[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 26 (Monday, June 29, 1998)]
[Pages 1190-1194]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education 
Reform Act of 1998 and an Exchange With Reporters

June 23, 1998

    The President. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Carlson 
for your very eloquent and enlightening statement and for the work you 
do every day as a farmer, both with your crops and with the bison.

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When Dan Glickman said you have bison, I saw a lot of people's eyebrows 
go up. We've come a long way since Teddy Roosevelt saved the buffalo 
with the national park. We went from millions of head in the West and 
the high plains down to only 20 known head of buffalo when Teddy 
Roosevelt actually established that national preserve. Now we've got 
enough that we know they'll be there with folks like you farming, and we 
appreciate that.
    Thank you, Secretary Glickman, for the truly outstanding job you do 
as Secretary of Agriculture. I would like to thank Senators Lugar and 
Harkin and Congressmen Smith and Stenholm. And I would also like to 
thank Congressman Becerra, the head of the Hispanic caucus for the work 
he did and all the other Members of Congress who are here.
    We are joined by a number of local officials who had great interest 
in this legislation including, but I'm sure not limited to, L.A. County 
Supervisor Gloria Molina, Chicago City Treasurer Miriam Santos, Virginia 
State Delegate Karen Darner. I would also like to thank all the 
representatives of our country's farmers and ranchers who are here, the 
religious leaders, our immigrant and antihunger advocates.
    This is a very good day for me personally for two reasons. First of 
all, you heard Secretary Glickman give you the official population of 
the town in which I was born. It's about 50 percent larger than it was 
when I was born there, but all my mother's people came from a little 
town called Bodcaw, which still has only 50 people in it. And I have on 
my desk upstairs a picture of my grandfather with his family in 1907. 
Just about all of them were farmers, and when they were forced to leave 
the land and come into the large city of Hope, most of them kept little 
plots of land out in the country for decades where they kept their hand 
in, and they continued to grow their crops and harvest them even when 
they could no longer themselves make a living on the land.
    And when I was a boy, it was part of the ritual of every summer that 
I would go out and help them work the land when I wasn't in school, and 
in the fall, help them to bring in everything from vegetables to 
watermelon. I don't know if watermelon is a fruit or vegetable. I think 
it's something in between.
    Also, when I was Governor, I governed a State which had a lot of 
people who didn't have enough to eat. And I saw this remarkable 
coalition of people following the moral tradition of virtually every 
religion, which consistently admonishes us to take care of the poor and 
the hungry. So this is a remarkable day and something all of you can be 
proud of. And those of you who worked on this bill know that you can be 
especially proud of it because you had some very powerful opponents of 
what we attempted to do.
    We are carrying on here a long and proud tradition of bipartisan 
commitment, a coalition that was first forged by Hubert Humphrey, Robert 
Dole, and George McGovern a generation ago. By standing together in that 
tradition, we have ensured that America keeps its compact with our 
farmers and ranchers and with people in need.
    We all know that our Nation's core values in many ways have their 
deepest roots in rural America, in its commitment to community and 
mutual responsibility, to strong families, and individual initiative. 
Direct, trusting interaction among neighbors, so hard to find in some 
places in our country and throughout the world, still have very strong 
roots in rural towns. Every American has a stake, therefore, in making 
sure that rural America stays strong into the 21st century, not only 
because they feed us but because in many ways they feed our spirit and 
help us to forge our character as a nation.
    This bill, as has already been said, does a lot of very good things 
for America. First, it rights a wrong. When I signed the welfare reform 
bill in 1996, I said the cuts in nutritional programs were too deep and 
had nothing whatever to do with welfare reform. Last year we restored 
Medicaid and SSI benefits to 420,000 legal immigrants. Today we 
reinstate food stamp benefits to 250,000 legal immigrants, including 
seniors, persons with disabilities, and 75,000 children. In addition, 
the Hmong immigrants from Laos, who heroically fought for our Nation 
during the Vietnam war, will again receive their full food benefits, 
overdue, high time, and I appreciate the fact that they were included in 
this bill.

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    None of these benefit cuts had the first thing to do with welfare 
reform. Reinstating them is the right thing to do and will have nothing 
to do with the success we've enjoyed which has brought welfare rates in 
America down to a 29-year low now.
    Beyond that, this bill extends opportunity for all Americans, 
especially for farmers and ranchers. Today I think it's worth noting 
again, as I prepare to leave for China, American agriculture is one of 
our most powerful export engines. Products from one of every three acres 
planted in America are sold abroad. As this strong growth continues in 
the new century our farmers and ranchers will need to feed millions and 
millions of more people around the world. They will need to do their 
work in a more sustainable way to protect our water and fragile soil. 
They will need to continue improving food safety by investing in 
cutting-edge agricultural research, funding rural development, and 
bolstering crop insurance. This bill will help our farmers meet the 
needs of tomorrow's world.
    We are channeling an additional $120 million a year over the next 5 
years to vital investments in food and agriculture genome research, food 
safety and technology, human nutrition and agricultural biotechnology. 
We're allocating $60 million a year over the next 5 years to give grants 
and loans to underserved rural communities where people must diversify 
their economy on an available, attainable scale in order to preserve the 
fabric of life there. These grants will ensure, I hope and believe, that 
more and more of our rural communities can finally share in this 
remarkable national economic prosperity that we are enjoying.
    We are also providing our farmers with peace of mind because crop 
insurance will be there for them should disaster strike. In certain 
parts of the country farmers are hurting now. And it is clear that, in 
addition, we need to strengthen the farm safety net for the future. The 
legislation that we sign today is a very good start, but there are some 
more things I believe we should do.
    In addition to strengthening the safety net for farmers, we must 
protect our exports by passing the legislation, sponsored by Senators 
Murray and Roberts and Representative Pomeroy, to allow our farmers to 
continue to export wheat to Pakistan and India. It was never intended, I 
don't believe, to use food as a weapon in foreign policy even in this 
extreme circumstance. And I strongly support that legislation and 
believe we have big bipartisan support for doing something about it 
immediately. And it's important that it be done immediately because of 
the necessity of getting those contracts out and making sure the 
shipments are there if they're going to be there. I feel that we will be 
successful.
    Congress must also give the IMF the resources it needs to help to 
stabilize the economies of Asia, in part because they are huge markets 
for United States farm products. Finally, we must protect the many 
advances we're making in the bill I'm just about to sign. Believe it or 
not, the bill I'm just about to sign already has some provisions which 
are in jeopardy.
    There are some in Congress who are working to undo the progress 
embodied in this bill. The appropriations committees have taken steps to 
cut the funding next year for the research and rural development 
programs I just mentioned, limit our food safety efforts, and cut as 
many as 100,000 women and children from the WIC program at a time when 
our economy is doing well and we can clearly afford to continue these 
things. This bill is the example of how we should work together.
    Let me just mention one other issue before I sign the bill, an 
example of how the country does well when we put progress ahead of 
partisanship. In the bipartisan balanced budget agreement I was proud to 
sign into law last year, we gave Medicare patients new choices, enabled 
them to enroll in private health plans, and extended the life of the 
Medicare Trust Fund for a decade. Building on that new bipartisan law, I 
instructed our administration to implement a Patients' Bill of Rights 
for the one-third of Americans who receive Federal health care benefits.
    Beginning this week we are putting those protections into effect. 
From now on, for example, Medicare patients will have the right to see a 
specialist in a broad range of areas. Women will have a right to see 
women's

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health specialists. Medicare patients will have a right to privacy for 
their medical records.
    This marks the most significant change in Medicare in three decades. 
It shows what we can do when we put progress over partisanship. That's 
why I also strongly support the bipartisan effort being launched today 
in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Dingell and Ganske to 
extend a Patients' Bill of Rights to all Americans.
    Today we mark another milestone in this kind of bipartisan 
cooperation. We've come a long way from the days when Thomas Jefferson 
thought every American should be a farmer, even the farmers are glad 
that's not true. But what he said then is still true in many ways, and I 
quote, ``The cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens, 
the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous; they are 
tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interest by the most 
lasting bonds.''
    Today we strengthen those bonds. And we strengthen those bonds to 
those whose hold on the American dream is still fragile. In so doing, we 
do our part to do what Mr. Jefferson wanted us to do, to always be about 
the business of forming a more perfect Union.
    Thank you very much.
    I would like to ask all the Members of Congress to come up here 
while we sign the bill. Come on up.

[At this point, Members of Congress joined the President on the stage, 
and the President signed the bill.]

    The President. Thank you.

Iraq

    Q. [Inaudible]--VX--[inaudible]--despite reports by U.N. weapons 
inspectors that they found fragments on SCUD missiles. What do you think 
this says about Iraq, and what should you do?
    The President. You asked me about the report about the U.N. weapons 
inspectors in Iraq, that there were traces of VX found in a missile 
head?
    Well, it proves that the United--let me just say, it proves that the 
United States has been accurate and correct in our insistence all along 
that we support the U.N. inspections in Iraq. And it proves that our 
decision to oppose relaxing the sanctions until all the U.N. resolutions 
have been complied with is an accurate one.
    Mr. Butler is doing his job, and we need to wait until we hear the 
report. There is a news report to this effect, but it just proves that--
you know, our job in the world is to try to reduce the danger that our 
people and others in the world face from nuclear, chemical, and 
biological weapons. And sometimes we have to do it even when our friends 
and neighbors don't think it is as important as we do. It is very 
important.
    If this report is true, it will just show that our insistence over 
these last many years on the U.N. inspection system is the right thing 
to do for the safety of America and the safety of the rest of the world. 
And we'll stay with the position we've always had. Let the inspections 
go forward and don't lift the sanctions until the resolutions are 
complied with.

China's Refusal of Radio Free Asia Visas

    Q. Sir, China has refused visas to three Radio Free Asia 
journalists. What would you plan to do about that, sir?
    The President. Well, I am aware of the Chinese refusal. I think it 
is a highly objectionable decision. We will protest it. We hope they'll 
reconsider it. And it is actually rather ironic because this decision to 
deny the visa to the Radio Free Asia journalists is depriving China of 
the credit that it otherwise would have gotten for giving more visas to 
a more diverse group of journalists and allowing more different kinds of 
people in there than they've ever done before.
    And the fact that they denied the visa for the Radio Free Asia 
people will actually undercut the credit which otherwise would have come 
their way because of that.
    Thank you, very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to farmer Robert Carlson, president, 
North Dakota Farmers Union, who introduced the President; and Richard 
Butler, executive chairman, United Nations Special Commission. S. 1150, 
approved June 23, was assigned Public Law No. 105-185.

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