[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 49 (Monday, December 8, 1997)]
[Pages 1985-1988]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Remarks Announcing Appointments to the National Bipartisan Commission on
the Future of Medicare and an Exchange With Reporters
December 5, 1997
The President. Today I want to discuss our continued economic
progress and important steps we must take to continue it. For the last 5
years we have pursued a comprehensive economic strategy to spur growth,
to increase income, to create jobs and keep the American dream alive and
well in a new century. Today we see the latest evidence that our economy
is growing steady and strong, that the American dream is, in fact, alive
and well.
Last month the economy created 400,000 new jobs. Unemployment is now
4.6 percent, the lowest in a quarter century. There were more new
manufacturing jobs in the past year than in any year in three decades.
Inflation remains low and appears to be poised to continue at its low
rate. And after lagging for years, wages finally are rising again. Our
economy is the strongest in a generation.
This continuing prosperity is due to the ingenuity and the
enterprise and the hard work of the American people who are creating the
economy of the future. It is also the result of our economic strategy of
cutting the deficit, investing in education and our future, and
expanding our exports through trade agreements. This year's balanced
budget law both honors our values and continues that progress. It
extends opportunity to our children with the most significant new
investment in health care in a generation and in education in a
generation. It offers tax cuts for college and provides for health
insurance for up to 5 million children. It honors our duty to our
parents by extending the lifetime of the Medicare Trust Fund until 2010.
Now we have more to do to strengthen Medicare while preserving its
commitment to older Americans. Medicare is at the core of our historic
social compact, our recognition of the duty we owe to one another. It
has been one of the great achievements of this century, and now we have
an obligation to strengthen it for the next century, to ensure that it
is as strong for our children as it has been for our parents, and to
ensure that the baby boomers have access to quality affordable health
care when we retire.
The Medicare reforms I signed into law this year were the product of
strong cooperation among Democrats and Republicans, the President and
the Congress. The balanced budget law establishes also a commission to
continue this bipartisan progress and draft comprehensive reform.
Today I am pleased to announce my appointees to the commission. They
include Stuart Altman, a highly respected health care expert who has
worked for Presidents of both parties; Dr. Laura Tyson, who served our
Nation well as Chair of the National Economic Council and Chair of the
Council of Economic Advisers in our administration; Bruce Vladic, who
directed the Medicare program for 4 years as Administrator of the Health
Care Financing Agency; and, Anthony Watson, the CEO of a major
progressive managed care plan in New York that has pioneered support for
fair treatment of patients while providing quality care.
These are distinguished, respected, highly skilled experts. They
understand health care and share our unshakable commitment to the values
represented by Medicare. I expect them to work as strong partners with
the other commissioners, and I look forward to their proposals to keep
Medicare at the core of the American dream in the new century.
Thank you.
Q. Will you recess-appoint Bill Lann Lee next week?
Q. [Inaudible ]--economy is so great----
The President. One at a time.
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Taxes
Q. Are you really thinking of a tax cut?
The President. No, I don't believe that's a fair interpretation of
what I said yesterday in my comments. What I said was--I was asked about
proposals for tax reform, and what I said was that I thought any tax
reform that was adopted had to be fair, good for the economy, not burden
the deficit, and make the system simpler. That was the context in which
that discussion occurred.
Then there was a separate discussion about the discussion that is
going around town here about what ought to be done with the surplus.
Some people say we should have a tax cut with a surplus; some people say
we should spend more money with the surplus; some people say we should
apply it to the debt. What I tried to point out yesterday is there is
not a surplus. The people who say there is a surplus are talking about
the difference in the projected line of deficit to 2002 when we adopted
the balanced budget law and I signed it and the projected line now.
Now, no doubt this news today is good news. It augers for stronger
growth in this quarter, and it may well mean that we will have a better
prediction in terms of the size of the deficit and eliminating it
altogether now than we did at the time the balanced budget law was
passed, at the time of the mid-session review last August. The only
point I tried to make is all those are still estimates. And it's good to
have a good estimate, but we don't want to spend money we don't yet
have.
The thing that has driven this economic recovery is getting interest
rates down, getting investment up, creating a framework in which the
American economy could grow, and bringing down the deficit from $300
billion a year to $23 billion a year is a big part of that. So before we
make any unduly rash decisions about the future, let's make sure that
we're taking care of the economy because that's--the best thing you can
do for Americans' incomes is to give them a strong economy.
Assistant Attorney General Nominee
Q. Will you recess-appoint Bill Lann Lee next week?
Q. Are you looking at a flat tax, Mr. President?
Q. Mr. President, are you concerned----
The President. I can't hear all of you.
Q. Will you recess-appoint Bill Lann Lee next week?
Q. Mr. President, are you concerned that the Southeast Asia
financial crisis will affect the U.S. economy?
The President. I'll answer this, but let me answer this one first.
What I would like to say today, and all I am going to say today, is Bill
Lann Lee's personal story, his work experience, his integrity, and his
fitness for this job are absolutely beyond question. He should not be
denied the job because he disagrees with the Republicans in the Senate
on whether affirmative action is or is not good policy. The only thing
he's required to do is to enforce the law as the Supreme Court hands it
down or as the Congress passes it, and to recuse in the case of any kind
of personal conflict, which he said he would do in the case of the
California law, which is now moot.
So I believe--I will say again--he is entitled to a vote. The
Senators ought to vote on him. No one has put forward a credible reason
for why this man should not be appointed. Surely the fact that he agrees
with the President who wishes to appoint him on the question of what
kind of affirmative action programs we should or shouldn't have, surely
that should not disqualify him for this position. That is the point I
have made. I still think that he ought to be able to serve.
Yes, now go ahead.
Asian Economies
Q. Mr. President, are you concerned that the Southeast Asia
financial blowout, which seems to be ongoing still, is going to eat into
these economic growth figures that you revealed today?
The President. Well, first of all, I think we all have to
acknowledge that our economies are interrelated. About a third of our
growth over the last 5 years has been due to our ability to sell more
American products around the world--about a third. And anything which
undermines our ability to continue to sell more American products around
the world--any action taken abroad or at
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home is not good for our future growth prospects.
Now, that's one of the reasons that I have moved so aggressively to
work with our allies in Asia and in Europe and with the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank to try to stabilize the situation.
On the other hand, let me remind you that there is enormous
productive power in these Asian economies. They have some financial
difficulties now, which have to be addressed in a disciplined way. If
you see the rapid recovery that Mexico had within the space of 2 years,
you see that these strong Asian economies can do exactly the same thing
in perhaps less time if they face their challenges directly. So I think
that the appropriate response is to do what was done in Indonesia, to do
what was done in South Korea.
The Japanese statements of the last few days are heartening about
what they intend to do with their own financial institutions and
protecting the depositors. All this is basically good news. So they've
hit a rough patch in their financial institutions and markets, but
underlying productivity and potential in Asia is enormous. Yes, I'm
concerned about its impact on Americans, and that's one of the reasons
I've been so actively involved in trying to deal with it, but I don't
think we should become pessimistic. I think we should just be determined
to work through these things as quickly as possible.
Q. Mr. President----
Q. Mr. President----
The President. One at a time, one at a time. Go ahead.
Larry Lawrence
Q. Mr. President, should Larry Lawrence have been buried in
Arlington National Cemetery?
The President. Well, that depends on what the facts are. The
questions which have been raised are serious, and I have asked the State
Department to conduct an inquiry to find out whether, in fact, the basis
of his eligibility is true or not. That's a fact question. And let's
wait until we see what the facts are, and then we can all draw our
conclusions from that. But the questions themselves are serious. I think
the other question you might ask is, were the people involved in the
decision in any way at fault? I don't think they were. They acted on the
facts as they knew them. The original inquiry into the background check
was done--for the Ambassador--was done by the State Department. I've
asked them, therefore, to follow up, try to find out the facts. When we
get the facts, then I think we can make our judgments on it.
Haiti
Q. Have you made an indefinite commitment to keep American troops in
Haiti?
The President. Have I made an indefinite commitment? No. But I have
made a deficit commitment to continue to be involved there in ways that
I think are appropriate. Keep in mind, we have a very modest troop
presence there now, and we are participating as a minority partner, if
you will, in the civilian police. With the withdrawal of the United
Nations forces, the primary work of maintaining security has shifted to
the international police force working with the Haitian police. Our
military presence there--it largely involves a lot of public works. We
are doing some public works projects there which we've been asked to
continue and to finish, try to accelerate. And of course, I think it
does contribute to the stability of the area. But our presence there
cannot be indefinite, and it will not be indefinite. But I think that we
should have these withdrawals in a staged fashion, and we should know
what the next stage is before we take any precipitous action. The
American people should know it's not a military operation.
Go ahead.
Situation in Iraq
Q. Mr. President, Saddam Hussein seems not to be satisfied with the
way--this arrangement of the U.N. Security Council. What do you feel and
what do you think can be done about it?
The President. Well, I certainly think he's exposed his motives and
his real concerns to the entire world today. You know, it wasn't very
long ago--how many days ago was it that he had this symbolic funeral for
children, blaming the world community in general and the United States
in particular for the death of Iraqi children.
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Let me remind you, when we got the United Nations resolution passed,
we and the others who supported it--986--to allow him to sell oil to get
food and medicine for his people, even while he was continuing to resist
getting rid of his entire chemical and biological weapons arsenal, he
delayed the full implementation of that for a year and a half. He is in
no position to point the finger at anyone else in the world for the
suffering of his own people. And once again today, he has proved that he
is responsible for the suffering of his own people.
The rest of us are more than happy to let him sell oil in amounts
necessary to generate the cash to alleviate the human suffering of the
people of Iraq. That's what 986 was all about. This is not about 986.
This is about some other way that he can manipulate the feelings of
people beyond the borders of Iraq, even if he has to let innocent
children die to do it, so he can continue to pursue a weapons of mass
destruction program. And it's wrong, and the world community should not
let him get away with it.
Thank you.
Note: The President spoke at 2:25 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White
House. In his remarks, he referred to Bill Lann Lee, nominee for
Assistant Attorney General; the late U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland, M.
Larry Lawrence; and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.