[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
[October 14, 1999]
[Pages 1777-1790]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's News Conference
October 14, 1999

    The President. Good afternoon. Thank you. In recent days, members of 
the congressional majority have displayed a reckless partisanship. It 
threatens America's economic well being and, now, our national security.
    Yesterday, hardline Republicans irresponsibly forced a vote against 
the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. This was partisan politics of 
the worst kind, because it was so blatant and because of the risks it 
poses to the safety of the American people and the world.
    What the Senate seeks is to abandon an agreement that requires other 
countries to do what we have already done, an agreement that constrains 
Russia and China, India and Pakistan from developing more dangerous 
nuclear weapons, that helps to keep other countries out of the nuclear 
weapons business altogether, that improves our ability to monitor 
dangerous weapons activities in other countries. Even worse, they have 
offered no alternative, no other means of keeping countries around the 
world from developing nuclear arsenals and threatening our security.
    In so doing, they ignored the advice of our top military leaders, 
our most distinguished scientists, our closest allies. They brushed 
aside the views of the American people and betrayed the vision of 
Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, who set us on the road to this treaty 
so many years ago.
    Even more troubling are the signs of a new isolationism among some 
of the opponents of the treaty. You see it in the refusal to pay our 
U.N. dues. You see it in the woefully inadequate budget for foreign 
affairs and includes meeting our obligations to the Middle East peace 
process and to the continuing efforts to destroy and safeguard Russian 
nuclear materials. You see it in the refusal to adopt our proposals to 
do our part to stem the tide of global warming, even though these 
proposals plainly would create American jobs.
    But by this vote, the Senate majority has turned its back on 50 
years of American leadership against the spread of weapons of mass 
destruction. They are saying America does not need to lead, either by 
effort or by example.

[[Page 1778]]

They are saying we don't need our friends or allies. They are betting 
our children's future on the reckless proposition that we can go it 
alone, that at the height of our power and prosperity, we should bury 
our heads in the sand, behind a wall.
    That is not where I stand. And that is not where the American people 
stand. They understand that to be strong, we must not only have a 
powerful military, we must also lead, as we have done time and again, 
and as the whole world expects us to do, to build a more responsible, 
interdependent world.
    So we will continue to protect our interests around the world. We 
will continue to seek from Congress the financial resources to make that 
possible. We will continue to pursue the fight against the spread of 
nuclear weapons. And we will not--we will not-- abandon the commitments 
inherent in the treaty and resume testing ourselves.
    I will not let yesterday's partisanship stand as our final word on 
the test ban treaty. Today I say again, on behalf of the United States, 
we will continue the policy we have maintained since 1992 of not 
conducting nuclear tests. I call on Russia, China, Britain, France, and 
all other countries to continue to refrain from testing. I call on 
nations that have not done so to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test 
Ban Treaty. And I will continue to do all I can to make that case to the 
Senate. When all is said and done, I have no doubt that the United 
States will ratify this treaty.
    Partisanship also threatens our economic security. Exactly one week 
from today the continuing resolution I signed on September the 30th to 
keep the Government running will expire. And yet, Congress is not even 
close to finishing its work. At this time of unprecedented prosperity we 
must ask ourselves why is the congressional majority so unwilling or 
unable to make the tough choices? Why would we not be willing--or why 
would they not be willing to send me a responsible budget that saves 
Social Security, that strengthens and modernizes Medicare, that honors 
the priorities of the American people, and that clearly continues to pay 
down our debt keeping interest rates low and the economy growing?
    When I signed the continuing resolution 2 weeks ago, I urged 
Congress to roll up its sleeves and finish the job the American people 
sent them here to do. I said they should stop playing politics, stop 
playing games, start making the necessary tough choices. Instead, we 
have the Republicans lurching from one unworkable idea to the next. 
Instead of sending me bills I can sign, the congressional majority is 
still using what the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and others 
have called budget gimmicks, to disguise the fact that they are spending 
the Social Security surplus. Their own Budget Office says so.
    We've even seen them try to raise taxes for our hardest pressed 
working families. Now, they're talking about across-the-board budget 
cuts that could deny tens of thousands of children Head Start 
opportunities, drastically reduce medical research, sacrifice military 
readiness, jeopardize the safety of air traffic control. One day they 
raise the spending; the next day they talk about cutting it again.
    I say to the congressional majority, enough is enough. We've got a 
job to do for the American people. It is not that difficult. Let's just 
do it. We can work together. We can fashion a budget that builds on our 
economic prosperity and continues to pay down the debt until it is 
eliminated in 2015 for the first time since 1835, that extends the life 
of the Social Security Trust Fund to 2050, the life expanse of almost 
all the baby boomers, and that invests in our people and our future, 
especially in our children's education.
    The American people want a world-class education for their children. 
They want smaller classes, more qualified teachers, more computers in 
the classrooms, more after-school programs for the children who need it, 
more Head Start opportunities to ensure that our children all start 
school ready to learn. The majority so far has failed to come forward 
with a plan that protects these goals. I believe these goals are worth 
fighting for, and that's what this debate is all about.
    They want us to keep making their communities safer; that's what the 
American people want. They want us to stay with the plan that has 
resulted in the lowest crime rate in 26 years. They want us to continue 
to put more cops on the beat and get guns out of the wrong hands. The 
majority wants to take us off that course and derail our progress. I 
want to keep us on track in education, in crime, in the budget, in 
Social Security, in Medicare.
    The American people want us to stand up for the environment by 
preserving our treasured

[[Page 1779]]

landscapes and enhancing our community's quality of life. The majority 
would roll back our progress there, too. I want to build on it. That's 
what this debate is all about.
    I want to work with Congress to fulfill these important obligations. 
We have proved we can do it with the welfare reform bill, with the 
Balanced Budget Act, with the budget last year, in the teeth of a 
partisan election season, which made a big downpayment on our goal of 
100,000 teachers. We need it again, a workable, bipartisan budget 
process. We don't have that today. We've got a week to go. They've got 
to go to work.
    There are legitimate differences of opinion. But we can put an end 
to reckless partisanship, to gimmicks and gamesmanship. We can put 
people first and make a principled, honorable compromise. We can work 
for a season of progress, not a winter of politics. And I am committed 
to do just that.
    Thank you.
    Helen [Helen Thomas, United Press International]?

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

    Q. Mr. President, hasn't the treaty rejection really wiped out our 
moral authority to ask other nations around the world to stop testing? 
And was there--do you think there was a personal element in the 
Republican--a personal vendetta against you in the turn-down, 
Republican----
    The President. Well, to answer the first question, let me say I had 
the occasion to run into three Ambassadors last night, of nations that 
strongly support the test ban treaty. And they were concerned. They 
didn't know what to say to their governments back home.
    And what I told them was that we were in a battle with the new 
isolationists in the Republican Party. They see this treaty against the 
backdrop of the failure to pay the U.N. dues and the failure to shoulder 
some of our other responsibilities, the failure to pass a bill that 
would meet our obligations to the Middle East peace process and our 
obligations to keep working with the Russians to take down their nuclear 
arsenal.
    But what I told them was the American people always get it right, 
and we are not going to reverse 40 years of commitment on 
nonproliferation, that the treaty is still on the Senate calendar, that 
it will be considered, that we have to keep working forward, and that I 
have no intention of doing anything other than honoring the obligations 
of the treaty imposed on the United States.
    So I urged them not to overreact, to make clear their opposition to 
what the Senate did, but to stay with us and believe in the United 
States because the American people want us to lead toward 
nonproliferation.
    Now, as to the second element, there were a number of partisan 
considerations, including some bad feelings between the Republicans and 
Democrats in the Senate, because the Republicans didn't want to bring 
this up at all, and then they didn't give us a legitimate process when 
they did. If you compare the debates here, one day of hearings here, 
with 14 days on the Chemical Weapons Convention, over 20 days on the INF 
Treaty under President Reagan, this was not a legitimate process.
    Now, I know some people made some personal remarks on the floor of 
the Senate in the debate, but you know, it's been my experience that 
very often in politics when a person is taking a position that he simply 
cannot defend, the only defense is to attack the opponent. And that's 
what I took it as, a form of flattery. They knew they didn't have a very 
strong case, and so they were looking for some excuse for otherwise 
inexcusable conduct, and it didn't bother me a bit. I think it only 
exposed----
    Q. It wasn't revenge against you?
    The President. No, I think it only exposed the weakness of their 
argument. I think that it had a lot more to do with what's going on in 
the Senate and what they think will happen this year and next year. But 
I say that because if it did, that would be even worse for them. I mean, 
the idea that we would put the future of our children in peril and the 
leadership of America for a safer world in peril for some personal 
pique, I think is unthinkable.
    I just think when you've got--sometimes, I've seen people when 
they've got a very weak argument and they know they don't have a very 
strong position, they think that maybe they can deflect the analysis of 
their vote and their argument by attacking their opponent. That happens 
from time to time, and you can't take it too seriously.
    Terry [Terence Hunt, Associated Press]?

[[Page 1780]]

2000 Election

    Q. A question about politics, Mr. President. Do you agree with Vice 
President Gore's characterization of Bill Bradley as a disloyal 
Democrat? And how much of a difference would it make if Senator Bradley 
were the Democratic nominee, instead of Vice President Gore?
    The President. I am not a candidate in the Democratic primary, and I 
do not think I should become one. I had to do that twice before, and I 
enjoyed it very much, but I don't get a third shot.
    So what I would say to you is, as all of you know, I think Al 
Gore has been, by far, the best Vice 
President in history. He's certainly had more influence over more areas. 
I think that he is doing well in his campaign. I think he made a good 
decision to go home to Tennessee. And I expect him to win. But I expect 
to support the nominee of my party, as I always have. And I think that I 
can serve no useful function by talking about anything other than the 
issues. If you want to ask me an issue question related to any of them, 
I'll be glad to answer it. But I'm not going to get into that kind of 
horse racing.
    Yes, Steve [Steve Holland, Reuters]?

Situation in Pakistan

    Q. Given the military coup in Pakistan, are you now more concerned 
about the prospect of a war between India and Pakistan, and what can you 
do to calm tensions?
    The President. Well, obviously, we have been in touch with the 
Pakistanis. We don't like it when military leaders forcibly displace 
elected governments, and we made that clear. We've had our differences 
with Pakistan over the years that have been sometimes sharp, we've also 
had strong alliances in many areas. I still believe Prime Minister 
Sharif did the right thing to take the 
Pakistani troops behind the line of control and defuse what could have 
turned into a war, even a nuclear exchange. And so I appreciate that.
    And I would hope that the military government will soon transition 
to a civilian one. And I would hope that nothing would be done at this 
time to aggravate tensions between India and Pakistan. India just had an 
election. Prime Minister Vajpayee has 
now been returned for another period of service. I think they have an 
opportunity to resume their dialog and to deescalate the tensions.
    Again, let me say to India and Pakistan, do not take yesterday's 
vote as a sign that America doesn't care whether you resume nuclear 
testing and build up your nuclear arsenals. We do care. You shouldn't do 
it. It's not necessary. It will hurt your economy and endanger your 
future. That's our message to Pakistan, and we hope they will move to a 
civilian government as quickly as possible.
    Claire [Claire Shipman, NBC]?

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

    Q. To what extent do you think that you and the White House bear 
some responsibility for the outcome of the vote yesterday? There have 
been a lot of people heavily involved, supporters of this treaty who say 
the White House didn't begin an effective lobbying effort early enough. 
And I wonder whether you also think that the year of scandal played some 
role in that, that the White House was just unable to work on this----
    The President. No.
    Q. ----in the way it should have.
    The President. For one thing, since I signed this treaty--let's look 
at the facts here--I've spoken about this 30 times or more. We always 
start a big public campaign in terms of White House events and other 
things. Go back, and look at this. Look at NAFTA. Look at the Chemical 
Weapons Convention. Go back. When we know that we're on a hearing 
schedule and we're going to have a vote, until we were given 8 or 10 
days notice, we had no earthly idea there would ever be hearings, much 
less a vote on this.
    So this whole thing came as a complete surprise to us when we 
realized that we had 8 or 10 days on a subject that we thought they had 
decided in a very determined way not to bring up, because Senator 
Helms had made it clear that he didn't want to 
bring it up, and he wouldn't even talk about it until he disposed of two 
other treaties that he said were ahead of it in his consideration. We 
had no earthly idea that it was going to be on the Senate calendar.
    So we did our best. We kept asking. And we thought if we ever got a 
yes, the yes would be like the yes we got on chemical weapons. ``Yes, we 
can have this vote in a couple of months. We'll have 2 or 3 weeks of 
hearings.''

[[Page 1781]]

If we had had a normal process, you would have seen a much more 
extensive public campaign. There was simply no time to put it together. 
But I talked about this over and over and over again in many different 
contexts. And I think that, given the time we had, we did the best we 
could.
    And besides that, once it became clear to me that they not only were 
going to force this close vote but that they weren't going to do what 
they do in every single treaty where there's serious consideration, 
namely, to allow the Senators of both parties to offer safeguards, to 
offer reservations, to offer clarifications, so that the treaty means 
something.
    If you remember, the only way we ever passed the chemical weapons 
treaty is when the Senate--including Senator Helms--participated with us 
in a process that led to over 20 explicit safeguards and reservations. 
That's what the Senate is supposed to do. We said, ourselves, that we 
thought the treaty required six safeguards that we hoped would be put on 
it. And they said, ``Not only are we going to make them vote on the 
treaty, we're not going to let you put your safeguards on there.'' So I 
think that ought to give you some indication of what was afoot here. We 
did the best we could with the time we had.
    Q. [Inaudible]--the criticism has been not the public lobbying 
effort but behind the scenes--the sense that for a long time the 
Republicans were lobbying against this treaty when the White House 
wasn't lobbying very effectively on Capitol Hill.
    The President. You know, first of all, I just don't accept that. 
They told us that they had no interest in bringing it up. It wasn't 
going to come up. We had no reason to believe we could do it. Before we 
can lobby the Members, we have to have some sense that we're lobbying 
them for something. And every time you talk to somebody, they say, 
``Well, that's not even scheduled. That's not going to come up.'' And I 
think the interesting thing is how many made commitments before they 
heard any arguments one way or the other.
    John [John King, Cable News Network]?
    Q. But Mr. President, given the importance you've placed on this, 
why did you wait until 5:15 yesterday to first call the Senate majority 
leader? And as part of the same question, if you were the Government of 
China and publicly stated on the record that you're looking to modernize 
your nuclear arsenal, why would you not take this now as a green light 
to test, and will you do anything to try to convince the Chinese not to 
do so?
    The President. Well, let me answer the first question first. The one 
thing I did not want to do, once it became obvious--I had nothing to do 
with the schedule the majority leader imposed on 
the treaty, and I had no advance knowledge of it, so I couldn't have 
talked to him before then.
    At that point, he had contact--I believe he 
and his office--he, personally, and his office, had contacts several 
times a day with Mr. Berger every day from 
then on out. What we were trying to do was to preserve the opportunity--
just to deal with the question Helen asked in the beginning, you know, 
if anybody was out there saying, ``Well, this is about President 
Clinton,'' and we were trying to preserve the opportunity for him and Senator Daschle to 
make an agreement so that the Senate could do this; the Senate could put 
it off, could schedule hearings, could deal with it in an orderly 
fashion.
    Then, as you may know, the night before the vote, Senator Lott and Senator Daschle did, 
in fact, reach an agreement to put it off. And Senator Lott apparently 
was unable to convince enough of his caucus to honor the agreement he 
had made, so he had to withdraw. And it was at that point that I called 
him to see if there was anything else we could do.
    But we were in constant contact with his 
office, and Mr. Berger talked to him 
innumerable times. I would happily have talked to him. I thought I was 
giving him some protection not to do it so that he and Senator 
Daschle could make an agreement, and they 
could say the Senate did it out of a concern for the national interest, 
because it was manifestly the right thing to do. And I think Senator 
Lott believes today that putting it off was the right thing to do. I'm 
sorry it didn't happen.

Chinese Nuclear Testing

    Q. And the question on China?
    The President. Oh, China. Let me say--well, I will say again, the 
Chinese have taken the position we have, that they won't test. I hope 
they will continue to honor it. All I can tell you is, we're not going 
to test. I signed that treaty. It still binds us unless I go, in effect, 
and erase our name. Unless the President does that and takes our name 
off, we are bound by

[[Page 1782]]

it. And we've not been testing since '92. So the Chinese should have 
every assurance that, at least as long as this administration is here, 
we support nuclear testing.
    Now, if we ever get a President that's against the test ban treaty--
which we may get; I mean, there are plenty of people out there who say 
they're against it--then I think you might as well get ready for it. 
You'll have Russia testing. You'll have China testing. You'll have India 
testing. You'll have Pakistan testing. You'll have countries abandoning 
the nonproliferation treaty.
    The reason I wouldn't make a commitment to Senator Lott not to bring this treaty up next year--let's just put 
that out on the table--apart from the President's prerogative, 
constitutional prerogative, there is a substantive reason. Four years 
ago, we got all the countries that were in the nonproliferation treaty--
even more than have signed the test ban treaty, I think 176 of them--and 
they say they're either not going to develop nuclear capacity, or if 
they have it, they won't share it. It's very, very important.
    And a lot of the countries that were edgy because their neighbors 
had nuclear capacity or because they had nascent nuclear capacity and 
they wanted to develop it more, they really wanted to know was there 
going to be a test ban treaty? So that if they stopped dead in their 
tracks, they wouldn't be discriminated against by people who were a 
little ahead of them, who could test. And the United States took the 
lead in assuring them we would continue to work until we got a test ban 
treaty. So we did. And that's why I was the first person to sign it, not 
only because I believe in the test ban treaty but because I think it is 
essential to reinforce the nonproliferation treaty.
    Consider how each of you would feel if you were running a country 
and you thought you had the scientific capacity to develop these kinds 
of weapons and you had neighbors with them you felt threatened by, but 
they were a little ahead of you, and they could test and you couldn't.
    So the reason I--what I told Senator Lott 
was, I said, ``Look, I believe if next year we have indications that 
three or four or five countries are going to bail out on the 
nonproliferation treaty, I could come to you, and I could convince you 
that we should bring it up. And therefore, I cannot promise not to bring 
it up. But, barring some international emergency, I wouldn't bring this 
treaty up until I thought we could get it ratified.'' To me it's not a 
matter of personal credit, it's a matter of leaving in place for the 
future a framework that will maximize the safety and security of the 
American people and minimize the prospect of nuclear conflict around the 
world.
    So that's where it is. I hope very much that people will see in the 
steadfast determination of this administration and of the American 
people, the determination to stay on this path. And I hope they will 
stick with us. I think if we ever have a President and a Senate not for 
this test ban treaty, then all bets are off. You will see a lot of 
testing, and they will bail on the NPT. That's what I think will happen, 
and we will be in a much, much more dangerous world. But we are not 
there today, and I hope I can discourage people from going there.
    Mark, [Mark Knoller, CBS Radio] and then Sarah [Sarah McClendon, 
McClendon News Service].

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

    Q. Sir, just as you had experts saying, advocating the ratification 
of the treaty, the Republicans had experts saying that the treaty was 
dangerous. Why can't you accept the vote as a good faith expression of 
that opposition, rather than as a partisan attack?
    The President. Oh, I have said every time that there were some 
Republicans who believed that in good conscience. The reason I can't 
accept it as only a matter of conviction are the following reasons.
    Number one, they had a lot of people committed who didn't know very 
much about the treaty, who were asked to commit before there was ever an 
argument made.
    Number two, the objections about the treaty essentially fall into 
two categories. One is that, notwithstanding the heads of the weapons 
labs, the entire military establishment and General Shelton's last few 
predecessors as Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, and these 32 Nobel 
laureates, there are people who say, ``I don't care what they all say; I 
just don't believe it. I just don't think that they can preserve the 
security of the nuclear arsenal without testing. Even though we're 
spending $4.5 billion a year, and we're going to spend more, and we're 
far more likely to be able to do that than any other country in the 
world, I just don't believe it.''
    Now, my answer to them was, so we put an explicit safeguard in the 
treaty which says,

[[Page 1783]]

when we have evidence, which we don't have now, that we cannot maintain 
the reliability of the nuclear deterrent, if at that time it is still 
necessary for us to do so, then we will have to give notice and 
withdraw. That's what you have these safeguards for. That's in our 
supreme national interest.
    The other major argument against the treaty was that there can be 
some cheating because you can't always be sure, for underground tests 
under 5 kilotons and particularly under 1 kiloton. The answer to that 
is, that's true now. And this treaty makes it more likely that we will 
catch such things.
    That wasn't a good argument, because this treaty would give us over 
300 sensors around the world. And those sensors are far more likely to 
pick it up. This treaty would give us the possibility of onsite 
inspections, something we don't have now. And this treaty would give us 
the possibility of marshaling a much sterner rebuke to any country that 
violated it than we do now.
    There were other objections that were more minor, compared to these 
two big ones. That's why we offered these six safeguards, and invited 
the Senate to offer more. There were objections like this to the 
Chemical Weapons Convention. There are always going to be objections 
from the point of view of the country that feels it's in the strongest 
position. And that's why we have a process, an orderly process in the 
Senate, to allow the Senate to put these safeguards on. I think that's 
what Senator Byrd was saying yesterday when 
he voted ``present'' and condemned the process.
    You know, keep in mind, I didn't ask them to ratify the treaty as it 
was written. I asked them to ratify the treaty with the six safeguards 
that would address those two major objections and some of the others.
    Sarah, and then--[inaudible].

Deployment of U.S. Troops Abroad

    Q. Do you think the American people agree with you on the fact that 
we send armed soldiers to every place in the world where there's a 
conflict?
    The President. Do I think what now?
    Q. Do you feel that we, the American people, agree with the policy 
that we send armed soldiers to other parts of the country when we're not 
involved, but they're having an armed conflict, and we send soldiers 
over there anyway?
    The President. Yes, but I think----
    Q. Do you think the American people agree with that?
    The President. Let me say this. I think that the safer we make the 
world and the more we reduce the likelihood of war, the less likely we 
are to send people there. But you know, this is another argument for 
cooperation, however.
    There's another point I'd like to make. The heads of the Governments 
of Britain, France, and Germany took the extraordinary step of writing 
an op-ed piece--we don't have any better allies--they took the 
extraordinary step of writing an op-ed piece asking us to ratify this 
treaty and, in any case, not to defeat it. This was also an amazing 
rebuke to our allies. We say, ``Okay you guys are with us every time we 
need you, the Gulf war, the Balkans, always in NATO, you're there, but 
you ask us to do something for your common safety, go take a hike.'' And 
you know, I think that's a very tenuous position.
    If you look at what we did, we took a very leading role in trying to 
stop the violence and promote the integrity of the referendum in East 
Timor, a long way away. The Australians, the New Zealanders, the other 
countries in that region, they stepped right up and took the lion's 
share of the burden. They didn't expect America to do that. They asked 
us to help them with certain services that we are capable of providing, 
but they stepped right up. They looked to us and say, ``You know, keep 
leading the world toward nonproliferation. We'll do this work with 
you.'' We say to them, ``Go take a hike.'' I think it was a very dubious 
decision.
    Go ahead.

Fiscal Year 2000 Budget

    Q. Mr. President, a question on the budget. Are you saying that you 
would veto a Republican plan for across-the-board spending cuts? And 
since they are adamantly opposed to your tobacco tax hikes and your 
loophole closings, and both of you don't want to spend the Social 
Security surplus, what is the way out of this box to avoid another 
Government shutdown?
    The President. Well, first of all, I would veto a bill that I 
thought--here at the moment of our greatest prosperity, when we've got a 
surplus, if they wanted to cut education and gut our efforts to put more 
teachers in the schools, our efforts to give kids after-school programs,

[[Page 1784]]

our efforts to do all of the things we're trying to do in education--
hook up their computers to the schools by 2000, the Internet, all the 
classrooms to the Internet by 2000--all these things we're trying to do, 
would I veto that? I would. I would have to do that. I would have no 
choice. It would be unconscionable to think that America, at its moment 
of greatest prosperity, when we've got our first surplus in 30 years, is 
out there cutting education and several other areas. So, yes, I would.
    Secondly, I know for ideological reasons they don't want to raise 
the tobacco tax, but just yesterday one of their long-time allies, 
Philip Morris, acknowledged that cigarettes cause cancer. And we know 
that more needs to be done to get our kids off tobacco. And we know that 
raising the price of a pack of cigarettes is one of the best ways to do 
it. So we--you know, they don't have to agree to raise it as much as I 
proposed, but it would help to sit down and negotiate that. If they 
don't like my offsets, what are their offsets? Maybe there are some 
other things we could agree on. We won't know unless we have a serious 
conversation.
    I think the best way to do this is to avoid spending the Social 
Security surplus, even though it's been done every year for at least 16 
years and was done before in times of deficits. This is a new thing, you 
know, not spending it. The only reason they're proposing not to spend it 
is that we have non-Social Security surplus, though much smaller.
    There is a good reason not to spend it. And the good reason not to 
spend it is, number one, it will help us to pay down the debt and get 
this country out of debt in 15 years, for the first time in 165 years. 
Number two, it enables us to achieve interest savings, and those 
interest savings, I believe, for 5 years should be put back in the Trust 
Fund, and that will run the life of Social Security out to 2050 and take 
into account the retirement of all the baby boomers. So I hope we can do 
it.
    But in order to do it, we're going to have to make some hard 
decisions. But it looks to me like, though, the decisions that I propose 
to make are less hard than slashing education at a time of great 
prosperity when you've got the biggest and most diverse student 
population in history or raising taxes on poor people, which was another 
one of their proposals or all these gimmicks. I mean, they proposed--for 
example, if they do this 13-month thing, you know, where they just, we 
spend the money this year but play like we're spending it next year, 
then they're just going to make an even bigger headache. We'll have the 
same headache next year. And we'll be here a year from now, and you will 
be asking me these same questions.
    They say that the ordinary operations of the Pentagon are an 
emergency. That's one of the things they're considering. The ordinary 
operations of the Pentagon are an emergency. I think that will come as a 
surprise to people who have been working there for 10 or 20 years.
    Susan [Susan Page, USA Today].

2000 Election Issues

    Q. Mr. President, every 4 years the American people revise and 
adjust what they're looking for in the President they're about to elect, 
often, in reaction to the President who is about to leave office. And I 
wonder if, looking ahead, what you think Americans are looking for in 
the President they'll elect next year? And if there are ways in which 
those qualities or qualifications are different from what they were 
looking for in 1992 and 1996 when you were elected?
    The President. Well, I think that one big difference is the country 
is going to be in good shape instead of bad shape. And so they're going 
to be--right now, unless something unforeseen happens, by next February 
we'll have the longest expansion in history, peacetime or wartime. We'll 
have a 26-year-low in crime rate, a 30-year-low in the welfare rolls, a 
29-year-low in unemployment, first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years. 
We'll have--the social fabric of America will be mending. And the 
economy is lifting. We have a low in poverty rate of 20 years.
    So I think they'll be looking for things and thinking about--and 
they will know that they have a chance to shape the future in a way that 
we've not had in my lifetime. And so, I can only tell you what I think. 
What I think they will be looking for is someone who will offer big 
ideas about how to make sure that we deal with the aging of America, as 
we double the number of people over 65, how we deal with the explosion 
of children and their increasing diversity.
    I hope that they will say--we see a little bit in this debate on the 
gun safety issue in the Senate now. I hope they will say, ``Oh, it's 
fine we've got the lowest crime rate in 26 years. We want to vote for 
somebody that'll make this

[[Page 1785]]

the safest big country in the world.'' And I hope they will say that 
they are now much more concerned than they were able to be in '92, when 
people were worried about how they were going to get from one month to 
the next, that they really, really want us to make a sustained effort to 
bring opportunity to all the people and places that are still trapped in 
poverty. And I hope they will say that--they've been given a new issue 
now. I hope they will say that they don't want America to adopt a new 
isolationism, they want us to lead into the future. So there is a 
different sort of thing there. I also think that they want somebody who 
can deal in a sensitive way with the continuing evidence we have of 
violence in our country and of people manifesting all kinds of bigotry, 
that in its most extreme version you see in the killings in the Middle 
West and the shootings at the Jewish community school and all of that.
    But it's a different world. On balance, it's better, but I think 
we're much more sensitive than we were 7 years ago to the problems of 
the poor among us, and that's a good thing. And I think we're much more 
sensitive to the problems of discrimination and violence against people 
because of their race or their religion or their sexual orientation.
    You know, I hope that they will want someone, and I hope who will 
try as hard as I have tried and maybe be more successful--although I 
think they'll have to make some changes in Congress to do that--to 
create a genuine, constructive, bipartisan atmosphere. We get it here, 
but we get it about once a year, and it doesn't last long enough to suit 
me. When we get it, great things happen. [Laughter]
    Mary, [Mary McGrory, Washington Post] did you have a question?

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

    Q. Yes, sir. I was wondering if you have any plans to protect the 
ABM Treaty, which will almost certainly be the next target of the Senate 
Republicans, looking to start Star Wars?
    The President. As you have--all of you have reported this, we have 
continued to work on missile defense. We spend quite a good deal of 
money on it. Some preliminary tests are encouraging. If we have the 
potential to protect our people against missiles that could be loaded 
with nuclear weapons or chemical or biological weapons, coming at us 
from other countries--and this does not include the Russians with whom 
we have this ABM Treaty but all of these other countries that are trying 
to get missile technology--and it would be the responsible thing to try 
to deploy such a system.
    The problem is, any such system, even a ground-based one, would 
violate the literal terms of the ABM Treaty. Now, there are--as you've 
said, Mary, there are people in the United States Congress who would 
like to just tear up the ABM Treaty and go on. I, personally, think that 
would be a terrible mistake. Look, we are--for all of our ups and downs 
and rough edges, we are working with the Russians, and we have made real 
progress in reducing threats as a result of it. And let me just tick off 
a few things. They continue to reduce their nuclear arsenals. If they 
ratify START II, we'll take our nuclear arsenals to 80 percent below 
their cold-war high. We're prepared to go into START III negotiations 
with them if we do. They've also taken their troops out of the Baltics, 
and they've gotten nuclear weapons out of all those other former Soviet 
republics.
    We're getting something out of this, this partnership. And we, I 
think, would be very foolish to just discard the ABM Treaty.
    So what we're trying to do is see whether or not we can work with 
the Russians in a way that enhances their security and ours, to share 
some of the benefits of these developments, and to go forward in a way 
that convinces them that they're not the problem. We're also trying to 
do other things to minimize the problem. As you know, we've been working 
very hard with North Korea to try to end the missile program there.
    So I do not want to throw the ABM Treaty away. I do think it is the 
responsible thing to do to continue to pursue what appears to be far 
more promising than many had thought, including me a few a years ago, in 
terms of missile defense. But we have to try to work the two things out 
together. And I'm confident that if the Russians believe it is in their 
security interest to do so, that we can. And that will happen if we work 
with them. If we just scrap the ABM Treaty, it won't happen, and our 
insecurity will increase.
    Bill [Bill Plante, CBS News], go ahead. I'll take both of you, just 
one after the other. Go ahead.

[[Page 1786]]

Judge Susan Webber Wright's Decision

    Q. Mr. President, you've never commented on Judge Wright's decision 
that you intentionally lied in the Jones deposition. Do you accept her 
finding? And if not, why have you or your attorneys not challenged it?
    The President. When I am out of office, I will have a lot to say 
about this. Until then, I'm going to honor my commitment to all of you, 
to go back to work. I haven't challenged anything, including things that 
I consider to be questionable, because I think it is wrong. The American 
people have been put through enough, and they need every hour, every 
day, every minute I can give them thinking about their business. And so 
until I leave here, as I understand it now, all this is finished, and I 
don't have to comment on it. And unless there is some reason I legally 
have to, I'm not going to say anything else that doesn't relate to my 
responsibilities as President as regards to that. When I'm done, then I 
can say what I want to say.
    Go ahead.

Dismantling of Strategic Arms Controls

    Q. Mr. President, one of the arguments that some of your closest 
friends in the Senate make about this situation with the Comprehensive 
Test Ban Treaty is that the Republicans aren't just after that treaty or 
the ABM Treaty, that really what they want to do is embark on the full 
dismantling of all strategic arms controls. We've known it since the end 
of the cold war.
    The Republican argument is that arms control is an illusion and a 
delusion, that it lulls us into a false sense of security, and that it 
drains our will to maintain our military might. What do you think of 
those arguments? What's your response to them?
    The President. Imagine the world we will live in if they prevail. I 
mean, imagine the world we will live in if they prevail. That's what I 
think of them. I mean, look, are we more secure because we made an 
agreement with the Russians to reduce our nuclear arsenals? I believe we 
are. Are we more secure, given the economic and political tensions in 
that area that we made an agreement with the Russians to take those 
nuclear weapons out of Kazakhstan and Ukraine and Belarus? I believe we 
are. Are we more secure because other countries are not testing nuclear 
weapons and can only do so much in the laboratory? I believe we are. I 
think these arms control agreements have created a climate in the world 
which has helped to make us far more secure and helped to reduce the 
likelihood that nuclear weapons will ever be used again.
    If the United States, with all of our wealth, all of our strength, 
more nuclear weapons than anybody else, says we are so insecure that we 
want more, more, more, what in the wide world could we ever say to the 
Chinese; to the Russians, who I hope will not be on their backs 
economically forever; to the Indians and the Pakistanis, who I hope will 
not be on their backs economically forever, to the Indians and the 
Pakistanis, who have all kinds of arguments, one against the other, and 
involving other countries; to countries that believe we are too 
aggressive in the world already and don't share a lot of our political 
or our philosophical views?
    You know, I'm glad you said that. You're right. They don't believe 
that, and they think we ought to go it alone. It doesn't bother them 
that we don't pay our U.N. dues. It doesn't bother them that we're 
giving the Pentagon money in their budget that the Pentagon didn't ask 
for and say is not necessary for our national security, but they won't 
fund a decent investment in diplomacy and helping to lift the world's 
poor in places where people are trying to make democracy take root; that 
we're not funding our obligations under the Middle East peace process, 
our obligations to help the Russians continue to dismantle their nuclear 
weapons. That's right, and they do believe that. And I go back to what 
Mark said, there are--I don't believe they're yet the majority in the 
Republican caucus, but they are a very, very potent minority. And they 
do believe this. But I think they're wrong. And the American people must 
understand that this is one of the choices they now have to make.
    Q. Mr. President, you said imagine a world without these agreements. 
Please give some examples of what you're driving at, because they said 
it's going to be a terrific world without these agreements, that America 
is going to be safer without the agreements than it is with them.
    The President. First of all, we're all tied in knots now over this 
budget, right? I mean, it's totally unnecessary, but we are. We 
shouldn't be. Now, can you imagine if we had no arms control agreements? 
Let's just suppose we tore

[[Page 1787]]

them all up tomorrow--nothing, no nonproliferation agreement. Then this 
same crowd would be coming in and saying. ``Well, now there's no 
nonproliferation agreements, you know, and here's a list of 12 countries 
that we think they have two scientists who can figure out how to put 
together a small nuclear weapon. And there's no Chemical Weapons 
Convention or Biological Weapons Convention, so they've got those labs 
chugging right along here. And therefore, we need you to increase the 
budget for all this to the labs and the Pentagon by another $30 or $40 
or $50 billion a year. So, I'm sorry, we'll just have to get out of the 
business of funding education. We can't afford to invest any more in 
health care. The American people just have to figure out what to do on 
their own.'' It would totally erode the fabric of our domestic climate.
    Meanwhile, what happens overseas? Countries that could be putting 
money into the education and health care and development of their 
children, whether they're democracies or military dictatorships or 
communist countries, will be sitting there saying, ``Well, you know, 
we'd like to lower the infant mortality rate. We'd like to lower the 
hunger rate. We'd like to lower the poverty rate. We'd like to raise the 
literacy rate. But look at what the Americans are doing. Look at what 
our neighbors are doing. Let's spend half our money on military.'' It 
would be great for the people that build this stuff, but for everybody 
else it would be a nightmare.
    Consider the Japanese, coming out, we earnestly hope, of their long 
economic slump, having honored, since World War II, their commitment to 
be a non-nuclear state and to spend a small percentage of their income 
on defense. What in the world would they do in such a world? And if they 
had to divert 4, 5, 6 percent of their gross national product to 
defense, what kind of economic partner would they be?
    What would happen in Latin America, the area which has been the area 
that was the greatest growth for us in trade? After we have worked so 
hard, you've got Brazil to renounce its nuclear program. You've got 
former adversaries working together in trade agreements. What would 
happen if they all of a sudden got antsy and decided, ``Well, you know, 
we have no national status. Our people, you know, we'll have the same 
elements in our country saying we can't defend ourselves. We've got to 
have a biological program, a chemical program, a nuclear program.''
    I mean, you know, all this sounds good. But the idea that the best 
way for us to go forward--since right now, at this particular moment in 
history, we enjoy the greatest wealth and the greatest power--is to 
build this big old wall and tell all of our friends and neighbors to go 
take a hike. ``We're not cooperating with them anymore. As far as we're 
concerned, any might be an enemy, and anything you want to do with your 
money is fine with us, because we have more money than you do, so 
whatever you do, we'll do more.''
    I think it will be a bleak, poor, less secure world. I don't want my 
children and my grandchildren or your children or your grandchildren to 
live in it. They believe that. I will do everything I can to stop it.
    Yes.

Senate Action on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

    Q. Sir, isn't it wishful thinking for the Democrats to think they 
can beat up on the Republicans next year over this treaty vote? Yes, 
public opinions show that most Americans do support the treaty. But you 
were not able, despite your 30-plus public appearances, you were not 
able to light a fire under public opinion. Can't the Republicans just 
walk away from this without any damage, particularly in the post-cold-
war era? Isn't it true that Americans just don't worry about the nuclear 
threat?
    The President. I think there is something to that. But you know, it 
was interesting; as I understand it, one of the reasons this came up--
from what my Republican friends in the Senate say--is that the 
Republicans were worried that the Democrats would keep beating on this 
next year if they didn't bring it up and dispose of it this year, and 
they were afraid it would be a political issue. I never wanted it to be 
a political issue. I never wanted the Chemical Weapons Treaty to be a 
political issue. I never thought this stuff would be a political issue. 
I always thought we'd have a bipartisan consensus to do what had to be 
done.
    So they may have made it a political issue now, and it may or may 
not have any impact. But I will say this. I will say again--I believe 
the American people eventually--I think they will stay where they are, 
and I think we'll eventually get this treaty ratified. But it may be

[[Page 1788]]

in every democracy--you know, the people decide what they care about. I 
told Senator Lott that I did not expect that this 
would ever be such a big issue. I think it might be now, and the people 
have to decide. This is part of the choices a free people make, and it's 
an important choice, and we'll just see what they do.
    Yes, go ahead.

Protests at the World Trade Organization Meeting in Seattle

    Q. Labor unions have stepped up their criticisms of the World Trade 
Organization and plan to demonstrate at the talks next month. You've 
sought to answer some of their concerns, but it's not likely that you're 
going to answer all of them before then. Is that going to weaken the 
U.S. negotiating position in the talks?
    The President. No, because there will be a lot of people from other 
countries there demonstrating against it, too. [Laughter] I mean, you're 
going to have--there will be a lot of people there against it. And I 
think--I want to say two things. First of all, I am committed to 
launching a new trade round which will expand opportunities for us and 
for others on a fair basis. For example, if we stop export subsidies to 
agriculture, 85 percent of which are in Europe today, it would benefit 
farmers in my home State of Arkansas, but it would also benefit farmers 
in Argentina and farmers in Africa. And I would like to see that done.
    I would like to see us make a commitment that electronic commerce 
would continue to be tax free. And I would like to see us continue to 
make progress in other areas, because 3 out of 10--30 percent of our 
growth came from trade-related growth, until the Asian financial crisis, 
and because I think it's the best way to lift labor standards and to 
give countries the money they need to protect their environment. So I 
will continue to push for this.
    Now, having said that, I don't think it's such a bad thing that all 
these people are coming to Seattle to demonstrate. Why? Because I went 
to Geneva to speak to the WTO, and then I went back to Geneva to speak 
to the International Labor Organizations to say that particularly those 
of us in the wealthier countries have a heavy responsibility to try to 
put a more human face on the global economy. And that means you have to 
bring labor interests and environmental interests into these 
deliberations, that not only do these factors have to be considered but 
the people themselves have to be heard. I think it is very important. 
And so we have proposed, for example, a trade and labor group, coming 
out of the WTO. We want to see more work done in the environmental area.
    But the point I'd like to make is--if you'll just let me get off on 
this one little area in which I have an obsession--I think that, while 
I'm all for big ideas--you asked me about what the next campaign should 
be about; I'm all for big ideas--the world is still largely in the grip 
of a big idea that isn't true anymore. And that big idea is that in 
order for any country that's not rich to get rich, they have to burn 
more fossil fuels and put more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, 
because that's the way we got rich, and that's the way the British got 
rich, and that's the way other countries got rich. And that's not true 
anymore.
    The whole economics of energy and the economy have changed. And we 
could have a revolution in the environment with more trade and 
investment in available, presently available, environmental technologies 
and alternative energy sources. That's just one example.
    But it won't necessarily happen automatically. And just as--look at 
the domestic market in America. We have about the freest markets you can 
imagine here. It's easier for--if any of you folks could leave what 
you're doing, if you weren't so devoted to it, and go make more money 
probably doing something else, you could get venture capital; you could 
come up with some idea; you'd fooled around with your computer so much 
you could probably start some new Internet company and be worth a couple 
hundred million dollars in no time. And that happens all the time. 
[Laughter] You know, those of you who are over 25 may be too old to do 
it, now. That's where all the money--[laughter].
    But you know, we have an open economy. But what makes it work? We've 
got a Federal Reserve that works. We've got a Securities and Exchange 
Commission that works. We've got protections for consumers. We've got 
protections against monopolies. We have intermediate institutions.
    The trading system and the financial system, the global financial 
markets and the global trading system, are creating a global economy. We 
need some intermediate involvement from labor and environment, just to 
name two, to make sure that we build an economy that benefits

[[Page 1789]]

everybody and that literally has a more human face on it.
    And so I'm actually not all that upset those folks are coming to 
Seattle. I welcome them. But if their fundamental view is, if we had 
less trade instead of more, that every economy could be self-sustaining 
and the environment would be better and people would make more money, I 
think that is simply not true. And I think you can demonstrate that's 
not true. So I want an expansive trade round that helps America and 
helps them, too.
    Let me just make one final point. I have done everything I could to 
get the wealthy countries to do more for the poor countries. We're 
trying to pass an Africa trade initiative here, and a Caribbean Basin 
initiative. And it does have bipartisan support. Let me say that I'm 
grateful for the Republicans that are helping us with it. And I think 
we've got a chance to pass it this year. We're trying to get debt relief 
for the poorest countries in the world.
    So I'm sympathetic with all these negative feelings. But one of the 
things that spawns these kind of negative feelings is, these folks feel 
like they've been shut out. They think the WTO is some rich guys' club 
where people get in and talk in funny language and use words nobody 
understands and make a bunch of rules that help the people that already 
have and stick it to the people that have not. That's what they think. 
And so if we're going to change their perception, we've got to listen to 
their protests and bring them into the tent and go forward taking these 
concerns into account.

Gun Buy-Back Program

    Q. Mr. President, you have alluded several times to anticrime 
initiatives, and a big part of your anticrime initiatives are gun buy-
back programs. Recent studies that are coming out--that have come out--
that are coming out show that a lot of people that hand these guns in 
are old shotguns that don't work. They're from the attic. They're from 
the basement, whatever. They're really not the kinds of guns that were 
used in Los Angeles in some of the high profile crimes that the nation 
has been so fixed on in recent months.
    Basically, I'm wondering, are you concerned that in putting so much 
focus on these buy-back programs that other initiatives like they've 
tried in Richmond, that have proven successful, and in Philadelphia, 
might languish as a result?
    The President. Well, first let me say that I do believe that the gun 
buy-back programs will get all kinds of guns. And obviously, if you 
wanted the money and you didn't care about the gun, those are the 
easiest to give up. If you've got some old gun that doesn't work and you 
want $25 or whatever you get for it, it's a good way to get it.
    But keep in mind there are over--I don't know what the exact number 
is--but there is almost one gun for every person in America. There are 
way over 200 million guns in America. And all the new gun purchases, 
handgun purchases at least, require background checks. So I still think 
the more you can get done with that the better. I still think the more 
the better.
    I agree with the import of your question, however. It would be a 
great mistake to emphasize that to the exclusion of law enforcement 
strategies that plainly work like the one in Richmond, like the one in 
Boston that led to no child being killed by gun violence in nearly 2 
years. It would be a great mistake to think that's a substitute for 
closing the loopholes in both our assault weapons bill and the Brady 
bill, especially the gun show loophole. It would be a great mistake to 
think that that could substitute for our efforts to put 50,000 more 
police officers on the street in the areas that still have crime rates 
that are still too high.
    So I think we should stick with the gun buy-back program. I think 
we're spending about $15 million on it, not an enormous amount of money, 
but it should be only one part of a very comprehensive strategy.
    Yes, in the back.

Japan

    Q. Mr. President, about steel imports from Japan. Why are you 
delaying your decision under Section 201 charges against Japanese steel 
wire? The ITC was divided; your advisers are divided, according to Mr. 
Sperling yesterday. Does that mean that you 
don't see any compelling reasons for taking action to protect domestic 
producers? And also, next, about CTBT, does Japan have any special role 
to play in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons?
    The President. Let me answer the first question first. You answered 
the first question for me. I have delayed a decision because the ITC was 
divided, and my advisers are divided. So I have to make the decision. 
[Laughter] And it's a complicated issue, and I'm trying to work

[[Page 1790]]

it through. And I only got the background material on it, oh, in the 
last few days. And as you know, we've been otherwise preoccupied with 
the test ban treaty. So I only looked at it, I don't know, yesterday, 
the day before, even at first blush.
    So it's a decision that I will have to make and for which everyone 
can hold me responsible, because our people have not yet been able--they 
can't resolve all the details themselves. I will do what I think is 
right. You should not infer from the fact that a decision has been made 
that I will grant no relief, because I have not decided whether to grant 
relief or not. And I will decide in the most timely fashion I can.
    Now on the second question you asked, which I think is the far more 
important question, I think in a way Japan may be in a unique position 
to play a role of global importance now. Why? Because Japan is by far 
the wealthiest, strongest country in the world without a nuclear 
program. And if the Japanese say--go to the Chinese and say, ``Don't 
start testing;'' go to the Indians and say, ``Don't start testing;'' go 
to the Pakistanis and say, ``Don't start testing again;'' say, ``We want 
to stay where we are; we want to live in a 21st century world where our 
competition is commercial, not military, where we're worried about 
ideas, not atoms,'' I think it will have a very important effect in this 
period when people are going to try to sort out how they feel about what 
I've said at this press conference today as against the vote last night.
    So I personally believe Japan can play a remarkably positive role. 
And I have great confidence in Prime Minister Obuchi; he's done a terrific job. And I hope that Japan will 
play that role.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President's 182d news conference began at 2:04 p.m. in the 
East Room at the White House. In his remarks, the President referred to 
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan; Prime Minister Atal Behari 
Vajpayee of India; and Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi of Japan.