    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [February 28, 2000]
    [Pages 326-328]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion With the National Governors'
    Association
    February 28, 2000

        The President. Thank you. Good morning, Governor Leavitt, Governor Glendening. It's a great pleasure for me to be here with many members
    of my Cabinet and my Chief of Staff, John Podesta, and Mickey Ibarra, who does such
    a good job of working with all of you. Hillary and I especially enjoyed
    the time we spent at dinner last night, and I hope you did as well.
        Over the last 7 years, I've tried to build a genuine partnership
    with all of you, based on greater resources, greater flexibility, and a
    greater commitment to shared goals. I think we could all agree that the
    results have been good: welfare rolls cut in half; 2 million children
    enrolled in the Children's Health Insurance Program; 150,000 young
    people in AmeriCorps; our schools improving.
        This year we'll have a lot to do. Among other things, we have to
    work hard to make sure that we count every American in the census.
        We begin the new century on a high note. In the last 3 months of
    1999, economic growth was 6.9 percent, the fastest in more than a
    decade. This month, expansion has lengthened to the point that we are
    enjoying the longest economic period of growth we've ever had. Our
    social fabric also is on the mend: the lowest crime level in 25 years,
    the lowest welfare rolls in 30 years, the lowest poverty rates in 20
    years, the lowest female unemployment rates in 40 years, and the lowest
    African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates ever recorded.
        I believe that in this new economy, government's role is to give the
    American people the tools and the conditions they need to make their way
    and to advance our Nation's progress: fiscal discipline, investments in
    education and technology, new markets for American products and
    services.

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        Today we're going to have a roundtable discussion of three issues
    vital to our continued success: health care, trade, and the impact of
    the digital technology on the new economy. We'll also talk about what
    we've already done and what more we can do to help American families
    cope with rising home heating oil prices, especially in the Northeast,
    and the prospect of other oil-related price increases.
        On Friday I sent a supplemental appropriations request to Congress
    to replenish the LIHEAP funds to help more hard-hit families through
    this crisis and to ensure that there's enough money in the fund for
    others who may need help later in the year, when the weather gets hot.
        Since January, we've allocated $295 million to help people in need.
    In addition to making up that shortfall and ensuring there are
    sufficient funds for the future, we're also requesting $19 million in
    additional funds for the Department of Energy's weatherization programs,
    to help increase energy efficiency of homes and reduce energy costs for
    families, and we're requesting resources to help make $86 million in SBA
    loans available to small home heating oil distributors, so that they
    will be able to extend the kind of flexible payment terms to customers
    hard hit by the recent price spike that so many utilities do today.
        I urge Governors who are receiving these LIHEAP funds to adjust
    eligibility standards also to cover as many low and moderate income
    families as possible, and to keep in mind that States can use Temporary
    Assistance for Needy Family funds to provide emergency heating
    assistance to very low income families with children.
        We've also directed the Coast Guard to expedite deliveries of home
    heating oil. And as I think all of you know, Secretary Richardson is
    conducting a 60-day study of diversifying energy supplies and possibly
    converting factories and other major oil users to other fuels to free up
    oil supplies for home heating use. And, in anticipation of other
    potential price spikes in other parts of the oil market, we are asking
    refiners to keep producing at full throttle until the crisis has passed.
        Finally, I hope that we will begin a discussion about how to make
    our economy even more energy efficient, so we're not so dependent on the
    ups and downs of supplies or so affected by future oil prices.
        Whether in response to an earthquake, a flood, a hurricane, a farm
    crisis, our people always pull together at times like this. And for
    those of you like me, who come from different parts of the country, I
    can tell you that the families in the Northeast need our help now, and
    we're going to do what we can to provide it.
        Before we begin our roundtable discussion, let me just say a few
    words about the other issues that are important to every Governor in
    this room and every citizen in our Nation: education reform, the current
    debate over how best to provide a Medicare prescription drug option for
    our seniors, and environmental stewardship.
        Over the past 7 years, as we have turned the deficits into surplus
    and now are on our way to being debt-free in 13 years, we have also
    nearly doubled our investment in schools and demanded more in return,
    working hard, along with you, for higher standards, greater
    accountability, and extra help to the children who need it. Virtually
    every State has embraced that approach. Last year, with your help, we
    enacted landmark school accountability legislation to provide $134
    million to States and school districts to turn around failing schools.
    Last week I announced new guidelines to help States invest in what works
    to do just that.
        I want to thank you for your partnership in the accountability
    movement and ask you to continue to work with us to strengthen our focus
    on that.
        Another issue of increasing importance to States is the growing
    challenge presented by the lack of prescription drug coverage for
    seniors. Many people don't know that States, through their Medicaid
    programs, are the single largest purchasers of drugs in the world.
    Increasing drug costs are likely to be one of the fastest growing
    components of Medicaid programs in the years to come. We all recognize,
    I believe, that we need to modernize and reform the Medicare program, to
    extend its life, to make it more efficient and more competitive and
    better able to meet the challenges of the baby boom generation's aging.
        I hope, as part of this broader reform, we can work with you to
    develop a privately contracted, voluntary Medicare prescription drug
    benefit. It's a life-and-death issue for many seniors, and I don't think
    we should let another year pass without taking action. Tomorrow I will
    release a State-by-State analysis of the health,

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    financing, and demographic challenges facing the Medicare program and
    the tens of millions of Americans it serves.
        Finally, let me also say that this is a good year to secure
    permanent funding for the protection of precious lands across our
    Nation. I had a good discussion with Governor King about this last night. Last year Congress approved a
    substantial increase in our lands legacy initiative. Two weeks ago, as
    part of this effort, I announced $60 million in grants to States to
    create parks, save open space, and protect forests. The new budget
    proposes another substantial increase, a record $1.4 billion to protect
    land and coastal resources, and this year we've proposed to make the
    higher level permanent funding. At least half of this funding would go
    to support State and local conservation efforts. I hope we can make
    this, too, our gift to the future.
        Now, I'd like to call on Governor Leavitt to make some opening remarks, and I want to thank you
    again, sir, for what you said last night. It was terrific. Welcome.

    [At this point, the discussion proceeded.]

        The President. I would just like to make one comment--and then I
    know Governor Leavitt has got an agenda--
    about the role of government in the new economy. All of you will be
    thinking about this. I think we need to think about how we can
    reasonably make more new markets or help to facilitate them; how we can
    remove barriers without undermining public interest to the private
    sector's development; and how we can make government more user-friendly.
    And I'll just give you a couple of examples.
        One of the biggest fights we had here when we overhauled the
    telecommunications law, for the first time in 60 years, was the
    insistence, that we in the administration had, that we let as many
    entrepreneurs into this unfolding new business as possible. And now,
    everywhere I go, I see people who are doing terrifically well, have
    hired huge numbers of people, who didn't even have businesses 5 years
    ago, because we got Federal legislation that had an entrepreneurial
    focus. And I think all of us should be sensitive to that, because I know
    Tom Friedman talked to you the other day;
    he's one of many people who points out that, even though more of our
    growth than ever before is in private sector jobs, the role of
    government, while different, is still profoundly important. And if you
    make the wrong call on some of these things, you wind up paying for it
    for a long time to come.
        We just had a financial--totally bipartisan financial modernization
    act pass the Congress last year that, I believe, is an example of
    removing impediments without undermining the public interest. We enacted
    the Community Reinvestment Act, but I think that we took a set of
    barriers out of the way of our financial institutions in maximizing the
    digital economy.
        And then we've also tried to make government more user-friendly. We
    have more and more people filing their taxes electronically and relating
    to us in a lot of other ways. And I saw an article in my weekly reports
    just last night that at least one of you has already cleared the way for
    people to vote electronically, which will be an interesting challenge.
    If somebody wants to explain to me how we can do that and meet all the
    security needs, I'd be interested in it, because I think, clearly, we're
    all going this way.
        I know many of you have advance voting. And interestingly enough,
    it's just to make government more user-friendly, and it's changing
    politics. There's one State here where a congressional race was decided
    in the last election because of advance voting, and there was a totally
    different result on election day than in the advance voting period. But
    we all are going to have to be very creative.
        The other thing I think we have to do is not shut ourselves out of
    any part of the world, and I want to talk to you more later about the
    importance of bringing China into the WTO, which I feel very strongly
    about, and I hope we'll have a chance to talk about that.
        Thank you very much. We'll let the press leave, and we'll go on with
    the program.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:40 a.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Michael O. Leavitt of Utah,
    chairman, and Gov. Parris N. Glendening of Maryland, vice chairman,
    National Governors' Association; Gov. Angus S. King, Jr., of Maine; and
    Thomas L. Friedman, foreign affairs columnist, New York Times. The
    President also referred to LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance
    Program.