[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[January 14, 2000]
[Pages 59-63]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Airline Safety and an Exchange With Reporters
January 14, 2000

Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit

    The President. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I asked you 
here today so I could make some remarks about airline safety. But in 
view of an item that was in the morning news, I would like to also say a 
few words

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about the efforts we're making to ensure prescription drug coverage for 
millions of our senior citizens and disabled Americans who rely on 
Medicare.
    Last year I proposed a comprehensive plan to modernize Medicare to 
meet the challenges of the 21st century, to extend the life of the Trust 
Fund and add a much-needed voluntary option for prescription drug 
coverage. And as you know, there's been some considerable resistance up 
until now from both the drug companies and from some in Congress.
    Today's news that the drug companies say they are ready to work with 
us on providing affordable optional drug coverage and making sure older 
people have access to the highest quality medications developed is a 
very good first step. Now, what we need is positive actions from the 
drug company and positive action in Congress, not just on the benefit 
but on the efforts to strengthen and extend the life of the Medicare 
Trust Fund.
    I hope that this is a good beginning of what can be a very good year 
for the American people.

Airline Safety

    Now let me begin my remarks by welcoming and thanking the people who 
are here with me, beginning with our FAA Administrator, Jane 
Garvey; Deputy Secretary of Transportation 
Mort Downey; American Airlines Chairman 
Don Carty; Delta Airlines CEO Leo 
Mullin; first vice president of the Airline 
Pilots Association International, Captain Dennis Dolan; Allied Pilots Association President Richard LaVoy; and Mark DeAngelis, the 
Aviation Safety Action Program representative for the Transport Workers 
Union.
    Three years ago I asked Vice President Gore to lead a Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, 
looking at how to make our skies as safe as they can possibly be. 
Already, there is less than one fatal crash for every one million 
commercial flights. But we know we can do better still. Any accident, 
any death in the air is still one too many.
    The Commission set a goal of reducing fatal accidents by 80 percent 
over 10 years. Its members agreed that the best way to meet the goal was 
to stop accidents before they happen and identify problems before they 
have terrible consequences. This is a completely different way of 
looking at safety. It requires business, labor, and regulators to work 
together in a completely different way--as partners, not adversaries. 
Everyone must focus on fixing problems, not fixing blame.
    I'm proud to be here with all these people today to announce a new 
partnership among business, labor, and Government to set us ahead of the 
curve on safety. Under aviation safety action programs, pilots will 
report problems or concerns immediately to safety experts at their 
airline and the Federal Aviation Administration. They'll be encouraged 
to share their valuable insights about doing the job more safely. They 
will be freed from the fear of being disciplined for admitting that 
something went wrong.
    The FAA will still have the right to take action against deliberate 
violations of aviation rules, criminal activity, or drug and alcohol 
use. The experts will get the data they need to stay in front on safety, 
to solve problems, evaluate existing safety systems, and propose new 
ones.
    We know these programs will work because American Airlines and its 
pilots have run one as a demonstration for more than 5 years now. Pilots 
reported literally thousands of concerns to the FAA. Those reports 
produced real improvements in procedures and in equipment. They even 
helped designers and builders create safer planes and airports.
    For example, pilots' expertise changed the way some airports use 
lights and signs on the runways, and pilots helped to rewrite the safety 
checklist they must complete while planes taxi from the gate. And when 
American extended its program to mechanics and dispatchers, they 
improved equipment manuals and maintenance procedures.
    I hope we'll be able to follow their example and open this program 
to all the people who make airplanes fly, flight attendants, mechanics, 
dispatchers. For the first time, we have regulators, business, and labor 
working as real partners. When it comes to safety, everyone has a 
responsibility. We want everyone on the team. And let me again say, I 
have only the profoundest gratitude, on behalf of all the American 
people and especially those who will be in airplanes in the future, to 
all those who are here with me today and those whom they represent.
    Thank you very much.

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Federal Budget

    Q. Mr. President, why are you dropping caps on the budget, which 
were so dear to you in the past?
    The President. Well, first of all, the caps were literally 
completely shredded in the last budget by the majority in Congress. And 
so what I have to do now is to adopt an honest budget based on the 
spending levels that were adopted, in the reasonable expectation that 
inflation at least will be taken care of, particularly in defense. If 
you will remember, we had a big issue about how much the defense budget 
would be increased, but there were other increases, as well.
    So you will see when my budget comes out that it still does 
everything I said we have to do. It invests more in education, science 
and technology, and other important areas. It protects the money 
necessary to take Social Security out beyond the life of the baby boom 
generation, to extend the life of Medicare, and very importantly, will 
still allow us to get out of debt, for the first time since 1835, over 
the next 15 years.
    So all the budget objectives that I have--continuing to run the 
surpluses, getting the country out of debt, but continuing to invest in 
the things we need--will be met by the budget I present to Congress.

Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit

    Q. Mr. President, on drugs, a pharmaceutical industry spokesman 
today did say that your plan is still unacceptable to them, and if you 
come back with the same plan, they'll still fight you on this. My 
question to you is, are you prepared to compromise with them? And what 
is your understanding--if their big objection is the danger of price 
caps not only on Medicare drugs, but that this could spill over to the 
commercial sector----
    The President. Well, first of all, there's no danger of price caps. 
But what I think they're worried about is the fact that if the 
Government becomes a big buyer, that we'll be able to bargain for lower 
prices at greater volume. I don't think that's a bad thing.
    You know, someone ought to ask them how they can possibly justify 
the fact that American senior citizens are now being carried across the 
border to Canada to buy drugs produced in America by American drug 
companies, with the help of public funds that have paid for research, 
with the availability of tax deductions for research and all of that, 
and Americans are going across the border in Canada and buying the same 
drugs for less than half of what they cost here.
    So I think what they ought to do is come sit down with us and let's 
see if we can agree on a common approach. There may be a way that we can 
agree on an approach. That's why I was somewhat cautious in my remarks 
today.
    I think it's a good thing that they recognize that it would be 
better if Medicare could provide this benefit, because we know 75 
percent of our senior citizens and probably a higher percentage of our 
disabled people who need medications cannot afford what they need. And 
we know it can not only lengthen life and in many cases save lives, but 
it can also improve the quality of life.
    So I think it's a very important issue. And I take their offer in a 
positive way, and I just hope they'll come sit down with us. And we'll 
try to sit down with them and with people in both parties in Congress 
who care about this and see if we can't work out a common position that 
we can pass, because I think it's a very important issue.
    Q. Do you think it's real, not a PR move on their part just to keep 
you from bashing them?
    The President. I don't know. You know, I don't like to bash people. 
I never have done that as an option of first choice. And I'm not bashing 
them today. But I think that their big problem is that ordinary 
Americans now know that if they live close enough to the Canadian 
border, they could cross the border and buy a lot of drugs for half what 
they pay here, and in many other countries, even though the drugs are 
produced here by our companies, and that any large producer will do the 
best--like in the private sector, try to get the best bargain they can.
    But if there's some way to work through this, I'll be glad to sit 
down and make sure our people are available to them, and we'll try to 
work it out.

Director of National Drug Control Policy

    Q. Mr. President, is it right to offer financial incentives to TV 
networks for incorporating antidrug messages into scripts? And are you 
inclined to try to seek similar incentives for other issues

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involving TV programming, like, say, gun violence?
    The President. Well, first of all let me say, it is my understanding 
that what General McCaffrey was trying to 
do is to amplify the impact of the advertising program that we have been 
running--and keep in mind, a number of networks have agreed not only to 
take paid ads but have run a lot of our ads for free or reduced rates. 
And they are under an obligation to run public service announcements.
    I think that General McCaffrey 
reached a conclusion, based on how many people see public service 
announcements that are on late at night as opposed to primetime 
programming that more people watch, that if the networks were willing to 
put a good antidrug message in heavily watched programs, particularly by 
the most vulnerable young people, that would be a good thing. And it's 
my understanding that there's nothing mandatory about this, that there 
was no attempt to regulate content or tell people what they had to put 
into it--of course, I wouldn't support that. But I think he's done a 
very good job at increasing the sort of public interest component of 
what young people hear on the media, and I think it's working; we see 
drug use dropping.
    And let me say, I've talked to a lot of people in the entertainment 
community who liked the idea that without compromising the integrity of 
their programs, they might be involved in all kinds of public service 
efforts. So that's where I am on this. This was his initiative, and I hadn't given any thought to the question 
of whether it might be applied in other ways, frankly.
    Q. Do you think it's a deceptive move? It could be used for other 
messages in the future.
    The President. Well, it could be. If the Government were writing the 
content, it could be. And I don't think we should be doing that. I think 
that--however, I think what General McCaffrey tried to do--which was to say, look, if you will do this, 
this can count against your obligation to run public service 
announcements which, as you know, are very often run in off hours and 
times when not many people are watching--I think this guy's intense and 
passionate and committed. And we've got too many kids using drugs, 
still. So I think that's what he was trying to do. I don't think there 
was any attempt to try to undermine the content or the independence or 
the integrity of the networks and the programming.

Airline Safety

    Q. Mr. President, on aviation safety, the Europeans have been very 
successful not doing what you're announcing today but downloading data 
from airplanes, analyzing hundreds of flights for patterns that could 
cause problems. We don't do that much in this country, because there's 
still a dispute between the airlines and the FAA over what would happen 
if this turned up some violations that could result in prosecutions. 
When are we going to get the kind of safety program they're using 
successfully in Europe to analyze data instead of pilot reports?
    The President. Jane, you want to answer 
that?
    FAA Administrator Jane F. Garvey. Thanks, 
Mr. President. Nice to see you, Matt. Well, first of all, as you know 
we're really looking at the whole issue of FOQA. We do have a policy in 
place which--the policy allows the information to be protected, which we 
think is very, very good. We've got a number of airlines who are working 
with us on that issue.
    I think the real critical question is, when can we see that in an 
actual rule? And we are working that through the administration and 
working very hard to see it in a rulemaking. I think it's absolutely the 
right direction. And certainly the combination of the information we can 
get from the flight data recorders as well as the information we can get 
from the pilots or the mechanics makes a very powerful tool. So I'm glad 
we have the policy in place, and we're moving toward the rulemaking.
    The President. I'd like to make a general comment about this, and 
then we've got to go. I'm obviously not an expert in how airlines work, 
but I know quite a bit about production processes and manufacturing. 
It's something I've spent a lot of time studying over nearly 20 years 
now. It was a big part of the job I used to have when I was a Governor. 
And I can tell you that the kind of teamwork approach that has been 
announced today, in making people feel they won't be punished when they 
say they think there's something wrong or a mistake was made, was, in my 
judgment, the most significant factor leading all kinds of American 
manufacturers to a zero-defect approach, which had a major role in the 
resurgence of the manufacturing sector over the last decade and a major 
role in the comeback of the American economy.
    So I believe that what they're doing here is very important. It is 
not rational to believe that

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what has worked so well in some other sector of our economy won't work 
just as well here. I think it's a great thing, and I thank them for 
doing it.

Michael Jordan

    Q. Should Michael Jordan come to Washington?
    The President. You bet. It will be fun. [Laughter] That's a no-
brainer. [Laughter]
    Thanks.

Note: The President spoke at 3 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the White 
House. A reporter referred to former NBA Chicago Bull Michael Jordan, 
reported to be accepting a management position with the NBA Washington 
Wizards. Administrator Garvey referred to FOQA, Flight Operations 
Quality Assurance.