes everything we're worried about--the folks who replace us 20 years 
from now are going to have a much bigger challenge than we have in 
figuring out how the baby boomers retire and what happens with them.
    But I think that's something we could probably work on in a positive 
way together.
    The President. Let me just, again, reemphasize two or three points. 
I, in general, am going to agree with that. We need to focus on some 
things we know right now will work. We know we could save money long-
term in the system if there were other options for long-term care in 
addition to nursing homes. There will always be people who need to be in 
nursing homes. But there should be other options. Today, there aren't 
any. And you've got all kinds of middle class families where the parents 
have to spend down all their assets to qualify for Medicaid to get into 
a nursing home because there's nothing else they can do. So we wind up 
cutting off our nose to spite our face, you know. In order to keep the 
family from going broke, the Government winds up paying more than might 
otherwise be necessary.
    But to be fair, we don't know how to cost that out. We ought to get 
more people the option of going into a managed care program. If somebody 
says, ``For the same price you're paying now we could also give you a 
prescription drug benefit, but you'd lose a few options on who your 
doctors were,'' then you should decide whether you want to do that or 
not. You could decide. We ought to do that. We ought to do more wellness 
and prevention planning.
    My only fear is that we should be very careful about how we plan the 
budgets over the next 5 or 6 or 7 years. When I became President, the 
Medicare trust fund was projected to go broke in 1999. So we pushed it 
back to 2002. I think we have to push it back another 4 or 5 years. 
We've got to keep doing that. But I agree with--one thing the Speaker 
said I absolutely agree with--when you think about what the baby boomers 
require, which is, what, 2019 or 11 or whenever it was, I'm trying to 
push it--whenever I get that age--[laughter]--that's going to require a 
significant long-term structural adjustment. We'll have to look at what 
we can do there.
    But the main thing we can't do--we can't have this thing go broke in 
the meanwhile. And I'm just telling you that less drastic procedures in 
my judgment can keep it from going broke if we make some other changes 
in our overall budgeting, without undermining our ability to balance the 
budget.
    Who's got another question?

Congress

[A participant asked Speaker Gingrich when Congress would stop playing 
special interest and partisan politics and start working together for 
the good of the country.]

    Speaker Gingrich. I think that's a very good question. It's partly, 
of course, answered by this gentleman, who I think has a great idea. You 
now have us publicly in front of you and all these reporters saying 
we're going to work together. And I hope we can develop a blue-ribbon 
commission pretty fast, because that's a part of it.
    Part of it is why I said I was glad the President suggested this and 
then agreed to do it. I think just having your leaders chat rather than 
fight is a good thing. I think--it sets a different tone.
    Now, I want to commend the President. He sent up some very important 
antiterrorism legislation. We had a meeting of all the Republican and 
Democratic leaders with him. We talked about it right after the Oklahoma 
City bombing. It then got bogged down in both Houses, frankly, more than 
it should have. Senator Dole then made an appeal to the President 
because the Senate has--see, in the House you have very strict rules, 
and you can get something through in a day if you work at it. In the 
Senate, if

[[Page 854]]

you have one or two Senators who don't like something, it takes forever.
    Now, I don't think the Arkansas Legislature, back when the President 
was Governor, quite had a senate that had that kind of power. I think it 
was--you know, this filibuster--so Senator Dole appealed to the 
President, and the President, frankly, rose to the occasion, worked out 
a bipartisan agreement, and I think dramatically changed the tone of 
that antiterrorism debate and helped us get something through that was 
very, very positive.
    So I think there are steps like this. I hope--I reacted positively 
the other day when the President said he was going to have a budget 
proposal. We're in conference now. But frankly, if they do submit 
something this week or next week, we're not--I mean, we're going to 
take--we're going to sit down and look at it all. I think this summer we 
ought to work on Medicare together. We shouldn't have a Republican plan 
and a Democratic plan.
    In the House we've tried that. We had Mike Parker, who's a Democrat, 
who met with our budget committee members all through the budget. We had 
some Democrats, not a lot but some, who voted with us on the budget. In 
the Senate, Senator Kerrey from the entitlement commission and Senator 
Nunn and one other Senator voted for the budget.
    But we ought to--when we can, we ought to pick up on what you said. 
It's very hard, though, for a practical reason. The Founding Fathers 
designed the Congress to be where everybody sends their representative. 
And it's the place where everybody shows up with their ideas. And I'll 
tell you, some days, even with the best of will--Congressman Gephardt, 
for example, and his wife, Jane, are good friends to Marianne and me--
even with the best of will, you find yourself some days wondering how 
did you get into the particular mess you're in.
    And the Founding Fathers wanted an arena in the House and Senate to 
fight out our passions instead of having a civil war. They wanted us to 
send everybody from every part of the country. And their idea was that 
they wanted a system so inefficient that no dictator could force it to 
work. Now, the problem with that is----
    The President. They sure did that.
    Speaker Gingrich. I was going to say, they succeeded. We can barely 
get it together voluntarily. So, Mr. President----
    The President. Let me say, I think there are a couple of things we 
need to try to be candid about. One is my great frustrations since I've 
been President is that--I have a line that I sometimes say in speeches; 
I'll just tell you, I was in Montana the other day, and I said, ``Shoot, 
if all I knew about me was what I saw on the evening news, I wouldn't be 
for me half the time either.'' [Laughter] I mean, the truth is that it 
is so difficult for us in Washington to communicate with people out in 
the country, with all of the layers between us, that what often is the 
only way to break through is some fairly extreme statement.
    The Speaker is real good at that; he can break through like nobody 
I've seen in a long time. [Laughter] But it will get covered. He can 
break through.
    The easy way for--let's take this Medicare debate. The easiest way 
for us to break through is for him to say, they want to fix the trust 
fund and the Democrats have no plan, and for me to say, he cuts Medicare 
too much and it will cost you a lot. Now, the truth is we both believe 
that, but it's more complicated than that. And the problem we have is 
that in a difficult time like this, where we're moving into a whole new 
era, there very often are not simple answers to complex problems; but 
simple answers very often move the electorate.
    So if you don't want that, if you want a reasoned debate and you 
really want to say to the Republicans and Democrats, ``Look, get 
together and do something that is good for the country and put party 
aside,'' then out here in the country, when the Congressmen and the 
Senators come home on the weekends, you need to tell them that. And you 
need to say it over and over and over again: ``We will stay with you. We 
will not be spooked by this or that lunge in one direction or the other. 
We'll give you 4, 5, or 6 months to try to work through this budget, and 
that's what we expect you to do.''
    You have to send a different signal. You have to send a different 
signal. You have to make people believe they can take complicated 
positions, explain them to you, and if you think that makes sense, 
you'll stick with them. And if you do that, I think you can change the 
way politics work in America.
    Speaker Gingrich. Can I make one quick story before I take another 
question, because it is so much what he just said, and I, actually, I 
wrote it it in a book, it was so vivid to me.

[[Page 855]]

I'll get to--you're going to love this. No, you're going to love this.
    The President. Senator Dole hasn't given me permission to read that 
book yet. [Laughter]
    Speaker Gingrich. Well, I thought I'd get you a copy soon.
    The President. That's good.
    Speaker Gingrich. But let me tell you, because it was so vivid and 
it makes the President's point. We had a meeting, you'll remember well, 
where Dick Armey and I were down there and the whole brandnew leadership 
after the election. And obviously, the President wasn't all that 
thrilled to have the Republicans win the election. And we understood 
that, and heck, we wouldn't have been--you know, I wasn't all that 
thrilled, frankly, to have George Bush lose that last one, so we 
understood his feelings. We had a great meeting. It was a meeting that I 
almost could have been on C-Span because the country wouldn't have 
believed--we talked about line-item veto, which is currently a little 
bit bogged down, but we'll get to it.
    The President. Give it back to me. [Laughter]
    Speaker Gingrich. We talked about unfunded mandate reform, which he 
signed very early. We talked about passing the Shays act to apply the 
law to the Congress that applies to us, which he signed very early. We 
had things going on that were positive. Dick Armey and I walked out 
front--we're in the White House, in front of the White House drive 
there. We say to the White House press corps, ``We had a great, positive 
meeting. We're going to be able to work a lot more than people think.'' 
And we began to list these things. The second question we were asked: 
``What do you think it will break down over?'' And both of us got mad. 
He's right; I get too hot sometimes. So I just said to the reporter, I 
said, ``You just heard the leaders of the Republican Party say that the 
Democratic President today had had a wonderful meeting on behalf of 
America; we're trying to work together. Couldn't you try for 24 hours to 
have a positive, optimistic message as though it might work?'' It's a 
true story, and he did it. It was a great meeting that he called.
    The President. The trick is, in a funny way, is not to hide the 
differences but to get them out in a way that--where those of us on 
opposite sides can understand the other's opinion. Like there's a way to 
make an argument to get the maximum amount of votes out of it in the 
shortest amount of time through emotion, and there's a way to make the 
same argument so that your opponent at least understands your position. 
And I bet it's the same way here around a gaming table or anything else. 
There's two ways to talk to people when you've got a difference of 
opinion.
    More than half the time in this country--this is an interesting 
little historical fact--more than half of the Presidents who have served 
have had the Congress in the hands of the opposite party, at least one 
if not both Houses. Now, that's what--the voters seem to think that's a 
good idea, and they keep doing it. So we have to try to figure out how 
to make it work.
    Who's got--yes. Mr. Peabody, you're looking good in your Navy cap.

United Nations Peacekeeping Role

[A veteran expressed concern that proposed legislation would adversely 
affect the United Nations and peacekeeping efforts.]

    Speaker Gingrich. Let me say, first of all--and I appreciate very 
much your comment about the two of us being here. And I hope you're 
right.
    Let me say, first of all, on a lot of foreign policy issues, we work 
very closely together. And we have tried very hard on Russia, on the 
Middle East, on a whole range of areas to be very supportive. The 
President and his senior advisers have always been open in briefing me 
and have always been open to my phone calls or my visits. We've tried in 
the House to stop some things that would have been very destructive. And 
I've tried in public, and I've learned a fair amount in the last 6 
months, that a Speaker--it's very important for me to be careful and to 
be modulated on a number of foreign policy issues. And while we can 
tangle on domestic politics, there really is a great lesson to be 
learned from Arthur Vandenberg in World War II.
    But let me tell you the two things I think where maybe you and I 
just disagree. And I hope you won't mind my being direct. First, I don't 
think the last 50 years the peace was kept by the United Nations. Over 
the last 50 years, the peace was kept because the United States of 
America spent a lot of money and sent its young men and women all over 
the planet. And we were the strongest military power in history. And we 
built an alliance called NATO. And we took enormous risks. And our 
children--my father fought in Korea and Viet-


[[Page 856]]

nam. We're now risking our children in Bosnia, in Iraq, in a whole range 
of--in Haiti, where the President, frankly, has so far--and I hope it 
works out perfectly--has so far had a much better policy than I thought 
he would. It worked better than I thought it would. And he deserves to 
be commended for, I think, having taken some risk in Haiti.
    But first, I will say to you--first, I believe we have to recognize 
that what won the cold war and what kept the peace was America's 
willingness to lead. And that nothing--you're wearing a Navy cap--if my 
choice is three U.N. Secretary-Generals or one aircraft carrier, I can 
tell you which one I prefer to keep the peace in a dangerous world.
    But I want to say, secondly, about the U.N.--because I'm a big fan 
of Franklin Roosevelt's, I'm frankly a fan of Woodrow Wilson's, and I 
think what they were trying to accomplish was terribly important--I 
think we have to revisit the United Nations current structure. I 
mentioned this to the National Security Adviser the other day.
    The U.N. current system of command and control is a nightmare. And 
anybody anywhere in the military--and the President knows this, because 
he gets briefed on it--any of our military who looks at what's been 
happening in Bosnia just wants to cry. You don't send in the military to 
be hostages; you send in the military to rescue hostages. And the U.N. 
system--I'm willing to take the U.N. system seriously enough to actually 
encourage our Government to take the lead in reforming the current 
peacekeeping system because if it's not reformed, it's going to collapse 
and become a joke, and you'll see NATO replace it in Bosnia in the not-
very-distant future. And I take it very seriously.
    Over the long run, Churchill once said, ``Jaw, jaw, jaw is better 
than war, war, war.'' And I think Churchill was right. But to get there, 
we have to be strong, we have to lead our allies, and together I think 
we have to learn the lessons of what doesn't work in the U.N. And my 
hunch is, frankly, if this bill is going to ever become law, there's 
going to be some fairly intense negotiating between Senator Dole and 
myself and the President, because otherwise he's going to veto it, and 
we won't have the votes to override him. So I think we're not--you're 
not going to necessarily see exactly the bill that's currently there.
    The President. Let me just say very briefly, I agree that the United 
Nations didn't keep all the peace in the last 50 years. What I think is 
that the end of the cold war gives us the opportunity to have the U.N. 
fulfill its promise. And the United States has had, before me and during 
my administration, serious disputes with the U.N. about the way it's 
managed and the way certain crises are handled.
    Now having said that, I disagree with the foreign affairs bill going 
through because it ties the President's hands in too many ways. I 
disagree--I'll say something that's unpopular here--I disagree with all 
the cuts in foreign aid in the budget. Most people believe that we're 
spending 10, 15 percent of your tax money on foreign aid. We're actually 
spending about a penny and a half. We're spending a smaller percentage 
of our budget on foreign aid than any advanced country in the world. And 
yet, you'd be amazed how far a little bit of money from the United 
States goes in stabilizing democracy all over the world.
    For the United Nations, a lot of--some of their peacekeeping has 
worked. It worked in--it made a real contribution in Cambodia. It's made 
a contribution elsewhere.
    The problem in Bosnia--let's just talk about that--is that great 
countries, France, Britain, The Netherlands, Ukraine, sent their 
soldiers there to be the U.N. peacekeeping force under terms of 
engagement that the United States could never agree to because they 
basically agreed until just this last incident that they--the Serbs 
could, in effect, take them hostage and they wouldn't fight back. And we 
could never agree to that.
    Now, having said that, it's still true that 130,000 people died in 
Bosnia, civilians, in 1992, and under 3,000 died there last year. And a 
lot of us made contributions to that. So sometimes, as bad and as ragged 
as it is, the U.N. is better than nothing. And I think it is our forum.
    And a lot of good things have happened in the U.N. We have been able 
to pursue our nonproliferation agenda. We've been able to pursue our 
action to reinforce what we're trying to do with North Korea to keep 
them from becoming a nuclear power. We've been able to do a lot of good 
things.
    And I think we should look for ways to strengthen the U.N., not 
weaken it, because I agree with him and what he said--if it is weak

[[Page 857]]

and if it fails, it will all come back on the shoulders of the United 
States. And another generation of young Americans will have their necks 
on the line if we fail to have an effective, strong United Nations, 
which is why I think we should support it and make it work.

Minimum Wage

[A participant asked if a minimum wage rate of $4.50 would be too high.]

    The President. No, I'm for raising it. You know I am.
    Speaker Gingrich. Let me say that I think that I'd like to see every 
American make as much as they can possibly make. But I also am 
concerned--no, I don't think it's too much. I'm very concerned, 
however--there's a disagreement among economists about this. I'm very 
concerned that if you raise the cost of the first job for the poorest 
person, for example, in the inner city, that what you tend to do is 
increase black, male, teenage unemployment, which is exactly the thing 
you don't want to do.
    And so my goal is to have a rapidly growing economy where, frankly, 
wages keep going up because people are better educated, more productive, 
and can compete in the world market. And we've been telling the Russians 
and the Ukraines and the Poles and the Hungarians that the free market 
works and you've got to get out in a free market and you've got to 
compete in a world market.
    And my concern is just that as you go through this transition that 
if we raise the minimum wage--and, again, you get economists on both 
sides of this argument. But the group we--we don't hurt anybody who's an 
industrial plant that's doing well. We don't hurt anybody who's already 
working for the Government. But if you are the marginal employee and 
you're out there, you are the first laid off. And that makes it harder 
for Hispanic and black teenagers to get decent jobs, and we already have 
too much unemployment and too much long-term lack of job skills among 
minority teenagers. But I think that's a legitimate disagreement 
probably between the two of us.
    The President. Let me just tell you what the contrary view is, what 
my view is. And it is true that there are economic studies that say if 
you raise the minimum wage, you raise incomes for people who are at the 
minimum wage and a little above it, too, who get bumped up, but it costs 
some jobs. There are other studies that say it doesn't cost any jobs 
because, for example, people on welfare or out of the work force will 
think it's more worth their while to come in and compete for those jobs 
and they'll want to work more.
    The reason that I am for it is that I believe that--first of all, I 
know that a significant percentage of people on the minimum wage are 
women workers raising their kids on their own. And I just believe that 
we shouldn't allow--if we don't raise the minimum wage this year, then 
next year, after you adjust for inflation, it will be at a 40-year low. 
And my idea is that we ought to be trying to create a high-wage, high-
growth economy and that is as little regulated as possible. But this is 
a minor amount of regulation on the bottom end.
    And there are other ways to deal with this market problem. I know 
Barbara Jordan, a former colleague of yours, headed a commission for me 
on immigration. She's recommended a modest decline in the immigration 
quota every year. And I think Senator Simpson, the Republican Senator 
from Wyoming, has recommended the same thing. If you did that, you might 
have exactly--you might still, therefore, have exactly the same demands 
for low-skilled people who are already in the United States and you 
wouldn't, therefore, be any net out even if you did raise the minimum 
wage.
    I just think it is--the people I guess I admire most in this country 
are the people that get up every day and work their--themselves to death 
for the minimum wage or just a little bit above it----
    Speaker Gingrich. Note that editing, I might point out. That was 
very well done. [Laughter]
    The President. Self-editing. And they come home and they're dog-
tired at night, and they're raising their kids and they don't have 
enough money to live on. And they don't break the law. They don't cheat 
on their taxes. They don't do anything wrong, and it's all they can do 
to keep body and soul together. And I guess, my instinct is that you get 
way more good than harm out of it. And I believe, if you go back to when 
they did it when--the last time it was done was when, '89 or something--
I think, on balance, we did fine as a result of doing it. And I think we 
should do it again.

[[Page 858]]

Immigration and Welfare Reform

    Speaker Gingrich. Can I add one more comment? Let me add one more 
comment because I think he's making a point here that's very important 
in thinking about the totality, when you mentioned immigration.
    I think, in addition to the recommendations of the commission--which 
I think was a very important thing to do, and I think that Barbara 
Jordan was a superb person to head it up--I think we've got to look very 
seriously at illegal immigration because I can tell you, even in north 
Georgia, we now have a very large number of illegal immigrants working, 
for example, in the chicken industry. And it is on the verge of getting 
out of control all over this country. And so even if we were to close 
down legal immigration or slow it down, if the illegal immigration just 
keeps pouring in, the effect of driving out American workers is 
devastating.
    Second, I think we have to have welfare reform that reemphasizes 
work, which is part of why we, frankly, want to get it back to the 
Governors and have Governor Merrill working on welfare reform, to 
reestablish work because if it costs you--in New York City, if you lose 
money going to work at minimum wage, then even when you raise the 
minimum wage, you can't afford to go to work.
    And so--and the President, again--he campaigned on replacing welfare 
as you know it. And he's committed to welfare reform that gets us in 
that direction.
    The last thing, I guess, I'd like to say--and I don't actually know 
where you are on this right now. I believe we both have to have much 
more adult education. I have suggested we tie, for example, unemployment 
compensation to training so that people, when they're not on a job, are 
learning. If we're giving them money, they're actually getting trained 
and learning, much more like the Swedish and German model.
    And part of the reason we proposed the $500-per-child tax credit is 
because the day you go to work, you start paying Social Security FICA 
taxes. It is very regressive on the poorest workers. And the mothers 
that the President has just referred to who may have, say, two or three 
children, who are working at minimum wage, if they could get $1,000 or 
$1,500 back from their Government in a child tax credit, we think that 
helps that mother take care of those children.
    It's a different approach. But again, it's a way of trying to get 
more cash into those pockets. And I agree with the President. We have 
got a find a way to get--I think it's now 40 percent of our children are 
in poverty--we have got to find a way to raise our children and get 
those children out of poverty.
    The President. On illegal immigration--we've increased by about 40 
percent the number of border guards we've got, and we're sending illegal 
immigrants back more rapidly than ever before, especially if they come 
in contact with the criminal justice system. What we need--and maybe we 
can work together on this--is the capacity to go into more workplaces 
and find people who are taking jobs away from Americans illegally. And I 
think that's important.
    On welfare reform--we don't have time to debate that today. We agree 
on the ends. We have big disagreements about the means. But I've given 
29 of the 50 States permission to get out from under all the Federal 
rules and to do things like take food stamp and welfare checks and give 
it to employers as a wage supplement and let employers then hire 
somebody off welfare and use the welfare check to cut the employers' 
cost to put the people to work instead. And I think that's good.

AmeriCorps

[A former VISTA volunteer expressed support for the AmeriCorps program 
and asked the President and Speaker Gingrich to comment.]

    Speaker Gingrich. Sure. Let me say this is an area where I think the 
President has a good idea, but we disagree, I think, about philosophy of 
Government and about setting priorities. But it's not a bad idea. I 
don't think AmeriCorps in any way is a bad thing. And in a minute, since 
I'm going to go first, I am confident that he will tell you vividly how 
good an idea it is.
    But I have two concerns that I think are a different direction, 
philosophically. One is that I believe--and we have people like 
Congressman Kolbe and Congressman Knollenberg who are developing a bill 
that would give a every taxpayer a tax credit to give the money directly 
to charities so that charities could do it directly. I believe we want 
to have less Washington-based bureaucracy and fewer decisions made in 
Wash-


[[Page 859]]

ington. And we want to strengthen the private charities.
    So if you said to me tomorrow morning would I rather strengthen 
AmeriCorps or the Salvation Army, the truth is--and I happen to agree 
with a book by Marvin Elasky called ``The Tragedy of American 
Compassion,'' where he argues that the kind of transformation that you 
can get from 100 Black Men or from Habitat for Humanity, whose pin I'm 
wearing--the kind of groups that aren't restricted by legitimate 
Government restrictions but are able to go in in a much more spiritual 
basis and a much more directed basis and help people change--you get a 
stronger, healthier society by getting it totally out of Government. 
That's a difference of philosophy about the size of Government.
    There's a second difference. If we're going to balance the budget, I 
think this is a time to be very tough-minded about priorities. Now, the 
President lists this as one of his highest priorities and is fighting 
very ably for it and is going to, frankly, keep it. If we can get to a 
signable rescission bill, it's going to contain--it's going to keep 
AmeriCorps, and that's the power of the Presidency. I would just suggest 
that when you sit down and look at what it takes to balance the budget 
over 7 years or 10 years, it's hard. And if you're setting priorities 
about which programs to keep and which not, you can have a legitimate, 
honest debate about how many things you can afford to do in Washington 
and how many things you need to get back home to New Hampshire or you 
need to ask the private sector.
    But it's an area where I--I don't fault his vision and his desire to 
recruit people at all, and I think it's, frankly, a program that's very 
defensible. It's just one--it's a question of philosophy and priorities.
    The President. Let me give you my side of it. The reason I got the 
idea of doing AmeriCorps was, basically, I thought we ought to have more 
scholarship money available for young people that wanted to further 
their education or for even not so young people who wanted to do it. And 
I thought we needed to promote the idea of service here in this country 
among young people, at least in a symbolic way. If I could fund it all, 
if the Speaker would support me, I'd get up to a couple hundred thousand 
people in AmeriCorps in no time. But I wanted to do it especially as we 
bring down the size of the military, because a lot of young people who 
otherwise would have gone into the military and gotten wonderful 
training and served their country in invaluable ways and changed their 
whole lives forever now won't be able to do it because we just have--we 
don't have a need for the same size military.
    And this idea intrigued me. It was promoted by a lot of other 
people. I didn't come up with it; I just thought we ought to do it. And 
it is not organized--even though it's funded by Washington and there's a 
general policy group in Washington or a board--Governor Merrill can tell 
you from what they have here in New Hampshire--it is very--there is very 
little bureaucracy. People competed for the money. If your project got 
the money, you just kept it. There's almost--very few reporting 
requirements and no rules and regulations from the Federal Government. 
But with 20,000 people in AmeriCorps, which is what we had this year, we 
have more people doing that than were ever in the Peace Corps in any 
given year.
    And the other day I was down in Dallas, just for example, where a 
retired African-American general supervises our AmeriCorps program. And 
I saw four volunteers: two girls who were teenage mothers and on 
welfare, who got themselves off welfare, got a high school equivalency, 
and were working to help other people get off and earning money for 
college; a woman who was retired from the Navy, believe it or not, who 
said, ``I don't even know if I'll ever use this credit, I just wanted to 
serve my country again working in the neighborhoods''; and a young woman 
who had a degree from the University of Florida, whose mother was on 
welfare when she was born, and she had always done very well and she 
just wanted to go back and give something, try to change that 
neighborhood.
    I think it's important for us to find some ways for people of 
different racial and income backgrounds and regional backgrounds to work 
together for the common good in a nonbureaucratic way. So I think it's a 
tiny cost for a big gain. And that's our difference.
    Questions?
    Lou Gendron. Mr. President, Mr. Speaker----
    The President. Do you want to have one more question----
    Mr. Gendron. Ladies and gentlemen, we have time for one more 
question.

[[Page 860]]

Line-Item Veto

[A participant asked if the line-item veto would lower the budget and 
help reduce the deficit.]

    Speaker Gingrich. The answer is yes, it would. And I support it. And 
I'm hoping we're going to be in conference this summer. And the line-
item veto's aimed specifically at appropriations bills. And he's already 
indicated that's how he'd use it. And I hope we're going to be able to 
get it passed and to him this summer so he can actually use it. I 
strongly favor it. I think 43 of the Governors have it. I think you had 
it when you were Governor of Arkansas.
    And I think--now, it's not going to be by itself a panacea, but it's 
going to cut a couple of billion dollars a year of pork out, maybe as 
much as $10 billion if we--under certain circumstances.
    And I supported it when we had Ronald Reagan and George Bush. And 
just as the other night, frankly, we tried to repeal the War Powers Act 
to give the President back the right--the legitimate power of the 
Commander in Chief, I think that any President ought to have the line-
item veto. And I support President Clinton getting it.
    The President. I want to say, first of all, thank you very much for 
that. We have--some of the Republicans were worried because the line-
item veto legislation might also permit the President to line-item-veto 
special tax, as opposed to general tax legislation, special tax 
legislation. I think it should include that.
    But what I said--I sent a letter, or I sent a statement to the 
Speaker and to the majority leader of the Senate saying that I know that 
a lot of the Republicans may think they want to give tax cuts which they 
believe are good, which I don't agree with, so I would commit, that for 
the remainder of this budget cycle this year, if they would pass it this 
year, I would only use it on spending this year as a gesture of good 
faith so we could get it into the law and begin to see how it works.
    Before we leave, I should have said one other thing on the U.N. 
thing that I didn't. With all the differences we've had, except for the 
United Nations and one or two other minor things, the Speaker has been 
very supportive of me on foreign policy. And one of the things we have 
to do together is to figure out how to make his party in the House 
somewhat less isolationist than it is. And I think they're only 
reflecting the views of their constituents. That is, people want us to 
tend to our problems here at home. They don't want us to waste any money 
overseas. Nothing is more unpopular than doing that now. But this is a 
very small world, and every time the United States walks away from 
problems around the world, we wind up paying 10 times the price in blood 
and money later on. So this is something we're going to have to work 
together on.
    Speaker Gingrich. If I could--let me say thank you and goodbye 
first, and then let the President have the final say, as is appropriate.
    Let me just say, first of all, I agree with what he said, although I 
can tell you in both parties the difficulties and the problems of 
carrying the burden of America----
    The President. Same with the Democrats; it's not just the 
Republicans.
    Speaker Gingrich. There's a real challenge for all of us to go back 
home and explain why America has to lead.
    Let me finally say to Lou and to everybody here who invited us, I 
think this has been the best New Hampshire tradition, the best American 
tradition. I think it is fabulous that you have us come over and--are we 
all right still? And I just want to say thank you to all of you, and 
again, I want to thank the President. He didn't have to do this. It was 
his idea. I think it's good for America, and I'm grateful for the chance 
to be here.
    The President. Let me close by thanking you. I've enjoyed this, and 
I expect you have, too. And most of all I want to thank all of you for 
having us here, for listening, for asking the questions.
    Q. This man wants to say something, Mr. President.
    The President. What? My chops are no good today. [Laughter] Well, 
I'll be over there in just a minute.
    What I want to say is, when you all hear us debating these issues, I 
want you to think about some real big questions. And I want you to think 
about the things that affect you, of course. When you hear these numbers 
batted around, it won't mean anything. I want you to think about if we 
propose a change in Medicare, if he does, I do, what will--how will it 
affect you? I want you to think about that, because you should, and you 
should let us know.
    I also want you to think about the big issues. What do you think the 
Federal Government

[[Page 861]]

ought to be doing? What is the role of the Federal Government as we move 
into the 21st century? How important is it to reduce the budget deficit 
as opposed to dealing with, let's say, the needs of our people for more 
investment in education and training, and do you want us to do both?
    We have problems in America that are not just political and 
economic, they are also social, cultural, personal problems. Some people 
you can't help unless they also are willing to help themselves. On the 
other hand, you can't just go around and point the finger at people and 
tell them to help themselves if they need a little help to get down the 
road in life.
    So these are big, fundamental, basic questions that are now being 
debated all over again in Washington, maybe for the first time in 50 
years, where we're really going back to basics. And you need to be a 
part of that.
    If you want us to work together, instead of figuring out who's got 
the best 30-second attack on the other, you need to really hammer that 
home. You need to tell the Congressmen. You need to tell the Governor. 
You need to tell all of us that--be clear about your difference, but 
don't divide the country. And let's try to do this.
    Let me just close by saying this: I wouldn't trade places with 
anybody in any other country. I get to represent you around the world. 
And with all of our problems, the diversity of America, the power of our 
entrepreneurial system, the resources and resolve of our people, we're 
still in better shape for the next century than any other major country 
in the world. And don't you ever forget it.
    And what we owe you is our best efforts not only to show you how we 
disagree in ways that make us look better than the other but to actually 
get things done that your lives and your children and your 
grandchildren. I'm going to do my best to do my part.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 4:45 p.m. at the Earl Bourdon Senior 
Centre. In his remarks, he referred to Louis Gendron, president, 
Claremont Senior Citizens Congress; Mayor Paul Lizott of Claremont, NH; 
and Sandy Osgood, director, Earl Bourdon Centre.