[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 19 (Monday, May 17, 1993)]
[Pages 856-865]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's News Conference

 May 14, 1993

    The President. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad the 
weather permitted us to do this outside.
    Three months ago, I presented a plan to our country and to the 
Congress designed to address what I believe were the significant 
challenges of this time. For more than 40 years, our country was 
organized to stand up against communism, to try to help develop the free 
world, and for most of that time we took our economic prosperity for 
granted. It is now clear that, at the end of the cold war, we must 
organize ourselves around the obligation we have to be more competitive 
in the global economy and to enable our people to live up to their full 
potential.
    That means we have to do a lot of things to turn this economy 
around, beginning with a serious effort to reduce our national debt, to 
invest in jobs and new technologies, to restore fairness to our tax 
code, and to make our political system work again.
    This week I was able to go back again to the American people to take 
my case into the country, into Cleveland and Chicago and New York. And 
here in Washington there were new efforts to break the gridlock and to 
put the national interests above narrow interests. The results were 
particularly impressive in the work done by the House Ways and Means 
Committee, achieving over $250 billion in deficit reduction through 
spending cuts with $2 in spending cuts for each dollar in new 
investment, in new jobs, in education. The program provides 
significantly everything that I presented to the Congress, even though 
there were some changes. In fact, some of the changes I think made the 
bill better.
    Let me reiterate them: number one, significant deficit reduction; 
number two, taking on entitlements issues that have for too long been 
left on the table; number three, real investments for small businesses 
and for big businesses, incentives to get people to invest money in this 
economy to create jobs; and perhaps most importantly, a break for 
working-class families, a huge increase in the earned income tax credit 
for people with incomes under $30,000 to relieve them of the impact of 
the energy tax and to say for the first time, people who work 40 hours a 
week with children in the home would be lifted above poverty; and 
finally, of course, the plan was very progressive, 75 percent of the 
revenues coming from the top 6 percent of the American taxpayers.
    I also reiterated that I don't want a penny in taxes without the 
spending cuts. And I proposed in New York that we create a deficit 
reduction trust fund into which all the taxes and all the budget cuts 
could be put and kept for the 5-year life of this budget. This is a very 
important thing. I realize some have said it is little more than a 
gimmick, but the truth is there is no legal protection now for the life 
of the budget for these funds. This will provide it in stone, in law.
    In every element of this, there has been some willingness on the 
part of those who have supported our efforts to take on powerful vested 
interest in behalf of the national interest, whether it is in repealing 
the lobby

[[Page 857]]

deduction or in going for a direct loan program for college loans that 
will save $4 billion but which will remove a Government-guaranteed 
income from several interests who like the system as it is now.
    The Congress also moved this week to reinvigorate our democratic 
process by ending the filibuster and passing the motor voter bill. These 
are the kinds of changes that the American people expect of us. They do 
not expect miracles, but they expect solid, steady progress, and I am 
determined to stay on this course.
    It has been a good week, and if we're willing to take more tough 
decisions, there will be more good weeks for the American people ahead.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, you've said that the United States will not go it 
alone with military action in Bosnia. And yet, the European allies have 
refused to sign-on to your proposals. If the allies refuse to follow 
suit, where does that leave the United States?
    The President. Let me reiterate what I have said because I think 
that the United States has taken the right position, and I think that 
we've gotten some good results. I have said, and I will reiterate, I 
think that the United States must act with our allies, especially 
because Bosnia is in the heart of Europe, and the Europeans are there. 
We must work together through the United Nations.
    Secondly, I do not believe the United States has any business 
sending troops there to get involved in a conflict in behalf of one of 
the sides. I believe that we should continue to turn up the pressure. 
And as you know, I have taken the position that the best way to do that 
would be to lift the arms embargo with a standby authority of air power 
in the event that the present situation was interrupted by the unfair 
use of artillery by the Bosnian Serbs. That position is still on the 
table. It has not been rejected out of hand. Indeed, some of our 
European allies have agreed with it, and others are not prepared to go 
that far yet.
    But we have to keep the pressure up. And I would just remind you 
that since we said we would become involved in the Vance-Owen peace 
process, two of the three parties have signed on. We've gotten 
enforcement of the no-fly zone through the United Nations. We've been 
able to airlift more humanitarian supplies there, and we've been able to 
keep up a very, very tough embargo on Serbia which I think led directly, 
that and the pressure of further action, to the statement that Mr. 
Milosevic made to the effect that he would stop supporting the Bosnian 
Serbs.
    Where we go from here is to keep pushing in the right direction. As 
we speak here, the United Nations is considering a resolution which 
would enable us to place United Nations forces along the border between 
Serbia and Bosnia to try to test and reinforce the resolve of the 
Milosevic government to cut off supplies to the Bosnian Serbs. If that 
resolution passes, and in its particulars it makes good sense, that is a 
very good next step. We're just going to keep working and pushing in 
this direction. And I think we'll begin to get more and more results.
    Q. Are you contemplating sending U.S. forces to Macedonia and 
perhaps to protect safe havens in Bosnia?
    The President. On the question of Macedonia, the Defense Department 
has that and many other options under review for what the United 
Nations, what the allies could do to make sure that we confine this 
conflict, to keep it from spreading. I've not received a recommendation 
from them and, therefore, I've made no decision.
    Helen [Helen Thomas, United Press International]?
    Q. Mr. President, there is a wide spread perception that you're 
waffling, that you can't make up your mind. One day you're saying, ``In 
a few days we'll have a decision. We have a common approach.'' The next 
day you're saying, ``We're still looking for a consensus.'' Will 
American troops be in this border patrol that the U.N. is voting on and, 
you know, where are we?
    The President. Well, first of all, I have made up my mind, and I've 
told you what my position was. And I've made it as clear as I can. But I 
also believe it is imperative that we work with our allies on this. The 
United States is not in a position to move

[[Page 858]]

unilaterally, nor should we. So that is the answer to your question.
    The resolution being considered by the United Nations I think 
contemplates that the UNPROFOR forces would be moved and expanded and 
moved to the border. At this time there has been no suggestion that we 
would be asked to be part of those forces.
    Susan [Susan Spencer, CBS News]?

Gays in the Military

    Q. A domestic question. Could you tell us how were you affected by 
the testimony of Colonel Fred Peck, whose son is a homosexual, who said 
that, nonetheless, he could not in good conscience support lifting the 
ban?
    The President. I thought all the testimony given in that hearing--I 
saw quite a lot of it from more than one panel--was quite moving and 
straightforward. I still think the test ought to be conduct.
    Q. Do you think that--does this allow for the possibility of the 
``Don't ask. Don't tell''--the compromise that would allow----
    The President. You know what my position is. I have nothing else to 
say about it.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, you said last week that if you went to air power 
in Bosnia you would have a clear strategy and it would have a beginning, 
middle, and end. What happens, though, sir, if a plane is shot down, if 
you lose a pilot or a couple of pilots, or if the Bosnian Serbs decide 
to escalate the conflict, or the Serbians by going into, say, Kosovo?
    The President. Well, the Bush administration before I became 
President issued a clear warning to the Serbs that if they try to occupy 
Kosovo and repress the Albanians there, that the United States would be 
prepared to take some strong action. And I have reaffirmed that 
position. As a general proposition, you can never commit American forces 
to any endeavor on the assumption that there will be no losses. That is 
just simply not possible, and as the Pentagon will tell you, we lose 
forces even now in peace time simply in the rigorous training that our 
Armed Forces must undertake.

Gays in the Military

    Q. In the debate on homosexuals in the military, you use the word 
``conduct'' as though it were an absolute and easily definable term. Do 
you believe, one, that homosexuals should be celibate, as Schwarzkopf 
suggested, or could they engage in homosexual activity, consenting, on 
or off base; or two, should the uniform code be allowed to have any sort 
of difference between its treatment of homosexuals and heterosexuals?
    The President. I support the present code of conduct, and I am 
waiting for the Pentagon to give me its recommendations.
    Brit [Brit Hume, ABC News]?

Lani Guinier

    Q. Your nominee to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights 
Division has expressed what many regard as rather striking views about 
voting rights and a number of other areas, including expressing some 
misgivings about the principle of one man, one vote. And I wonder if you 
are familiar with all these views and if you support them, and if you do 
not, why you chose her?
    The President. I nominated her because there had never been a full-
time practicing civil rights lawyer with a career in civil rights law 
heading the Civil Rights Division. I expect the policy to be made on 
civil rights laws by the United States Congress, and I expect the 
Justice Department to carry out that policy. Insofar as there is 
discretion in the policy, that discretionary authority should reside 
either in the President or the Attorney General in terms of what 
policies the country will follow. I still think she's a very well-
qualified civil rights lawyer, and I hope she will be confirmed. And I 
think she has every intention of following the law of the land as 
Congress writes it.
    Carl [Carl Leubsdorf, Dallas Morning News]?
    Q. Were you familiar with them when you----

Texas Senatorial Election

    Q. Mr. President, as you know, there is a lot of concern in the 
Democratic Party and in the White House about the upcoming Senate 
election in Texas. And one of your top political advisers, Paul Begala, 
is becoming

[[Page 859]]

more involved down there. Do you see any expanded role for yourself? Is 
there anything you can do, or are you all pretty much resigned to losing 
this seat?
    The President. Well, first of all, I'm not resigned to losing it. I 
think Bob Krueger can still win the race. But it depends on, as with all 
cases, it depends on how he frames the issues, how his opponent frames 
the issues, and what happens there. I think he's a good man, and I think 
he's capable of doing a good job. And I think he could still win the 
race. But that's up for the people of Texas. You know, in the primary, 
one of the big problems was 25 percent of the Republicans turned out and 
only 15 percent of the Democrats did. I don't know what's going to 
happen there. But I certainly support him, and I hope he will prevail. I 
think it would be good for the people of Texas and the Congress if he 
did.
    Q. Do you expect to do any more for him and possibly go down there?
    The President. No one's discussed that with me. You know, I don't 
know. I've always been skeptical about the question of whether any of us 
could have any impact on anyone else's race. I've never seen it happen 
up or down in my own State in Arkansas. There may be some ways we can 
help with fundraising and things of that kind, but all the time I ran at 
home I never let anybody come in to help me, whatever the national 
politics were.

Inflation

    Q. Mr. President, what would you say or what do you say to Federal 
Reserve officials who are arguing for a slight rise in short-term 
interest rates because they're concerned about resurging inflation?
    The President. I would say that the month before last we have 
virtually no inflation, and you can't run the country on a month-to-
month basis. You've got to look at some longer trends. There are some 
clear underlying reasons for this last inflationary bulge which don't 
necessarily portend long-term inflation. I think it's a cause of 
concern. We ought to look at it, but we ought to wait until we have some 
more evidence before we raise interest rates in an economy where 
industrial capacity is only at 80 percent.
    If you look at all the underlying long-term things, long-term trends 
in energy prices, industrial capacity, the kinds of things that really 
shape an economy, there is no reason at this time to believe that there 
could be any cause for a resurge in inflation.
    Q. Sir, the argument is made at the Federal Reserve that higher 
taxes, higher burdens on business through health care fees, or other 
things like that will indeed raise inflation while the economy stays 
weak.
    The President. Just a few weeks ago some people were arguing that 
all this would be deflationary and would repress the recovery. So I 
guess you can find an expert to argue any opinion, but there is no 
evidence of that. The prevailing opinion at the Fed and the prevailing 
opinion in the economic community has been that the most important thing 
we can do is to bring down long-term interest rates by bringing down the 
deficit. You can't have it both ways. You're either going to bring down 
the deficit, or we're not. And everything in life requires some rigorous 
effort if you're going to have fundamental change.

Trade

    Q. I wonder if you ever stop to think that this month we are 
celebrating two events, Small Business Week and World Trade Week. I 
wonder do you understand what the importance of the world trade in this 
week is in the minority and small-business people can contribute to 
support their services and product to the world and mainly to those 
countries of the former Soviet Union? How do you respond?
    The President. How do I want small business to contribute? Well, 
first of all, an enormous amount of our economic growth in the last 3 
years has come out of growth in trade. And one of the problems we're 
having with our own recovery is that economic growth is virtually 
nonexistent in Asia and in Europe, at least in Japan and in Europe, not 
in the rest of Asia. China is growing rapidly.
    One of the things that we can do to increase exports is to organize 
ourselves better in the small business community. The Germans, for 
example, have enormously greater success than do we in getting small and 
medium sized businesses into export markets. And one of the charges of 
my whole trade

[[Page 860]]

team is to organize the United States so that we can do that. That's one 
of the things the Commerce Secretary is working on.

Ireland

    Q. Mr. President, you're going to be meeting with the President of 
Ireland in a little while. And as a----
    The President. I'm looking forward to it.
    Q. ----as a candidate, you made several promises in regard to 
Ireland. One of them was to send an envoy, a special peace envoy, and 
another was that you would not restrict Jerry Adams' admittance into 
this country. He's the leader of Sinn Fein, and his visa was denied last 
week. And you promised that as President he would be admitted.
    The President. I think you ought to go back and read my full 
statement that I made in New York about the Adams case. I'll answer that 
in a minute.
    But let me--first on the peace envoy, I talked to the Prime Minister 
of Ireland, and I will discuss with the President of Ireland what she 
thinks the United States can do. I am more than willing to do anything 
that I can that will be a constructive step in helping to resolve the 
crisis in Northern Ireland.
    Q. [Inaudible]--whether an envoy is necessary because----
    The President. I don't believe the President of the United States 
should be unaffected by what the Prime Minister or the President of 
Ireland believe about what is best for Ireland. I don't believe that. I 
think I should ask them what they believe. I'm not sure I know better 
than she does about that. And I should listen and should take it into 
account. I am prepared to do whatever I can to contribute to a 
resolution of this issue.
    On the Jerry Adams question, I said at that time because he was a 
member of Parliament, if I were President I would review that. I thought 
that if there were no overwhelming evidence that he was connected to 
terrorists, if he was a duly-elected member of Parliament in a 
democratic country, we should have real cause before denying him a visa. 
I asked that his case be reviewed by the State Department and others. 
And everybody that reviewed it recommended that his visa not be granted 
and pointed out that he was no longer a member of Parliament.
    Wolf [Wolf Blitzer, Cable News Network]?

Polls

    Q. Mr. President, in your opening statement, you said this has been 
a good week for you. But the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallop poll, as you 
probably saw, shows a 10 percent decline in your job approval rating 
since the end of April, from 55 to 45 percent. Why do you think that is 
happening, and is it your fault and what can be done?
    The President. Well, for one thing, I'm trying to do hard things. 
And I can't do hard things and conduct an ongoing campaign at the same 
time. You know, I'm doing things that are hard, that are controversial. 
And anybody who doesn't want to assume responsibility can stand on the 
sidelines and criticize them. I never expected that I could actually do 
anything about the deficit without having some hits. I never expected 
that I could take on some of these interests that I've taken on without 
being attacked. And whenever you try to change things, there are always 
people there ready to point out the pain of change without the promise 
of it. That's just all part of it.
    If I worried about the poll ratings I'd never get anything done 
here. The only thing I'd remind you is for 12 years we've seen 
politicians and the Congress and the executive branch worry about their 
poll ratings every month and then at the end of every 4 years things are 
a lot worse. If things are better at the end of the period that I was 
given to serve, then the poll ratings now won't make any difference. And 
if they're not, they won't make any difference. So my job is to do my 
job, and let the chips fall where they may.

Bosnia

    Q. There seems to be a Catch 22 emerging on Bosnia. One would be, 
you have consistently said that you want to have a consensus with the 
U.S. allies. But until that consensus is formed, you found it seems very 
difficult to explain to the American people precisely how that war 
should be defined: Is it a civil war? Is it a war of aggression? And 
also not necessarily what the next step should be, but what are the 
principles, the overriding principles that should guide you as a policy?

[[Page 861]]

What can you tell the American people right now about that?
    The President. First, that is both a civil war and a war of 
aggression, because Bosnia was created as a separate legal entity. It is 
both a civil war where elements of people who live within that territory 
are fighting against one another. And there has been aggression from 
without, somewhat from the Croatians and from the Serbs, principally 
from the Serbs--that the inevitable but unintended impact of the arms 
embargo has been to put the United Nations in the position of ratifying 
an enormous superiority of arms for the Bosnian Serbs that they got from 
Serbia, and that our interest is in seeing, in my view at least, that 
the United Nations does not foreordain the outcome of a civil war. 
That's why I've always been in favor of some kind of lifting of the arms 
embargo, that we contain the conflict, and that we do everything we can 
to move to an end of it and to move to an end of ethnic cleansing.
    Those are our interests there, and those are the ones I'm trying to 
pursue. But we should not introduce American ground forces into the 
conflict in behalf of one of the belligerents, and we must move with our 
allies. It is a very difficult issue. I realize in a world where we all 
crave for certainty about everything, it's tough to deal with, but it's 
a difficult issue.
    Andrea [Andrea Mitchell, NBC News]?
    Q. Mr. President, on the subject of the arms embargo, do you believe 
that the fighting between the Croats and the Moslems has validated the 
European objections to your proposal to lift the arms embargo, showing 
just how complicated it is and how easily those weapons can get into 
other hands? And, secondly, do you think that you should try to level 
the playing field by using air strikes alone if your hands are tied on 
the arms embargo?
    The President. I believe that the troubles between the Croatians and 
the Moslems complicate things, but at least the leaders have agreed on 
an end to the conflict. On the other issue, I think that the best use of 
air power is the one that I have outlined, and I don't favor another 
option at this time.

Norway

    Q. The Prime Minister of Norway today announced that Norway is going 
to resume commercial hunt of the minke whale. How do you react to that? 
And is the United States going to take any punitive actions against 
Norway?
    The President. It's the first I've heard of it. I'll have to give 
you a later answer.

White House Staff

    Q. One of the charges leveled by critics of you in Arkansas and now 
at the beginning of your term as President is that you've surrounded 
yourself with too many young people and put them in too many senior 
positions. How do you respond to that criticism?
    The President. Like Lloyd Bentsen and Warren Christopher? I mean, 
who are you referring to? Mr. McLarty, Mr. Rubin, Ms. Rasco, and Mr. 
Lake, to name four, and I are all, I think, older than our counterparts 
were when President Kennedy was President. There are a lot of young 
people who work here, but most of the people in decisionmaking positions 
are not particularly young. And I am amazed sometimes--you think I ought 
to let some of them go?
    I realize that there is this image that the administration is quite 
young. I think we have one of the most seasoned and diverse Cabinets 
that anybody's put together in a long time. And we have a lot of people 
who aren't so young working in the White House. I don't know how to 
answer your question about it.

Health Care

    Q. Mr. President, what will you do to ensure that health care will 
be accessible geographically to people in inner cities and rural areas, 
so that cross-town and cross-county travel will not become a barrier to 
health care?
    The President. Well, I haven't received the report, as you know, of 
the Health Care Task Force yet, but let me say that one of the markers I 
laid down for them when they began their work was that we didn't need 
just simply to provide coverage for Americans, but there had to be 
access in rural areas and in inner city areas, especially. And they are 
exploring any number of ways to do that.

[[Page 862]]

    I spent one afternoon here on a hearing on rural health care, 
talking about how we could bring health care to people in rural areas 
and make it economical and available. And I have spent an enormous 
amount of time in the last 16 months in urban health care settings 
trying to discover which model--I've done that myself--trying to 
determine which models can be replicated in other inner city areas. From 
my experience at home I knew more about rural areas. But the bottom line 
is you've got to have more clinics in the rural areas and in the inner 
cities that are accessible and where there is an ethnic diversity, where 
they are accessible not only physically but in terms of language and 
culture. And these things can be done. And if you do it right, if 
they're really comprehensive primary and preventive health care centers, 
they lower the cost of health care because they keep more people out of 
the emergency rooms.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, the Serbian government has indicated it is going 
to stop sending arms to the Bosnian Serbs. If they hold true to that, 
does that then preclude the option of rearming the Bosnian Moslems?
    The President. Well, I have two responses. First, I hope the United 
Nations resolution will succeed so that we can put some U.N. people on 
the border to determine whether that, in fact, is occurring. Secondly, 
whether that precludes the rearming option depends really on how many 
arms have been stashed already in Bosnia, particularly the heavy 
weapons, the heavy artillery. I think that is the issue. And that's a 
fact question which we'll have to try to determine.

Latin America

    Q. Many people wonder, Mr. President, what your policy in Latin 
America is going to be. Your economic team just told us that you want to 
spend more money in police here in the United States. The past 
administration spent almost $3 billion in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. 
What is your vision, and how are you going to change that policy?
    The President. I think we should continue to support those programs. 
I can't say that they would be immune from the budget cutting process 
that has affected almost all of our domestic programs here. We've had 
such a big deficit, we've got to cut across-the-board. But I believe 
that those programs have served a useful purpose. I think especially 
where we have governments with leaders who are willing to put their 
lives on the line to stop or slow down the drug trade, we ought to be 
supporting them, and I expect to do that.
    David [David Lauter, Los Angeles Times]?

Domestic Priorities

    Q. You've been talking a lot recently about deficit reduction, the 
deficit reduction trust fund. You're talking now about having to stretch 
out your investment programs, postpone some of the things. What do you 
say to people in urban areas, some of the liberal Congressmen on the 
Hill who say, ``Wait a minute. We're the ones who elected this guy, and 
now the programs that have been starved for 12 years that we need aren't 
going to be able to get money?'' What sort of political position does 
that put you in with your core supporters?
    The President. Well, I ask them, first of all, to look at the 5 year 
budget. The enormous squeeze on domestic spending including investment 
spending began 12 years ago. I can't turn it around overnight. I asked 
them to look at the 5 year budget and look at it in light of the fact 
that the deficit numbers were revised upward after the election by $50 
billion a year in 3 of the next 4 years. And I ask them also to consider 
this: Until we can prove that we have the discipline to control our 
budget, I don't think we'll have the elbow room necessary to have the 
kind of targeted investments we need.
    I think the more we do budget control, the more we'll be free to 
then be very sharply discriminating in investing in those things which 
actually do create jobs. I don't think we have any other option at this 
time.

Process of Change

    Q. Mr. President, in your New York speech this past week at Cooper 
Union, you spoke of a crisis of belief and hope. And earlier Mrs. 
Clinton in a speech talked about a crisis of meaning. How do you see 
these crises manifesting themselves? What are the causes of them? And 
how severe do you see this?

[[Page 863]]

    The President. Well, I think they manifested themselves in people's 
honest feelings that things are not going very well in this country and 
that they haven't gone very well in a long time and the alienation 
people feel from the political process and in the alienation they often 
feel from one another in the same neighborhoods and communities. There 
are real objective reasons for a lot of these problems. After all, for 
most people the work week is lengthening, and incomes are declining. The 
job growth of the country has been very weak. The crime rate is high, 
and there's a sense of real alienation there. And I don't think we can 
speak to them just with programs. I think that, in our different ways, 
that's what both Hillary and I were trying to say.
    The thing I was trying to say to the American people at the Cooper 
Union that I want to reiterate today is that you can never change if you 
have no belief in the potential of your country, your community, or 
yourself, and that the easy path is cynicism. The easy path is to throw 
rocks. The better path is doing the hard work of change.
    The thing I liked about what happened in the Ways and Means 
Committee this week is--not that I agree with every last change they 
made in the bill, although some of them actually made the bill better, 
all the fundamental principles were left intact--but we actually did 
something to move the ball forward, to deal with the deficit, to deal 
with the investment needs, to deal with--to go back to the other 
question that Mr. Lauter asked--to deal with the need to get more real 
investment in the inner cities and the rural areas of the country. We 
are doing things.
    And what I tried to do all throughout the campaign in talking about 
hope, in talking about belief, in trying to go back to the grassroots 
was to say to people, the process of change may be uneven and difficult 
and always controversial, but it has to be buttressed by an underlying 
belief that things can be made better.
    When the election returns in November--that I was not fully 
responsible for, there were two other candidates in that race--which 
showed a big increase in voter turnout, especially among young people, 
that meant to me that we were beginning to see the seeds of a change in 
attitude. As I said at the Cooper Union, when President Kennedy occupied 
that office, nearly three-quarters of the American people believed that 
their leaders would tell them the truth and that their institutions 
worked and that their problems could be solved. So there was a lot more 
elbow room there. You know, a year or 2 years could go by, people could 
be working on something with maybe only slightly measurable progress, 
but the country felt it was moving forward. That is what we have to 
restore today, a sense that it can be done. And it cannot be done by the 
President alone, but the President has to keep saying that, that faith 
is a big part of this.
    Q. And the causes of these crises as you perceive them?
    The President. I think the causes of them are the persistent 
enduring problems unanswered, unresponded to, and the absence of a 
feeling that there is a overall philosophy and a coherent way of dealing 
with them.

Tax Package

    Q. Though your tax package has made it through the House Ways and 
Means Committee, every Republican voted against it. If that happens 
again in the Senate you could be facing yet another roadblock. How have 
you changed your legislative strategy to see that you win over a few 
Republican votes this time?
    The President. Well, the budget cannot be filibustered. So in a 
literal sense, you know, we could pass it without any Republican votes. 
What I hope is that to show that by a combination of budget cuts and tax 
increases and the things that have been done to make this program even 
more attractive. We've got a lot of business people for this program 
now, a lot of them--that we ought to get some Republican support. But 
that's a political decision that a lot of those folks are going to make.
    I can tell you that one member of the Ways and Means Committee told 
me yesterday that a Republican member said to him as they were dealing 
with this, said, ``Boy, there's a lot of wonderful stuff in this bill. I 
didn't know all this stuff was in this bill. This is wonderful.'' He 
said, ``Well, why don't

[[Page 864]]

you vote for it?'' He said, ``No, we've got to be against taxes.'' 
They're going to have to decide what they're going to do about that.

NAFTA

    Q. You talk about being competitive in the world and that, I hope 
you agree, that involves NAFTA. What would be the priorities of a new 
ambassador to Mexico, and what is the latest in NAFTA? Do you support 
tougher sanctions in trade for those that violate the treaty?
    The President. I believe the treaty has to have some enforcement 
provisions. I have not read the last language, but it is my 
understanding that what the negotiators are working toward is some sort 
of sanctions for repeated and persistent violations of agreements that 
the countries involved in NAFTA make. I don't think any of us should 
make agreements and expect there to be no consequences to their repeated 
and persistent violation. But I want to say again, I believe that 
increased trade with Mexico and NAFTA are in the interest of the United 
States.
    The Salinas government, through the unilateral reduction of their 
own tariffs, has helped to take the United States--and through policies 
that promoted economic growth, beginning with getting control of their 
deficit--has taken the United States from a $6-billion trade deficit 
with Mexico to a $5-billion trade surplus. Mexico just surpassed Japan 
as our second biggest trading customer for manufactured products. So I 
think that it's very much in our interest to pass NAFTA, and I hope I'll 
be able to persuade the Congress to do it when we conclude the 
agreement.
    Q. Would that be a priority of a new ambassador to Mexico?
    The President. Absolutely, sure.
    Go ahead.

Webster Hubbell

    Q. Okay. I'd like to go back to your Justice Department for just a 
second, Mr. President. Since during the campaign you said it was a 
mistake and, in fact, apologized for playing golf at an all-white 
country club in Little Rock, shouldn't it disqualify your nominee for 
Associate Attorney General, Webb Hubbell? Is there an exception because 
he's a family friend? And are the local civil rights leaders wrong when 
they say that his attempts to integrate the club appeared to have been a 
last-minute political conversion?
    The President. Absolutely not.
    Q. Are the local civil rights leaders wrong when they say that his 
attempts to integrate the club appeared to have been a last-minute 
political conversion?
    The President. No. As a matter of fact, if you go back--first of 
all, let me--the first question is no, he should not be disqualified. 
The second question is, is it a last-minute conversion? The African 
American who joined the club testified that Webb Hubbell had been trying 
for years to get him to do it, and he had not agreed. That's what the 
record shows. Thirdly, my belief is that the overwhelming majority of 
African American leaders in my State would very much like to see him 
confirmed. He has always had a reputation as being a strong advocate of 
civil rights, whether as Mayor of Little Rock or chief justice of the 
supreme court of my State. He is a very eminent citizen with a very good 
background. And I think the vast majority of the civil rights leaders of 
my State will advocate his appointment based on his record. And I think 
on the facts of this, I just wouldn't--this last-minute conversion thing 
just doesn't hold water.
    Q. What does it say then, sir, that he should be a member of an all-
white country club, as other members of your Cabinet also are or were 
when it was still all white?
    The President. I think he should have either resigned or integrated 
it. And, of course, he was in the middle. He said, ``I tried for years 
to integrate it, and it took me too long to succeed.'' What I think is 
really the case is that some of the other people may have been blocking 
it. He was trying for years to do it. I know that because I used to hit 
on him about it for years.
    Go ahead, Mara [Mara Liasson, National Public Radio].

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, I want to go back to a question that Helen asked 
earlier about your indecisiveness over Bosnia. I'm wondering how you 
think that's affected perceptions of you as a leader? There is a concern 
re- 

[[Page 865]]

flected in polls and in some comments from Democratic Members in 
Congress that you are indecisive and perhaps not tough enough to tackle 
all the problems.
    The President. Well I'd just like to ask you what their evidence is? 
When ``Russia'' came up the United States took the lead, and we got a 
very satisfactory result. When I took office I said we were going to try 
to do more in Bosnia. We agreed to go to the Vance-Owen peace process, 
and two of the three parties signed on. We got enforcement of the no-fly 
zone. We began to engage in multinational humanitarian aid. We got much, 
much tougher sanctions. We got the threat of military force on the table 
as a possible option. Milosevic changed his position. All because this 
administration did more than the previous one.
    And every time I have consulted the Congress they say to me in 
private, this is a really tough problem. I don't know what you should do 
but you're the only President that ever took us into our counsel 
beforehand; instead of telling us what you were going to do, you 
actually ask us our opinion. I do not believe that is a sign of 
weakness. And I realize it may be frustrating for all of you to deal 
with the ambiguity of this problem but it is a difficult one.
    I have a clear policy. I have gotten more done on this than my 
predecessor did. And maybe one reason he didn't try to do it is because 
if you can't force everybody to fall in line overnight for people who 
have been fighting each other for centuries, you may be accused of 
vacillating. We are not vacillating. We have a clear, strong policy.
    In terms of the other issues, who else around this town in the last 
dozen years has offered this much budget cutting, this much tax 
increases, this much deficit reduction, and a clear economic strategy 
that asks the wealthy to pay their fair share, gives the middle class a 
break, and gives massive incentives to get new investment and new jobs 
in the small business community and from large business as well? I 
think--I don't understand what--on one day people say he's trying to do 
too much. He's pushing too hard. He wants too much change. And then on 
the other day he says, well, he's really not pushing very hard. I think 
we're getting good results. We've been here 3 months. We've passed a 
number of important bills, and I feel good about it.
    I think the American people know one thing: that I'm on their side, 
that I'm fighting to change things. And they're finding out it's not so 
easy. But we are going to get a lot of change out of this Congress if we 
can keep our eye on the ball and stop worrying about whether we 
characterize each other in some way or another and keep thinking about 
what's good for the American people.
    Every day I try to get up and think about not what somebody 
characterizes my action as but whether what I do will or will not help 
to improve the lives of most Americans. That is the only ultimate test 
by which any of us should be judged.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President's 15th news conference began at 1:05 p.m. in the 
Rose Garden at the White House. In his remarks, the President referred 
to President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia.