[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 43 (Monday, November 1, 1993)]
[Pages 2176-2177]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters Prior to a Meeting With Members 
of Congress

 October 26, 1993

NAFTA

    The President. Let me say, I'll take a few questions, but I intend 
to have the NAFTA legislation introduced next week, and we're hoping for 
a vote in November right before the, well, before the recess and before 
I go out to Washington State to the meeting of the Pacific leaders. 
We're pushing right ahead on it. I feel good about that.
    I did have a conversation this morning with the Prime Minister-elect 
of Canada. I complimented him on his stunning victory and on the 
remarkable similarities between his campaign and the issues that he ran 
on and our campaign last year. And he said, ``Yes,'' he said, ``here 
they accuse me of copying you, but I told them that I had been in the 
Parliament longer than you've been around, so I figured you copied me.'' 
[Laughter] We had a great talk about it. We agree that we would see each 
other in Seattle. I'm looking forward to that. That will probably be our 
first opportunity to meet.
    I understand that a lot of you have questions about what impact this 
election means on NAFTA. From my point of view, it will have no impact 
at all. I see no reason to renegotiate the agreement, or any grounds or 
basis for it. And I think we should just go ahead, and I think that all 
the countries involved have a lot at stake in proceeding. So that's what 
we plan to do.
    Q. Mr. President, did he reassure you on that issue?
    Q. Does the Prime Minister want to reopen----
    The President. Why don't we take one question at a time.
    Q. Did he reassure you on that issue? Does he want to reopen it?
    The President. We didn't have any detailed conversation about it. I 
think that he didn't want to talk about it this morning. He's just, 
after all, come from a breathtaking victory. I don't want to 
characterize his position. That wouldn't be fair. But we had nothing 
occurred in the conversation which made me have any doubt that our 
course of proceeding is the right course.

Health Care Reform

    Q. Mr. President, the National Association of Manufacturers has 
again today said that the health care plan is too cumbersome, too 
complicated, too expensive, should be scaled back. Are you going into 
some real headwinds on this as you unveil it tomorrow?
    The President. No. I don't know what their position is. After their 
position was reported last time, the next day they called and 
apologized.
    Q. But only for leaking the letter, not for their position. They 
repeated the position.
    The President. No, they called and said that it overstated their 
position. All I know is that most manufacturers are going to save money 
under this. And if they want to look a gift horse in the mouth, that can 
be their decision.
    Q. But have you--scale it back?
    The President. No, absolutely not. If they don't want lower 
premiums, they can keep higher premiums and rising costs. It's their 
decision. But almost all manufacturers, nearly 100 percent of them, 
provide health insurance. And they will be the biggest gainers in the 
private sector under this. Now, if they want to walk away from having 
their retiree burdens alleviated and having their premiums costs go way 
down, that's their privilege. But I think when the constituency out 
there, if we can get people to look at the evidence, I think that they 
will want to do

[[Page 2177]]

that. I think that all they're doing is--here, this organization is like 
everybody else--they're going to lobby for the best deal they can get. 
They're going to lobby for fewer extra services so their premiums will 
go down even more. But keep in mind, they're already among the big 
winners in this thing. And I think that they're just out there staking 
out a negotiating position like everybody else. We've just started this, 
and it will go on for several months. And you'll see a lot more of it. 
I'm not discouraged by that at all.

Canadian Prime Minister-Elect

    Q. [Inaudible]--Mr. President, has the stunning victory made you 
take the pressure off the Prime Minister-elect----
    The President. I would think it would be--well, he certainly had a 
stunning victory. It was a real referendum in Canada. The way the press 
characterized it this morning, I think, is fairly accurate. People want 
a job-generating strategy, and they want the deficit dropped down, and 
those are the two things that he ran on. And obviously because he has a 
big parliamentary majority, he has some flexibility there. But I don't 
think it would be right for me to characterize, in any way, his 
attitude, position. It's just not the right thing to do. We had a really 
good conversation. Our two countries are as close probably as any two 
countries in the world. We have differences from time to time; we always 
will. But I feel very good about my conversation. And I think it's a 
good thing that now that he's been elected, he'll have the support he 
needs in the Parliament to govern. I think that's a good thing.

Spending Cuts

    Q. Did you make your commitment to Senator Kerry this morning, Mr. 
President, with the spending cuts? Did you meet your commitment to 
Senator Kerry?
    The President. They'll have another announcement about that. That 
was a whole different issue. The administration promised House Members; 
there weren't any Senators involved in that. There were House Members 
who wanted a chance to vote on at least $10 billion more in spending 
reductions before the end of the calendar year, without regard to what 
we're going to be doing next year in trying to finish the implementation 
of the reinventing Government report. And so, that's what we did today. 
And we gave them more than that because we also would like to have some 
cuts to fund an expansion of the crime bill to pay for more police 
officers and to make sure that we fully implement that.
    Q. Did he ask you about----
    The President. We didn't talk about that.

Note: The President spoke at 11:46 a.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister-elect Jean Chretien 
of Canada. A tape was not available for verification of the content of 
these remarks.