    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [March 16, 2000]
    [Pages 475-477]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Departure for Capitol Hill and an Exchange With Reporters
    March 16, 2000

    Legislative Agenda/Oil Prices

        The President. Good afternoon. I'd like to say just a few words,
    before I go up to the Speaker's annual Saint Patrick's Day luncheon,
    about three issues.
        Yesterday the House took a small but significant step down the long
    road toward commonsense gun safety legislation. House Members from both
    parties have said it's time to get to work, after 8 months and other
    senseless shootings. It's time for the House and Senate conference to
    resolve the differences between the two bills and send one to me.
        The American people have spoken clearly and consistently about the
    need to protect our children from gun violence. The House is listening.
    I hope the Republican leaders in the House and the Senate will listen
    and get this conference underway.
        Of course, a meeting is just a beginning. Congress should keep
    working until it sends me a bill I can sign that closes the gun show
    loophole, requires child safety locks with all new handguns, bans the
    importation of large capacity ammunition clips. Again, I hope they will
    reconsider and restore the provision that hold adults responsible if
    they knowingly or recklessly let little children have access to guns.
        A courageous bipartisan majority in the House has now said no to the
    attack ads, no to the name-calling, and no to the threats. They have
    stood up for the American people, but there are further tests ahead. The
    clock is ticking, and America is waiting to see whether Congress can
    really produce a bill that responds to the interests of our children and
    not the intimidation of the NRA.
        I'd also like to say a few words about the budget the House passed
    yesterday. It is more than a balance sheet; every budget is. It's a
    blueprint for our future. For 7 years, our administration has worked to
    build a future based on fiscal discipline. The budget proposed by the
    Republican leadership would erode that discipline. It would weaken, not
    strengthen, the foundation Americans have worked so hard to build for
    the future.
        Before devoting a single dollar to pay down the debt or extend the
    solvency of Social Security or Medicare or provide a voluntary
    prescription drug benefit or invest in our children's education, the
    majority's budget already spends almost half a trillion dollars in tax
    cuts--almost half a trillion, and as the Republican budget makes clear,
    they're just getting started.
        This is unrealistic, unwise. The risks it poses are unconscionable.
    It is as risky and costly as the budget they proposed last year that I
    vetoed. It would undermine our ability to make America debt-free by
    2013, to strengthen Social Security and take it out beyond the life of
    the baby boom generation, to lengthen the life of Medicare and add a
    voluntary prescription drug benefit. It would slash our most pressing
    priorities across the board, from education and the environment, from
    law enforcement to public health, from scientific research to basic
    nutrition. It would be impossible for them to follow the path that we
    have all agreed on to modernize our defense forces and improve the
    quality of life of our men and women in uniform.
        This is the wrong path for America. The only way they could meet
    their spending priorities with this tax cut is to go back to huge
    deficits. I asked the leadership to change course, to go back and write
    a budget that maintains our fiscal discipline and meets our most
    pressing priorities.
        Now, the third issue I would like to mention very briefly is that I
    have just met with the Secretary of Energy
    and his team and my economic team, and we have talked about the present
    difficulties that Americans are facing because of the price of gasoline
    and the high price of oil, and what our short and longer term options
    are. And we've been working very hard

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    on this now for several weeks, and we hope to have some things to say
    about it over the next few days.
        But this is--I'm encouraged by a lot of the developments that are
    going on. I hope there will be some relief soon when the OPEC meeting
    occurs. But I do believe we need to do more on our own here in America
    to deal with some of the things we've learned, some of the pressure
    points we've learned are on our people in these last few months.
        So I just want to notify you that we are working on this, and we
    will have some more to say later, and I don't want to be late to the
    Speaker's Saint Patrick's Day lunch.
        Q. Mr. President, on the question of gun control----

    Oil Prices

        Q. Mr. President, have you spoken in person to any of the leaders of
    the OPEC nations to increase----
        The President. Wait, wait. The answer is, we have made clear what my
    public position is. I've said no more to anybody privately than I've
    said in public. I think it is in the interest of the OPEC nations and in
    the interest of the consuming nations to have a stable price of oil that
    gives them a fair return on their oil, enables them to run their
    countries and finance their budgets, but is not so high that it runs the
    risk of promoting inflation or recession, which will reduce the demand
    for oil by cratering the economies of other countries and hurting ours
    and hurting a lot of innocent people in the process.
        So the trick is to find the right balance. Oil was way too low last
    year because they increased production right as demand dropped after the
    Asian financial crisis. Now, the price is too high because they cut
    production right as demand increased, when Europe and Asia were growing
    more again.
        So we've got to get this back into balance. That's what I want to
    do. I think it's very much in their interest, and I haven't said any
    more in private than I'm saying to you in public, but we are working
    that.

    National Rifle Association

        Q. Mr. President, Wayne LaPierre, last night on the news, said the
    blood of Ricky Byrdsong is on your hands. I was wondering if you would
    like to respond to that personally, sir, and also go to the underlying
    issue of enforcement? The NRA contends the administration has been lax
    up until very recently on the enforcement issue.
        The President. Well, first of all, most of those--I think the
    television news, some of the reports answered the Byrdsong case in great
    detail, and I don't have anything to add to that. And again, I will say,
    I don't think--getting into a personal spat with Mr. LaPierre about tactics that I don't think any American
    appreciates and that all Americans can see through is not worth doing.
        I think on the enforcement issue, if you just go back and look at
    the facts that were reported on the news last night in this case, I
    think it makes the case. The question is: What should the States do?
    What should the Federal Government do? What is the appropriate thing to
    do in the Brady cases? And I believe what we've tried to do is the right
    course.
        I think the Attorney General has tried to
    increase Federal gun prosecutions. We've asked for resources to do more.
    But we've also tried to do it in a sensible way that left a lot of the
    burden and the criminal law where it belongs, with the local
    prosecutors. And I think to try to take a case like that, where actually
    the Brady bill worked--and if we had more comprehensive checking so that
    no one could sell a gun without a Brady background check, we'd have an
    even safer society--is not a very good argument for the other side to
    make.
        And I think it's truly ironic that the NRA is now criticizing us for
    not throwing everybody in jail that fails a Brady background check when
    they opposed the Brady bill. If it had been up to them, we wouldn't be
    doing these background checks, and 500,000 more felons, fugitives, and
    stalkers would have handguns, so----

    Northern Ireland Peace Process

        Q. Is there a break in the Irish impasse?
        The President. Thank you. We're working it.

    National Rifle Association

        Q. Can I follow up on that, sir? Mr. President, why do you think the
    NRA has chosen this particular moment, though, to attack you?
        The President. I have no idea. I really don't know; must be a good
    fundraising tactic. I honestly don't know. I don't know.
        Q. Because they've had their way mostly on Capitol Hill, it seems,
    up to this point.

    [[Page 477]]

        The President. I don't know. I think they know that the majority of
    the American people support us on this bill, and if they get the bill
    before the Congress, it will pass. So maybe it's some strategy to try to
    keep it from ever being in an acceptable form to be voted on one way or
    the other. I don't know. You'll have to ask them. I can't figure it out.
        Thanks.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:50 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Wayne LaPierre, executive vice
    president, National Rifle Association.