[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 6 (Monday, February 14, 1994)]
[Pages 257-259]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement Reform and an 
Exchange With Reporters

February 10, 1994

    The President. I want to thank all the members here for agreeing to 
serve on this Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement Reform. If you look 
at the membership from the Congress and from the private sector, you see 
a wide variety of experience and understanding of this issue and a real 
willingness to work together in a bipartisan spirit for the interest of 
the United States. I particularly want to thank Senator Bob Kerrey, who 
proposed this idea, and extend my gratitude to him and to Senator Jack 
Danforth for agreeing to cochair the Commission.
    The Commission will report directly to my National Economic Council 
later in the year, giving us an opportunity to consider its 
recommendations as part of the deliberations for preparing the fiscal 
year 1996 budget. I expect these results to be thought-provoking and 
significant.
    This Commission will be asked to grapple with real issues of 
entitlement reforms, not caps or gimmicks that defer hard choices but 
specific and constructive proposals. And we will take very seriously 
proposals that have strong bipartisan support.
    In the last budget, the one that is now in operation, I proposed and 
the Congress acted on a number of restrictions in cuts and entitlements. 
We all now, looking ahead, know that our number one entitlement problem 
is Medicare and Medicaid. They are growing much more rapidly than the 
rate of inflation plus population. We are committed to reforming these 
programs through a health security plan. And I was gratified that 
notwithstanding some of the disagreements we had with the CBO on the 
timing of the cuts, the CBO study clearly showed that the proposal we 
have put on the table will dramatically reduce health care spending in 
the next decade and beyond. It is clear that there are also other 
entitlement issues we have to look at, and the Commission will do that, 
too. We cannot let up on our reforms and our efforts to reduce the 
deficit and get this economy going again.
    The Vice President has done some important work on reinventing 
Government, which has underscored our commitment to a Government that 
can do more with less. We are committed now to a plan that will reduce 
the Federal bureaucracy by 252,000 over the next 5 years. It will be at 
its lowest level in 30 years. But even if you do that, we can't bring 
the deficit down unless we deal with other problems.
    This panel, I expect, will ask and answer the tough questions. This 
panel, I expect, will do the kind of work that--something like the 
balanced budget amendment can never do. It doesn't ask or answer any of 
the tough questions, but this panel has had the courage and the 
willingness to face them. And I thank them for that.
    If I have learned one thing since I have been President, it is in 
the end we have to decide on specific matters and that rhetoric sooner 
or later always has to give way to reality.
    I want to thank again all the citizens for agreeing to serve, and in 
particular I want to thank the Members of Congress in both parties for 
agreeing to undertake what many might regard as a thankless task. It 
will not be thankless if it gives us a strong and secure and healthy 
American economy and society moving into the 21st century. I appreciate 
your willingness to deal with it, and I assure you that I look forward 
to your deliberations eagerly.
    Senator Kerrey, the floor is yours.

[At this point, Senator Kerrey made brief remarks.]

Russian Position on Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, it seems that in the aftermath of NATO's decision 
to issue this ultimatum to the Serbs, that you're having

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a very tough time talking to President Yeltsin. Is he deliberately 
snubbing you?
    The President. I don't think so. I don't think so. And I expect to 
talk to him soon. I don't know--I can't say any more than you already 
know.
    Q. Well, what is the problem?
    The President. I don't know. You'll have to ask them. But we've had 
a lot of high-level consultations on it. Madeleine Albright has talked 
to her counterpart. Ambassador Collins is there, even though Ambassador 
Pickering is here. We have no reason to believe at this point that 
there's a serious problem with our going forward.
    I did receive a letter early yesterday from President Yeltsin that I 
wanted to be the basis of the telephone conversation. And he initiated 
this letter with me. And I think we can work through it so that we can 
go forward. And as you know, I said yesterday I was hoping he would 
agree to help get this peace process on track. So, I don't know what 
else to say.

Social Security

    Q. Mr. President, you've appointed some people to the Commission who 
advocate deep cuts in Social Security benefits, means testing, and so 
forth. Does that mean that you could go along with that, or would you 
rule that out before the Commission starts its work?
    The President. Well, I think Senator Kerrey said that nobody's 
really interested in cutting Social Security in terms of the social 
safety net that we have built up in this country. I want to wait and see 
what they have to say.
    In my budget I recommended what amounted to a restriction on the 
unlimited benefits of very high income people by subjecting more Social 
Security income to taxation for the top 12 to 14 percent of Social 
Security earners. But no one that I know of has suggested actually 
cutting the benefits to people who have paid for them. That's not what's 
at issue here. So, let's see what the Commission recommends. They're 
just starting. I don't want to prejudge their deliberations.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, is NATO prepared to go ahead on Bosnia with air 
strikes or other measures without Russia's acquiescence, if necessary?
    The President. Well, we have no reason, I'll say again, we have no 
reason to believe that--keep in mind, everything we have done with NATO 
is consistent with action the U.N. has already taken. It's within the 
umbrella of U.N. action, and Russia was on the Security Council when 
that happened. So, I don't think we're doing anything inconsistent. 
There may be people within Russia that don't agree with this at all, but 
the primary purpose of what we're trying to do is not to get in a fight 
with the Serbs but to have NATO protect the integrity of Sarajevo and 
the innocent civilians who live there while we make an effort, which I 
hope the Russians will participate in, to get the peace process back on 
track.
    Q. Mr. President, why do you think after nearly 2 years and 200,000 
deaths it took this last incident Saturday to get the NATO allies 
finally to issue this ultimatum to the Serbs?
    The President. I can't answer that except to say that I think that 
there was a feeling--first of all, keep in mind, the people who were 
opposed to this have troops on the ground there in numbers too small to 
defend themselves from an overwhelming assault. So all along, I think 
they were sympathetic with the desire to try to use the muscle of NATO 
to save civilians. What they felt was that they were saving more lives 
doing what they were doing now.
    And I think that just because the conflict has gone on, a lot of 
people lost sight of the fact that the United States has largely carried 
out and largely paid for the largest humanitarian airlift in history, 
now longer than the Berlin airlift, that the people with troops on the 
ground there have put thousands of people's lives at risk to try to keep 
those highways open and to keep people alive. And I think they just felt 
that the risks didn't outweigh the--or outweighed the benefits.
    I think this last horrible incident, coming as it did after a 
pattern of shelling of Sarajevo, convinced them what I have always 
believed about this, that Sarajevo is sort of the Humpty Dumpty of 
Bosnia. If you ever want

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it to be put back together again, the country, you've got to keep 
Sarajevo from total collapse, and you've got to try to save those people 
if you can. And I think finally they agreed with that, and I applaud 
them for doing it. But let's not be sanctimonious here. It was harder 
for them than us because they had their troops on the ground.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 2:34 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the 
White House. In his remarks, he referred to Madeleine K. Albright, U.S. 
Ambassador to the United Nations; James Collins, U.S. Ambassador-at-
Large-designate to Russia and the New Independent States; and Thomas R. 
Pickering, U.S. Ambassador to Russia. A tape was not available for 
verification of the content of these remarks.