    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [March 2, 2000]
    [Pages 357-360]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Following a Meeting With Biotechnology, Foundation, and
    International Leaders and an Exchange With Reporters
    March 2, 2000

        The President. Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, I have a very
    distinguished group of leaders here in the White House today, and I
    thank them all for coming: leaders of the international organizations
    concerned with the health of people throughout the world, Minister of
    Health from Uganda, the leaders of
    the pharmaceutical industry and biotech industry and the foundation
    community in our country who are profoundly interested in joining forces
    to fight against diseases that kill both people and progress in the
    world's poorest countries, diseases like AIDS, TB, and malaria, each of
    which claim over a million lives a year, and others as well.
        We agreed that the solution must include the development and the
    delivery of effective vaccines. That's how we got rid of smallpox and
    come close to eliminating polio. So today we're beginning a partnership
    to eradicate the leading infectious killers of our time, speeding the
    delivery of existing vaccines and getting to the heart of the problem,
    the lack of incentives for private industry to invest in new vaccines
    for people who simply can't afford to buy them.
        I have attempted to put a comprehensive package on the table so that
    the United States can do its part to change this: a billion-dollar tax
    credit to speed the invention of vaccines; a $50 million contribution to
    a global fund to purchase vaccines; substantial increase in research at
    the National Institutes of Health.
        I've asked the World Bank to dedicate more lending to improve
    health, and Mr. Wolfensohn has been very
    forthcoming here today, and I thank him for that.
        The private sector is also responding to this challenge, and I want
    to thank them and recognize the commitments that have been announced
    here today. Merck is committing to develop an AIDS vaccine not just for
    strains of the virus that affect wealthy nations but for strains that
    ravage the poorest nations as well. This is profoundly important. It's
    also donating a million doses of hepatitis B vaccine to those who need
    it most. American Home Products will donate 10 million doses of a
    vaccine to--strains of pneumonia and meningitis in children. SmithKline
    Beecham will expand its malaria vaccine program and begin new vaccine
    trials in Africa and will donate drugs worth a billion dollars to
    eliminate elephantiasis, which is a painful and potentially very
    crippling and disfiguring tropical disease. Aventis Pharma will donate
    50 million doses of polio vaccine to 5 war-torn African nations.
        This is a very important beginning. It will save lives and make it
    clear that we're serious. But all of us agree there is more to do. We
    have to first build on the bipartisan support that now exists in our
    Congress to enact the research and experimentation tax credit and the
    tax credit that we proposed for this specific purpose and to get the
    funding increases through. I will go to the G-8 meeting in Okinawa this
    summer to urge our partners to take similar steps. And so let me say, I
    am profoundly grateful.

    Gun Safety Legislation

        Now, because this is my first opportunity to be with you when you
    can say something back today, the press, I also want to just say a word
    about the terrible shooting yesterday, which followed the killing of the
    6-year-old child the day before in Michigan.
        These two incidents were very troubling, and they have individual
    causes and explanations and

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    doubtless will require individual responses. But they do remind us that
    there is still too much danger in this country and that for more than 8
    months now, Congress has been sitting on the commonsense gun safety
    legislation to require child safety locks, to close the gun show
    loophole, and the background law, and to ban the importation of large
    ammunition clips. I have said before, I will say again today, I'm going
    to invite the leaders of this conference down to the White House to talk
    about what we can do to break the logjam.
        I also think we should go further. We ought to invest in smart gun
    technology. We talked about investing the vaccines; we're not too far
    from being able to develop technology which could change all the
    handguns so that they could only be fired by the adults who purchase
    them. And that would make a big difference. Apparently, the
    child who was killed was killed by another
    child with a stolen gun. If we had child trigger locks on all the guns,
    it wouldn't have happened.
        And finally, I think that it's long, long past time to license
    purchases of handguns in this country. Car owners are licensed. All
    drivers are licensed, whether they own a car or not. I think it's time
    to do that.
        So I hope that we will see some action. But the most important thing
    now, thinking about this child, is, if we had child trigger locks on all
    these guns, we could keep them alive. So I hope Congress will break the
    logjam, and I'm going to invite the conferees down here to do it.
        Let me finally say again, this is a truly astonishing turnout of
    people around this table, and together, if we work on it over the next
    few years, we can literally save the lives of millions of people. And it
    couldn't be done without the presence of all these people. And I'm very
    grateful to them. Thank you.
        Thank you very much.
        Q. Mr. President, if legislation was sent to you that included the
    riddance of ammunition clips and included safety locks but did not
    include the gun show loophole, would you veto that?
        The President. Well, I don't know. I think they'd have a very hard
    time explaining why they did it. Let me remind you, when I signed the
    Brady bill, and the NRA opposed it, they said, ``Oh, this Brady bill
    won't do any good now because criminals don't buy their guns through gun
    shops. They buy their guns at gun shows and these urban flea markets or
    on the sly, one on one. They don't use gun shops.'' Well, come to find
    out, 500,000 people couldn't get a handgun because they were felons,
    fugitives, or stalkers. And it's a safer country because of it.
        Now that we want to extend the background check to the gun shows,
    they say the people--they say the criminals don't use the gun shows,
    even though 5 years ago they said they did. There is no logical reason
    to let these gun shows off the hook on the background checks. And the
    technology is there to do it without causing a total breakdown. And I
    suggested, if they're worried about the inconvenience to the buyers and
    the sellers, they could always--and they have these things out in the
    country somewhere--they could always deposit the weapon with the local
    sheriff's department while they're waiting to do the background check.
        There are all kinds of fixes for the alleged problems here, and
    there's no reason to do the--the Brady bill is saving people's lives and
    keeping guns out of the wrong hands. But we do need the child trigger
    locks. That child would be alive today if that
    gun had had a child trigger lock on it that the other 6-year-old child
    could not have fired. And we just need to--we've got to have it. We've
    got to have it.
        The accidental death rate of children by guns in this country is 9
    times higher than the rate of the next 25 biggest industrial economies
    combined. I mean, that's something that--if you forget about the
    intentional crime, just look at the accidents, we've got to do it, and
    we need to do it tomorrow. We need to do it as quickly as we can.

    International Monetary Fund

        Q. Mr. President, what are your specific objections to the German
    IMF candidate, and what do you expect to happen from here?
        The President. We've handled that in the appropriate way, I think,
    through Secretary Summers. Let me say, I
    want there to be a European Director of the IMF. I will not support an
    American candidate, even though I have enormous respect for Mr.
    Fischer. And I'm gratified that the African
    nations expressed their support for him. He's an enormously able man.
    But we have a naturalized American over
    there leading the World Bank in a great way, and

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    I think the Europeans should lead the IMF. And it would suit me if a
    German led the IMF.
        I don't--nobody is playing any games here. We went through a
    terrible crisis in the late nineties in Asia. We in the United States
    went through a terrible problem with our friends in Mexico when their
    economy was on the verge of collapse and causing others in Latin
    America, and indeed, far beyond Latin America, to teeter. We think the
    IMF will become even more important in the years ahead.
        We want the strongest possible person in the world to head it. It's
    a big, big, important job. But I am completely committed to having a
    European head of the IMF, and it would suit me if the person were from
    Germany. I'd like to see Germany play a bigger role in all these
    international institutions.

    Religious Right and 2000 Election

        Q. Mr. President, how do you feel about Senator McCain's remarks
    about the leaders of the religious right? Would you care to associate
    yourself with his description of what's wrong?
        The President. Well, they've been a lot rougher on me than they have
    on him. [Laughter] I thought it was rather
    interesting that he was--you know, they weren't for him, and I
    understand that.
        Look, let me say what I think is the--I think that people of faith
    who believe that their faith drives them to certain political positions
    should be able to pursue that, their political views, whatever they are,
    in American politics. I just don't believe they ought to say that people
    who disagree with them are somehow unworthy of receiving the same
    consideration they expect to receive in the political arena.
        And so I don't want to--I think that for the last 20 years, we've
    all been too focused on harsh rhetoric and the politics of personal
    destruction, and I don't want to contribute to it today. But I've been
    the recipient of some of their venom, and I don't want to respond in
    kind. What I want to make is--I think most people who take positions in
    politics take them not because they're the prisoners of interest groups
    but because that's what they believe. And there are plenty of
    differences that ought to be debated, and then the voters should make
    their judgments.
        And I think any attempt to demonize or, in effect, perform the first
    plastic surgery on these candidates and to treat them like they're not
    even people, is wrong, whoever does that. So I don't want to contribute
    to that. I welcome the members of the religious right into the American
    political community, and I welcome their right to vote against me at
    every election. [Laughter] I do. It's part of what makes America a great
    country. I just don't think they should be condemning of other people,
    particularly in ways that may not be true, and certainly in ways that
    are almost cruel.
        I think what we need to do is to tone down the personal destruction
    and turn up the focus on the big challenges facing the country, and
    we'll all be better off. They ought to be into politics, but we ought to
    just tone it down a little bit.

    Kosovo Funding

        Q. Mr. President, last night Senators were here meeting with your
    Joint Chiefs of Staff, where they were asked for another $2.6 billion in
    supplemental aid to Kosovo. One of the main concerns these Senators had
    was whether or not the allies were pulling their fair share. Do you
    believe that the allies are contributing equal portions that the U.S. is
    putting into this?
        The President. The EU, the European allies, will pay the big
    majority of the continued costs of maintaining order and building the
    infrastructure and the future of Kosovo. We are being asked to pay a
    minority of the money that I think is more or less in line with our fair
    share and in line with the fact that we paid the majority of the costs
    for conducting the military campaign that brought the Kosovars home.
        But I know it's difficult for Congress to come up with this money,
    and they'd rather spend it someplace else. But just like we're talking
    about this vaccine issue and how, if we spend money here, it's good for
    Americans as well as for the people around the world.
        It would be a good thing if we can prove that we can end ethnic
    cleansing and slaughter in the Balkans, and nobody else has to be drug
    back there to fight in another war, or we don't have to figure out how
    to handle and take care of a million refugees who will have their health
    problems and their other problems. And so, as expensive as this is, as
    General Shelton always says, the cheapest peace--the most expensive
    peace is cheaper than the cheapest war.
        And so I hope the Congress will go along here. But it is a minority
    share, and it should

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    be. The Europeans are shouldering the lion's share of the burden.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:55 p.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Minister of Health Crispus W.C.B.
    Kiyonga of Uganda; James D. Wolfensohn, President, International Bank
    for Reconstruction and Development and World Bank Group; Kayla Rolland,
    who died after she was shot by 6-year-old classmate Dedrick Owens in
    Mount Morris Township, MI; and Stanley Fischer, First Deputy Managing
    Director and Acting Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, who
    was nominated for the position of IMF Managing Director. A reporter
    referred to State Secretary for International Finance Caio Koch-Weser of
    Germany, who was also nominated for the position of IMF Managing
    Director. A tape was not available for verification of the content of
    these remarks.